Neillsville District Administrator Discusses Items From the May School Board Meeting

Thursday, May 22nd, 2025 -- 3:00 PM

The Neillsville School Board held their monthly meeting on Monday.

I spoke with Neillsville District Administrator John Gaier and he discussed items from Monday’s agenda in more detail.

Listen to the interview with Mr. Gaier here!

If you have any questions or concerns regarding what’s happening at the District, you can contact Mr. Gaier at the District.

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

Riley: "One of the items approved by the Board was the Capstone Project for the 2025-26 school year. Can you talk about that?"

Mr. Gaier: "What we plan on doing for next year is, actually, having our Capstone Class build a second storage building down on our football field area. We have one that the Capstone did a few years ago."

"We need another one for additional storage that's more accessible, so it's going to be on the southeast corner of that football field and going to be accessible from the street with a loading dock."

"So, we hope to have that done by the end of the next school year and it'll be a nice project for our Capstone kids. They don't have to go far to get the experience of working on that building."

"If they get that done fairly quickly, there are some other folks that want some small projects done, so our kids can work on that as well. But the programs that we have for our kids to get work experience through our Tech Ed programs in automotive and carpentry and metal and welding fabrication, it is outstanding for our kids."

Riley: "And the Board also approved a couple of shared space agreements for counseling services. This is something that's usually done every year, but can you touch on that please?"

Mr. Gaier: "We contract with both Clark County Community Services and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. They provide counseling opportunities that are very convenient for our kids and families because it's a shared space agreement where they can do that here."

"There's no cost to the district, but it is a great opportunity for folks that want to have specific counseling needs met by those trained counselors and can do it right here in our building."

"And we do have individual students, and even families, that come up for that counseling opportunity. So, it's just a great shared agreement that we can have those folks in our building serving our kids."

Riley: "And the Board also approved membership to the AEF, which, if I remember correctly, is the Association for Equity in Funding, can you touch on that?"

Mr. Gaier: "Yeah, our district has been longtime members of that association and it is the Wisconsin Association for Equity and Funding. The School District of Neillsville has always been a low revenue district and that began way back in 1993 when revenue caps were put on school districts."

"And those revenue caps were based on what the school districts spent in that prior year, 1992, and it was divided by the number of kids, and then it determined a value for each student."

"The problem with that was that very high spending districts back then have a much higher revenue for students than the low spending districts in 1992, so we have been a low revenue district for, now, 32 years."

"So, this Association actually fights to make it more equitable and get funding more balanced. For instance, the school district of Neillsville has a revenue limit of $11,000 per student."

"There's a district in Wisconsin that gets $21,000 per student. That's not equitable. So, we are fighting for the opportunity to get that low revenue limit up to be more equitable with those districts that also have much higher amounts per student."

"So, it is a very worthy cause and, really, it is a cause that makes the statement: it shouldn't matter where kids are, they're all valuable and deserve equitable opportunities no matter where they live and that's really what that association fights for. So, we're proud to be a part of that."

Riley: "The Board did decide to approve in district transportation services for next year. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Gaier: "Yeah, we've been struggling, like everybody, finding bus drivers and so, we did take the opportunity to go out and look for bids from bussing contractors."

"So, we did have two contractors that put in bids. We also had our own current transportation department develop a plan in order to keep it in house. The board did decide to keep it in house and so we will be posting positions for a new director of our transportation services."

"So, anybody that might be interested in that position, please let us know. And we also need both full time drivers, which would be a morning and evening route, and any drivers that might want to sub drive and they could sub drive both on a regular route once in a while and they can help with field trips and sport trips."

"So, there's an opportunity there for people that want to make extra income and we would provide all of the training for those people and help them pay for their licensing for that bus certification. So, anybody interested, please contact the district, and we will be happy to work with them."

Riley: "And the Board did have a couple donations that they approved at Monday's meeting. Could you touch on those?"

Mr. Gaier: "We got a donation of staff planners and pencils for the elementary staff or next year from Faith Neisius and her family, so we're appreciative of that."

"We also received two new volleyball nets that were donated by the Youth Volleyball Association, so we were thankful for that as well, and again, so thankful for the support that our local community provides for our kids here."

Riley: "Is there anything else? Anything else that you would like to touch on for Monday's meeting that we may not have already discussed?"

Mr. Gaier: "Sure, just a reminder that this Saturday, May 24th, at 2pm, we will have graduation here in the Neillsville Field House for the class of 2025 and let me be the first to congratulate this class, because they are just an awesome group and are going to be tremendous leaders in the communities where they end up. So, we're really proud of them."

"I also want to let folks know that we had a scholarship presentation for that class on May 14th and, amazingly, we had $148,000 given in local scholarships to our kids."

"That means local folks and organizations were providing those kind of opportunities for our kids going to both technical college and college. We also asked the students about the scholarships that they were already awarded from the colleges that they are going to go to."

"And that was another $150,000, so the School District of Neillsville, last Wednesday, celebrated almost $300,000 of scholarship awards for the class of 2025 for both technical college and four year universities."

"So, a huge thank you to all of those local folks that provide the opportunities for these kids to go to school and also congratulations to our students who have earned outside scholarships from the universities or technical colleges themselves for the programs that they're going to go into."

"It is just awesome to see the kind of support that our kids get, both locally and through their hard work from their universities, so, so proud of our community and the class of 2025."

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