Perry Superintendent Clark Wicks gives an outlook on how the closure of the Tyson Foods Pork Plant can potentially affect the school district for the 2024-2025 year.

Tyson Foods in Perry shutdown its operation on June 28th, laying off over 1,200 employees. According to Perry City Administrator Sven Peterson, close to 800 of those employees are Perry residents. The City of Perry has collaborated with the Perry Chamber of Commerce to bring a couple of job fairs in April and May to help keep people in the area. Wicks tells Raccoon Valley Radio that so far, not a lot of movement has been seen in terms of people leaving the area in the district. 

“This time, all of the people that were going to PACES (Perry’s Academic, Cultural, & Enrichment Services), which included quite a few Tyson families, that has not seen any change, so that’s a good indicator.”

However, Wicks and the school board anticipate a decrease in the future.

“Hopefully we’re on the plus side, but realistically we’ll probably see some kind of decline, so we’re trying to plan for that.”

Wicks explains that the school district can tell when students are moving away because they receive record requests from other schools. He mentions that the school board won’t start seeing anything in that regard until August.