Neillsville District Administrator Discusses January Calendar and Operational Plan

Wednesday, December 16th, 2020 -- 12:01 PM

-The Neillsville School District continues to navigate the coronavirus pandemic while providing an education to students.

At the district’s School Board meeting on Monday, the board did approve the January calendar and operational plan.  I spoke with District Administrator John Gaier and he discussed the calendar and plan in more detail.

Mr. Gaier:  “A great deal of it is going to remain the same for January.  The good news is when we look at some of our gating criteria, like the number of cases in Clark County and for the School District of Neillsville, those numbers have seemed to have dropped significantly since the post Thanksgiving breakout of serious infections.  So, that’s the good news.”

“We don’t know what’s going to happen in the case of post Christmas and that was one of the reasons we wanted to at least start January in the same type of cohort plan and the self contained Elementary plan that we have 4 days a week here at the School District of Neillsville.”

“The biggest change in the plan is what we will do starting second semester.  The end of the first semester is January 21st.  Beginning of the second semester is January 25th.  Our next board meeting is scheduled for January 18th and we’ll look at the gating criteria of reopening at that time.  But if we stay in the cohorts through the remainder of January, and the board decides that we should stay that way in February, we’re going to move to more of an enriched virtual instruction model."

"Which means that kids that are in the two cohorts in grades 9-12 would have to live link into classes for instruction on the days that they are scheduled to be home for their core area classes, so Math, English, Social Studies, Science, kids would be expected to log in live to those classes.  And we would have 4 days of different instruction on those days.  So, kids would be getting new information each day.”

“In the middle school, we would be looking at kids that are remote would have to remote in live to the English and Math courses.  The other courses would stay the same, but they would be required to attend live into those courses when they are scheduled to be in there on a normal day.  If the numbers indicate that we believe we can safely reopen 4 days a week for all students, that decision will be made January 18th."

"And if that decision is made, I would encourage the board to begin that on January 25th, which would be the first day of the new semester.  So, we are always hopeful of trying to get kids back as much as we possibly can and that is a part of the plan and has been a part of the plan all along to get kids back as safely as we possibly can and as much as we possibly can.”

Question:  “How are things going at the Neillsville School District overall?”

Mr. Gaier:  “I think a lot of compliments need to be made to the families that we serve.  The kids for wearing their masks.  I think the masking here has helped greatly.  I think being in the cohorts has certainly helped us keep things under control more here.  Being self contained in the Elementary and not mixing kids in the Elementary has certainly helped limit any potential spread that might happen here.”

“So, I think the plan we have has worked.  Right now, we’ve had a total of 55 positive cases since September 1st.  And that is far fewer than many have had.  So, I think the plan about keeping kids safe has worked well.  But we are starting to get concerns about any loss of learning that kids may have because of being in the cohort groups."

"And we fully understand the concerns by parents.  But I do have to say that the School District of Neillsville has really chosen the most difficult way to deliver instruction and that is trying to do both virtual and live instruction at the same time.  It would be much easier to be all virtual or all in, but, for safety purposes, we just can’t do that.  And we still want to be able to serve kids as well as we possibly can.”

“But, if we can get control of these numbers, and there’s obviously discussions about vaccines out there.  The other thing that we’re very cognizant of is our healthcare folks and we cannot overwhelm our healthcare facilities.  So, we look very closely at hospitalization rates in our county and in our area.  But all of those things are taken into consideration to try and keep our community safe and still deliver a high quality of education.”

Question:  “I think it helps too that the district gets a lot of support from the community.  For example, at Monday’s School Board Meeting, the district had 150 masks donated to the district from two community members.  Can you talk about that?”

Mr. Gaier:  “We have seen tremendous support.  We have gotten a number of face mask donations from businesses, from individuals, and we are so appreciative for all of that.  And really, right now, what we are most appreciative of is the openness in which our families are willing to community with us if somebody is symptomatic or if somebody has been positive or if somebody has been in close contact."

"And their cooperation by keeping kids home or staff members staying home under some of those conditions and being open and honest with us about that, I think that has really been the key to our success.  So, all the donations are vitally important to us and have helped us a great deal.  Because I think it’s important for people to understand that school funding is really impacted by the prior year."

"So, any gaps in funding probably aren’t going to be felt this year, but there could be a huge gap in funding for public schools next year based on all of the factors that are happening this year.  So, all of those donations are vitally important to use because if we don’t have to spend the money to purchase those things because they are being donated, all of those donations help a great deal and we are tremendously thankful for those.”

Question:  “Switching gears, something I wanted to touch on from the board’s meeting yesterday is the Redefining Ready! Program for grades 6-12.  Can you explain that in more detail?”

Mr. Gaier:  “It is just a really high quality program that we want to get involved in.  And what it really does is define key indicators of research based benchmarks that really matter when we talk about kids' readiness to be successful, whether they choose to go to college, whether they choose to go directly into a career and when they choose to be life ready in all of those situations."

"So, there are key benchmarks that are being identified.  We are working with a company now to develop a report card so kids can see how they’re progressing through these benchmarks.  It goes right along with our academic and career planning that we do with kids.  But they are very measurable benchmarks that we can use for kids that have indicated real college or career readiness historically."

"And we want to get involved with that and be able to share that with kids and parents and make them feel confident when they go out into whatever they choose to do after graduating here from Neillsville.  So, we’re real excited about doing that in grades 6-12."

"And that is coupled with our new Science of Reading Program that is an effort that is going on in our Elementary School to develop skilled readers as we move into that Redefining Ready group in grades 6-12.  So, we’re really excited about the direction and the ability to measure our kids success and help them know that they can be successful by hitting these key benchmarks.”

Question:  “Anything else?”

Mr. Gaier:  “Just that we’re all in this together.  And as long as we continue to work together and communicate openly with one another, we can get through this.  I know it’s not going to be as fast as everybody hopes.  But, I think there is some light at the end of the tunnel of getting kids back more towards full time then there has been in the past."

"Hopefully, we don’t see a post Christmas surge.  Hopefully, numbers continue to go down.  Hopefully, the vaccine becomes more readily available to folks.  And that we can start to move forward into getting back into some type of regularity in our area and in our country.  That is the hope for all of us.

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