In March, the Manson Northwest Webster Community School District received a big win as two public measures increasing the physical plant and equipment levy rate and extending the levy period were approved by voters.

The physical plant and equipment levy is a voter-approved levy that serves as the primary revenue source for funding of school infrastructure and equipment repairs and purchases.

According to the MNW district administration, raising the voted levy by 51 cents will not increase the total tax rate for its residents. The district plans to decrease the rate of other categorical funds, like the general fund, management fund and regular PPEL fund, to offset the increase in the voted PPEL rate.

The first measure asked voters to raise the voted PPEL rate from 83 cents to $1.34 per $1,000 taxable value for the remainder of the current PPEL period, which will expire on June 30, 2022.

The voted PPEL is extended in 10-year periods and the next extension will run to June 30, 2033, so the second question asked to raise that rate from 83 cents to $1.34 per $1,000 taxable value for that period.

Overall, the first public measure passed 395 to 96, or by 80 percent.

The second passed 392 to 100, or by 79.6 percent.

Over the summer, Ken Shannon took over the role as principal at Manson Northwest Webster Junior/Senior High School.

Prior to taking the job at MNW, Shannon spent 14 years teaching social studies at Pocahontas Area Community High School. Before that, he taught at Pomeroy-Palmer Community Schools for eight years before its consolidation with Pocahontas. At Pocahontas Area, Shannon coached middle school track and wrestling, and high school football.

MNW also added two new programs for students: building trade courses and First Tech Challenge.

“Last year MNW partnered with Iowa Central to provide our students with building trade courses, through a local contractor, Luke Thoma. Luke is an adjunct for Iowa Central Community College and provides year-long Iowa Central dual credit courses in the trades to MNW students,” said Superintendent Justin Daggett.

“We are in year two of the program and still working the kinks out, such as scheduling issues due to COVID, but there’s a lot of potential.”

First Tech Challenge (FTC) is a program offered by MNW in which students build robots to compete against area teams in specific competitions.

Matt Pohlman, a teacher at MNW and co-sponsor of First Tech Challenge, said, “MNW has two small teams with four students on each team. Each year, First Tech Challenge releases a game in early September with certain goals for teams to try to achieve. This year’s game is called Freight Frenzy and has roughly 15,000 teams competing worldwide.”

Pohlman said team Scrap Mechanics (FTC #9973) consists of four freshmen students and the team Biohazard Bots (FTC #14452) is two freshmen and two seventh-graders.

Pohlman said FTC operates around an ideal of gracious professionalism.

“While all students are competing against each other, their main focus is to compete in a manner to make all teams, including opponents, better. It goes as far as teams will even help each other while at competitions to fix and improve competing teams’ robots,” said Pohlman.

Co-sponsor Brian Nelson said, “We are really excited to have such a young, enthusiastic group of students who always have great ideas on solving challenges. Whether it is building assemblies or programming their robots, our group is always up for the challenge.”