Boyceville school board acts on 2023-2024 open enrollment requests, accepts donations
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BOYCEVILLE — The Boyceville board of education acted upon the open enrollment requests and accepted several donations at its Wednesday, May 17 board meeting that was held in the high school/middle school IMC.
The board approved ten requests to open enroll out of the district for the 2023-2024 academic year. Seven of those request were for students that are currently or want to attended school in the Menomonie Area School District, one each for Colfax and Clear Lake School Districts and another was for the Northern Ozaukee Virtual School for a student with special needs.
Seven students applying to attend another school next year were in the elementary – three in 4K, a pair of soon-to-be fourth graders and one each in Kindergarten and first grade.
Seven out-of-district students have applied to attend school in the Boyceville District for the upcoming school year. Five are going into 4K with two each from Menomonie and Colfax and the other from Glenwood City. The board did deny one family’s request to open enroll in Boyceville due to the lack of space in the district’s special education department.
During reports from the administrative team, director of special education Rebecca Hanestad reported the some of the district’s special needs students had recently attended a ‘Job Olympics’ in Menomonie which consisted of three rooms with three students in a group performing tasks. In one room, competitors had to fold shirts with a shirt folder, hang up clothes and put silverware in napkins. The second room had participants answer questions about workplace conduct and had them bag groceries and complete a formal table setting. The final room had attendees fold and hang towels and go through an interview.
Hanestad reported that one Boyceville student finished second and another placed fourth in overall performance. She added that one student had been offered conditional employment with an opportunity to become full-time.
Patrick Gretzlock, high school/middle school principal, informed the board members that the high school had begun to pilot an intervention program for ninth through 12th grade students named COMPASS, which stands for Creating Opportunities for Meaningful Progress And Student Success.
Gretzlock said that grade checks are being conducted each Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Any students failing any core-content classes are being reassigned to the respective content-area instructor during home room period and will remain re-assigned there until the student is no longer failing any classes.
He added that staff has been requested to share feedback so the program can be fine tuned ahead of the 2023-24 school year with the intention to implement the program for grades six through twelve by the third week of the first quarter.
The board also officially acted to accept four recent donations to the district. Accepted were a $300 grant from the Dunn County Barbershoppers which will be used to purchase matching pants for the male members of the high school choir, two Mayo Clinic Health System ‘Supporting Our Schools’ awards valued at $7,000 to support the middle/high school building’s Bulldog Pantry and $1,000 for the TCE Wellness Walk program, and the donation of a telescope, worth several thousands of dollars, from James Halvorson, the father of former high school science teacher Joshua Halvorson.
The board of education also approved the recommendation to award 45 diplomas to members of the Class of 2023 during this Friday night’s commencement ceremony.
During the comment portion of the agenda, Board President Tim Sempf took the opportunity to thank Judy Humpal for her years of dedicated service to the Boyceville Community School District. Humpal, who started her employment with the district in August of 1999, will be retiring at the conclusion of this school year.
Following a closed session discussion, the board voted to approved Bethany Bird as a new fourth grade teacher at Tiffany Creek Elementary.
A reminder to the public, the Board’s June, July and August meetings will be held at the TCE library.