Countless hours have been spent pivoting to our new reality of being away from school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Every staff member has stepped up and provided our community with their best self during this time of uncertainty. We wish we could be finishing our school year in our buildings, but we will be together again soon.
Although we are not physically together, we have continued to make connections via staff parades through neighborhoods, read-alouds online, and Google Hangouts. We want to express our sincere gratitude to our staff for their outpouring of support and understanding during this difficult time.
● More than 40,000 meals have been served during the school closure and will continue as long as necessary.
● Nearly 1,330 students have been provided with devices and hotspots.
● 2,000,000 sq. ft. of buildings have been cleaned and disinfected.
School District Staff Members Step Up to Help Fight COVID-19
Bille Veach, nutrition purchasing coordinator, is part of the district’s nutrition team preparing free meals for students every Monday-Friday. She quickly realized her team was in need of face masks to help keep everyone healthy, so she reached out to a Waukee High School teacher for help.
Laura Calvert, a family and consumer science teacher, had already recruited her sisters, Kaity Gale and Lacey Calvert, to make masks for local families, and they were happy to make more to help the school district. Calvert and her sisters made 20 masks for the district’s nutrition department, 50 for the operations department, and 26 for families in our community.
“For me, helping is something I’ve always felt compelled to do,” said Calvert. “When times get tough, you roll your sleeves up and help wherever you can. This was one way in which I could help people feel a little safer at the end of the day.”
Industrial Technology Teachers Help Print PPE
The Waukee Community School District is participating in a statewide effort to provide healthcare workers with the equipment necessary to fight COVID-19. The district has been asked to use its 3D printers to help produce personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors, nurses and other frontline workers throughout Iowa.
The Waukee Community Schools Foundation is contributing to this remarkable project by providing grant money to purchase the filaments needed for printing. The Foundation also provided a classroom grant to purchase one of the 3D printers in 2019.
Andrew Hauptmann, an industrial technology teacher at Timberline, is coordinating the effort on behalf of the Waukee Community School District. Area515, a local makerspace, initially had the idea as a way to help. Here in Waukee, Hauptmann, South Middle School teacher Cole Kleinwolterink, and Prairieview teacher Jonathan Galli were granted permission by the administration to take all eight of the district’s 3D printers home with them. When the printing is complete, the teachers will take the printed pieces to a drop-off site in the Des Moines area for assembly and distribution. The Iowa Department of Education is involved in the distribution, delivering the face shields through AEAs.
Hauptmann said he’s already looking forward to sharing this experience with students when everyone is able to return to the classroom. “This is really a remarkable lesson in production,” he said. “We never would’ve guessed that we’d be able to contribute to the effort in this way.”
District Earns Award for Outstanding Financial Reporting
The Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO) has awarded the Waukee Community School District (WCSD) with the Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting (COE). ASBO International’s COE recognizes districts that have met the program’s high standards for financial reporting and accountability. WCSD earned the Certificate of Excellence for its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the fiscal year 2019. Waukee Community School District has participated in the COE program for the past 15 years.