Roosevelt and Wilson Earn School Recognition Awards

Roosevelt and Wilson Elementary Schools have been honored as 2019-20 Wisconsin Title I School of Recognition Award recipients by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

Roosevelt was chosen in the “High-Progress School” category and Wilson was selected as a “Beating-the-Odds School.” It is the third time in four years Roosevelt has earned an award, collecting the High-Progress honor in 2017 and 2018. Wilson was selected for an award for the first time in the program’s 18-year history.

Roosevelt was one of 23 schools statewide in the High-Progress category. The award honors schools that fall within the top 10 percent of schools experiencing student growth in reading and mathematics and have achievement gaps that are less than three percentage points between student groups.

Wilson’s award as a “Beating-the-Odds School” honors schools that are in the top 25 percent of high-poverty schools in the state and have above-average student achievement in reading and mathematics when compared to schools from similarly sized districts, schools, grade configurations and poverty levels. Wilson was one of 77 schools statewide in the Beating-the-Odds category.

Both schools achieved “Significantly Exceeds Expectations” ratings on the Wisconsin School Report Cards for 2018-19. Wilson scored a 90.5 and Roosevelt scored at 89.2 to land the highest-possible rating on the report card.

All Wisconsin Title I Schools of Recognition receive federal Title I aid to provide services to high numbers or high percentages of economically disadvantaged children. All Schools of Recognition also meet the state’s test participation, attendance and dropout goals. Data to determine the awards is from the 2018-19 school year. Each school will receive a commemorative plaque.

Neenah Visual Arts Classic Team Wins Regional

A group of 13 Neenah High School students captured first place in a regional competition to qualify for the Wisconsin Art Education Association State Visual Arts Classic. The event is scheduled for April 17 in Madison and may still be done through a virtual competition.

Each student is bringing a long term piece of art they have been working on in response to specific prompts and mediums which will be scored when they get there. They then will each participate in an on-site art making with specific prompts that they do not get until they are at the competition. They have two hours to create a piece that will then get judged and scored. Then the students participate as a team in an art history quiz bowl and they also do a team critical thinking problem solving component. The Neenah team took first place in the quiz bowl and critical thinking component at the regional meet.

Team members are: Jericka Paulson, Kyler Lasee, Rachel Jones, Grace Hagner, Mitchell Liebhauser, Archer Gahl, Autumn Schultz, Melody Wienandt, Jane Rogers, Elizabeth Oakland, Katie Kortbein, Paige Hanson and Kaley Sagataw. The group is advised by Ms. Emma Santiago.

Coenen Named Boys Volleyball Coach

Jake Coenen has been named the head varsity boys volleyball coach at Neenah High School.

Coenen currently serves as Neenah’s head junior varsity boys basketball coach. A Kimberly High School graduate, he was an honorable mention all-conference volleyball player for the Papermakers and played college basketball at UW-Fox Valley and Marian University. Coenen served as the junior varsity boys volleyball coach for the past seven years at Appleton East High School.

Coenen, 30, works full-time as an elementary teacher at Holy Spirit School in Darboy. He comes from a family of former standout Neenah athletes. His father, Steve, was an all-conference basketball player for the Rockets, and his aunt, Laura, was an inaugural inductee of the Neenah Joint School District Hall of Fame for her success in basketball and volleyball.

“This is a real honor and opportunity to be a part of a great high school and community,” Coenen said. “My goals for the volleyball program are to start building this program to the highest level, not only in the FVA, but the state of Wisconsin. I also hope to bring together a family culture and excitement to the boys volleyball program at Neenah High School.”

Coenen replaces Chris Plamann, who resigned after coaching the Rockets for the past six seasons.

Roosevelt Student Wins Carson Scholar Award

Roosevelt Elementary fifth grade student Mae Lauer has been selected as the winner of a $1,000 college scholarship from the Carson Scholars Fund.

The award was made possible by an endowed scholarship donation from former Roosevelt parents Dr. Doug and Kay Horan. The Horan family will honor a Roosevelt student every year. This is the fifth year of the award. The money will be held in an account to gain interest and be awarded to directly to the student’s college of choice following his or her high school graduation.

Mae, the daughter of Andrew and Theresa Lauer, was selected for the award by Roosevelt staff members. The award is based on academics and community service.

The scholarship is named for Dr. Ben Carson, who began the program in 1996 with his wife, Candy. The program awards more than 500 scholarships annually and has awarded more than 8,800 scholarships in its history to students in all 50 states. Carson Scholarship winners have attended more than 700 colleges and universities and have received more than $6.4 million in scholarship funds to help finance their education.

Muraski Selected as Wisconsin Educator of Promise

Shattuck Middle School teacher Sarah Muraski has been one of 60 Educators of Promise by the Wisconsin Department of Instruction. Muraski will have the opportunity to collaborate with all of the winners during a three-day leadership retreat in July at Fort McCoy. The group was selected for having a strong potential for educational and community leadership.

The award recognizes teachers, pupil services directors and administrators from all grade levels for their focus on readiness in learning and leadership. The three-day leadership retreat is led by Wisconsin Army National Guard staff and teacher leaders, who serve as assistant squad leaders. With a goal of growing their ability to lead, attendees engage in hands-on learning, team-building activities, seminars and more.

Muraski is in her third year as a social studies teacher in Neenah. She currently works with gifted and talented students at Shattuck. Muraski split time the past two years between Shattuck and Neenah High School and was a co-advisor for the high school’s National Honor Society. She also organizes costuming for the middle school musical productions.

“Sarah is a kind, compassionate teacher with an energy that is contagious,” Shattuck principal Stephanie Phernetton said. “Students feed off of Sarah’s positivity, whether it be the students working with her in our musical productions, or those in her classroom. Sarah has a true passion for teaching which is evident in all she does.”

The award is presented in collaboration with the Wisconsin Army National Guard, and the Wisconsin Association for Middle Level Education.

Shattuck Robotics Team Qualifies for Worlds

A team of three Shattuck Middle School students qualified for the VEX Robotics IQ Challenge World Championships after a fourth place finish at the state competition. Myah Wenzel, Lexi Dorner, and Julia Rangel earned a spot in the event, which was scheduled to be held in Louisville, Ky, but was canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

It marks the second straight year that Shattuck has had a team qualify for the World Championships. The group is under the guidance of teacher Brian Schalliol. The team won awards at four different meets this year. They won the Excellence Award at two different tournaments and the Judges Award at a third tournament. The Excellence Award is given to the team that shows all-around excellence at the tournament, while the Judges Award is given to the team that the judges feel deserve special recognition for different achievements throughout the season. At state, the team won the Create Award, presented to a team that has a creative design for this year’s challenge.

Robotic skills is a combination of students driving the robot on the competition field to score the most amount of points and the score of an autonomous program that they created to have the robot move the hubs on the competition field into the scoring zone without a human driver.

VEX IQ Challenge Next Level is played on a 4’x8’ rectangular field. Two robots compete in the Teamwork Challenge as an alliance in 60 second-long teamwork matches, working collaboratively to score points. Teams also compete in the Robot Skills Challenge where one robot takes the field to score as many points as possible. These matches consist of Driving Skills Matches, which will be entirely driver controlled, and Programming Skills Matches, which will be autonomous with limited human interaction

Spring Road Receives Healthy Schools Grant

Spring Road Elementary School is one of 25 Wisconsin schools to receive a $2,000 Healthy Schools Grant by the Mission: Health Kids program, a partnership of Children’s Wisconsin and Kohl’s Cares.

Mission: Healthy Kids promotes policy, systems, and environmental changes in schools that improve school community health specifically in the areas of nutrition, physical activity and healthy minds. The grants are designated to help support work surrounding each school’s identified improvement area.

Spring Road will use the grant money to provide mindfulness programs for its families and also purchase chimes, apps and other equipment to promote mental health in its classrooms. Earlier this month, mindfulness speaker Joy Jordan presented to families and the school plans another program in March.

Wellness awards are common at Spring Road. The school has been a recipient of the Department of Public Instruction Wisconsin School Health Award every year in the award’s six-year history. Spring Road also was honored this past year as a first place winner of the Fox Cities Marathon School Challenge for having the most participants in the weekend events.

Five Selected to NJSD Hall of Fame

Five prominent alumni comprise the Neenah Joint School District’s sixth annual Hall of Fame class in 2020. Those inducted, pending Board of Education approval, are Dr. Gary Losse, Todd Patterson, Vern Wollerman, Marti (Schreier) Wronski and Robert Yablon. The group brings the total members of the Hall of Fame to 39.

The inductees were selected by a committee of 15 individuals that included former and current employees and alumni. The Board of Education will vote to formally approve the class at its March 3 meeting. The group will be honored at a banquet on Sat., Sept. 19 at 11:30 a.m. at Best Western Premier Bridgewood Resort Hotel and Conference Center in Neenah as part of the District’s homecoming festivities. Tickets will go on sale in early August.

Losse, a 1967 graduate, was an accomplished three-sport athlete and went on to a prestigious medical career as an orthopedic surgeon. Losse was an all-state quarterback on Neenah’s undefeated team in 1966 and an all-state guard in basketball. His junior year, he led the Rockets to a conference football championship, a state tournament appearance in basketball and a state title game in baseball as a shortstop and pitcher. Losse played two seasons of football at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before knee injuries ended his career. He earned his medical doctorate from UW-Madison and later spent 17 years as the team doctor for the San Diego Chargers. Losse performed one of the first outpatient anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgeries in California and also developed several innovative knee braces and surgical techniques. He died in 2018.

Patterson, a 1974 graduate, has a unique combination of success in athletics and fine arts. He captained the football and wrestling teams and was also active in choir and swing choir. Patterson was a four-year starter in football at Carthage College and earned his degree in biological science. He taught science at Wooster (Ohio) High School from 1978-2013 and coached football, wrestling, soccer and softball. Patterson produced and directed 34 productions of musical theatre and plays and was active in Wooster community performing arts productions. In 1998, he was one of five teachers selected from the U.S., Mexico, England and Bermuda to participate in the JASON Project Expedition IX in Monterey, Calif. Patterson resides in Wooster, Ohio.

Wollerman, a 1942 graduate, was a World War II veteran and returned to his hometown to serve as a longtime police officer and active community member. Wollerman joined the Neenah police force in 1946, serving as chief from 1973-86. He also started the city’s little league baseball program. Wollerman coached all levels of sports in the community and was a WIAA official for 37 years. He served on the Neenah Parks and Rec commission and was a member of Knights of Columbus, Elks Club, Neenah Club and Twin Cities VFW, while serving on the Board of Directors for the Appleton Foxes, Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Neenah/Menasha YMCA. Wollerman helped Neenah to the semifinals of the 1942 state basketball tournament and led the Rockets in scoring at the tournament. He died in 1992.

Wronski, a 1990 graduate, serves as General Counsel and Senior Vice President-Administration for the Milwaukee Brewers. She graduated from St. Norbert College in 1994 and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School in 1997. Wronski worked five years at a Milwaukee law firm and became an assistant professor at Marquette University Law School in 2002. In 2003, she joined the Brewers and still serves as an adjunct professor at Marquette. She gave the commencement address at St. Norbert in 2015 and was a member of the St. Norbert Board of Trustees. Wronski has been a board member for the Milwaukee Children’s Museum, Miracle League Milwaukee and Make-A-Wish Wisconsin. She and her family are known for adopting the Brewers’ newest mascot, Hank the Dog, which has expanded her charitable outreach. In high school, she participated in cheerleading, French Club and yearbook. Wronski resides in Bayside, Wis.

Yablon, a 1995 graduate, was a champion debate student and Rhodes Scholar. He graduated with high honors in 1999 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in political science and economics as one of the top four students in the College of Letters and Science. Yablon graduated from Yale Law School in 2006 and served as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. He worked at a law firm in San Francisco from 2010-14 and has served as a law professor at UW-Madison since 2015. He is active in the Madison community with several service organizations. As a senior, Yablon was valedictorian and helped Neenah become the first school in Wisconsin history to win all three state varsity debate titles in the same year. He resides in Madison.

Nominations for future Hall of Fame classes are accepted through the Neenah Joint School District website. Forms are also available at the District Office. Individuals need to be nominated by November 30 to be considered for the upcoming year. Once an individual is nominated, he or she will be considered every year.

Site Tests Favorable for Potential High School Location

The Neenah Joint School District Board of Education will receive an administrative recommendation to proceed with the purchase of a 217-acre property off County II following a due diligence period that included numerous environmental assessments. All findings were favorable for building a school on the site. The recommendation will occur at the February 18 Board of Education meeting.

The land is the potential site for a new high school that will be considered by voters in a referendum on April 7, 2020. The Board has stated previously it would have pursued the property purchase whether or not a referendum was on the ballot. The District’s offer to purchase the property was accepted on June 14, 2019. There was a 180-day period for due diligence, but the District was granted a 90-day extension because of challenges in securing dates on contractors’ schedules to perform all of the tests.

The property is located near the geographic center of the School District boundary in the Town of Neenah. The Village of Fox Crossing will supply sewer and water to the site. The current landowners are in the process of petitioning the Village for annexation, and after annexing the property, the Village will provide emergency services. Following the purchase of the property for $3.375 million, the District plans to sell a 57-acre property at the intersection of American Drive and Irish Road in Fox Crossing, and that property is expected to sell for more than $3.375 million.

An environmental noise analysis was performed to determine if existing noise conditions would be detrimental to operating a school. The study concluded that all sources of potential excessive noise were captured during the study, and that no noise over 54 decibels was measured during a 15-day period. Additionally, an air quality evaluation concluded that the property has not been impacted by any release of any metal hazardous air pollutants.

An initial environmental site analysis found one record of a 500-gallon unleaded gasoline underground storage tank reported to be still in use. However, an additional investigation determined that the underground gasoline storage tank had been removed previously and was no longer present on the site. Additionally, soil borings performed at the former location of the underground gasoline storage tank determined that there were no petroleum constituents present in the soil samples, and that all levels of petroleum constituents in the groundwater were below regulatory standards. No other recognized environmental conditions were identified on the site.

A total of 16 soil borings were done on site and a wetland delineation was performed by a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Professionally Assured Wetland Delineator. It was determined that there are 20.875 acres of wetland on the property. The District will incorporate the wetlands into its curriculum and the wetlands are not a detriment to building a school.

Pending the Board’s approval, the District plans to close on the property towards the end of the fiscal year in June 2020.

School Board Approves Referendum Question

Residents of the Neenah Joint School District will be asked to consider a $114.9 million referendum on April 7, 2020 to build a new high school.

The ballot resolution was approved at a Board of Education meeting on Dec. 17 by a unanimous vote of the nine-member board.

Along with a new high school, the ballot language also consists of safety and security upgrades throughout the District and a renovation of the existing high school to create an intermediate school for grades 5-6 and a middle school for grades 7-8. In the plan, the 92-year-old Shattuck Middle School would be closed and Horace Mann Middle School would become an elementary school. The annual estimated tax impact for a $100,000 property would be $99 per year for up to 20 years. The new high school would be located on 225 acres the District is in the process of purchasing along Winchester Road (County II) just west of Highway 41.

District voters narrowly rejected a $129.5 million referendum in April 2019 that would have replaced Shattuck with a grades 7-8 middle school, renovated the technology wing at the high school and made infrastructure, safety and security and Americans with Disabilities Act improvements throughout the District. The annual tax impact for last year’s referendum was $167 for a $100,000 property. The vote failed a final count of 6,654-6,156. It was Neenah’s first attempt at a facilities referendum since passing a referendum in 1994.

The plan for this year’s referendum was developed out of four community engagement sessions held throughout the summer. Nearly 300 people attended the sessions and provided feedback regarding six potential long-term master plan pathways. In a recent community survey, 66 percent of all respondents advised the District to pursue a referendum and 62 percent favored the new high school plan.

“We’re thankful to everyone in our community who provided feedback since the last referendum and helped develop this new plan,” Superintendent Dr. Mary Pfeiffer said. “This was truly a community effort and this referendum addresses pressing needs that will support students at every level in our District.”

The scope of the overall project is larger and the tax impact is lower, in part, because of a $47 million commitment by the District to borrow funds through its operating budget. The District had been spending $4.5 million over the past nine years to fund a previously unfunded employee benefits obligation that was negotiated in 2002. That obligation is now fully funded and would have cost District taxpayers about $10 million per year had it not been completed.

The District has continued to increase its annual capital maintenance budget to maintain facilities and is currently budgeting $2.8 million annually. The capital maintenance budget in 2009-10 was $400,000.