In May, the district announced that Dr. Derrick Joel would succeed Dr. Jesse Ulrich as the Fort Dodge Community School superintendent following Ulrich’s departure to become the president of Iowa Central Community College.

Prior to taking the helm at Fort Dodge schools, Joel was the superintendent for the Raymond Central School District in Raymond, Nebraska, since 2017. Before that, he served as principal at North Polk High School in Alleman, Iowa, from 2015 to 2017, and was the Ankeny High School assistant principal from 2012 to 2015.

One of Joel’s first assignments upon taking the helm at the Fort Dodge district was overseeing the final phases of the new Early Childhood Center project.

“Opening the ECC has been a successful project and allowed for our youngest Dodgers to attend a single site,” Joel said.

-Messenger file photo
First-grade students in Lisa Ruggles’ class work on a craft while getting settled into their new classroom in the former Riverside Elementary School recently.

The preschool and kindergarten-only building allows for more teacher collaboration at that age level, he said.

“The building’s functionality is working as planned,” Joel said. “It was well thought-out and it’s very apparent it’s a community-based project.”

The district’s certified enrollment decreased by about 16 to 3,655 for the 2021-2022 school year.

Joel said across the state, there’s a current trend of decreased enrollment, but he’s hoping for a strong rebound in the following years.

In 2021, the district hired three other new administrators: Athletic Director Josh Porter, Cooper Elementary School Principal Kate Simpson and Butler Elementary School Principal Jessica Kruckenberg.

-Messenger file photo
Cooper Elementary students play on the playground at the former Riverside Elementary School on an early January afternoon. Riverside is hosting Cooper Elementary students this semester as the Cooper building undergoes a major renovation.

Some new programs the district has added or expanded this year have been the agriculture education program at Fort Dodge Senior High and the industrial technology program at the Fort Dodge Middle School.

After the opening of the Early Childhood Center, the district was able to realign grade levels and bring more exploratory classes to the middle school, Joel said.

“It creates an excitement as they transition to high school and gives them the opportunity to be creative, collaborate, apply 21st Century skills and gain experience,” Joel said.

The main project the district is working on now is the Cooper Elementary School renovation project.

Cooper Elementary has temporarily relocated across town to the former Riverside Elementary School, 733 F St., for the remainder of the school year while the Cooper building undergoes the renovation.

The renovation project will include a new HVAC system in the school, new ceilings, lighting and flooring. It will also widen the doors in the building to make them more ADA accessible.

“We’ll move back next year and be back in a brand new building,” said Simpson. “The bones of it will look the same, but it will look completely different on the inside.”

Jensen Builders Ltd., of Fort Dodge, was awarded the bid for the $4.4 million project in November. The project will be paid for using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds.

Until the fall, Riverside will remain Cooper’s home, but Simpson reminds the students to look at it as “another adventure along the way” and that they’re all in this together.

“It’s not the building that makes us Cooper,” Simpson said. “We are what makes us Cooper.”