As the new year is approaching, the Perry School District celebrated a lot of accomplishments in the first of the school year. 

Superintendent Clark Wicks says they tried to make each day count in 2022 and the school year started with trying to improve their facilities. Wicks says that renovation of the Perry Middle School was a success which added four new rooms to the building along with improving the current cafeteria, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Lab and the main office. 

“That place is really a sharp, sharp looking facility that is meeting the needs of kids, that was huge and again applaud our staff and all the work they did to adapt that whole project and we can finally say that we were in that building and we love it.” 

Wicks says that the positivity continued academically with a well above average score on the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP) results for every school in the district. He also tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the achievements picked up athletically. 

“A nice competitive edge to us. We won a football game, of course, last football season, but now as we go into the winter season, we see a nice competitive edge winning some in basketball. Our girls wrestling, boys wrestling, all of the sports, the girls basketball team. I see a nice competitive edge with that and that is extremely pleasing to see.”

He also applauds his staff for dealing with the sickness that saw at one time 15 percent of the student body absent during the first semester of the school year. The Perry School District’s second semester starts on January 4th.