There won’t be any major changes to the school calendar for the 2022-2023 school year for the Fort Dodge Community School District.

The first day of school will be Aug. 24, 2022, and students will leave for summer vacation on May 26, 2023.

The school board approved the calendar during its meeting on Monday night, following a public hearing where members of the community were invited to ask questions or give comments about the proposed school calendar. No one from the public attended the hearing.

“We do approve our calendar two years out,” said Superintendent Jesse Ulrich. “This has been a very helpful practice because it allows us to book our professional development as well as our beginning of the year keynote speaker.”

Ulrich said he felt the calendar was “non-controversial” as it is in alignment with the same calendar the district has been using for several years.

The 2022-2023 school calendar includes 1,124.5 “student contact hours” for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students. The state of Iowa requires school districts to have either 180 days or 1,080 student contact hours each school year.

The board also approved a change order for the Early Childhood Center project. The change order included $56,232.24 in five add-ons, according to Ryan Utley, district director of buildings and grounds.

“Each of these items that were added on were recommended by both the architect and the contractor,” he said.

The additions include removing and replacing eight doors, leveling the floor in several spots, providing new window sills to cover up existing ones, removing and replacing a damaged slab under the freezer and cooler, and removing and replacing an existing art room wall.

The change order also includes three deductions totaling $17,913.81, which brings the net cost of the change order to $38,409.43.

Ulrich told the board that with the length of the project, there will likely be more change orders in the future, but “I think we’re past the point of major surprises.”

During his updates to the board, Ulrich said he’s received many questions about the mask mandate that Gov. Kim Reynolds let expire on Sunday and what it means for the schools.

“As far as the schools are concerned, we will continue with the mask mandate for our students and our staff when social distancing is not possible,” he said.

Ulrich said the district will likely continue requiring masks for the remainder of the school year.

Ulrich also added that by the end of the month, all of the district staff who have signed up to receive a COVID-19 vaccine will have received their first dose.

The superintendent said he is also preparing for interviews of five candidates for the open principal positions at Butler and Cooper elementary schools starting in the 2021-2022 school year.

Current Butler Principal Carmen Banwart is moving to the principal role at the Early Childhood Center in the fall and current Cooper Principal Lynnae Harvey is retiring at the end of the 2020-2021 school year.

“We are bringing in five exceptional candidates,” Ulrich said. “This is also probably the most diverse group of candidates that we’re bringing in — not just from a demographics standpoint, from life experiences and professional experience.”

Board member Bill Kent shared that state Rep. Ann Meyer (R-Fort Dodge) was the speaker at Monday’s Rotary Club meeting and she had “suggested that there were not enough votes in the House to pass the voucher program,” referring to the bill passed by the state Senate last month that, if passed by the House and signed by Reynolds, would provide taxpayer funds to pay for some students to attend private K-12 schools.

The House is currently considering the bill.

Meyer had previously said she would probably not support the bill unless some requirements were placed on the private schools that could be receiving the money.