Liam HalawithMaroon Echoes Editor-In-Cheif On Monday, April 13th, the MPCSD School Board of Directors approved a new Pandemic Pay resolution extending the payment of all district staff into the recommended closure date of April 30th. The initial resolution was effective until April 10th, the initial closure recommendation date.
“The legislature continues to pay their hourly workers and expects that schools do the same,” quoted Superintendent John Henriksen from a letter by the School Administrators of Iowa. Mr. Henriksen also discussed MPCHS prom plans with the board, which has officially been moved to Saturday, July 11th. The move was announced early this month after Mt. Pleasant High School Principal Todd Lichety contacted parents. This gives the students more time to fundraise, decorate, and plan the festivities. The students would have originally had only 1 day to prepare as the school would not be open until Friday, May 1st. Currently, the official date for Graduation 2020 is May 17th. This is the date if school resumes on May 1st. If the recommended school closure is extended past May 17th, then Mr. Lichety would seek the advice of the Seniors for a new plan. “We have options. We’ll keep taking responses and then we’ll try to narrow it down to a few and then give one vote per senior,” said Mr. Lichety. Mr. Henriksen also touched on second-semester grades. As of now, there is no set-in-stone plan but he is discussing what that could look like with the Great Prairie AEA, Superintendent’s in the surrounding area, and building administrators. “We’ve had a lot of discussion about that on our principal team. What does that look like for underclassmen? We want to give credit for all of the work that has been completed up to the closure. What does that look like for seniors? The guidance from the Department of Education for seniors is that you do everything you can to get them across the line,” said Mr. Henriksen. Governor Reynolds promised in a news conference last week that she would give schools a two-week notice in advance of any closure changes. That means this by the end of this week we should find out if the closure date will be advanced any farther. Director of Curriculum and Instruction Katie Gavin presented data from the first week of voluntary online learning opportunities. The current learning track was filed with state approval so that while schools are technically closed they may continue to offer educational opportunities. While the program is still in the early stages the district has had substantial student participation in the program. To show some of what other schools in Iowa are doing here is some data: 87.2% or 285 school districts have moved to voluntary learning opportunities, with only 6 districts in the state requiring online learning at this time. Then there are 11% (36 districts) that are attempting a combination of both, with some grades voluntary and some required. For more about the meeting please see the our video on YouTube at MPTV-CloseUp.
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