By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Officials with the St. Joseph School District are continuing to analyze information from the latest state report card.
The report card showed the district had made strides in attendance, some academic areas, but continued to struggle with teacher retention and hiring.
Assistant Superintendent of Academic and Education Services Ashly McGinnis says the district has still had trouble bouncing back from the pandemic.
"I think some folks got into a bad habit of not being engaged, whether that's with school or work, or even with community and family," Mcginnis tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr. "So, I think there's been a disconnect from that, and we're still trying to come back and make sure the community values education."
The district saw progress in attendance, increasing student attendance to 79-percent.
McGinnis says, however, the district didn't quite hit the state's standard of 80-percent., which is frustrating.
"Attendance we grew significantly in that area, but according to the APR report you have to be at 80% as a district to get any points at all, so we were just shy of that at 79%," Mcginnis explains. "Which is frustrating for us because we're putting in so many efforts towards attendance, but there is progress and then there's also areas we need continued focus."
Mcginnis says the district has continued implementing several strategies to help continue that progress, such as bringing back the Strive for Five campaign.
The district also made strides academically in social studies but continues to struggle in math. St. Joseph school officials hope to improve academics by hiring more high-quality teachers.
McGinnis says while the district does have many good teachers, the hiring pool isn't as deep as it once was.
"When I was the principal at Lafayette, we had a PE position open, we had 24 applications, now we may be lucky if we get two," Mcginnis says. "There's just not as many people going into education now and with Missouri being 50th in pay, that makes it challenging to attract teachers."
Mcginnis noted that even recently during a hiring fair she was next to the Omaha school district, offering starting wages over $50,000 dollars, which is challenging to compete with.