Flood forces Rock Valley to delay start of school year

ROCK VALLEY, IA (KELO) — It’s been a month since floodwaters rushed through Rock Valley, damaging homes, businesses and the community school. Ever since then, staff, volunteers and construction crews have been working hard to get students back in the classroom.

Rock Valley’s K-12 school had extensive flood damage a month ago.

“People from Rock Valley, people from surrounding communities, surrounding schools showed up in waves and helped us clear all the contents out, get ourselves to a place where we can start assessing what it’s going to take to build back,” Rock Valley Community School District superintendent Matt Van Voorst said.

Today, the school looks a lot different.

“We’re starting to see walls come back together in classrooms. We have sheetrock mostly completed. We’re hoping this week we can start painting in some of those classrooms,” Van Voorst said.

Despite all of the progress, the start of the school year has been pushed back.

“Our start date was August 23. We’ve set a start date of September 5, and that’s for our K-12 students,” Van Voorst said.

This building usually houses kindergarten through twelfth graders, but that will change this year.

“We’re going to have kindergarten through second grade at a local church. Trinity Reformed is going to open up their doors for us and let those kids in. We’re going to have a temporary structure with six classrooms that we can use,” Van Voorst said.

There’s still plenty of work that needs to be done before September. Luke Schouten graduated from Rock Valley in 1980 and brought in a crew from Illinois to help out.

“We’re removing the bleachers here in the gym and getting them cut apart and then, they’re getting them out the door,” Schouten said.

All to help his alma mater get back on its feet and ready for students.

“It’s been really rewarding for us with the work that we’ve been doing already today to be able to just move them one step closer to being able to get the school back opened up in the fall,” Schouten said.

The preschool did not see nearly as much damage, so the district’s youngest students will start on time on August 23.

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