Achievement and Opportunity: Celebrating our Students

The calendar turns to June.

Across our community, families pause to capture the moments that mark the end of another school year: last day of school photos on front steps, summer plans being made, classrooms packed away until next year.

And everywhere, there is growth.

This year asked much of our students, staff, and families. And still, in every classroom, on every stage, on every field of competition, our students continued to show up with resilience, creativity, determination, and heart.

Behind every achievement is a story of hard work. Teachers who inspired, staff members who cared deeply, volunteers who gave their time, families who encouraged, and students who seized opportunities.

As this school year comes to a close, one feeling rises above all others: gratitude.

Gratitude for the students who continue to inspire us. Gratitude for the educators and staff who make public education possible each day. Gratitude for a community that believes in its schools and in the incredible potential of its students.

Below is a sample of these achievements. No list could ever fully capture what our students accomplished this year. There are simply too many moments to ever fully recount.

So we pause to recognize them, to celebrate them, and to give thanks for another extraordinary year in our schools.

ACHIEVEMENT 

Excellence in Music

• Over 100 students from City High, Liberty High, and West High combined for the most All-State musicians from any school district in Iowa. 
• Liberty Wind Ensemble, West Wind Ensemble, City Jazz Ensemble, and Northwest Symphonic Band were each honored at the Iowa Bandmasters Association conference. Multiple groups were selected to perform at the event.
• City Jazz Ensemble won first place at the Class 4A Iowa Jazz Championships. 

Excellence in Athletics 

• The TrojanBolts boys swim team won the state championship, the fourth title in that program’s history.  
• City won the Class 5A state championship in baseball. 
• Numerous student-athletes qualified for state or won individual titles in sports such as track and field, swimming, wrestling, tennis, and beyond.
• Liberty Football won a district title and advanced to the state championship game at the UNI-Dome for the first time in school history. 

Winning Arguments 

• West won the overall championship at the IHSAA State Debate Tournament. Students across the district became individual event champions at the competition. 
• City won the state championship in mock trial and represented the state of Iowa at nationals. City, Liberty, and West each sent multiple groups deep into the state tournament and stacked individual honors. Mock trial programming expanded this year to the middle school level.

Winning on the Big Stage

• In theater, the productions of Frozen and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder both won Outstanding Musical Production from the IHSMTA state awards body. The casts reunited for encore shows at the awards presentation in Des Moines. ICCSD students won 15 more awards that night across performance and production categories.
• City’s fall production of As You Like It won the Iowa Thespian Festival. The show returns at the International Thespian Festival in June. 

Elite Journalism Programming

• Once again, our high school newspapers proved elite at the national level. West Side Story won an Online Pacemaker, the highest national honor for a high school news website. The Little Hawk was a finalist for the same award, denoting a top-40 online high school publication in the country. 
• The Little Hawk also placed third at the NSPA national conference in Minneapolis. West Side Story was named a 2026 Crown Finalist by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. The Crown Awards are the CSPA’s highest honor, recognizing overall excellence in student media worldwide.
• At the state level, our three journalism programs combined for over 100 individual honors and multiple news-team-of-the-year titles. 

Taking Care of Business

• Over 20 students earned top-10 finishes at the national conference for Business Professionals of America. Trojan Ira Dirar won a national title in the category for professional interview skills.
• At the state Econ Challenge competition, teams from West placed first and second. 
• City won a Quiz Bowl state title.

STEM Achievers 

• At the Technology Student Association state competition, each of the top six place-winning teams came from our district. One team advanced to 13th in the nation out of 151 schools, and more than 80 ICCSD students qualified.
• West won its third consecutive national championship in MathLeague. 
• Senior Catherine Xu earned a gold medal at the European Girls’ Math Olympiad in Bordeaux, France. She was one of four students elected to represent Team USA at the overseas event. 
• The unified Iowa City Robotics team qualified for the World Championships.  
• Northwest Middle School won the MATHCOUNTS State Competition in Des Moines for the 16th year in a row. 

OPPORTUNITY 

Academic Recognition

• This year, 21 students were named National Merit Semifinalists, indicating that they performed in the top one percent on the PSAT standardized test.

Elementary Experiences 

• Over 1,000 elementary students participated in School of the Wild, which provides a camp-like experience over five days at the UI MacBride Nature Recreation Area. 
• Through the visiting author and illustrator program, two authors were chosen to interact directly with students, helping to foster an early love of reading and writing.
• Immersive learning experiences were offered at the CFI. All fourth graders learned what it takes to be a “flood hero,” and all first graders were introduced to engineering and construction concepts as they built “Box Town.”
• This spring brought the 70th Annual Elementary Track & Field Day, providing an introduction to the sport for every fourth and fifth-grade student. 

Travel Adventures 

• Foreign language class trips sent students traveling abroad. Trips cycle through locations across Latin America and Europe.
• Student musicians performed in European cities such as Berlin and Prague. 
• West Orchestra was selected to perform at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House. This group has experience traveling – last year, they performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and in 2023, they played at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. 

AP Adventures

• Over 25 Advanced Placement (AP) courses were offered across each high school building. This is the most comprehensive AP offering in Iowa, providing a university-style learning experience and the opportunity to earn college credit.
• In the past five years, AP participation and success have grown significantly: +476 students, +1,041 exams, and +536 scores of 3 or higher.
• Students participated in the AP Capstone program, which is offered at only three percent of U.S. high schools. This special diploma program allows students to conduct graduate-level research while still in high school.

Electives and Exploration 

• Students accessed additional opportunities for college credit through dual enrollment with Kirkwood Community College and the University of Iowa.
• Students accessed a wide range of opportunities for exploration through advisory, electives, and Makerspaces. Teachers developed specialized courses such as Middle School Stop Motion, Fashion Technology, Digital Music Production, and Geometry in Construction.
• Students in grades 6-12 accessed work-based learning and internship opportunities.
• Throughout the Farm-to-Futures program, high school students gained hands-on experience in sustainable agriculture at the Johnson County Poor Farm. 

All In Together

• This year, City, Liberty, and West added Unified Sports teams, which allow special education students to participate in dedicated sports leagues with other schools around the state.
• Programs such as Best Buddies and Inclusion Club created special memories for special education students and their friends. 

Ratings and Rankings

• West was once again rated the top high school in Iowa by U.S. News & World Report. City and Liberty also ranked inside the top 12.
• Mitch Gross of West was the state’s Principal of the Year. 
• Over 20 teachers and staff members won awards this school year, including recipients of grants, statewide recognition, and national honors. 
• ICCSD was rated one of Iowa’s Best-In-State Employers by Forbes. 
• City and West were designated as Purple Star Schools for demonstrating commitment to supporting military families.

• ICCSD was a STEM BEST® award recipient. The recognition brings grant funding to expand hands-on STEM learning through greenhouses and outdoor classrooms.

Leadership and Scholarships 

• City, Liberty, and West combined for five of Iowa’s 20 Coca-Cola scholars. This is the largest corporate-sponsored, achievement-based scholarship program in the U.S. 
• Senior Jesse Varner received a $25,000 scholarship from the Chick-fil-A Community Scholars Program. He was one of 13 students selected from across the nation for this award. 
• At the Iowa Science & Engineering Fair, several students earned awards and scholarships.
• Junior Reed Hagan was selected as the winner of the City of Literature Essay Contest. As a result, Reed receives one year of free college tuition.
• Senior Siena Brown researched sustainable agriculture in Africa for the World Food Prize organization.
• Senior Amal Eltayib won area student of the month for success in science. The Harvard commit is already researching cancer, presenting at international science fairs, and has founded a nonprofit called the Golden Beaker to raise money for low-income elementary students. 

Reaching Every Learner 

• Full-day and half-day Preschool options are available in every elementary building, taught by teachers certified in both general and special education. Enrollment grew by 100+ students this year, reflecting our strong commitment to early childhood education.
• Our 4-year graduation rate reached its highest point in a decade (93.05%). It beats the state average by nearly five percent. 
• Seniors from this year’s graduating class have been accepted to Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, and other elite academic institutions. 

Across academics, athletics, arts, and activities, our students achieved at the highest levels.

They were accepted to elite universities. They won state championships in sports, speech and debate, music, drama, STEM, and journalism.

And beyond the awards and accolades are countless moments that cannot be measured: acts of kindness, perseverance, leadership, creativity, and growth.

The next school year will bring another perfect front-page picture, another state-qualifying time, another finger painting that moves us, another essay that will change our minds, and the marching band will play us in. 

We have something special in this community. Our students deserve every opportunity. So do all those who will come after. 

Our task is to meet the standard set by our students. We’re all in.