BULLDOG BRIEF
PERSONALIZED. INNOVATIVE. GLOBAL.
School Board Update
The board and administration have worked hard to monitor enrollment and to manage it in a way that is both financially sound and conducive to maintaining a personalized learning environment for our students.
Open enrollment guidelines for the 21-22 school year are linked, but the premise is that we would allow a few students to open enroll in kindergarten only (with a few exceptions) like we have the last few years. The total number allowed in is dependent upon the number of resident students in that grade but has ranged from single digits to a dozen or so over the last few years. We try to keep the kindergarten class (not including Transitional Kindergarten students) to around a total of 80 students.
As most of you are aware, the district has engaged the community in discussions about a future building. Information about those discussions can be found here. It is anticipated that in the 2024-2025 or the 2025-2026 school year the district would be in a position both enrollment wise and financially to open a PK-2 or 3 building on the east campus. To do this, the district voters would need to approve a bond issue in 2023 or 2024. Information about our bonding capacity and how that might impact the district can be found here.
Board meeting information, agendas, and minutes can be found here. Search for the date under the meetings tab in the upper right-hand corner of the page, select the date of the meeting you want to review and click on the agenda items to find shared documents the board received.
As always, if you have questions, you can reach out to any of our board members or to me (deron.durflinger@vmbulldogs.com) and we will do our best to answer them.
Fall Sports Postseason Update
The 11th ranked HS Volleyball team qualified for the 2A State Volleyball tournament. The girls are seeded 7th and play 2nd seeded Wilton on Tuesday, November 3 in Cedar Rapids at 12:30 p.m. This is the first time our volleyball team has qualified for state. Ticket information and viewing information is below. Congratulations to Coach Cook and best of luck to our girls on Tuesday!
The 2nd ranked 1A Van Meter football team will host Pella Christian tonight in Van Meter at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are available at https://www.vmbulldogs.com/. Please be sure to review the Fall Sports Guidelines prior to purchasing a ticket. Live-streaming information for the game is below. The winner of the contest will play the winner of Underwood and Mount Ayr on Friday, November 6.
Livestream for Many Van Meter Home Events
We have partnered with NFHS to provide live streams of all of our home events that take place at the football field and in the north gym. The service requires either an annual or a monthly subscription. There are no game-specific options, however, with your subscription, you can watch the games live or on-demand. ALL events that take place in the north gym or at the football field/track stadium can be viewed, including the postseason.
We are aware of the issues with last week's stream. Those seem to have been fixed. If you are not satisfied with the service, contact NFHS and they may reimburse your subscription. Because we are using their cameras and they are operated through the internet and not by people, we are not able to adjust them ourselves. All support needs to come from them. More information is linked below.
Annual subscription cost is $69.99/ year
Monthly subscription cost is $10.99/month
There are multiple ways to stream the games for your viewing.
Once you purchase a subscription, you will have access to any event that takes place in the north gym or at the football stadium. You will also have access to events of other schools that use the NFHS network when we are on the road.
Active COVID-19 Cases on October 30
A few kids have been sent home with symptoms as well. Those students are allowed to return if they:
- receive a negative test result,
- see symptoms improve,
- and get a different diagnosis from a doctor.
Please do your part to keep us informed if you think your child has been exposed to COVID-19 outside of the school setting. Parents have been doing an awesome job of keeping kids home when they are sick. Keep it up!
With that said, this is the most students and staff we have had infected with COVID-19 and isolating or quarantining since school started. We need to continue to encourage students to keep their distance, wear masks when they can't, wash their hands, and stay home when sick. We know it isn't ideal, but we all need to do our part to keep pushing through this pandemic.
We will continue to need your help in trying to keep the spread of COVID-19 limited. If in doubt, error on the side of keeping them home until we can help navigate the next steps with the Dallas County Health Department. Thanks!
Use of School Facilities- Please review if you need gym time
To continue to mitigate the global pandemic to the best of our ability in our buildings and facilities, we will not be allowing any outside entities, organizations, or non-school teams to use our school indoor facilities until next month.
If you have already completed the survey, you don't need to complete it again, but if you want gym time, follow the steps outlined below.
We have created a doodle that identifies all of the available times for using the gym from November 7 to December 21. The wrestling room times will be made available soon. Each basketball team will get to schedule one practice per week. If times are still available on November 5, you will have the opportunity to find other practice times for the week. Each team will be notified when they can request more practice times. ALL PRACTICE TIMES ARE FLEXIBLE. We may need to adjust the practice schedules of our school teams so youth team practice might have to be canceled. To have the opportunity to use the gym, you will need to follow each step outlined below.
The process for getting gym time is as follows:
- Complete this survey with your team's grade and 2 coaches' names by Friday, October 30.
- The available dates will be sent out on Friday, October 30 to all who have contacted us.
- Complete the Doodle for one practice time per week for each non-school team.
- The schedule will be shared by Monday, November 2 to all coaches.
- Review the mitigation strategies closely and complete the verification form that all strategies will be followed.
The mitigation strategies that all outside entities will follow if they expect to continue to use the school facilities include:
- Do not enter the building prior to the scheduled practice time
- Exit the building immediately after the scheduled practice time
- All players must have clean court shoes that they change into upon entering the building
- Only two coaches are allowed to enter the gym.
- Non-coach parents need to wait outside the building and should not wait in the gym for the end of practice.
- Each team must provide their own basketballs.
- Each player should have their own water bottle.
- Hand sanitizer should be applied before entering the gym and after leaving the gym
- Make sure the gym is clean after practice and that all equipment, shoes, water bottles, clothes, etc. are picked up.
- Have fun!
Thanks for following all of the guidelines established. Teams are also encouraged to take accurate attendance, consider wearing masks when appropriate, having players stay home when sick, and washing/sanitizing hands regularly.
If for some reason the expectations are not followed, gym usage may be revoked. It is critical that we all do our part to ensure the safety of our kids, parents, and all involved.
There are other options for youth sports. Contact the Van Meter Rec Department or other private youth sports entities to see what options are available.
Our goals are for our kids to be able to attend school on-site and for our student-athletes to be able to play sports with little interruption. To do this, we will need to continue to be proactive in our strategies to limit exposure to COVID-19. We ask that our patrons continue to follow the guidelines established by the CDC, IDPH, and the VMCSD to help limit the spread of COVID-19.
Thanks for all of your help as we navigate the pandemic. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.
GO DAWGS!
Snow Days
If we know well in advance and have plenty of time to get students the support they need or teachers have time to prepare to teach all kids remotely, the chances of us having a remote learning day on a snow day are greater than days when we have a random snow day.
We will do all that we can to let you know as soon as possible, but there is a chance some snow days will be made up at the end of the year, there is a chance that we will have remote learning on other snow days, and there is a chance that we won't have school and that we won't make it up. It really depends on what we believe is best for students at that point in time.
Thanks for your understanding and patience as we continue to try and make decisions that are best for students.
Update from Nurse Katie
I would like to thank you all for your diligence and cooperation in keeping your students home who are not feeling well, and having those with symptoms evaluated before returning to school. We recognize that this year is a challenging one for everyone, and we thank you for your assistance. With the weekend coming up, I wanted to send just a few reminders of things to keep in mind when school rolls back around on Monday.
1) Please check in with your child every morning BEFORE school. If they are not feeling well, please do not allow them to come to school. If they come to school and have two or more "low risk" symptoms (fever, headache, muscle/body aches, fatigue, sore throat, runny/stuffy nose, nausea/vomiting, diarrhea) or one "high risk" symptom (new cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell) of COVID as identified by the Iowa Department of Public Health, they will be sent home. They will then be required to have a medical evaluation and alternate diagnosis, in addition to improving/resolving symptoms for 24 hours, before returning to school. The guidance from the IDPH is very clear and leaves little room for judgment on the part of school staff as to when a student with symptoms must be sent home from school.
2) Please make sure your student has a face mask and water bottle every day for school. Our drinking fountains are only operational as bottle fillers, so if they do not have a water bottle they get very thirsty during the day.
3) If you are unsure of whether to send your student to school because they have mild symptoms, please keep them home and contact your pediatrician or family practitioner for guidance. Please do not contact the school as we cannot evaluate a student's symptoms over the telephone or by email. Our recommendation will be to keep them home and contact their doctor.
4). If you are being tested for COVID-19 because of symptoms, please consider keeping your students home from school until you receive your test results to minimize disruption for them and their classmates. Your child's principal will work with you to get them going on virtual learning so they can stay current with their classwork. If you or someone in your family receives a positive COVID result, please contact the school immediately.
We want to continue to have the option of full-time in-person learning, so we all need to do our part to keep our school as healthy as possible. Thank-you, in advance, for your understanding and cooperation. Have a great weekend!
Katie Hovda RN, BSN, MHA
VM School Nurse
New Mask/Quarantine Guidelines
Appropriate masks are described on the CDC website. To ensure all students are safe, students and staff need to wear the CDC approved masks. Most gaiters (those with less than two layers or a filter) and face shields do not meet the criteria established by the CDC.
The press release from the Dallas County Health Department is below.
The following changes will be immediately effective in Dallas County:
- If identified close contacts AND the confirmed case both consistently wore an appropriate facial covering during the time of exposure, the 14-day quarantine is no longer required.
- Close contacts are advised to continue wearing a mask and self-monitor for symptoms. Persons that are self-monitoring and develop symptoms should contact their healthcare provider or visit Test Iowa for testing and diagnosis. If a person becomes ill and does not get tested, they should remain home until 10 days after symptom onset.
- All household/residential and healthcare contacts will still be recommended to complete a 14-day quarantine. Guidance for residential/healthcare settings has not changed.
- Facial coverings should snuggly cover your nose, mouth, and chin. Face shields are not considered an appropriate facial covering under these guidelines. Guidance for appropriate facial coverings and facial covering usage can be found on the CDC website.
- All persons that are in isolation due to a confirmed COVID-19 infection will remain in isolation. Guidance for ill persons has not changed.
- All persons currently in quarantine may discontinue that quarantine if:
- They are not experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19;
- They wore an appropriate mask during the period of exposure; AND,
- The confirmed case to whom they were exposed wore an appropriate mask during the period of exposure.
Social distancing, frequent handwashing, and mask usage remain highly recommended mitigation strategies. This guidance does not replace the need for these practices.
The new quarantine guidelines are for community-based exposures and will primarily affect those exposed in the workplace, childcare, and school settings. Use the decision tree below to determine if quarantine is recommended.
Any questions regarding COVID-19 and the newly updated quarantine guidance can be directed to 515-993-3750. For ongoing updates and COVID-19 information, please visit www.coronavirus.iowa.gov and follow @DallasCoHealth on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
On-Site, Hybrid, and Remote Learning Models
With that said, it is possible that at some point later this year, we will make a decision to move the district to either a hybrid or remote learning model for all students. We will use the state provided guidance on positivity rates of the county to help us make that decision, but the primary driver will be the number of positive cases we have in the building, grade level, or classroom. There are too many factors that impact the positivity rate for a county to have that be what we use when making that decision. We are most concerned about what is happening in our buildings and the number of students and staff that have been impacted.
Fortunately (knock on wood,) we have had a limited number of cases and students who have had to quarantine. That can change quickly. If it is determined that it is best of our district or building to go to a hybrid model of learning, our plan is for students PK-2 to continue to attend Monday-Thursday on-site in their normal routine as long as there is not an outbreak in those rooms. Our students in grades 3-12 would attend school in an A/B model on-site one day and online the next with both groups attending online only on Fridays. So for example, 1/2 of the 5th graders (group A) would have class on-site Monday and Wednesday and online Tuesday and Thursday while the other 1/2 (group B) would attend online Monday and Wednesday and on-site Tuesday and Thursday. All students PK-12 would attend online on Fridays.
We don't have a set figure per se on the number of positive cases it would take for us to move a hybrid model. There will be other factors to consider such as staff availability, overall attendance, and positivity rate of the county, plus what grade levels or classrooms are experiencing cases. We will do our best to make the decision in a timely manner, but it is possible a decision will need to be made quickly if community spread occurs.
If we get to a point that we don't believe we can function safely with any students in the building, we will move to a totally remote/online learning environment for up to two weeks at a time or until we believe the virus is more controlled.
We appreciate your flexibility and understanding as we navigate the pandemic. If you have questions, please contact Mr. Durflinger or the building principals.
Return to Learn FAQ and IDPH Guidelines
Athletic Website and Schedules
Contact Us
Email: firstname.lastname@vmbulldogs.com
Website: www.vmbulldogs.com
Location: 520 1st Avenue, Van Meter, IA, USA
Phone: (515) 996-2221
Facebook: https://facebook.com/VanMeterSchools/
Twitter: @vanmeterschools