Superintendent's Message for July 2024

Summer is moving fast with the Fourth of July celebration upon us and the beginning of the new fiscal year at Southwest Valley Schools.  We have been busy cleaning rooms, waxing floors, and completing projects we scheduled for this summer.  The construction project for the  Corning elementary building is well underway, with both pods completely torn down and the interior of the middle section gutted for renovation. They will begin to tear down the baseball and softball fields as they renovate those two facilities for the 2025 season.  

As we begin the 2024-2025 fiscal year, it is essential to know that both districts are in good financial standing.  Our revenue is dependent on student numbers and we will continue to closely monitor our enrollment in October.  We have filled all of our open positions at the high school level except for the foreign language teacher.  Teaching a foreign language online is not ideal, but a viable candidate has not applied in the past three years.  The position will remain online, but we continue to search for a teacher to fill that position.  Megan Boswell will move to math this year and we have hired two new high school English teachers; Megan Embree will be in her first year as a high school teacher and Megan Jones will begin her second year of teaching.  Rachel Campbell will fill the high school counselor position and Mrs. Bissell will serve as the high school principal.  Elizabeth McNamara is the new elementary counselor for Corning and Enarson elementary schools.  Antonia Gates and Allison Spieker will be new elementary teachers at Corning Elementary.  The Villisca district will welcome new staff as well.  Michelle Clausen, Mackenzie Clark, and Lexie Graham will serve as new teachers and Kelsi Bruce will move to our preschool room.  

The start of the new school year will bring some changes for Corning elementary students as we will utilize the Methodist church educational wing, two rooms at the public library, and a portion of the ECEC building for student classrooms.  Our music and physical education classes will be held at the activity center and recess will take place at the city park.  The teachers and staff moved all of their classrooms at the end of the school year.  We will have an open house in August to showcase our temporary digs.  We are very excited about the construction of the new Corning elementary building and improvements to our baseball and softball field complex.  We plan to move into our new building in the fall of 2025! 

We are excited for the upcoming school year and wish everyone a safe Fourth of July celebration!