Learning with Leaming

Story by Adam Leaming, Ponca City Public Schools/Contributing Writer

here’s absolutely no way it can be March now. This year is flying fast and furious and with it comes an abundance of work in your schools. By the time of print, you will see our school beginning to plan and stage for work to occur at Garfield elementary school. There you will find a new retaining wall and dirt work to help level their back playground. Why are we leveling that dirt? Because our Garfield students are the only students without a playground behind their building. We will be changing that this summer as each of our schools gets a brand-new playground located on their grounds.

As soon as the ground warms to a consistent level, we can have playgrounds delivered and staged at each elementary school. Final design work for the High School Commons will be approved and bids will go out to interested contractors who would like to give that space a much-needed upgrade. We will also see work on the grounds of East as we remediate some erosion and level the ground with a new retaining wall there.

In addition to those projects, we will have a plethora of spring sports kicking off. To ensure a quality event, we find each of our facilities will need a good sprucing up before hosting our Wildcats, fans and guests each week. Our maintenance teams and coaches are hard at work to ensure we’re putting our best foot forward in each of our events. We’re also busy consolidating surplus items across the district in anticipation of a surplus sale in May. School crews will be replacing HVAC filters, chasing down leaks in roofs, and it will soon be mowing time!

Other notable work for the schools will have been occurring each week in the Capitol rotunda in OKC. There your statewide and local school leaders will have been working hard to advocate for our kids in our community and ensuring we foster a stronger educational system with our statewide and local elected officials. There’s a number of education-focused bills out there, as there is each year, some good and some bad for our school system. Our hope is that by March 17, those bad bills do not get sent across the hallway to the other chamber for consideration, and that we’re helping usher those bills over that create more opportunities in our public school for our children.

Right now (Feb. 1), I don’t have enough print to break down even but a handful of the 2,300 bills that were filed this year, (I’m not counting the 2021 bills that can be revisited this year as well). However, on March 17, we will have a very clear picture of which bills have a possibility of becoming law, and I will be able to share with our readers their potential positive or negative impact on our school system. I do implore you to take a keen interest in our legislative session this year as our elected officials will be making some very difficult decisions as they shape our mission and vision of state services in the upcoming year. Whatever happens within our state legislative leadership does not deter from the fact that once again, the true heroes we will find in our classrooms, lunchrooms and buildings. We continue our diligent work to provide a safe and loving school environment for Ponca City’s most precious resources … its children.