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Mr. Kesselus, Principal and C & I Director

Thanks for visiting our website. As the Principal and Director of Curriculum & Instruction for the district, I am proud to serve Prairie Lea – a district where, “We celebrate learning every day.”

Although we are small in size, our curriculum offerings are dynamic providing  a wider array of academic, athletic, co-curricular, and extracurricular offerings than virtually all similarly sized districts. This intensive offering is the result of creative planning, staff flexibility, and board support. In addition, every student receives core instruction from teachers deemed “highly qualified” by state and federal standards and our aggregate state testing scores continue to improve in tandem with ever escalating high stakes testing requirements.

As of this year, the district Pre-Kindergarten is district sponsored. Previously the district participated in a Head-Start cooperative. When Head-Start discontinued service to the Prairie Lea, Fentress, and Stairtown area, the Prairie Lea I.S.D. school board, recognizing the importance of early childhood education, opted to use a combination of federal and local funds to ensure the education of our youngest students continued, uninterrupted.  During this pilot year of service, the district serves students residing in the district that are age 3 for half day sessions and students age 4 for full days.

Currently , students in grades 3-12 attend classes on a “3 alternating and 2 everyday” schedule. This year’s master schedule can be found here.

Students in 3-12 attend three block classes every other day and two classes every day (although some early elementary students receive “double blocks” of math and reading).

Elementary
All students in elementary attend elective courses by grade level. Elementary electives include: Art, Technology, A.R. Lab, Spanish, and Physical Education. In addition, students in grades 6-8 are eligible to play six man football, volleyball, basketball, track and field, and cross country.

Secondary
Junior High students have options for Woodshop, Art, and Theatre Arts. In addition, Eighth grade students also take Spanish I and IPC.

High School students have options for several Building Trades and Automotive Courses,  several Web Design courses, Art I-IV, Theatre Arts 1-4, Consumer Science I & II, Pre-Calculus, Physics, Yearbook, Athletics, Spanish II & III,  as well as other courses that are moved in and out of rotation on a biennial basis – so that each high school student has an opportunity to select additional electives either in their freshman/junior years or sophomore/senior years

The student lunch schedule is listed here. As a general philosophy, the Board of Trustees has opted to charge just enough for meals to cover costs rather than use the cafeteria as a source of revenue for other departments like most districts do. This is in acknowledgement of the limited resources of many of the families in the district.  Current lunch prices are  [Insert Adult, Child Regular Prices, and Reduced Prices]

In addition to following the state standards - the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills - the district joined C-Scope three years ago. C-Scope is a comprehensive curriculum resource for English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. For more information about C-Scope, click here for general information. Click here for parent-specific information.

The student master schedule is available here.  The schedule on the surface appears somewhat complex; however this is necessary in order to offer a larger selection of electives, to increase the ability for staff to monitor students, and to allow staff experts to cross from the secondary schedule to the elementary schedule and vice-versa.

The district calendar was created via a cooperative effort of the faculty, staff, parents and community of Prairie Lea I.S.D. and was coordinated and evaluated by the district Site Based Committee and School Board.

As a whole, it was determined that ending the school year before Memorial Weekend was desirable. Additionally, in June of 2007, the Texas Legislature imposed a start date of “No earlier than the last Monday in August” for all public school districts. In order to meet the state mandate and the overall preference of Prairie Lea I.S.D. stakeholders – most holidays in between the last Monday in August and the Friday before Memorial Weekend have been shortened. To view this year’s calendars, click here.

We welcome visitors to our campus. When visiting, please stop by our office to check in and receive a visitor’s pass.  The district uses the Raptor Identification System™ to screen visitors pursuant to applicable state and federal law to ensure the safety and well being of students, staff, and visitors. Please bring a valid state i.d. or driver’s license to the office to check in.

For more information, I may be reached at 512-488-2328 or by e-mail.

Darren Kesselus
Principal / C& I Director