Rib Lake schools do well in state report

While Rib Lake did well in the recently released state report cards for school districts, school officials say it shows an incomplete picture of the student and school achievement.

The State of Wisconsin publishes a report card for each school district each year, accessible to the public on the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) website. At the Dec. 8 Rib Lake School Board meeting, board members and staff reviewed the reports.

Rib Lake School District was rated as “Exceeds Expectations” as were the elementary school and the middle school. The high school was rated as “meets expectations.”

“Personally, I don’t love the school report card. This equation is adapted… it shifts every year. So for instance, our elementary school is a Blue Ribbon school, the achievement is off the charts, but we get dinged a little bit because it’s hard for us to really grow because we have such high achievement scores already, which is why we didn’t get Exceeds Expectations,” said Rib Lake District Administrator Travis Grubbs.

The district is exceeding the State’s K-12 average achievement scores in English Language Arts, as well as in Mathematics.

Published by the School District are “Local Report Cards” put together by Rib Lake School District staff. These give statistics on achievement in each of the schools, as well as on attendance See RIB LAKE on page 3 rates, behavior and self regulation, and GPA. These also highlight the most popular extracurricular activities and the most popular elective classes.

In other news: The Board approved moving toward the district’s Pre-K program to being full time, five days a week.

The Board chose Excel to do the facilities survey for $9,500. This audit will provide information to the Board in order to make a 10 year plan to keep the buildings up to date.

There is one Hall of Fame inductee for this coming year. The ceremony will be on January 27. Rick Parks, a long time superintendent in the Marathon School District will be recognized and inducted into the district’s Hall of Fame.

The Board approved several new extracurricular activities for the middle and high school, including a Dungeons & Dragons club, a high school chess club, High School e-sports, a crochet club, and a middle school cross country team.

The Board approved a middle school trip to Washington D.C.

The Board approved the purchase of a new security camera system at $2100, which was previously budgeted for.

The Board approved the purchase of a new floor scrubber at $9,600, that the Board can use some food service funds for, due to it being used to clean up after mealtimes.

Follow Rib Lake Elementary School on Facebook to see “Channel 5 News,” a daily news show hosted by Rib Lake fifth graders. They report on the daily announcements, the weather, and more.

The Reindeer Shop occurred on Monday Dec. 12 and Tuesday Dec. 13 at Rib Lake Elementary. The Reindeer Shop is “an opportunity for elementary school student to select three gifts for family members” at no charge to the students or families.

The terms of Jason Dananay, representing the Village of Rib Lake, and Nicole Scheller, representing the Towns of Spirit and Hill, will be expiring in April of 2023. December 1 was the first day to file candidacy to run for the Board of Education seats. For these current Board members, December 23rd is the last day to file incumbent non-candidacy papers. January 3, 2023 is the last day to appear on the ballot.