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Transcript

Richland School District

WRCO Morning Show · Wed Aug 5, 2026

you

Thanks for joining us for our Wednesday morning show and WRC radio.

And today we're going to put the focus on the Richland School District and joining us is Superintendent Steve Board and Dr. Sherry Johnson, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Richland District.

Steve, here we go.

We're already talking about super registration and all kinds of things here in August.

Yeah, isn't it crazy?

The summer is really flown by.

The month of July just felt non-existent.

You kind of go from this month of June where you're kind of wrapping things up at the end of the year and July

kind of feel like, okay, they got a little bit of time.

There's a little bit of breather and all of a sudden it's just gone.

And then we're, we're in this phase now where it's like, we're, we're full steam ahead.

Like there's things that are, are very real right now.

We're getting ready for super registration next week.

We've got athletics starting.

We've got staff back in the buildings, getting their classrooms ready.

It's just, there's a lot of

things happening and a lot of fun things happening.

This is a great time of year.

I just enjoy it because it's, it's neat to see students, you know, again, and all of these kids that, you know, quote unquote, don't like coming to school.

But, you know, you can just see the smile on their face.

You can see them really, truly enjoying being back in the buildings.

I always think that's kind of neat.

The first day of school, you know, kids are, are all dressed up and they're all smiles and they see people they haven't seen since last June.

And it's just reconnecting again with people.

And that's

kind of what we're seeing right now.

It's a little bit more adult-oriented right now, but again seeing staff members that we haven't seen since we let out of school in June, getting their rooms ready, getting an opportunity to talk to them, seeing what they've done for the summer, but also getting those students back around and seeing our facilities being used is just a great time of year and an exciting time of year, but also a very busy time of

year.

Football practice started on Tuesday, so you're getting some of the students back in school already.

Yeah, we sure are.

And we've had some youth things going on, and we've got camps going on with volleyball and soccer and cross-country starting in the near future as well.

So a lot of those things happening.

Silas Coleman, our new athletic director, is taking over.

Laura Selgaby's involved as well for another month or so until she officially retires.

But a lot of cool things happening as we transition to

those roles but also getting those students back in issuing pads and uniforms and then seeing those kids out on the

out on the football field.

They're not kids.

I call them kids, but they're really just young adults.

And getting excited, our athletic numbers in the fall are looking very promising in terms of the number of students that we have participating in athletics.

Obviously, some of those sports haven't started, so those official numbers are not yet.

But I just think, again, between boy soccer and volleyball and football, and of course, we've got cheerleading and all the clubs that we've got, getting students involved in things is just a great opportunity.

So if there are...

Folks out there that might be listening to this either live or on recording and they want to get their students participating Call up to the to the high school office.

It's not too late.

Even if football is already started They can still do that those other sports that are starting in the near future You know make contact with them see what you need to do and then seventh and eighth graders those sports will be starting as well typically a little bit closer to the start of school around September 1st, but Give your students an opportunity to be involved in those things and

I think they will be very pleased that they do it.

I find that in life you typically

don't regret things you do, you regret things you don't do, right?

And so if we can encourage our students and our children to participate, give it a try, see what it's like, and always kind of trying to try something new, I think that they generally live a pretty happy life and involved in a lot of different things.

So that would be the message that I would give.

When you have that kind of engagement too, and you and I've talked about this before, but I think you see better, maybe not as much truancy and things like that.

If you've got a sport, you got a club, you got something,

got to show up for.

Yeah,

absolutely.

I mean, it goes without saying that our number one priority as a school district is to educate students, right?

That's why schools exist.

That's the fundamental reason for schools.

But with that being said, there are a lot of other things that schools provide students and families, everything from, you know, some medical attention with our with our nurses to our counselors and and some help that way.

But also those extracurricular activities, those things that are voluntary in nature,

but are really enrichment opportunities for students.

And the Richland School District has such a great number of clubs and activities that students can participate in.

I don't know that folks really understand all of the different things that we have available.

It's one of the things we're trying to do not only for super registration, but at the start of school is getting students, so they're exposed to these different clubs and opportunities.

almost like you see the movies, you know, the Pitch Perfect movies the first day of college and they've got all the different club activities and set up and an opportunity for students to explore trying to replicate something like that because we do think that we have something for everyone.

And if students are willing to give it a try, whether it's an art club or a forensics or a sport or the play or the music or whatever it might be, there is really something for everybody.

In fact, probably more than one thing.

And we're very accommodating as a school district.

We want students to be involved because, as you said, to bring this full circle, having students involved enhances their overall educational experience.

And if they're involved in things, they tend to be more engaged in school.

There's less discipline issues.

There's less truancy.

There's less absenteeism as a whole.

And again, there's just generally a better sense of school culture when kids are involved in things.

There's a greater sense of

school pride and we've got great pride and we've got great things happening in the Richland School District but getting students involved and taking advantage of those things is still something that we're pushing.

The construction update, has the weather had any factor?

We've had a little rain lately here.

Yeah, we have had a little rain lately.

For the most part, it has not delayed anything significantly.

When construction workers and construction companies are doing things outdoors, they've got some built-in contingencies for weather delays and things like that.

We had really, really good weather from middle of May

through really just up until a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, we had a couple of hot days, but for the most part, it was dry.

And when it was dry, they can do a lot of work.

And so a lot of the exterior things, the asphalt, concrete.

hard surface areas, loading dock, parking lots, those kinds of things.

We had really, really good weather for those things.

I think we delayed the parking lot maybe a day or two and we had those 95, 97 degree days just to make sure that the asphalt would cure properly.

But they were able to get most of that done.

They're finishing up.

There's been a little inconvenience entering, say, the high school, coming in off of Covered Ridge Road, using the parking lots now, but having to come in that way.

That will happen through next Monday.

And then next Monday, we should be able to come up Hornet High again and access the high school from the front of the buildings.

Middle school or intermediate school is continuing to move along, again, doing some

mass fall down there.

General traffic patterns are pretty much the same there, but construction is moving along and got a lot of compliments on how nice things are looking.

Of course, it's always an inconvenience like remodeling your kitchen, right?

It's a little difficult while you're living through it, but it sure is nice when it's done.

And then a lot of the interior things that folks probably have not gotten a chance to see because they haven't been in our buildings, but the HVAC at the intermediate school is moving along.

It's going to be tight, but we're on target.

They're going to fire up the air handlers on August 17th, 18th and 19th.

So that will get some air moving.

Teachers come back on new teachers on the 18th, everyone back on the 19th.

And then on the 20th, they'll fire up the chillers.

And again, I'm assuming that there's no issues, which I don't expect any.

They should have climate controlled conditions starting on the 20th.

Now, when you've got a building that's 30 years old and has not been climate controlled, at least from a cooling standpoint, it takes several days for air conditioners to get the humidity out of the air as air has to circulate through.

So I don't anticipate on

the morning of August 20th for the intermediate school to be at a, at a nice 68 degree temperature.

It will take a few days, but it will definitely be more comfortable than every day.

And really probably every hour staff are going to know that by the time students come back, um, fully air conditioned for all of our buildings will be primary school, intermediate school, and the high school, uh, tech ed, um, building, er, rooms up at the high school are being renovated.

Um, our welding room, uh, got.

We've got several new welding booths.

Those are practically finished now.

Looks awesome.

We recently installed the new auto lift in the mechanic area.

So we've got that that we've got installed.

It's been painted.

We've got our new food processing room ready to go.

We're waiting on some furniture and some final touches there.

But that should be ready to go for the start of school as well.

And our general construction area, again, all that stuff's been cleaned up.

We've got safety power switches on all of our equipment now.

I feel like when we hit the ground running here on September 1st with students like our TechEd areas are going to be really state of the art and really up to date.

A lot of that stuff was 30 years

and we just kind of limped along the last couple of decades.

But it's going to really be a good experience for our students in using 21st century learning.

We had a new CNC machine.

We had an old one donated from Cardinal Glass several years ago.

It was a 11,000 pound beast is what that CNC machine was.

We've been able to upgrade that now with the help of Scott Industries out of Muscaday and their generous donation to help with that.

So that has arrived and we're getting training on that so our students can get some learning with that and then our auditorium is in full overhaul right now a lot of the sound and the lighting and You know those kinds of technology technology upgrades have occurred and they've got all of the seats pulled out right now They have polished the concrete.

They're installing the seats again as we speak literally this morning They were working on that then carpet will be installed that should be ready to go for our staff

to enjoy our welcome back ceremony on August 19th.

And for the most part, completed by the early part of school, it should not impact our learning at all.

So a lot of things going on.

Most of the interior construction will be done by the time students arrive.

There's a couple of little things that are going to be an inconvenience.

Toilet partitions got delayed a week.

So that's going to be, we won't have them for super registration.

So we'll have to use the family bathrooms a single.

use for super registration but by the 17th we should have the partitions in and by the time school starts we should be for the most part done with the interior.

There'll be some little cosmetic things, little things that we need, some furniture that was custom ordered that will arrive late but then we'll just kind of finish up on the exterior and

Again, we're kind of targeting October 15th for a full completion of everything punch list completed, but the vast majority of things I think will be done by September 1st to the 15th and for all practical purposes usable up until that point.

I believe this is a musical year.

And if I'm not mistaken, you'll get a chance to show the public all the sounds and sights in the auditorium this

year.

Yeah, it's really going to be great doing the doing the musical this fall.

Of course, kids will get in there and start practicing as soon as school starts.

We've got I believe early September, we've got them the ability to get in there early in November.

I don't have the exact dates.

I think it's like November 7th, 8th, 9th, somewhere right around there is the actual production.

And you're right.

I think that folks that come to

production are going to see a really upgraded auditorium and they're going to really be able to feel and see and hear the difference in the upgrades that we've made.

Sure.

We're hearing the people getting in early for the auction here today in the background.

So that's good.

The auction starts at 10 o'clock.

Let's get my bid in.

There you go.

You better get that.

Get your bidder number.

Dr. Sherry Johnson is here as well.

Sherry, give us a little bit about maybe a job description for people who don't know exactly, or do you even know all the things that you do?

Let's see.

Anything that involves instruction is pretty much what I do.

So that could involve staffing.

It can involve

literacy, math, any core content, any CTE content.

I do closely work with our title staff, our ESL, we call them ML staff, multilingual learner staff.

So those students who are learning English, I work closely with some positions that are a little new to us this year, some instructional coaches that are going to be coming on board and really a lot with

training of our staff to make sure that they have the tools in their tool belt that they need to do their jobs well.

I work closely with all the administrators and make sure that they have all the training they need.

Also our virtual school, all of our alternative ed, I connect with those people and try to ensure that

They have what they need.

It's really one of those things where my checklist is never done because what we do is growing and improving and changing as students needs change and as staffs needs change.

So it's really kind of a moving target.

I was told at one point before I took this position that I needed to find a hobby that had a completion to it like quilting or crocheting because my position will never come to that.

you know, I will never get that completion feeling.

So then I should just find something that will get that to me.

So I thought that was good advice.

And I probably should after this is starting my seventh year in this position, I probably should start now.

We wanted to ask you about the partner school and an update for that.

you can.

Yes.

Well, um,

In our Hive Happenings, you probably saw a few things about partner.

There is a grant that we received.

We got $400,000 to use toward our partner school.

And so a majority of what we're looking at is to help students prepare themselves more for their life after high school.

And so we needed some vehicles to transport students.

So that's one of the things we're going to be looking at purchasing.

They need to be able to get

to their placements.

They work closely with a lot of employers.

Our partner school has over 70 employers they work closely with to place students, whether it's for jobs, internships, or just job shadowing and observation.

Just so kids can know what jobs look like.

Because we make a lot of assumptions.

If we don't know something, we fill in the blanks on our own.

And so it's really important for students to get there, see what it's like, and understand that like a veterinarian,

isn't all, you know, petting puppies.

There's some rough stuff they have to do and so it's really important that they get those experiences and we need to be able to get them there.

A lot of our students don't have vehicles or don't have driver's licenses so it's important that we can transport.

Some of the other things that we're looking to update for them is some technology.

A lot of the work they do is on Chromebooks and things of that type to build their own

like they do their own learning units, they create their own projects, and so they need a place to store all that information and share it with their teacher.

And then some of the other pieces are a lot of lab items like a car lift, a UTV lift, a lot of the, now that we're going into our fourth year, I think it's fourth year at Partner.

Some of the tools need updating, replacing, or repairing.

And so some of the funds will be used for that too.

So we're really excited to have that opportunity to work with the DPI on funding some of these important pieces for partner school.

And I just want to put a plug out there.

We still have some spaces.

So it doesn't mean if you are a student in the area, it doesn't have to be a Richland Center student.

It can be a student at any school district.

And they can join us.

They can open and roll to the Richland School District and experience

what partner has to offer.

It's a little different placement.

You usually have about a half day of

classes and then a half day of work or job shadowing.

And so it's a really great way to prepare students to get them ready for their life after high school if they want to go to college.

It's a really great opportunity for any student.

So if they're curious about that, they should reach out to any of the schools or the district office and we can kind of walk them through it to see if it's a fit for them.

Again, if they don't know all the information, sometimes people make assumptions about what something is.

and partner is way more than what we can even convey.

Our students that have graduated have had a lot of success and felt that partner was a really strong platform for them to leap off of.

Is there a waiting list?

At this time, there is not.

So there's spots.

We've got space for you.

We have a teacher and support staff that are ready with arms wide open, ready to help students

meet their goals.

And if they don't know what their goals are, they're ready to help them set some.

It's a really exciting place to work.

Not only are you training the students, but you're training staff as

well.

Yeah, we are.

Actually, there's a training happening at this very moment.

We teamed up with the hospital to do a suicide awareness training.

The hospital received some funds and they

They did a community training also a week or two ago and then opened it up and did a whole section of training for our staff.

And so we have over 30 staff right now being trained about suicide awareness.

As we know, you know, social emotional supports and care for our students is a big part of what we do.

We need to connect with students.

And so there's some pieces that

the medical field understands maybe more than trained educators.

And so if we can all come together and share what we've learned and understand how to best fit and support student needs, that this is a great fit.

So that's one training.

We've had a lot of training around Act 20.

The state identified Act 20 for the literacy needs of our students and so teachers have to be trained in a certain way and so we are finishing up getting those staff trained and we use letters.

There's a lot of different trainings that different school districts have used.

So that's some more that's been wrapping up.

We have a lot of staff that

do AP classes, and so they have to receive training.

And then starting up soon, when we do our in-service days, which we have several days at the beginning of the school year at the end of August, where we have a lot of our learning platforms, a lot of our resources and things of those things, that nature that our teachers use.

Teachers need refreshers, right?

They have a bit of a slumber slide also, just like students do.

So it's really important that we kind of

Do a check-in and make sure everybody remembers how to do all the things.

And also, if we have new items that we're using, which there are some new items, that they know how to use those too.

So connecting them with, sometimes my job isn't about me doing all the training, it's about me finding resources to support.

So I'm kind of a conduit.

What were the numbers like for summer school this

year?

Yeah, we had a really strong showing.

I don't know the official numbers for the high school yet.

We've had hundreds of students participate in high school summer school.

So we have a lot of physical education opportunities this summer with some weight training and some other classes that students if they put in 60 hours they get a half credit.

So they are able to gain some good credit and also do something they might have wanted to do anyway, even without the credit.

So it's a great handoff, I'd say, that when students maybe don't want to participate in some of the classes in the school building or they want to do additional classes, because when we have classes during the school year, there's like team sports and things of that type.

Some kids can take those for their extra courses and or do it in the summer also.

We have many kids who participate in our weightlifting courses as well as there's been some baseball and some volleyball too that's been really good.

We also in our elementary summer school, for the first time in a long time our elementary summer school has been taking, it took place at the primary this year because they have air conditioning.

They received that last year.

It's all a part of this construction piece that we've been working on and how great for them to be able to keep

all of their equipment in their school and bring the students to them.

Up till this point for the last several years, we've moved little kid desks, little kid tables, little kid chairs up to the high school because there's air conditioning.

So this has been a really great thing.

We're just so pleased that the community supported this for us to be able to fund.

getting air conditioning in our buildings.

And so the primary and intermediate, we did kids going into kindergarten all the way up to kids going into seventh grade.

And we had 81 students this year total that have come to our summer school.

We've had, they get to do literacy, math, lots of great things, STEM.

Spanish and a lot of what we had to do tied also to Act 20 again with literacy where we are required to provide support for our students who may be

are struggling a little bit in reading.

And so we've been able to bring on a reading specialist for our summer school also.

So it's been a great summer for summer school.

I'm really excited to see how the numbers shook out at the end of the time.

So every year we kind of talk about how can we make this better?

How can we grow?

And we always love to hear ideas.

And I look at other school districts and what they do also trying to figure out how to best meet students' needs, not only to grow them academically, but to make more connections and to maybe

bring in some other concepts and maybe the outdoors.

There's a lot of things that can happen.

So we're already looking to next year and trying to figure out what fun we can provide.

Indeed.

Let's take time out and we'll come back with more in a little bit.

Super registrations coming up in the Richland District and some other things to talk about with Dr. Sherry Johnson, Steve Borden, in the studio with us for his monthly visit on The Morning Show.

We have a focus on the Richland School District today on the morning show.

Steve Bohr, Dr. Sherry Johnson to join us today.

Steve, we'll be talking a little bit about the start of school here, which the next time you visit school already started, which is crazy.

But what about, are there anything, is there anything coming up with traffic patterns are going to be different this

year?

Yeah, that's great.

Great thought there.

So.

As always, when school starts, traffic patterns change.

And people forget that because they get used to the summer patterns.

But when you start adding not only 19 school buses onto the road, give or take, but you're also adding all of these additional students that are traveling to school, primarily at the high school, as well as parents dropping off or picking students up at the other two buildings.

And so generally speaking,

the City of Richland Center becomes much more busy as it relates to traffic between, you know, 7.30 and 8 o'clock in the morning and between 3 and 3.45 in the afternoon.

So, you know, point number one and this happens every year is just people really need to be conscious of that and think about things on the front end because our job is to make sure that we can get students to and from school safely and then obviously take care of them while they're in school.

But we want all of our residents to be safe and we want to make sure that

people aren't rushing and they allow enough time to get through.

With that, of course, the City of Richland Center has additional road construction, which further could hamper the speed that one can travel and congestion at stop lights and things like that.

And so I would encourage all residents to

be very aware, listening to WRCO, the original observer, social media, both county, city, and school district as well, for updates on, you know, traffic pattern changes, okay?

So in the near future here, the DOT will be shutting down the Bowman Drive and Highway 14 intersection.

That will be coming here in a couple of weeks, is my understanding.

And so folks will be, you know, routed around county.

and then RC on the backside joining up with with Highway 80 just south of the intermediate school.

My understanding is that will happen shortly before school starts, but what I do think will impact us significantly is when the Highway 14 and 80 intersection gets shut down, the stop lights there, and that intersection gets shut down for what could be up to, you know, two to three weeks.

And so as traffic patterns

adjust and go up Sextonville Road and come out, you know, whichever road they're going to come out of, probably by quick trip there, the stoplights or skirt around the other way.

That also is going to add to congestion at stoplights, especially that 730 to eight o'clock in the morning and three o'clock to 345 in the afternoon, as well as

parents of students that are riding buses are going to have to be aware.

And again, we will try to communicate as effectively as we can using all means that we can, but it will be important for parents to stay up to date on emails, reading the information that comes out because

When those traffic patterns change, even if it's temporary, students pick up or delay or drop offs could change as well.

And it could be as much as a 10 minute shift one way or another.

And so it'll be important for parents to know.

Of course, Colbuson does a great job communicating with our families.

And families can certainly call down and ask specific questions about a route.

And they are more than happy to help.

But generally speaking, we know that there will be some traffic pattern changes.

that just happens organically at the start of school, just the natural pickup in vehicles, but then also as they complete this Highway 14 project and some of the intersections being shut down and detours happening.

Folks are really going to need to be aware of when those are happening and how much extra time to allow to get to work, drop kids off at school, or just to be getting home safely.

not causing a situation where people are in haste and then have to drive faster than the conditions allow.

So, you know, road construction is just a natural part of road improvements.

I think everyone understands that we needed some road improvements on Highway 14.

We're happy that that's happening, much like the construction that's going on.

It's a little bit of an inconvenience when it's taking place.

It will be great when it's done.

But with that, there's going to be some inconveniences and we're going to have to make sure that we're all working with that, especially when we start involving students and student transportation.

rotation.

doubling back then.

So, um, if Bowman drive in 14 is closed, right?

Well, that'll be right around the start of school.

Do people just access, um, your primary school in one direction then?

Or how does that

work?

Yeah.

So my understanding and talking to the DOT is that the Bowman drive intersection will be shut down more when staff are doing in service and it should be completed by the time students start, um, school on September 1st.

So it shouldn't impact our students getting to school.

It certainly will impact.

staff and then just general residents of our community is they'll have to access the primary school from the south.

Again, probably that bigger impact is going to be in mid-September when Highway 14 and 80 gets shut down and everything is going to be changed.

Including our busing, right?

I mean, normally we would, at the end of the day, start at the primary school, pick up our students there, buses would all transfer over to the intermediate school, pick up our buses there, and then go up to the high school.

Well, if they can't enter, or excuse me,

exit the intermediate school and go north on 80 because that intersection is blocked.

That's going to increase time or, or again, change the routes that the buses have to use for, um, you know, two to three weeks.

And so that'll be important as well.

Okay.

Uh, Sherry, what about super registration?

Uh, have you got some notes to share with that?

Yes, we do.

So, um, this coming Tuesday, August 11th is when we have super registration.

So it's a time when families can join us at the high school.

all students and their families can come and they would come there to make sure that they have all of their paperwork finished for the school year to know that they're enrolling.

And that information is coming out soon.

They should receive some communication soon on how to do that, because they can do that part virtually if they want, if they've been a student of ours previously.

If they're a new student, they for sure should join us at this time, because they can get enrolled on the state also.

We will have people there helping with online registration.

We'll have people helping with paper registration.

We'll have people there helping with logins.

If families are like, oh, I don't want to do this because I don't want to log in.

We have people there for that.

We have people there who can speak Spanish.

We have people there who will help with fees.

And then we've expanded all of the groups that are there.

So we have tables for, like the Cobeson will be there.

So families wanna check in and let them know my students riding the bus, and then Cobeson will let them know what bus, depending on where they live.

Food service will be there if there's questions about that.

We will also have

a lot of clubs and community organizations like Head Start and there's also some C-COP will be there and different groups like that so it'll be a really great place for families to get resources.

We will have our booster club there as well as our athletics will be there because something Mr. Board talked about all the athletics and the clubs.

To do athletics, you have to have either an alternate year card or get a physical in order to participate.

And so that's something that that card will be there and available if you haven't done that yet.

It's still available right now.

If you want to do it before next week, you can stop in at the high school and grab that also.

But that's a really important piece.

Our nurses will be there if there's something that you're concerned about with your child and you can talk with them.

All of our principals and their office staff will be there if you have other things you want to talk about.

And then photos, we have school photos.

So make sure that everyone's looking great and you can come in and get your school photos done.

However, if you do have to miss that date, we do have a makeup photo day on September 15th.

The students can get their photos taken in their buildings on that day.

So our super registration is a great opportunity to also come and just enjoy some school community.

There's gonna be food trucks.

that are gonna be out there that you can come and get ice cream or food.

You can check out the building, not a full building tour, but you can at least see the commons and you can see the gym if you're new to the area.

It's always, I'm impressed by our facilities and I think it's always great for people to come out and see our maintenance staff and they've just done this amazing job with all that's happening.

They're still rocking it when it comes to making sure our facilities look

So new every time someone comes to visit our high school I say this building is almost 30 years old and they are shocked because our maintenance crew has been so great every year And so I feel like super registration is a great opportunity to connect with maybe classmates or staff that they haven't seen it It's a good intro to kind of get that

gets cobwebs out, you know, when families, when school starts September 1st, this gives you a few weeks before school starts to kind of get in that mentality again and understand what's coming.

Yeah, very much so.

Steve, what about the campus?

So we have an update on

that?

Yeah, before I do that, just a quick...

piggyback off of Dr. Johnson's comments.

So super registration will be open for our staff starting at noon on Tuesday.

And so staff and their children can come in from noon to one and then it will be open to our general public from one until seven.

And sometime between now and the end of the day tomorrow, families will be getting an email from the school district saying that the online registration portal is open and then they can start filling out that application or excuse me, not the application, but filling out the forms.

needed for school.

And as Dr. Johnson talked about, they can certainly wait until Super Registration Day, fill it out there.

We've got plenty of folks that can assist.

But a lot of people like to do this in advance.

They like to do it in the comfort of their home, maybe tackle it in chunks.

And so that should be coming in the very near future, hoping by the end of the day today, realistically, it might be tomorrow.

But certainly by the end of the day tomorrow, they will be getting that email so that they can get into Skyward and get those registration forms filled out.

So, switching over to the campus.

So, yes, we have been working diligently with the county, and again, they have been absolutely wonderful to work with throughout this process.

As I mentioned at our last visit, got held up a little bit with a grant that was part of the DNR.

Back in 1981, I believe that this grant

came into existence.

We've been able to work out all of the bugs there.

We've got things in writing.

Now it is jumping through the hoops, and I mean that in a good way, but jumping through the different steps at the city level because it is

part of their long-term planning.

And because that campus property is being split up, I believe there's over 40 acres there, and it's being split up and parceled off to a section that the school district is taking, that has to fit into the city's comprehensive planning model.

And so it is going through those steps right now, jumping through the different committees, likely going to the

City Council sometime in early September.

Okay, and that will be finalized at that point.

We'll be able to close on that property in the interim because we want to use those buildings Melville and the gymnasium specifically in addition to the athletic fields until we're able to close it.

Of course, we have an MOU with the county right now to be able to use the gym, but we're working on a rental agreement for a dollar for the school district to be able to rent essentially Melville and

the space that we will be purchasing until we were able to actually close on it and becomes ours from an ownership.

So again, kudos to the county for working with us on trying to look at different ways to get us into that building and renting seems like a great alternative.

So we are hoping that when the start of school happens or shortly after that we'll be able to start transitioning some of our alternative programming into the building known as Melville.

It'll probably happen with our RC Pathways program, which is an alternative education off-campus program that we've got.

It's been mostly at the public library for the last couple of years.

That'll probably be the first program to transition to the campus property.

And then in the near future, hopefully yet this fall, we'll be able to transition our Hive teachers.

We've got two teachers that do our, facilitate our online program, Mrs. Dickman and Mrs. Louig.

And so we'll be able to transition them to have office space and some opportunities for students to come there.

That should happen hopefully sometime in October, maybe early November.

And then the last alternative program that we would want to transfer, which will probably take a little bit of time because we'll need to do some renovations just given the uniqueness of the program is the I Thrive Academy.

And that is currently being done at the Rockbridge, former Rockbridge Elementary School.

We're leasing space from Bethel and Lutheran Church and having some classrooms there.

That will look to transition.

That might be next spring.

It might even be next summer.

Our lease runs through June 30th.

of 20 is 27.

And so that may coincide pretty closely to when we'll be looking to transition.

They go to school all year.

And so it's more of a trimester.

So we'll try to find a nice time there where it's easy to transition.

students over there.

So again, things are moving along, you know, slow steps, but I feel like it's really coming to an end now.

And again, everybody has just been so helpful, even though it's been longer process than we hoped, the folks at the county, the folks at the city, the folks at the DNR, everybody's been really, really good to work with.

And again, it's just nice to see different entities really collaborating and working together for a common purpose.

And in this case, it just benefits the youth of the Richland

school district in the community.

So we're excited about it and excited to take ownership of that.

Awesome.

Sherry, I think we're going to ask you about AP courses as

well.

Yeah, I wanted to mention.

We had some, well, student data is always really important.

It helps inform the things that I do and some of the decisions I make.

And so we made some changes for this last year.

And we had 10 AP classes that we offered this last year.

And we've required that every student, if they take the class, they take the test.

That's a new rule.

We used to just have it be optional.

And so this year, everyone, and we as a school district

paid for their tests, so then they could take the tests or not if they didn't want to take the class.

Anyway, so this gives them an opportunity to gain college credit.

So if they score a three or above, you can get up to a five.

If they score a three or above, they are eligible for college credit depending on the college they attend.

Every college has a little different rules on that, but a lot of them take that credit.

Anyway, so I look at the percentages of students who get a three or above to understand how well we're preparing our students for this standardized test that's being offered.

And so in years prior, we've gotten close to 66% of our students that have gotten a three or above in the last few years.

This year, we had almost 64%.

So we just dropped a little bit.

But we doubled the number of students who took tests.

So I'm really pleased with the outcome of that.

I'm hopeful that as we get a little more used to the whole process and students understand the expectation that this will improve even more so.

And it really gave me a great opportunity to truly understand how we are preparing our students.

This information as well as a lot of other information is on wise-public.

It'll come out in probably October, where families want to see how a school district is doing as far as testing goes.

You can look at ACT tests or forward tests or AP, those types of things.

There's a lot of other information on there too, but I would love it if people would go on and have a look at how we're doing.

We focus on student learning, and this is a small piece of that.

It helps us inform some of the decisions that we make, so I appreciate the chance to be able to talk about it.

Awesome.

I know we were going to maybe delve into a little bit of the hive mind.

You had those sessions earlier this year.

We've got a little bit of time yet, but anything stick out, Steve, that you'd like to mention today?

Yeah, I mean, the process is moving along.

Again, I think that we tried to mention this to all of the community members that attended and provided input that this was

This was a marathon, not a sprint, right?

But our steering committee did a fantastic job on analyzing the data from the two-night community event that we had, gathered all of this information, really put this into some buckets or some pillars.

There are five pillars.

In addition, they created a new...

Mission and vision statement as well as values.

So there's five values that everything is going to be kind of centered around our board and administration are now taking that information and they are really going through an exercise that okay you heard.

what the steering committee said.

Now, what does that mean to you?

And so we want to make sure that our board and our administration are all on the same page with what our steering committee and essentially our community said.

And we want that to be a very public process.

And that'll be the next part of this.

And so in the next probably 45 days, there will be a board meeting that is a board and administration kind of joint meeting.

And they will be discussing a lot of these things.

And they will be kind of coming to a consensus on, okay, here

the things that we heard, here are the things that we're going to

be focusing on.

And that will give us the first real steps on what the first priorities are.

Now, we will be working on all of them throughout the year, but we do want to try to put some emphasis on those top priorities and really try to move the needle accordingly.

So in the coming days, or excuse me, the coming weeks, we will be getting some more information on that.

I'll be on this show keeping people informed.

We're also going to try to keep everyone informed via email that if they came to any of those events, make sure that

They stay informed.

We'll do that through our newsletter.

Folks should have just gotten a newsletter in their mailboxes here in the last few days.

Really trying to take all measures possible to keep people informed.

And then with that, one of the goals that the steering committee is, is just getting our students back and increasing our enrollment.

So I'll probably just end with this is the time to take care of that, right?

We are accepting enrollments.

We have been all summer, but now we're

getting to where you can no longer put that on hold.

Let's get that done.

We are blowing expectations out of the water for where our enrollments are at this year.

We have not hit

super registration yet, which is a big time when we get a lot of new enrollments.

But as of eight o'clock this morning, we have 109 new students who have enrolled in our district.

85 of them are brand new to our district.

They've never attended, and now they're coming to our district.

And then 24 of them were part of our district at one time, have done school somewhere else, and now are returning and coming back.

So that's a big number, 109 students.

And again, we are just hitting the

peak period.

Honestly, if you would have asked me in June, Steve, where do you want to be on August 5th?

I would have said if we can be about 50 or 60 students, new students enrolled, I'd be pretty happy.

And we're more than doubled that.

So I'm really, really excited.

We've got a great team.

The original school district has a lot of really, really great things going on right now, a lot of positive momentum.

And it's a great place to be.

It's a great place to work.

It's a great place to have your students attend and get

quality education in a lot of different formats.

And so, um, if you're out there and you have not enrolled yet, go ahead and get enrolled.

If you've enrolled and you just need to register again, that email will be coming out in the next 24 to 36 hours for folks to get registered for the, uh, for the school year.

Indeed.

Well, thanks to both of you for coming in.

Anything you wanted to add today, Sherry?

No, uh,

The hive mind, I just want to talk about that for a second, is that that has been such a great process.

I'm just so pleased that our board and community were willing to come together and really offer the opportunity to

do what's good for students, and it's been a great process.

I'm excited to see what's coming up in the next few weeks.

All right, thanks for coming in today, you two.

Thank you.

You bet.

Steve, we'll see you next month, and Dr. Sherry Johnson, good luck on the school year coming up here.

It really never ends for you, though.

It's not like it's one school year into another.

It'll be starting soon.

Again, super registration coming up next week on August 11th.

Dr. Sherry Johnson and Superintendent Steve Ward joining us here on The Morning Show.

Thanks for joining us for our Wednesday morning show and WRC radio.

Steve, here we go.

We're already talking about super registration and all kinds of things here in August.

Yeah, isn't it crazy?

The summer is really flown by.

The month of July just felt non-existent.

You kind of go from this month of June where you're kind of wrapping things up at the end of the year and July

kind of feel like, okay, they got a little bit of time.

There's a little bit of breather and all of a sudden it's just gone.

And then we're, we're in this phase now where it's like, we're, we're full steam ahead.

Like there's things that are, are very real right now.

We're getting ready for super registration next week.

We've got athletics starting.

We've got staff back in the buildings, getting their classrooms ready.

It's just, there's a lot of

things happening and a lot of fun things happening.

This is a great time of year.

I just enjoy it because it's it's neat to see students, you know, again, and all of these kids that, you know, quote unquote, don't like coming to school.

But, you know, you can just see the smile on their face.

You can see them really, truly enjoying being back in the buildings.

I always think that's kind of neat.

The first day of school, you know, kids are are all dressed up and they're all smiles and they see people they haven't seen since last June.

And it's just reconnecting again with people.

And that's

kind of what we're seeing right now.

year.

Football practice started on Tuesday, so you're getting some of the students back in school already.

Yeah, we sure are.

And we've had some some new things going on and we've got camps going on with volleyball and soccer and cross-country starting in the near future as well.

So a lot of those things happening.

Silas Coleman, our new athletic director, is taking over.

Laura Selgaby's involved as well for another month or so until she officially retires.

But a lot of a lot of cool things happening as we transition to

those roles but also getting those students back in issuing pads and uniforms and then seeing those kids out on the.

out on the football field, and they're not kids.

I call them kids, but they're really just young adults.

And getting excited, our athletic numbers in the fall are looking very promising in terms of the number of students that we have participating in athletics.

Obviously, some of those sports haven't started, so those official numbers are not yet.

So if there are...

Folks out there that might be listening to this either live or on recording and they want to get their students participating Call up to the to the high school office.

It's not too late.

I think they'll be very pleased that they do it.

I find that in life you typically...

don't regret things you do.

You regret things you don't do, right?

And so if we can encourage our students and our children to participate, give it a try, see what it's like, um, and always kind of trying to, um, try something new.

I think that they, they generally live a pretty happy life and, and involved in a lot of different things.

So that would be the message that I would give.

When you have that kind of engagement too, and you and I've talked about this before, but I think you see better, maybe not as much truancy and things like that.

If you've got a sport, you got a club, you got something,

got to show up for.

Yeah,

absolutely.

I mean, it goes without saying that our number one priority as a school district is to educate students, right?

That's why schools exist.

That's the fundamental reason for schools.

But also those extracurricular activities, those things that are voluntary in nature,

but are really enrichment opportunities for students.

And the Richland School District has such a great number of clubs and activities that students can participate in.

I don't know that folks really understand all of the different things that we have available.

It's one of the things we're trying to do, not only for super registration, but at the start of school is getting students, so they're exposed to these different clubs and opportunities.

And if students are willing to give it a try, whether it's an art club or a forensics or a sport or the play or the music or whatever it might be, there is really something for everybody.

In fact, probably more than one thing.

And we're very accommodating as a school district.

We want students to be involved because, as you said, to bring this full circle, having students involved enhances their overall educational experience.

And if they're involved in things, they tend to be more engaged in school.

There's less discipline issues.

There's less truancy.

There's less absenteeism as a whole.

And again, there's just generally a better sense of school culture when kids are involved in things.

There's a greater sense of

the construction update.

Has the weather had any factor?

I know we've had a little rain lately here.

Yeah, we have had a little rain lately.

It has, for the most part, it has not delayed anything significantly.

You know, when construction workers and construction companies are doing things on outdoors, they've got some built-in contingencies for weather delays and things like that.

We had really, really good weather from, you know, middle of May

through really just up until a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, we had a couple of hot days, but for the most part, it was dry.

And when it was dry, they can do a lot of work.

And so a lot of the exterior things, the asphalt concrete.

hard surface areas, loading dock, parking lots, those kinds of things.

We had really, really good weather for those things.

I think we delayed the parking lot maybe a day or two and we had those 95, 97 degree days just to make sure that the asphalt would cure properly.

But they were able to get most of that done.

They're finishing up.

There's been a little inconvenience entering, say the high school, coming in off of Covered Ridge Road, using the parking lots now.

but having to come in that way, that will happen through next Monday.

And then next Monday, we should be able to come up Hornet High again and access the high school from the front of the buildings.

Middle school or intermediate school is continuing to move along.

Again, doing some asphalt down there.

General traffic patterns are pretty much the same there, but construction is moving along and got a lot of compliments on how nice things are looking.

of course it's always an inconvenience like remodeling your kitchen right it's it's a little difficult while you're living through it but it sure is nice when it's done.

And then a lot of the interior things that folks probably have not gotten a chance to see because they haven't been in our buildings, but the HVAC at the intermediate school is moving along.

It's going to be tight, but we're on target.

They're going to fire up the air handlers on August 17th, 18th and 19th.

So that will get some air moving.

Teachers come back on new teachers on the 18th, everyone back on the 19th.

And then on the 20th, they'll fire up the chillers.

And again, I'm assuming that there's no issues, which I don't expect any.

They should have climate controlled conditions starting on the 20th.

So I don't anticipate on

the morning of August 20th for the intermediate school to be at a, at a nice 68 degree temperature.

It will take a few days, but it will definitely be more comfortable than every day.

And really probably every hour staff are going to know that by the time students come back, um, fully air conditioned for all of our buildings will be primary school, intermediate school and the high school, uh, tech ed, um, building, er, rooms up at the high school are being renovated.

Um, our welding room, uh, got.

We've got several new welding booths.

Those are practically finished now.

Looks awesome.

We recently installed the new auto lift in the mechanic area.

So we've got that that we've got installed.

It's been painted.

We've got our new food processing room ready to go.

We're waiting on some furniture and some final touches there, but that should be ready to go for the start of school as well.

And our general construction area, again, all that stuff's been cleaned up.

We've got safety power switches on all of our equipment now.

I feel like when we hit the ground running here on September 1st with students like our TechEd areas are gonna be really state of the art and really up to date.

A lot of that stuff was 30 years old.

and we just kind of limped along the last couple of decades.

But it's going to really be a good experience for our students in using 21st century learning, right?

We had a new CNC machine.

We had an old one donated from Cardinal Glass several years ago.

It was 11,000 pound beast is what that CNC machine was.

We've been able to upgrade that now with the help of Scott Industries out of Muscaday and their generous donation to help with that.

They're installing the seats again as we speak literally this morning They were working on that then carpet will be installed that should be ready to go for our staff

have to enjoy our welcome back ceremony on August 19th.

And for the most part, completed by the early part of school, it should not impact our learning at all.

So a lot of things going on.

Most of the interior construction will be done by the time students arrive.

There's a couple of little things that are going to be an inconvenience.

Toilet partitions got delayed a week.

So that's going to be, we won't have them for super registration.

So we'll have to use the family bathrooms a single.

use for super registration but by the 17th we should have the partitions in and by the time school starts we should be for the most part done with the interior.

There'll be some little cosmetic things, little things that we need, some furniture that was custom ordered that will arrive late but then we'll just kind of finish up on the exterior and

I believe this is a musical year, and if I'm not mistaken, you'll get a chance to show the public all the sounds and sights in the auditorium this year.

Yeah, it's really going to be great doing the musical this fall.

Of course, kids will get in there and start practicing as soon as school starts.

I believe early September, we've got them the ability to get in there.

Early in November, I don't have the exact dates.

I think it's like November 7th, 8th, 9th, somewhere right around there, is the actual production.

And you're right

I think that folks that come to that production are going to see a really upgraded auditorium and they're going to really be able to feel and see and hear the difference in the upgrades that we've made.

Sure.

We're hearing the people getting in early for the auction here today in the background.

So that's good.

The auction starts at 10 o'clock.

Get my bid in.

There you go.

You better get that.

Get your bidder number.

Dr. Sherry Johnson is here as well.

Sherry, give us a little bit about maybe a job description for people who don't know exactly.

Or do you even know all the things that you do?

Let's see.

Anything that involves instruction is pretty much what I do.

So that could involve staffing.

It can involve

literacy, math, any core content, any CTE content.

I do closely work with our title staff, our ESL, we call them ML staff, multilingual learner staff.

training of our staff to make sure that they have the tools in their tool belt that they need to do their jobs well.

I work closely with all the administrators and make sure that they have all the training they need.

Also our virtual school, all of our alternative ed, I connect with those people and try to ensure that

They have what they need.

It's really one of those things where my checklist is never done because what we do is growing and improving and changing as students needs change and as staffs needs change.

So it's really kind of a moving target.

I was told at one point before I took this position that I needed to find a hobby that had a completion to it like quilting or crocheting because my position will never come to that.

you know, I will never get that completion feeling.

So then I should just find something that will get that to me.

So I thought that was good advice.

And I probably should after this is starting my seventh year in this position, I probably should start now.

We wanted to ask you about the partner school and an update for that.

you can.

Yes.

Well, um,

In our Hive Happenings, you probably saw a few things about partner.

There is a grant that we received.

We got $400,000 to use toward our partner school.

And so a majority of what we're looking at is to help students prepare themselves more for their life after high school.

And so we needed some vehicles to transport students.

So that's one of the things we're going to be looking at purchasing.

They need to be able to get

to their placements.

They work closely with a lot of employers.

Our partner school has over 70 employers they work closely with to place students, whether it's for jobs, internships, or just job shadowing and observation, just so kids can know what jobs look like.

Because we make a lot of assumptions.

If we don't know something, we fill in the blanks on our own.

And so it's really important for students to get there, see what it's like, and understand that like a veterinarian,

isn't all, you know, petting puppies.

There's some rough stuff they have to do and so it's really important that they get those experiences and we need to be able to get them there.

A lot of our students don't have vehicles or don't have driver's licenses so it's important that we can transport.

Some of the other things that we're looking to update for them is some technology.

A lot of the work they do is on Chromebooks and things of that type to build their own

like they do their own learning units, they create their own projects, and so they need a place to store all that information and share it with their teacher.

And then some of the other pieces are a lot of lab items like a car lift, a UTV lift, a lot of the, now that we're going into our fourth year, I think it's fourth year at Partner,

Some of the tools need updating, replacing, or repairing.

And so some of the funds will be used for that too.

So we're really excited to have that opportunity to work with the DPI on funding some of these important pieces for partner school.

And I just want to put a plug out there.

We still have some spaces.

So it doesn't mean if you are a student in the area, it doesn't have to be a Richland Center student.

It can be a student at any school district.

And they can join us.

They can open and roll to the Richland School District and experience

what partner has to offer.

It's a little different placement.

You usually have about a half day of classes and then a half day of work or...

job shadowing and so it's a really great way to prepare students to get them ready for their life after college so or after high school if they want to go to college it's a really great opportunity for any student so if they're curious about that they should reach out to any of the schools or the district office and we can kind of walk them through it to see if it's a fit for them again if they don't know all the information sometimes people make assumptions about what something is

And partner is way more than what we can even convey.

Our students that have graduated have had a lot of success and felt that partner was a really strong platform for them to leap off of.

Is there a waiting list?

At this time, there is not.

So there's spots.

We've got space for you.

We have a teacher and support staff that are ready with arms wide open, ready to help students meet their goals.

And if they don't know what their goals are, they're ready to help them set some.

It's a really exciting place to work.

Not only are you training the students, but you're training staff as

well.

Yeah, we are.

Actually, there's a training happening at this very moment.

We teamed up with the hospital to do a suicide awareness training.

The hospital received some funds and they

They did a community training also a week or two ago and then opened it up and did a whole section of training for our staff.

And so we have over 30 staff right now being trained about suicide awareness.

As we know, you know, social emotional supports and care for our students is a big part of what we do.

We need to connect with students.

And so there's some pieces that the medical field understands maybe more than

trained educators.

And so if we can all come together and share what we've learned and understand how to best fit and support student needs, that this is a great fit.

So that's one training.

We've had a lot of training around Act 20.

The state identified act 20 for the literacy needs of our students and so teachers have to be trained in a certain way and so we are finishing up getting those staff trained and we use letters.

There's a lot of different trainings that different school districts have used.

So that's some more that's been wrapping up.

We have a lot of staff that

do AP classes and so they have to receive training and then starting up soon when we do our in-service days which we we have several days at the beginning of the school year at the end of August where we have a lot of our learning platforms a lot of our resources and

things of those things those that nature that our teachers use.

With teachers need refreshers right they they have a bit of a slumber summer slide also just like students do so it's really important that we kind of do a check-in and make sure everybody remembers how to do all the things and also if we have new items that we're using which there are some new items that they know how to use those too so connecting them with

Sometimes my job isn't about me doing all the training.

It's about me finding resources to support.

So I'm kind of a conduit.

What were the numbers like for summer school

this year?

Yeah, we had a really strong showing.

I don't know the official numbers for the high school yet.

We've had hundreds of students participate in high school summer school.

So we have a lot of physical education opportunities this summer with some weight training and some other classes that students, if they put in 60 hours, they get a half credit.

So they are able to gain some good credit and also do something they might have wanted to do anyway, even without the credit.

Some kids can take those for their extra courses and or do it in the summer also.

We have many kids who participate in our weightlifting courses, as well as there's been some baseball and some volleyball too that's been really good.

We also, in our elementary summer school, for the first time in a long time, our elementary summer school has been taking, it took place at the primary this year because they have air conditioning.

They received that last year.

It's all a part of this construction piece that we've been working on and how great for them to be able to keep

all of their equipment in their school and bring the students to them.

Up till this point for the last several years, we've moved little kid desks, little kid tables, little kid chairs up to the high school because there's air conditioning.

So this has been a really great thing.

We're just so pleased that the community supported this for us to be able to fund.

getting air conditioning in our buildings.

And so the primary and intermediate, we did kids going into kindergarten all the way up to kids going into seventh grade.

And we had 81 students this year total that have come to our summer school.

We've had, they get to do literacy, math, lots of great things, STEM.

Spanish and a lot of what we had to do tied also to Act 20 again with literacy where we are required to provide support for our students who may be

are struggling a little bit in reading.

And so we've been able to bring on a reading specialist for our summer school also.

So it's been a great summer for summer school.

I'm really excited to see how the numbers shook out at the end of the time.

So every year we kind of talk about how can we make this better?

How can we grow?

And we always love to hear ideas.

And I look at other school districts and what they do also trying to figure out how to best meet students' needs, not only to grow them academically, but to make more connections and to maybe

bring in some other concepts and maybe the outdoors.

There's a lot of things that can happen.

So we're already looking to next year and trying to figure out what fun we can provide.

Indeed.

Let's take time out and we'll come back with more in a little bit.

Super registrations coming up in the Richland District and some other things to talk about with Dr. Sherry Johnson, Steve Borden, in the studio with us for his monthly visit on The Morning Show.

we have a focus on the richland school district today on the morning show steve board dr sherry johnson and to join us today steve will be talking a little bit about the start of school here which the next time you visit school already started which is crazy isn't it but what about are there anything is there anything coming up with traffic patterns are going to be different this

year yeah that's great great thought there um so

As always, right?

When school starts, traffic patterns change, right?

And people forget that because they get used to the summer patterns.

And so generally speaking,

the city of Richland center becomes much more busy as it relates to traffic between, you know, 730 and eight o'clock in the morning and between three and 345 in the afternoon.

So, you know, point number one, and this happens every year is just people really need to be conscious of that and think about things on the front end because our job is to make sure that we can get students to and from school safely and then obviously take care of them while they're in school.

But we want all of our residents to be safe and we want to make sure that

people aren't rushing and they allow enough time to get through.

With that, of course, the City of Richland Center has additional road construction, which further could hamper the speed that one can travel and congestion at stop lights and things like that.

And so I would encourage all residents to

be very aware, listening to WRCO, the original observer, social media, both county, city, and school district as well, for updates on, you know, traffic pattern changes, okay?

So in the near future here, the DOT will be shutting down the Bowman Drive and Highway 14 intersection.

That will be coming here in a couple of weeks, is my understanding.

And so folks will be, you know, routed around county.

and then RC on the backside joining up with Highway 80 just south of the intermediate school.

My understanding is that will happen shortly before school starts.

But what I do think will impact us significantly is when the Highway 14 and 80 intersection gets shut down, the stop lights there, and that intersection gets shut down for what could be up to two to three weeks.

And so as traffic patterns

adjust and go up Sextonville Road and come out, you know, whichever road they're going to come out of, probably by quick trip there, the stoplights or skirt around the other way.

That also is going to add to congestion at stoplights, especially that 730 to eight o'clock in the morning and three o'clock to 345 in the afternoon, as well as

parents of students that are riding buses are going to have to be aware.

When those traffic patterns change, even if it's temporary, students pick up or delay or drop offs could change as well.

And it could be as much as a 10 minute shift one way or another.

And so it'll be important for parents to know.

Of course, Colbe sent us a great job communicating with our families.

And families can certainly call down and ask specific questions about a route.

And they are more than happy to help.

But generally speaking, we know that there will be some traffic pattern changes.

Folks are really going to need to be aware of when those are happening and how much extra time to allow to get to work, drop kids off at school, or just to be getting home safely.

not causing a situation where people are in haste and then have to drive faster than the conditions allow.

So, you know, road construction is just a natural part of road improvements.

I think everyone understands that we needed some road improvements on Highway 14.

We're happy that that's happening, much like the construction that's going on.

It's a little bit of an inconvenience when it's taking place.

It will be great when it's done.

But with that, there's going to be some inconveniences and we're going to have to make sure that we're all working with that, especially when we start involving students and student transportation.

doubling back then.

So if Bowman Drive in 14 is closed, right?

Well, that'll be right around the start of school.

Do people just access your primary school in one direction then?

Or how does that work?

Yeah,

so my understanding and talking to the DOT is that the Bowman Drive intersection will be shut down more when staff are doing in service and it should be completed by the time students start school on September 1st.

So it shouldn't impact our students getting to school.

it certainly will impact staff and then just general residents of our community as they'll have to access the primary school from the south.

Again, probably that bigger impact is going to be in mid-September when Highway 14 and 80 get shut down and everything is going to be changed.

Including our busing, right?

I mean, normally we would at the end of the day start at the primary school, pick up our students there, buses would all transfer over to the intermediate school, pick up our buses there and then go up to the high school.

Well, if they can't and

or excuse me, exit the intermediate school and go north on 80 because that intersection is blocked.

That's going to increase time or again, change the routes that the buses have to use for two to three weeks.

And so that'll be important as well.

Okay.

Sherri, what about super registration?

Have you got some notes to share with

that?

Yes, we do.

So this coming Tuesday, August 11th is when we have super registration.

So it's a time when families can join us at the high school.

all students and their families can come and they would come there to make sure that they have all of their paperwork finished for the school year to know that they're enrolling.

And that information is coming out soon.

They should receive some communication soon on how to do that.

Because they can do that part virtually if they want, if they've been a student of ours previously.

If they're a new student, they for sure should join us at this time because they can get enrolled on the state also.

We will have people there helping with online registration.

We'll have people helping with paper registration.

We'll have people there helping with logins.

If families are like, oh, I don't want to do this because I'm not a log in.

We have people there for that.

We have people there who can speak Spanish.

We have people there who will help with fees.

And then we've expanded all of the groups that are there.

So we have tables for the Cobeson will be there.

So families want to check in and let them know my students riding the bus.

And then Cobeson will let them know what bus, depending on where they live.

Food service will be there if there's questions about that.

We will also have

a lot of clubs and community organizations like Head Start and there's also some C-COP will be there and different groups like that so it'll be a really great place for families to get resources.

We will have our booster club there as well as our athletics will be there because something Mr. Board talked about all the athletics and the clubs.

To do athletics you have to have either an alternate ear card or get a physical

in order to participate.

And so that's something that that card will be there and available if you haven't done that yet.

It's still available right now.

If you want to do it before next week, you can stop in at the high school and grab that also.

But that's a really important piece.

Our nurses will be there if there's something that you're concerned about with your child and you can talk with them.

All of our principals and their office staff will be there if you have other things you want to talk about.

And then photos.

We have school photos.

So make sure that everyone's looking great and you can come in and get your students

school photos done.

However, if you do have to miss that date, we do have a makeup photo day on September 15th.

The students can get their photos taken in their buildings on that day.

So our super registration is a great opportunity to also come and just enjoy some school community.

There's going to be food trucks.

that are gonna be out there that you can come and get ice cream or food.

You can check out the building, not a full building tour, but you can at least see the commons and you can see the gym if you're new to the area.

It's always, I'm impressed by our facilities and I think it's always great for people to come out and see our maintenance staff and they've just done this amazing job with all that's happening.

They're still rocking it when it comes to making sure our facilities look

get the cobwebs out, you know, when families, when school starts September 1st, this gives you a few weeks before school starts to kind of get in that mentality again and understand what's coming.

Yeah, very much so.

Steve, what about the campus?

So we have an update on that?

Yeah, before I do that, just a quick...

piggyback off of Dr. Johnson's comments.

So super registration will be open for our staff starting at noon on Tuesday.

And so staff and their children can come in from noon to one and then it will be open to our general public from one until seven.

needed for school.

And as Dr. Johnson talked about, they can certainly wait until Super Registration Day, fill it out there.

We've got plenty of folks that can assist.

But a lot of people like to do this in advance.

They like to do it in the comfort of their home, maybe tackle it in chunks.

And so that should be coming in the very near future, hoping by the end of the day today, realistically, it might be tomorrow.

But certainly by the end of the day tomorrow, they will be getting that email so that they can get into Skyward and get those registration forms filled out.

So, switching over to the campus.

So, yes, we have been working diligently with the county.

And again, they have been absolutely wonderful to work with throughout this process.

As I mentioned at our last visit, got held up a little bit with a grant that was part of the DNR back in 1981.

I believe that this grant

came into existence.

We've been able to work out all of the bugs there.

We've got things in writing.

Now it is jumping through the hoops, and I mean that in a good way, but jumping through the different steps at the city level because it is

part of their long-term planning.

And so it is going through those steps right now, jumping through the different committees, likely going to the

City Council sometime in early September.

Okay, and that will be finalized at that point.

We'll be able to close on that property in the interim because we want to use those buildings Melville and the gymnasium specifically in addition to the athletic fields until we're able to close it.

Of course, we have an MOU with the county right now to be able to use the gym, but we're working on a rental agreement for a dollar for the school district to be able to rent essentially Melville and

and the space that we will be purchasing until we were able to actually close on it and becomes ours from an ownership.