Superintendent's Message for July 2019

The summer is in full swing at Southwest Valley!  Many projects are in progress and new projects are being planned.  The old middle school building demolition was delayed to ensure we had all the asbestos removed from the building, but is set to be demolished in early July.  We will put up a state of the art greenhouse and a maintenance building in the footprint of the old building.  We are also in the process of sprucing up the buildings and making sure our students come back to great facilities in the fall. 

In Villisca, we continue to plan for the beginning of our 6.05-million-dollar upgrade.  The process seems straight forward, but has many working parts to it.  I am confident we will get started with this project in mid-August.  During this process, the north side of the building will be closed and we will be moving our classes to the south end of the building.  We are confident that although it will be a tight fit for three months we will get through it and return to the north part in December with heat!  The second, third, and fourth phases of the project will occur next spring and summer with completion by the end of the 2020 summer. 

As we begin the month of July, we are launching a transformation process at Southwest Valley that will continue to move us forward in the direction we want this great district to go.  “Why” is the question I hear a lot about this transformation process?  We want to be better than we are now and we want to be the district families move to, to receive a great education for their children birth through twelfth grade.

This spring we evaluated all the classes we were teaching at the high school and created new offerings that meet all requirements.  We hired a new elementary and high school principal that have the energy and knowledge to lead those buildings to new heights.  Last year we hired a new Corning elementary principal and watched as that building took off and is moving in a great direction.  I moved one of our principals to the middle school so they can focus on turning the culture around in that building.  We have the right group of people in place now and I am excited about the possibilities.

The school boards in both towns believed in me as the new guy and adopted the resolutions in May to start the reorganization process.  We turned in our application for reorganization to the Department of Education and it was approved the same day!  We will establish three committees to study our facilities, educational programs, and reorganization process.  The facilities committee will decide what we need to do to improve our facilities over the next ten years.  The educational committee will explore programming options and make suggestions on how to establish the best course offerings for our children.  The reorganization committee will work together to ensure that Southwest Valley becomes the “destination district,” in southwest Iowa.   

As we continue down the transformation path, we ask for involvement from our patrons and businesses.  Small town districts are becoming a statistic in Iowa history.  I do not want that to happen to the great district we have formed.  We will continue to grow as a district, but we need everyone behind us to make sure we attract new families and businesses.  It is a great time to be a Timberwolf! 

Chris Fenster, Superintendent