Even though it’s Pulaski County’s second-largest school district, the Dixon R-I School District enrolls less than a quarter of the students who attend the Waynesville R-VI School District.
However, Dixon’s principals and administrative personnel told board members Monday night that they’re prepared to handle more growth.
Dixon Middle School Principal Jim Brown said his building has 260 students.
“Our numbers are up, our class sizes are up, which concerned me, but things seem to be OK,” Brown said. “Our open house was well-attended and I think parents got a pretty good idea what middle school was going to be like by going through the rooms with their kids.”
Brown said a change this year will be that there will be only two lunch periods with a third period used for detention for students who need to be disciplined. Unfortunately, Brown said, several students will already have to report for lunchtime detention for conduct on their very first day of classes.
Elementary Principal Joyce Shepherd said she has 473 elementary students. That’s 13 less than at the end of the 2007-08 school year but more than at the beginning of the school year, she said.
Discipline will also be enforced at the elementary level, she said.
“Our positive behavior support theme this year was, ‘Good behavior is your ticket to success,’” Shepherd said.
The kindergarten class is somewhat smaller this year with 65 student, Shepherd said, which may be an indicator of future stabilization in enrollment.
The new Dixon High School principal, Jerry Braschler, reported that he has 382 students and 200 of them attended open house, one of the best attendance rates he’s seen in his years as an educator.
Braschler said he wants to place a strong focus on getting test scores up in the upcoming school year and doesn’t like the results he saw.
“That’s a grave concern,” Braschler said. “I don’t want to use the wrong word here, I don’t want to sound like a dictator, but we need to do all we can to keep our focus on instruction.”
Braschler reported that he was pleased by adherence to dress code standards after seeing some clothes he didn’t like at the open house.
“We had some people I felt were not appropriately attired for school, and I’m impressed; they came in today and were OK,” Braschler said.
In other business:
• Board members agreed to move meetings to the third Thursday of the month.
• At the request of board president Troy Porter, the board will try using paperless meetings with agendas sent via e-mail and viewed on laptops at the board meeting.