Neillsville District Administrator Discusses Items From March School Board Meeting

Friday, March 21st, 2025 -- 2:00 PM

There were few items on the agenda for the Neillsville School District’s March School Board Meeting, but they were important items discussed and approved.

I spoke with Neillsville District Administrator John Gaier and he discussed the items on the agenda in more detail including an FCCLA presentation.

Listen to the interview with Mr. Gaier here!

Again, if you have any questions or concerns, you can contact Mr. Gaier at the District.

(AI assisted transcription of the interview by Otter.ai):

Riley: "The FCCLA students gave a presentation; can you talk about that?"

Mr. Gaier: "I sure can. That's our family and consumer science folks and they do go into competitions. One of the groups that presented to us actually won the regional competition and now they go on to the state competition."

"And what they are doing is, one of the projects is how to recycle and protect the environment. So, with this, what these two kids did was they took old 55 gallon drums, and they made them into two chairs and a table, so that they can be reused for those types of things."

"It's very creative. The kids came up with it on their own. So, now they'll go to the state competition and see if they can win their way to nationals with that project."

Riley: "The Board also heard a facilites update; can you talk about that?"

Mr. Gaier: "Sure, no new bids were needed to take action on, but we did get an update on the progress of how things are moving along. Things seem to be moving along in a timely manner."

"Again, we have contractors working here, both day and evenings, in order to stay on time. And a special thanks to the contractors, to our staff, and to our kids, who are getting along great, and none of this is interrupting our student learning."

"But all of them are doing a great job of making sure that we can get all of those things done in a timely manner. So, real credit to our staff, kids and contractors."

Riley: "And the Board also approved the ECCP and the start college now programs. Can you talk about that?"

Mr. Gaier: "I sure can. The ECCP program is actually the Early College Credit Program and the Start College Now Program and, actually, is for technical college credits, so our kids can take college credits while still staying on campus, right here."

"Those first 18 credits that those kids take are at no cost to those kids or the families. The district picks up the cost of those credits and in the applications that were acted on this past meeting, 30 out of 53 seniors are taking some college credits."

"29 out of 66 juniors are and we actually have a sophomore boy who is taking two math college credits. He has exhausted all of the math classes that we teach in house."

"So, it is just really neat that we can provide this opportunity for kids, save our kids and families money, and get them a head start going into their college or technical college careers."

Riley: " The Board did approve a donation at the meeting on Monday. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Gaier: "Sure, each quarter now, we honor our middle school high honors kids and Pizza Hut donated coupons for those kids this time around. So, we are very thankful for Pizza Hut and all the other folks who, in the past, have donated to to help our kids out."

Riley: "Another thing that I wanted to touch on is it was announced last week, I believe, that the school board selected Corey Peterson as the new Superintendent for the district, and the board made it official last night by approving his administrator's contract. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Gaier: "Sure can, Corey comes to us from Melrose Mindoro, where he's the elementary principal right now. He's had a number of years in different administrative positions."

"So, the board unanimously chose him after the candidates had a chance to meet with the board, with our students, with our staff, and he was the unanimous choice of the board."

"So, we look forward to the newest leader of the School District of Neillsville and I hope that all the folks out there can give him the same type of support that that I've had the pleasure of having over these 28 years. So, we look forward to having Corey, and I think he's going to be a great fit here at the School District of Neillsville."

Riley: "Is there anyting else you'd like to discuss that we may not have already touched on?"

Mr. Gaier: " Sure, we've been awfully busy here at the School District of Neillsville with some pretty neat things. The first thing that I'd like to report on is we did get our federal E, S, S, A, which is the Every Student Succeeds Act at the federal level, and the Idea Act, which is the special education notification."

"Each year, the federal government does an audit of all schools, all school districts in the country. And make sure we meet all requirements for serving our students in both regular education and special education, so that's a real compliment to our staff, our board, and our community for meeting those requirements."

"Also, I did present some information about post COVID achievement. There's been some research now done about the achievement, loss or gain, during the COVID time."

"So, there was a report that was put out about the 10 states that lost the least during COVID and the 10 states that lost the most. Wisconsin was fairly steady, but not in either of those lists."

"So, we are somewhere in the middle of the road for that. But that is good information to have, and it will help us in moving forward with what we have to do to make sure that we can guarantee student achievement in the future."

"Talking about the federal government, there's a lot of questions now with the thought that the Department of Education will no longer be at the federal level."

"I know that the President is planning on signing an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education as of right now. Just so folks know, the Department of Education provides meals, or funds for meals, for our hungry kids, especially those that are qualified for free or reduced lunch."

"They also provide funds for special education services. They have learning supports for kids in poverty. It is the Title programs they offer mental health supports and career and technical education and STEM or science and mathematics supports."

"And in the School District of Neillsville, we receive just over $800,000 in federal funds each year, and that is about 8% of our overall budget. So, just so people know, that is kind of where we are with the federal budget and with the federal outcomes."

"As far as the audits for ESSA and Idea, I know there's some concern about what's going to happen if the Department of Education goes away? At this point, we don't have a lot of information other than we have heard that funding will not completely go away, but will just go to other departments, so we'll have to see about that."

"In the elementary school, each month, we have a character trait, and the character trait for March was gratitude. So, that is always good for our kids to have a character trait to be thinking about and working on for each month."

"Also, we had a family fun night on March 13 and with the family fun night that we provided for families, we had about 111 families come through, which was really neat."

"And we were able to pay for that through a grant from the Trifecta Fund, which is actually sponsored by former Green Bay Packer Mark Tauscher an Auburndale graduate. So, we appreciate that grant opportunity."

In our middle school, we had a STEM Expo. Claire Brown, who works at CESA 10, and was actually a former student here at Neillsville, and a graduate of Neillsville, her maiden name was McConnell, she organized the event and it gave our kids the opportunity to work on, science and technology and mathematics and to do some engineering projects that were put together for our seventh graders. And it was a really neat event."

"We also sent our eighth graders to Marshfield for a reality store and the reality store gives kids a fictional life where they have to go out and they have to learn about paying bills, getting a job, earning income, and how to budget their time and their resources. So, it's a great experience in teaching them or giving them a glimpse, at least, into adulthood."

"In the high school, we had the ACT test for all juniors on March 11, which is required by the state of Wisconsin. Our sophomores on that day actually went to UW-Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley Technical College to get exposure to programs that they offer, while our freshmen went to Wisconsin Rapids, to mid State Technical College and then to UW-Stevens Point to get an idea about the colleges and technical college offerings in those areas."

"Coming up on April 9, we will have an academic letter Award, which is for our highest achieving high school kids. And there will be 53 students awarded that academic letter."

"Some may be getting their first; some may be getting up to their third for their great success in student achievement over the years. So, we're excited about that as well. And just a reminder that the Election Day is April 1st."

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.