(Corning/Villisca) A new Principal was hired for the Villisca Middle School for the 2020-2021 school year.
“Liz Timmerman was an internal candidate. She is our At Risk at the High School right now, she will become the principal there next year there,” said Superintendent Chris Fenster. “We have Allison Thomas who is at the elementary in Corning, we have Alaina Lundgren at Enarson and Anthony Donahoo at the High School; we’ll have four pretty new principals so it’s going to be a young crew but I really enjoy working with them and I know that Liz will do a great job with us.”
In other news, the Corning and Villisca School Districts held a joint meeting Monday and discussed the reorganization process. Fenster spoke with the board about where they are at and what they need to do in the future. He said they’re going to form a committee soon and they will address some of the issues that will be on a petition.
“We’ll have to petition the AEA to be able to do this reorganization. On the petition you have the name of the district, which we already have the name Southwest Valley. All studies that have been conducted; we did feasibility studies when we did the whole grade sharing so we pretty much did a lot of those things already. This committee will have to decide if it’s going to be a five or seven person board and how we’re going to select the board. How we’ll divide the assets and liabilities for both of our districts. Combined enrollment; we’ll have to have met the minimum requirements which is 300 kids and we have 690, so we’re well above that,” explained Fenster.
Fenster said their hope is to get the committee formed and have a meeting in May; the petition will circulate in late summer or early fall; they’ll take that petition and reorganization plan to the AEA in December or January; they’re looking at a special election in March of 2021; and then they’ll be one district in 2022.
“That’s our hope, to be Southwest Valley operating as one school district instead of the whole grade sharing by July 1 of 2022,” stated Fenster.
