The Winter 2025-26 Highlights Newsletter has been released! Read it here to learn what it means to be a Treynor Cardinal, where excellence is expected, achieved and celebrated. 

On Monday, April 13, 2026, the Treynor CSD School Board finalized the last day of school for the 2025-2026 school year. The students' last day will be Thursday, May 28, 2026 with a 2:00 p.m. dismissal. This is provided there will not be additional school cancellations.

Teachers will have staff development and work days on Friday, May 29th and June 1st through June 3rd.

In an effort to promote safety, students in the elementary and middle school have recently been presented with lessons regarding street safety, particularly while walking or riding bicycles or scooters.  This is done in conjunction with our local KKAD25 (Keep Kids Alive Drive 25) group that is primarily led by JOI Club students who formed their own sub-group in 2016. Since that time, the Treynor KKAD25 group has been promoting safety messages aimed primarily at licensed drivers.  This year, focus was added to promote messages to our younger students regarding street safety. The KKAD25 group was a presence at a few home basketball games, offering prizes to these kids who visited the table and/or competed in trivia games.  

After the recent lessons in our K-8th grade classrooms, students were given the opportunity to sign a pledge card. The students pledged to:

• Follow the rules, including stopping at stop signs
• Wear a helmet
• Use front & rear lights in the dark
• Wear reflective clothing, especially at night.
• Ride on sidewalks when possible (or in the same direction as traffic if unavailable).
• Yield to pedestrians.
• On sidewalks, slow down when passing and say "passing!"
• Not go back & forth between sidewalks and streets just to avoid stop signs or traffic
• Not wear headphones or use their phone
• Do their part to make their neighborhood a safer place to ride, walk or run

From those cards, names were drawn for prizes and ultimately a grand prize of an electric scooter (one for K-5th students and one for 6-8th students). Runner-up prizes included a t-shirt, key chain, snap bracelet, candy with safety messages and other small prizes.  Thank you to those who have helped the KKAD25 group financially, as this provided funds to purchase the scooters and other prizes for this initiative. Thank you to Judd Knispel of State Farm for sponsoring the t-shirts and the long-term support of the Treynor KKAD25 group. Thank you to our Middle School teachers for presenting the lessons and to Mrs. Carrie Currin, Elementary Counselor, for her passion in bringing the lessons to the kids during her class time with students.

To read more about the history of the KKAD25 group, you can read this web article.

We hope that the motto of the parent company, KKAD25, is evident in our local efforts:  “Making streets safer for all who walk, cycle, play, drive, and ride”.

For any questions or comments about the group's effort, please reach out to JOI Club/KKAD25 Sponsor, Shelly Bailey.

We are excited to announce the six classroom grants selected for the 2026-2027 school year from the sixteen applications submitted. 

Here is a little bit of information about each of the grants selected from their applications:

• Carrie Currin - “The Cardinal Closet is a school-based resource cabinet designed to support elementary students who may lack consistent access to basic necessities. Located within the school, the closet will provide snacks, hygiene items, and seasonal clothing such as hats, gloves, and outerwear. It will also include take-home food options for students experiencing food insecurity.  This initiative ensures that all students—regardless of circumstance—have access to the essential items they need to feel comfortable, confident, and ready to learn.”
• Alex Herrington - “Over the past few years, I have been really thinking about the ways I could improve student collaboration and higher order thinking in group work. I came across an Edutopia video entitled "Learning on Their Feet" and sensed that it might be just the solution I was looking for. The premise of the article suggests that vertical learning is a framework for high quality group work. Vertical learning is when students collaborate standing up working on a vertical surface (white board).”
• Jane Leick - “I am interested in purchasing a new activity/game to integrate into my physical education curriculum called 9 square in the air. This is a game that can be played indoor or outdoor, which is very appealing to me, as the winter months get long with finding new ways to keep kids engaged in staying active with our games and keeping things fresh. This game is a competitive game, but one that equalizes the playing field, as it's not a mainstream sport, so kids are all starting from the same point essentially.  My hope for this game would be that all kids would enjoy the game while being active, including jumping, moving around, connecting kids to each other while they're having fun together.”
• Taryn Maquire - “Learning to read is a challenging task as a young child. We spend a large amount of instructional time on phonics, spelling rules, and sound patterns in 1st grade. The breakdown and isolation of teaching of these skills helps prepare them to become readers and see these sounds and patterns in words and text. One valuable step in this transition of reading is to practice these phonics skills and sound patterns in decodable text where these familiar and taught patterns will appear in text to be practiced.  I would love to have a library of decodable texts to align with my phonics and spelling sounds instruction. This would help provide practice for students to apply isolated phonics skills that are taught during instruction. Just like with all new skills, additional practice helps us become better at the skill we are achieving to mastery.”
• Kelsey Winchell - “A grant for flexible seating in my 4th grade classroom would help create an environment that better supports how students actually learn and focus. Children at this age are not built to sit still in one desk for long periods of time, and research shows that reducing sedentary time in classrooms can improve attention, engagement, and overall learning behaviors. Studies on active classroom environments and flexible seating have found that when students have opportunities to move or change positions while learning, they often stay more focused and involved in lessons. Adding options like high-top tables, small booths for partner work, and comfortable floor seating would allow students to choose spaces that fit the type of learning they are doing while still keeping clear expectations and structure in the classroom.”
• Shantelle Vohs - “In my 2nd grade classroom, I see daily how even capable, kind, and motivated students can miss important learning opportunities when math instruction remains abstract. Hands-on math manipulatives will transform these moments into meaningful learning experiences by actively engaging students and helping them visualize concepts. Tools such as base-ten blocks, number blocks, time, money, and fraction models directly support the Iowa Core Mathematics Standards by allowing students to build number sense, understand place value within 1,000, and develop effective strategies for addition and subtraction. These resources will ensure all learners—especially those who benefit from tactile and visual support—can access and stay engaged in math instruction.”
• Total awarded: 6 grants for $2,629.00

As you can see the Treynor School Foundation Classroom Grants are going to great use and will be a great addition for these teachers’ students.

I would also like to give a special “thank you” to our selection committee members: Kelsey Stupfell, JoEllen Travis, Jill Kay, Brandon Vorthmann, and Rick Nickerson.

If you would like to support future classroom grant applications, donations can be made by clicking on this link.

Roll Cards!

Dr. Joel Beyenhof

Superintendent