Instructional coach requested
Sarah Budny, principal at Marathon Area Elementary School and Marathon Venture Academy, last week Wednesday asked the Marathon Board of Education to end its contract with Expeditionary Learning and use the savings to hire current science teacher Tera Fieri as an instructional coach.
Board members said they were open to the idea, but decided to table the request for now.
“I’d like to think about this,” said school board member Lia Klumpyan.
Budny said the district’s annual $59,500 contract could be used to help pay Fieri’s salary as an instructional coach. The district would need, she said, to hire a replacement middle school science teacher. Fieri said she has been taking instructional coaching classes from Viterbo University and will graduate from her program in June. She said she would be ready for a Marathon coaching job by the fall. An instructional coach’s job is to use student data to help mentor teachers and provide professional development. Budny said the school district does get professional development from Expeditionary Learning but having Fieri as a coach would mean personalizing that help.
In related discussion, Budny requested that elementary music teacher Jordan Dinjer be upgraded to a .75 FTE position. She would teach music grades 4K-5. That would leave Cally O’Leary as the vocal music teacher for Marathon Venture Academy and Marathon High School. She currently teaches music in grades 3-12.
Board member Klumpyan said she agreed with the position upgrade.
“I am very much in favor of the music teacher position,”she said.
In other board business:
_ Board members tabled action on whether to allow Nicolet Bank use the Red Raider logo on its materials. Board president Brian Gumtz said he wanted to answer the bank’s request by referring to a school district policy.
_ District athletic director Curt Miller said Mosinee School District will continue to allow the district to pay to be part of a hockey cooperative when the district has a child in the program, but pay nothing if no student joins that school’s hockey team. Miller said Marathon should have a player in the hockey program next year, but, possibly, not in two years.
_ Board members voted to hire Joel Mroczenski as a strength coach, Jayci Blume and Bailey Seubert as volunteer softball coaches, Stephanie Miller and Mark Meyering as junior high track coaches.
_ The board agreed to hire five students as summer mainternance employees.
