The North Lyon County school district, USD 251, will face lower enrollment numbers this year. Despite the lower numbers, officials say the district has a lot to look forward to.
“It’s really too early to give a definitive number for us,” said Steve Mollach, North Lyon County superintendent. “My best guess at this point is we’re going to be down. Probably going to be down 25 to 30 students. About half of that was expected. I think we’re feeling the effects of the Tyson layoffs to a certain extent.”
The district includes three K-8 buildings — Admire, Americus and Reading — and Northern Heights High School at Allen. Final first-day enrollment figures won’t be available until Friday as school starts today.
Despite fewer students, Mollach said the district has many things to look forward to. The Academy of Reading program has been updated. The program is used at the elementary schools to enhance reading levels and to assess where students are. The district is expanding its Virtual Prescriptive Learning Lab at Northern Heights. Upper level students can take tele-classes.
The district also is developing a new technology plan this year.
“It’s a pretty in-depth review of what our technology needs will be for the future and put them in a five-year plan and prioritize what our technology plan will be,” Mollach said.
Staff development is another goal for the district.
“We’re going to continue to strive to have 100 percent of our teacher staff ‘highly qualified,’ which is quite an undertaking,” Mollach said. “The requirements of the state are pretty stringent. Right now we are at 96 percent, which is outstanding.”
The district is focusing on energy savings as well in light of rising costs.
“We’ve put together a simple but hopefully effective energy saving plan,” Mollach said.
One of the continuing challenges in the district is continuing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress as a part of the No Child Left Behind Act.
“Last year we had 23 state standards of excellence,” Mollach said. “Which is just outstanding. Quietly we’ve gone about doing that very well for a number of years.”
Comments
Post a comment
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. Our goal with this feature is to encourage thoughtful discussions about the news stories. Using the comment feature to make random attacks on people is not acceptable. Emporiagazette.com neither endorses nor guarantees the accuracy of any user contribution. Responsibility for what is posted or contributed to this site is the sole responsibility of each user. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
(Requires free registration.)