Arthur County Schools Logo

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Well here we are again, the mid-point of the school year is upon us our kids have been very busy throughout the fall and beginning of winter and looking at the school calendar it seems we will continue that trend.

Our kids are working hard in the classroom, in competitions and activities.  Seniors are working on preparing for after high school, filling out scholarship applications and investigating different options for college or career training.  This is an exciting time but can be somewhat scary time for our seniors as they prepare for the next phase in their life journey.  I know that our seniors if they put their mind and effort forth, they will be very successful beyond their time in our school. It is my sincere belief they will have a solid foundation to help them along the journey.

In our other grade levels K-11, it has been a good semester the kids and staff have worked very hard to maximize their learning opportunities and we know that we have a challenge ahead of us in the next semester.  We have some important assessments coming up and we want to do our best on those assessments.  I know the staff will do all it can to prepare our students.  I am confident our students will do all they can to score well on those assessments.

The year has been busy in various activities, our football team made the playoffs, and our volleyball team competed on the floor and advanced beyond the first round of their sub-district tournament.  I saw improvements in both teams as the season progressed.  Our FFA students have been competing in various events, we had an individual state champion in the junior portion of Range Judging in Sheridan Wilson, her second year in row for this accomplishment. The Agronomy team of Sheridan, Emma Ohm, Kaden Wykert, and Colten Storer, won their district competition and will compete at the state contest. I believe that Sheridan was the number one individual in this event as well.   We have several students who will be competing in speaking and Ag demonstration competitions and we are hoping to qualify more of our students. Our One Act Play is competing at various events and the time of this writing are preparing to compete in the District One Act play competition with a possible trip to the state competition on the line. Basketball is getting ready to start, and I want to wish everyone good luck and I look forward to watching them compete.

As you know we are in the second year of the four day week, and having an eye on preparing a calendar for next year I will be sending home surveys for you to complete regarding let me know if you want to continue with the four day week or not.  Look for the survey to come home with your student in the next week or so, and please return them to the office by December 18. Please submit one survey for each household.

You may have noticed as well that sometime we are short on bus drivers. We have two who are what I can consider our regular drivers but on occasion something comes up and we need to find a substitute, sometimes we cannot get one.  Is there anyone out there that would consider being a substitute driver for us? If you are interested please contact me in the office and I will let you know what the requirements are and how we can help get you qualified to drive for us.

We recently had an election and we have two new board members; Amy Dam and Kimberly Wenzel, I want to thank them for running because the job of board member is not always a thankful job.  Tom Rut ran as an incumbent and was re-elected to a seat on the board, thank you for serving again.

Thank you as well to Ilja Mironenko for running it is not an easy task to put your name on the ballot to serve.

A big thank you to our two members who will be exiting the board this month; Dan Powers who chose not to run again and Ryan Dye who ran again but did regain his seat. In my humble opinion both of them have served the patrons, staff and students well; as members of our board they contributed to the vision and mission of the district and made decisions with the best interests and needs of our students in mind. Thank you for your service.

We have also made some changes to our School Web page and as we complete the transition to the new page I want to make you aware of an additional tool for those of you with a Smart Phone we have an app available to view information on the web page.  Just go to the App store for Apple or the Google Play Store, search for Arthur County Schools and then download the app.  I hope this will be helpful to you.

As we reflect upon our blessings, I would like to share with you some that I have and share with all of you.   I am blessed to have the opportunity to lead this school district. We are blessed with those who serve on the school board. We are blessed to have the staff, students, parents and community members in Arthur who support our school.  I am blessed to have the support of my family and friends. We are blessed to have a great school with great kids, we should never forget that.   I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Educationally,

Barry Schaeffer

Superintendent/K-6 Principal

Arthur County Schools

Please help us ensure we are meeting the needs of our school community by responding to the appropriate survey below:
K-6 Student Climate Survey 
7-12 Student Climate Survey
Parent Climate Survey
​Thank you for your support!