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Ask The Supt FAQs

NOTE: The privacy of our patrons who have forwarded questions to Ask the Supt is important to the district. In order to protect this privacy, some portions of the questions and answers may have been edited.

FAQs

Q: How is the decision made to cancel school due to inclement weather? Has the district ever considered a late-start schedule for those snowy mornings? View Answer

Answer:

Lots of preparation goes into the decision to cancel school. You can find out all the steps on our Emergency Preparedness web page: www.rockwood.k12.mo.us/emergency/Pages/InclementWeather.aspx

In addition, Rockwood has considered the late-start option during inclement weather. After careful review of this option by our Rockwood Transportation Department, we discovered that it would not be an effective solution for our 30 schools. Rockwood uses a transportation system that allows us to use bus drivers/buses on multiple routes to ensure students arrive at school safely, while using resources efficiently. The three tiers are as follows:

· 1st Tier - Middle schools buses deliver students to school around 7 - 7:15 a.m. for a 7:30 a.m. school start time.

· 2nd Tier - High schools and early-start elementary school buses deliver students between 8- 8:10 a.m. for an 8:16 a.m. high school start time and an 8:23 a.m. elementary start time.

· 3rd Tier - Late start elementary schools will drop off students at approximately 8:50 a.m. for a 9:00 a.m. school start time.

It takes almost three hours to complete this bus tier system for all Rockwood schools using our First-Student buses, and even longer for our Go-Ahead buses. That means that if we delayed the start of school for one/two hours during inclement weather, our late start elementary schools would begin school just in time for lunch. Taking into the account for additional travel time due to road conditions, we’d be hard pressed to complete the second round of p.m. bus routes to get students home at the end of the school day.

Many of the private or public schools that implement a late-start school day do not provide bus transportation, or they are a much smaller school district that does not need to implement multiple tiers of transportation.

Canceling school due to inclement weather is always a difficult, but the decision is particularly tough when the worst of it comes during rush hour – like it did this week. It certainly hit MoDOT hard, and the road conditions deteriorated very quickly during that rush hour traffic.

Q: What are the district's communication protocols and guidelines that allow us to serve our students, parents and school community? View Answer

Answer:

The Rockwood school community understands that clear, two-way communication is a vital component to a healthy school environment. If you have a question or concern, please follow this communication protocol:

Step One: Talk with the teacher or guidance counselor at your child’s school.

Step Two: Contact your school principal and/or assistant principal.

Step Three: Contact the executive director of prek and elementary education, or the executive director of secondary education, or the members of superintendent’s cabinet.

Step Four: Share your concerns with the superintendent.

If your concern has not been resolved at those levels, citizens are invited to send a written request to the Board secretary to be filed with the Board of Education. Patrons may also call or e-mail Board of Education members or share a patron comment at a Board meeting.

Q: How do I contact the Superintendent? View Answer

Answer:

The Office of the Superintendent may be reached at the Rockwood Administrative Center, 111 East North Street, Eureka, MO 63025-1229, by telephone at (636) 733-2000. Or you can submit your question to the superintendent via email at askthesupt@rockwood.k12.mo.us.

Q: How does Rockwood’s ratio of students per administrator compare to other school districts? View Answer

Answer:

According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, DESE, the ratio of students per administrator in Rockwood is 251:1. This ratio is the second highest in St. Louis County. In Missouri, the average ratio of students per administrator is 188:1. The chart below represents this ratio for St. Louis County school districts.

Mehlville	280
Rockwood	251
Parkway	249
Lindbergh	242
Kirkwood	231
Riverview Gardens	208
Bayless	203
Ladue	200
Affton	197
Clayton	191
Ferguson-Florissant	183
Ritenour	177
Pattonville	162
Jennings	150
Valley Park	145
Hancock Place	140
University City	139
Maplewood Richmond Heights	107
Special School District	98
Brentwood	97

Q: How does Rockwood’s average administrator salary compare to other school districts? View Answer

Answer:

According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, DESE, the average administrator salary is $98,918. While this salary is higher than the state average ($83,293), it is lower than most school districts in St. Louis County.

Kirkwood	$133,259
Brentwood	$125,833
Clayton	$123,170
Ladue	$113,698
Parkway	$111,182
Affton	$110,745
Lindbergh	$109,503
Bayless	$108,291
Valley Park	$105,261
Jennings	$103,771
Maplewood Richmond Heights	$103,678
University City	$102,450
Ferguson-Florissant	$102,385
Mehlville	$101,763
Special School District	$100,940
Ritenour	$ 99,509
Rockwood	$ 98,918
Pattonville	$ 98,853
Hancock Place	$ 93,936
Riverview Gardens	$ 89,758

Q: How does a company become eligible to do business with the district? View Answer

Answer:

Rockwood has a competitive bidding process that ensures the district gets the maximum value for its taxpayers dollars.

In addition, Rockwood strives to participate in cooperative purchasing programs. We are a large school district and combine the purchasing needs from multiple schools and projects to garner the best pricing available on the goods and services our schools need.

The Rockwood Purchasing Dept. maintains a current listing of suppliers by category for the purpose of distributing the following; RFI (request for information), RFP (request for proposal) and RFQ (request for quotation). Suppliers interested in being added to this list can find the Supplier Registration Form on the Purchasing Web page at
http://www.rockwood.k12.mo.us/purchasing/Pages/default.aspx.

Rockwood relies on open, honest communication with companies. Quality, price, delivery, service and compliance with RFI, RFP and RFQ requirements are of the utmost importance.