Eagle Grove Area School District teachers, staff, custodians, bus drivers, administration…are getting the job done, no matter what job that might be they are doing these days. The past 18 months have been rough on everyone since COVID started. The Eagle Grove Area School District is no different. Not only has it been hard for them to adapt to ever-changing regulations, but it has also been a challenge keeping positions filled amongst the teachers and staff to continue school as “usual”…or at least as normal as possible.
“Our main goal is to educate the children,” said Superintendent Jess Toliver, noting that there have been many areas of the school running short-handed at one time or another throughout this whole pandemic. Whether people are sick themselves or in quarantine with another family member for 10 – 15 days, it means there is a job that has to be covered some way, somehow.
That has meant multitasking duties for many employees. Most recently, that included Valerie Hanson, Nicole Verbrugge, and Toliver himself – all from the administration office, who recently pitched in when Angie O’Donnell called and said they were short-staffed in the kitchen. These three put on their gloves and masks and went to work. Joining them were high school students from Lisa Tappers Culinary class. The cooked, served, washed dishes…whatever was needed of them. You know the term, “It takes a village…” well, Eagle Grove School employees are a village amongst themselves, always helping out where the kids are concerned, doing whatever additional tasks might be needed, no questions asked.
Toliver was quick to point out that just because their pictures went up on social media of them helping in the kitchen, they were not the first, and undoubtedly, they will not be the last. He is proud of the way everyone has been pitching in.
“Our staff has been helping in a variety of ways…there have been principals who have subbed in a class (their is a severe shortage of both teachers and substitute teachers these days), custodians taking on extra work to cover a missing person’s duties, and bus drivers doing extra routes,” said Toliver.
Even the kitchen staff, who needed assistance last week with employees out sick, has been taking on extra duties, having to cook meals for the entire school district in the middle school kitchen, and then hauling them over for the high school students to eat there. According to Toliver, that is because of delays on new equipment that was ordered before school even started. Even Dwight Tew, the transportation director, has been picking up extra duties as he is the one who has been volunteering to haul the meals back and forth.
Planning the meal is no easy task, either. Some items on the school menu are no longer available for delivery. Bread has to be ordered two weeks in advance. There are many challenges they face.
“There are a lot of people doing extra things to keep the ship sailing,” said Toliver.
Like mentioned at the start of the article, that includes students, too.
“We are sending two (students) to the elementary cafeteria and keeping two at the high school cafeteria every day,” said Eagle Grove High School Family and Consumer Science Teacher Lisa Tapper. The other students stay in class and make yeast breads (that are served for lunch). They work 3rd, 4th, and 5th periods and are learning a great deal. They flip flop days when they are in class making yeast breads with the days they work in the school cafeterias.”
Tapper said this set-up has been very successful and she will continue this with her students for as long as they are needed.
“This is a good example of on the job hands-on training in the food industry for the advanced culinary students,” Tapper added.
Toliver said that while COVID is playing a role in all of this, it’s not that they actually have a large number of people gone because of it, but rather the problem is that when someone is gone, it’s for 10 – 20 days, depending on their situation. With such a limited number of employees, say bus drivers for example, having one or two out makes a big impact, which is one of the reasons Toliver himself has been behind the bus wheel on more than one occasion this year.
This situation of taking on extra duties for school district employees has been a norm since COVID first struck. In fact, when school was abruptly shut down in March of 2020, a government Electronic Prepaid Debit cards (EPD) program allowed families with elementary-aged children, or families whose children received free/reduced lunches, to receive a loaded EPD card. This provided families with money to buy groceries (using the money that would have otherwise been used to help pay for their school lunches). In order to get these distributed quickly, it took several Eagle Grove staff members four days of getting data entered so they could distribute roughly $100,000 to feed our school district’s kids.
As for this most recent display of helping each other out, Hanson said she was happy to lend a hand in the kitchen last week.
“I was really impressed with how the kitchen staff operates,” she said. “You don’t know what’s behind the machine until you’re there seeing it for yourself…and the students were so nice. Everyone of them said please and thank you.”
Verbrugge added, “It was fun to see the kids. We see the high school kids (who go to class in the administration building now), but we don’t really get the chance to see the elementary and middle school kids. It was also fun to see my kids’ friends and serve them.”
The one message they both wanted to convey reiterated what Toliver said earlier, “All of our staff has stepped up when and where needed throughout all of this.”
That includes O’Donnell who has been known to come in as early as 2 a.m. just to make sure things are ready when the kids come for breakfast, despite being short staffed.
“As we go forward, I can’t guarantee that we won’t be stretched so thin that we have to shut down…but we’re going to do whatever we can to keep our school functioning in a positive manner,” concluded Toliver.
