June 17, 2022 Republic School District Families, Greetings, Republic families! We hope this message finds your summer going well. There were several pieces of the June Board of Education meeting that we felt were important to share with you directly. Those items can be found below, and full details can be found HERE. Have a great weekend!

CSIP Approved Throughout the last year district teammates and community volunteers devoted over 1200 hours to develop our newly approved district CSIP–Comprehensive School Improvement Plan! This “strategic plan” has been designed to serve as our “road map” for the next 4-6 years in meeting the needs of our students and employees. In addition, updated district mission and vision statements were created. As a reminder, this process is community driven! There were over 550 responses to surveys seeking feedback about the development of our mission, vision and the community priorities included within the CSIP. Over 100 representatives (including parents, community members, school board members, employees and students) were involved in the committees, or “goal teams,” who brought this work to life. THANK YOU to those who were involved!  There are three goal areas that will drive our work through the CSIP: Academic success Culture Leadership For each of these three goals, performance objectives, strategies and measures have been developed that include ways to support and grow STUDENTS and EMPLOYEES!  Visit https://sites.google.com/republicschools.org/csip/home to dive into our new CSIP! This webpage has been designed to provide you with an overall snapshot of this work as it progresses, but also an opportunity to dive as deep into it as you’d like to learn more! We can’t wait to share more with you about our CSIP journey as the new school year begins in August!

Introducing New Teammates Please join us in welcoming “a familiar face to a new place!” Nancy Leonard, who currently serves as the RHS Nurse, will transition to the role of Staff Wellness Facilitator beginning July 1. Nancy will oversee the district’s employee wellness program with an emphasis on implementing many of the newly created CSIP strategies to address employee health and wellness. Her 14 years in healthcare and education make her the perfect fit for this position!  As our district grows so does the need to further and more intentionally engage with students, employees, parents and the community as a whole. The district's focus for these efforts are written into the new CSIP. To assist in the implementation of many of these CSIP-related strategies and further expand current efforts, Director of Communications, Josey McPhail, will be transitioning to a new role, Director of Engagement and Community Relations, beginning July 1.

To take on the traditional communication needs of the district, Nikki Faith has been hired to serve as the district Communications Specialist starting July 1! Mrs. Faith brings strong communications, public relations and marketing experience with her as she joins our team. Faith, a Mizzou Journalism School graduate, has obtained these skills during her time as a communications professional for Burrell Behavioral Health and as a journalist for KY3. Click on the image to the left to watch a video to learn more! As our Communications team evolves, we remain committed to sharing vital information in ways that work for you! Please join us in welcoming Mrs. Faith to the RepMO Team!

Open Positions It’s no secret that employers across the country are having difficulty filling open positions. Republic School District is no different. While we pride ourselves on offering competitive wages, a desirable culture, professional development and supportive leadership; the landscape for employees seeking to join the world of education is changing. Therefore, we must change with it. For open classroom teaching positions our number one priority will remain to fill these vacancies with highly qualified and professionally certificated teachers when at all possible! We deeply appreciate the classroom experience that these educators provide in our classrooms! However, due to a national decrease in the number of candidates who fit these qualifications who are applying for openings, it’s time to create additional options that can still allow us to meet our mission of effectively preparing students for their futures. Simply, there are few applicants for certain teaching positions.  Moving forward, if a teaching position is open for an extended period of time with no highly qualified and professionally certificated teacher applicants, the district will consider filling this opening with a “content specialist.” While we are still determining the specifics, a “content specialist” is an individual with at least 60 hours of college credit who enjoys and excels at working with students. In addition, “content specialists” would ideally have expertise and experience working in the field in which the teaching position opening is in, for our secondary teaching openings. District support would be put into place to assist “content specialists” in becoming trained in important classroom management and pedagogy skills.  Again, this is a “last resort” option the district will put into place, only if needed! For the upcoming school year we have two middle school science positions that have remained open with zero certificated candidates for over 30 days. The district has not experienced these difficulties in filling positions until this year. We know that there seems to be a demand for all types of employees in southwest Missouri and we are committed to putting the best people in front of our children! These are the first two positions that the district has encountered that are proving to be difficult to fill, so are opening them to be filled by “content specialists.” Interested applicants that meet the "content specialist" qualifications can find details under the "Middle School Science Teacher (8th Grade) posting. Please share this opportunity with anyone who meets our traditional teaching certification requirements, and also with anyone with a professional science background that enjoys working with students!   Also, a full list of openings with application details can be found HERE. PLEASE SHARE this information to help us recruit employees!

Salary Increases & Employee Financial Incentive to be Implemented The Board of Education took action in approving the FY22 budget during the June meeting. The district is pleased to report that the budget is in a healthy place with a current reserve of 29% (25% is the goal). This approval will result in salary increases for employees! Most employees will receive a 3-4% increase plus steps. Below are a few additional items to note: Steps at the bottom of the certified salary schedule have been unfrozen. An average of $1185 was added to each certified salary schedule base. The first-year beginning teaching salary has been increased to $40,685. To provide industry competitive wages and to help with employee recruitment, a targeted increase of $2.00/hour for custodians, food service staff, aides and paras was approved.  To remain competitive with surrounding districts, increases to stipends for activities and athletics were approved. Contracts and letters of intent employees will receive in July will reflect these updates. In addition to this salary increase, the Board of Education would like to offer a financial incentive to all employees who: Are employed by the district on Sep 6, 2022 Watch and sign the completion form for a short video Dr. Pearce will be sending in early August. Employees will have several weeks to complete this requirement. Full time employees who complete these items will receive a one time payment of $750 to be included in their September paycheck. Part time employees will receive $375 in their September paycheck. The Board of Education’s goal in implementing this incentive is to provide a token of “thanks” to our teammates for the way they serve our students and each other, and to help employees in a small way combat increasing everyday costs. THANK YOU to the Board of Education!

Director of Communications Republic School District Josey McPhail