Matt Erickson, Superintendent of LCSD No. 2, spoke with SVI and commented on two major areas of focus for the district. One was the accreditation process which is taking place this week.

“We are hosting a team who are doing an on-site peer review and we are off to a good start so far,” he said. “The school board and I met with them on 14 standards or elements that will be presented. Then the team will be out and about in the buildings and doing classroom observations. They will then meet with the admin team and give us their findings and we will get the official results in about a month.”

RELATED: RADIO INTERVIEW WITH LCSD #2 SUPERINTENDENT MATT ERICKSON –

Erickson noted this is something the district works to achieve as a whole.

“Accreditation is extremely important,” he added. “Without it you can’t offer a diploma, or high school credits. It takes all 271 support staff members and 239 certified staff members to pull this off.”

Another item which has been discussed for multiple months is that of the school calendar for the Star Valley schools. The LCSD No. 2 board of trustees has been working with multiple presentations and receiving public comment and are expected to give direction to the superintendent and the district in next month’s meeting on November 12.  Erickson explained a few of the requirements and options for that direction.

“In the state of Wyoming you have 175 days of student instruction that is expected or you can go to an alternate calendar,” he replied. “If you choose to do that you have hour requirements which is 1000 hours of seat time by a certified teacher for high school, 950 hours for middle school and elementary schools is 900. We’ve been on an alternative or hybrid calendar in Star Valley for several years now. The board will be making a decision on a four day, a five day or a four/five day hybrid.”

Each option may come with daily adjustments.

“There will be some operational adjustments if they choose to go to a four or five day,” Erickson added. “If it’s a four-day option there would be expansion of the day, a five day the length of the day can be reduced. Bussing and transportation is 125 miles long in our district and going over a million miles a year in routes and that plays a major role in all of this.”

In addition, Erickson invited the community to attend scheduled Veteran’s Day assemblies at all LCSD No. 2 campuses.

“Those are always some special assemblies,” he said. “Those are open to the community and people are welcome to attend.”