Great first day reported for Ponca City Public Schools

The Ponca City Public School district officials reported a good start to the 2016-2017 school year. Several school administrators spent the morning visiting schools, meeting students and teachers and making sure everything was running smoothly.

Superintendent Dr. David Pennington is shown in the picture with Laura Glowacki’s class at the new Pre-kindergarten Center.

All teachers new to the district received a nice surprise on the first day. They were hand-delivered a stipend check by school administrators. The district requires new teachers to attend three additional days of orientation in addition to the 185-day teacher contract. Administrators decided beginning with this year’s new teachers, they would pay them for the extra days worked.

“By paying this stipend, we were able to help them financially until they receive their first paycheck,” Pennington said.

“We had a really great start to the school year," Pennington said. "I have always appreciated our teachers and how they are ready to teach on the first day. I have been in other districts where that was not the case. I want to thank our custodial and maintenance staff for getting our facilities ready for the first day.

"We had some unusual challenges this year with construction projects at Lincoln, Liberty, Trout, and Roosevelt that they had to work around. They also had rain delays that caused them to work late into the evenings trying to get our facilities ready. I would also like to thank Rick Scott Construction and Sooner Construction for completing their projects on time,” Pennington said.

Teacher Laura Glowacki, Superintendent Dr. David Pennington, and Teacher Assistant Laurie Graham are pictured with the entire Pre-K class

Jill Henderson, Special Services Director, Lincoln teacher Yvonne Magee and Shelley Arrott, Executive Director of Human Resources, are all smiles for the first day of school.