With winter comes snow and ice, and with snow and ice comes lots of school cancellations.
Here in the Midwest we get use to the same, old school closure announcements week after week, so one Superintendent is shaking up the snow day announcement game. Missouri Valley, Iowa Superintendent Brent Hoesing has been making song parody videos to announce when students get snow days or late starts. The videos have gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of views, comments and shares on Facebook.
Hoesing says his wife saw a video of a principal in another state do something similar, and encouraged him to do one of his own. "She kept saying, 'You know, you could do that.' She said, 'Worst case scenario, everybody hates it and you don't ever have to do it again.'"
That has not been the case though Hoesing says. "A lot of people from outside the community that will comment and just say you know, 'Way to go,' and 'Oh Missouri Valley must be a great school.' It's those types of comments that make me feel really good because at the end of the day, Missouri Valley really is a great school and that's what I want people to focus on."
It is easy to tell that Hoesing's family inspires a lot of the song choices he makes for his videos. "I have a two year old and a four year old, and so I listen to a lot of Disney songs. They're on constantly. So usually when it comes to writing a song, those are the ones that are stuck in my head." Songs for his videos have included selections from 'Frozen,' 'Toy Story' and 'Trolls' along with chart-toppers like 'Ice, Ice Baby' and 'Johnny B. Goode.'
Hoesing has done six videos so far, with two coming just this week, and he says he won't stop doing them anytime soon. "My wife wouldn't let me stop, even if I wanted to. My girls look forward to it. It's just kinda something that's fun. It doesn't take me too long, takes me about an hour per song. So, it's not a real big time commitment for the positive attention that the school receives from it."
The videos have even been so popular, that many people are rallying to get Hoesing on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. You can see a few of Hoesing's videos below, or visit the Missouri Valley Community School's Facebook page here.