Mid-Prairie Family and Consumer Science teacher Glenda Seward and High School Principal Chuck Banks received the 2025 Iowa Family and Consumer Sciences Educators Educator and Administrator of the Year Awards.

Seward, who has spent over 25 years with the school district as an FCS teacher, reflected on how the program has evolved over her tenure, “It was a program that had been, I’ll just say it had been very traditional in the things that were done. The good side of that was that there was nowhere to go but up with it, because you were able to design the courses and design the program because nothing was set in stone before.”

Seward credits administrators like Banks with giving teachers throughout the district the opportunity to expand and improve the program to where it is now, “They have been open to new ideas, open to adding courses that students were very engaged in taking. They have always given us a budget that allows us to do the things that we need to do with students… It’s very hands-on classes, so you need materials, you need food, you need sewing machines, you need a lot of different things, so having a budget that will allow that is in the administration’s hands. That’s been great here.”

During Seward’s time with the district, the FCS program has expanded from one full-time and one part-time teacher at the high school teaching two culinary and a handful of sewing classes to offering six culinary classes, an expanded sewing program including a fashion and textiles class, and a wide range of human sciences courses including young adult living, child growth and development, basic child development, and life skills.

Banks explained why he believes the program has been able to grow under Seward and fellow FCS teacher Sarah O’Rourke, “The teachers and the students are willing to take risks, that’s a life skill. Failure’s not always a negative, you make up a new idea and try new things, and if they work, great, if they don’t you learn from that, and that’s okay. That’s the key, is just getting the kids and the teachers the confidence to try things.”

To hear more from Seward and Banks, listen to KCII’s In Touch With Southeast Iowa Program which can be found at KCIIRadio.com.