01/09/2026
Currently attending a special board meeting of the Waynesville R-VI School District Board. Members present are Janel Rowell, Mike Keeling, Layne Lercher, Andy Anderson, Aaron Pondrom, and Rick Harne. Board member Charles Quinn is absent.
Superintendent Hillary Bales is presenting a proposed attendance boundary plan to take effect once the new Liberty Elementary School is built, with students divided between East Elementary School, Freedom Elementary School and Liberty Elementary, with estimated attendance of 644, 687 and 475 respectively, with the attendance location of 58 students not available.
"This is based on kids we have now so it's going to look a little bit different but this will give us a pretty good idea."
Responding to questions from Andy Anderson about possible need to buy buses, Bales said she doesn't anticipate a significant problem.
Bales: "Student enrollment is not changing, it's just shifting. Will we have to buy a bus or two? Maybe, but we do that anyway."
Bales said the district's elementary schools are already some of the largest in the state and the construction of the new elementary building will address that problem.
Bales said she's received an inquiry from the Rolla Public Schools about possibly restarting the Ozark Conference for sports.
"We would probably need six schools comfortably to start a conference... I can't speak for other districts on what they want to do."
Bales said transparency is important and the way the Ozark Conference disbanded "left a bad taste" for some of the districts. She said she didn't want to create problems for other districts or other conferences.
Bales: "I did ask for transparency from other schools because if there are other districts that want to petition (other conferences) I want to know about that."
Bales said she also wants to have a backup plan for situations such as a possibility that five rather than six schools are interested.
Pros being listed included less travel time, more equal competition, and similar student populations. Cons include loss of established partnerships and lack of certainty with new conference members.
Keeling noted that scheduling is complicated, even if planned years in advance.
Bales: "Are we going to be in a situation in two years where not all schools are interested and we're scrambling to put together a conference?... I think it's really important to note that we are in the very beginning states of these discussions and there are so many variables outside of our control."
Bales said a meeting would need to be made by April 1 for a new conference to start in two years.
Responding to board member questions about contacts with the current conference, Bales said she was up front with conference officials that no decisions have been made but a discussion is beginning.
Bales: "I really didn't want to do this again, I'll be honest, but here we are."
Board members are discussing adding an AI Chatbot to the district's website which would cost $12,000 per year plus a $1,750 one-time development fee.
Keeling: "Is it really needed?"
Harne: "To me this seems expensive."
Bales said she agrees and it's her recommendation to wait.
"Right now, I don't think it's needed."
Rowell said AI technology is rapidly changing and there's a need to be sure information being provided is accurate.
Bales said she'll have Marianne Ward run analytics on the existing website to answer questions from board members on how people are using the website.
Dr. Jamie Goforth, the district's assistant superintendent of personnel services, is presenting a proposed revision for school activity duties specifying that "each teacher must be present for Meet the Teacher" events and that the number of school activities attended without additional pay be reduced from five to four per school year.
Goforth and Bales are explaining their efforts to reduce overtime use, while recognizing that some overtime is needed.
Goforth said she's spoken with other districts regarding school policing and presented two timelines, one to complete in January 2027 and the other in August 2027, with an end goal of "start as own police Force."
"These are just options. We can do neither, we can come up with something totally different. I wanted feedback."
Keeling said he'd prefer to plan for the earlier completion date, with the understanding that "nobody will get their head chopped off" if the second and later date happens.
Goforth: "So what I'm hearing is you want to go with option one and I need to start now, but if some barriers happen that's fine."
Courtney Long, executive director of secondary instruction, is presenting options for co-op athletic programs. Board members agreed not to pursue the option at this time.
Administrative staff are presenting an early childhood education expansion plan while noting that "teachers don't grow on trees" and it's necessary to plan well in advance. Plans call for 6 full-day pre-K classrooms in 2025-6, 8 classrooms in 26-27, and 10 classrooms in 27-28, eventually offering full-day pre-K instruction to 200 students and still having half-day opportunities at Williams Elementary.
Rowell: "I'm so excited!"
Bales: "Our goal has always been to remove barriers for our families."
Long is reporting on implementation of cell phone policies, with 28 incidents in Waynesville Career Center, 644 in Waynesville High School, and 39 Waynesville Middle School. Most students with an offense had only one -- 346 students -- but 103 had two incidents, 32 had three, 9 had four, and one had five incidents.
Long said the district had been using text messages to communicate with students but can no longer do so.
Long: "It's been an adjustment for all of us on how we do this."
Bales: "We see students reading books more, playing card games, doing things like that."
Anderson asked if cyberbullying has dropped.
Long said she hasn't seen changed in that area.
Long: "Quite honestly, a lot of that happened outside of the school day."
Long presented long-range options for CTE, noting that all Waynesville Career Center classrooms are occupied. She said Teaching Pathways, computers, ad design, and commercial printing could be relocated off campus and the JROTC and business programs could move to the high school.
The welding, cosmetology and health science programs could be expanded if space were available and potential new programs could include truck and bus driving, CDL, EMT/Fire, criminal justice, heavy equipment operations and early childhood programs. Off-site space opportunities could also include entrepreneurship storefronts and offices.
Lercher said some of the proposals such as commercial printing "are phasing themselves out because of everybody basically having at their fingertips what commercial printing used to be needed for."
Long said she's been impressed by the way WCC instructors are keeping up with developments in their fields, and "we might see some switching in the future," but for now, the program enrollments are full.
Bales said having off-campus programs is not uncommon in other districts.
Rowell said she wasn't sure of the feasibility but suggested that partnering on heavy equipment with U.S. Army Fort Leonard Wood might be possible.
Harne noted that some people sign up for criminal justice programs thinking they will become a police officer at the end of the program, and while the classes help, additional training is required.
Harne: "People need to make sure they understand what these programs are and what they are not."
During a presentation of the proposed 2026-27 school calendar, Harne suggested that the Waynesville schools have classes on Veterans Day since it happens during the middle of the week.
"I think being in a military community gives us plenty of advantages to show what the military is."
Keeling said with the 399th Army Band no longer available, the Waynesville High School and Waynesville Middle School bands are significant parts of the Veterans Day parades and asked if it may be possible to have a half-day of classes to allow the bands to participate.
Rowell, a long-term Waynesville-St. Robert Chamber of Commerce board member, said the Veterans Day parade has traditionally been scheduled for 11 a.m. to commemorate the Nov. 11 armistice time of 11 a.m. that ended World War I; Bales said it likely wouldn't be possible to have a half-day of classes end in time to allow the bands to participate in the Veterans Day parade.
Bales: "Some of these decisions are not clearcut or easy; we'll get more information and bring it back to you."
District staff are presenting plans for a Jan. 28 task force on salaries. Officials noted that 80 percent of the district's operating budget is directed to salaries and benefits which provides limited options.
Aaron Harrison, the district's chief financial officer and director of information systems, said school officials often get asked for an explanation of why the district can afford to build buildings but not address salaries. He said the district relied on B2 impact aid given by the federal government for a small number of school districts that are "heavily impacted" by the military.
Harrison: "The amount of tax revenues that come in per student is much less than other districts... we can't take our B2 funding and roll it into operating and give huge raises with that money. We wouldn't be able to sustain that."
Keeling: "Especially in the current environment, we need to look at that B2 funding as one-year money."
Bales said some districts reallocated money to salaries during the COVID19 pandemic and that's now causing serious problems.
Keeling said people need to contact their elected officials in the Missouri legislature which "is going down the road that Kansas went down about 15 years ago and they bankrupted their state... there's a lot of pain involved in that and I sure hope we don't have to do that."
Board members are taking a construction tour of the new elementary school.
Board members have returned to the meeting room.
Harrison said today was a good day with good weather to tour the Liberty Elementary School site on Highway T. Concrete testing showed issues with one batch of concrete that will be re-poured, but all other batches met standards.
Harrison: "It is being handled and put back in the right way."
Keeling explained several potential problems with cement.
Keeling: "If they're taking care of it, that's good."
Harrison said the current projected cost is $57,049,365.
Harrison said after the decision was made to "nix the solar field," the district is looking at putting in one and possibly two baseball fields.
Harrison: "The challenge we have is getting that spot leveled between this driveway and that driveway, and how much rock we are going to encounter.... nothing has been set in stone yet, right now we are just checking on prices."
Harrison said the administration building renovation with an estimated cost of $4.5 million will have a scheduled third-phase completion by March 2027.
An estimated emergency exit for Waynesville High School is expected to cost $4.35 million, and if approved at the February board meeting, will have substantial completion in August of this year.
A Freedom Elementary/Waynesville Career Center HVAC project is expected to cost $5.59 million with substantial completion by August 2026.
Harrison: "This will be the same thing they did at the high school but on a little smaller scale."
A Waynesville Middle School traffic flow project has possible options including taking out the tennis courts or baseball fields, which district officials want to avoid. The lowest-impact option, which doesn't impact either tennis or baseball, is expected to cost $580,000. Other options include building a bridge across the creek and modifying the baseball field with an estimated cost of $800,000, and possible complications with DNR or city permitting.
Anderson said he prefers Option #2 to avoid congestions with parents during supply deliveries.
Keeling: "This one would be my option also.... there is a way to span that without it being a choke point."
Lercher said he doesn't want the board to miss that there may be a need to cooperate with other entities to get approval; Bales said the land is all owned by the district.
Bales said she wants to avoid damaging the high-use tennis courts.
"We were very conscientious about not impacting those two areas the community relies upon."
