SPRINGFIELD, Mo.– Springfield Public Schools Superintendent John Jungmann delivered his annual State of the Schools address to an audience of community leaders during the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s Good Morning, Springfield! event Thursday, Aug. 6.
During the 2020-2021 school year, SPS will focus on “Building Up” learners both inside and outside the classroom.
Dr. Jungmann highlights ways the SPS team is laying a foundation for academic success and constructing solutions to new and frequently changing challenges.
Some community members joined in a safe way at Kickapoo High School, several hundred more joined online.
“We shared a little bit about our plans this year, some of the things we’ve already announced to the public, but also we’ve done a lot of celebrating of the progress that our system is making in choice opportunities, in equity work, our school construction projects that are underway,” Dr. Jungmann says. “And then all the academic successes, like our graduation rate cracking 93 percent for the first time in history.”
The State of the Schools allows the district to reflect on success, and think about where they’re headed and layout the plan moving forward.
Dr. Jungmann says the district reflected with our community on the successes of last year, number one was our teachers and our students were resilient through a pandemic.
Dr. Jungmann was excited to announce more graduates than ever in the history of SPS are receiving diplomas
Dr. Jungmann remind the community to continue to be flexible because the plan is going to shift.
“We know that the plan we put in place is where we will start, but this plan is going to shift, there is no doubt, what we’ve learned in the last 5 months is that we have to be ready to move to different phases but we are hopeful that we start here and that we can move to a full 5 day week in the first quarter, but that’s going to be dependent on the health of this community,” Dr. Jungmann said.
The district is prepared for anything, have multiple scenarios they are planning for.
Dr. Jungmann says, “Since last March, SPS has worked to build up support to help this community. Our team provided childcare for our frontline workers. We served more than 7 thousand grab and go meals for our students, plus another 75 thousand meals this summer. We provided internet access to more than 2 thousand students so that each one could access online learning opportunities and so much more. The team of 3500 SPS teachers and support team members worked to adapt quickly and to build what our community needed to rapidly provide the support necessary to support our students and our families. We’ve continued to adapt and are making changes necessary to start successfully on August 24.”
