Interview with Superintendent Mark Koca

On Friday, April 10, the Sun call El Dorado Springs R-II Superintendent Mark Koca to discuss the announcement by Missouri Governor Mike Parson that the school year is over for schools statewide.

Mark answered the phone in his office, “What’s up?”

Q. That’s what I was going to ask you. We got the notice yesterday that the governor had closed schools for the rest of the school year.

That’s about all there is to say about that.

Q. What’s that going to do to graduation, the spring FFA banquet and everything else that normally happens?

Graduation – we’re kicking about the idea that later in the summer we might be able to hold the ceremony if conditions are right. We don’t know what is going to happen but we are certainly going to have a ceremony if there is any way we can do it.

Just about everything else is off the table at this point. There is a question about prom. Right now we have no plans to have prom. We’re been operating under a giant question mark for weeks now.

Q. So you’ll go ahead and work until the first of July then Heath Oates will take over?

Yes.

Q. Anything else I need to know?

I don’t know right now.

Q, Are you conducting classes on line?

We are doing quite a bit of on-line learning. We are probably mailing 300 or 400 packets of information every week now to parents who don’t have reliable email. We may single-handedly save the U. S. Postal Service. That’s quite a bill. My other expenses have gone way down, but my postage bill has gone way up.

Q, Are you going to run the sack lunch program through the rest of the school year?

Yes. I think we are authorized to run that current program through the 21st of May.  I don’t know what happens after that. It depends on whether we have Summer School or not.

We are going to have the meeting next week on Tuesday night, April 14, at 7 p.m. in the High School upper gym so those who attend can observe social distancing. I’ve got bills to pay and people to hire so we’re going to have a meeting.  Board members don’t have the technology to have a meeting from home.

If anybody hasn’t gotten the word (and I don’t know why they wouldn’t have), we distribute free meals to students on Monday and Thursday. We are up to about 460 sack lunches. Monday’s sack has three breakfasts and three lunches. Thursday’s sack has two breakfasts and two lunches. Just call the school to get on the list.

Kids who live close enough can pick up their sack lunches on the bus ramp by the High School/Middle School ramp. Teachers, administrators and other volunteers deliver the sacks to a number of spots in the district.