Submitted by Dr. Jeremy Burright, Superintendent

Thank you for being part of our Atchison County and Fairfax community. The Fairfax R-3 School District has been rolling through the 2021-22 school year since August 23 and we feel it is important for you to know about a few things that have happened this fall and so far this winter. As always, our district is focused on student learning, school climate, maintenance of the facilities, closely monitoring our fiscal stewardship, and caring for students.

Student learning has presented unique challenges to all school districts through the course of COVID-19 and Fairfax R-3 is no exception. Many students, family, and staff-members have faced sickness and absenteeism due to quarantines and isolation. So far this year, our district has not had to close for any length of time due to the ripple effects of COVID and that has allowed us to ensure that students are in class and learning on a regular basis.

While because of COVID we are not able to do accurate, multi-year comparisons with our state test data, we can do a comparison with the state averages. This year, our English scores beat the state average by 13.1%; our Math scores beat the state by 8.5%; and our Social Studies scores beat the state average by 15.1%. Our district also beat the state average in Science by 1.4%.

Additionally, 37.5% of our graduates took the ACT college readiness exam and our average score was 22.3. Compared with the state average ACT score of 20.9, this shows that our college-bound students are ready for college and university coursework.

Overall, our academic performance continues to be strong and our students demonstrate that the learning opportunities provided in PK-12th grade in our district continue to have a positive impact.

In the time of COVID-19 school climate has been a struggle for all districts. Political events and lawsuits involving district safety measures have been constantly in the news. When we combine this with never knowing from one day to the next which students or staff will be plucked out of our classrooms due to exposure or testing positive for COVID-19, the climate and predictable environment of our school setting are negatively impacted. While educators are incredibly resilient the impact to our school climate takes a toll on them. While we’ve always worked to honor the teacher voices in our district, this year we have begun a focused effort to increase that voice and take action to make the lives of our teachers a little better.

We are in the process of examining practices within the district that should include more teacher input and modifying policies to create an environment that is more employee friendly. While a person might ask why it is important to ensure employee satisfaction, at Fairfax R-3 we know that the education of children is a people-driven endeavor. If the people involved in caring for and educating our children are burned out and/or feel unappreciated, even though they may love what they do, our organization will not be as successful. The bottom line is that we care about our kids. Since we care about our kids we have to ensure the people who teach them are also cared for properly.

Because I know there are many in our community who love and are thankful for our school, its traditions, its impact on our town, its students, and its staff, I issue this challenge: Take some time to drop a teacher a note and tell them thank you. Many times the happy majority in a community are silent. Please let your happy voice be heard.

We have also taken on a significant project this year to renovate our playground area and make some long-needed repairs to our school campus. Concerns with safety and with deteriorating conditions on some of our playground equipment have led the district to seek bids on work to make our playground safer and more attractive. We also included work for water drainage under the playground and around the school. Of the over 1,000 bid contacts made by our architect, only one contractor submitted a bid. While we are committed to the repair and upgrade of our property, we will have to make hard decisions moving forward on how the district wishes to proceed with this work. Our goal is to have a finished project before the start of school in August 2022.

We are also engaged in seeking a floor replacement in our elementary facility. Water damage from a leak had a significant impact on the condition of our floors and, through the protection of our insurance company, we will be able to remove and replace the damaged areas.

Over the last five years we have replaced leaky roofs on all parts of our main facility, repaired and updated our main gym facility, used grant money to purchase new buses, and now have opportunities to continue our trend of improvements. When it comes to our facilities, it would be inappropriate for me not to mention the incredible amount of volunteer work and financial investment of our community. The Fairfax community continues to donate time and money and has been essential in upgrades to our football field and property around the school. We are thankful for the amazing support we find in our stakeholders.

Financially, our district continues to be strong and on track as discussed in our 2018 levy campaign. Our revenues continue to outpace our expenditures and we have been able to almost double our reserve holdings over the last five years. This year ESSER III COVID Relief funds will be an additional boon to our district when the Missouri legislature releases them. Recently we have been able to speak with a representative from Enel Energy who states they are working towards beginning construction on our Atchison-Holt windmill development in 2024. While the increase in revenue would most likely not impact our district until the following year, this is something to which we can look forward.

Many things can happen over the financial long-term. While we hope that things proceed smoothly with the building of the next windmill development, nothing is final. We currently have a seven-year sunset on our temporary levy. This was done out of concern for the tax burden to our community members and with hopes that other sources of revenue would present themselves. We have already seen one windmill development be indefinitely postponed, but we are still optimistic about the next one. Wisdom instructs us that with increasing costs, new sources of revenue must offset expenditures. Without new business infrastructure being built in our school district, our levy remains the primary source of revenue. It is possible that the district may still face some hard choices regarding the financial burden our taxpayers will have to bear. We hope that if and when we need to make those choices our community members will be part of the problem-solving process.

Lastly, we are thankful for the privilege to be an important part of caring for your children. It is my personal opinion that having your own children is the greatest gift and responsibility an adult can have. We know what an honor it is to have a huge, daily impact on your family. I am happy to report that I believe we have a staff that is driven by a deep motivation to care for and educate children.

In the past few months Atchison County has been abuzz with talk of a four day school week. Our district will not be exploring or implementing a four day school week and one of the reasons is the feedback our board received from our staff. Our teachers were present during the board discussion of this topic, rallied against the four day week, and voiced their concerns about how the four day week would reduce the amount of time they had to spend with our students. Their concerns centered on the health and well-being of our students and they wanted to ensure that we are able to help properly care for the children we share. Our staff has shown that they are self-sacrificing and, many times, truly put the needs of our students over their own desires. We appreciate your trust and thank you for allowing us to be stewards of all the resources you provide us. We especially thank you for trusting us to be part of the lives of your children.

Next year we will be revisiting and revising our strategic plan. It will be important that we get your input in this process because the purpose of the strategic plan is to be the primary source that drives decision making in our district. This revision will set goals and measurement for success in our district and there will be multiple opportunities for you to participate in this process. Please be ready for this process. We know we have a relationship with our community that is mutually beneficial.

In all things, thank you for supporting the Fairfax R-3 School District.