Skip To Main Content
Translate

Superintendent's Message

 

Superintendent Newsletter Winter 2025

Jason Gorst

We are welcoming Derek Evenson as our new facilities manager.  We contract with Dashir Management Company for all of our custodial and maintenance needs.  Derek has been a custodian for several years and I am looking forward to working with him in his new role.  We are working with NEXUS to do a facility assessment this spring that will help us plan for the future. They recently surveyed the staff to better understand various perspectives on our facilities.  Some of the big projects we are looking to take on in the next few years are replacement plans for our boilers, windows, and flooring in some areas of the school.  We are also doing some renovations on our maintenance building to make the space more usable.  We have also heard loud and clear (pun intended) that we need some work on the acoustics in the dome (that echo is loud) and better sound systems down by our football and track area.  We are working to rectify these problems.  

In December we had a snow day followed up by a couple of cold days in January.  The third day off of school must be a virtual learning day in order for us to comply with hours of instruction mandates at the state level.  All other inclement weather days will be virtual days for the remainder of the school year.  The new school calendar is finalized.  Some of the highlights are the addition of a few professional development days throughout the year.  The calendar can be found on our website. 

I am very proud of our elementary staff when it comes to their planning and execution of all things related to Act 20.  Act 20 is a state law that requires schools to assess and support early literacy skills for students in K-3rd grade.  Our staff has done a wonderful job in the preparation for these changes.

Each year we must comply with a financial audit of the school district.  I am pleased to report that the results of our audit were overall very positive.  I appreciate the work our staff puts in to make sure we are utilizing funds appropriately and that we are tracking the use of those funds the way the state directs us to. 

We have partnered with Children’s Wisconsin to create an office space for one of their therapists in our building.  The therapist is here two days per week and meets with students throughout those days.  This helps to remove the barriers of transportation and taking off work for families and makes mental health support more available to our students.  For more information, people may reach out to any of our school counselors.  

Next year we will be moving to 4 days a week in our 4-year-old kindergarten program.  The programming will run Monday through Thursday.  There will be more information coming out in the upcoming weeks.  Please reach out to Mr. Ikert at school with any questions.

Our daycare, which includes Launchpad and Rookie Rockets still has full-time spots available in our infant, toddler, and Rookie Rockets rooms.  Our weekly rate in the infant room is $250.  In the toddler room, the rate is $225, and in Rookie Rockets the weekly rate is $168.75.  Anyone looking for daycare should contact the school at 715-659-3987.

Our Strategic Plan is now up and running on our website at https://www.spencer.k12.wi.us/strategic-plan.  We will have paper copies available in the office later this spring.  Be on the lookout for video updates on the plan on Facebook.  We will also put those videos on the website.  

As one of the measures of our plan, we will be doing an annual survey of parents, community members, staff, and students.  The parent and community member survey will be open through mid-February.  It can be found at the link below, the QR code, or on our website.  Paper copies will be available in the office.  

 

Parent/Guardian and Community Survey

https://tinyurl.com/SpencerRocketsSurvey2025