Safety & Security
DOWNLOAD: Prop S Focus - Safe Schools
Safety and security are a source of real concern for our students, parents/guardians, staff and community members. Alarming incidents seem to happen on an almost weekly basis around the country. Thankfully, we’ve avoided any serious incidents in KSD. But the message received from our strategic planning survey was loud and clear: parents/guardians, staff and students identified safety and security as among our most important priorities.
We’ve spent time over the last year taking a close look at our safety and security policies, procedures and measures. Steps have been taken to make improvements within our current resources, including updates to our entry procedures and the relaunch of our collaboration with local law enforcement agencies. Our team engaged in this work concluded that adding safety personnel would be a priority moving forward.
We currently have one School Resource Officer (SRO). This person has operational authority over nine campuses and the central office. Response time during an incident could be as much as 10 minutes.
A portion of the levy increase would be used to add up to three additional safety and security team members, which would reduce response time by about 75 percent. Each of those staff members would be assigned to specific schools. At the same time, these staff members would also be able to coordinate in response to a potential major incident.
We anticipate that the cost to retain three additional safety and security team members will cost approximately $220,000 annually.
Staff Compensation
DOWNLOAD: Prop S Focus - Staff Support
Academic Achievement in KSD
The latest academic achievement data places KSD in the top eight percent of the 553 public school districts in Missouri. This data is included in the 2022 Annual Performance Report (APR) released earlier this year by the State’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
DESE’s report accumulates results from a battery of standardized academic exams given to students starting in the third grade as part of the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP). KSD students scored in the top three on 15 out of the 19 MAP and End-of-Course exams among our 12 peer school districts. That put our students in first place for English Language Arts and Science, and second in math. We were fourth among peer districts in social studies.
Annual Progress Report Results
Top Three Assessment Exam Results Among Peer School Districts
Attracting and Retaining High Quality, Experienced Public Educators
KSD’s students consistently demonstrate academic mastery in comparison with our peer districts. Our levy rate is the lowest and our teacher and support staff compensation is below several of our peer districts.
Under the 2023-2024 salary schedule, KSD teachers will be paid between $41,894 as a starting salary and a maximum salary of $81,127 (which is only available to teachers with at least two Master’s degrees and at least 33 years of experience). KSD’s teachers have an average of 15 years of experience. In 2022, several teachers resigned from KSD to take positions with our peer districts with higher compensation. They had an average of 18 years of experience and a cumulative 107 years of teaching under their belts. We also had 13 certified staff members choose to retire this year, and retirements have increased steadily over the last three school years. The number of KSD certified staff who have opted to leave education altogether has increased significantly since the 2020-2021 academic year. At the same time, there is a well-documented shortage of candidates in the teacher employment pool. Fewer people are choosing to pursue or maintain careers in public education.
One of the strategic priorities created by our community members is to “prioritize all employees by increasing compensation and benefits to rank no lower than 5 out of 12 peer districts by 2025.” If the proposed 45-cent levy increase is approved on Aug. 8, the additional revenue will also be used to increase compensation for our teachers and other employees. We anticipate that this investment will cost approximately $2 million.
