The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary’s (DESE’s) Office of Childhood (OOC) continues to clear the child care subsidy backlog in family applications for child care assistance, provider applications for subsidy contracts, and provider payment reviews. The OOC experienced several technical challenges launching the new Child Care Data System (CCDS) in December 2023, which created the backlog. The number of backlogged cases has declined each month since summer 2024, when additional temporary and contracted staff were added.

Nominations are now being accepted for Regional Teacher of the Year, the first step in the process to become next year’s Missouri Teacher of the Year. Nominations are due by April 14, 2025, and are anonymous unless otherwise requested. Nominations can be made through the online Teacher of the Year nomination form here.

Today, Dallas DeWeese, a social studies teacher at Hollister Middle School in the Hollister R-V School District, was presented with the national Milken Educator Award.

Today the Missouri State Board of Education voted to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking to change the requirements for some teacher certification areas. The current rule requires a grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher in the specific content (i.e. subject) area for which the teacher is seeking certification. This proposed amendment to the rule would change the required content GPA from 3.0 to 2.5. Teachers earn content certification to teach most school subjects at the secondary level, as well as some specialty courses, like the arts.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has released the statewide Annual Performance Reports (APRs) for the 2023-24 school year. APRs demonstrate the progress local education agencies (LEAs) and individual buildings are making toward meeting the standards and indicators in the sixth version of the Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP 6).

For the second year, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) was able to award Grow Your Own (GYO) grants to 125 local education agencies (LEAs). Review the list of LEA grant recipients here. DESE’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget includes $2.5 million to support one-time grants of $10,000 to LEAs to create or strengthen their local Grow Your Own program, designed to increase recruitment of quality teachers in LEAs across the state.