Dear Sparta Area School District Families:
It is with great anticipation and excitement that I welcome you back for the 2017-2018 academic year. I hope your summer was pleasurable and that parents and students alike are eager to get back to school. While there are several noteworthy changes in the district, most aspects of our daily routines will look much as they have in previous years. A few key changes are as follows:
- Mr. Toby Oswald, former Assistant Principal/STEM Principal/Athletic & Activity Director at Meadowview Middle School is serving as the new Elementary Principal at Cataract and Lawrence-Lawson.
- Mr. Bob Sanders, former Sparta High School Athletic Director/SAILS Principal is serving as the new Assistant Principal/STEM Principal/Athletic & Activity Director at Meadowview Middle School.
- Mr. Chris Stierman is new to the District and serving as our new Technology Director.
- Mr. Micah Anderson and Mr. Donald Scheckel are new to the District and serving as School Psychologists.
- We have 21 new teachers to welcome to the District. Read more about them here.
To increase safety and security in all buildings, we are implementing a new step to our visitor check-in procedure. This new step enables us to use state or federal IDs (e.g, Driver’s License) to compare the first name, last name, and date of birth with the public sex offender database. This new step is part of a system (called “Raptor”) that will also print a time and date-stamped visitor badge that visitors will be required to wear when they are in a school building.
Click here to read more about the Raptor system.
Significant efforts have been made to improve the efficiency of our bus routes, being especially sensitive to the amount of time students must be on the bus. For more information on how the changes in busing affect your family,
click here.
The District has conducted a facilities study to look more deeply into the need for educational space, especially at the elementary level. The results of this study and possible ways to address our space issues are being shared at several Community Task Force meetings being held Sept. 5, Sept. 19, Nov. 7, and Nov. 21 at 6:00 pm in the Board Conference Room at the AEC, 201 E. Franklin Street. We are seeking community input – all are welcome. For more information,
click here.
On a more personal note, I want to thank everyone in the community for a warm welcome as I start work as your superintendent and get settled in as a new member of the Sparta community. Having grown up in Portage, I appreciate being back in this part of the state and look forward to exploring the area and all it has to offer. Most importantly, I am excited for students and staff to get to work doing what we do: Providing the best possible education to all of our students
every day!
Dr. Amy Van Deuren
Ed.D., J.D., Superintendent
