Superintendent's Message for November 2024

We have flipped the calendar to November at Southwest Valley and the school year is moving along quickly.  We had great attendance at our Parent-Teacher conferences at the end of October and congratulations to our volleyball team that finished one match short of qualifying for the state volleyball tournament! 

November means the fall sports have ended and the winter sports seasons are gearing up.  I want to give a shout-out to all of our fall sports teams.  They all did great this season and represented our school well.  The football team fought in a very tough district this year.  They showed a lot of grit and landed nine student athletes on the all-district team.  Cross Country had a small but mighty team and at nearly every meet they were breaking their records and representing SWV in a great way!  The volleyball team had the best season in school history winning the Pride of Iowa conference tournament and advancing to the regional final match.  They finished their season with a 30-4 record.  Congratulations to all of the teams!  Now we switch gears to basketball and wrestling.  We will add wrestlers from Bedford and Lenox to our girls' wrestling program this year, but they will wrestle under the SWV name.  All of the winter sports teams will kick off their seasons later this month and we wish them the best of luck. 

Sadly, we lost a beloved member of our Southwest Valley family and she will be deeply missed. 

Lisa Konecne was an outstanding teacher, mentor, and friend who taught at Southwest Valley for eighteen years. She developed her students and FCCLA members into outstanding young adults.  She had a great personality and courageously fought cancer for over eight years.  She always showed up to teach no matter how sick she felt.  She was an outstanding educator and friend.

We certified our enrollment in October and we experienced another year of declining enrollment. We were down sixteen students in Villisca and three students in Corning.  We continue to explore ways to attract families to our area and welcome ideas from the public.  Rural Iowa has seen a large increase in declining enrollment across the state and it will be critical for the legislature to help fund our schools.  I will be working hard to lobby for increased funding for our schools so we can continue to provide a quality education for all Southwest Valley students.

The construction project at the Corning Elementary School and baseball/softball field continues to move along very quickly.  There are updates posted weekly on our website and Facebook pages. 

Have a great November and Happy Thanksgiving!