Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Kolleen Taylor: Jama Hisler, Director of Teaching and Learning, takes a moment to relax after explaining the complex report card that was presented to the school board. The results were presented at an October board meeting.

The Webster City Community Schools took center stage during the recent election, when every seat on the school board was a contested race.

It didn’t take long to learn that there is a concerned community beyond the walls of the classrooms. We saw a full room for the school board forum, and thousands of hits on the Facebook live stream. That is a sign people want more information about what is happening in the schools.

In a recent conversation with Jama Hisler, Director of Teaching & Learning, and later with the new high school principal Jason Wedgbury, it was apparent that they are working hard on areas that raised concerns.

Some of those concerns were reflected in the recent Iowa State Assessment report card that compared the schools throughout the state of Iowa.

In most areas, all the schools in the district were scored higher than the state average. The one area that was below the state average was in English. It’s not hard to understand that proficiency in the English language is needed for all other classroom work to be managed. The teachers are making great progress with the younger classroom work, as reflected in their five year average.

As concerning as this might be, the teachers are dealing with a large number of students who are identified as English Language Learners, (ELL) or students whose first language is not English.

There are currently 1805 students enrolled in the Webster City school district. The number of ELL students has changed during the past 4 years as follows:

2022 — 256 students

2023 — 288 students

2024 — 314 students

2025 — 333 students

Today, 16.4% of the Webster City population is Hispanic or Latino. Just twenty-five years ago, the U.S. census reported 1.32% Hispanic or Latino residents living in Webster City. That change is dramatically reflected in the students attending schools. The teachers are trying to meet that challenge with a number of tools, but there are few bi-lingual teachers available to hire.

“Hiring teachers in general is difficult,” said Wedgbury.

Hisler made a presentation to the school board in October, highlighting the celebrations and challenges that face each of the schools in the district.

The principals from each school in the district also added their individual input into the powerpoint presentation. The principals in each school are Rachel Chamberlain at Pleasant View, Sarah Nacahzel at Northeast Elementary, Teresa Van Epps at Sunset Heights, Rob Brecht is at the Webster City Middle School and Jason Wedgbury and Ayn Eklund are the high school principals. Their input was enthusiastic and optimistic.

Hisler explained that 95% of the teachers are part of a collaborative team, and all the schools have a leadership team. They share ideas and concepts that are working with their students so that this will follow the student as they progress through school.

“We want to have multi-tiered levels of support in our classrooms,” explained Hisler.

One of the terms repeated often was “interventions”. Hisler explained that all of the students go to different classrooms for targeted interventions, so if a student is struggling, they split off from their normal classroom and focus on the area of study where they need the most help. This could be a learning disability, behavior issues, or specific classroom skill set, such as math or English that are challenging to the student.

This is used heavily in the elementary schools, where they are targeting the most critical foundational skills, but seems to be a key to working at every level of education.

Webster City’s report card in general was very optimistic, with the Webster City Middle School considered a high performing school.

“We were a top 25 middle school,” said Hisler. “None of the top contenders had the same demographics.”

The areas which hurt the ranking the most were chronic absenteeism, attendance growth and graduation rates. The frustrations from students who have to cope with language challenges seem to have a direct impact in those areas.

“We’re focusing on work based learning, such as internships,” said Wedgbury. “If we can find career pathways or college coursework with a purpose for students, it gives school more value.”

“We’ve started advanced placement programs for high achievement also,” he continued. “Our structure is pretty solid; students are following procedures. We’ve taken a pretty strong stand on order and discipline.”

The Iowa School performance profiles rank each school in the state as exceptional, high performing, commendable, acceptable, needs improvement or priority/comprehensive, with exceptional as the highest level, and the lowest identified as priority/comprehensive.

For comparisons, the Iowa School Performance Profiles which are evaluating all the school districts on various levels summarized the following schools in near proximity to Webster City as follows:

Eagle Grove Elementary: Acceptable

Eagle Grove High School: Needs Improvement

Robert Blue School (Middle School): Acceptable

South Hamilton Elementary: High performing

South Hamilton Middle and High School: Acceptable

Fort Dodge/Butler Elementary: Priority

Fort Dodge/Cooper Elementary: Priority

Fort Dodge/Duncombe Elementary: Priority

Fort Dodge/Early Childhood Center: Needs Improvement

Fort Dodge/ Feelhaver Elementary School: Acceptable

Fort Dodge High School: Needs Improvement

Fort Dodge Middle School: Needs Improvement

Webster City Community School District:

Northeast Hamilton Elementary School: Commendable

Pleasant View Elementary School: Commendable

Sunset Heights Elementary School: Commendable

Webster City High School: Acceptable

Webster City Middle School: High performing

The community at large doesn’t have a good view of the changes our educators are facing. This snapshot does demonstrate that overall we have teachers and administrators in place who are making a difference in the classrooms.

As parents make decisions about where their children are attending school, it is good to know that so much is being done to keep our youth engaged and learning. Keeping youth close to home is key.

At one point in our near past, Webster City had no diversity, and the outside world was critical of that. Today, our demographics show a dramatic shift in the diversity of our students and our residents. We don’t have to send our children into the world without this experience.

The schools are the first step to creating a melting pot of young adults with a wide variety of skill sets and knowledge.

That’s what everyone wants to hear.