A familiar face will return to the Forest City Middle School as principal beginning in the 2023-24 school year. During Monday’s Board of Education meeting, the board approved the appointment of Sarah Leichensring, who has served as middle school principal in Osage since 2019, as Forest City’s Middle School’s new principal. Leichsenring will join the district on July 1, 2023, the same date current Middle School Principal Zach Dillavou will assume his new role in the district as executive director of teaching and learning.

“We are thrilled to welcome Sarah back to the district,” said superintendent Darwin Lehmann. “To Forest City, she brings 14 years of education experience as a teacher, curriculum director, instructional coach, coach and administrator and has absolutely found her passion in working with middle school students and staff.”

Leichsenring began her teaching career in the Central Lee and Mason City school districts after graduating from Waldorf University. She taught middle school social studies and served as an instructional coach in the Forest City district from 2014-2018. While in Forest City, she earned her masters of science degree in education with a focus on teaching, learning and leadership. She left the district to serve as joint curriculum director for the Osage and Riceville districts, earned her principal certificate from the University of Northern Iowa and was promoted to principal of the Osage Middle School just one year later in 2019.

“We were fortunate to have excellent candidates apply for this position and I would like to thank our hiring committee comprised of students, staff, teachers and administrators for their feedback throughout the hiring process. Committee members cited Sarah’s passion for middle school-age students, her innovation in educational practices, her contagious enthusiasm and her growth mindset as reasons why she would be a great candidate to continue the long-standing tradition of excellence at the Forest City Middle School,” said Lehmann.

Leichsenring said, “I have had the privilege of serving the students and families of the Osage School District and it is a great honor to return to Forest City as the Middle School principal. I believe the past connections I have already established and the experiences I have had since will continue to propel the district forward. I look forward to working with the students, families and dedicated staff in this wonderful district and community.”

The Forest City School Board approved the 2023-24 academic calendar at the December 12 Board meeting. The school year will begin on August 23, 2023, and the last day of school is May 24, 2024, assuming there are no make-up days.

One thing that you may notice on the calendar is that the district is switching from a trimester academic system, which divides the academic year into three sessions of 12-13 weeks, to a semester system, which divides the academic year into two, approximately 18-week sessions.

High School Principal Ken Baker first discussed this change with the board in March 2022 after several months of consideration and discussion with high school teachers. The change to semesters really doesn't impact the elementary or middle school buildings, other than the timing of conferences.

Over the years, the trimester system has provided high school students, primarily juniors and seniors, with the opportunity to select more elective classes of interest. “So much has changed from the early 2000s, when there were 500+ students at FCHS and the upper classroom filled the rosters of elective classes,” said principal Ken Baker. The typical class size today is 70-90 students and most students are completing required classes by the end of their junior year and taking college-level classes offsite during their senior year.

Baker said, “We’ve been heading in the direction of opening up more ‘senior plus’ options for some time. The opportunities for students with our education partners NIACC and Waldorf continue to grow and our students are benefiting by earning college credits at no cost to the student or their families. Students are able to explore areas of interest while still in high school and aligning our schedule to semesters will be helpful to students.”

This change will also help better align to Iowa Department of Education graduation requirements. As an example, Personal Finance is a required .5 (semester) course, and FCHS currently has a trimester Personal Finance course, plus a section of required content in Computer Apps II to satisfy the requirement.

Baker concluded, “More specific information will be shared in the coming months and especially during the spring as students are preparing to register for 2023-24 classes. We have plans in place to transition transcripts for current students and students and parents should be assured that this change will not in any way negatively impact current and future students.”

Have you thought about being an AFS host family? Forest City was just recognized for it's long-standing tradition of hosting students and we need to keep this going!

Click the link to the left to view the students who are seeking a school-year home!

Forest City Schools has added the ability to set up automated/recurring payment options for student lunch accounts in Infinite Campus! This suggestion actually came from a parent, and we hope you find this new feature helpful.

You can select the amount of lunch account funds to add as well as the frequency of the payment:

To set up this feature, log in to your Infinite Campus parent/guardian account. Note: this is the same account you use to register, check grades, view schedules, add lunch account funds, and pay school fees.

On December 1, FFA Advisor Ryan Faught was notified that the Forest City FFA Chapter received a grant of $750 from Landus. Landus supports projects to enhance rural youth leadership development and farm and agricultural safety.

With the funding, the program will purchase a workbench in the classroom greenhouse as there is not currently a place to complete seeding and transplanting. They will also redo the flower bed in front of the Forest City High School and Middle School. Students would like to replace the bed with new soil and mulch and will add FC red and white flowers.

Congratulations!

We had excellent attendance in the crowd to support our 2nd and 3rd-grade students who did a wonderful job of bringing holiday cheer to the Boman Fine Arts Center!