“We’re having an awesome year,” said Principal Stephanie Coble-Day. “We feel so blessed to be in Fort Dodge and we have such amazing community support.”

STEM learning is a main focus at Community Christian School this year.

Over the summer, nearly all of the teachers took advantage of a state STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) grant, Coble-Day said.

The kindergarten class, taught by Rachel Butler, received an aquaponics system from Ioponics. The students are growing plants like lettuce, tomato and spinach, using a combination of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil).

About halfway through the school year, the plants are struggling a bit, but the fish are thriving, Coble-Day said.

“They have just been doing really, really well and they’re growing and the kids are really enjoying them, so that’s been really fun to see and watch,” she said.

Starting next school year, all middle and elementary schools in the state will be required to provide high-quality computer science education. CCS is getting a head start on that instruction.

“I have a lot of teachers and a lot of students that love computers and coding,” Coble-Day said.

In Jeannette Larrabee’s third- and fourth-grade classroom, students are learning computer coding with Cubetto, a little wooden robot that allows kids to learn the basics of computer programming.

“The kids love it,” Coble-Day said. “They’re begging to do it. We’ve been doing it in third and fourth grade and now fourth-graders are helping teach the first- and second-graders how to do it. It’s a great way to introduce kids to coding and creativity and STEM in general.”

In seventh and eighth grade, Hannah Barton’s students are learning to code using mini-computers called microbits.

The Cubetto and microbits — and the training on how to teach with them — were provided by the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council.

In December, CCS did the Invention Convention where third- and fourth-graders spend weeks creating an invention of their own and presenting it to the school’s board of directors and community members.

“We had such a variety,” Coble-Day said. “Every third- and fourth-grader presented something and they had to have a physical model of it, so we had 14 different inventions.”

Inventions varied from automatic pet feeders to a hamster carrier to a “lawn maid” that catches fallen leaves to a luxury cathouse.

“They work really hard and come up with some really creative ideas,” Coble-Day said.

New at CCS this year was the Student Leadership Team.

“There are five kiddos that are on our Student Leadership Team, which is open to fifth through sixth grade,” Coble-Day said. “I meet with them twice a month and they help promote different things happening in the school.”

Recently, Coble-Day took the students to the Webster County Courthouse for a tour alongside the Leadership Fort Dodge class.

“We were there for a couple hours and we learned about county government,” she said. “I plan to take them down to the Capitol in Des Moines to learn about state governments. They’re a really great group of kids and are great leaders.”

CCS welcomed two new teachers this school year — Colleen Hansen in the first grade classroom and Rick Mandernach in the fifth- and sixth-grade classroom. This was also the first year in a few that first and second grades were in separate classrooms.

“We want it to be a priority to have kindergarten, first and second grades in separate classrooms, then right after COVID happened, we lost our first-grade teacher and were not able to rehire until this school year,” Coble-Day said.

CCS was also able to restart its band program this school year. Students take individual lessons and have group practices twice a week. In December, the band played in the school’s Christmas program. They’ll have another performance in the spring.