Sioux Falls School District celebrates 150th anniversary in 2021 argusleader.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from argusleader.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Mask wearing for students and staff in summer programs at the Sioux Falls School District will change from “expected” to “optional” as of Tuesday as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic begins to ease.
Contact tracing will also no longer be done in the school setting, spokeswoman DeeAnn Konrad said in an email to families in the district Tuesday. However, the South Dakota Department of Health will continue contact tracing outside of the school setting, and the district will uphold DOH findings.
“We will continue to identify and exclude symptomatic and positive cases,” Konrad said. “If the circumstances in the community change, we will reinstate mitigation measures as needed.”
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A Sioux Falls mother who resides in the current boundaries for her children to attend Memorial Middle School wants her children to stay in the Memorial area and not have attend George McGovern Middle School when new Sioux Falls School District boundaries take effect this fall.
Megan Steever, who lives 1 mile from Memorial west of the Tea-Ellis road, has alleged the district and school board acted unreasonably in voting to change boundaries, so she filed a lawsuit against the district. My kids will be assigned to a school 5 miles away, versus a school that is only 1 mile away, Steever told the Argus Leader on Friday.
Curriculum purchases, a change to the last day of the school year and the school district’s 150th anniversary were all pressing topics at Monday night’s school board meeting.
Educators, historians and some elected officials are urging South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and the state Department of Education to keep politics and personal bias out of the process to develop a new and enhanced civics and history education program for public K-12 schools across the state.
In her State of the State speech in January, the governor proposed one-time funding to enhance and expand teaching of civics and history in public schools, and the state Legislature approved her $900,000 request during the spring session.
In response, the state education department has embarked on development of the South Dakota Civics and History Initiative, a two-year, four-pronged plan to create new teaching content, provide new resources and training for teachers, and increase access to civic and historical lessons and experiences for students, especially at the elementary level. When the plan is finalized, use of the program will be optional for school districts.