Lake Holcombe School Board; Staff working to create the school of their dreams

Beth Meddaugh (left) and Todd Senoraske reported on the latest Plan to Win strategy with Lake Holcombe School, at a board meeting May 16. Photo by Joy Dain

By Ginna Young

The school year may be almost at an end, but the Lake Holcombe district isn’t taking a break, when it comes to planning for student achievement. As part of the school’s Plan to Win, a leadership team of educators was assembled to develop a variety of things.

“Imagine a school where students drive the educational process…the students are reflective about their approaches to learning,” said activities director Todd Senoraske, at a regular school board meeting May 16.

Senoraske said the leadership team wants the graduates to be resilient, empowered and problem solvers. With a threeyear mission to develop and structure strategies, the teachers want to achieve 80-90 percent success in the classroom for the first year.

In the second year, they want to teach self-advocacy and problem solving to the students, to build resilience, and select professional development to help reach goals in year three.

“And boldly create the school of our dreams,” said Senroaske.

The message the teachers want to impart at Lake Holcombe, is “we believe.”

“It’s always been there, but we’re going to say it out loud and say it a lot,” said English teacher Beth Meddaugh.

Meddaugh said the staff believes all students can learn and will learn, because of what the teachers are working on. They also believe all students in the district have worth and value.

“And we want to make sure they know that, as well,” she said. “And we can find the best in all of our students and that partnership will create positive changes.”

If the teachers work together as one staff to be successful, Meddaugh knows they will have students interact and grow. Senoraske says that some plans fizzle out, but with confidence and leadership from the administration, he feels they can go the long haul.

“There was a lot of thought put into this plan at first,” said Senoraske. “I think we all have that shared vision and are on board to really get this thing moving.”

In the business portion of the meeting, the board agreed on the 2022-23 dental renewal for staff members.

“The existing plan renews with no change to the premium,” said district administrator Kurt Lindau, adding he thinks they should go with the plan to provide better coverage, with a minimum increase.

Going through M3 Insurance, district accountant Lisa Spletter recommended the option where preventative care won’t go against the annual maximum, but sees a 3 percent increase ($1,400 annual increase), which provides better coverage.

“It seems like every five or six years, there’s an adjustment,” she said, “but because of having such a low out-ofpocket annually, it really contains the expenditures of it.”

The district also needs to make changes to the Section 125 Plan, for the employee benefits for a limited health FSA, dental and vision only, Health Savings Account, in a two-step approach. The plan will trade out the cash in-lieu and phase out flex spending accounts, for July and August, through payroll direct deposit.

Also approved, was the renewal of a one day a week contract with the Cadott School District, for services of a school nurse for the 2022-23 school year. The contract states that the daily rate of $508.55, times the number of days contracted, will be paid to Cadott.

Members also approved the hire of Christine Begalke as the principal’s assistant and student registrar; Amanda Gudis, as assistant volleyball coach; Shane Sanderson, as the 2021-22 assistant track coach; and the regular and co-curricular contracts for 2022-23.

They also accepted the resignation of Amber Simon, third grade teacher.