Spencer School Board sets annual meeting date, prepares for strategic plan sessions
By Valorie Brecht The Spencer School District will soon be looking to determine how to best use additional funds available in the budget. The district’s annual meeting has been scheduled for Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the distance learning center. The public is invited to attend. The preliminary budget will be presented, with the previously passed recurring referendum adding $525,000 to the annual budget. There will be some additional increases based on the state per-pupil rate.
The budget proposal for the annual meeting was approved at the district’s Aug. 21 board meeting. Also at that meeting, Superintendent Jason Gorst gave an update on the strategic planning process. The district plans to have its first strategic planning task force meeting later this month, with around 50 people signed up for the task force.
“We had originally planned for 30 to 40 people, but didn’t want to turn anyone away,” said Gorst. “Over half of the task force are not employees. Our Educational Action Team of around 12 people met with Nexus (the consulting company) and learned how to best facilitate the strategic planning meetings. The entire task force will be broken up into smaller groups and then members of the Educational Action Team will help to facilitate each group.”
The task force plans to work to create five-year goals and objectives in the areas of student learning, staff retention/recruitment/development, community engagement, facilities, and finances. They will meet three times as a large group, including in September, October and November. The goal is to have a plan ready for the school board to vote on at its December meeting. There are two board members on the task force.
Also at the meeting, the board approved its initiatives for the 2024-25 school year. Gorst said these initiatives are meant to “bridge the gap” and give the board guidance to work off of until the strategic plan is completed. Initiative areas include emphasizing student achievement and staff engagement, utilizing a marketing plan to promote the Spencer School District, and determining the best options to continue fiscal responsibility for the district. Within each of those areas are a variety of specific objectives.
Other business Gorst reported that in late August, the district held a four-day in-service for staff in preparation for the upcoming school year.
“Hats off to the district leadership team for their efforts. The staff brought a lot of energy to the building,” he said. He also noted that the village planned on adding swinging gates to a couple of streets west of the school to aid in daily drop-off and pick-up procedures. He said more information would be forthcoming.
The school held its “first days of school” last Wednesday, Aug. 28, and Thursday, Aug. 29. Because legally Wisconsin school districts cannot start school before Sept. 1, these days count as summer school and students are not required to attend. However, the school district receives aid based on however many students do attend.
“While we cannot hold students accountable for truancy regarding attendance on these days, we sure do want to see the students in the building. We are able to get pictures taken and get through a lot of logistics to get the year off to a good start,” Gorst wrote in a news update.
Many local schools did more than two days of summer school to start the school year. Gorst said the school board would revisit the topic when planning next year’s school calendar.
The school board also approved the 2024-2025 mentor handbook, which had some changes to reflect a new mentoring model.
“We see our mentors working as a team more and doing more instructional coaching. So it’s non-evaluative but more of a coaching model,” said Gorst. “There are five teachers on our mentor team and they will work with all our new teachers. We are moving away from a one-to-one model. New teachers will have one observation per month and one team meeting per month.”
The board also discussed purchasing another school vehicle. They did not take any action on that, as they said they would like to see a four-wheel drive option.
Additionally, the board approved eliminating the $10 book fee the district has charged for a long time.
