Dear MTUESD Community,
The season of Thanksgiving is upon us and I hope you will join me in a special celebration at the AMA Girls Basketball Tournament on Saturday, November 8 at approximately 4:15 p.m. to honor the service of retired Board Member Jenny Eltringham. Jenny served for more than four decades on the school board, and we will be honoring her for her service in the gym that she worked so hard to support and build. Let’s get out and show Jenny our gratitude for her role in creating that superb athletic facility and being a GREAT advocate for kids.
Halloween festivities at both sites were great fun. It is always wonderful to see the kids so proud of their costumes and parading around and to see them being admired by all.
I hosted a virtual forum for four candidates for State Superintendent of Public Instruction last week. This was on behalf of the Small School District Association. I was encouraged to hear that many of them are discussing reconfiguring formulas for funding small school districts, including base grants. What a base grant would allow is for a set allocation to go to a school just to keep the lights on. Other conversations related to unrestricting funding which would be a huge support to us. We will keep you posted on future forums.
I am very concerned with many of our kids' food availability during the school breaks. If you would like to be an angel for a family with a gift of a bag of food that is non-perishable, please drop it off at the school office or call me and I will come get it. This particularly concerns me during Thanksgiving week. I know that many of our children get a substantial amount of their food in the two meals they enjoy with us each day under the direction of Sam Austin and her amazing staff, but we are going to have some families struggling. I am also grateful to the middle school team for their support in the leadership class to lead a food drive coming up in December to benefit the Resource Connection.
Just a reminder that we have no school on Tuesday in honor of Veterans Day. We have a number of veterans that are members of our school family, and we salute and thank them for their service.
At Mark Twain we have plans in hand for the modular restroom replacement. This will be a long process as we have to move the work through DSA and OPSC. We will keep you posted on that. We are also submitting to the state for what’s called modernization funding. There is no funding currently, but you have to get in line and it takes years. Hopefully, that will be a little bit of a base nest egg for future reconstruction.
I want to thank our ELOP program staff at both sites this week. It’s great to know that your kids are receiving not just academic support but recreational activities after school and structured play. These folks are dedicated to creating a quality program and we appreciate that and their hard work. There are too many staff members to shout out in this email that staff that program, but we are grateful and you know who you are.
I hope you have a happy and healthy weekend ahead. Please take a moment to say thank you to a veteran.
Sincerely yours,
Louise Simson
Superintendent