Rib Lake schools to change numbers in phone switch
Parents and community members calling Rib Lake Schools will have a new number to call next year.
At the May 28 school board meeting, members voted to switch phone providers from Frontier to a voice over internet service through Bauernfeind Business Technologies utilizing Konica and Minolta products.
While the district will have to purchase the phones upfront, they are expected to last for several years. The projected savings to the district will be $10,000 over five years.
According to district administrator Travis Grubbs, the district has been unhappy with Frontier for several years with rising costs and the company not willing to upgrade from its existing copper lines. Grubbs noted the district already switched its fax lines because of the poor quality and cost difference. He said that the ongoing cost is about half of what the district is currently paying to Frontier.
Additional bids for the phone service came from Skyward which would still have required the district to work with Frontier and with the cable provider Spectrum. Grubbs said Spectrum is more like a phone company offering “deals” at various times for different options and equipment. The major advantage of Spectrum is that they told Grubbs they would be able to port the existing phone numbers while Bauernfeind would require a new phone number.
In the end, Grubbs advised the board that he would recommend going with Bauernfeind because of the cost of the equipment and the long term savings. Board members agreed. It was noted that with the merger of the high school and middle school offices, it would make more sense to eliminate one of the numbers in the future anyway.
Grubbs said people calling the new number will be directed to select which building they want to go to. It will also mean that parents calling into the school will only have one number they need to call. Grubbs said they would set up having the existing numbers forward calls to the new number for a period of time.
Board reorganization
Concerns over transparency and potential conflicts of interest led to discussions when it came to naming school board officers.
The board held its annual reorganization, this had been postponed from the April meeting due to having only a minimum number present at the meeting due to board members attending a community memorial service. In the reorganization Stacy Tlusty was reelected board president, Rollie Thums is vice president, Nicole Glenzer is clerk and Amanda Treffinger is treasurer.
Glenzer was not at the meeting, and Thums raised concern about her regular absences due to work obligations. “Do we have bylaws abut participation?” he asked. He said he did not have any concerns with her doing the position, but that he didn’t want to put someone in a position where it would be taken away due to bylaws. He emphasized that he had no criticism of the job she was doing in the position or on the board.
Tlusty said Glenzer lets her and Grubbs know in advance when she is not going to be at a meeting and is always available to sign the necessary paperwork for meetings whenever asked.
In the nomination for board president, Treffinger passed on concerns she heard from her constituents about a building principal being related to Tlusty. She said there has been concern of the district lacking transparency due to this. “They feel concerned that our transparency has gone down,” she said.
Grubbs noted that the board president isn’t the one who supervisors the principals or any staff other than the district administrator. It was noted that it was not a blood relation but instead through married extended family.
Treffinger recognized that the board does not directly supervise the staff, she said there was a concern that the board president controls what information the board gets, which could impact how decisions are made. Grubbs suggested that if a resident expresses concern in regard to this, they should contact him.
“I think it is great you have courage enough to bring it forward,” Thums said, thanking Treffinger for bringing the concerns forward. He noted that by bringing it forward they can talk about it at a meeting and be open about it.
Board members approved the officers for the coming year. In other reorganization business, Forward Bank is the official depository, The Star News is the official newspaper, Tlusty will be the delegate to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, and Karah Grzanna will continue as the CESA representative.
School day milk
Early elementary grade parents will be getting a survey about if the district should continue with its school day milk program which provides milk during afternoon snack.
As part of a food service audit, Grubbs learned the district has been running the program incorrectly for many years.
The district has routinely given cartons of milk to elementary students as part of the afternoon snack. Grubbs said paid students are supposed to pay for that milk and that the district’s food service fund (Fund 50) cannot pay for them.
To continue having milk available for the afternoon snack, the school would have to implement a point of sale system, keep the milk cooler locked, and devote additional staff time to managing a system and tracking it.
Grubbs said the district had to repay Fund 50 $4,000 for the milk consumed this year from the instructional budget.
Grubbs brought it to the board requesting direction with if they wanted the program dropped entirely or if the board wanted him to figure out the logistics of making it meet requirements. The program is for grades Pre-K through grade 2.
“Let’s just buy the milk and give it to them,” Thums said, rather than going through the federal bureaucracy. He said it would cost more to administer it than it would be to just have the district buy the milk.
Others on the board, including Peter Meyer advocated getting rid of the program, especially after finding out that chocolate milk was the most popular option and that participation dropped significantly if there was not chocolate milk available.
Parents are already asked to provide the afternoon snacks for their students and principal Jon Dallmann noted that most students have water bottles.
In the end, board members decided to put a survey out to the parents before deciding whether to keep or get rid of the program.
In other business board members:
• With the start of the school year moving up a week to accommodate the construction project next summer, graduation will also be moving up. The 2026 graduation will take place on May 15.
• Approved the Achievement Gap Reduction (AGR) report presented by elementary principal Jon Dallmann. He explained that Rib Lake shoots for a high bar of 80% proficient or advanced in math and reading while the national average is around 36% of lower elementary grade students being proficient or advanced in these areas. “We want them to go over and above,” Dallmann said.
In the Kindergarten, 32% were proficient or above for reading and 68% for math. He noted they did not meet the goal, but were above the national average.
In grade 1, 72% were proficient or advanced for reading and 84% for were proficient or advanced for math.
In grade 2, 77% were proficient or advanced or met growth goals for reading and 78% for were proficient or advanced or met growth goals for math.
In grade 3, 83% were proficient or advanced or met growth goals for reading and 93% for were proficient or advanced or met growth goals for math.
Dallmann noted that this is within the first few years with the science of reading curriculum at the primary levels and they continued to work on improving, especially with the Kindergarten level.
• Approved a policy change for the school’s student lunch program as the result of an audit completed of the food service program last month. The updates deal with what happens when school lunch accounts go into a negative balance. “We were not following the policy because it was a bad policy,” Grubbs said.
Under the old policy, the district was supposed to give a bag lunch instead of a hot lunch to students who had more than $35 negative balance. The district has not been doing that because of the stigmatization of giving the bag lunches and because the bag lunches weren’t actually any cheaper for the district to produce than the hot lunches. The new policy spells out how the district will react when there are negative balances, including more alerts to the parents. “At end of day we will take care of the kids,” Grubbs said.
• Approved a policy regarding third grade retention due to reading. This policy is required under Act 20. The district needs to have it in place by July but the Department of Public Instruction is telling the school its would not have to go into effect until September 1, 2027. Grubbs advised the board adopt the policy now and that next summer the district can roll out supplemental summer reading programs that are a component of it.
• Received the annual open enrollment report. Grubbs noted that his goal each year is to be net neutral with students leaving and coming in equalling out. He said at the end of the school year the district had 64 in and 64 students going out. However, he said they have received word of people moving since then and that it appears there is one more going out than coming in. “I am going to call it a draw,” Grubbs said.
• Approved renewing student insurance with Gallagher Student Health and Special Risk at a cost of $5,572 which is a reduction from the current policy of $6,675 and reflects the district not having a filed claim in the past three years.
• Received word that the C&G’s Mobile Station in Rib Lake will soon be getting a community support “pump for a cause” where a portion of the proceeds from fuel dispensed at that pump will go toward a designated community group or project. Cindy Hanke told board members it was something she has been working at getting for a while and that she intends for the school to be one of the charitable groups receiving support from it.
• Received an update on the budget with Grubbs noting that not much will be known until after the state budget is approved. He did note that there was some good news that the federal forestry funding that was not included in the last budget package cost the school, however, lack of action at the federal level reverted it to a 1918 law and the district received an unexpected check for $37,000 that is the current default for the program.
• Approved spending not to exceed $25,000 for new fitness center equipment through Summit Commercial Fitness of Monona. The district received grant funds to help cover the cost of the new equipment which will go in the new fitness center room as part of the referendum project.
• Approved spending up to $30,000 to purchase 40 staff computers to replace those that will not upgrade to Windows 11. Microsoft has alerted customers that it will not support Windows 10 after next fall. The board gave Grubbs the latitude to either go with refurbished machines or new machines depending on which would be better long-term for the district. Money for the new computers will come out of the $300,000 in the referendum project earmarked for furniture and equipment. Treffinger asked about setting up a schedule to replace a certain number of machines each year. Grubbs said they had been doing that with plans to replace 10 staff computers and 2 classrooms of Chromebooks each year. “We didn’t expect Windows to do this,” Grubbs said.
• Approved going with a $533,000 cost to remove the existing track and replace all the material with a new 6lane all weather track. Money will come from what has been raised in the community and through grants, as well as applying fund balance and using the money that would have gone into Fund 46 for both this year and next year. “I think we need to do it right, and we need to do it complete,” Thums said, of choosing the more costly option that would give greater assurance of longevity of the track.
Grzanna agreed. “You are spending a lot of money to do it halfway. If you don’t do it right, it is wasting money,” she said.
• Approved accepting a donation of a little over 2 acres of land touching the school forest on behalf of Edwin and Lillian Thums and Family. The area is currently used as parking lot for the school forest and trails. As a condition of the donation, the Rib Lake Ski and Snowshoe Club will have perpetual use of the parking lot for their activities. Thums noted there should be no cost to the district other than putting up a sign.
• Approved renewing the Fund 46 certificate of deposit when it comes due at the second week of June. The current CD was 9 months at a rate of 3.94%. It is expected they will get another 9 month CD which will have it come due next March.
• Approved setting the base wages for the coming school year for teachers. Board members approved 2.95% increase across the board for base wages. As in the past, the increase will also carry over into those teachers beyond the step level to ensure they get comparable increases to the other teachers. For support staff the board approved what amounts to a 2.95% increase per cell in the pay scale with similar adjustment for long-term staff who are beyond the step increases. The total budget impact is $121,175 which includes the increase in FICA and retirement contributions. Grubbs noted the preliminary budget would be able to handle the increase. Following a closed session, the board approved the same 2.95% increase in wages for the other staff including the principals and administrators
