Neillsville District Administrator Discusses Items from the August School Board Meeting

Friday, August 21st, 2026 -- 11:00 AM

The Neillsville School Board held their monthly August meeting on Monday.

I spoke with District Administrator Corey Peterson and he discussed some of the items from the meeting in more detail.

Listen to the interview with Mr. Peterson here!

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

(AI assisted transcription via Otter.ai)

Riley: "The Board got to meet some of the District's new teachers on Monday. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "It was a great time. We have so many amazing new staff that are joining our team and just watching the energy and excitement come through the doorway, right? I mean, we all remember early in our careers when we had that anxiousness of the start of school year and how you're going to meet the kids?"

"And it was in full force. So, we have an amazing group of people joining our team this year, bringing a lot of energy, excitement, positivity, and just excitement to work and support the kids."

"And so we had several attend this month and we're also going to keep that on the docket in September. So, if it didn't work in their schedule this time, we're going to try to pick them up in September and give them a chance to meet the board and just celebrate the fact that they're part of our team."

Riley: "The Boad also discussed a collaborative proposal from the Granton School District. Can you talk about that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Currently, what we're looking at, is the Granton School District has a proposal that was sent out at the end of July and we took that up at our last session to talk a little bit more about what that could look like."

"Really, it leads to questions we have right now and so we're working to set up another session together, which should be hopefully coming soon, where we can start to ask those questions and talk to Granton a little bit about what what would this look like?"

"What might a collaborative effort in in any of these areas, whether, you know, the the proposal talks about shared staffing or programming, talks about co-oping sports, what could that look like and, also, some forward planning, probably to figure out if you're going to put that in motion."

"How do we coincide and make sure that all functions together? Whether it be scheduling, you know, coordinating again, just from day to day operations. How could we make that as successful as possible?"

"So, that will be coming soon here. But we have posed a lot of questions. But we really need to get at the table together to be able to have that conversation in more detail to help kind of lay the foundation for what it could look like."

Riley: "We should note too that no action has been taken at this point. Nothing is set in stone, correct?"

Mr. Peterson: "At this point in time, everything is is just discussion oriented and even the next several phases will likely be discussion oriented until we actually have an agenda item with action on it."

"Again, we're going to continue to note that it is just discussion only, and really just for the propositions of what it could look like. And so, yeah, no action being taken at this time."

Riley: "The Board also heard a building and grounds update. How are those projects going?"

Mr. Peterson: "It's the start of school. It's fast and furious, right? So, as you walked in today, you probably saw some activity taking place. We're squeezing in a few last projects before the year starts. Currently, right now, we're working on our elementary roof to get some replacement done there."

"That has been on our long-term plan as well. We're looking at some replacements of some concrete on the exterior, which was a approved item on Monday night to get the concrete repaired, just make sure it's clean, it's safe, so that we don't have anybody tripping on it coming into the start of the school year."

"And then we start looking ahead to kind of some forward planning. If you're attending Friday night football, hard to imagine it's coming, but Friday night football, you may see a little uniqueness as we're working on the new fencing that will be going around the periphery of the track. So, that's going to be in the process as well, coming here over the next week as well."

Riley: "Tthe board approved hiring a math interventionist and this actually stemmed from the District's Strategic Plan. So, can you start out and talk a little bit about that position, what that will all entail, and then if we could kind of switch gears and talk a little bit about the strategic plan, how that process went, and where the district currently is that with that?"

Mr. Peterson: "So, if we take a look at the math interventionist position, it's a key piece to what we created with our strategic plan. So, the goal for the math interventionist currently is that we know that we're supporting a lot of work with our lower levels, especially in that elementary/early middle school with a literacy focus. And while literacy is all the way up and through, we really realize that we could offer more supports for our kids in math, but we would need a position to do that.

"So, an interventionist will allow us to create a specialized plan for students, do some specific interventions and supports to try to help build those students up in their areas of need, which also kind of ties into when we look at just our general strategic plan, making sure that we're using the data and the evidence that we have available to us to help support our kids and our growth even better moving forward."

"Now, on tying that to our strategic plan, if you look at our strategic plan, we approved a four-pillar look and several different entities. One of which, though, is talking about academic support and readiness and so this definitely ties right into that."

"And coming out of all of our voices, we had over 500 voices in part of our strategic plan. We had focus groups, we had steering committees, and in all that, several things really resonated."

"And one of which was we wanted to see some support for our math, and so that was priority number one for us to get going. We talked a lot about attracting and retaining staff, we look at the fact of clear communication and reporting."

"We're looking at, again, making our schools even more safe and secure. So all those will be hubbed into our work coming forward and talking to the board on Monday night."

"Key focus points for us for this year. So, while it's a five-year plan, what will we really be drilling into in year one? And really four things that emphasize on Monday night for our plan."

"Number one, we're going to take a look at a compensation study this year to make sure that our staffing is where it's at and where we should be for our benefits package compensation and the like. How do we compare? Are we hitting the mark? Because we do want to attract and retain staff, and to do that, that's a key piece."

"We're going to be taking a look at our student code and redesigning that. So, if there's any parents, community members that would like to have input on that, we're going to look at a K-12 process."

"Where's our behavior code of expectations at? Where do we want to be? Have administration, teachers, students, parents involved in a redesign of that, so that we would look at having that approved moving forward, so that in we have a clear picture of what behavioral expectations would look like here consistently."

"Math interventionists would be a key piece number three, and we have approved that with this action. So we're going to look to entertain parties out there that would be again candidates that are interested in the position."

"We're building a schedule to see how we could best support as many kids as possible with that right now. And then the last that we're going to focus in on this year is going to be just communication dashboard."

We want to make sure that the public is aware of what's going on, and you'll see this pretty regularly on our board agendas as well, just to make sure it's transparent as to here's what we're doing."

"We went through this process. We asked for people's input. We want to celebrate that, and we want to acknowledge this is the good work that we're doing, and this is the progress that we're making."

Riley: "If people are intereste in seeing that Strategic Plan, is there a place they can go to do that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Yes. So, I have copies of that here. They could certainly contact me. We're going to work to make sure that's linked up with it just being approved a couple weeks ago. We're going to make sure and get that out there in several different locations."

"But yeah, absolutely, we will get that out there. If people are a hard copy individual, tell them to swing by. I can make a copy, or we'll have copies available. But if they'd like it just online, we'll get that linked up front and center."

"There is information posted on our website now, but we'll make sure everything that's finalized is already available, but also will be available with our dashboard moving forward as that's constructed here this fall and gets posted, so it's visibly content available for everybody to see."

Riley: "The Board also approved the Crisis Response Plan. Can you discuss that?

Mr. Peterson: "Yeah, similar to each year we've been looking at the Crisis Response Plan. We did a few minor adjustments to it this year. In the last year, we've had some local staff that have really met and worked hard to dive into our response plans, taking a look from the entity of outside forces acting upon the school to the fact of again it could be an emergency with a tornado, fire, or the like."

"It could be the fact of how are we handling internal situations that take place and making sure that we have a clear process for all staff to operate from. But in doing so, also, are we aligning to best practices in what we're doing?"

"Created more of a local medical response team. So, if we do have a medical emergency on staff, we have our staff prepared to acknowledge that and respond to that before EMS can arrive on scene."

"So, we've worked really hard to make sure that we're we're getting that communication out. People internally know what's going on, and this was key piece to that. We have a great plan in place, but making sure that if we find areas to improve again through just discussions and experiences, we make sure and tweak that so that we're as safe and secure as possible."

Riley: "The board also approved business office support days from CESA 10. Can you touch on that and what that is exactly?"

Mr. Peterson: "If we take a look at, currently, we're in a transitional period here, so several postings we have out there right now for needs for our district. One of which is administrative assistant and, in the in lieu of that, right now we are contracting through CESA to help us in our business office here to help us mitigate some day-to-day operations and help us support that as we transition forward."

"The goal being that we will get another teammate on board here shortly and, in doing so, we'll cross train and be able to move forward with that person in that position moving ahead."

"But in that interim, over the course of the next few weeks or a couple months here, as we obtain our candidate, train our candidate, this will allow us to keep a little more fluid efficiency going in our business operations."

Riley: "The food service contract. The board also approved that. Can you touch on that along with the the milk programs?"

Mr. Peterson: "So, similar to what we do each year, we try to offer and just make sure that we're providing opportunities for the kids. So, if you take a look at our food service contract, there's two different versions."

"You can take a look at an offer versus a serve, and what we want to do is that ultimately, if we offer, you know, if it's a service option only, then the kids would have to take everything being offered. If if we agree to more of an offer, the kids can deny some things, and we hopefully have less waste because of that."

"Now, certainly, we want to make sure and promote healthy actions and choices, but we also want to balance that out with making sure that we're not being wasteful in what we're providing, right?"

"Then, if you kind of look down through there, making sure that our kids are part of programings that offer milk available for breaks and the like, regardless of what what they're coming through, whether the students are engaged in other practices on campus here for our food service programming or not, making sure it's available to them. So we we take this action each year to make sure that we're giving as many options to kids as possible."

Riley: "The Board also received another donation, can you talk about that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Absolutely. We are again so always thankful for this. The '90s classes came through and they had $650 that they wanted to donate back, and we're going to use that for our kids in needs for our kick program."

"We see this month and again. The fact is, we have endless different outside groups that are willing to help out. They realize the need, whether it be of students, families, and the like. Everybody's here to support and pick each other up. So, much appreciated for that donation."

"And of course, on the side, this time of the year, endless school supplies are flooding our way. And so, you know, we saw open house last night where they were flying off the tables and it's just a great opportunity for us to be able to provide and flow through to the community and the kids and make sure that they are well suited for the start of school."

Riley: "Anything else you'd like to add?"

Mr. Peterson: "Well, as I alluded to, open house was last night. It was amazing. It was you know a beautiful evening. A lot of smiles. We had pictures. We had just some kiddos coming through that are just smiles galore. Families are smiling. Kids looked great with their outfits on for pictures. But if there's any questions off open house, feel free to contact us here on site in any office, and we'll get back to them right away."

"We know that next week we talked about the the 25th. We're kicking in with kids on campus and people are coming on board here. We're talking about transitioning kids into a successful school year and making sure that again we're going to ease our kiddos in and make sure they're good to go there."

"We're taking a look at just monitoring vacancies that we're still trying to fill, as we alluded to already. If there's anybody out there interested in still custodial teaching assistants, we are looking for middle school, high school choir, and also we're looking at high school counselors."

"So, some of those are in the mix for positions being resolved, and others we're still looking for opportunities. So, if people are out there interested, let us know. We know that the sports season is now underway."

"Okay, it's fall. You see the trees starting to change color. Friday night football is coming, so we're excited to see everybody back on campus. It's that time of year to get going and do what we do, and we're excited to to host everybody back here starting next week."

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