Joshua Heyer, Superintendent, Ogden Community School District, September 29, 2026

On our program today, we're visiting with Joshua Hyer, Superintendent from the Ogden School District. Good to have you back. Yeah, good morning, Jim. Here we are, wrapping up September. Rain, all mud. Buses making it down the road. There for a while, I was thinking, if we had too much more of this out on these rural roads, we might be looking at doing some bus route things, but. There were some schools that actually went to hard surface only, and it's hard to imagine that that would be in the fall. A lot of times that's in the spring when the roads are softening and falling out, but I did see some schools that went that direction, Jim. So it is rain is having its impact. I kind of thought because like secondary roads, and it's almost too wet to really be doing too much maintenance on the roads right now, but we're going for dry weather, that's what we need. I'm guessing your football field could use a little dry weather too. We need everything to dry out. Yeah, I think, you know, between the mowing service and painting and just the wear and tear on the field, but not only that, it's just really impacted even our cross-country team. Oh, yeah. A lot of meats that they would have had by now in September, some of them have been canceled just to the concern of tearing up a golf course, which is typically where those meats are. So really just feel bad for some of our athletes and just the continual cancellation of events due to the rain. Yeah, and there's the thunderstorm things and you don't want them out running in lightning. So yeah, but they get, you'll still see them going down the street. They'll be running out on the streets and doing, getting their miles in anyway. Yeah, overall they've had a good season though. It's been, it hasn't been, it is, it's been a challenge, but we keep going. Well, you had a regular meeting earlier in the month and once again, just a couple of the different things that they're, I think all the, believe all the school boards at the time we said all the FFA people were coming in and seeking permission to go out of state travel. They're all going to Indianapolis and that, I think coming up next month, isn't it? It is, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty standard. There's a board policy that talks about out of state travel and our FFA, since I've been at Ogden, they continue to do pretty well at the local competitions. We had a group that qualified for nationals and they're actually going to be heading out there. Well, I believe it's going to be October 20th to the 24th. So you're right, it's within the next month. But excited for them to go out there and A, they're going to learn a lot by being out there and being able to experience that and B, I think they're going to do a great job representing our school. Do, does the, or for the Ogden district, do you have them come in once they come back and do a presentation to the board? They have, yeah. Usually they come back and they'll kind of give a summary of what was the major takeaways, how did they perform? Just a nice little summary report for the board to hear. I think that's what all FFA's, they all show up. And here's what we did and this is what we learned too. Plus you also had, what, FCCLA? Also doing out of state travel. Yeah, so we just have a number of clubs that we're really trying to get up and going between FFA, FCCLA. Some groups have a DECA group, which we're trying to get up and going. Some have TSA. There's just a number of student clubs and organizations and we're wanting them to get up and going and provide opportunities for our kids, so. It's one of those, I look at it because I know a lot of different districts and we'll have some new ones that'll come in and I know like Boone will do a Thespian or something like that. But I mean, they are smaller groups as a rule, but they are, they're good participation, especially for students. For students, it's a great opportunity and there's research that shows that if kids are connected to school in some manner, whether it's a club or it's the fine arts or athletics, quite honestly, we don't care just as long as they're involved and connected. So this is another pathway for students that maybe haven't found their niche yet. It's an opportunity for them to be connected to the school through those clubs. I know the board always also gets all those fundraising things that come up. One we wanna remind them about. Friday, is this Friday? Friday we do have. Yeah, barbecue. It's the, yeah, well, it's homecoming week. Homecoming, yeah. So not only, there's all things involved with homecoming, but one of them being that we do have the barbecue. It's a fundraiser. It's a big one. And this one raises money for the senior trip or the freezing trip, I guess we'll call it, stand-freezing trip. Stand-freezing trip, yeah. And it's been over, you know, 50 years plus. I can't remember which one this is, probably 54, 55, but yeah, our community comes out and it's a great opportunity for them to come out before the homecoming game, be able to celebrate, reconnect with maybe some of their previous alumni. Sure. And then also go out and cheer on the Bulldogs afterwards. So, again, help support, first of all. It's all part of it for the trip. It really lays out and cuts a lot of the expenses for it. But this is one of the big ones that happens. And it's at homecoming, it's gonna be on Friday, just reminding you. Otherwise, homecoming week, busy week? It is a busy week. There's a lot of home activities at night, but during the day, you know, there's trying to show some school spirit with various things that are going on with either dress-up days or they're decorating hallways, they're getting ready for the parade. It's just a fun week overall for us to go out and show some school spirit. And it'll be culminating by Friday, you know, with a parade and a pep assembly and all of the things that will take place on Friday. I looked at the forecast and it said sun, sun Friday. I think it's gonna be actually a pleasant homecoming for us, which I'm excited to hear. Well, we know Mother Nature has not been good to some of the events lately, but if we make it through the middle part of this week, that'll be our big one here. So at least that's the way it appears right now. Keep, stay on the forecast. Mother Nature, whatever we got sent to us, please stay there too. Talk a little bit about the projects. Again, facilities, parking lot. I know trying to get a few odds and ends of things done there and have they been able to get some things completed? Pretty hard to do seating, I'm guessing. You know, believe it or not, they got seating down before we received all this rain, which has been a blessing. It's actually looking pretty darn green up there. So between the trees and the grass that they planted, we're getting really close. There is a few punch items. One of the biggest things would be the light poles. They're in the process of actually installing them when I was coming over here. So those are getting close. I would say we're down to a handful of punch items list. Great project overall. I think that people have seen the value when we have home events and there's adequate parking for people. And I know we got homecoming. There's gonna be a large amount of people. They're gonna push past, but just remember whatever people were parking out previously beyond our property, it's much less now. So overall a great project. So for a lot of them, this might be their first opportunity to get to see it too for a homecoming if they come for homecoming. Yeah, if they come for homecoming. Otherwise you get other towns coming in and all of a sudden, hey, we got all this space now. We recently held a conference superintendent meeting. So all the other superintendents were able to come up and see it. And there are some people that are a little bit envious, wishing that their parking lot looked similar. So overall again, a great project. It's all but wrapped up. And the other project that we're working on is the elementary. It was a bit of a standstill and we kind of knew that would be happening. We did some demolition work before kids came back to the building. And I think people, the subs that are hired to do this work were wrapping up some other summer work and that projects are starting to be complete. So they're starting to move in. They're starting to move in. Yep, so I really think that this project, now that we're approaching October, we're really gonna be hitting the ground pretty full speed here. And really excited for everything. We got a lot of things worked ironed out and we've been working with the general contractor which is gray ball construction. And as well as our partnership with FRK architecture to kind of make this project move forward. Is it easy enough? I mean, because one of the challenges you had was at least get the demolition done and then allow them to kind of cordon off. And you can do the separation in their location so that it classes and everything else can continue on. And we can see the work being done on this. That's correct. With it being underneath the gymnasium, just the way that that building is structured, we were able to really probably blockade a good portion of it. So that they're able to do the construction work and we're able to do business as usual with slight disruptions. But you would expect that during a construction project. And I think it's just making sure that the administrative team that we have is working with the general contractor. And there's communication going both ways. Yeah, gotta know when you're doing this. And here's what we would like to do and it might be a little loud over here. Or something like that. And then plan what we can do to get around it. Yeah, absolutely. And the big thing for a lot of people, of course people from Ogden know, but once they get done with this, then we'll have the shift and move things in there. Then you start, they'll start working on other parts of the building. Yeah, so there's really, again, two phases to this project. Phase one would be underneath the gymnasium. And then we are gonna move places from the more of the general core of the building. And then next summer, they will be doing those renovations. So really, well, about 11 months from now, that building and hopefully the project will be complete. And when we welcome families back to the school year next year, we'll have that final project completed. Keep my fingers crossed, everything good. It's supply, demand, and again, indoors, they can do a lot of things in there. It's a lot of coordination. But I think that they have a great architect, a great general contractor on it, and I'm optimistic that we're gonna be able to meet those deadlines. Or did a lot of what I call organizational type things at their meeting in September, which is pretty much in line. A lot of districts will do that or do it in their October meetings and stuff, going back to, harkening back to when we used to have that election in September. But you got a lot of the regular things, taking care of legal counsel, official depository, so on. And legislative priorities. We did a lot, and just as you were mentioning there, there is a lot of things that take place in that annual meeting regarding making sure that you have your legal counsel, publication, meeting dates and times. So those are pretty much standard. And then, yeah, we did actually have a really good discussion about what is gonna be our legislative priorities. We partner with Iowa Association of School Board, and they really help lobby and support our school districts. And they gave out a list of, I would say, probably 25 different possible priorities. And our board was able to weigh in on what they viewed was local things that they really wanted to be able to advocate for. And through the discussion, we narrowed that down to four. We present our ideas or our suggestions to ISB. And then they will tabulate those across the state of Iowa to really come up with, these are the things that we're gonna be advocating for the most this year. And, yeah, for folks, you're gonna hear more about that too, because they do, all the school districts will go through the process of, again, identifying what are priorities for them. And a lot of them kind of fit together, too. A lot of the same kind of thing. Funding, funding. There was a lot, you know, there was two of the four were related to funding, their unfunded mandates or adequate SSA, which is state supplemental aid. And then the other two were more about, like, achievement or programming. We did academic achievement. I think that's really the core of our purpose and what we do. And then we were really looking at funding for preschool programming. But we really look at the possibility of full day pre-K. My philosophical belief is that could be an early access connection for us to be able to connect with families and students. And possibly even intervene early on to set up for future success for those students. So half day pre-K might work for some families. Full day might work for some families. And it'd be really nice if we'd be able to get the funding for a full day pre-K if those families chose to have that. Yeah. And again, leave that to them, but to have the opportunity to be able to do that. And then, of course, you'd have to be able to have enough. And it usually seems like there are enough to do either the transitional kindergarten or anything like that. Yeah. They're there. Yeah. Yeah, they're there. And our board back in July actually approved Jim for us next year to have a TK full day pre-K. But really with this is we would be charging families a portion of that day to offset the cost that the state of Iowa would be giving us. And for our listeners, we get X amount of funding for a student that is fully enrolled from transitional kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. But for our pre-K four-year-olds, we get a 0.5. So we get half the cost. It's less. So and if family or, excuse me, schools choose to do full day pre-K, they can do that. But they are still only going to get half the amount of money. And I think there's just a large amount of people that are saying, hey, why don't we give choice and also if we choose to go full day, could we get the funding for that full student? And those are, again, that's one of the things that was handled by the legislature. I remember, I think, way back when it started, it was we've got the cost covered, and then they kind of backed away from that. Well, maybe not right now. So that's one of many things that we have to keep going through, too. Let's see, other things that came up. The only other thing that we discussed that was a great discussion with our board was really just transportation of non-resident students. So previously, 2024, really, the district boundaries were the boundary. And you really needed to, if you were going to go into another district, you really needed to have an agreement to be able to go in there. Legislation changes, and we were able to extend our boundaries by two miles if Ogden was closer than the resident district school. But with that, then we started just having conversations of, are we picking up at the resident home? Are we maybe creating drop-off zones? Are we able to have maybe non-resident students dropped off at another person's house and be able to pick up those students? So we just weighed a lot of the options, and we appreciate our open and roll students just as much as our resident students. But through discussion, with some safety concerns, financial impact, transportation costs, even having adequate drivers, our board elected to just move forward with picking up the non-resident student at the resident's home rather than creating anything else. So right now, continue what we've got. It's basically continuing what we have already been doing since 2024 legislative change. Yeah, and that's a challenge, too. It does have, for the Ogden district, yes, you buy your buses and everything else. Cost of transportation, I'm pretty sure you contracted for fuel and everything. But still looking forward, that's going to be a bit of a challenge, because you cover a lot of miles. We cover a lot of miles, yeah. And we have five routes right now. But yeah, you start to do the wear and tear on the vehicle appreciation of that bus, the fuel for that bus, paying somebody, the insurance, all of the things factor in to having a pretty substantial rate per mile for our costs. So when you start to add additional students to that, it could impact. There's some transportation relief funds, et cetera, that we could apply for, which we have, and we've been able to receive those. But still, a lot of times, there's still a substantial cost to the district for that. I know that last time when we visited, we were talking about drivers, bus drivers. And it's still on the lookout still. Anybody that might be interested in finding out about driving? We would still be glad to take some applications. We've had some people come up and answer to the call, if you will. So we've had some ability to relieve some pressure. It previously was, if we didn't have anybody, if we had somebody sick, excuse me, Jim, we wouldn't have anybody to backfill. So we're getting a little bit better. And even for evening activities, we have our drivers that are out. They don't get back to the shop until 4.45. But a lot of times, activities are starting to leave by 2.45, 3 o'clock. So that hour, hour and a half right there is really critical for us to be able to have some people, either subs and or activity route drivers. So still, anybody with an interest? Please contact. Please, call Denny. Call Denny, call the school. We'd be glad to talk to you about what we have. Get things lined up for. You did renew your agreement with YSS, Before and After School Kids Club, and that'll keep going. We'll continue with that partnership. Yeah, I see no reason why. I think everybody is satisfied. And it's a good Before and After School program and as well as a Summer School program for our community. It was really, I think that agreement was a three-year agreement, and it was just up for due. So that's a hints of reason why it made it to the action item. I don't know if it was before or after the board meeting, it probably might have been, man, they might have known about it before the board meeting, but again, the housing, basically the housing incentive in Ogden, because part of it is to have so many new homes built by, what, 2033, I think it is, in the Ogden school district. And over halfway there, two-thirds of the way. Yeah, that's what I was able to read a report the other day, I think by maybe Ogden Legacy sent that out and said that they're making some really good gains in that. And we sure appreciate it. And I think with a lot of the new commercial development in the county, we need to make sure that we have places for them. If they want to choose Ogden or somebody else, we want to at least have that option and be a viable option for them. So we keep working at it, too. All right, otherwise, homecoming stuff this week? Homecoming this week, yeah. I think, again, for our listeners, Friday's going to be a critical day. We'll have our parade at 1 o'clock, followed up by a pep assembly. And we'll do top dog recognition, followed up by that barbecue that you had previously mentioned. And then we'll have a game against Pleasantville. Hopefully we'll head out there and get a big W. Go for it. Joshua Hyer, our guest on our program today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Jim.