Assistant Superintendent Matt Hammonds with the Steelville R-3 School District on Dec. 18  gave the Annual Performance Report (APR).

“Basically, the APR is broken up into two areas: 70 percent is performance, and 30 percent is continuous improvement,” Hammonds said. “Performance is like ELA, how we did in the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) test on ELA and math all the way throughout the school district, and continuous improvements are like college and career readiness, attendance and things like that.” 

Hammonds commented on how well the school district does with continuous improvement, but overall, APR dropped 7.1 percent from 2024 to this past year. Also, in comparison to 2024, when measuring the academic performance of all students at a given point on the MAP assessment, scores decreased in all areas: ELA, math, science and social studies.

“They look at that predicted score, and basically...when our students take the assessment, they judge how far apart our students’ predicted score was from the actual score that they scored in last year’s MAP test,” Hammonds said.

Board members looked at the graduation rate, which is measured using the Local Education Agency’s (LEA) four, five, six and seven-year rates. In 2025, it was a six-year rate.

“(This shows) the number of kids that graduate in our school district within six years,” Hammonds said.

Data showed that in six years, the school district has not had any dropouts, and students are earning their diplomas. When it comes to continuous improvement, the school district is at 100 percent for everything except attendance, where they tend to lose an APR point. Steelville R-3 School District missed 18 instructional days in the 2024-25 school year, the most in its conference, largely due to fall flooding and inclement weather in the area. The board is looking for a way to improve the school district.

“We’re looking at working with Step Up Consulting for instructional practices a little bit, and planning long-term curricular goals, to get all buildings with the curriculum writing all together so that we have a better foundation for our instruction,” Hammons said.

In other business, the school board decided to table the discussion over whether to approve the Missouri Student Survey. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) survey is from the Prevention Coalition. Superintendent Steven Vetter doesn’t necessarily see a problem with the actual survey, but also isn’t exactly for it.

“I will say that, if at least one of the other county schools does not decide to give this, I would rather not, only because we already do surveys, and that’s just another 35 to 40 minutes out of class time,” Vetter said. “We already do a student survey ourselves, and I’m satisfied.”

The purpose of the survey is to help the Prevention Coalition with its efforts to dissuade and reduce substance abuse. 

The purchase of a 2026 Thomas 71 passenger bus and a 2027 MicroBird 30 passenger bus was approved to replace the ones that are old and in need of repairs. The board doesn’t see the need to spend $5,000 to $7,000 on a minibus with about 230,000 miles on it.

“But even with these bus purchases, I think at this moment, [the budget] would have a deficit by $60,000. I was kind of hoping to hold off until the next budget year,” Vetter said.

They also approved the Missouri School Boards’ Association (MSBA) policy and procedures updates on topics like AI use in schools and a threat assessment policy and transferring with the student if they switch schools.

The board also renewed the Missouri Ozarks Community Head Start Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

The next school board meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Jan. 15 at Central Hall.