South Callaway school board approves calendar, discusses COVID-19 plans

South Callaway High School Student Council members visit the South Callaway Board of Education.
South Callaway High School Student Council members visit the South Callaway Board of Education.

The South Callaway R-2 School District Board of Education approved the 2020-2021 school year calendar at its March meeting Wednesday.

The school year will start for students Aug. 24 and end with early dismissal May 21. The calendar includes two weeks off between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1 for Christmas break, a three day break for Thanksgiving from Nov. 25-27, no school Friday, March 12, and Monday, March 15, and a four-day Easter weekend.

"The calendar is very different this year because the state mandated a start of August 24 - that's seven less days than we had this year to play with in that calendar," Superintendent Kevin Hillman said.

The board was set for a potential shake-up after the April school board election, but fears about the spread of COVID-19 inspired Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to delay the election until June.

"For us, personally, I love this," Hillman said, noting now, new members would join the board when it is starting fresh for next year.

In other business, the board heard about other ways COVID-19 planning has impacted the district, which is closed until April 3, with at least a week of remote learning starting March 30.

South Callaway Middle School Principal Gary Bonsall told the board an estimated 90 percent of the students in his building have access to the internet. Bonsall said the school has an email address for every family - ensuring a communication method during the period of remote learning.

Campus, including buildings, playgrounds and athletic fields, is now closed to the public with one notable exception - the parking lots. Anyone without internet access is welcome to use the district's public wireless connection, though they are asked to remain inside their vehicles.

"I do think there's not many silver linings in that, but we've been talking about being able to distance learn in the next two or three years anyway. Well, it just got fast tracked," Hillman said.

The district discussed sending devices home with elementary students but decided against it.

"What we decided is this is a brand new world for us, and we didn't think that that was the time for them to also try to figure out with a kindergartner at home how we're going to handle these devices - so they are on hard-copy packets," Hillman said.

Hillman told the board the district is considering using school buses to deliver paper materials and food.

"We talked to our transportation department - bragging on them, we started talking about the very real possibility when we come back that they will be an internal post office, making deliveries of packets and potentially food and things like that. They didn't blink an eye," Hillman said.