Rice Lake Area School District

Rice Lake Area School District

Northern Lakes Regional Academy

Red Cedar School

33 Ann Street

Rice Lake, WI 54868

Northern Lakes Regional Academy Governance Council

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Minutes

I.  Call To Order: The Northern Lakes Regional Academy Governance Council of the Rice Lake School District met in regular session at 7:01 p.m. on Wednesday, July 16, 2014 at the Rice Lake High School library, 30 South Wisconsin Avenue, Rice Lake, Wisconsin, with Andrew Mommsen, Chairperson, presiding.

II.  Roll Call: Present—Jolene Anderson, Jean Havenor, Andrew Mommsen, Dave Myre, Meg Olson, Jeremy Peterson

Absent— Curt Pacholke

III.  Notice of Posting: NLRA Co-Lead Teacher Meg Olson announced the Council hereby finds communication and public notice of the open meeting, as required by section 19.84 of the Wisconsin Statutes, had been properly given by the presiding officer’s designee, Curt Pacholke. Such a notice and agenda to the official newspaper, the Rice Lake Chronotype, to the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, the school district website, and to radio stations WJMC and WAQE, indicating the date, time and place of the meeting and such notice was given more than 24 hours prior to the meeting.

IV.  Approval of 4-30-14 Minutes: Jolene Anderson motioned and Andrew Mommsen seconded to approve minutes. All present approved.

V.  Governance Council Membership:

A.  Staff member transition (action)-- Due to a re-apportioning of duties, Meg will be stepping down from membership on the governance council and will be replaced by Pete Peterson. Jean Havenor motioned and Meg Olson seconded to accept this change. Motion carried.

B.  Other replacements or additional member discussion-- Several names were brought forward as possible additions to the council. Andrew felt it was important to include a parent if possible. Some names that were mentioned were Sue & Todd Pederson, parents of Alex; Bert Richard; Susan Barta; Libby Smith; Eric Kasper; Shannon or Craig Severude; Sarah Hamner, mother of Anna Rose; Linda Thompson. Dave, Andrew, Pete and Jean will each contact a person on this list to attend the next meeting if possible. Pete discussed the future possibility of Zoom conferencing as a means to attract potential members who may not have the ability to attend monthly meetings in person.

VI.  Commendation for Governance Council Members: The council will present some type of commendation to Marcy Minix and Bruce Kaupanger for their service to the council and school. Bruce’s award may be given at a fall event where more people will be in attendance.

VII.  Financial Report of Current Budget: A computerized mill was ordered at a cost of approximately $6,000. Following other expenses for travel and workshops, a balance of $3,500 remained which was used to purchase books, office supplies, and six microprocessing ARDUINO kits. A course combining the use of these kits with fashion may be the foundation of a November event. Next year’s budget will be approximately $44,000. $3,500 is owed to Project Foundry with an additional $1,100 to be paid later. James Lewicki is now officially not under any contract with NLRA.

VIII.  End of Year Student Activities: Dave commented on the work presented by the seniors for their project defense. The school’s project presentation nights had fewer attendees but as the project areas were more spread out, that may not have been entirely accurate. Ninth and tenth graders will move from presenting a final showcase to developing more projects throughout the year. Meg reported that the final day for seniors went very well: they performed community service at the humane society for the morning, went to Roux Park to read personal letters from family and staff; returned to the school for an all-school picnic; attended a program written by the drama students at Northern Star Theater. That evening, June 3rd, graduation was held at Lehman’s in a very meaningful ceremony.

IX.  Staff Development Activities:

A.  June—NLRA was the site of consortium conference. Meg felt the most meaningful result was developing relationships with schools our size, sharing ideas about what does and doesn’t work. All staff attended a three-day conference in Madison sponsored by Project Foundry and three staff attended a PBL conference at Wildlands school in Augusta. Staff also developed the six core values which will be used as part of the grading system beginning next year. NLRA students will going to Wildlands to work on projects and culture building and in the spring, our students will host them using our Makerspace.

B.  July/August—Meg attended a conference in Madison on Genomic Approaches in Bio Sciences. Pete will be going to the Siemens STEM Institute conference in Maryland, the cost to be covered by a fellowship.

X.  Mission & Vision:

A.  School Board Presentation—Pete and Meg presented the Makerspace plan to the board and received positive feedback. Pete is currently looking at two grants for which we might be eligible.

B.  Radio Spot—Larry Brown and Curt Pacholke did an interview at WJMC where Mr. Brown promoted the charter school as a place of high-end learning.

C.  Next Steps—Meetings will be taking place shortly with the Boys and Girls Club and there will be a meeting on August 13 with the city library board regarding their role in the Makerspace concept.

XI.  503C Status Update: Curt was going to look into the application procedure for this but as of yet, has not. The 20 page application has been reduced to 2.5 pages so the process should be much easier. The council decided to move forward with this process once our revised by-laws are in place.

XII.  Schedule Next Meeting: The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, August 21 at 4:00 at NLRA

XIII.  Adjourn: Jolene Anderson motioned and Pete Peterson seconded a motion to adjourn. All present voted aye. The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m.

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Jean Havenor Date