Cadott School Board; Academic and Career Planning approved
A plan to help students navigate their futures was updated during a regular Cadott School Board meeting, Feb. 9.
Keith Becker, school-to-work coordinator, says the Academic and Career Planning (ACP) plan is renewed each year, with the plan up for discussion meant for the 2021-22 school year. He said the plan can be adjusted each year, to reflect areas that went well, and areas where there is room for improvement.
“Every kid would go through their grade level requirements,” said Becker. “Every staff member will go through the training required, to make sure we excel.”
Becker says the plan formation begins with surveys of students, staff and parents, before a seven-person committee goes through each grade and decides what they can best do to provide students with opportunities.
“Obviously, this is a starting point,” said Becker. “Can individual teachers go further? Definitely.”
Jenny Starck, superintendent, said some of the visits to post-secondary institutions are on hold, because of COVID- 19, but they are included in the plan, because the district would like to offer those visits again.
Board member Mark Schley asked about the estimated cost of the plan. Becker says the estimated cost during a normal year is $6,000-$7,000, with a large chunk of the cost for transportation to site visits or job shadowing opportunities, and for substitutes.
Starck also noted in an update, that as Chippewa Falls and other districts have gone back to full-time, in-person learning, it has negatively impacted Cadott’s substitute pool.
“We do have staff, every day, covering for each other during their prep time,” said Starck.
She says she is hoping, after COVID vaccinations become more widespread, retired teachers will be more willing to substitute again.
Acting on that information later in the meeting, board members voted to increase substitute pay to $160 per day, with a CPI increase, year-over-year.
For internal subs, where teachers cover for each other during periods when they do not have students, because the district does not have enough subs, members voted to raise the pay to $35.
“I might be a chemistry teacher, but might cover art third hour,” said Starck, explaining how the internal substitutions work.
Starck says the rate for an internal sub has been $25 for a long time, but it was never an issue in the past, because the coverage wasn’t needed often. She says teachers filling in for others are losing time to prepare for their own classes, sometimes multiple days per week.
“No one is doing that for the money, but I think it would be a good gesture,” said Starck.
When acting on mask expectations outside of a state mandate, members voted to turn the decision-making process over to the superintendent. Starck says they want to do things as safely as possible and put the issue on the agenda now, since there has been some back-and-forth at the state level, which can cause confusion.
Schley says Starck knows the staff better than the board does and part of the concern comes down to staff perception. He said the district needs the staff to be there to teach.
Brad Sonnentag, board member, also challenged the district to find ways to distance students enough that they can take their masks off when sitting at their desk, for example.
“I think that’s something we can work on,” said Starck, adding she does not want to create confusion or argument.
Members also accepted the resignation of Amber Zastrow from her position as a junior high volleyball coach.
Thank you very much for the opportunity you’ve given me to coach for the last two years, wrote Zastrow in her resignation letter. I sincerely enjoyed my time coaching this year’s eighth-grade group of girls.
In the information portion of the meeting, Starck reported the administration is discussing moving seventh and eighth graders from a trimester to a semester schedule during the next school year, so the grading schedule aligns with the high school.
Junior and senior high principal Caleb Hundt explained it would help the teachers who work with middle and high school students, as well as allow them to add classes, such as agriculture for seventh grade and another section of eighthgrade PE.
Hundt says they received positive feedback on the matter in a staff survey.
“We just have to make sure we’re ready to go and finalize it,” said Hundt.
Starck says it is not on the agenda yet, as they are still looking into when the junior high was moved to trimesters to begin with, and if they would lose anything if they made the switch.
In a COVID update, Starck discussed the early end time. She says it is hard for families when the school schedule is in flux, so they are waiting for stability, before they make a change to the end time.
“We were almost there,” said Starck. “Last week, we did have, actually, one of our biggest jumps in numbers for quarantined students.”
Starck also reported that a second round of stimulus funding is on the way. She says the district has two years to use the money, and some of the options being considered, are an extended summer school and afterschool homework time.
