Grant will help buy new smartboards for Boyceville School

BOYCEVILLE — The school board accepted a grant from the Wisconsin Technology Initiative that will help in the purchase of new Smartboards and document cameras. Elementary Principal Nick Kaiser reported to the school board Monday night, January 20th about the $30,270 grant.

In his report, Kaiser offered congratulations to Amy Phillips, Angela Hellmann, Shannon Bignell and Colene Pember for their work in getting the grant.

Kaiser also reported that last week was National Crossing Guard Week. Because of that the all of the schools crossing guards were invited into the school for a program with the fifth graders making a poster to honor those who provide a safe crossing for the students. Those mentioned in his report were: Ray Cherney, Dennis Minter, Alicia Skinner, Vicky Johnson, Sheri Hellendrung and Heidi Upton. He also discussed the new ACT testing schedule that the school will have to work with.

In his report to the board, Middle/High School Principal Steve Glocke informed the board about the teams that were at Wright State in Dayton, Ohio this past weekend to participate in the Science Olympiad Invitational. He noted that students from Elk Mound also traveled with the Boyceville team. His report informed the board that the high school varsity team captured 24th place out of 60 teams, with the Junior Varsity team finishing 42nd. The middle school team finished in a record high 16th place against 56 teams.

Glocke also mentioned that most of the teams at the Ohio event have commercial sponsors and noted that was lacking with the Boyceville teams.

He pointed out to the board about the Middle School raising over $1,000 plus a donation of over $400 worth of toys to provide gifts for needy students in the community. In addition, his report stated, Mr. Engel’s Sociology class delivered gift baskets to 37 families in the community.

Glocke also noted that they have gone electronic with reporting to parents. His report stated, “We have been experimenting with a new method of delivering progress notices and report cards in the Middle/High School. With the new version of JMC we are able to email those reports to parents, which gets the information into their hands more quickly and securely than delivering them through the mail. We still mail the reports to the parents as well, but we have heard a number of positive comments about the email option.”

In her report, Director of Special Education/School Psychologist, Bonnie Barker, noted that approximately 20 percent of school-age children and youth have a diagnosable mental disorder and one in five children met criteria for psychiatric disorder at school entry. But only about 25 percent of children needing mental health care receive necessary professional attention and 70 to 80 percent of those children receive that attention in a school setting.

In his report, School Superintendent Kevin Sipple also noted that along with four school board members they would be leaving on Tuesday morning for the State Education Convention in Milwaukee. Later in the meeting the board gave Jeremy Mittlestadt the authority as their representative at the convention.

Sipple also reported that he has scheduled a planning meeting for the 100-year anniversary of the school district. He said that he has about 16 people scheduled for the January 28th meeting and said they would welcome anyone who is interested to attend.

He discussed how this winter weather has made for some challenging early morning starts to the school days.

In other action the school board:

• Approved the hiring of Brad Stevens as a Middle School wrestling coach to replace Scott Bryant.

• Approved the resignation of Stu Skrove as Assistant Science Olympiad Coach and the hiring of Steve Duerst as his replacement.

• Approved the hiring of Brenda Dean as a Tuesday-Saturday Custodian in the 7-12 building.

• Approved the retirement request of John Kniprath.

• And, the board approved the 2014-2015 Open Enrollment Space Available document. It lists each grade and the student capacity and the projected enrollment so that the district can tell how much space is available for open enrollment.

The report showed that every class, except first grade has some space available, and the report showed the number on the waiting list for each grade.