Editors Note: This article was originally published in the Aug. 16, 2023 issue of the Chronicle Progress. Some information may be outdated.
Written by Jenessa Walgren
With summer vacation over and the school year starting, teachers are prepped and ready to welcome their students back to campuses across Millard School District.
“We are excited to get everyone back, we appreciate all the good preparations people have put in during the summer and we’re ready to get the system up and going,” said David Styler, MSD superintendent.
Though the school district policies and procedures for the schools are staying relatively the same, there are a couple of new modifications.
One includes a change in the district’s kindergarten program. In previous years, Delta and Fillmore schools only provided half days for kindergarten students. However, the 2023-2024 year will offer full-day classes.
“The state funded it this year for the first time, so every school district in Utah now offers a full-day kindergarten,” Styler said.
The state chose to fund full-day kindergarten when new research showed students enrolled in all-day are growing and learning faster than students in half-day classes.
Delta South Elementary will have eight kindergarten classes and Fillmore Elementary will have four. To help smooth the transition from half-day to a full day, the district will still be offering half days if parents choose them. All students participating in the half school day will start in the morning and leave before noon. They will be mixed into classes that will continue the rest of the day.
The core curriculum will be met in the morning for all kindergarten students so the half-day students have the skills they need to be successful in first grade.
“The focus will be on literacy and numeracy in the morning……specialties like P.E., music, and art in the afternoon,” said Duane Rawlinson, Delta South Elementary School principal.
At Delta Middle School, Principal Matthew Basset explained they will switch up how fifth and sixth graders participate in intramural sports activities this year during their lunch break.
“Homeroom classes this year in fifth and sixth will compete against each other in intramurals and crown a champ,” he said.
The seventh and eighth grade intramurals will stay the same. The students will be choosing their teams and competing. Intramural sports give students a chance to connect with their peers and compete against each other in games like sand volleyball and dodgeball, the principal said.
Though the adjustments are minor, there was still excitement within the staff as the days counted down until students arrived back for the upcoming school year.
“I’ve had 12 children go through the school district. I know we have great faculty and staff in Millard County that are very supportive of everyone; we are here for our kids and seeing them happy and ready to learn gives us an exciting feeling of being back together at school,” said Carolee Ferris, principal at Delta North Elementary School.
Basset explained that he and his staff will go class to class, face to face with kids they recognize and introduce new students to everyone.
“We are going to go out of our way to make students feel comfortable, not only let them know the expectations but welcome them back,” he said.
At a school board meeting last week, Styler compared the district, its campuses and employees to parts of a well-designed machine, ready to spin up and accelerate learning. He called all participants in the daily process “educators” because without all of the pieces—the bus drivers, the lunch servers, the janitors and the teaching assistants among all the teachers and administrators—the system wouldn’t work. But as a team, students receive a safe environment in which to grow and learn.
“We’re excited to welcome parents and students and hope they have a fantastic school year with a lot of learning,” Styler said.
