Neillsville District Administrator Discusses Items From Neillsville's May School Board Meeting

Thursday, May 21st, 2026 -- 2:01 PM

The Neillsville School Board held their monthly meeting for May on Monday.

I spoke with District Administrator Corey Peterson and he discussed several items that were approved in preparation for the next school year, but he began by talking about a presentation that started the meeting with Representative Karen Hurd.

Listen to the interview with Mr. Peterson here!

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

(AI asssited transcription via Otter.ai)

Mr. Peterson: "We began our meeting with a very unique presentation. It was exciting for Karen Hurd to be able to present to our state championship team, the girls basketball team, for their Division Four state title."

"A recap and a beautiful plaque was presented to the team and Coach Gaier, really discussing and overviewing the journey that the students went through this year and attaining their feat, winning the state title, recapping the state title game journey along the way."

"But it was a great presentation and it really is a reminder of just how much and how hard everybody works to make this happen and I know that Coach Gaier would replicate this by saying it's a team effort and it really was a team effort."

"And one item that was discussed in particular was about student athletes and credit to the ladies, because they definitely exemplified that throughout, because it's a long journey, it's of the season and the tournament series, but they handle everything."

"They handle everything very well, in a sense of their commitment on the court and off the court in the classroom, because if you're not doing it in the classroom, we're not going to be on the court, and so, congratulations to the team, and thank you to Karen Herd for presenting that great award."

Riley: " And the board also approved the capstone project for the next school year. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Each year, our district approves a capstone project, or several, depending upon the capacity and the schedule. This year we are approving a deck that we're going to build for 2026-27."

"If you recall, the 2025-26 school year we've completed our track shed down by the track. That is finalized. It looks beautiful. Congratulations to Mr. Kren and the students that have worked on that throughout the year in the heat and the cold to make it happen."

"So, as we look forward to next year, certainly, if there's other projects that are still interested out there in the community and they like to reach out to Mr. Kren or the offices in any way, shape, or form, we can work to try to schedule in as needed, but right now we do have that deck on the schedule, and we'll continue to build from there."

Riley: "The board also approved the shared space agreements for counseling service, which is something that they do every year. But can you remind our listeners about that, please?"

Mr. Peterson: "Yeah, each year we have a shared space agreement, so we are sharing an office space within our elementary, middle school office, or could be different location on campus as well, depending upon the day."

"We have multiple services that come through each week and several of those would come back to our Clark County Community Services and Children's Wisconsin. We have those two institutions that have signed on for shared space agreements work with those companies to make sure that we outfit the counseling services needed for students and families."

"It's been a great partnership for the last few years. We look to continue that forward, and so we built that in for 2026-27 to make sure that they have a space that they can utilize to help service our kids on campus."

Riley: "The board also approved the long and short term disability provider. Can you touch on that, please?"

Mr. Peterson: "In addition to our Security Health that we talked about last month, coming on board, part of our benefit package, in addition to Security Health with Delta Dental for our vision and our dental, we have the standard, which is our long and short term disability provider."

"It's a continuation of our benefits from last year in being part of the Central Wisconsin Area Cooperative. So, we continue to lock that in to July 1, 2027 and we'll carry that forward for 2026-27 school year."

Riley: "The board also approved a couple memberships to AEF and WASB. Can you touch on those?"

Mr. Peterson: "We have one of those memberships that will be in play. We'll hold off on the WASP membership until June, as we didn't have all the finalized paperwork yet for that, but we will move forward with our AEF, or the Association for Equity and Funding membership."

"In doing so, the AEF allows school districts to advocate for financial equity in the state system of school finance. Ultimately, they are looking at a 90% within 10% they would say. And ultimately, what that means is that we would like 90% of the districts throughout the state to be funded within 10% of each other on a per pupil basis."

The goal to do that is by raising the floor of the revenue limit and we're continuing working with that each year, so thank you to the AEF for the work that they do. For that reason, we like to buy into their services to help them advocate on our behalf for small schools, especially try to raise that revenue limit to help support local districts and get us to within the same level as everybody else throughout the state."

Riley: "The board also approved student insurance for next year. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Continuing forward, as we talk insurance here, we want to make sure and cover our students while they're on campus during the school day. Having these benefits helps to limit some of the out-of-pocket expenses, such as just provides a safety net for families, could help with deductibles or co-pays or the like."

"Using the Gallagher Special Risk for several years and we continue that forward for 2026-27 as well. So, same coverages as last year, but moving it forward to make sure we have that safety net in place."

Riley: " And donations, the district once again received several donations, which the board approved. Can you touch on those?"

Mr. Peterson: "Continuing the theme, each month we appreciate our community and thank them so very much for everything that they do. For the donations that come forward this month, we had several that we're able to approve."

"Running down the list, we have Tricia Bushman, who graciously donated Girl Scout cookies to staff and we all appreciate our Girl Scout cookies for sure. In addition, continuing to fill our stomachs, we appreciate Next Home Partners as they provide us a pizza meal for our staff during Staff Appreciation Week. So, thank you very much to Next Home Partners for that."

Gross Motors, the Gas and Go, thank you very much. We have roughly $5,800 that was donated to our high school softball club for the Gas and Go donation. Again, this continues to be a great asset to our district with the proceeds that come off of that. So, thank you very much to Gross Motors."

"And Atmus has also donated roughly $900 from their sales through some extra supplies and needs on their sites to our cause of the elementary playground project. So, thank you."

Riley: "And another thing I wanted to touch on, a big weekend for Neilsville seniors, as graduation is this Saturday. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "It is, it is for sure. We are coming to the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year, which is hard to believe, but we are right on the crust of the fact of a historic weekend for these young men and women, so our graduating class of 2026 will be crossing the stage this Saturday and joining everybody."

"Please come if you are interested. We will have a full house, we're hoping for it'll be on the 23rd here on campus at 2o'clock in the field house. Please make sure that again as we come in, we'll have the seating available, but if there's any way we can help service people ahead of time with that with accommodations, let us know."

"But we are very excited to help our graduating class of 26 cross the stage and become warrior alumni. So, we're very excited for that, and you know, kind of the book ends of that. We've had excitement building up to, and we'll be on the backside of that."

"We've had graduations already, we've had 4k in place across the stage. We take a look at eighth grade, which will come into play on the 26th of May. So, we have a lot of things that are slammed together here on campus."

"We've gone through the range of different activities for seniors. They've had their senior sunset, they have a senior banquet going on. It's an exciting time, for sure, very busy time, but hopefully a time that all of our seniors can look back on and say it hit the mark, and we appreciate everything they've done. Certainly, their hard work, their determination, and their commitment over the years has not gone unnoticed, and we applaud them for that. And congratulations."

Riley: "All right, excellent, and you can definitely see that hard work and commitment, as many of the high school seniors receive some scholarships. Can you talk a little bit about that, please?"

Mr. Peterson: "Continuing on again, as we talked about the donations from our community, but the scholarships exemplified that, and then some. We had $200,000 distributed to our seniors in the class of 26 which is amazing when you think about how our students can leave here more financially fit than what they came through the doorways with."

"So, we applaud every single donor, every scholarship award that's been out there. I give credit to the, to the only, the donators, but also the fact of our scholarship recipients for the hard work they did to apply for those and go through that process, you know, there's certainly an exhausting process at time for some of these awards, yet very well deserving."

"The kids have done a great job to make it to that level, and congratulations to them. As $200,000 distributed for our school was phenomenal. Thank you to everybody involved for that, and it's just an impressive feat for our kids and our community,"

Riley: "And anything else? Then, is there anything else that you'd like to touch on in regards to the board meeting, or just the district in general?"

Mr. Peterson: "Looking forward, as you talked about the transitional period here, as we move to 2026-27 and beyond, kind of finalized this year. We graduate our seniors this weekend, we come in next week, we have our eighth grade graduation on the 26th."

"Our last day with kids is the 29th so again, circle those on the calendar, but ultimately we also take a look at the fact that summer school begins right on the backside of that. So, June 1, we begin summer school."

"If any parent out there is still looking for bussing, please make sure those slips are returned, so we can help schedule that, whether it be for summer school and or for 2026-27 and then as we look at next year, we continue on with our strategic planning."

"We've had some focused discussions with different groups, we continue to work through our survey results as a group moving forward here in the next month, we'll be putting together a rough draft, so ideally in July."

"Ee're going to bring to the board a strategic plan with submission, vision, values, and the pillars that will help drive our work for 26 and 27 and beyond. So, again, if anybody in the community has input as to what they would like to see in that, or a follow-up conversation they'd like to have off of a survey question, please have them reach out to me here at the district."

(Photo courtesy of the Neillsville School District)

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