SCSD#1 Ready for Back-to-School

The first day of school for students at SCSD#1, Ranchester and Big Horn, will be on Monday, Aug. 22. Pete Kilbride, Superintendent, talked about back to school in 2022.

He said that between the brick-and-mortar schools in the district and the Cowboy State Virtual Academy, (CSVA), there are around 1200 students enrolled in the district, with around 200 enrolled in the CSVA.

SCSD #1 not only helps students prepare for college, by having dual enrollment with the college, but also to go directly into the work force.

With internships and job shadow programs, students learn about the working world firsthand. Kilbribe talked about an employability report card that he heard about from a school in Wisconsin. This program is to help students learn what is important when finding and keeping a job. He said it was about, “How employable are you?”

He added that this year they have added a job coach to the staff to help students who want to pursue jobs out of high school. He also wanted feedback from employers to make sure SCSD#1 is doing everything they need to do to make the graduating students are employable.

SCSD#1 also has a life skills class for special ed kids. They started the program last year at Big Horn, and the Tongue River kids who wanted to participate rode a bus to Big Horn. The course teaches skills like how to count money and make change. He said that new for this year they have hired a life skills teacher for each school.

He said SCSD#1 wants them to learn to be independent, and wants to give them a chance to get out in the community. He said they have about 120 special needs kids in district. Around 15 to 20 students are taking the life skills classes.

Covid is still with us, and to minimize any problems, Kilbride said that they are keeping two Covid cleaners on staff to keep the class rooms clean and sanitized. This protocol also helps to keep down colds and flu and helps to keep kids in the classroom.

He added that as soon as kids get back together, and are in close contact, there may be Covid problems again. He said they will follow public health recommendations, and encourage parents that if kids are sick, keep them home. He said that schools are so much better at educating kids now who may have to quarantine at home, saying that they learned a lot during Covid, and kids can work remotely.

School shootings have been in the news lately, and Kilbride said that the schools in SCSD#1 have an emergency response protocol. Each school is training a team in the C-Stag. (Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines method), developed at the University of Virginia to assess possible threatening behaviors.

The C-Stag training helps to determine the risk, and if the talk is to be taken seriously.

Kilbride said that SCSD#1 has hired 2 new elementary counselors and a social worker. He said that some of the best prevention against school shootings is catching problems early.

He said the district has been training in the ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) program for years, and hopes they never have to use it.

Kilbride said he did worry some about the teacher shortage. He said even though they did hire all the staff they needed at SCSD#1 this year; the applicant pool was smaller than it was ten years ago.

When asked about a possible reason for the lack of teacher, Kilbride said:

As sports are an important part of the high school experience, Kilbride said that they are doing some personal development training for the coaches. “Our focus is on the student athletic experience, not so much on winning. If you focus on that, the wins take care of themselves,” Kilbride added.

“I’m really excited about getting back to school, and I’m excited about the new staff coming on for the new year.” Kilbride said. “We are looking forward to a really great year and we want to make it seamless, and we want to talk about education.”

According to the SCSD#1 website, there are back-to-school open houses on Wednesday, Aug 17 at each school, Tongue River and Big Horn, at 5:30 p.m.