Superintendent's Message for April 2020

Good afternoon, Twolves Territory! Hopefully you have been getting out and enjoying the weather And practicing social distancing!  The last few weeks have been full of uncertainty, confusion, and worry! At SWV, our students, families, staff, and communities are being patient and just taking it day to day.  I have spent many days and sleepless nights worried about all of our people in twolvesterritory and trying to provide the best options for all of you and ensuring we keep family first.  

I met with administration this morning via zoom to review and analyze the data we collected from our awesome staff reaching out to our awesome families.  From the information we analyzed, we were left with one of the two choices the Department of Ed gave us to move forward.   Beginning April 8th, SWV will switch to a Voluntary Educational Enrichment Opportunity approach.  We will have a website that will be broken down for every grade level and building.  Enrichment activities will be provided and updated on a weekly basis by our outstanding teachers at SWV.  There will be an option for paper packets for families that do not have internet access.  I strongly encourage every student to spend an hour or two at some time during the day.   It is without a doubt in my mind if we continue this approach our students they will not lose information and keep the skills they have learned fresh.  If you need paper packets we will make them available beginning April 9th during our curb side pick-up form 11-12 pm at Corning Elementary and SWV Middle School. 

Concurrent enrollment classes being offered at SWV High school will continue on April 8th and the instructors will be in contact with students enrolled in their classes.  All grades K-12 are frozen at March 13th the last day we attended school.  We do have plans we will share once we have more guidance from the governor on how long we will be shut down. Our current plan is we will be open again on May 4th but the governor has not given us direction and has said she will by the end of the week.  We wanted to start preparing the Voluntary Educational Opportunities website and have content ready by April 8th so I am going on President Trump’s guidelines of being shut down until April 30th and assuming the Governor will keep us shutdown the same amount of time. 

The Covid-19 virus is still a mystery to us with only a few cases in southwest Iowa.  We are preparing the Volunteer Educational Opportunities now so it will be up and running if we have to go to a shelter in place or school is shut down for even longer.  I will continue to update you on a weekly basis on our plans and strategies.

Seniors that may be listening, what a confusing time as you wind down your last year in school and are missing friends and activities.  I am truly sorry for you to have to be experiencing this and not knowing when Prom or Graduation will happen or if you will have closure to your last year.  I will tell you we will have some final activity for you when we are able to bring people back. Prom and Graduation do weigh on my mind daily and I have not made any plans to cancel either one.  Hang in there and I will do my best for you.

Scoop the Loop

Both Corning and Villisca are preparing to have Scoop the Loop nights and our staff wanted to reach out to our kids and community. 

Villisca will have theirs on Saturday night and if you are cruising the loop swing by Enarson Elementary and our teachers will wave from their cars along Prospect Avenue. 

On Sunday the staff will be lined up in cars in the Corning Elementary parking lot.  Both cruises are planned from 6-7 pm

All Southwest Valley playgrounds are closed due to the Covid-19 virus and city park equipment as well are closed.

Continue to practice social distancing and remain calm we will get through this together!!! It’s a great day to be T-wolf!!!!!