BETTENDORF, Iowa — Tuesday, September 21st, Pleasant Valley School District leaders found out their high school has been named a National Blue Ribbon School.
Only 325 schools received the honor this year, and PVHS was one of only five in the state of Iowa. How'd they get it? Principal Darren Erickson joined us live during GMQC at 11 Tuesday, September 28th to talk about the honor.
"The criteria are student scoring or student performance scores being in the top 15 percent of the state as well as graduation rates, several different factors on our standardized testing, and then as well as the performance on all of the various subgroups within our performance," he said Tuesday. "We met all the criteria, so we were nominated. We went through the application process, and we were honored to be selected as one of the National Blue Ribbon Schools."
The Pleasant Valley school board stalled on making a decision on mask mandates on the school bus during a board meeting on Monday night, September 27th.
It's a debate school districts across Iowa have been battling since Federal Judge Robert Pratt issued a restraining order against Iowa Governor, Kim Reynolds' mask mandate ban. To read more about that decision, click here. Erickson did comment on the situation though Tuesday morning. He says he provides input when it's asked of him.
"I know the school board and Superintendent [Brian] Strusz have a lot of difficult decisions to make," he said. "If you go from all of the different districts around the state in addition to the country, I know a lot of people are moving in a lot of different directions, if there was one easy answer, I think every school would be moving towards it. I think they've done a great job of looking at the data, not only nationwide, but statewide, but also locally of how it's impacting our schools, and they'll continue to act in the best interest of our students and our communities and react appropriately."
Erickson said there really hasn't been a whole lot of conversation of whether students wear masks or not in the high school. Some staff members and students wear masks. Some don't. Erickson says his goal this year was to make sure people respect the choice of others, whether they wear a mask or not.