Cadott School Board - How can you let a child go out the door hungry?
Cadott School District administrator Josh Spaeth manned the digital reports at the meeting June 10, where the principals shared the progress students made over the school year. Photo by Ginna Young
By Ginna Young
During this school year, Cadott began a free breakfast program for the students, recognizing that kids learn better when they’re not hungry.
“It was advantageous for us to go to the free breakfast, because numbers went up,” said district administrator Josh Spaeth, June 10, at the regular board of education meeting.
Unfortunately, school lunches for purchase are still in place and are going up in price.
“We did look into trying to get universal free lunch for everyone – we did qualify for that – but our free and reduced numbers are just too low to make that work,” said Spaeth, “so the costs would be very expensive to the district to go with that option.”
The board agreed to institute a small increase to satisfy the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), who wants Cadott to “catch up” in their school lunch fund (Fund 50). Adult lunch prices went up 5 cents, from $4.65 to $4.70, while the high school jumped up 10 cents, from $2.50 to $2.60, and the elementary went up 5 cents, from $2.35 to $2.40.
“Why did they want us to catch up?” asked board member Brad Sonnentag.
Spaeth says the DPI has found Cadott’s pricing to be below the state average. Sue Shakal, director of finance, shared that the food service fund is too large, but the DPI insists the district has to increase lunch prices, because they are too low.
“We’ve been building the funds, though, to help replace the cost of the equipment in the kitchens, when that time comes,” said Shakal.
The districts sees $5,000-$7,000 of delinquent food accounts each year. Board president Cory LaNou asked if the parents can’t pay or if they just don’t realize there’s no money in their child’s account. Spaeth said it’s both cases, but that the district can’t see a child go hungry and absorbs the cost.
“It’s not breaking the bank, but it’d be nice to lower that number,” said Spaeth.
If anyone wishes to donate toward lunch accounts, they can designate money toward Fund 21, which is the student activity fund.
When discussing the learning aspect of students, elementary principal Brad Rogers reported on the progress made from the beginning of the school year, to the end of classes in May.
For example, in kindergarten, 90 percent could recognize letter sounds, opposed to the 3 percent they began at, while in math, the kindergarten class jumped from 25 to percent to 93 percent. However, the first grade started at 83 percent and did not perform as well.
“This was one area where we did see a decrease of about 20 percent,” he said, adding that they are already working on a plan to give the group the support they need. “We knew to start the year, we’re hitting the individual pieces, the end game was comprehension.”
Rogers also shared that they saw 78 percent success with those who entered intervention, with the goal of a 70 percent fade out of the need for intervention.
As for the middle/high school, principal Nathan Steinmetz said students were at, or above, reading.
“The only grade we did not see growth in, was our ninth grade,” he said.
The high school staff is also working to meet the needs of those students, while math saw gains in every grade level.
As part of board business, members accepted the resignation of administrative assistant Heather Hoyt; second grade teacher Evie Doncavage; special ed paraprofessional Jessica Switzer; strength and conditioning coach Jason Wiesner; and food service employee Teresa Burich.
I have valued my time here at Cadott Junior/Senior High, but am ready to move on to a new adventure, wrote Hoyt.
Members also approved the hire of second grade teacher Lisa Lisecki; high school social studies teacher Riley Langfoss; strength and conditioning coach Brady Hetke; and food service employees Mellissa Billen and Lori Holtman.
