From the Superintendent

Amy Ruzicka baylessk12.org

Dear Bayless Community,

This issue of is dedicated to celebrating our many accomplishments from the 20222023 school year. Our students, staff, and community have worked tirelessly to ensure the district continues to thrive and provide the best possible education for our students.

Bayless has seen strong growth in student achievement, rapid expansion of after school activities, and continued improvements in our facilities through strong governance and resource stewardship. Our district was also recently named a National District of Character and a Top Workplace by St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

These accomplishments are a testament to the hard work and dedication of our students, staff, and community. I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved together, and I am excited to see what we can accomplish in the coming year.

As we look ahead to the 2023-2024 school year, we are committed to elevating our goals and continuing to challenge ourselves to achieve even greater success. We will focus on providing more opportunities for our students to engage in rich learning experiences, improving the spaces students learn in (see the Building a Better Bayless page to see updates on flooring, windows and more), and strengthening our partnerships with local businesses and organizations.

As a distinguished Missouri Healthy School, we will also continue to prioritize the health, safety and wellbeing of our students and staff, ensuring our schools remain a safe and welcoming environment for all.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support and dedication to our district. Together, we can achieve great things and provide the best possible educational experiences for all of our students.

In celebration,

Amelia A. Ruzicka Superintendent of Schools

As teachers, we have a positive impact on our students — we get to be mentors, leaders, and sometimes parent-figures.

Growing up, I watched my mother work as a teacher. She was my role model, and I recognized the importance of her work and the difference she made in the lives of her students. Those values are one of the reasons I chose to become a teacher, along with my desire to make a difference in my students’ lives and share my passion for learning.

One of the core parts of my work is taking students in, making them feel welcome and safe in my classroom, encouraging them to learn and make mistakes, and believing in them.

A former student, Nate Griffin (Class of 2022), told me, “I wasn’t always the best kid when I came into high school and didn’t even really think I would graduate, but Mrs. Olson always believed in me and was the first person that made me believe in myself.”

Part of instilling my love of learning is doing it myself. When I shared with my students that I joined the Mathematics Specialist Program at Bayless through the University of Central Missouri, many told me they were proud of me for returning to school to continue my education. My goal is to become a better math teacher and use the skills I am learning in my role as the 6-12 Math Curriculum Chair. As I learn and strengthen my teaching strategies, I bring these lessons back to my team to improve math education for all Bayless students.

One of my students and I’s biggest accomplishments was a year ago during state testing. Working together, we raised the Algebra I End of Course Advanced and Proficient Scores from 30% in 2021 to 62% in 2022, which was 20% over the state average.

This year, I worked hard to rewrite my Algebra I curriculum to make it more rigorous and engaging for students, which I hope will produce even better scores next year. I also continued to give students plenty of opportunities to learn outside of normal school hours.

During my first year at Bayless (which was 11 years ago), I helped create an after-school tutoring program. I have helped this program grow into what is now called Level Up. This past year, I became the district Level Up Coordinator for the Junior High and High School. Through my and many other teachers’ passion for teaching, we offer more subjects than ever.

My students love attending Level Up. I originally started tutoring three days a week, but students quickly began asking for five days a week. Level Up is a quiet, safe place for students to get help on their assignments. Each day I would have anywhere from five to over 20 of my Algebra 1 students staying to get help on the concepts we were working on.

This year, during the last eight weeks leading up to the End of Course Exams, I did EOC Prep during Level Up where I created new lessons, activities, games, etc. to help students review the standards we covered all year. I had anywhere from five to 20 students each day.

I am very proud of my students for pushing themselves to be the best version of themselves. I can’t wait to see how my students did on their EOC this year, but I already can see the growth each student made this past year by all the hard work and dedication they put in every day.

As Amira, a 2015 graduate, told me, “You always put your students first and our success was your success.”