2023-24 Welcome Back Letter
Dear SDSM Families and Caregivers ,
The beginning of the school year is the most exciting time of year for students and teachers – I hope your home is brimming with energy and excitement – all of our schools certainly are!
Because I’m new to South Milwaukee, I wanted to share a little bit about myself. I’ve spent more than two decades in classrooms and in various leadership roles and see so much to celebrate and the potential to build on the work done here in South Milwaukee. (If you are interested in learning more about me and my career check out an episode of the podcast about me and our plans for this year and this welcome video.)
We have been hard at work all summer to be ready for our learners to return to school. Our Field Surface Improvement Project is well underway with the football field being complete. The paving of the track surface started last week, and the baseball and softball fields will start up again this week.
We are grateful to our Launching a Legacy committee which has already raised more than $500,000 and has committed to raising $900,000 more. Thanks also to the Green Bay Packers Foundation for a grant of $100,000 for our fields.
Our vision for this project formed when we received a $1 million donation from The Bucyrus Foundation. That has helped us kick off this fields project and create amazing opportunities for all learners and our community as they use the fields for sports programs, our band and physical education classes.
It’s a big year for our athletic facilities in general. While unplanned, we’ll have a new hardwood floor in the Sullivan Fieldhouse at the high school. A flood last year caused by a blocked drain damaged the old floor. We were able to finish the year on the old floor, but this summer it’s been completely redone with payments from our insurance claim. These upgrades look amazing and add to the value of the programming we offer as a district. In addition, we have upgraded and added cameras to enhance our measures around school safety.
Our teacher teams have spent the summer planning for some continued work on literacy instruction and curriculum development in all areas. In addition, our teacher leaders and administrators spent time this summer reviewing the data from last school year and creating new goals with strategies at each school site.
We have some exciting progress to report from the last school year. Our composite ACT score is on the rise and we saw a significant increase in our MAPS data at the elementary level in reading and math. At the middle school, we saw an increase in our academic data in reading and math and did some new work on creating stronger relationships with all students. Our grads, the Class of 2023, showed how valuable their hard work and academic excellence was – the class earned $2.7 million in scholarships to aid them in advancing their education!
One thing those scholarship winners had in common is that they were in class and ready to learn. It’s so important. Our principals and district office staff have been working on creating some new systems to support increased attendance at each school and a process for responding to incidents of bullying that is comprehensive. Learning and growing isn’t just for our students. We’ve spent time this summer reviewing our data, planning for professional development for our educators and paraprofessionals, and creating some consistent practices across all school sites.
One thing that makes us education professionals is that we know we don’t have all the answers and work in conjunction with our community to create solutions. This year, we are hoping to get more input from families and caregivers about our five-year goals by developing a strategic plan. Strategic plans are used by organizations and school districts all over the nation to set some goals and markers for success. We are starting a long-range strategic planning committee that will meet bi-monthly for the first semester to help us set goals around the student experience, long-range fiscal stability, community and family engagement, and employee retention. The dates of the meetings are linked in this document Strategic Plan SDSM July 2023. We need and greatly value the input from our families and caregivers and would love to have you join our committee. If you are interested in joining the committee, please complete this form.
Everyone grows when they get constructive feedback. I’d like your feedback on how satisfied you were with our schools last year. We have survey data from students and staff, but have not yet asked you about your experience in our schools. Please answer the questions in this survey to share with us your satisfaction from last school year so we can use that information in our strategic planning process to increase family engagement and satisfaction.
It was a very busy summer and an excellent start with the welcome of new teachers last week and all staff today. We are prepared and ready to welcome learners on September 5th!
As a reminder, start time at the elementary school is 8:30 a.m. and is 7:30 a.m. at middle and high school. We also have an open house for our middle and high school tonight, Tuesday, August 29, from 5-7 p.m. and elementary open house on Wednesday, August 30, from 5-7 p.m. I will be at the open house and hope to see you there!
- Superintendent Letter
- superintendent