Tabitha Acree took over at St. Edmond Catholic School on Aug. 1. For the past six years, she had been principal at Riverside Early Learning Center for the Fort Dodge Community School District, and for the 10 years prior to that, Acree was the middle school and high school counselor at St. Edmond.

“It’s been wonderful. I always say it’s like coming home,” said Acree. “A lot of the students that are in high school now I had when they were in early elementary, and so it’s just a great experience to be able to work with our littlest learners and then see the growth they’re making as they transition and then as they’re in high school, just seeing them give back and how they’ve developed and give back to the community and to the teachers and the younger students. So it’s been a wonderful experience.”

Acree said everything has gone well since she rejoined the St. Edmond family.

“We started the school year off with the Back to School Bash. That was super successful. That was super fun to kick off the year and then meet all the staff and the parents and students,” she said.

Acree said now that they have the Holy Trinity Church on site, they have moved to an all-school Mass.

“Our elementary students are paired with middle or high school Mass buddies, and then the classes are responsible for hosting Mass,” she said.

Acree said they added many new courses, including a discipleship class.

“Students seek out opportunities in the community or projects where they’re taking the lead. They’re investigating what the need is and then planning the whole project,” she said. “So they’ve created spirituality kits for hospice patients, they’ve done a drive for Almost Home, they’ve made cookies for the fire department, just different things of giving back to the community.”

Acree was just one of the staff changes around St. Edmond this year. Susan Laufersweiler, who taught 21 years at St. Edmond Catholic School, was named the school’s next director of development.

Kate Stucky, the office manager of the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance, was named the new director of operations and finance for Holy Trinity Parish and St. Edmond Catholic School.

David Flattery, pitching coach for the Iowa Central Community College baseball program and 2013 St. Edmond graduate, was hired as the new activities and athletics director.

President Mary Gibb said despite the struggles schools have faced trying to educate during a pandemic, their students are doing well and they haven’t seen any learning loss.

“We did provide online for those months — March, April, May — and our teachers did a really good job of providing that online service for our students when they weren’t here,” she said. “We started back in the fall all in person, so that I think that was a big deal to have them here. You can’t replace that, the socialization and instruction from a certified teacher. They just need to be in the building.”

In addition, St. Edmond saw an increase in enrollment for the 2021-2022 year.

“We had about an 8 percent to 9 percent increase in enrollment. We’ve had additions to some of our elementary sessions so we had to add more staffing, which is a great thing,” said Gibb.

The science classrooms have been fully updated also.

“We updated our science rooms, both of our science rooms. We put in new flooring — basically gutted it and started over,” said Gibb. “All new lab sinks and cabinets and new desks, new teachers’ desks, new whiteboards. We got some mobile whiteboards and touch screen interactive TVs.”

Gibb said they have also been able to purchase some new buses and vehicles to update their transportation.