JANUARY | 2025

SCHEDULE NOTES:

• Monday, January 20: No School Martin Luther King Jr. Day

The Forest City School District has opened the nomination process for the Athletics Hall of Fame, which recognizes and honors former athletes, coaches, teams, administrators, and patrons who have made significant contributions to the district’s athletics program.

The deadline to submit nominations for the 2025 class is February 15, 2025. Nomination forms, either an online form or a downloadable form, are available on the district’s website. Paper nomination forms are also available at the District and School offices, or the Forest City Chamber of Commerce. Nominations will only be considered with a completed form.

Consideration criteria have been established for each category of nominees —player, coach, administrator, contributor/patron and team. A player nominee must be a graduate of Forest City High School and out of school for at least four years. They also must have received all-conference and/or all-state recognition in their respective sport and contributed at a high level both in athletics and in the community. A coach nominee must have been a head coach at Forest City High School for a minimum of five years with their teams competing in a consistent and exemplary way. An athletic director or administrator must have served in the district for a minimum of five years and supported or contributed to the development of athletics at Forest City High School in an outstanding way. A contributor/patron nominee must have supported or contributed to the development of athletics in an outstanding way. A team nomination must be an accomplished group.

Inductees will be notified mid-May and the recognition ceremony will be held during the 2025 Homecoming weekend.

Our Forest City FFA Chapter worked with the Ignite the Spirit Program, a student-based program for FFA Chapters in the communities of Iowa Select Farms, to donate 48 pork loins and two shopping carts full of food items to our local Neighborhood Food Bank in Forest City. They provided food to many families in Winnebago, Hancock and Worth counties this holiday season.

Thank you to FFA members Kaiden Dirksen, Max Aitchison, and Peyton Klein for leading this event!

Lichtsinn RV, Holland Contracting and our Girls Basketball Team are a few of many involved in helping purchase and wrap the gifts.

A big thank you to all who helped make this year’s Forest City Education Association’s Giving Tree a success! The Giving Tree is a committee of teachers and members who volunteer their time to organize this project each year to provide children and families with Christmas gifts. Christmas trees at local businesses are decorated with anonymous tags that community members can choose and purchase gifts for. There are also online tags and the committee partners with several businesses and individuals who sponsor a family or a group of tags. The gifts are dispersed to deserving families just in time for Christmas.

This year, they were able to provide Christmas gifts (clothing, toys, pajamas, socks, underwear, and shoes) to over 155 kids (50 families) in our community. Our committee organized over 650 gifts this year!

Many thanks to the members of the Forest City Education Association, community members, businesses, clubs, PEO's, churches, and organizations for making it another successful year.

In a recent chemistry lab, high school students explored the colorful world of flame tests to identify unknown substances based on the characteristic colors they produce when introduced to a flame. Using a Bunsen burner, pre-soaked wooden splints, and five unknown substances, students observed and recorded flame colors, which served as clues to determine the identity of each metal chloride.

The lab also incorporated calculations of wavelength, frequency, and energy for the observed light, deepening students' understanding of the connection between light emission and atomic structure. Results were documented with observation tables, color identifications, and references to online resources for further analysis.

This hands-on experiment provided a vivid demonstration of the science behind visible light and helped students identify metals such as strontium, copper, magnesium, and more, while honing their data collection and analytical skills in a fun and memorable way.

We had a full house at the Boman Fine Arts Center for our 2nd and 3rd Grade programs! They all did a wonderful job!

Please note upcoming program dates:

Tuesday, April 22: Kindergarten 6 pm, 1st Grade 7 pm

Tuesday, May 6: 4th Grade 6 pm, 5th Grade DARE Graduation 7pm

8th grade students visited NIACC for Discover Day, a career exploration event that provides students an opportunity to examine their interests and connect them to actual career opportunities.

They toured the campus while experiencing mini-courses along the way.

The 3rd graders have been busy reading Christmas and winter books to the preschool classes!

High school students in Personal Finance have an opportunity to take a final exam through UNI at the end of the semester. If they pass the test, they receive 3 free college credits! The test costs $100 but is refunded if the student passes with a 70% or higher on the exam.

First semester we had 13 students choose to take the test and ALL 13 passed the exam and received the free 3 credits. These credits can transfer to any college as elective credits.

Congratulations to those students!

Four talented Forest City students were selected to perform in the North Central Iowa Bandmasters Association (NCIBA) Honor Band! Joining other musicians from across North Central Iowa, they spent the day rehearsing with different directors before providing an evening concert to showcase their talents and musical skills. It is a great opportunity to meet other student musicians in the area and learn from different directors!

Congratulations to Viola Dokken, Liberty Langenbau, Aubrey Olson, and Carmen Sharp!