Gilman Schools plans to update for incoming fiber optics

EMILY GOJMERAC

REPORTER

With the fiber optic cable becoming more prominent throughout the county, Gilman School District’s wiring will now become unusable if the wiring isn’t replaced soon.

The wiring of the Gilman school has reached its end. Business Education and IT teacher, Adam Johnson, presented the board with four different estimates of what it would take to update the wiring in the building on Monday night.

Johnson said “The current wiring we have in the building now, half of it is from 1991 and half is from 2001. Wiring is only good for 20 years maximum.”

The access points need to be upgraded so it can provide a bigger gap to throw more internet to the students. The Cisco switches are what provides internet access to all the access points in the building. These new switches will be able to handle the new fiber that will be put into the building.

Tammy Weir added “Students come first and if the lack of internet and speed of the internet is affecting their learning, this has to be done.”

District administrator, Walter Leipart said “We are proposing that we use $67,000 worth of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds (ESSER III) funds to go ahead and do the cabling project. We are also looking at the Cisco switches that are also ESSER III eligible and so are the access panels. The whole project is under $200,000 if we find anything within the project that doesn’t qualify under the ESSER III plan, then we can go ahead and use our Fund 46 funds, which is our capital improvement fund. That fund has over $400,000 in it.”

After much consideration, the board approved this project as presented. The time frame for the project is still unknown.

In other business:

• Cardinal Stritch University would like to partner with the Gilman School district for a new reading specialist program. This partnership will educate teachers on new ways to teach students reading techniques.

• The Community Betterment Association wants to do something to utilize the tennis courts. Some ideas were a pickle ball court, a sand volleyball court, or a miniature golf course. Several community members responded by saying the use of a miniature golf course will be a great addition to the village. No final decision was made on this project at this time.

• POPS band concert will happen in the Gilman Park on Sunday May 22, at 2 p.m.

• Leipart spoke on behalf of Dean of Students Mike Gingras when he said “Student disciplinary has been going really well, even as the weather keeps changing drastically on a daily basis.”

• The new SOAR contract, which is partnered with the Medford School District has been approved for the 2022-2023 school year.

• Special Education program will be making modifications to increase staffing from 2 full time teachers to 2 full time and 1 part time teacher to meet needs.

• Student annual fees will remain the same as the previous year.

• Meal costs for the 2022-2023 school year will increase by ten cents.

• Seventeen new open enrollment requests for the 2022-2023 school year have been approved.

• WIAA Membership renewal for 2022-2023 has been approved. Leipart said “We were in the first year of the two year agreement when it came to the Thorp-Gilman co-op for our cross country team. So we are still approved for cross country this year even if we don’t have any participants.”

• District property, General Liability, Crime, Automotive, Linebacker, Cybersolutions, and Umbrella Insurance renewals were approved for the amount of $68,062, which is $7,538 savings from the previous year.