Show Me Success Stories

Show Me Success Stories

Click the links below to view examples of how Missouri public school educators have stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic to continue providing a great education to their students. These stories have been shared on DESE's Facebook and Twitter pages.

Mehlville School District, Oakville High School
To host a play safely during the pandemic, the Oakville High School theatre found a creative, socially distant solution and livestreamed all of their performances for the first time ever.

Washington School District, South Point Elementary
Students at South Point Elementary had the opportunity to share the connection between the real world and the skills they learn in STEM class as their new school is built.

Gallatin R-V School District, Covel D. Searcy Elementary
Teachers at Covel D. Searcy Elementary pivoted with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to create and use online learning tools. These tools gave teachers and their students the skills needed to succeed in a challenging environment.

Hazelwood School District, Central High School
Sarah Sullins, a Family and Consumer Science teacher at Hazelwood School District, was able to partner with King Arthur Baking Company to provide baking kits to 83 students, allowing them to bake at home as part of their virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This allowed her students to have a hands-on learning experience, even while being virtual. Look at their creations below!

Francis Howell School District, Becky-David Elementary
Kindergarten teacher Ms. Kortkamp at Becky-David Elementary gets her students egg-cited for a day of virtual learning. Teachers at Francis Howell School District and across the state are getting creative, coming up with fun ways like this to keep students engaged in learning during virtual instruction.

Northwest R-I School District
Staying connected throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for many, but Superintendent Dr. Kirchhofer and his beagle, Lacy, made connection and communication their primary message. They created a video about staying connected from Lacy’s point of view to share with one of the Northwest R-I School District elementary classes for National Tell-a-Story Day. You can see their story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjGEuLG4yAw

West Plains School District
While schools were not always in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic, students still needed school-provided lunches during the day. West Plains Schools - Home of the Zizzers’ food service team, teachers, custodial and other staff members stepped up to volunteer and provided 163,474 meals to their students.

Caruthersville School District #18
Sandy Pitts is a bus driver for the Caruthersville School District but to the district she is so much more. Sandy loves her Caruthersville students and is always going above and beyond to do little things to make them smile. When Sandy learned that the district decided to have a socially distanced graduation parade last June to honor the Class of 2020, she immediately asked if she could decorate her bus and be in the parade. It was a special day for their senior class and Sandy, dressed as Dr. Seuss, was a big part of that.

Sandy has dressed up in costume many times over the past few years, from being the Grinch at Christmas, to Ursula at Halloween, to building a Monsters Inc. float and dressing up like Mike Wazowski for the Christmas parade.

Waynesville R-VI School District
A paraprofessional and teacher in the Waynesville R-VI School District noticed how one of their students walked differently than his peers, and reached out to his family to recommend visiting a physical therapist who helped them discover this student has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy . His mom shares how the Williams Early Childhood team then went above and beyond to help her family after his diagnosis.

Hickman Mills C-1 School District, Ingels Elementary
Brittany Gash is a teacher in the Life Skills classroom at Ingels Elementary in the Hickman Mills C-1 School District, Kansas City Mo., which serves students with multiple disabilities or who are medically fragile.

Students stay with Ms. Gash for their entire elementary career, and one of Ms. Gash’s classroom traditions is to build gingerbread houses during the holidays. Ms. Gash created gingerbread to-go kits for each of the 13 families she serves during virtual learning. If families were not able to get to the school, Ms. Gash made sure they received the gingerbread house supplies through a COVID-safe porch delivery. Families created the gingerbread houses with the entire classroom via Zoom.

Scott City R-1 School District
When Scott City R-1 shut down, the district staff ensured their students and families did not go hungry. The district served nearly 6,000 meals a week and 24,000 meals a month!

Poplar Bluff School District
Nearly 500,000 free meals were served by Poplar Bluff Schools and partners to students over 100 days during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Poplar Bluff Schools’ doors were closed in late March in response to the pandemic, Chartwells Food Service began feeding the thousands of children in the district who no longer had access to school lunches.

At the peak of the program, they served over 7,000 meals per day, with triple the number of meals on Fridays so students had meals on Saturday and Sunday too.

Maplewood Richmond Heights School District
When the COVID-19 pandemic pushed schools to virtual learning, Dr. Kathleen Dwyer, a high school chemistry teacher at Maplewood Richmond Heights SchoolDistrict, designed and delivered at home science experiments to her students.

Wentzville School District
A fifth-grade Virtual Academy student at Wentzville School District, struggled to stay engaged during the second quarter. His teachers, Mrs. Merz and Ms. Lynch, his mom, and Assistant Principal Shearer met with him to understand what was challenging for him and setup a plan for his success. The student started to log in for class regularly and caught up on his classwork. Within a few short weeks, a pizza celebration came to his door! “We would be lost without our amazing teachers,” the student’s mom shared.

Raymore-Peculiar School District
In the first weeks of school, Raymore-Peculiar School District car drop-off lines were moving slowly as staff began to implement new procedures for student arrival. Superintendent Dr. Mike Slagle took this opportunity to greet parents in the car rider line at schools in the morning. This was a great way for him to build relationships with families in the district. While the lines are moving quickly again, Dr. Slagle's morning presence became so popular that he continues greeting families each and every day.

Spokane R-7 School District, Spokane Owls
In an effort to keep students highly engaged during virtual learning, two teachers from Spokane Owls came up with some creative ways to maintain engagement.

Grandview C-4 School District
Ms. Goeke went above and beyond for her students when she jumped into action earlier this year during her virtual class. She called 911 when one of her students who was home alone needed immediate medical assistance. As a result of her actions, Grandview C-4 School District recognized Ms. Goeke with their Above and Beyond Award.

Fox C-6 School District
Learning both in-person and virtually, elementary students at Fox C-6 School District created original music masterpieces, performed them for their classmates, then gave and received peer feedback on each piece. We have loved seeing arts educators get creative and innovative to continue teaching students over the last year!

Lincoln County R-III Schools
The engineers at Toyota USA Motor Manufacturing in Missouri heard Lincoln County R-III Schools high school students wanted more real-world, hands-on learning opportunities. It didn't take long to find a project the students could help the plant tackle. Through the CAPS Network (CAPS) program, 13 students were immersed in a $1 million project to move a finishing line for the Toyota plant's V6 cylinder heads.