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Gemeinschaftliche Aktualisierungen, April 21, 2025

Jede Woche teilt Superintendent Wendy Dau ein Video-Update mit der Provo-City-Gemeinde und gibt wichtige Neuigkeiten und Einblicke in den Provo City School District. Schalten Sie jede Woche ein, um über alle wichtigen Ereignisse und Entwicklungen in unseren Schulen informiert zu bleiben.

Hello, Provo City. I’m Superintendent Dau from the Provo City School District. Today is Monday, April 21st. I want to start by giving a big shout out to Olivia Ziering. She is a teacher at Shoreline Middle School. She is this week’s recipient of the Provo Way Award. She really is a teacher that goes above and beyond.

She is often spending time on lesson planning. When she’s on vacation and after hours and really puts in additional effort. And it isn’t because that is the expectation. It’s just she really cares about her kids and she really loves to figure out ways to make the material very accessible to her students.

So we just wanted to give her a big shout out and if, if your children happen to have her as a teacher perhaps you could give her a little congratulations as well. I also want to give a big shout out to Timpview High School’s theater department their teacher, Kennedy Shanklin Naski, I hope I said her last name right, but I know her as Kennedy.

So they did a production of the Woodsman, which is the backstory of the Tin Man. It is such a unique production because there’s very little speaking, a little bit of singing, but almost everything is communicated through gestures and facial expressions. It was a fantastic performance. The kids are so talented and just, you know, that there were, there was a ton of work that went into the choreography and the set design and costumes, and it was just amazing.

So if you didn’t get to see it, you missed out. It was so incredible. Just also want to make you aware that our parent advisory committee is meeting this week to talk about some of the issues that are happening across our schools. We had a great Community Connections Committee meeting last week wherein we really laid out the salary gaps that exist between Provo City School District and our neighbors, Nebo and Alpine in particular.

And some of the ideas that we’re actually contemplating. To think about how we can close that salary gap and be really creative with that. We’re also looking at all of the different ways in which we’re expending money in the district and figuring out, is this really a necessity? Is this something that is just helpful?

What does that look like? That’s everything from how we fund social workers in every single building to nurses, in every nurses and health clerks in every building to our Dual Immersion Programs. What does that look like? To our Camp Big Springs. There’s just a ton of different things that we really need to go through and evaluate.

And there are many things that we need to make sure that it’s aligning with our mission and vision as a district and our strategic plan goals, that’s gonna be a process. Nothing is eliminated overnight or changed overnight. Our goal is to provide a lot of great opportunities for students and to continue to do so.

We just need to be really responsible with the resources that we have been given from taxpayers and be really transparent about what that process looks like. So you’re gonna see over the course of the next year, several programs being evaluated and figuring out if there are ways to deliver the same level of services, just maybe in a better way or a more efficient way.

What does that look like? And, and what should we be prioritizing? I really appreciated one of the parents on our Community Connections Committee talked about starting with the priority of which programs benefit the largest numbers of students and, and focusing on that versus on programs that target a really limited number of students.

And so just kind of keeping that in mind we’re taking that information back to our board of education and ultimately they set the budget. And they determine how that aligns with our mission and vision and goals. And then we as a district administration carry forth that that vision and that budget.

So just want to make you aware of those discussions and why those are happening. As we’re trying to look at ways in which we can pay our teachers and our employees overall more and close those salary gaps. We know we need to keep really highly, highly qualified people in our district. And when we do that, that’s when we just have better results for students on a better environment, and it will help us to create a destination district here.

We are also working with the School Board’s Association to identify some key issues for the 2026 legislative session. Some of the issues that have come up are obviously attendance just, you know, in some cases people not recognizing how important attendance is and how closely related it is to student success.

We’re also hearing from employers that students that are coming out of our school system don’t value showing up. And that’s a problem because that’s a major piece of success. 90% is showing up. And so really instilling that value in our students and making sure that we have very rigorous and engaging lessons for our students to participate in.

So it’s a, it’s a it’s both sides of that have have to, we have to ensure that we’re doing right on both sides of that. We’re also gonna talk about ways in which we can alleviate some of the stresses that high attendance high absenteeism rates have on teachers and what we can do to help support our teachers more effectively while providing support to our students.

We’re also talking with Senator Stratton about the possibility of having an education commission. That could kind of oversee and vet bills. We have in general over a hundred education bills every single session. Sometimes those require more work and change in policy and practice than other times.

And we really appreciate that the number of bills actually was lessened in the last legislative session. But just continuing to work with our legislators. None of them want to burden our system and we want to ensure that that we communicate what it is that we need and the impact of these things.

And they’ve been so receptive to listening to those to that feedback that we’ve given them. So we’re very grateful for that. We also want to ensure that we are doing right with all of the things tied to school safety, but also want individuals to understand sometimes the disruptions that occur and unintended consequences that can happen from certain requirements of that.

So we’ll be working with our legislators on that as well. So we’re working with the School Boards Association, superintendents and business administrators as a very cohesive education entity.

We’re also working with Utah Valley University. We have a great partnership with UVU. They want to do something similar to what we have set up with the University of Utah. Where they identify our student names, just directory information, names and addresses so that there’s an automatic enrollment and admission process for students. That becomes a barrier for a lot of kids, is just filling out the application and what that looks like. And so we’re just trying to break down those barriers and, and really assist our students in helping them understand what options are available at UVU and all of the different programming situations that are there and the great things that they can pursue in terms of a post-secondary education. We’re also working with them to provide ways to ensure that our high school students graduate from high school with their first year of college math completed. We know that the math requirement is one of the major reasons why students will drop out of college.

And we’re working with the university to create some more creative pathways for math. Several of the districts that are in our partnership have already been piloting those things and we’re hoping to be able to get those things implemented, not by this fall, but by the fall of 2026. So we’re working on lots of things to benefit our students and just want you to know that we are.

We are excited as the end of the year is starting to come to a close. I believe our graduations are less than a month away now, so that’s pretty exciting. With that I hope all of you have a fantastic week by now.

Alexander Glaves
  • Spezialist für soziale Medien/Marketing
  • Alexander Glaves
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