Weekend Update
R-III News from the desk of Superintendent Mark S. Penny
August 31, 2015
Deepest Condolences
Please keep Lisa and her daughter in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.
If you wish to send Lisa a sympathy card or a note of encouragement, you may do so at the following address:
15 Bernhardt
Troy, MO 63379
MIssouri Department of Transportation
http://www.modot.org/northeast/major_projects/documents/DeathofaBridge.pdf
Click on the link above to view the video referenced in the article below.
Traffic Study
We will be meeting with Eric Maninga on Tuesday, September 1, to discuss the commissioning of a MoDOT traffic study of our Troy Buchanan High School ingress/egress.
At times, at the TBHS entry ramp on Highway 61, traffic is backed up all the way to the 61 roundabout. Last week, our attempt to direct traffic resulted in back up traffic on Old Cap Au Gris, Monroe Street, and N/S Lincoln.
Hopefully, the results of the traffic study will yield some possible solutions to better ensure the safety of our students and families with their morning commute to/from TBHS.
Decertification of Representation
Faculty & Staff
As always, our response to these types of inquiries should be we are prohibited in discussing personnel issues. Any communication, calls or questions should be directed to our office.
(1) A SPED personal paraprofessional (Jeanne Brooks) at CPE has been terminated, effective today. We are moving a a para who has a teaching degree to fill the personal para vacancy. The new para has been briefed on her role and is happy to transition. Principal Wankel will be contacting the parents of the respective student (hopefully today or tomorrow) to notify them of the personnel change. We anticipate that this meeting may not go well as the parents had asked on Friday that we write in the IEP that the student would always have Ms. Brooks as a para. I have no doubt Principal Wankel and her team will do their best to foster a relationship with the family.
(2) Delean Dickmeyer has accepted the position of Elementary Interventionist and will complete the 2015-16 academic year in that role. She plans to retire at the end of the academic year. The current substitute Joyelle Madry will be offered the vacant position, and we feel certain she will accept. We will be sending communication home to parents with the following message:
"As you are aware, a highly qualified substitute teacher has been leading your child's classroom in the absence of the originally assigned classroom teacher, Ms. Delean Dickmeyer.
An open Elementary Interventionist position within our District recently became available, and Ms. Dickmeyer is taking advantage of the opportunity and will be transferring into the new position effective September 8, 2015. Due to the vacancy created by Ms. Dickmeyer, the District has the opportunity to hire Joyelle Madry (who is currently serving as your child's classroom teacher) as the replacement.
We are excited about the addition of Mrs. Madry to the Lincoln County R-III School District at Main Street Elementary School. "
Food Services
We have been informed the review will consist of
(1) WCE lunch and breakfast for the month of September 2015
(2) MSE lunch for the month of September 2015
(3) WCE menu review for week of September 14-18, 2015.
The objectives of the administrative review are as follows:
Determine whether the LEA meets program requirements.
Provide technical assistance.
Secure any needed corrective action·.
Assess fiscal action and, when applicable, recover improperly paid funds.
An exit conference will be conducted on October 8. The exit conference is an opportunity to discuss all areas of the review to include program violations identified and a preliminary assessment of the actions needed to correct the violations. We do not anticipate any violations or major areas of concern.
In View with Larry King
April Bryant has prepared us, and we will be highlighting the following:
Quick Facts
6,400 students (pre-K through 12)
12 schools - soon to be 13 with the opening of TSMS in 2016
238 square miles (87th in the State in square miles)
28th largest school district in the State
spending per pupil is in the bottom 25%
What sets us apart from other school districts?
student opportunities for co-curricular/ extracurricular
facilities and construction impact on our community
student safety
management of our growth in spite of stagnant tax base
meeting the basic needs of our students to enhance their learningBright Futures LC (October 2012)
Buddy Bags (2012 served 60 now serve 450)
New Horizons recovering students
Education Foundation enhancing learning through grants
meeting the needs of ALL students
efficient with our tax dollars and
provide premier opportunities for students and families with an affordable cost of living
managed our growth well while our tax base remained stagnant or decreasedsalary freezes for three years.
passed at 75-cent operating tax increase in a down economy
protected our #1 resource during budget cuts ($6.1 million)
community partnerships and
community pride
TRANSPARENCY is KING
LCR3EF - August 17 Update
I hope everyone had a great week and for those of you with children in our District, I wish you and your students a great first day of school tomorrow and a terrific 2015-16 academic year.
Before jumping into the details of the week, I'd like to share my intentions of these weekly updates (other than to give you 52 extra emails to read each year). I hope that by sharing
weekly accomplishments and discussing on-going operational and organizational news, our group is not only better informed, energized and engaged, we will evolve our monthly meetings into more productive planning sessions and can set aside time for organizational development, board development, donor gratitude, grant recipient reports, etc. If at any time you have something you'd like to share in this weekly update, please let me know or feel free to 'reply all' to the group.
Okay, on to this week's stuff:
1) On Tuesday, Lauren, Peggy, Stephanie, Tracy & I participated in Mr. Penny's all-staff Back-to-School Extravaganza and recognized 72 educators who were part (applicants & co-applicants) of the 22 grants we've funded in the past three years. It was so amazing to see that group standing on the floor together representing nearly $250,000 in innovative ideas, projects & programs for our students. Just think, if we award our goal of 30 "Year of
the Classroom" grants this year, the number of educators impacted will top 100!
2) The Programs Committee met to make adjustments to our grant application in preparation for "Year of the Classroom." I'd like to thank Angela, Vicki & Kris for their perseverance in keeping our grant application a living, breathing document - always looking for ways to improve it, clarify it and mold it to match our fluid organizational needs. Amendments for YotC are over halfway complete and the group meets again this week to
wrap it up so that it's ready for discussion at next week's Board Meeting.
3) Lauren and Marie are working hard on the Art Auction. Notably, Roasted Bean Coffee on Main Street will be serving coffee samples (in addition to our bar) and Backroads Pizza & Grill in Hawk Point will be catering the appetizers & desserts at our event this year. Partnering with local business is fundamental to our success and I'm excited these two
supporters have agreed to help. Please tell Nancy of Roasted Bean Coffee and Nancy of Backroads "thank you" when (not if!) you patronize their establishments. Also, you'll notice they're dialing up Art Auction Facebook postings, including links to ticket sales. Please share those posts to your timelines and go to the Event on our Facebook page and invite your local friends to attend! This needs to be a "sell out" event!
4) On Thursday, David Leicht (Peggy's son) and I delivered Bright Futures Resource Cabinets to schools. Principals, counselors and staff are REALLY excited about having a supply of everyday resources on hand - this has turned out to be a fairly simple solution to a complex problem. As Lauren likes to say, by supporting resources through Bright Futures and Buddy Bags, we're giving our teachers the permission to TEACH because they are no longer burdened with worrying about the NEEDS of our kids. By the way, all 15 cabinets have been sponsored by our supportive community! This week we start sorting through the thousands of Stuff the Bus items collected and will be working to get the cabinets stocked!
5) In donor news, I'm excited to share that we received a five-year commitment of financial support from Wagner Photography. I'll share the details of that commitment at next week's Board Meeting, but I want to thank Mr. Penny and the District for helping us secure commitments likes this from
District vendors.
6) Lastly, annual sponsorships sales are going well. As of today we have four Gold, one Silver and one Bronze sponsorships and we're almost halfway to our $8000.00 budget goal. Like I said last week, this should be the easiest money we raise all year, so get out there and sell, sell, SELL!
Please let me know who you are reaching out to so I can keep our spreadsheet
up-to-date.
That's it for today. Have a great week and I'm looking forward to seeing
everyone at our monthly meeting next Tuesday, August 24th.
Thanks,
Robb
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone, but what is woven
into the lives of others." ~Pericles
LCR3EF - August 26 Update
I wanted to take a moment this morning to thank everyone for a very productive and inspiring Board Meeting last evening. I'm especially proud of our group's collaboration on discovering our "why". I've attached the link to the short video we watched and I hope you'll take the time to watch it a few times over the next couple weeks and let Simon Sinek's reasoning simmer in your thoughts a bit. I've probably watched it ten times lately
and get something new and deeper out of it each time I view it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYeCltXpxw
I am convinced that if we learn to "start with the why" we have the potential to reach community members, donors, friends and neighbors with our story like never before. And that excites me because if you compound the success we've had as an organization in three short years with a newly revised vision, imagine the possibilities!
We will be parsing through and massaging the collective thoughts of last evening's group activity to come up with some suggested new vision statements. I think we can agree that some of the words and thoughts we heard as team members shared last night were pretty powerful. Stay tuned, we have some exciting work ahead of us!
Thanks, Robb
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone, but what is woven
into the lives of others." ~Pericles
LCR3EF August 31 Update
1) As of last Monday, each building has a fully stocked Resource Cabinet of supplies from our Stuff the Bus event. Items include age appropriate school supplies, hygiene items, on-the-go food items and more. Response from the buildings has been very positive. The final three cabinets that were on backorder have come in and as soon as I can get them
put together they will be delivered as a second cabinet to TBHS and TMS (student body size) and NHHS (student need).
2) We received two more annual sponsorship commitments bringing our totals to nine Gold, one Silver and one Bronze. Keep up the good work. we have about three weeks of our sales period left before we have to start working on the ads for the Art Auction catalog. There's still a significant number of ask commitments out there, so please follow up with the businesses you've reached out to let's knock these sponsorships out of the park this
year!
3) As we discussed Tuesday night, it's official - the National School Foundation Association Annual Conference will be in St. Louis on April 18, 19 & 20 at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch. NSFA has invited me to sit on the Global Planning Committee and to chair the Local Host Committee (which by default means our team will be heavily involved!). Please mark your calendars now and plan on attending, helping, etc. - this is a great opportunity to showcase what makes our Education Foundation the best darn
Education Foundation in the USA!
4) The Art Auction is less than seven weeks away! Donations of local art & memorabilia are still needed and we still need upscale (worth more than $100) raffle items. We also need to start selling tickets. printed tickets will be available later this week and online sales are available now at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2002364. Help get the word out!
That's about it for today. Have a great week, everyone!
Thanks, Robb
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone, but what is woven
into the lives of others." ~Pericles
Music in the Gardens
Bright Futures USA
Contact Superintendent Penny
Email: pennym@troy.k12.mo.us
Website: www.troy.k12.mo.us
Location: 951 West College Street, Troy, MO, United States
Phone: 636.462.5184
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LincolnCountyR3Schools?fref=ts
Twitter: @mpennyR3Sup