ROWVA District 208 Superintendent Joe Sornberger reflected on the first half of the school year and talked about upcoming things the district is excited about. Upgrades at the high school include the new, running boiler. The old boiler was original to the building and was in need of a replacement. Now teachers have climate control capabilities in each classroom. Sornberger says he’s also excited about a pair of students who have an opportunity to learn and have their voices heard on the state level. “Right now Mallory Shea and Taylor Main are part of Governor Pritzker’s Student Task Force,” he said. “Chris Johnson has been helping with that. They’ve been chosen to be on this task force for education and just to talk about a student’s voice. They were in Springfield for the (Governor’s) inauguration. It’s interesting: two kids from ROWVA gets chosen out of the state of Illinois. Pretty excited about that and those ladies get to represent us and get to represent basically rural Illinois.” Improvements around the high school includes new floors, a new high school office, and a redone entryway with handicap accessible walkways and entrances. ROWVA purchased four new buses at the beginning of the year that are WIFI accessible. The district is also updating some areas of the curriculum for students moving forward. Sornberger says he’s also excited about some of the students’ “Genius Hour Projects” going on in the district. “They just come up with an idea of something to work on that they like and they go from there,” he added. “Whitney Godsil did one last semester. She was looking at some of the aesthetics of the gymnasium and floors. She talked to someone on how to paint it – did all the work on it and got it set up and we got it done. So it looks good. Another one they’ve come up with now is run a dodgeball tournament. We’ve done those (in the past) for Hoops for Cancer which was pretty cool.” Sornberger says that it’s nice giving students a voice – and he appreciates when students are comfortable approaching him with ideas. Another suggestion from the program is updated water bottle water fountains. The next major facility project where bids will go out next month is updating and renovating the high school chem lab. But Sornberger says if you really want to know what’s going on in District 208, come to the Community Open House next month and see what teachers and student are doing on a daily basis.
