Sikeston Public Schools extend Easter break, shorten school year by a day in 2024-2025 calendar update

SIKESTON — Sikeston Public Schools students and staff will have an extra day for their Easter break, and the last day of the school year has been moved up by one day.

At the request of the Sikeston R-6 calendar committee and Superintendent Shannon Holifield, the Sikeston R-6 Board of Education approved amending the 2024-2025 school calendar during its regular monthly meeting Tuesday, March 11 at Central Office.

“As you know, we had some snow days and Alternative Methods of Instruction, or AMI, days (in February),” Holifield told the Board.

Unused snow and AMI days remain for the school year. Last year, the district used the extra days to let school out earlier. This year, the calendar committee asked for a day to be added to Easter break and then another used for an earlier release, the superintendent said.

Holifield said the decision to extend the Easter break and release for the year a day early is because the end of the year is usually hectic with graduation and end-of-year events so the calendar committee thought it would work better to lengthen the break.

School was originally supposed to be in session on April 17. With the amendment approved Tuesday, the Easter break for students will now be April 17-22. Teachers will still have an in-service day on April 22.

The last day of the school year was supposed to be a full day on May 16. The Board approved making the last day of school May 15, and it will be a half day, Holifield said.

“We still have AMI time, so I'm not concerned if there was to be an emergency, we have plenty of hours left there — 22.5, to be exact,” the superintendent said.

In other action by the Board, an amendment to renew the fixed price food service management contract with Fresh Ideas Food Service Management for July 1-Dec. 31 was approved.

“If you recall, back when Dr. (Tony) Robinson was (superintendent) here in the middle of the school year, we made a switch to Fresh Ideas,” Holifield said. “It is required that you go back to bid every five years. So, we're at four and a half years right now because we did that in January (2021).”

The superintendent said she, R-6 Finance Director/Federal Programs Cheryl Essner and Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources and Support Andy Mr. McGill have been researching bringing food services back into the district.

“We are not ready to bring that to you all just yet,” Holifield told the Board. “We have had several meetings and conversations and phone calls with both Cape and Jackson (school districts). They have theirs in-house.”

While the district is not in the business to make money on its food services; however, it does want to be in a position to break even or make enough money to replace equipment in kitchens and provide the needed quantity of meals for students, Holifield said.

“We've been very transparent with Fresh Ideas,” the superintendent said. “They know what our conversation has been.”

Holifield said the district also checked with board attorney Bryan Nickell and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and they agreed the district could extend its contract with Fresh Ideas for half a year, which will also give district officials time to decide what is the best choice for the district, Holifield said.

“If we were going to start in August, we need to make that decision right now, and we just don't feel like we have enough information at this point. So, I'm asking for approval to extend this contract and it's a 3% increase,” Holifield said, adding last year's contract increase with Fresh Ideas was around 20% with another 7% increase that came in January.

She continued: “We're going to continue our due diligence and just make some decisions to bring to you and get more information to bring to you if we decide that's the direction we want to go.”

In other action, the Board also made the following appointments for the Sikeston Public Schools Foundation Board of Trustees for three-year terms beginning March 12 and ending March 14, 2028: Taylor Deere, Clay Driskill and Michelle Worth. The Board will fill an unexpired term on the Foundation Board following the recent resignation by Kelly Williams at its meeting in April.

The Board also appointed Ben Alcorn as the Board of Education member designated in trust to the SPS Foundation Board of Trustees. This position is currently held by school board member Matt Drake who opted not to seek re-electoin to the board in April. This term ends March 9, 2027.

Also on Tuesday, the Board approved the following courses for the 2025-2026 school year: Project Lead the Way flight and space course at the Junior High and a girls advanced weight training course at the high school.