Scott Howard
In 2012-13, the Butler County school district earned distinction as a High Progress District under the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP). This improvement was no small feat and the district staff is to be commended — from finance, budgeting and energy efficiency to assessment practices, standards implementation, and support programming. Students in Butler County know that from the time they step on the bus until they get back home at night, there is a caring adult ready to look out for their best interest and help them succeed and persevere.
The district’s success is due to the hard work of teachers, staff and principals. They are truly pushing students to excel and are data crunching at the student level almost on a daily basis to implement strategies and programming to support them in being college- and career-ready.
When someone looks at the amount of time our employees put into the lives of students, it is mind boggling. In addition to the responsibilities of classroom instruction, most spend an average of 20 hours a week in planning, Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings with administrators and colleagues, after-school meetings, and extracurricular clubs and events. Many are foregoing planning to meet with individual and small groups of students to help them with content mastery.
Last school year, Butler County went through the rigorous process of district accreditation. This process gave the district an opportunity for stakeholders to reflect on what it is truly about by building and creating mission and vision statements and keeping that vision in the forefront of what all district staff do.
The district acted on recommendations to streamline its PLC process and focus, so schools are working to a common end. The PLCs are focused on one or more of the following: Deconstructing Standards, Assessment Quality, Quality Instruction and Data Analysis-Student Work.
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