From the Desk of Patrick McKernan
Dear USD 429 Parents and Guardians:
It has been great seeing your children back in school. I hope they are off to a great start to the 2022-2023 school year. I know our staff is happy they are back. I was so pleased to see many of you at Open House and then football game on Friday night. I have a few topics to discuss in this article. Various, different topics, but wanted to make sure I got the information out to you.
- Substitute for House Bill 2567 – This new law, passed this last legislative session, has a lot to do with schools. One aspect of this law is to allow parents to OPT in for certain surveys we would like your students to fill out during the school year. We recently sent you a message for our mySAEBRS, Fastbridge social emotional screener. Please let me know if you have questions regarding this new law or the information we have sent out. We believe these surveys give us good information to help your children continue to have a positive experience in our schools. Any survey we give that falls under these guidelines we will post on the website. I will be talking more about additional sections of this law as the year goes on.
- For those of you attending activity events in our district, do not be surprised if you only see three football officials or one volleyball official officiating the games. This will be worse during basketball season. The shortage of officials in all sports is real. There are reasons for this, but if you are interested in becoming a registered official, please contact us and we can get you on the right path. Please treat those who are willing to spend time officiating with respect.
- Transportation – We as well as every other school district in the state, are looking for bus drivers. Mainly we all need drivers to take our students to their activities. There will be times this season when we reach out to parents to help us drive kids to an activity. If you are willing to drive a school vehicle to an activity and transport kids, please let the coaches and activity sponsors know. If you are interested in getting a CDL to drive activity trips, please let us know.
- Covid Protocols – We are not contact tracing nor quarantining this year. Please follow this link to help you determine what to do if you suspect your child is positive, showing symptoms, or is positive. This also details the procedures for close contacts of siblings and friends. https://www.troyusd.org/vnews/display.v/ART/630647d050db1 We will update the website when we have a positive case, but it is not our intention to send out individual grade level or class notification.
Please contact me if you have any questions. I am proud to serve as your superintendent of schools and will always work with you to help your child have a great school experience.
Patrick E. McKernan
Superintendent of Schools
Troy USD 429