Every Missouri school district, including Lebanon R-3, faces tough decisions because of state funding moves, Assistant Lebanon R-3 Superintendent Holly Schrage told the Lebanon Rotary Club last Thursday. She was joined by Assistant Superintendent Jeremy Brownfield for the State of the School District presentation.
Schrage said the district is facing a shortfall next year of about $1.8 million, noting that 40% of the district’s funding comes from the state of Missouri.
“I'm not going to get you in the weeds, this is a very simple version. Think about every student in the building, we get about $7,145 for each kid, if they attended 90% of the time,” she said.
She said the district was informed it should be expecting to receive $6,742 per student for the 2026-27 year.
“I ask of our Rotary friends today to continue to advocate for public education,” she said. “Please do not believe everything you are reading on social media.”
She encouraged district patrons to check into what they hear about the school district.
“I ask if you see something before you share it, maybe have a conversation with somebody that's connected to the school to see if it's factual, because there's a lot of things floating right now that are not factual, and then second, would you talk to your state representatives and senator just to continue to support funding public education,” Schrage said.
Brownfield talked about the school’s communications efforts, including its website.
“We get about 7,000 unique visitors to that each month. That could be students that could be parents. It could be somebody looking to move to Lebanon and they want to know what the school district is like. It’s a great tool for us to share the great things that are going on in the district,” he said.
Schrage talked about programs to give students work experience, internships and training at the Lebanon Technical and Career Center.
“It's an amazing experience for students that you can walk in and you'll be fixing cars,” she said. “They're changing tires. We are actually a functional tire shop. We can only do I think nine sets a week, but we've got it where people can actually drop off their car.”
They also talked about the building and renovation projects, including the additions now under construction at the high school.
Depending on the weather, the goal is to occupy the new high school construction in the second semester of the next school year.
For more news, see Wednesday's LCR.
