Superintendent's Message for March 2019

The Southwest Valley Community School District is approaching a very exciting time in school history.  Six years ago, Corning and Villisca Community Schools entered into a Whole Grade Sharing agreement.  This step was taken to help both districts.  Declining enrollment was affecting both districts and this move would help stabilize the two districts.  The Iowa Department of Education will fund schools that share students, if certain criteria are met.  At that time, both districts decided to continue with the whole grade sharing incentives and opted not to receive the reorganization funding that was available.  This is where we are today.  After meeting with both boards in February and educating them on legislation and advantages to reorganizing our district’s in to one, the time is right. 

Reorganizing and consolidating are two terms you may have heard being said about our district.  We are doing the reorganization process and not the consolidation process. In the course of the next three years, we will be reorganizing our districts to become one district called Southwest Valley Schools.  We will not be closing any buildings.  We will still have two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school.  Villisca and Corning will merge their finances to one set of books on July 1st of the 2022-2023 school year.  One of the final steps in this process is a public vote in 2021 to approve the reorganization. 

The planning has already started.  We are going to be switching some administration positions, teachers, and support staff around.  All of the moves will be for the reason, “we are all here for the students”.  Mrs. Top will be shifting to 6-8 Principal and will assume Secondary Curriculum Director.  Lora has done a great job overseeing two buildings, but doing this has not let her focus on one building.  We will be naming a Dean of Students in March to serve Enarson Elementary and Elementary Curriculum Director.  We will maintain two administrators at the Corning campus at Corning Elementary and Southwest Valley High School.  I will continue to alternate between the buildings.  We will be adding a middle school teacher to help lower class sections and focus on one particular grade level.  We will look to share the following teachers between the middle school and high school:  Project Lead the Way and possibly Health, Science, and Agriculture teachers.  The exact combinations have not been finalized, but we are currently taking applications to begin this process.  The high school will welcome a School Resource Officer in the fall.  This individual will be responsible in building relationships with our kids, foot patrol our campus, work with at-risk students, and help administration with truancy concerns.  This is a partnership with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. 

Another important subject is the Villisca Bond Referendum vote scheduled for April 2nd.  We will have some informational meetings on March 5th and March 19th.  These meetings will be held in the middle school library in Villisca starting at 6:30 pm.   If you have questions and cannot make the meeting, feel free to call me and I will be glad to help.  This referendum will not raise your taxes from the ten-year average and will ensure that we can keep both buildings open for the next twenty years.

It is a GRREAT time to be a Southwest Valley Timberwolf! Things are moving forward and we are preparing our students for the future, Today!  Next month I will be talking about daycare and the needs in both communities and how the district will be an active participant in ensuring we have quality daycare for our patrons.  

Chris Fenster, Superintendent