March 29, 2024

Preparing for back to school

Baxter plans for school year under construction

Progress by way of the large construction project currently underway in the Baxter School District is the biggest story for the next school year. Touching every area of the school, the improvements to the building will make for a lot of improvisation  during the 2019-2020 year.

“It will be kind of a crazy year,” superintendent Mickolyn Clapper said. “We’re just all going to be in this building, we are just tucked in every nook and cranny.”

To make the best of the space available as the construction continues, spaces previously used as meeting rooms will now be classrooms and teachers that have smaller classes are sharing areas for the year.

“We’re just trying to be as efficient as possible without spending a lot of extra money on trailers, Clapper said. “We know it is going to be cozy but we’re going to figure it out for a year.”

Changes will also take place during the year as construction work shifts throughout the building. Clapper gave the east gym as an example of an area that normally would hold classes but because of construction will be unavailable.

“The PE teacher, the principals, athletic director and I met and figured out a plan,” Clapper said. “Hopefully if the weather is nice, one of the classes can go outside. If it is two high school classes they can share the gym but you don’t really want kindergarten and senior in the same time. It is something we are working on.”

While there will definitely be some growing pains as students and faculty maneuver there way through the school year, the end product is what everyone is focusing on.

“Everybody knows and we just keep saying, the finish line, the finish line will be worth it,” Clapper said. “Like any other building project at home, if you can just keep remembering the end goal will be worth it.”

In the classroom, a new process of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) will be incorporated throughout the district. Used as a way to monitor students progress through data, PLCs have been done unofficially in the district for a while Clapper said.

“We’re really excited. The whole elementary staff went to PLC (Professional Learning Community) training this summer and several of the high school staff went. It is a new learning and it will be great to see all of them on the same page with the same information,” Clapper said. “They will use their Monday morning late starts a little differently this year because they will do a lot more teaming, sitting down and looking at their data and they will figure out if kids didn’t do well on something, what went wrong, what do we need to fix, how do we re-teach it, they will do a lot of teaming together.

She said it will be interesting to see how PLC works at the middle school and high school levels with many subjects only having a single teacher. Collaboration with neighboring schools who are in a similar situation is one way she sees the program working.

“Now that they all have the full training and the background knowledge and really understand the big pictures, we are super excited to see how much more it is going to take off,” Clapper said.

New at the school is variety volleyball head coach Joe Morton and dance team coach Amanda Pierce. Each have been working with their teams throughout the summer to prepare for the upcoming season.

While the upcoming school year will be unique for the district, the support of the community is always felt as progress continues.

“We just love the community feel. With the fitness center and the library here, people really are, our community is just in and out of our building all of the time. They are seeing our kids, they are seeing our teachers and seeing what we are doing,” Clapper said. “I think that is part of the reason people are so positive about the bond, when we passed the bond. People can actually get into the school and see what their money is going for. People support this school in this community ... everyone is behind it.”

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com