Your Town Tuesday: Foley Superindent Says The District Is Growing, Going Strong [VIDEO]

FOLEY - This week we are starting a new series on WJON called "Your Town Tuesday". First-up in our series, we're featuring Foley.

The Foley Schools are growing.  Superintendent Darrin Strosahl says they're averaging about 140 to 150 students per grade level, and have about 1,800 student district-wide.  He says they're growing mostly through open enrollment.

Strosahl says they have a lot of programs that are attractive to students, "Our vocational educational ag program is a real strength for us. Our academics have been high. We've been one of the leading schools on MCA results across the state, our math, our science, our reading".

Strosahl says the students will welcome a new high school principal and a new community ed director next school year.

Foley held their commencement ceremony this past Saturday night.

Strosahl says the district's facilities are in great shape, and the school has a lot to offer, "We're really fortunate for a school our size, 1,800 students K-12 total. We have a swimming pool, we have our tennis courts, our football field, and our field house with an indoor track. Our students are really fortunate to have such good facilities".

Foley is known for having strong sports teams. The wrestling team and boys tennis teams both qualified for state. They also had a handful of individuals in swimming and track that went to the state meets this year. Strosahl points out that their athletes also tend to do well in the classroom.

Strosahl says, for the most part, everything is going well in the district.  However, he says they still need to settle a contract with their teachers union.  Strosahl says the two sides have met 13 times so far, "the negotiations have been really respectful back and forth. There's a great appreciation for the work the teachers do by the board, the community, the staff. Right now we've reached agreement on several items, we just haven't been able to finalize the package in total. Right now we're scheduled for mediation in the early part of August".

Strosahl says the two-year contract that they're working to settle is for the school year that just ended, as well as the coming school year.

Strosahl has been the district superintendent for four years.

The Foley Public School system employs 257 people - 127 teachers.  Their monthly payroll is $886,000. Foley schools serve about 252,000 lunches each year. Also, they have 21 everyday bus routes, plus seven van routes.

Coming-up next week in our "Your Town Tuesday" series, we'll be highlighting the community of Rice.