July 25, 2014 Dear Patrons of Ray School: Thank you to the parents and patrons for making the 2013-2014 school year another successful one! The unfailing support of our community is the best asset we have as a school and we are very appreciative of the backing we get from our community. Operating a school in the oil patch is not always an easy thing to do but the staff, old and new, at Ray have been working very hard to prepare for the 2014-2015 school year. Our roofing project is very near completion and a majority of the other small projects taken on by our maintenance staff are to be completed before the first day of school. In the past year we were able to host both District Tournaments and a Super Saturday and we are very proud of how our staff, students, and parents have handled these challenges with the support of our school community. Our district has used grant money to purchase new properties for staff housing and we continue to look for opportunities for our district to stay ahead of the ‘curve’ as new developments pop up within our district boundaries. Each year there seems to be some changes in staff and this year will be no different. Mrs. Cvancara has decided to move to the 1st grade and we are happy to have her there. With the retirement of Ms. Hodenfield, we have hired Robert Norman to fill the 6th grade/Middle School position. Mrs. Roloff has accepted the position of K-6 General Music Teacher and we are very excited about the musical opportunities she will provide for our elementary students! Karen Brandon has been hired to fill in for the classes left open by Mrs. Roloff. Melissa Klaahsen will be moving up to take one of our third grade classrooms while Kathryn Leal will be teaching the other half of section II of third grade in conjunction with Ms. Meckle. Additionally, we have hired Amanda Boren to fill the vacancy left by Mrs. Klett. In the high school, Mrs. Perdue will be taking over as our new school counselor and Sarah Beck will be taking her position as the business teacher. Matt Ray was hired to be the new Physical Education and Girl’s Basketball coach and his wife Michelle will be running our school daycare. The new faces and places should make this an exciting, special year for our school. The enclosed documents explain Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). This past year, our grades K-8 did meet AYP while our students in grades 9-12 did not meet the goal. However, due to certain statistical factors overall we did not meet AYP as a district. We are implementing a program improvement plan and a plan to use our school test data more effectively in an effort to improve our overall test scores. Our wonderful staff and students will continue to work to improve individual student scores in an effort to meet or exceed our target goals for next year. With the implementation of the new North Dakota State Standards we will be experiencing some significant changes in the way this program is administered going forward. I ask that you please look very closely at all of the information in this packet. Enclosed are Parent’s Rights, Parent’s Right to Know, applications for free and reduced meals, school and activity fee schedules, in addition to a monthly and yearly school calendar. Please complete and return the application for free and reduced meals if you will have difficulty making that daily payment. Our back to school pre-registration day for students in grades 7-12 will be on Tuesday, August 5, 2014. It is important for our planning purposes that as many students as possible make it to school to register on that day. If your child(ren) will have a conflict on that date, please contact the school and we will schedule another time for your child(ren) to register. This required registration will be held in our Commons Area from 9AM to 3PM. Please make every effort to be there. I feel like we had a great past school year at Ray Public School. There were many accomplishments by our students and staff that we should all be proud of. As always, please feel free to stop in any time or call me at (701) 568-3301 for a visit. Enjoy the last few weeks of summer break! Thank you, Benjamin L. Schafer, Superintendent