The Moniteau County R-1 School District Board of Education approved its 2020-21 school calendar, among other business, Wednesday at its February meeting.
The calendar compresses the schedule to allow for construction time next summer, assuming the passage of the district's upcoming bond measure on the April ballot. The board agreed to revise the calendar accordingly if the measure is not approved by Moniteau County voters in the upcoming election.
In line with this year's calendar, the board set a pair of snow make-up days for later this semester. School will be in session for a half day March 20 - in the morning, with students released at noon and professional development for staff taking place that afternoon - and a full day April 13. Superintendent Dwight Sanders said following a survey of district staff, about 75 percent of the staff felt the district should be making up at least some of the time missed more recently due to inclement weather.
"(State requirements say) we don't have to make up any of our missed time, but it became apparent in reading the responses and having conversation with the board that if we could get some make-up time in prior to MAP testing and EOC testing that would be felt to be a benefit to our kids and (their) instruction," Sanders said.
Sanders said the board has agreed if there are any further snow days, they won't be made up, since those dates would simply be added to the end of the school calendar - Sanders said the board recognizes this isn't a very educationally-sound time to add in make-up dates.
The board also followed up on the recent athletic program presentations brought up at the December and January meetings, one in support of adding a wrestling program and the other in support of adding girls soccer. Sanders said he sent out a survey to eighth- through eleventh-grade students asking about their interest in participating in either sport - of that group, about 85 percent responded.
The survey asked students to identify the programs they're currently participating in or plan to participate in during the 2019-20 school year. The survey also asked, based on the athletic season, which activity each respondent would commit to participating in if selecting from a list of the district's current offerings and expanded programs including girls soccer and wrestling.
"Part of what we wanted to do is we wanted to make sure if we were looking to add a sport, we weren't having a lot of migration from a current sport that we were offering to the new sport," Sanders said. "We felt like that might be detrimental to the sports that we currently offer."
Of the survey's respondents, 16 boys and four girls committed to participating in wrestling if it were to be added as a fall sport, and 16 girls committed to participating in a spring soccer program. A group of 13 boys also expressed interest in soccer as a participation option.
Sanders said the survey also allowed students to indicate they weren't interested in participating in any of the listed options, have employment obligations that would prevent them from participating in school sanctioned activities, or would rather spend time outside of class hanging out with friends instead of participating in a sport.
Sanders noted four of the respondents indicated they'd be interested in participating in girls soccer are currently involved with track, so this wouldn't necessarily be a group that would increase participation among members of the California High School student body.
"When we're making a decision about whether we canstart a new program, we have to make sure that there's enough who say they're committed to doing it that we can actually field a team," Sanders said.
Sanders said the district is still doing some research to see how viable either program would be, such as looking into the schools nearby with which California would be competing if it were to add one or both of them, and plans to have that work wrapped up by March and a recommendation prepared for the board by its March meeting.
The Moniteau County R-1 School District Board of Education's next meeting will take place at 6 p.m. March 10 in the CHS library media room.