1. Innovation in Sioux City Public Schools
Dannika Nash
Sioux City is a special place to grow up because of places like Irving Elementary
School. Since 2004, Irving has quietly subverted educational norms to make itself
one of the most desirable elementary schools in the district. That’s because the staff
at Irving has created a structure that gives students one of the greatest gifts you can
give a child—a second (or third) language. Irving is a dual language specialty school,
which means the students learn their regular subjects for half of the day in English
and half of the day in Spanish. This structure helps students become proficient in
both English and Spanish while they learn the rest of their traditional subjects.
“Nothing gets replaced by the language content,” Maria Ruelas, the principal of
Irving, assures me. That’s the beauty of teaching language—you can use the
language as the backdrop while you learn something else at the same time. In this
case, math, reading, science, and language arts. Elementary-aged brains are sponges
for language and will find this transition easier than you or I might. Another
important part of Irving’s DNA is its demographic—the school serves mostly a
population of students who receive free or reduced lunch. Because of Irving’s
cutting edge educational practices, there is a demand by students, even from outside
the school district, to transfer in and benefit from Irving’s dual-language program.
Irving is a specialty school—one of 5 in the Sioux City Community School District,
but the rest are exploring other specialties. Hunt Elementary is an Arts+ specialty
school—the only elementary of its kind in Iowa and one of a handful in this country.
This means Hunt “interweaves the arts: dance, drama, music, and visual, into the
curriculum.” Again—reading, math, and science haven’t been replaced—they are
simply taught under the umbrella of the arts. Research shows that students who use
Arts Integration techniques remember more information longer, and that using the
arts to learn improved their general intelligence and attention skills—particularly
phonological awareness, which is involved in early reading. Amy Gilbert, the
principal at Hunt, told me about one case in which a young student was frustrated
by his inability to concentrate. He was guided into a physical activity—yoga, and
was visibly relieved to realize he could use his kinesthetic skills to help him
concentrate and learn.
The other three specialty elementary schools in the district are Morningside, which
specializes in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), Loess Hills, which
focuses on Computer Programming, and Spalding Park, which studies
environmental sciences. All five specialty schools give students an important lens
through which to focus on their other subjects. The specialties were not assigned by
the district, but came about organically from within the schools themselves—for
instance, Irving’s dual-language program seemed natural because it has a high
population of dual-language learners. I asked Amy Gilbert whether it is hard for
Hunt to find qualified teachers for their program—she told me they love to train

2. teachers in Arts Integration—as well as utilize the expertise of arts specialists (like
Diana Guhin Wooley of LAMB Theater) within the Siouxland community.
The specialty schools, along with the rest of the school district, is supported by the
Sioux City Community School Foundation, which is an independent foundation that
specifically raises funds to support programs that promote STEM education, Arts &
Culture, and closing the equity gap in education. It exists to fund areas tax dollars
may not otherwise reach, and it also sends teachers to science and math conferences
or the Colonial Williamsburg Teach Institute. It also raises grant money for K-12
teachers in the school district.
The fearless leap into specialty schools makes me proud to have graduated from a
public Sioux City elementary, middle, and high school. The educators in our district
move tirelessly forward with fresh, creative ways to make learning fun and make
school useful. Iowa is a state that pays a lot of attention to education, but Sioux City
seems to me to be a particular leader—we do things without expecting state
recognition—although we receive it. Linda Fandel, the Special Assistant for
Education to the Governor of Iowa called our public school district “one of the most
innovative school districts in the state.” I think innovative is the correct word—we
make use of the very distinct things we have—diversity, creative solutions, and
teachers who don’t wait to be asked to do something extraordinary.