Panther Families,
Welcome to the 2023-24 school year! We are excited for our students and families to begin a new year with us as we continue our mission of developing an Involved Community, Competitive Students, and Productive Citizens. This is a great time to be a Panther as we return a talented veteran staff, welcome high quality new teachers, and transition to a new administrative leadership team structure.
Building a Legacy of Our
It is a priority of our Board of Education and administrative leadership team to continue to build an impactful educational system in LeRoy that lives beyond any Board of Education, group of leaders, or staff member. We are unwavering in our belief to serve in the best interest of our students in LeRoy, regardless of what may be going on around us. This will occur with a commitment to our mission, and through effective communication, consistency in decision-making processes, and transparency.
Student Achievement
We will continue to grow our Habits of Success (Ownership of Learning, Personal Responsibility, Personal Growth, and Professionalism) and Profile of a Graduate (goal is to ensure all students are college, career, or industry ready upon graduation). Work on our HOS and POG begins the day our students enter Pre-K and continues through the moment they cross the LeRoy High School graduation stage to enter the college, career, or industry of their choice. We believe in providing students with a wide range of learning opportunities and experiences to help them develop into successful adults. Our staff has worked over the summer to prepare for a new year of working toward our mission through professional development in our summer graduate class “Actionable Strategies for Targeted Solutions - Fueling Our Profession and Organization”, engaging in a professional learning community to link our Habits of Success to research-based social-emotional learning practices, and expanding our Habits of Success more specifically to our co- and extracurricular activities through the professional development of ROLE - Responsibility, Ownership, Leadership, and Execution.
During a time when there continues to be a national narrative that public schools are failing students and there remain significant learning gaps since the pandemic, we are proud that we met the needs of our students throughout the pandemic, have closed pandemic learning gaps, and work to continue to meet the social-emotional needs of our students. While we still have gaps to fill and we strive toward greater success, our Spring 2022-23 AIMSweb and Star Renaissance Assessment academic data for Grades K-8 show 84% of all students met or exceeded math grade level standards, and 72% of all students were reading at or above grade level. The same data reports that 91% of students who do not receive intervention services in math met or exceeded grade level standards, and 86% of students who do not receive reading intervention services were reading at or above grade level. Of students receiving intervention services in math or reading, on average, students were less than one grade level behind. Our current student performance has returned to pre-pandemic levels, and, in specific grade levels, has exceeded pre-pandemic performance.
Community Relations
Our focus will be on effective communication, consistency in decision-making processes, and transparency. We will utilize our new website and app (August 1st), Skyward messenger, and social media platforms to consistently message our efforts toward our mission. Our new website launch will include a new look, new features, and a whole new user-friendly experience. A key improvement will be our new website app that will give families immediate access to information through their device: live social media feeds, events calendar, athletics, breakfast and lunch menus, and notifications through push messaging. Visit our website (https://www.leroyk12.org/) or download the new app for free by visiting your device’s app store and searching for LeRoy CUSD #2.
Finance
As a district, we will continue to be good stewards of taxpayer money by providing extensive educational opportunities for students, spending responsibly, and working toward opportunities to decrease the financial burden on our local taxpayers. Federal funding has been an essential financial support for the past two years to help fill gaps and link us to future local funding. We have effectively built a bridge between increased pandemic federal funding and future local funding, such as planning to use EAV generated through the wind farm east of town to supplant lost federal funding. As federal funding expires at the end of this fiscal year, revenue from current operational windmills east of town will begin to flow to the district. Growing our EAV is the best path to providing better opportunities to our students and lowering the financial burden on our local taxpayers. As a school district, we support economic growth and diversifying our tax base, which can be done through a variety of paths - growing business and industry in the community, increasing our amount of residential property, and passing a County Schools Facility Tax that would allow us to use 1/3 of revenue to abate local property taxes, 1/3 to spend on mental health and school security, and 1/3 to spend on improvement of facilities.
Facilities
Our grounds, maintenance, and custodial staff have done an outstanding job preparing our facilities for the opening of school. The buildings and grounds look great, and we still have two weeks to wrap up preparations for the new school year. In addition to regular on-going maintenance this summer, we were also able to reseal the blacktop on all of our parking areas, add accessible parking to the baseball/softball and track complexes that includes blacktop access paths, add new roofs to the JH/HS and LPA buildings, paint throughout the district, and improve plans for best use of our auditorium space. Moving into the school year, we will continue to evaluate our short-term and long-term needs, and create plans for improvement through potential future revenue, Health/Life/Safety planning, and the budgeting process.
On behalf of the LeRoy CUSD #2 Board of Education and staff, we hope your children have an amazing school year full of learning, challenge, growth, and fun. It is always a great day to be a Panther!
Jeff Baughman, Superintendent
Go Panthers!
Key August Dates
August 1
Online Registration opens through Skyward Family Access
August 7-8
Walk-In Registration 8:00-11:00 and 1:00-4:00 at individual buildings
August 14-15
Opening Staff Institute Days
August 16
First Day of School - Full Day Attendance
Check out the LeRoy CUSD #2 Website: http://www.leroyk12.org
Follow LeRoy CUSD #2 on Twitter: @LeRoyCUSD2
Like and Join LeRoy CUSD #2 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leroycusd2
Visit our Vimeo Page: Small Town, Big Opportunities - https://vimeo.com/205290893
Involved Community - Competitive Students - Productive Citizens