Greetings STC Community!

What a year it has been! From lots of snow … to the derecho … to COVID …  we have seen it all! 

I’m happy to share that there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel!

I wanted to take this opportunity to share updates on all three of these topics so you are in the loop of what is going on at the school:

Snow

This year we missed six days of school due to weather and had three weather delays. What made it feel so bad was that most of this happened within one month’s time. 

A question a lot of people have is “when will school get out?” I’m happy to share that the last day of school is still planned for Friday, May 28th. The reason for this is because we had extra hours “built up” to start the year. Without getting into too much detail, each year we have about 40 extra hours built into our schedule in the event we have snow days. While we are getting low on extra hours, we still are at a point we don’t have to go in June. 

Assuming there are no more weather-related cancellations (fingers crossed!), we feel confident that the students’ last day of school will be Friday, May 28th. 

Derecho

Due to the storm back in August we have had to move our middle school into other parts of the district. Our 5th grade is located in the elementary school and our 6th through 8th grade are in the Partnership Center.

Remodeling is currently ongoing at the middle school. We were hoping to get started on the roof earlier this winter, but the difficult months of January and February delayed those plans. In talking with our maintenance department, we feel confident that our middle school will be open and available to students to start next year.

Right now, our plan is to have all grade levels 5th grade through 8th grade back in the middle school at the start of next school year. 

COVID

The COVID numbers in our buildings have been very low. Very few students and staff have had to miss school due to COVID. A huge thanks goes to our parents and community for keeping our kids safe! 

We have been fortunate to offer our staff the COVID vaccine. Approximately 90% of our staff took the offer to get the two-shot vaccine, and most will have both shots in the next week. Thank you to Tama County Public Health for their help in getting our staff vaccinated.

We are planning on continuing our masking rules throughout the rest of the year. Students and guests need to wear masks when inside the building. We will continue to evaluate our rules as we head into next year.

Again, I want to thank our community for being so understanding and supportive as we navigate through this difficult year. Hopefully we can get back to normal very soon.

GO TROJANS!!

Dr. Jared Smith