Seeking $18 million improvement project Boyceville School Board planning for April referendum
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BOYCEVILLE — The Boyceville School Board met last Wednesday evening and were updated on how preparations for the upcoming April referendum are coming along by Luke Schultz, Associate Director of Facilities Management Services for CESA 10.
Schultz said they’ve been working with a consulting firm and they’ve done a walk through to determine the district’s needs. They also will be touring other districts to gather more information on what would work best for the district.
The board plans on applying for a referendum with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) soon. After that, community meetings should be held to inform district residents about the referendum, said Schultz.
Schultz said he’s been working on putting together presentations and a website regarding the referendum. The website will have information about what the district is looking for and videos of areas that they would like to improve. The website will also have a tax calculator so folks can see how much the referendum would impact them.
Schultz said the community meetings would probably take place in February with the website going live sooner.
Nick Kaiser, District Administrator, said there will be more information available about the referendum next month. He also said if the referendum passes, the TCE office would probably see the most change and that they will be taking some tours to see what other districts have done with their offices.
Kaiser spoke with the board about the districts’ DPI report cards that came out last month. The DPI publishes school and district report cards annually as required by state law. Each year the district receives four report cards from DPI one each for; the district, the high school, the middle school and TCE.
The report cards are calculated on three years worth of data and four priority areas. The priority areas are: achievement, growth, target group outcomes and on-track to graduation. The district’s four report cards all had overall scores in the low 60’s on the zero to 100 scale.
This puts the schools and the district as a whole in the ‘meets expectations’ category earning them three stars out of five. Kaiser said the most common overall scores for schools statewide is between 60 and 70.
One area the district excels at is the on-track for graduation scoring. In each of the report cards Boyceville scored in the upper 80’s to low 90’s which puts them in the ‘significantly exceeds expectations’ category and earns the district a five star rating, the highest attainable.
“We do well in the on-track priority area,” said Kaiser. “We have a very good graduation rate”.
In the area of achievement all four report cards ranked as ‘meets expectations’, which Kaiser said is above the state average.
In the areas of growth and target group outcomes all four report cards ranked as ‘meets few expectations’, which is one level above the lowest ranking of ‘fails to meet expectations’.
According to DPI, the area of growth measures how rapidly students are gaining knowledge and skills from year to year and target group outcomes refers to outcomes for students with the lowest test scores.
Since these report cards use three years worth of data, the school years included in these report cards include the 20/21 and 21/22 school years when the pandemic was impacting schools. According to their website, “the DPI urges caution when interpreting scores and ratings due to impacts resulting from the pandemic”.
TCE Principal, Jerim DesJarlais, High School/Middle School Principal, Patrick Gretzlock, Special Education Director, Rebecca Hanestad and Athletic Director, Brian Roemhild, all presented reports to the board.
Gretzlock said ninth, tenth and eleventh graders recently started working with a computer application that allows students to interact with PreACT and ACT test questions. Students will continue the intervention program COMPASS so they have time and resources to focus on any classes they are having trouble with. The high school has implemented a ‘drop everything and read’ time, which has been popular and helpful with overall literacy.
DesJarlais said the staff did some professional development as part of a continuous improvement process over the November inservice. They also have been completing SAEBERS (Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener) surveys to better understand where kids are in their learning journey.
Hanestad reported that Mrs. Bialik and Mrs. Lange started the school business program last week with Mrs. Harnisch helping out as well. Students who participated in the program produced baked goods and then sold them to staff. She also mentioned that the most recent Little Bulldogs Playgroup had 18 attendees and that a new science curriculum has been purchased.
According to Roemhild’s report, there were almost 100 high school athletes this fall in football, cross country, volleyball, dance and cheer. In the middle school there were 72 students out for fall sports in football, volleyball and cross country.
“Our numbers have maintained since last year,” said Roemhild, of student fall athletic participation.
He said the fall cheerleading squad was 13 members strong and had both a varsity and a JV squad which has not happened in many years. The volleyball team also had a strong membership with 25 girls playing.
The high school and middle school cross country teams had full teams for both boys and girls this year. Middle school and high school girls did especially well with the high school girls winning conference and middle school girls winning nearly every meet they competed in, he said.
Roemhild mentioned that there were “a lot of firsts” with football this year. A few of which included: most victories in one season, most ever first team all conference selections, as well as hosting three playoff games. In addition, many individual and team records were set.
Two things that Roemhild would “really like to brag about” were that the high school football team received academic all state honors and that Michael Roemhild was named district one coach of the year.
As for winter sports he said the district is seeing about as many kids out for basketball, wrestling and cheerleading as last year.
In other business the Boyceville School Board:
-Voted unanimously to hire Tracy Link as a full-time custodian.
-Accepted Brian Roemhild’s resignation as prom advisor.
-Voted unanimously to start school before September 1, 2024 if a referendum passes in order to allow more construction to be completed during the summer months.
-Approved an FFA trip to Future Farm Grown in Baldwin and World’s Toughest Rodeo in St. Paul.
-Accepted a $1,000 donation from Wal-Mart for the Summer Rec Program.
-Voted to approve one professional staff leave and two support staff leaves after meeting in closed session.
