Boyceville School Board approves 2024-2025 budget, mill rate 6.27 percent
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BOYCEVILLE-At their meeting held on October 23 the Boyceville School Board officially approved the 2024/2025 budget and set the mill rate at 6.72%. At their budget hearing held earlier this month a mill rate of 6.45% was originally planned but due to a decrease in state aid a slightly higher mill rate was approved.
District Administrator Nick Kaiser told the board that he looked into why the district’s state aid went down and found that it was mostly because in 2023 the equalized value in the district went up by 24.4% which was a significant jump. In comparison, this year the increase in equalized value was just 8.6%.
“If the state goes less our local has to cover that,” said Kaiser in explaining why the proposed mill rate increased.
Kaiser provided a summary of the 2024/2025 budget and gave a brief rundown of the different funds and financial plans for the upcoming school year. The 13 page document can be found on the district’s website.
“We budgeted pretty conservatively,” he said.
The board unanimously approved the budget and levy. Board members Sharon Formoe and Tim Sempf were absent from the meeting.
Reports
In her report to the board Special Education Director Rebecca Hanestad thanked special education teachers Ron Cipriano, Kristen Henningfeld and Jen Bignell for their work with reviewing all of the Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) as part of an upcoming audit.
“They did a great job going through all those,” she said. “It’s very tedious”.
Also in her report Hanestad welcomed Julie Moritz as a new paraprofessional at TCE and reported on several recent and upcoming staff trainings on supporting students in math, Act 20 requirements and trauma and mental health considerations.
High school/middle school principal Pat Gretzlock told the board about the ACT and preACT testing that will take place at the high school on October 29. Freshman and sophomores will take the preACT, juniors will take the ACT and seniors will have the day off.
“We are working on the final details of our fall implementation of the ACT/PreACT for our high school population,” said Gretzlock.
He said that schools are not required to administer the tests in the fall and generally Boyceville does not, but they decided to this year for a variety of reasons.
For one, it will help students get familiar with the standardized test that is required of them in the spring. It also will provide staff with data specific to each student which in turn will be used to provide more direct support to students as they prepare for testing in the spring, said Gretzlock.
The fall testing will expose the staff to the online version of testing and they can troubleshoot any technical issues that may come up. Boyceville has historically administered the ACT in the paper format and they are moving away from that version, according to Gretzlock.
The students’ scores on the tests will not become a part of the school’s accountability report card like they will in the spring. Gretzlock said all juniors have to take the test in the spring because the state says so and those scores will be a part of the district’s report card.
Board Member Stacy Fetzer asked if the ACT scores earned at the fall test are official.
Gretzlock said the juniors will be able to use their scores on the fall test as official ACT results and report them to colleges.
“It’s for real, it’s not a practice test,” he said.
Kaiser wondered if the fall test scores could count toward ACT superscores. Superscoring is the process of averaging a student’s best subject scores from all of their ACT test attempts. Gretzlock said they could.
Elementary Principal Jerim DesJarlais reported on the reading assessment tool FastBridge and reading goals that have been set by staff members for the 2024/2025 school year.
“We’re trying to get people to think of their impact on the curriculum as they teach it,” he said.
DesJarlais said the TCE staff continues to identify essential standards in English language arts and math. Teachers are developing “I can” statements that are also considered success criteria for the students. The “I can” statements will be posted in classrooms and discussed with students regularly so students have clarity of what they are learning and clarity of the success criteria.
Board Member Amber Carlsrud asked when and how the district is supporting teachers with the extra work involved in developing “I can” statements and generating standards based report cards. DesJarlais said time during the inservice days is dedicated for this purpose.
In his report to the board Kaiser gave an update on referendum projects. He met with CESA 10 in regards to some of the projects. He said the district is getting bids out for office area improvements and new doors and the roof bid is already out.
Kaiser thanked the staff, students and parents for a successful fall sport season. He also thanked the food service staff and the bus drivers in honor of National School Lunch Week and National School Bus Safety Week.
In other business the Boyceville School Board:
• Learned from Hanestad that the Little Bulldog Playgroup will have its first event on October 30.
• Learned from Gretzlock about the successes on the fall sports teams.
• Heard from Gretzlock that Eli Cassellius and Zoey Hellendrung were the BMS and BHS students of the month for September.
• Learned from DesJarlais that the district participated in Unity Day as part of National Bullying Prevention Month.
Heard from Kaiser that Veterans Day programs in the schools are being planned.
• Approved a bid to have a routine school forest thinning completed.
• Accepted the resignation of Sarah Stone as high school Quiz Bowl Advisor.
• Approved the hiring of Nicole Roemhild as middle school boys basketball coach.
• Accepted a number of donations and grants from: Alfalfa Fest, Boyceville Fire Fighter Association, Jacki Hunt State Farm Insurance and the AnnMarie Foundation.
