#KSD Ready & Resilient
Update from Kuna Superintendent Wendy Johnson
3.19.2021
- Volunteer spirit makes Kuna a great place - thank you!
- Fremont's Neva Noe receives teaching award
- Preparing to offer every day learning at secondary
- CDC adjusts social distancing guidelines for schools
- Exploring COVID testing for students to reduce quarantine time
- Get Ready to Learn, Kuna! seeks your support
- COVID data dashboards
Volunteer spirit makes Kuna a great place - thank you!
One of the reasons I appreciate our community and staff is their willingness to step up and help when a need arises.
I'd like to thank those who volunteered this week and the week after break to help prep and serve meals at Silver Trail. Without these volunteers, we were facing the possibility of closing the school.
We continue to need support in some key areas.
We are striving to fill open positions in a highly competitive job market for our nutrition, custodial, and substitute teaching positions.
Please help us fill these positions full time by encouraging individuals to apply! Here's the link to our job application site.
Fremont's Neva Noe receives teaching award
Fremont Principal Tim Jensen nominated her for the award writing, "Neva doesn’t shy away from a challenge, is a leader in our building, and is respected by her colleagues throughout the district. I learned quickly that Neva is a servant leader, learner, and true advocate for kids."
Neva is a champion for children, and has served the Kuna School District for 19 years as a professional educator. She is an expert at understanding middle school students as well as designing instruction that meets every child's needs.
Many of you know Neva not only as an amazing educator, but also as an amazing teacher leader. For many years, Neva has volunteered to serve on multiple curriculum committees, school leadership teams and negotiations teams. Our district is better because of Neva.
Join me in celebrating Neva Noe! We are lucky to have her teaching our children and helping us continue to improve as a school district.
Preparing to offer every day learning at secondary
Thank you to our secondary families who quickly made their 4th quarter in-person schedule choice -- hybrid or every day -- by this past Monday.
The choices confirm what we have heard through the work of the 6-12 Advisory Task Force: families are in different places based on the needs of their students.
Here's what our families decided:
At the middle level, a large majority of students will be shifting to every day
- Fremont Middle School - 76% every day
- Kuna Middle School - 65% every day
The story is different at Kuna High:
- 9th grade - 47% every day
- 10th grade - 43% every day
- 11th grade - 37% every day
- 12th grade - 23% every day
To provide time for staff to prepare, Monday, March 29 was changed to a no school day for students and Friday, April 2 will be an early release day for secondary. (Fridays will continue to be early release for the rest of the year.)
CDC adjusts social distancing guidelines for schools
Exploring COVID testing for students to reduce quarantine time
Thanks to a strong partnership with Central District Health Department and our resilient health staff, we've been able to provide our employees who are exposed to positive COVID cases or experience symptoms COVID tests.
This lets us quickly help identify when they can return and often reduce quarantine time.
Our staff is also exploring how, with parent permission, we can offer the same service for our students to get them back in school faster and shorten the quarantine with a negative test. We'll update your more on this after the break.
Get Ready to Learn, Kuna! seeks your support
Get Ready to Learn, Kuna! is a community group that has been working to increase quality, early learning opportunities to children in Kuna for six years.
This group which includes private preschools, the school district, the city, and others interested in early learning has been an innovator in Idaho.
This work is support through a variety of grants including a new federal grant called the Preschool Development Grant. After some misinformation was circulated, the grant was denied by lawmaker, but since then new legislation emerged for Idaho to accept the grant.
Get Ready to Learn! members invite local parents, teachers, business owners, etc. who would like to support this legislation to consider signing a letter of support. Here's the link for more information https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1IhGIdedPHZTaoKoh7PMHq0oUwIc546Snb8SukZYMLBU/edit?ts=6053acdb&gxids=7628
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