Rib Lake board had full slate for Dec. 27 meeting
At the Rib Lake Board of Education Meeting on December 27, 2023, the Board approved a resolution to go to referendum for no more than $19,500,000 (see story on page 1).
Other topics at the meeting included: A few students from the Rib Lake High School student council came to speak to the Board and proposed that seniors be allowed to have lunch off-campus. This will be further discussed with possible action at the January meeting.
The Board discussed allowing fifth graders to participate in middle school cross country. Since Rib Lake’s cross country team is part of a co-op with Prentice’s, who has been allowing fifth graders to participate. The board approved allowing fifth graders to participate in Middle School cross country starting next school year (2024-2025).
The school district received news that they would be eligible for playoffs in the 2024-25 school year in 8-man football. The board is also working with the booster club to cover the costs of Rib Lake becoming its own team again - specifically regarding jerseys. They also worked to divide the shared equipment between programs, with Rib Lake able to keep the sled and headsets.
Rib Lake High School will begin using a program called E-Hall Pass on a trial basis for 6 weeks. The Board will then review the effectiveness of the program and decide if they want to fully adopt this program. This program creates digital hall passes for students and is meant to help prevent vaping, vandalism, and general mischief in school hallways and bathrooms.
The high school band will be taking an overnight bus trip to see the Milwaukee sympohny. They will make other stops along the way to learn about manufacturing at the Kohler plant and visit other museums.
There are three Board of Education seats that are opening up for reelection this coming April. These include the seats for the Town of Westboro (Stacy Tlusty), the Town of Rib Lake (Nicole Glenzer), and the District at Large (Jackie Mohr).
The Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Kurt Zimmerman will be held on January 12, 2024.
Two students won money through a contest run by Schierl Tire. The students chose to use the money to take a field trip to the zoo and make a donation of food to the animals.
The Board is looking at purchasing Skyward Technology Hours, which would allow a Skyward technician to be on site at Rib Lake schools three times per year (once per building) to further improve the infrastructure of the district’s system. This is improving the wifi networks, specifically at the elementary school where the connectivity, speed, and functionality of the wifi was improved. This is a part of the effort by the Board to improve the technology access in the district. This purchase would also allow the District to utilize Skyward IT for remote access help and improvements over the year.
The Board approved August Winters replacing two HVAC RTU units, one of which failed late last August. Just replacing the one that failed would have cost $23,200, so the Board chose to replace both at $34,000. Both RTU units are 24 years old and are beyond the expected life span of them. Both are from the 1999 referendum.
The Bowling Bananza is on January 20th to fundraise for the CARES model. Taylor County Schools use these funds to help manage and improve the mental health of students. These funds specifically are used to hire outside counselors to work with students in school. The money also pays for these services if a student’s insurance will not cover them.
It was reported that all of the holiday concerts were amazing, and all packed the current gym, to the point of needing to use the stage for extra seating during the high school/middle school band concert.
