#KSD Ready & Resilient
Update from Kuna Superintendent Wendy Johnson
11.13.2020
- Kuna High visual arts teacher recognized by former student
- Grateful for those who served our country
- School Board's work on impact fees gains important supporter
- Would you like to help out at your child's school ... and get paid?
- In case you missed! KTVB featured Swan Falls
- COVID Update: Working to expand our COVID information reporting & keeping schools open to serve students in person
Kuna High visual arts teacher recognized by former student
Rylee described to the small group assembled her former teacher's impact on her life and how it fuels her calling to become a teacher, too.
"His classroom was not only about the growth you could make with your art but as a person too. His sense of calm classroom environment invited students to express themselves through art. He also wanted the best for his students."
Mr. Jones is one of just four teachers this year to receive the award which includes $2,000 for the teacher and $500 for their school.
Award recipients are nominated by pre-service teachers in the Boise State University College of Education.The award acknowledges those make a different in their students lives through their passion and caring.
Recognizing those who served our country in the armed forces
A note about Ross, they adapted their longstanding tradition of students gathering around the flag pole for a ceremony and for several years LTC Wooten talked with students about the holiday, the symbolism of the American Flag and what it means to be a patriot. Students typically end by joining together and singing the National Anthem or other songs. With COVID, they continued the tradition, albeit a bit differently. Students joined virtually from their classroom to watch and had a chance to ask questions and interact with LTC. Wooten (his photo is below) while he conducted the ceremony!
Unable to welcome the community for the annual Veteran Day assembly, high school students went out into the community. FFA students recognized veterans at their homes with special signs and Kuna High student leadership students had the honor of raising the flag with locals Veterans at the Idaho State Veterans home Wednesday.
Board's work on impact fees gains important supporter
Yes! You can sub just for your child's school!
We are recruiting for substitutes! We've heard that there are parents who'd like to help at their child's schools, but don't want to sub at other sites so they don't apply. Good news! Subs can pick their schools and assignments. Please learn more here and apply!
Working to expand our COVID information reporting & keeping schools open to serve students in person
When we created our reopening plan last June, we thought monthly district level reopening metrics and weekly positive case reports would be crystal clear indicators to aid decision making. That's not been the case. Our experience is that school and classroom level COVID positive and quarantine data is more useful -- and each situation is unique.
We're working to make this data available to everyone.
We're taking our messy staff quarantine tracking spreadsheets to create a dashboard. The dashboard will report the numbers of classroom teachers and school staff absent daily because of quarantining or for other reasons. We'll also report district departments: transportation, nutrition, etc..
This effort to further visualize data also will help us to make our practices around using data to forecast staffing levels more transparent so we can visually see the impact when multiple staff are out of a building because of quarantining. This will take some work by our team because we haven't shared the data this way before, and we are building this "dashboard."
Staying open
You likely saw the news that the Boise School District will go remote after Thanksgiving Break and are wondering what about Kuna? So far, we are able to stay open with some isolated closures.
But like Boise, most of our challenges to in-person learning right now are operational. Do we have enough substitutes and internal staff to cover teachers that are absent? Can we cover our bus routes? Do we have enough staff and supplies to feed children?
We are meeting daily with our teams to review the answers to these questions to determine whether or not we need to pivot to online learning. We also meet four times a week with health and medical officials to monitor our community's health.
Superintendent Wendy Johnson
Email: ksdcommunications@kunaschools.org
Website: www.kunaschools.org
Location: 711 East Porter Street, Kuna, ID, USA
Phone: 208-922-1000
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kuna-Jt-School-District-No-3
Twitter: @Supt_Wendy_J