RIVER FALLS – The River Falls School Board honored outgoing members Cindy Holbrook and Bob Casey with Wildcat Pride awards at the April 15 meeting. Casey has served on the board for four years, while Holbrook served for six.

School Board President Stacy Johnson Meyers thanked them for serving during one of the district’s most difficult and trying times brought on by Covid. Their service saw referendum questions, Covid regulations, building projects, leaky high school pipes, the Montessori building renovation, finding a forever home for the Renaissance Charter Academy, hiring new administrators, pleading the district’s case with legislators, negotiating contracts, complicated closed session meetings and more.

“You’ve navigated community sentiment and waded through emails, all in the name of ensuring that students in this school district of River Falls are served well,” Johnson Meyers said.

She then detailed Holbrook’s consistent calls for “comparables,” data that compares wages and benefits for specific employee groups across the district.so that all groups are treated fairly.

“One of your enduring legacies will be what we will call Cindy’s blueberry test. After all, you’re correct: Everyone should be able to afford blueberries,” Johnson Meyers said. “While you have a track record for supporting all students, you have also worked to make sure that no student is overlooked. You help the board increase its level of sensitivity, so that we collectively remember to consider the needs of all kids, not almost all kids. You have achieved a helpful balance between speaking and listening. You listen well and you listen often, and when you speak, you do so not for your own benefit, but for the board’s benefit and there’s an awful lot to be said for that ability.”

Casey arrived on the board right as Covid struck, Johnson Meyers said.

“And life and decision-making in the district moved to unprecedented territory. It’s fair to say that there was no time for new board member orientation, so you jumped right into the deep end and you got to work,” she said. “You learned fast and you persevered. You listened, you studied and you were fair and balanced. You are among or probably the most prepared board member I have ever worked with. You come to meetings thoroughly organized and ready for the issues. You’ve read the materials, but more importantly, you’re ready to engage the issues reflected in the materials. You know that behind all of the numbers in the spreadsheets are values and opportunities, some of which can be competing and all of which need to be considered. Time and time again you poured over reports and statistics to be ready to make decisions that impact kids, teachers and staff in the River Falls community. You brought a willing collegiality to the board and set an example to all of us.”

She ended her comments by acknowledging that school board service is intellectually demanding, time consuming and emotionally laden, which Casey and Holbrook navigated gracefully.

Human Growth & Development

Director of Academic Services Nate Schurman provided a Human Growth & Development Advisory Committee meeting update. The first meeting took place April 8.

“If districts choose to teach human growth and development in their school, they’re required to have an ad hoc advisory committee,” Schurman said.

The committee has 16 members; 24 people in the community applied to participate. Members were chosen from different categories randomly, such as parents, clergy, students, administrators, and health care professionals. The committee consists of six parents, two students, two clergy members, two community members, two health care professionals, one teacher and one administrator.

After hearing presentations from teachers in the different age groups (elementary, middle and high school) and a Q&A session, the committee broke up into small groups for discussion. The four main takeaways were:

1. Human growth and development instruction should start at an earlier age. Kids, girls in particular, are maturing at an earlier age than they used to and access to information is easier to come by thanks to technology.

“The community thought we need to get out front of some of these issues by educating our students earlier,” Schurman said.

2. Greater emphasis on acknowledging diverse sexual identities. Not to promote or get into moral conversations about what’s right or wrong, but to recognize there are diverse identities in our world today.
3. Pornography literacy, meaning thinking about the damaging impacts of using pornography and how easily accessible it is.
4. Making sure that we have alignment between human growth and development curriculum and other content areas.

Schurman deemed the meeting as productive with a lot of expertise in the room.

“Not only did we get feedback then, but I sent out another opportunity for them to give me feedback again, because sometimes it takes awhile to let those ideas percolate,” he said.

As soon as the meeting minutes are approved electronically, they will be published, along with a list of committee members.

School Forest handbook

Superintendent Jamie Benson detailed how the district held a “Dream Big” event regarding the school forest three years ago when the district gained access to the forest, which had basically been landlocked since the 1940s. The Kinnickinnic River Land Trust purchased an adjoining piece of property that had an access road to the school forest and partnered with the school district to allow it access.

Over 1,000 students accessed the forest last year and that will continue, Benson said. Volunteers spent hours clearing the access road so buses can traverse it.

The handbook contains not only the school forest’s mission and vision statement, but information on a needs assessment and progress. Advantages to students and the community are detailed, as well as a section on sustainability outlining how the district will continue to cultivate, maintain and sustain the school forest.

“The progress that has been made in just three short years is nothing short of incredible really and it has everything to do with volunteers in our community, some of which are here tonight,” Benson said. “The School District of River Falls Forest is a legacy project that’s going to have a long-lasting impact for generations to come. Developing trails with education stations, a learning shelter and an environmental curriculum will provide impactful and sustainable educational opportunities for generations to come. Students are going to gain greater appreciation for our precious natural resources, become advocates for the planet, explore career opportunities, improve social emotional supports and better understand the connectedness of human life to our environment.”

Some of the most pristine Wisconsin land is protected, thanks to the KRLT, the school district, and the city. A crushed limestone path and paved path will be laid to allow for ADA accessibility. The district is partnering with the River Falls Rotary on a pavilion style building on the prairie portion of the land, which will be erected before snow flies, Benson said.

Funding came from a DNR easement agreement and an $18,000 grant from the Pierce County Public Health Department.

“This represents a lot of work,” said board member Alan Tuchtenhagen. “This is a real testament to this community and their willingness to help on a project like this.”

Personnel

The board approved the following personnel changes:

• Hiring Heidi Link as assistant principal at River Falls High School effective July 1 (replacing Taryl Graetz). Link earned a bachelor's degree from UW-La Crosse and her master’s degree from Hamline University. She has 18 years of experience with the New Richmond and Forest Lake school districts.
• Hiring Ryan Huppert as a full-time seventh grade math teacher effective Aug. 20 (replacing John Witt). Huppert earned a bachelor's degree from UW-River Falls and a master’s degree from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. He taught for 21 years in Hudson.
• Hiring Hannah Slowiak as a full-time kindergarten teacher at Rocky Branch effective Aug. 20 (replacing Lauren Thomforde). Slowiak earned a bachelor’s degree from UW-Madison and her master’s degree from Concordia University. She has six years of experience in the Madison, Grafton and Mequon school districts.
• Hiring Erin Elsenpeter as a full-time kindergarten teacher at Rocky Branch effective Aug. 20 (replacing Rita Sommerfeldt). Elsenpeter earned a bachelor's degree from UW-River Falls and has 14 years of experience (Baldwin-Woodville and Prescott).
• Hiring Katrina Hostetler as a full-time upper elementary teacher at River Falls Public Montessori effective Aug. 20 (replacing Mitch Burow). Hostetler earned a bachelor's degree from UW-River Falls and has six years of experience in Platteville.
• Transfer of Bernadette Zuber from library media specialist to health teacher at Meyer Middle School effective Aug. 26 (replacing Lisa Lockie).
• Transfer of Billie Jo Johnson from science teacher to library media specialist at MMS effective Aug. 26.
• Transfer of Abigail Lerum from math enrichment teacher to seventh grade math teacher at MMS effective Aug. 26 (replacing Riley Sutton).
• Hiring the following short-term, on-call substitute teachers: Benjamin Schmitt and Eric Johnson
• Resignation of Spencer Rohlinger as a full-time science teacher at RFHS effective at the end of the school year.