Springfield Public Schools, Springfield, MO

We had a great time at the Support Staff Career Fair yesterday!💙💼🚌 Thank you to everyone who came out to explore your options with SPS. If you didn't make it to the in-person event, you can see our current job listings and apply at 🔗 sps.org/apply

“I am originally from Memphis, Tennessee. My dad worked for Frisco Railroad and he was transferred to work at the Frisco Building on Chestnut Expressway when I was two. I went to St. Agnes school through 2nd grade, but when they quit bussing my parents moved me into public school. I attended Sherwood for third and fourth grade until they built Jeffries Elementary where I attended for fifth and sixth grade. I then attended Cherokee Jr. High until Frisco merged with Burlington Northern Railroad and they transferred my dad back to Memphis.

I remembered and loved all the SPS teachers I had in the 1970’s and 1980’s, so I knew I wanted to come back to Springfield at some point. After I attended Memphis College of Art for my Bachelors Degree and the University of Memphis for my Masters, my plan was to move back to Springfield and teach for SPS. I always knew this was the district where I wanted to teach art. I have now taught for 26 years, with 23 of those years at Pleasant View Middle School.

When I first moved back to Springfield I was unable to get a teaching position, so I signed up to substitute teach for SPS. I subbed for a whole year and met most of the elementary art teachers at that time. In the spring of 1999 I learned that an art teacher was retiring and was able to interview for a position. When I got the position, I learned about the Artworks program. I applied and was able to spend the summer before I started my actual teaching position teaching Artworks.

Artworks was a program where the teacher designed their class. My first summer I taught some trick photography classes. When one of the classes didn’t fill, the director Pam Dickinson asked if I would teach a candle making class. Ever since that first year, I have taught nothing but candle making. This is my 27th summer teaching candle making at Artworks. In my time here, SPS has gone from owning 10 candle molds that students shared from class to class to owning about 100 candle molds. Students choose from a variety of shapes and make a variety of candles and candle holders.

My favorite thing about teaching art is looking at the artwork that students make and listening to them talk about their art. Student art is some of the best art, and it is so fun to help them create it. Artworks is always a blast being more like an art camp with a mix of visual arts, crafts, music and theater/performing arts classes. I recognize so many students faces every summer that repeat Artworks year after year until they age out of the program.”

- Deanna Ballard, Art Teacher at Pleasant View K-8 School and Artworks

The Board of Education will host a study session tonight at 5:30 p.m.

WATCH LIVE: https://bit.ly/43oEgnO

SPS offers many ways for students to get a jump start on their career dreams, but the swearing in of two students as junior police officers before they even started kindergarten was a new record.👮🌸🚓 After hearing the two students speak enthusiastically about their dreams of one day becoming police officers at a recent Board of Education meeting, Chief of School Police Jim Farrell made a special stop by Shady Dell Early Childhood Center to deputize the two new junior officers, Paislie and Nathalie.

Read more of the story at https://bit.ly/4g8hE2e.

Congratulations to the two SPS students from the Academy of Exploration who placed at the Missouri State Math League Competition in Columbia, Missouri. ➗🏅🧮 Eli Weis took fifth place in the fifth-grade Sprint Event and Hudson Poole placed third in the sixth-grade Sprint Event. Poole also placed sixth out of all sixth graders in the state.

A record-high number of 134 SPS students who either speak a language other than English or are enrolled in an upper-level world language class tested for and received the Missouri State Seal of Biliteracy, an important honor reflected on students’ final transcripts.🎓🌎📖 Ten students received the Distinguished seal, which requires higher test scores in both English and another language in all domains (reading, writing, speaking and listening).

Learn more and see a full list of students who received the seal at https://bit.ly/4a9ANNu.

Two Springfield Public Schools students signed with the Registered Youth Apprenticeship (RYA) program to pursue a career-focused path in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) pathway with SPS’ facilities team:
👷 Gustavo Dos Santos, Kickapoo
👷 Bentley Molina, Parkview

Help us congratulate the students in the comments below and read more about the event at https://bit.ly/3RS9lNY.

Superintendent Dr. Lathan’s Summer Reading Challenge tradition continues as elementary Springfield Public Schools students each received free Scholastic books before they left for the break.📚☀️💙

Dr. Lathan’s challenge is simple: read. It doesn’t matter how many books you finish or what kind of books you read. Just read at your own pace, about whatever you enjoy or want to learn about — wherever your summer takes you!

Learn more at https://bit.ly/3SjVosc.

We are 📣 of recent Central High School grad Torsten Taylor for their selection from a pool of 15,000 finalists for a National Merit Scholarship to the University of Missouri! 📜👏

Springfield Public Schools educators spent the first week of summer hard at work preparing for next year at .🧠🧑‍🏫⏩

“Lead Forward reinforced the idea that meaningful school improvement occurs through collective leadership rather than individual efforts,” said Dr. Crystal Magers, executive director of academics. “Participants were challenged to think beyond their own classrooms or roles and embrace responsibility for the success of all students.”

Learn more at https://bit.ly/4vsWIaS.