TRENKAMP SHARES YEAR-END REVIEW
By Nick Trenkamp
Central Superintendent
On May 9th I attended Central’s Awards Night, one of my favorite annual ceremonies. It is a great opportunity to recognize and reflect on all the hard work our students have put into their academics and extra curricular activities. This night also highlights the wonderful community support given to Central staff and students. It truly does “take a village to raise a child.”
This has been another crazy school year (I think I say this every school year) that has just flown by. This graduating class would have been freshman when I first arrived, so this year has a little extra meaning watching them grow throughout their high school career. As I have watched our students grow, I reflect that Central has also made a lot of growth and change as a school system. I’d like to take a moment to share my thoughts on those changes.
Next school year, Central will see some new faces as we will see a fair number of retirees at the end of this school year Our school district will lose 109 years of Central experience through the retirements of Mrs. Duff (elementary teacher), Mrs. Yanda (MS/HS English), Mrs. Franta, (vocal music teacher), Mrs. Carolan (nurse), and Mrs. Engelhardt (kitchen). We will also be losing Ms. Huster (counselor), Mrs. Wingert, and Mrs. Scherf (para-professionals) as they look to continue their careers in other places. I cannot say enough great things about these staff members and the contributions they have made to Central. All will be deeply missed! We will welcome in the following new faces for the 2017/2018 school year: Mr. Hirka (MS/HS English), Mr. Douglas (vocal music teacher), Mrs. Bergan (nurse), and Mrs. Cobie-Nuss (counselor).
Central will also continue to work in strengthening our parent and community relationships as well as moving our education system from a fixed mind set to a growth mind set. In a growth mind set, teachers believe that all students can be good at anything, and it is our responsibility to foster that belief in our students. Our Teacher Leadership program is leading our professional development and we are learning together with neighboring school districts. Central will also continue to work at making our district a safe place for students and staff through more ALICE training, but we will also be adding a mental health and wellness component to that training.
As we work to grow the human resources at Central, our K-12 building will also begin seeing major changes in the 2017/2018 school year. This past week I met with a group of architects and engineers as they began the process of developing specific specs for our remodel project. The goal is for them to work with staff over the summer to finalize the remodel plan and have that plan go out for bid early December Bid opening would tentatively take place in early January, with construction possibly starting sometime around March. This project will take roughly three years to complete. While remodels are never fun, the end product will be well worth it!
Thank you for all your support over the 2016/17 school year, and I hope you are as excited as I am about the future of Central Community School District.
