With weather delays, Early Childhood Center remains slightly behind schedule

Student attendance down slightly from last school year
 
Despite the drastic cold spell that hit our area hard the past few weeks, construction of the Early Childhood Center is on schedule for a June completion date—only a few weeks later than originally scheduled. Jeremy Shivers of the CTS Group reported at the Feb. 18 Mt. Vernon Board of Education meeting that although the winter weather had presented its share of challenges, he was expecting the project to stay on schedule.
“The weather over the last month and a half has certainly had some impact on the project schedule. Since the first of the year we have logged two working weeks worth of rain/snow days. This will delay the completion schedule about two weeks (mid- June). We are trying to find some creative ways to make-up this time, including pulling overtime to complete the interior walls after the trusses are installed later this week.”
Shivers also reported that the new Strength and Conditioning room at the high school is mostly complete and equipment has been moved in.
Daily attendance totals
Also discussed was the district’s average daily attendance for the month of January. It was found that daily attendance was 1,164 students - an attendance percentage of 94 percent, was down slightly, just shy of three students, from this time last year. After combining virtual students with seated students, totals equal 1,278 students, down 2.84 from this time last year.
Virtual students
Also discussed were the amount of virtual students within the district at this time.
Those numbers are: Elementary School, seven; Intermediate School, 26; Middle School, 35; and High School, 105 with 46 being exclusively virtual. The total number of virtual students throughout the district is 173, with 114 of those being exclusively virtual.

 Free and Reduced lunches
January is the time of year that schools evaluate their ‘Free and Reduced Lunch’ reports for the year. The percentage of Mt. Vernon students qualifying for this program this year represents 40.58 percent of their January Membership. The overall count decreased by 106.27 students and the percentage went down 7.78 percent from 48.36 percent the previous year. The board believes that a major contributing factor to this decrease is the availability of free meals offered this year through the USDA. Given the fact that no families are required to pay for meals, families are no longer required to fill out the necessary forms to qualify for free and reduced lunches.
Board authorizes sale of bonds
In July 2020, the board authorized the sale of bonds through LJ Hart & Company amounting to $10 million in conjunction with voter approval of Proposition MVS in June which is the highest allowed bond authorization in a calendar year. When voters passed Prop MVS, voters also approved authorization of $11.5 million. Recently, the board voted to approve issuance of the remaining $1.5 million in bonds which will help the district to complete projects promised in the proposition. This issuance was strongly supported locally as Mid-Missouri Bank purchased $450,000 of bonds in this offering.
Implementation of middle school baseball, softball discussed; tabled
At the request of several community members, the board heard a report on the possibility of adding baseball and softball to the extra-curricular opportunities at the middle school, something that has yet to be offered on this particular campus. Coach Nick Swillum and Coach Matt Schubert both reported that several other schools in other conferences, as well as area schools, offer these programs. The potential financial obligations of expanding these athletic programs was also discussed. Board members voted to table the issue until the regular June board meeting, at which time the district could evaluate the budgetary implications as part of the approval of a preliminary budget for 2021-22.
Board votes to post job openings for Early Childhood Center
In anticipation of the opening of the Early Childhood Center this fall, the district decided to be proactive in attracting the best qualified applicants to fill the job openings. Positions posted were health clerks, early childhood special education teacher and early childhood special education paraprofessional.
Approval of academic calendar
The board also voted to approve the academic calendar for the upcoming 2021-22 school year. The consideration and approval by the board came as a result of the recommendation of a calendar committee composed of professional and support staff members in the district as well as feedback gathered from the entire staff. Legislation passed in 2019 required the school start date be pushed back to “no earlier than 14 calendar days prior to the first Monday in September.” Because of this, the first possible start date for the new school year is Monday, Aug. 23. However, the feedback from the committee and staff was to choose a Wednesday, Aug. 25, start date. The approved calendar included student days, faculty collaboration days, snow days, first day of classes, last day of classes, as well as four collaboration days prior to the first day of school.
Summer school dates were also approved and will begin Tuesday, May 25, and conclude on Friday, June 18. There will be no summer school on Monday, May 31, for Memorial Day.
In closed executive session:
Sara Stipp was hired for the elementary Title I teaching position.
Madison Gurley was hired for the third grade teaching position.
Rachel Zerby was hired for the vacant seventh grade English language arts teaching position.
There were also multiple changes made at the Intermediate School resulting in a vacant fifth grade math position. Tamara Violett is moving into the Intermediate Title I teaching position which was vacated upon the retirement of Linda Hall-Bowerman. This move set off a small chain reaction resulting in Penny Baker moving into Violett’s role as fifth grade reading teacher opening a vacancy in fifth grade math.
The board approved Cameron Brewer to fill the fifth grade math position for the 2021-22 school year.
The board also approved two support staff hirings.
Aaron Gumm was approved for a custodial position at the Intermediate School and Wendy Perriman was approved for a custodial position at the Elementary School.
The next scheduled meeting of the Mount Vernon R-V Board of Education is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 18 in the District Office Board Room.