Welcome Back! Superintendent’s Blog
Welcome back from Superintendent Don Mayes!
It is time for the 2016/17 school year and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for us here at Parkview. So many great things have been happening around our campus that I know I will not be able to express it all. This past year and a half, we undertook several tasks that are usually only attempted one at a time. We finished up a strategic plan, began work on a Master Plan for the campus, and achieved SAIS/Advanc-Ed accreditation. I am so proud of our staff and continue to be impressed at the amount and quality of work they are able to produce.
With so many structures in place, we are already seeing gains academically, spiritually, and in the quality of our campus. I look forward to communicating progress on all of those fronts to you this coming year. In the meantime, I am just excited to see Parkview moving forward at a pace that is beyond my expectations. I can see an encouraging big picture of our Church, Board, parents and staff being willing to work together for the students on our campus. I truly see a genuine spirit of support and that is paying off in the quality of our school.
I look forward to sharing with you in greater detail how our master planning process is going. I hope to have the Master Plan completed by the close of this school year. Tipton and Associates has partnered with us to guide us through this important process. One area we will begin to communicate about is the installation of a turf field on our baseball complex. Tipton is leading this process and looking at the feasibility of accomplishing this in the first semester of school. Many factors will come into play before final approval but I want to start giving a heads up to our families on the “how” and “why” of our thought process.
It may seem odd that putting turf on the baseball field would be the first thing to do in our Master Plan. However, required maintenance on our current baseball field was going to cost a significant amount of money. Because of the lack of space we have on our campus and knowing that we would need to eventually turf that area, spending the maintenance money only to turf the field later did not seem like good stewardship. In addition, maintaining the grass field still did not solve the major logistical problems we have with a lack of field space. We are literally out of space for our teams and students to use. Turf on the baseball field has less to do with baseball and more to do with groups like elementary PE, or our band and soccer team that has to go off campus to practice at various times of the year because of the grass field’s limitations, particularly after rain. Based on cost savings and the solving of some serious space and logistical problems, we are seriously looking at completing this part of our plan sooner rather than later.
Finally, the security of our campus has occupied some of our summer planning and training. We have made significant improvements in the communication and response aspects of our security. We continue to be proud of and thankful for our uniformed officers who are always on campus when we are here. The familiar faces of our community’s finest officers continually serve our campus as a deterrent, a resource, and an immediate response to any security concern. Please consider joining us on Wednesday, August 10 at 6:30pm for our Campus Wide Prayer Service where we will have a special time of blessing over our law enforcement.
Everything we continue to do to improve our school is because we want your child to have the best experience possible. Continue to partner with us in prayer for God’s protection and blessing for this new year.