Loyal School Board approves golf as a sport, staff agreements, vehicle purchase

By Valorie Brecht At their regular monthly meeting last Wednesday, the Loyal School Board took action on several items related to staffing and purchases.

The board accepted the resignation of Erik Adams, high school English teacher. Adams will be taking a position with the West Salem School District.

“I want to thank him for everything he did while he was here,” said board president Derek Weyer.

“I also want to thank him. He’s been a huge part of our staff. He’s done a lot with the guiding coalition, also one-act play and filling in (on drums) whenever needed for jazz band and pep band,” said District Administrator Chris Lindner.

Lindner said the position had been posted on WECAN, the Wisconsin educator job board, and there were four applicants, whom the district would be interviewing.Assistant Principal Justin Stoegbauer also clarified that the district had sent out the job information internally, but no one was interested.

The board also approved the WIAA membership for 2025-26. As part of the membership application, the school district has to list what sports it plans to offer, and new this year, Loyal plans to offer golf in the spring. As recently as 2019, Loyal co-oped with Neillsville for golf. Loyal also had its own golf team more than 10 years ago.

Earlier this spring, students had reached out to Stoegbauer, who is also the athletic director, expressing interest in a golf team, but there was not enough time to get it organized, as it was only a few days before the WIAA deadline. So, he decided to get it set up for next year.

“We had 11 to 14 students interested. I don’t think it will be that many; we’ll probably have a handful,” said Stoegbauer.

The plan is to run a boys varsity golf program in the spring. Girls can compete with the team, too; they just won’t be able to participate in the playoff tournament because the girls golf tournament is in the fall and Loyal doesn’t have enough interest to run girls golf as its own sport. Stoegbauer said he invited Greenwood to participate too; if there are any takers from Greenwood they will compete on JV, not varsity. The team would likely travel to Neillsville or Owen a couple of times a week to practice.

The board also approved a 66.03 shared services agreement to share Tina Spannan as occupational therapist with the Greenwood and Owen school districts.

“We’ve been sharing with Owen and Greenwood for a number of years, probably six or seven, but we took over as the fiscal manager last year,” said Lindner. “The plan is for her to be in Granton one day, Owen one day, and Loyal two days. And she has one day a week off.”

That was approved unanimously. Additionally, the board approved a 66.03 agreement for a shared technology coordinator with Greenwood and Granton — Travis Hendrickson.

“We are sharing him one day with Granton this year. Now we’re looking to do all three districts. So he’d be at Loyal two days, Greenwood two days, and Granton one day,” said Lindner.

The single day for Granton would likely be divided between two weekday mornings so he is there more than once a week.

“I can also be on site as needed if something goes down or breaks at one school,” said Hendrickson.

He will receive a travel rate as part of his salary. The agreement was unanimously approved.

The board approved new staff computers. “The ones we have are pre-COVID, so six or seven years old,” said Lindner. “We’re looking to update.”

Hendrickson obtained quotes for touch and non-touch screen devices.

“The staff have touch right now and love it, but it does cost more, so that’s why I gave both options,” he said.

The board opted to go with the touch screen option, also feeling it was the way of the future as more and more devices are touch screen. The board approved 55 new staff instructional devices with touch screens at $1,272.80 for a total of $70,004. The quote for 55 devices without touch screens would have been $1,206.93 each for a total of $66,381.15.

The board approved Linewize filtering software, which prevents students from visiting risky websites or viewing inappropriate online content. The board chose to do a one-year contract for $8,558.97. They could have done a three-year contract for $24,543.76 if they paid upfront, which would have been a cost savings of $1,223.15. However, they decided to renew for only one year because Greenwood’s contract will also expire next year and at that point they would like to line up the schools so they’re under the same company.

Also along the lines of technology purchases, the board approved two new servers for a cost of $26,400, although the district may be able to get a discount. The district has two servers currently; one was purchased in 2016 and one in 2020.

“There’s no warranty or support for them,” said Sam Cattanach, the district’s server administrator. “If we do both at one time, we can get a discount with Dell.”

The servers run the school’s printing software, doors, camera system, and internet.

“With the new servers, we get a seven-year warranty and next business day service if there’s an issue that comes up. The install includes not just the physical hardware, but also the data being moved over,” said Cattanach.

The board also discussed support staff salary increases. Lindner recommended raising the floor, as the lowest support staff person is at $12 yet. He recommended raising it to $14.50 to $15 per hour.

“My concern is, if we raise the floor, does everything else have to go up? Otherwise we get compression if we don’t raise everything else,” said Weyer.

The other board members agreed with Weyer. “I’m definitely in favor of moving it (the base wage) up, but could we do some more research?” said board member Dave Clintsman.

Lindner agreed to do some research and bring the issue back to the board in June.

The board also approved the purchase of a 2017 Chevrolet Suburban for $15,000 from K& H Auto. Board member Matt Kubista is police chief and the Loyal Police Department is a licensed vehicle inspector for the State of Wisconsin, so when Kubista knew the school district was looking for another vehicle, he had one in mind and went and inquired with John Schecklman of K& H Auto if he would be willing to donate anything toward it.

The front end of the Suburban has been damaged, but Schecklman plans to fix it and then let Lindner and Kubista look at it and make sure it looks good.

“He’s not making any money on it; he’s actually eating money on it because he’s basically selling it to you for the purchase price and then all the work he’s doing to it, he’s eating all of that,” said Kubista.

Weyer asked about how the school had gotten to needing another vehicle. Lindner said they had a lot of co-ops and were shuttling kids back and forth to Greenwood or other locations. Currently, the district has a pickup truck, driver’s ed. car, and two minivans (one handicap). One of the vans is used for the special education program and to pick up children who don’t take the bus.

“There are so many trips that we don’t need a bus anymore. None of our groups are big enough anymore. So we do use the vans for a lot of our trips. And right now, the FFA van transports kids in the middle of the day for the construction class, so I can’t use that van for any trips. The driver’s ed. car can’t be used in the morning, because it’s being used for driver’s ed. We could really use another set of wheels,” said Eva Froeba, district secretary.

“I do think it’s a really nice gesture on his (Schecklman’s) part,” said Weyer.

The board unanimously approved the vehicle purchase.

VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTO

The Clark County Dairy Promotion Committee awarded the 2025 Business Friend of Dairy Award to the City of Loyal, in recognition of the city’s ongoing support and dedication to the dairy industry. Mayor Carmen Englebretson informed the city council of the award at its May 20 meeting. Shown are Dave Geier, Englebretson, Amanda Stephens, Gwen Klevgard, and Tim Froeba.