Parents Come Out in Full Force to HSD Board Meeting

It was a full house at Tuesday's Hazelwood School District Board of Education meeting, which was packed with action.

Hazelwood School District (HSD) Superintendent Dr. Steve Price started the meeting with a presentation regarding open enrollment. The Missouri Legislature is currently set to review the topic, and could allow parents to pick the public school their children attend.

The open enrollment legislation allows parents to transfer children into neighboring school districts without paying tuition. Schools losing students would pay districts receiving their students. Missouri's proposal would require schools to set ideal class sizes and wouldn't force schools to accept new students if they have no room.

Dr. Price informed the crowd that has an advocacy group, the HSD Legislative Advocacy Committee, that is active in speaking with the legislators in Jefferson City regarding issues pertinent to the district. These include the two very hot button issues of open enrollment and school funding.

"It's meeting to weigh in on exactly these kinds of issues that are facing the legislation right now," Price said. "Our committee will be taking a position on this ... we encourage our community to get involved and write your opinion to the legislators."

Assistant Superintendent for Communications Diana Gulotta said that, although the committee is not a lobbyist organization, it will help HSD create a legislative platform.

The first reading of 23 of the district's revised policies were among the meeting's topics. The policies include:

• workers' compensation
• suspension of professional staff members
• students' discipline
• seclusion, isolation and restraint
• student insurance
• student allergy prevention response

All of the proposed policy revisions are available to view at the HSD during normal business hours.

"We do ongoing policy review," Price said as he introduced the policy. This is policy that comes before us each year, and we had our legal council look over them, he said.

Hazelwood Southeast Middle School, along with , Keeven and Larimore elementary schools, presented its student performance monitoring reports, which can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

's parents and staff came out to support the reading and took up the left side of the meeting area. According to the school's report, it is below district and state levels in third through fifth-grade communications arts and mathematics, and fifth-grade science.

reported decreasing levels in third and fourth-grade mathematics and communications arts, but fifth-grade levels increased in both those subjects and science. According to the school's report, it is below district and state levels in third through fifth-grade communications arts and mathematics and fifth-grade science.

All Hazelwood Schools recently wrapped up Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP) reviews. Reports for the district will follow the review and a recommendations process will be presented to the Missouri State Board of Education for its approval. The third, fourth and fifth-grade students are also preparing for the state MAP test, which will begin the week of March 28.

The next Hazelwood School District Board of Education meeting is set for March 1.