Superintendent’s Corner
District Administrator Mike Endreas
On to a new year
Happy New Year everyone! I must say I, like many of you, are glad to see 2020 in our rearview mirror and looking forward to the year ahead of us. I do say this with some hesitation as we are still in the middle of a critical time in the pandemic and are staying the course with finding the balance between the health needs of our kids and community and the academic needs of our students.
Jan. 15 marked the end of our first semester and I am very pleased with the work our staff and students have done to make it a successful one. We have managed our way through a limited number of positive cases and quarantines to this point. We understood going in with our cohort groups in the MS/HS along with the virtual Wednesdays that we were limiting educational opportunities for our kids but have found in the long run have created more opportunities in comparison to other schools in the area due to the fact of the low number of students having to quarantine. If interested, we keep a COVID-19 dashboard on our school website.
District-wide, we continue to be excited about the building project. The Dome is definitely the buzz in the area and it was exciting to see it inflated and now how it is progressing since then. I was pleased that all of our students were able to go in and tour the dome prior to too much going on. I am sure it will be a memory they will have for years to come. If you are interested in seeing pictures of how the project is progressing, we do also have a section on our web page. Overall, the project is on track for an open date of Sept. 1 for next school year. We are currently accepting bids for the project with a projected bid approval date of Feb. 3. I am excited about the energy and excitement this is creating for our community, and coupled with the village’s work in providing housing options for new homes, Spencer is on an upward trajectory.
At the school board meeting on Jan. 20, the board approved a resolution to request our voters to approve a $975,000 non-recurring referendum. This is the amount that we have been under for the past five years. By asking for this, we are looking to extend it for one more year as the original plan was to ask for another five years, but honestly we did not feel comfortable in our budget forecast as so much is predicated on our enrollment and the governor’s budget. All schools in the area are experiencing a reduction in enrollment due to the pandemic and we will not know our funding from the state until well into the summer months. So instead of guessing or working off soft numbers, the board has decided to extend for one year to allow the dust to settle, so to speak, and then once we have better data ask for a longer time period. I am proud of the board in taking this common sense approach. We are in the process of planning for and scheduling informational meetings in February and/or March so all are informed to make a decision in April.
I am sure people get tired of me saying it, but it is a great day to be a Spencer Rocket! A great deal of big-picture improvements are going on in our school and our community. I cherish the support we receive from our parents and community as a whole. Thank you for all you do for the students of the School District of Spencer.
