Breaking News: SMSD pushes the beginning of the 2020-21 school year back a week

On June 22 the SMSD Board of Education voted to push back the beginning of the 2020-21 school year from Aug. 12 to Aug. 17 to provide professional learning days for teachers in preparation for a nontraditional school year.

Due to COVID-19, the fourth quarter of the previous school year was carried out through virtual learning, and with that came a rise in connectivity issues due to complications with the district’s current safety network, the VPN provider Cisco. This has encouraged the district to switch from VPN to a cloud-based network called Lightspeed. Lightspeed will serve as the new online safety program and will take effect when school begins in August.

The district has also purchased the learning management program Canvas as a platform to provide an efficient connection between students and teachers in the case that online learning is necessary for the upcoming semester.

The school year’s new starting date will have no effect on the last day of school. However, SMSD won’t finalize the 2020-21 schedule in its entirety until shortly after July 10, when the Kansas State Department of Education shares their thoughts on how to approach the upcoming school year.