The Riverdale School District is off to an early start this year and things are going awesome. 

The district was granted an early start waiver by the Department of Instruction because of the learning disruption that occurred during the last several years.  

An August 22 start date means that all students will be out of school by Memorial Day of 2024. The early start date allows the school to take advantage of more productive learning days compared to the days we often encounter in June. Students are also back to campus in August participating in extracurricular activities and teachers are preparing for the upcoming school year.  It has been a great start to the school year.  

The high school has a large senior class of 62 students this year. We hope to have over 30 students enrolled in Youth Apprenticeships and the high school offers seven Advanced Placement courses with 37 students taking at least one of these courses.  

Mr. Campbell and the staff have implemented a new Advisory period mid morning for the 7th -12th grade classes.  This is a time where staff and students can organize, goal set, and have school group meetings. The Advisory time replaces Chieftain Time that was previously at the end of the day. 

Student Service is up and running for students in 7-12 grades. This is a chance for students to help teachers and work with younger students throughout the class day. This has been a popular program for years. The teaching staff receives help from students, the service student gets valuable experience, and the elementary students love it when they get to see some of the older students come over and spend time in their classrooms.  

Mrs. Hougan has the elementary up and running smoothly.  We have a large 4 year old kindergarten class of 52 students.  We thought we were going to have around 35 4k students. That was a great surprise. Our staff has adjusted and everything is going well. The teachers in grades Kindergarten-6th grade are piloting a new science program that incorporates more hands-on learning into the program.  If you haven’t noticed already, we may be asking you for some everyday household items to help us in this task.

Mr. Swiggum has the Riverdale Way in full force. Students are rewarded for being responsible, respectful and being caring with bumps tickets. Assemblies are held throughout the year to celebrate their success and focus on upcoming events.   

The Head Start program donated new playground equipment this year. The equipment helps the head start children and our 4-year-old kindergarten students, who are smaller in size, navigate the equipment easier. We really appreciate the contribution to our district.