Boyceville’s Class of 2023 top students announced at school board meeting
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BOYCEVILLE — The top honors students for Boyceville High School’s Class of 2023 were announced during the February 15 Board of Education meeting which was held in the high school/middle school IMC.
It was revealed during the meeting that three students in this year’s graduating class will share the title of co-valedictorians. Haylie Rasmussen, Jackson Phillips and Cambrie Reisimer had all earned a 4.0 grade point average through seven consecutive semesters to receive the title of class co-valedictorians. Rachael Montgomery was named the class salutatorian.
Unfortunately, only one person in each Wisconsin school district is eligible to receive the Higher Educational Aids Board (HEAB) Academic Excellence Award. The award, which is given annually to the valedictorian or student earning the highest grade point average within each public high school’s graduating class, is valued at $2,250 per year and is renewable for up to four years for a total of $9,000 and can only be used at a post-secondary educational institution in the State of Wisconsin.
In the event of a tie for grade point average, like this year, Boyceville school board policy states that the tie breaker for grade point average is the student with the highest ACT composite score.
Based on that tie-breaking criteria, this year’s Academic Excellence Award recipient will be Haylie Rasmussen. She plans to attend either UW-River Falls or UW-Madison this coming fall to pursue a degree in Physics.
In the event that Rasmussen cannot accept the grant, the board determined the alternates for the award in the following order: Jackson “Jack” Phillips, who is planning to attend UW-Madison this fall to pursue a degree in Kinesiology; Cambrie Reisimer, who plans to matriculate at UW-LaCrosse later this year to work towards a degree related to science or education; Salutatorian Rachael Montgomery who has plans to attend Chippewa Valley Technical College for Nursing and Frank Fetzer, who will be attending either UW-Madison or Iowa State University this fall to purse a degree in Engineering.
The board was waiting on some more information about the Technical Excellence Award, valued at $2,250 per year for three years, before awarding it. That announcement should come at next month’s meeting.
Superintendent Nick Kaiser also stated that all four of this year’s top honor students along with their parents would be invited to an upcoming meeting to receive personal recognition and congratulations from the board members.
During the action items portion of the meeting agenda, the board approved updates and changes to the 2023-2024 course offerings handbook for the middle and high school. Notable changes include the addition of a half credit course in financial literacy which will focus on personal finances to help students develop skills that will provide a life-long understanding of how to manage finances with credit, debit, savings, income and budgeting serving as cornerstones for the program and will be a required course for all seniors beginning next school year (students who have already earned this half credit will be exempt); a half credit youth apprenticeship/work release option that will be available to juniors and seniors; and the removal of study halls which will be replaced by an all-school intervention/enrichment period.
Although he was unable to attend the meeting in person, high school/middle school principal Patrick Gretzlock’ written report to the board gave a snap shot of first-semester academic achievement or lack thereof. In his report, Gretzlock noted that in the second quarter alone, 97 courses were failed in the high school with 49 students failing at least one class, of those, 24 had failed two or more courses. For the semester, 64 courses had been failed in the high school with 26 students failing at least one course with 19 of those having failed two or more courses.
The second quarter results for the middle school were similar. 73 courses had been failed with 27 students failing at least one course with 21 having failed two or more courses.
The information was an eye-opener for some on the board who requested that the matter be delved into more deeply in upcoming board sessions.
The 2023-24 school calendar was also adopted at the February 15 meeting. It has school beginning August 28 and 29 with a pair of transitional days. The official first day of school will be Wednesday, August 30. The calendar includes three, week-long breaks for Thanksgiving (November 20-24), Christmas (December 25-29) and Spring Break (March 11-15). Graduation has been set for Friday, May 24, 2024 with the final day of school for students being May 30, 2024.
The board accepted the retirement requests of elementary teacher Janine Klaustermeier and TCE paraprofessional Lisa McDonald. Both will take effect at the end of this current school year. Klaustermeier has taught hundreds of students over the course of her 36-year career in the Boyceville Community School District while McDonald has served district students since 1997.
The hirings of Sarah Stainer as the junior varsity softball coach and Kyle Martis and Ian Carter as weight room supervisors were all approved.
The board also approved several overnight and out-of-state field trip requests.
Finally, following an executive closed session, the board reconvened in open session and granted a one-year, medical leave of absence for a member of the teaching staff.
