Neillsville District Administrator Provides Updates on September Items

Thursday, September 25th, 2025 -- 12:00 PM

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

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

Listen to the interview with Mr. Peterson here!

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

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

Riley: "One of the items approved at the meeting was the Safe Routes to School resolution. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Yeah, for the last couple years, the District has worked in consolidation, or in cooperation, I should say, with the City to partner with Safe Routes to School."

"Several districts around have utilized their services as well, and in doing so, trying to itemize the planning for now and in the future as to how traveling to school can be safe and efficient for our kids on bikes and encouraging that in the future with services in partnership between the City and the District."

"The resolution was acknowledging that we are a Safe Routes to School in the future. We're looking to maintain that by incorporating some action planning items that came forward with the work over the last couple of years, but that will be the next step in our work as we move forward. So, the resolution is in place, and our next step will be the itemized planning for specifics as we move forward."

Riley: "The Board also approved nursing services. Can you touch on that please?"

Mr. Peterson: "Yeah, as a District, we need an RN that is able to help us with services such as signing off on our medical medication distribution logs, health plan, action planning."

"In doing so, we were looking to contract independent services for that with a registered RN and we have done that with Janet Mills. In doing so, we will have her help our district with some questions that we have along the way, but making sure that we have our itemized needs for medication, health planning and periodic review of our health office."

Riley: "And the board also heard buildings and grounds update. How are those projects going?"

Mr. Peterson: "Moving along really well and, taking a look at next week, is our homecoming week, so we are hoping to make some changes going into next week. We're trying to open a few things up as we wait on our flooring in our front entrance."

"But we're making gains in a lot of areas. So, what we will be looking at is, as people drive by campus, will see that there is a foundation being poured by our track and, in doing so, that will be a new storage facility for us that we're working on, and it's a great project for our Capstone students to work on this year."

They'll also see that our front entrance is nearing completion. The Masonry is done, our side is laid, and a front entrance is ultimately ready to go. We'll have a couple final touches to work on that, so we're hoping to get that opened up, ideally next week, and let some kids start flowing through that process and location."

"And then as we take a look around the campus, just some last minute items, as far as just clean up from the summertime and trying to get everything back to where it was prior to construction, is what we're working towards."

Riley: "The Board also approved some services from Baird. Can you touch on those?"

Mr. Peterson: "Baird offers us financial services, roughly 285 districts in the state use Baird Financial Services, can come on board with Baird to help us with our budgeting, forecasting, modeling projections, just to make sure that we are utilizing funds as best as we can."

"And projecting forward so that we are planning for the now, but also planning for the future, and the insights that they have to help us game plan for that will be key to us making sure that we are looking at here and now and also what it could be in the future."

"Luckily that we are in a very financially sound position right now. However, we always want to make sure and project forward, to make sure that we are preparing for what ifs, and using Baird Services helps us to project several different models at a time to anticipate potential changes."

Riley: "The Board also approved services with Sign Here Interpreting for American Sign Language Services. Can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Sign Language Interpreting, we are utilizing their services for student needs and, in doing so, we will bring them on board. It's a great opportunity to provide the services needed, not only for you know a student or students on campus in need, but also it's a great opportunity for our students that are on the periphery, that are gonna be able benefit as well to learn from others on board as to the sign language process and to take that on."

"Just seeing that in action has been a neat experience for us to watch, but yet also certainly utilizing that for the needs of the student. Sign Language Interpreting is a very finite skill, and we're very fortunate to have this company willing to help us out."

Riley: " And of course, the Board did receive some some generous donations again, for the month of September. Can you touch on those?"

Mr. Peterson: "Yes, so very fortunate, such a gracious community that we have. And taking a look down through there, we had Clark County Economic Development that provide a lot of back to school resources. Atmus was giving us various school back supplies would be backpacks and crayons and the like."

"JBC has provided us some money towards our elementary playground. Thank you very much for that monetary donation. Central Wisconsin Girls Basketball League provided us some money towards WBCA memberships, meals, bills."

"Booster Club gave us money towards the softball club, and then Green Lantern also has helped us out with just some basic back to schools as well, with paper towels and disinfectant wipes and Kleenex."

"And we're certainly gracious for anything that's coming our way, because it helps our kids out to have opportunities to be successful. And we're very, very grateful for the donations."

Riley: "Is there anything else and anything else you would like to touch on that we may not have already discussed?"

Mr. Peterson: "One thing, as I briefly alluded to, we have homecoming week next week, so parents and community can be ready for an exciting week, dress up days, certainly the football game as well, to capitalize it as well. But the football game, please remember is on Saturday, so that'll be something to be a little unique."

"And we do have with the football game, a free game set up will be a festivities that are in place through our high school, and we're gonna have a parade coming down through the welcome parade, but please come out and join us for the festivities next week."

"Additionally, we have coming out in mailboxes already, should say in folders, ticket time software, so parents may have received this as well. When we take a look at the pick of time, when they start looking to log on to schedule their October parent teacher conferences, they will be able to sign up and individualize and do that through an online system."

"But if there's any questions, they certainly can call our office, and we will help them through that as well, to make sure that they are getting signed up for their parent teacher conferences, which is right around the corner."

(Photo courtesy of Neillsville School District)

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