Photo: Courtesy of Ozark County Times
An Ozark County school district will be searching for a new leader. Dora R-III Superintendent Steve Richards has announced he will be leaving at the end of the school year for the same position in the Seymour R-II School District.
According to the Ozark County Times, this will be Richards’ second stint at Seymour. He was at the Webster County district for 10 years as the girls’ basketball coach and athletic director for the high school.
Richards has served at Dora for the past five years, after working as the high school principal for Sparta R-III School District where he graduated in 1989. He earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1994 from the College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout and master’s and specialist’s degrees from William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri.
Following his last stint at Seymour, Richards was a coach at Liberty High School in the Mountain View-Birch Tree R-III School District for three years. He has resided in Mountain View while serving as Dora’s superintendent, and he says the drive to Seymour will be nearly the same as his drive to Dora.
During his time at Dora, Richards has overseen two financial ballot measures passed in 2014 and 2017. As a result, the district developed a separate middle school on its existing property with bond money and an additional $120,000 in district funds. In addition, the softball field was upgraded with dugouts and a pavilion to provide shade for spectators, and a $30,000 pig barn was built with a combination of district and FFA funds and community donations. A 3,700-square-foot FEMA shelter was also constructed at a cost of $300,000. Overall district funds have grown from $1.7 million to $2.24 million.
Richards can also boast of accomplishments in the Dora classrooms. The district’s scores in the Missouri Scores Improvement Program have risen from 82 to 95.
Richards’ last day at Dora will be June 30th.
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