K-M Middle School celebrates its 10th anniversary

At the beginning of the school year, Kasson-Mantorville Middle School principal Erin Kyllo met with her professional learning community to develop goals for the upcoming year. While the group set the bar for staff, the students and operation goals, one of the other set of goals had to do with the community. With this being her second year at the school, Kyllo wanted to make it a point to get more members of the community in the school and share the great things that are going on.
As part of that process, Kyllo and her staff celebrated the 10th anniversary of the middle school building with an event that included a hot dog lunch, music performed by the band, and student-led tours to show the community just how the building is helping the Kasson and Mantorville area become a better place.
“The communities of Kasson and Mantorville are so supportive of us,” Kyllo said. “We just could not do the things that we are able to do all year long without their support.”
The current KMMS building was opened for the 2008-09 school year and replaced the Mantorville school building that is currently the Dodge County Government Building. Prior to that, the middle school had also been housed in a wing of the high school building. Getting the new building was key to help the students who were between elementary school and high school fundamentals.
“I think one of the big benefits of having a middle school building for grades 5-8 is that you really get to push that middle school philosophy,” K-M superintendent Mark Matuska said. “You have kids that are in some pretty crucial years of growth as they start to mature physically and emotionally. We do some things at the middle school that are a little different to meet those needs that they are having. There’s a lot of support systems in middle schools that are really advantageous for kids.”
One of those support systems is having kids linked up with an advisory teacher throughout their time at KMMS. With each student in an Advisory, they can feel a connection to one teacher that helps them through anything they may encounter.
“This way we have someone that meets with them to help support their needs whether it’s grades or social emotional needs,” Kyllo said of the advisory system. “It’s about having that one champion to always be there for the kids throughout the years and that’s really powerful.”
“Anything we can do on the emotional and social side is certainly going to help us when those kids enter the high school,” Matuska added. “It gets them better prepared for the issues they’ll deal with not only as high school students, but for the rest of their lives. That’s why it’s important to tackle a lot of those issues for middle school kids.”
With all of the buildings in the K-M district, the middle school’s footprint continues to grow and will possibly take another step forward with the possibility for expansion down the road. Each wing (one for each grade 5-8) in the school has the infrastructure to expand by two to four classrooms, which means that KMMS might have the ability to help even more students.
“We have enough bathrooms, kitchen space and gymnasium space so that if we do that, we can add sections to those wings without having to build an entire new building,” Matuska said. “That is the one area of all of our buildings that if we continue to grow like we did this year, we have the space.”
Out of all of the improvements and benefits that the new building has, perhaps the ability to establish a culture may be the biggest benefit of them all. Kyllo recently talked to a student that had started the year in another district, but returned to K-M because the kids are just nicer here.
With initiatives such as Kind KoMet Challenges and the upcoming Community Service Day this week, KMMS is sure to continue to shape the area for many years to come.
“There are a lot of pieces I enjoy about K-M Middle School and one of them is the culture of the building we have,” Kyllo said. “That culture embodies staff and students and it is very accepting of others. For me, the culture we shape and create together is important.”