That’s because the Fort Dodge school’s preschool program for 3-year-olds debuted at the start of the 2022-2023 academic year.

The demand for the program was strong. School leaders were planning on two sections of 3-year-old preschool. But scheduling two sections left a waiting list of children, so a third section was added.

Also new on the campus for this school year is the Rev. Ross Caniglia, who is the chaplain for the roughly 600 students, the faculty and the staff.

In 2022-2023, St. Edmond is continuing with the Virtues in Practice religious curriculum.

-Messenger file photo
John Nemmers, then 17 and a junior at St. Edmond Catholic School, is all smiles as he helps pack meals during a Then Feed Just One meal packing event at the school on Feb. 2, 2022. The food packed by students provided thousands of meals to the less fortunate in Honduras.

“My hope this year is to instill our love of God and our virtues,” said Tabitha Acree, the elementary and middle school principal. “We’re always trying to develop Christian leaders and Christian disciples to continue to strengthen the whole person.”

St. Edmond students could be seen putting their virtues into practice throughout the last year.

In one of the most significant examples, 168 students worked in two shifts on a February 2022 day to prepare enough meals to feed 23,000 children.

The meal packing effort was part of a larger campaign called Then Feed Just One, which derives its name from a statement made by Mother Theresa. The students measured, bagged and boxed meal ingredients, which were to be shipped to Honduras.

Learning at St. Edmond can involve some fun competition. For elementary grade students, that competition recently came in the form of the Battle of the Books. For this battle, teams of students read multiple books, then answered questions about those books.

-Messenger file photo
St. Edmond students Mary Ella Gruver, McKenna Dillard, Aubrey Nolan and Grace Schlegel, then fifth-graders, confer on a quiz question during the Battle of the Books on March 9, 2022.

Learning also takes place off-campus, such as when the seventh-graders visited the Camp Algona POW Museum in Algona.

Two St. Edmond students earned top vocal music honors in the current school year. Emma Davis and Zach Midtling were named to All-State Chorus.