Submitted by Ethan Sickels,

Rock Port R-II Superintendent

We are off and running! After a challenging summer, I am truly glad to see everyone back in the building. This is always an exciting time of the year, and I look forward to fantastic learning opportunities and continued success for our students during the 2019-20 school year.

I wanted to discuss a couple of topics this week, with one of those being improvements in our east parking lot. While it’s not a finished product, we have come a long way to ensure improved drainage, and providing a better parking situation for our students and patrons. We will continue to make improvements as time and finances allow, but have been blessed with the hours, equipment, and knowledge donated this summer towards our improvements. A huge note of thanks goes out to Clay Vogler, Brian Kelly, Lance Lansdown, Colby Lansdown, Chad Schomburg, Gary Davis and Ken Miller. They spent many hours over these past few weeks making those improvements. We have future plans for lighting and a sidewalk, but I am happy and thankful for what those fellas were able to accomplish this summer.

The other bit of news isn’t anywhere near as positive … it was the news of the wind farm project not coming to our area as previously announced. I still hold out hope that sometime, someday, there will be another project to take its place. Unfortunately, as many of you know, that was slated to be a huge positive financial gain for our district over the next 30 years. In the Rock Port R-II School District alone, we were looking at an additional $350,000 or more annually. While extremely disappointing, we will continue to work towards our goals to the best of what our finances allow. You handle the curveballs life throws at you, and this community has seen plenty over the last six months. It just wasn’t meant to be this time, but we will continue to provide the best possible educational opportunities for our students and staff.

It’s time to go to work . . . for our students, our faculty and staff, and for our administration as well. It’s going to be a great year to be a Blue Jay, and we look forward to taking you along on the ride. I will see many of you at activities, athletic events, and around town. Be supportive, be proud, and get loud for your Blue Jays! As always, I leave you with three important words . . . GO BIG BLUE!