Fort Zumwalt District Starts 2011-12 School Year

students headed back to class on Wednesday morning for the start of the 2011-12 school year.

Fort Zumwalt, St. Charles County’s largest school district, ended the 2010-11 school year with nearly 18,500 students. said district enrollment has been flat for the past couple of years, and at this point, it’s difficult to say what numbers for this school year may look like.  

“This year is going to be really hard to predict because there has been so many families moving in with other families, I think obviously, due to the economy,” DuBray said.

DuBray added that so far, the district has received close to 150 affidavits from families stating that they will be living with another family in the district this year.

To address ongoing state-level budget shortfalls, the Fort Zumwalt School District continued to eliminate staff positions, not by cutting teaching positions, but by not replacing staff members who retire or leave.

DuBray said the district eliminated about 20 professional staff and 20 support staff for the 2011-12 school year. The district now has a total of nearly 13,025 district employees.

“Overall the last two years, we’re down about 80 staff, and that’s helped us to address some shortfalls in the budget,” DuBray said.

New Classrooms, Air-Conditioning This Year 

Students will return to air-conditioned gymnasiums and additional classrooms this school year.

DuBray said the 14-classroom project at is complete and will be in use on Wednesday. The new air-conditioning in the small and large gym are also finished.

The additional band room, industrial tech room, and bleachers will be built next year, DuBray said. 

Students at will have to wait a few more weeks to utilize their additional 14 classrooms. Like much of the St. Louis metro area, construction at the high school was impacted by the Bricklayers Local 1 strike this summer, and DuBray said the classrooms should be complete in the beginning of October.  

The superintendent said class space may be a little tight the first few weeks, but with additional space from renovated drama rooms and the new band room, students should fit comfortably until the rooms are complete. 

Zumwalt South High School underwent major interior renovations, including new floors, ceilings and doors, all of which were complete for the start of school. The high school gyms and commons areas also have new air-conditioning units. 

Five district elementary schools had new air-conditioning units placed in their multipurpose rooms and kitchens. 

will have new air-conditioning units added by early fall, DuBray said, adding 's gym's should be complete sometime during the 2011-12 school year. 

All Kindergartners to Attend Full Day

After trying out a full-day kindergarten program last school year, Fort Zumwalt officials decided to eliminate the half-day program for 2011-12.

DuBray said the half-day option was removed due to low interest and the success of the full-day program.

“We had such success with the full-day program in terms of readiness and how advanced they were, that first-grade teachers are really going to have to adjust curriculum to deal with the better prepared kindergartners who are coming up to first grade,” DuBray said.

He added that since kindergarten is not required by the state, parents who would prefer half-days are welcome to remove their child for the second half of the day.

Students Continue to Wear ID Badges

Although there was discussion in the summer board meetings regarding , the district’s policy remains relatively the same.

During its July meeting, the school board approved a slight change in the policy. Now, those students caught “not possessing or wearing their student ID badge” a total of five times will receive four hours of Saturday detention instead of one day’s suspension.

The badges were originally introduced in late ‘90s as result of a hostage situation at , DuBray said.

 “In those days, we didn’t have security cameras, we didn’t have school resource officers, so if a student wore an ID badge it was more an immediate way to know a student was supposed to be there,” DuBray said, adding the ID badges were a tangible way to help ensure the schools were more secure.

But since then, Fort Zumwalt has added school resource officers and security cameras, and some argue the ID badges are ineffective.

DuBray said district officials are trying to develop a more objective way to look at the badge success rates, but for now a majority of the board, along with the and support the students wearing IDs.

New Year, New Facebook Law

Fort Zumwalt has adopted a new policy to comply with a new state laws banning student-teacher interaction via social media.

Missouri Senate Bill 54, scheduled to go into effect Aug. 28 states:

• "Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child's legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian."
• "Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student. Former student is defined as any person who was at one time a student at the school at which the teacher is employed and who is eighteen years of age or less and who has not graduated."
• "By January 1, 2012, each school district must include in its teacher and employee training a component that provides information on identifying signs of sexual abuse in children and of potentially abusive relationships between children and adults, with an emphasis on mandatory reporting. Training must also include an emphasis on the obligation of mandated reporters to report suspected abuse by other mandatory reporters."

“This came as a little bit of a shock to some of our staff who got used to texting and giving information to kids about athletic schedules and homework,” DuBray said.

Fort Zumwalt’s new policy prohibits teachers from communicating with students on private sites, but allows contact on public sites, meaning they are open for the student’s parents and principals to see, the superintendent said.