Prairie Rose foresees another progress-filled year in 2026

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on January 6, 2026.

After a busy year, Prairie Rose Public Schools is looking to keep up the momentum and continue to push for academic success.

Even with the small interruption of 2025 being an election year and bringing in some new board of trustees members, PRPS superintendent Reagan Weeks says she feels a sense of incredible dedication and work from all levels of the school division.

“I think the most exciting thing as can be expected is that our teachers have continued to do really wonderful work with students,” said Weeks. “We’ve seen a lot of academic growth and commitment to student success.”

Major projects included the beginning of work to open the upcoming Yuill School of Agriculture, which will serve as a throughline from other agricultural programs such as AgPro and the Irvine Agricultural Discovery Centre to allow students to continue to pursue the field of study into high school.

Throughlines have been a theme for the past year, with significant work being done launching what Weeks called “vertical curriculum mapping,” which is a process that facilitates co-ordination between teachers across grades. The aim of this process is to ensure students coming into the classroom have mastered the skills they need to be able to thrive, and subsequently leave that same classroom well prepared for the next school year.

“Teachers have been really excited about the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues teaching the same subjects in a grade, but then also connect that to the grade below and the grade above,” said Weeks.

She says this was also a year in which the division made strides with its new before- and after-school care program, which is based out of Eagle Butte High School.

Looking toward the future, those throughlines remain a theme, as Weeks expects to make progress in creating a junior high level program that will cater to students with interest in aviation earlier in their school careers.

“We’re continuing to do some deep work in numeracy and so we’re looking to have our teachers, as some of them are piloting the new curriculum, give us feedback and really ensure that we’re supporting them with resources,” said Weeks, adding that the division wants staff to feel they have what they need in their classrooms.

This falls in line with the “Ignite Minds” portion of PRPS’s strategic priorities, alongside a focus on connection and positive childhood experiences for “kindle hearts” and continuing to “fold features” with building out of the various programs.

“The final piece that we have been looking at refining is that we have included leadership and public speaking components in all of our micro school programming,” said Weeks. “We hear about the work that they do in 4-H and how much of a positive impact that has, the confidence it gives students, the ability to speak to adults, the ability they have to talk about a subject and share information powerfully. That is another piece that we’re looking to further embed into coursework.”

Overall, PRPS is looking forward to another year of academic growth and commitment to student success.