Summer improvement projects are nearing completion across the Jackson R-2 School District, with the new $1.2 million roof at Jackson Middle School roughly 85% done at the time of the Jackson R-2 School Board’s regular meeting on Thursday, Aug. 13.
During the meeting, Associate Superintendent Bryan Austin said Riverside Roofing Company had been able to catch up after weather delays, with the main part of the middle school’s roof on schedule to be completed by the end of last week.
“We were behind roughly three weeks,” Austin said. “We started to catch back up with good weather, so we’re hoping to finish strong.”
Riverside Roofing Company is scheduled to finish the roof of the gym and locker rooms by Friday, leaving only trim work left as school begins on Monday, Aug. 24.
The artificial turf project at the newly combined Jackson High School baseball and softball field on Deerwood Drive is roughly 80% completed, according to Austin.
“The infield and outfield turf is practically done,” Austin said. “There’s a lot of details left, including adding sand and rubber, but the majority of the turf is down.”
In addition, a new handicap-accessible playground has been installed at West Lane Elementary School. “Their building principals and teachers have been super excited, and we’re really looking forward to in the future being able to expand that to some other elementary schools,” Austin said.
Sensory rooms are now installed at all school buildings in the district, after the Jackson R-2 Foundation was awarded a $103,742 grant from the Cape Girardeau County Board of Developmental Disabilities earlier this year.
The district previously installed sensory spaces at the high school, middle school and East Elementary School. This year’s grant allowed the district to install sensory rooms at all remaining school buildings.
Chief Marketing and Communications Director Merideth Pobst said the developmental disabilities board has awarded a total of $190,000 to the district over three years to add the sensory rooms.
“Our maintenance crew installed all of that equipment, so it really takes a village to make it all work,” Pobst said. “I know our students are going to benefit, and it’s such a great asset to our district.”
The sensory rooms are built with special education students in mind, but can be used by all students who need them.
In other action:
• The board amended the district’s 2025-2026 budget to include the actual expenditures and revenue for the school year. The district received $78.5 million in revenue and spent $68.1 million last school year.
Deputy Superintendent and Chief Financial Officer Matt Lacy said the district received 12.14% more in revenue than initially budgeted, totaling around $8.5 million in additional revenue.
Lacy said the largest change from what was expected came from an additional $3.8 million in state funding after the state adjusted its per-student adequacy target funding for the first time in around 15 years.
“We always say we’re going to budget our revenue low and our expenditures high, and you can see that here,” Lacy said, adding that uncertainty about state and local funding makes it difficult to accurately predict the district’s revenue.
The district spent 2.67% less in expenditures last year than budgeted, totaling $1.87 million in savings. The district spent less than budgeted in utilities, purchased services and supplies. “If you can come within 3% of budgeting your expenditures, that’s really good,” Lacy said.
• The district will be down a student resource officer at the beginning of the school year, as former resource officer Megan Houseman left the Jackson Police Department for another position.
The district partners with the Jackson Police Department to staff SROs throughout the district, with the district paying a portion of the SRO’s salary and benefits based on the percentage of time utilized by the school district.
“The struggle with that is the Jackson Police Department is already down an officer, so we’re not able to pull another SRO from JPD,” Austin said. “We will have to wait until they hire, and then we will go through our process to add another resource officer.”
Austin said the district will likely have only five SROs for the first semester, until they can replace the sixth position around the beginning of 2027. Schools will be reassigned to Sergeant Chad Ludwig, who currently travels between schools as an SRO.
“We’re still in a fantastic setup, and we feel really good about what we’re doing,” Austin said. “We’re still covering two resource officers at the high school — one of those being Sergeant Ludwig, who is already in that rover mode of needing to go to other schools. We want him to check in with all of our schools anyway, so he’s going to pick up South Elementary, as well, while he’s doing that.”
• The board honored students from the Jackson Middle Level FBLA who competed at the national competition in San Antonio, Texas, this summer. Jackson had 26 students compete at the national competition.
This year saw the most Jackson students ever participate at nationals, with students required to place in the top four at the state competition to qualify.
At nationals, Blake French won second place in exploring customer service, Adelin Crittenden won fourth place in exploring FBLA and Abe Rothe won fourth place in slide deck applications. Emma Hampton, who was not able to attend the meeting, won fifth place at nationals in exploring leadership.
• Results from an employee experience survey were shared with the board, showing 90% of district staff who took the survey would recommend the district as a great place to work. The anonymous survey was sent to all Jackson R-2 staff members, with 62% responding.
“In the key performance indicators, the data told us that our staff are motivated, they’re more productive, and are more likely to stay in Jackson as compared to other districts across the nation,” Assistant Superintendent Janelle Pope said.
Of the employees surveyed, 85% felt like they belonged in the district, 86% trusted their administrator/manager, 89% felt they had access to the resources they need, 75% felt enabled to have a healthy work-life balance and 79% felt the district has an outstanding future.
Only 32% of staff felt they were paid fairly for the work that they do, which Pope said is similar to survey results nationwide. “We will continue to be alert to that and make sure we’re doing what we can in that area,” she said.
Two of the other lowest survey results were that 66% felt they receive meaningful recognition when they do a good job and 62% felt they can share their opinions openly without the fear of retaliation.
Pope said further comments showed that while staff members do feel supported by their administrators, they may fear retaliation from their fellow team members. “That’s something that we are going to work on, and obviously we want to build good rapport amongst teams,” Pope said.
Staff members who were leaving the district were asked why, with the top reasons being retirement, relocation or personal/family reasons.
Other comments from the survey showed a need for improved communication, support for professional development training and concerns about workload distribution among staff members.
• The board approved bus routes for the 2026-2027 school year, including 42 regular bus routes.
The district also has four bus routes for students with special needs, five bus routes for early childhood special education, five noon routes for the early childhood program and two routes for students attending the Cape Girardeau Career & Technology Center.
Austin said the routes continued to change the last few weeks as students join the district. “We’re anticipating roughly half the district being on district transportation, which is large,” he said.
• The school board set a tax rate hearing for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 25, at the Jackson High School Ignite Center.
