Southern Boone School District: Status Report

By:  Ernie Wren

Interim Superintendent Dr. Tim Roth shared with the Boone County Journal his viewpoints on various topics involving the school district, four-day school weeks, future growth, strategic planning, and financial strength.  Here are the topics and key points from that interview.

Four-Day School Weeks:  This format has become increasingly popular in Missouri, with neighboring schools such as Hallsville and Harrisburg embracing the shortened work week due to budget savings.  Some members of our community believe the four-day work week would help Southern Boone help recruit new teachers due to the popularity of three-day weekends.  Dr. Roth believes that this issue will be brought up to the school board in future discussions, but that before any decisions are made, a significant amount of research would need to be conducted.  This would include surveying parents and teachers and looking at school districts where this has been implemented. There are a minimum required number of school hours per year required of the district.  If this were to ever become approved, there would also need to be time to plan for all involved.  At this time there are no plans for this in motion, but it is likely to be brought before the board at some point.

Transition in Leadership:  Dr. Roth emphasizes that productive communications with the public, teachers, staff and school board are vitally important.  At the beginning of this school year with his transition into interim leadership at the Superintendent level, he met with staff members to discuss their purpose and the reasons “why” they choose to be educators.  From there, they collaboratively developed a framework together to move forward.  He feels that a relationship based on listening and two-way communication between him, the parents, and the community will best serve the district.

See more in this weeks Boone County Journal