Progress Education & Arts • 2023

More creative spaces Iowa Central Community College

Iowa Central breaks ground on new Center for Performing Arts

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

This year, Iowa Central began two construction projects aimed to give fine arts and information technology students more creative spaces on campus.

Construction on a new Center for Performing Arts and renovation of Decker Auditorium broke ground in the fall. The former student services building is also undergoing a makeover to become the new Art and Technology Building.

Center for Performing Arts

Last spring was the final curtain call for Iowa Central Community College’s Decker Auditorium.

The 50-year-old building is currently undergoing a complete facelift, along with the construction of a new Center for Performing Arts. This is the first time since it was built in 1978 that the 1,200-seat Decker Auditorium will undergo any significant upgrades.

The college’s Board of Trustees approved a bid from Sioux City-based Klinger Construction for $11,907,000 during a special meeting on July 25. The project was designed by the Des Moines architecture firm OPN Architects.

The need for updates to the auditorium has been apparent for many years, said Dr. Jesse Ulrich, Iowa Central president.

It was part of the 2018 bond referendum, with $3 million earmarked for the project.

“The ultimate goal is not to just update Decker Auditorium,” said Ulrich. “The goal of this is to truly create a better student experience within the fine arts by creating a Center for Performing Arts that culminates in a lot of

different areas and updates that (Decker) Hall into a new age.”

There is a laundry list of problems the current facility has, including lack of handicap accessibility backstage, as well as a leaky roof and inadequate space for dressing rooms and set building, said Teresa Jackson, director of theater at Iowa

ABOVE: This is the final rendering of the design for the south entrance to the Iowa Central Center for Performing Arts.

LEFT: The former student services building is undergoing a transformation into the new Art & Technology Building. The makeover includes a new allglass front entrance.

Central.

“It’s time,” Jackson said. “She’s been a grand old dame, but she needs to go retire a beautiful facility.”

In the auditorium itself — which will be renamed Decker Hall — new stage lighting and sound equipment will be part of the upgrade.

“The lights are antiquated and the rigging system needs to be overhauled to make it current,” Jackson said. “We can’t even replace some of the lights we have because they don’t make them any more.”

In addition to completely renovating the auditorium with new seating, new lighting and a new sound system, this project will also construct a Center for Performing Arts, extending the building to the south. The center will have a new band room, theater room, expanded classroom spaces, a set shop and additional bathrooms. The whole space, including the auditorium, will be fully ADA accessible, something the current auditorium is not. ADA seating will be added, and there will be a ramp access to the stage. Currently, the stage is only accessible by steps.

The installation of an elevator will also add ADA accessibility to the second floor and balcony of the auditorium.

Another major update to the facility will be the addition of restrooms on both the first and second floors. Currently, visitors must go next door to Hodges Fieldhouse to use the restroom. An entrance on the south side of the building will be built to be closer to additional parking.

“It’s not just the aesthetics of the auditorium itself, but all of

See ICCC, Page 2D

-Image courtesy of OPN Architects

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla

the nitty gritty of putting on a production that will be improved,” Jackson said. “It’s just antiquated. I think my team has done such a good job of hiding all of our flaws, because we have talented students and we work really hard. We’re a really cohesive performance team, but it gets harder and harder.”

The state of the facility has also caused some problems with recruiting to the fine arts programs at the college, Jackson said. A lot of students are coming in from high schools that have newly renovated performance auditoriums and are seeing the poor shape of the aging Decker Auditorium.

Jackson said she thinks that the upgrades to Decker Hall and addition of the Performing Arts Center will also help bring in professional touring groups to perform shows throughout the year.

Iowa Central’s facility is the largest performance venue in the college’s service region, said Mary Ludwig, executive director of development and

alumni. With the renovation and new construction, it has the potential to bring in visitors from all over northwest and north central Iowa.

Art and Technology Building

When student services and the college’s administrative offices moved over to the new Greehey Family Student Success Center in 2020, that left the former student services building empty and open for possibilities.

Now, the building — one of the original buildings of the college — is going through a makeover to become the Art and Technology Building.

The first change will be noticed as one walks up to the finished building.

“We gave it more of a modern entrance that also kind of ties in the building with all the other buildings that we’ve got on campus,” Ulrich said.

The new entrance, which has an allglass front, will look similar to an art

gallery, with large windows letting in natural light and giving passersby a peek at the art on display and the art being created by students.

“This will be a significant change to what that space was before,” Vice President of Operations Ryan Gruenberg said. “All that natural light coming in will be just amazing.”

Past the entrance will be the makerspace area, which will house the engineering and design programs, with 3D printers as well as large format printing options.

“This is going to be an area for them to be extremely creative and have fun,” Gruenberg said.

Large overhead doors allow the room to open up and join with the room behind it.

“A core value that we were looking for when we designed this is collaboration,” Ulrich said. “As you go through the building, you’ll notice the openness of the building to be able to collaborate and work on cross-curricular design

activities.”

A new photo studio will give the photography students space to work with an abundance of natural light with its wall of windows, as well as serving as a multipurpose space.

“So when we’re hosting small social gatherings or events, to be able to get our community and alumni back on campus, they’ll be able to look out those windows and see kids going back and forth across campus,” Ulrich said. “It’s going to be a great room.”

The updated building will also include a large ceramics classroom, a dark room for film photography students, traditional classrooms, faculty offices, the college’s IT staff and more.

The construction is expected to be complete by July, in time for the fall semester to begin in late August.

The renovations were designed by Allers Associates Architects, of Fort Dodge, and the construction work is being done by Jensen Builders.

St. Edmond Catholic School Welcome, young learners

St. Edmond debuts 3-year-old preschool, promotes 'Virtues in Practice' curriculum

By BILL SHEA bshea@messengernews.net

Some very young new faces can be seen on the campus of St. Edmond Catholic School this year.

That’s because the Fort Dodge school’s preschool program for 3-year-olds debuted at the start of the 2022-2023 academic year.

The demand for the program was strong. School leaders were planning on two sections of 3-year-old preschool. But scheduling two sections left a waiting list of children, so a third section was added.

Also new on the campus for this school year is the Rev. Ross Caniglia, who is the chaplain for the roughly 600 students, the faculty and the staff.

In 2022-2023, St. Edmond is continuing with the Virtues in Practice religious curriculum.

“My hope this year is to instill our love of God and our virtues,” said Tabitha Acree, the elementary and middle school principal. “We’re always trying to develop Christian leaders and Christian disciples to continue to strengthen the whole person.”

St. Edmond students could be seen putting their virtues

-Messenger file photo by Kelby Wingert

THE REV. ROSS CANIGLIA, CHAPLAIN, greets elementary students at St. Edmond Catholic School on the first day of school on Aug. 23, 2022. See ST. EDMOND, Page 18D

Iowa Central Community College

Focusing on the future, impact on region

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

Aside from two major construction projects, Iowa Central Community College has had a busy year, starting with creating a new strategic plan for the institution.

In April, the college hosted several strategic planning conversation sessions with students, staff, faculty and community members.

“We had well over 300 people participate in our

listening sessions and our strategic planning sessions to provide feedback about what we’re doing really well as a college and where we’re seeing that we have a need,” said college President Jesse Ulrich.

Through those sessions, four main priorities were identified: advancing developmental opportunities, cultivating Triton culture, uniting through communication and collaboration and empowering student engagement.

Several committees are being constructed to look at specific objectives related to these four areas, including the President’s Leadership Academy.

“We want to make sure we

are empowering and building our human capital so that when we have leadership positions that open up at Iowa Central, we have people that have been trained and know our culture, that understand our leadership framework, to be able to slide into those positions and continue the good work that we have been doing,” Ulrich said.

This last year, Iowa Central also launched the Triton Academies on the Fort Dodge campus.

“We have career academies throughout our region — one down in Greene County, one over in Laurens and one in Eagle Grove,” Ulrich said. “But the Triton Academy opened

up our campus to be an allencompassing career academy for this portion of the region.”

Through the Triton Academies, high school students can enroll in up to nine credit hours per semester in a variety of degree and transfer degree programs. Students take classes alongside the traditional students on Iowa Central’s campus, creating a real college learning environment.

“The way we look at it is even if you go your junior year and senior year and you just do the minimum three courses, then by the time you graduate high school, you’re halfway toward your AA degree,” Ulrich said. “And for students

who really want to ramp it up and take more of these courses, it increases their potential to complete their AA degree along with their high school diploma at the same time.”

For students who don’t have the option of traveling to campus or one of the other career academies, there are several programs that can be completed online.

The Triton Academy program is an example of how the college aims to be a high-quality and efficient option for students to continue their education, Ulrich said.

“When we say we want

See FUTURE, Page 7D

Jesse Ulrich

Fort Dodge Community Schools Raising young leaders

FD schools continue with Leader in Me, superintendent search

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

The Fort Dodge Community School District is raising young leaders in its classrooms.

The district is in the middle of its first full year implementing the Leader in Me initiative in the schools with both staff and students, and the effect is already noticeable.

“Students and staff are really getting those action teams off the ground and making some remarkable progress,” said Steph Anderson, director of elementary education.

Leader in Me is a K-12 curriculum that aims to empower students with the leadership and life skills they need to thrive in the 21st century. The model provides a character-building framework based on Franklin Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

School staff reflect on how they use the seven habits and then model them for students by integrating the socialemotional learning around them into other lessons. Leader in Me aligns to the Iowa Department of Education’s social-emotional learning

competencies released in December 2019.

In early 2020, the FDCS Foundation committed to supporting this program for the first two years at a cost of $55,000 per year for a total investment of $110,000.

“In preschool through 12th grade, we have been implementing the curriculum, implementing the leadership groups within students and within staff throughout each of the buildings,” said Anderson. “There are facilitators and action teams throughout the building so that distributive leadership is happening in every single building in our district.”

The results of the program are clear. In the first eight days of the 2021-2022 school year, the district’s five elementary schools reported 198 behavior referrals. In the first eight days of 2022-2023, there were just 128.

“It was drastically lower this year, when we took the time to build relationships, establish solid expectations and kids were part of that process, so we feel like that was really instrumental in making a change in that effort,” said

Anderson.

Currently, the Board of Education is in the process of hiring a new, permanent superintendent. After former Superintendent Derrick Joel departed at the end of the 20212022 school year, Dr. Denise Schares was hired as an interim superintendent. Schares is assisting in the search for a new superintendent.

Applications for the position closed Jan. 16 and the district received 14 applications, Schares said.

“That’s a great pool of candidates,” Schares said.

For Cooper Elementary students, the start of this school year was a long-awaited homecoming. While the school underwent substantial renovations, the students and staff were relocated to the former Riverside Elementary building from January through May 2022.

The $4.4 million renovation project included a new HVAC system, ceilings, lighting and flooring. It also widened the

doors in the building to make them handicap accessible.

The project was funded with Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds from the federal government.

“We’re just super grateful because it is beautiful and it’s such a different space,” Cooper Principal Kate Simpson said at the start of the school year. “It still feels like Cooper, but it’s just so much more updated and brighter and it feels new even

See FDCSD, Page 9D

Submitted photos

BRAELYN TOWNSEND PRACTICES the violin recently. The fifth-grade band program recently returned to the Fort Dodge Community School District.

Future

Continued from Page 1

kids to come here, finish their degrees in the shortest amount of time possible with the least amount of student loan debt so they can have a better life, we mean it,” he said. “If they can get the first two years of their college done by the time they graduate high school and then go to Iowa State or Iowa for only two years, that literally cuts their student loans in half … it saves tens of thousands of dollars.”

In 2022, Iowa Central trained about 15,000 people within its nine-county service region, Ulrich said. These include CDL drivers, emergency medical technicians, career and technical education programs and workforce training at large regional employers like Prestage Foods of Iowa in Eagle Grove and Tyson Meats in Storm Lake.

“The economic impact that Iowa Central has on our nine counties where one out of every 26 jobs is impacted by this institution, that’s pretty big,” Ulrich said.

Only 35% of the students the college serves are from the ninestate service region, Ulrich said. However, of the students who graduate from Iowa Central, 77% stay in the service region.

“That’s an awesome draw for our businesses,” Ulrich said.

Fall enrollment at Iowa Central was up by 2%, Ulrich said, which is an overall 12% increase over the last two years.

The college also welcomed a new colossal 3-D printer that will eventually be used by the construction trades to print an actual house.

Iowa Central announced in the fall that the turf grass management program at

Willow Ridge would be moving to the Fort Dodge Country Club, and the restaurant at Willow Ridge will be closing after this semester.

“At the end of the day, we were losing $200,000 a year, and the purpose of a community college is not to lose a quarter million dollars a year so that a small group of people have a golf course,” Ulrich said.

The Country Club has been a “wonderful collaborative partner” with this transition, he added.

The culinary arts program that runs the Willow Ridge restaurant will be pivoting to a commercialized food truck in the near future.

Once the spring semester is complete and the restaurant closes, Ulrich said, the plan is to sell the property.

-Photo by Paul DeCoursey IOWA CENTRAL STUDENTS walk across campus on the first day of classes in August 2022.

South Central Calhoun Community Schools Putting community first

By DOUG CLOUGH editor@messengernews.net

LAKE CITY — Mission statements

— whether it be for a business, a school, or church — are often written, placed in a binder, put on a shelf, and forgotten about until further notice. But not at South Central Calhoun (SCC) Community School District.

This district’s mission statement is to partner with [their] communities to provide an environment rich with opportunities that challenge every student to master skills and understandings which will transfer into a successful future.

Every year, community — according to Superintendent Brad Anderson — is a major focus of the district’s goals, and it’s evident that this mission has teeth given four major happenings occurring at SCC.

For the 2022-2023 school year, South Central Calhoun is focusing on the education of not only the student, but the community and parents as well.

“Our elementary school has put two challenges out for our students and community,” said Anderson. “The first has been a sleep challenge. With sleep being an important part of a child’s development and well-being, the challenge was to get adequate sleep and track it accordingly by class over a period. A similar challenge has been going on with respect to use of technology. Recent research shows that technology in moderation can be OK, but just like any other addictive components, the overuse of technology can have a drastic impact on brain development.”

These challenges have been going on this month, culminating with the National Day of Play on Feb. 1. The district’s website has more information at https://scc.k12.ia.us/news/ elementary-tech-challenge/.

For the past several years, SCC has been part of the Building Resilient Individuals and Communities (BRIC) organization.

“This is a coalition of community organizations such as Stewart Community Hospital, Department of Human Services, Calhoun County Public Health, Plains Area Mental Health, Family Resources of Iowa, and SCC,” said Anderson. “We meet monthly and strategize ways to help meet student and family needs in the areas of social, emotional, and mental health, food insecurity, housing

assistance, and other ways possible. Our pool of resources has helped dozens of families through its years of existence.”

SCC also makes it a priority to make sure kids are fed and have ample “brain food” throughout the day. Anderson said that local businesses, individuals, and organizations have donated hundreds of dollars in healthy snacks and essentials for students at all three SCC buildings.

In the spring, SCC students take a day to give back to the community which invests in them. “Kindergarten through senior students perform a community service,” said Anderson, “as a way to give back to the very people who have supported us throughout the school year and beyond. Students have cleaned up the walking trail in Lohrville, done

painting jobs on request, beautified our school grounds, and have completed a number of jobs.”

The students’ service day will be completed in early May this year. However, giving back is not just for students; staff and local donors have pooled their resources to give back more than $12,000 to 75 families who have been determined to have a need through the holiday season.

“Arguably one of the strongest and most impactful programs of our district is our mentoring program,” said Anderson. “Our belief is that a strong investment in our foundation builds solid relationships and core skills. This is true from our four-year staff induction process all the way to our adult-to-student and student-tostudent mentoring relationships. These are lifelong collaborations that have a lasting impact on everyone involved. We are very proud of our mentoring efforts and will continue to build these relationships annually.”

In addition to these examples of community involvement, Anderson also noted that a majority of SCC’s juniors and seniors take advantage of dual credits in post-secondary education programs.

“We’ve had students graduate with an associates degree from college before they graduate from high school,” said Anderson, “and many students leave with an average of eight college credits already earned. Partnerships with Iowa Central Community College and Des Moines Area Community College have most certainly made college a reality for our students.”

-Submitted photo

AT SOUTH CENTRAL CALHOUN, all teachers arriving right out of college experience an induction program during their first three years of practice. The new teachers meet weekly discussing a specific number of inquiry cycles.

Brad Anderson

though it’s the same old building.”

With the completion of the renovations, Cooper became the last district building to install an air conditioning system, which means students will no longer enjoy heatrelated early releases in the late spring and early fall.

This school year also marked the return of fifth-grade band and orchestra. When the district’s fifth-grade classes were moved from the middle school down to the elementary schools at the start of the 2021-2022 school year, band and orchestra did not follow.

“Laura Klein-Ferry is facilitating individual and small group band lessons with fifth-graders once a week at each of the buildings,” Anderson said. “Brian Robison does the same thing [for orchestra]. Their hope is at the end of the year to potentially bring all the schools together and do some

type of performance maybe in April or May.”

Looking ahead for Fort Dodge Schools, the district is looking at its safety initiatives and assessing security vulnerabilities and needs at each building, Anderson said.

“We are hosting a school safety session for parents and families in late February,” she said. “That will be a collaborative effort between the sheriff’s department, the local Police Department and the school district.”

-Messenger file photo by Kelby Wingert

KATE SIMPSON stands by a bulletin board highlighting the school’s homecoming back to the building.

Algona Community Schools Guiding reorganization

By DOUG CLOUGH editor@messengernews.net

ALGONA — When Superintendent

Joe Carter arrived at Algona Community School District three and a half years ago, he came with significant experience in highperformance academics. His tenure of 20 years was solely at the Emmetsburg School District; however, he held positions as middle school teacher and elementary principal, among other positions of responsibility.

“Emmetsburg really prepared me for what was going on here at Algona and the surrounding communities,” said Carter. “As a teacher and principal, I learned quickly that communication is at the forefront of any worthwhile endeavor.”

The first endeavor that Carter faced as Algona’s superintendent was reorganization of that district with Lu Verne. In fact, there had been some aspects of eventual reorganization bubbling since 2014 when the Corwith-Wesley Community School District and Lu Verne began sharing all sports with Algona. In 2015, the Corwith-Wesley CSD was dissolved, and Lu Verne began whole grade sharing grades 7-12 with Algona; in 2018, the sixth grade was moved to the middle school sharing program.

“When I arrived in 2019, the Lu Verne CSD and Algona CSD applied for joint employment incentives from the state of Iowa,” said Carter. “Part of the joint employment process was to show that we were making progress towards reorganization. Looking ahead, combined rural districts were not making great gains in population. Rural flight to large communities sometimes leads to hundreds of new students in some large suburbs, but not in the outlying areas. We had to do something for the health of both districts.

“The first year, we showed what we

were sharing. During year two, both boards appointed a reorganization committee to come up with a petition to be placed on the ballot. Year three included the vote for reorganization which was Sept. 13, 2022. The vote passed and our newly formed district included Titonka, Burt, Lu Verne, and Algona.”

Information, according to Carter, had to be communicated well in advance.

“It was monumental to the effort to keep everyone informed. For instance, the taxpayers needed to know that both districts were in good financial shape, but that some towns could see a small tax increase,” said Carter. “They also needed to understand that rural Iowa is losing students and staff at a quickening pace, and this has had potential to really hurt both school districts. Without students and staff, we may struggle to continue to offer the great programs we presently have or even potentially struggle to try to add new ones. Basic needs like custodial and kitchen staff would be hard to fill.”

After reorganizing, the district has almost 1,500 students, 100 teachers, and close to 150 support staff, said Carter.

“We already have amenities like the Ed and Betty Wilcox Performing Arts Center and an athletic gateway project with aspects that foster inclusion,” he said. “More importantly, we have an increased chance of having the staff necessary to teach classes and care for our students in significant ways.

“Now that the vote has been approved and the legal work is done, we can get down to very meaningful work,” continued Carter. “The kids have been together in activities and the classroom for some time now. While this has never been solely about the money, it’s nice to have the financial incentives of reorganization in play for another three years. We are now able to plan beyond this timeframe to provide an enriching environment to meet the needs of all learners. It’s about the kids and giving them the best experience in the best possible environment.”

Joe Carter

Community Christian School STEM thriving at CCS

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, operations at Community Christian School are back to normal.

“We’re having an awesome year,” said Principal Stephanie Coble-Day. “We feel so blessed to be in Fort Dodge and we have such amazing community support.”

STEM learning is a main focus at Community Christian School this year.

Over the summer, nearly all of the teachers took advantage of a state STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) grant, Coble-Day said.

The kindergarten class, taught by Rachel Butler, received an aquaponics system from Ioponics. The students are growing plants like lettuce, tomato and spinach, using a combination of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil).

About halfway through the school year, the plants are struggling a bit, but the fish are thriving, Coble-Day said.

“They have just been doing really, really well and they’re growing and the kids are really enjoying them, so that’s been really fun to see and watch,” she said.

Starting next school year, all middle and elementary schools in the state will be required to provide highquality computer science education. CCS is getting a head start on that instruction.

“I have a lot of teachers and a lot

of students that love computers and coding,” Coble-Day said.

In Jeannette Larrabee’s third- and fourth-grade classroom, students are learning computer coding with Cubetto, a little wooden robot that allows kids to learn the basics of computer programming.

“The kids love it,” Coble-Day said. “They’re begging to do it. We’ve been doing it in third and fourth grade and now fourth-graders are helping teach the first- and second-graders how to do it. It’s a great way to introduce kids to coding and creativity and STEM in general.”

In seventh and eighth grade, Hannah Barton’s students are learning to code using mini-computers called

microbits.

The Cubetto and microbits — and the training on how to teach with them — were provided by the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council.

In December, CCS did the Invention Convention where third- and fourthgraders spend weeks creating an invention of their own and presenting it to the school’s board of directors and community members.

“We had such a variety,” Coble-Day said. “Every third- and fourth-grader presented something and they had to have a physical model of it, so we had 14 different inventions.”

Inventions varied from automatic pet feeders to a hamster carrier to a “lawn maid” that catches fallen leaves

to a luxury cathouse.

“They work really hard and come up with some really creative ideas,” Coble-Day said.

New at CCS this year was the Student Leadership Team.

“There are five kiddos that are on our Student Leadership Team, which is open to fifth through sixth grade,” Coble-Day said. “I meet with them twice a month and they help promote different things happening in the school.”

Recently, Coble-Day took the students to the Webster County Courthouse for a tour alongside the Leadership Fort Dodge class.

“We were there for a couple hours and we learned about county government,” she said. “I plan to take them down to the Capitol in Des Moines to learn about state governments. They’re a really great group of kids and are great leaders.”

CCS welcomed two new teachers this school year — Colleen Hansen in the first grade classroom and Rick Mandernach in the fifth- and sixthgrade classroom. This was also the first year in a few that first and second grades were in separate classrooms.

“We want it to be a priority to have kindergarten, first and second grades in separate classrooms, then right after COVID happened, we lost our firstgrade teacher and were not able to rehire until this school year,” CobleDay said.

CCS was also able to restart its band program this school year. Students take individual lessons and have group practices twice a week. In December, the band played in the school’s Christmas program. They’ll have another performance in the spring.

-Messenger file photo by Kelby Wingert

COMMUNITY CHRISTIAN SCHOOL STUDENTS in Hannah Barton’s seventhand eighth-grade class check out their tank of classroom goldfish.

Stephanie Coble-Day

Pocahontas Area Community Schools

Pocahontas celebrates comprehensive growth

By DOUG CLOUGH editor@messengernews.net

POCAHONTAS — Joe Kramer, superintendent of schools at Pocahontas Area Community School District, has much to tout as leader for his school district.

“We’ve had a really big year when it comes to fulfilling our mission to create and maintain an environment that ensures students reach a high level of academic, social, emotional, physical, and aesthetic growth,” said Kramer. “We’ve seen new initiatives in four areas

that have really stood out: mental health, technology, girls’ sports, and life skills.”

Pocahontas has a partnership with UnityPoint Health — BerryHill Center to place a therapist full time in

the district to provide access to students from Pocahontas Area.

“Our area has a shortage of available mental health therapists to meet the needs of our students,” said Kramer. “This service not only helps to provide access but also eliminates the travel time that increases the amount of time students miss school.

“The role of a schoolbased therapist is to help students who have a mental health diagnosis that interferes with success at school, at home,

or both,” he added. The district has also added behavioral, social, and emotional instruction into the core teaching in the elementary school. A middle school class was also added this year

for social and emotional development. Area businesses also participate in “High Five Fridays,” greeting elementary students with high fives as they arrive at school.

Susan Oehlertz,

elementary Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) teacher, wrote a grant that has placed 80-inch interactive TVs in four

See POCAHONTAS, 19D

Joe Kramer Susan Oehlertz

Manson Northwest Webster Community Schools Serving, achieving at high levels

By BILL SHEA bshea@messengernews.net

MANSON — When deadly tornadoes clobbered the areas of Winterset and Norwalk in March 2022, some students from Manson Northwest Webster Community School District were among those providing support to residents of those communities.

That support came in the form of casseroles and desserts prepared by 18 students in the family and consumer sciences program.

The relief cooking effort was organized by Jessica Lavicky, a family and consumer science teacher.

“I figured we could give back and what better way to do it,” Lavicky said.

Over the course of about a day and a half, she and her students prepared about 120 meals. Then they delivered them to the tornado-stricken areas.

Providing nutritious meals to the tornado victims was hardly the only accomplishment of Manson Northwest students in the past year.

A garden project returned to the elementary school in Barnum.

Actually, a garden was started at the school in 2019, but the pandemic derailed it. But in 2022 fifth-grade teacher Amy Brown, along with instructional coach Jodi Jacobsen and fifth-grade teacher Heather Wittrock, got it started again.

Raised planting beds were built by high school students in an ag construction class. They were then filled with soil.

Students Kathleen Hildreth, Maddie Wittrock, Bella Nelson, Brody Bush, Camdyn Swanson and Brooklynn Dornath played key early roles in getting the garden planted. They planted squash, peppers, tomatoes, yellow onions, eggplant, cilantro and parsley.

At the beginning of the 2022-2023

school year, elementary school students made salsa with vegetables grown in their garden.

Also in 2022, a group of Manson Northwest Webster students brought home a big honor from the All-State Speech Festival.

Cael Collins, Aubrey Jorgensen, Rilynn Lawman, Trinity Johnson, Sean Peters, and Shelby Swartzendruber won the Critics Choice Award in large group speech.

The district is now considering some building projects to be started in the near future. Replacing part of the roof on the junior high/high school building with a sloped metal roof is one of those projects.

The district is also planning an addition to the east side of that building. Allers Associates Architects, of Fort Dodge, has been hired by the Board of Education to design that addition.

A $2.5 million bond issue is being considered to pay for that project.

-Submitted photos

ABOVE: MNW High School students Adelynn Hudek, Brooklyn Boehler, Marleigh Doan and Makayla Geerdes stand in the Family and Consumer Science classroom in March 2022, showing many of the meals they prepared to give to victims of the March 5 tornadoes.

LEFT: Manson Northwest Webster elementary students, from left, Brooklyn Dornath, Maddie Wittrock, Bella Nelson, Kathleen Hildreth, Camdyn Swanson, and Brody Bush helped get the school’s raised-bed garden planted last summer.

St. Paul Lutheran School St. Paul to celebrate anniversary

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

Though a small school with just over 100 students in grades K-8, St. Paul Lutheran School aims to create the best learning spaces for its students.

Over the summer, the school installed all new interactive projectors and screens in the classrooms to upgrade the instructional technology.

The teachers enjoy the new tech and the ability to have innovative and engaging lessons, as do the students, Principal Bruce Hartley said.

“Teachers are able to turn the control over to let the kids share with each other,” he said. “Anytime you get kids being able to teach their classmates, it helps both the students and the classmates to be able to learn better.”

Some of the subject matter inside the classrooms has changed this year.

“We have adopted a new math curriculum, which is helping our students to continue to grow in their math skills and math knowledge,” Hartley said.

This is Hartley’s second year as principal at St. Paul. Prior to joining the staff, he worked in the Fort Dodge

Community School District for several decades as a teacher and administrator. During his first year at the helm at St. Paul, Hartley had the huge undertaking of the school’s re-accreditation process.

“We were awarded our accreditation in good standing with the National Lutheran Schools Accreditation Commission,” he said.

The accreditation is active for five years.

After one teacher chose to leave at the end of last school year, St. Paul welcomed back a familiar face — former teacher Heather Roethler, who teaches first grade.

“Through a partnership with Fort Dodge Public Schools, Elise Carlson has begun coming over here for a portion of each day to work with special needs students,” Hartley added. “Prior to this year, we did not have a special education teacher who would come into the building.”

Looking forward to 2023, St. Paul will be celebrating the 160th anniversary of its church and school.

Security will also be a focus, Hartley said. Through the Governor’s Safety and Security Grant, the school did a vulnerability study to identify places to make improvements on the school’s security system,” Hartley said.

-Messenger file

photo by Kelby Wingert

FIRST-GRADERS in Heather Roethler’s class at St. Paul Lutheran School make a visit to the school’s library. St. Paul is preparing to celebrate its 160th anniversary as a church and school.

Bruce Hartley

Southeast Valley Community Schools Officially united as one

Prairie Valley, Southeast Webster Grand make partnership permanent

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

GOWRIE — After seven years of whole grade-sharing, voters in the Prairie Valley and Southeast Webster Grand community school districts decided to make their partnership permanent.

Voters in the two districts cast their ballots on March 2, 2022, to approve a resolution to reorganize the districts into one, to be called Southeast Valley Community School District, with the resolutions passing with an overwhelming majority.

Brian Johnson, superintendent for both Prairie Valley and SWG, said he was excited that the district reorganization had passed.

“I was very happy at the large number of voter turnout,” he said. “I was happy that they made their voices heard.”

“This is my sixth year, and I started one year after the whole grade-sharing agreement had already been in place and I’ve been operating kind of like it’s one district since I got here,” Johnson said. “Now everybody will be able to operate that way.”

In 2014, the two school boards approved a whole grade-sharing contract for grades 5-12, uniting under the name Southeast Valley for the middle school in Burnside and the high school in Gowrie. Each district kept its respective elementary schools, located in Dayton and Farnhamville.

Enrollment in rural school districts has declined in recent years, leading to reduced revenue for districts and the need for grade-sharing and reorganization.

In the last 10 years, Southeast Webster Grand has declined by 70 students and Prairie Valley has declined by 106.

Johnson estimates that the enrollment of the Southeast Valley district will be roughly 1,050 students, though he noted that even though enrollment is trending downward, it does fluctuate yearto-year.

Combining the two rural districts into one will bring in more state funding, leading to better longevity of the rural schools, Johnson said during an informational meeting in February.

The new Southeast Valley district will become official on July 1, 2023, in time

for the start of the 2023-2024 school year.

Currently each of the two districts have seven school board members. Those 14 will come together to appoint seven founding members of the Southeast Valley school board, with three seats being from the eastern side of the district and three from the western side. There will be one at-large seat.

Not much else will change with this reorganization — the district boundaries remain as they are, the mascot remains the Jaguars, the colors remain teal and black and all four school buildings will stay open. The most visual change, however, will be the district name on the side of the

school buses.

Southeast Valley Community School District will become the state’s secondlargest school district in land mass, covering just about 500 square miles. The Western Dubuque Community School District has about 550 square miles in its district.

Southeast Valley will cover the entire southern half of Webster County, as well as small portions of Calhoun, Greene and Boone counties.

“I’m just really excited about the future of Southeast Valley, for the school and for the students,” Johnson said. “I think it’s great because our communities have given us the strong foundation to be great.”

-Messenger file photos by Kelby Wingert

ABOVE: Southeast Valley High School junior Mackenzie Coleman slices red peppers for the Asian salad at the Jag Cafe. LEFT: Southeast Valley High School sophomore John Klingson slices some strawberries while prepping for the next day’s restaurant meal on Sept. 22, 2022.

JOHN NEMMERS, THEN 17 and a junior at St. Edmond Catholic School, is all smiles as he helps pack meals during a Then Feed Just One meal packing event at the school on Feb. 2, 2022. The food packed by students provided thousands of meals to the less fortunate in Honduras.

St. Edmond

Continued from Page 4D

into practice throughout the last year.

In one of the most significant examples, 168 students worked in two shifts on a February 2022 day to prepare enough meals to feed 23,000 children.

The meal packing effort was part of a larger campaign called Then Feed Just One, which derives its name from a statement made by Mother Theresa. The students measured, bagged and boxed meal ingredients, which were to be shipped to Honduras.

Learning at St. Edmond can involve

some fun competition. For elementary grade students, that competition recently came in the form of the Battle of the Books. For this battle, teams of students read multiple books, then answered questions about those books.

Learning also takes place offcampus, such as when the seventhgraders visited the Camp Algona POW Museum in Algona.

Two St. Edmond students earned top vocal music honors in the current school year. Emma Davis and Zach Midtling were named to All-State Chorus.

ST. EDMOND STUDENTS

Mary Ella Gruver, McKenna Dillard, Aubrey Nolan and Grace Schlegel, then fifth-graders, confer on a quiz question during the Battle of the Books on March 9, 2022.

-Messenger file photo

-Messenger file photo

East Sac Community School

East Sac finalizing building improvements

By DOUG CLOUGH editor@messengernews.net

LAKE VIEW — Like many other Iowa school districts, East Sac County Community School District looks for ways to be efficient while meeting students’ needs.

“We have had some challenges filling teaching positions, and we knew that teachers were traveling between buildings at times when they could be teaching classes,” said Superintendent Jeff Kruse. “We knew we needed to be creative to make sure we were getting adequate class coverage. After conducting some research, we found the greatest way to do that was to reduce our district to just two attendance centers.”

The best method to do that, said Kruse, was to eliminate the middle school, adding a new fifth and sixth grade wing to the elementary and a seventh- and eighth-grade wing to the high school, creating a junior-senior high school.

“We’re down to a few doors needing some glass,” said Kruse, “but a majority of the renovations are complete.”

The renovations began in the summer of 2021 and continued through 2022.

The elementary school, which previously housed only kindergarten through fourth-grade students, added a new wing to accommodate the fifth- and sixthgraders from the now defunct middle school. The new rooms have storage, bright colors, and space to handle the two additional classes.

Improvements at the juniorsenior high school have included the stage in the “gymatorium” being repaired, sanded, and refinished. The back of the stage has been painted black, covering up decades of old paint, and new side curtains have been installed, so the music department can upgrade their productions.

A commons area has also been added and adjoining restrooms have bright red tiles to show off Raider colors; trophy cases also adorn the commons area. A new sidewalk has also been added, connecting the seventh- and eighth-grade wing to the agricultural education building. Most spectacularly, the east entrance of “Raider Nation” now sports the Raider mascot image — created by East Sac alumni Tanner King — which

is back-lit to be easily seen from the highway, guiding visitors to a future newly paved parking lot.

“In this month’s board meeting, a new parking lot was approved to be surfaced over the gravel lot for 150 vehicles,” Kruse said. “We’ve been living with that gravel and dirt parking lot for a long time, and we are looking forward to that major improvement as well. People just will be amazed how a paved parking lot will keep our facility much cleaner and the newer additions looking new.”

Not only has the reduction to two buildings helped with staffing, but there is expected to be maintenance as well as heating and cooling cost savings. “This has allowed our district to maintain financial stability,” said Kruse, “during tough financial times for schools.”

-Submitted photo

Pocahontas

Continued from Page 14D

“Our high school also began utilizing a house owned by the school district, which is adjacent to the high school, for the life skills curriculum for some of our students. The students are able to develop many hands-on skills in a real-life setting.”

POCAHONTAS AREA HIGH SCHOOL has added girls wrestling and bowling to its extensive list of sports and fine arts extracurricular opportunities, as well as a life skills curriculum. classrooms. Three were added at the elementary and one at the high school. Oehlertz, was a recipient of the 2022 Iowa STEM Teacher Award, as well, and is one of six educators recognized each year who go above and beyond to inspire student interest and awareness of all four STEM components. Oehlertz was recognized for her work promoting the importance of computer science for young learners, as well as the unique curriculum she creates to engage Pocahontas Area students.

Pocahontas also added girls wrestling and bowling to an already extensive list of sports and fine arts extracurricular opportunities.

“Our high school also began utilizing a house owned by the school district, which is adjacent to the high school, for the life skills curriculum for some of our students,” said Kramer. “The students are able to develop many hands-

—Joe Kramer

on skills in a real-life setting.”

Students in grade nine12 benefit by learning about all the systems within a home, daily maintenance, and the ability to fix many issues, that can go wrong at home.

-Submitted photo

EAST SAC COUNTY FIFTH- AND SIXTH-GRADERS hold class in the new science room of the new fifth- and sixth-grade wing of the building, which was added to the elementary building.

Jeff Kruse

Pocahontas Area superintendent

Humboldt Community Schools Collaboration leads to students' success

By BILL SHEA bshea@messengernews.net

HUMBOLDT — At the Humboldt Community School District, the approach to teaching is guided by a handful of questions, according to Superintendent Jim Murray. He said those questions include:

n What do we want students to know?

n How do we know that they know it?

n What are we going to do to help them know it?

Using those questions as the framework for education has been successful, he said.

“Through those, we’ve strengthened our collaboration within the faculty,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of success.”

“We’re seeing less Fs,” Murray added. “We’re seeing more students pass all of their classes. We’re just seeing kids improving their skills.”

He said the 1,425 students of the district “just excel a lot.”

Those students continue to have the support of mental health therapists through an agreement between the school district and Humboldt Memorial

Community Hospital.

Murray said the hospital provides three therapists, at least one of which is in the schools on every school day. The program began in 2021.

The district has a couple of building projects in various stages of completion.

An addition to the high school building is expected to be done by Sept. 1. Murray said that expansion will add a new practice gym. It will also double the size of both the weight room and the wrestling room.

The district has also awarded a contract to Sande Construction and Supply Co. Inc., of Humboldt, for an addition at Taft Elementary School. Murray said the addition will provide two classrooms and a gymnasium.

Taft students had been walking across the street to the old middle school building for music and physical education classes. The addition to the elementary school will eliminate the need to do that, according to Murray.

“We think it’s safer,” he said.

The district will seek bids in March for the construction of a new security entrance to the high school.

-Submitted photos

ABOVE: Allison Lensing puts whipped cream in a drink at the Cat Cafe inside Humboldt High School in May 2022.

LEFT: Friend Club members Landon Vik, Brett Lanning, Maria Elezondo and Cami Pederson talk before preparing to work at the Cat Cafe in May 2022.