Rib Lake board OKs car purchase for driver’s ed

The Rib Lake School district is moving forward with plans to bring the behind the wheel instruction in-house with approval to purchase a vehicle for that and other district use.

Currently, drivers education students in Rib Lake do the classroom portion of the instruction as part of their summer school program, but families have to pay an outside company for behind the wheel instruction.

At the December 18 school board meeting, district administrator Travis Grubbs presented a plan for the district to purchase a vehicle and hire the instructor directly. He said he was looking at pricing for used sedan style vehicles which would need to be modified to add a passenger-side brake for the instructor. He said the vehicle would be purchased from instructional Fund 10 funds, with 75% of the cost and future maintenance of the vehicle to be covered by Fund 80, the community service levy account for the district. This will allow the district to also use the vehicle for other district needs such as transferring things between buildings and taking the mail to and from the post office. The vehicle that had been used for department needs recently died and Grubbs said he saw a way to meet both needs with the same vehicle.

“Do we want to do drivers education?” asked board member Rollie Thums to other board members to gauge support for it.

“Yes,” said board president Stacy Tlusty, summing up the opinion of the board.

Grubbs said there would still be a fee charged for those doing the behind the wheel drivers education, however this is expected to be less than the private company with the costs going to cover vehicle maintenance, fuel and insurance expenses and instructional costs. Grubbs said based on their rate projections and usage, he said it would take about six years for the school to recoup the money spent. If a future board decided to end the program and sell the vehicle, the money would go back into the Fund 80 accounts. In response to a question from a board member, Grubbs said he is estimating annual insurance on the vehicle to be about $1,400 a year, which he noted could be high after speaking with a similar sized district that spends $1,250 a year on their vehicle insurance for a drivers ed car. The actual cost will depend on the vehicle purchased. Grubbs was given the go-ahead to purchase a used vehicle up to $25,000 in cost.

Building projects

Rib Lake students and staff could see a shorter summer in the coming school year. Board members approved applying for a waiver for the September 1 start date due to the planned summer 2026 construction schedule for the district referendum projects approved last spring.

Work is scheduled to begin this spring and summer on the project which will include connecting the middle and high school buildings. Grubbs said this summer should not be an issue with the major work that is projected to take place, but the summer of 2026 work could potentially take longer to complete. That phase of the project will include the major renovation and upgrades to the kitchen area. Grubbs noted that while they can make accommodations for not having locker rooms complete or classrooms, without a kitchen they will not be able to have school. Rib Lake prepares all the meals for the district in the high school kitchen. The goal would be to gain extra time for that phase of the project by having the school start earlier in the fall and end earlier in May, allowing construction to start sooner.

Grubbs said he is bringing the waiver forward now because the state requires that it be filed by January 1. He said if the waiver is approved they can look at finalizing a calendar after talking with staff and residents. He said the district would have to apply for a waiver every year if they wanted to adjust the start time during other phases of the project.

Thums asked if they could start two weeks earlier. “As long as we get the exemption we could start whenever you say,” Grubbs said.

In other business, board members:

• Approved releasing student information to Universities of Wisconsin System colleges and universities under the Direct Admit program. UW schools will be able to access ACT scores of the students and reapprove them for enrollment prior to the students filling out applications for the schools. Grubbs said the intent is to give students more opportunities to pursue higher education. The board agreed to share the information with the provision that families can choose to opt out of having their students’ information shared.

• Received a reminder that the at-large seat held by Rollie Thums and the town of Greenwood seat held by Amanda Treffinger are up for reelection and nomination papers are due in early January.

• Approved creating a part-time CNA position in place of a special education aid position. The CNA would be paid $18 per hour to start, which is $2.27 more than the aid position. The duties include helping the students with bathrooming, medications and other health related issues in addition to assisting with learning. The hope is to try to attract someone who is already a CNA since it would not include weekends or evening hours.

• Received an update on the referendum projects. In mid-January contractors will be able to walk through the project with bids due in mid-February. Grubbs said the district benefited from the bond market continuing to be well under the parameters set for the project. “It will save us some money in interest in the long run,” Grubbs said.

• Directed Grubbs to move forward on getting a request for proposals for redoing the high school track. The district had estimated it would cost around $400,000 for the work and to date, the district has received $300,000 in pledges and donations for the project with other groups interested in committing funds to it. Grubbs said it was time to get some more concrete numbers about how much the project would actually cost to accomplish. Getting the RFP will get a price for the district and does not commit the district to doing the work.