Dear Editor
Why should you support Prop K.I.D.S.? The simple answer to that question is Community Pride. Currently, there is an executive order from the Governor of Missouri and legislation is progressing through both the Missouri State Senate and Missouri House of Representatives to change the way schools are evaluated. This change will result in not only the district receiving a letter grade from A to F, but also each building within the district receiving an individual letter grade. How would you as a community member feel about your school if the Primary, Elementary, and Middle School were to receive a letter of A or B, while the High School receives a letter of D? You may then ask the question “Why would the High School receive such a low grade?” The simple answer is there is not enough resources to provide the programs needed to raise the letter grade without a newer building.
Prior to the tornado, the High School hosted a robotics team, this team was able to win some awards for their design and work on building the robot. However, the team was unable to effectively test their programming for the task due to the lack of space to set up a practice arena. In addition to the robotics team, classes on coding have been introduced into the curriculum. Again, there is a lack of space for students to effectively try out their coding skills by having robots complete a course in a sample arena.
I have read the statements by some individuals who indicate that the building was sufficient for their needs when they were in High School so why should we replace the building with something more modern. I am proud to state that I have been teaching at Perryville High School for 24 years, and until the tornado I was in the same room. Was I able to make things work for instruction to occur? Yes, but several shortcomings with the room became obvious as I progressed over the course of the next 23 years. The main difficulty was the lack of access to electrical outlets. With the change from textbooks to ChromeBooks, this became more evident. While we would remind students to charge their devices at home and bring them to school fully charged, this often did not happen or with continued use throughout the day, the devices would need to be recharged. Therefore, it was necessary for teachers to allow students to charge their device within the classroom. This became an issue when several students needed to charge their device at the same time and there were only three outlets available for use within the classroom.
For the most part, gone are the days of students sitting in straight rows and teachers writing lessons on chalk boards. Today’s students are challenged to work in groups to investigate real world problems forming solutions based on their research thereby becoming active participants in their own education. These changes are supported by research that shows by being an active participant, students understand more about the topic being discussed and make deeper connections between what they already know and what they are learning. This can only occur when teachers allow students to work in collaborative groupings, which were not always possible in pre-tornado classrooms.
Additionally, with the increased use of the internet, it was necessary to run cables so wi-fi hubs could be installed in each room. With the age of the building it was difficult for our Technology department to run these connections in the most efficient way possible. This would often result in large numbers of cables running through small spaces and would result in them not being able to run new wires as they ran out of space in the available spaces.
Finally, your support of Prop K.I.D.S. will allow the construction of a building that can again serve our community for several decades while serving as a source of Community Pride.
Thank you for your time.
Dr. John Cross Perryville
High School Mathematics
Teacher President, Perry County Teachers Association
