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February 22, 2010 |
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| For the General Public: This is a list/letter that I have shared with all of our employees and the board. It is a working draft and a great discussion piece for what we are looking to accomplish in the next few years as we lose students due to graduation. WWG FY 2010 Budget Reductions Working List ****REVISED 2/22/10**** District Wide Discontinue a.m. van route in WB $ 1,000 Discontinue WG town route est. $ 6,000 1 less shuttle from WB to WG est. $ 4,500 Loy /Gordy driving an a.m. route est. $ 2,500?? WG cook asst. retirement w/no outside replacement est. $ 9,300 WB food service possibilities est. $11,000?? ECFE reductions with meals / help est. $ 3,000 District wide staff development (reserve $5k for FLY)? est. 1 coach in jr. high VB est. $ 2,400 NWEA cut est. $ 7,000 Comments on this section Transportation cuts are great. But they will change if we get new students on the fringes and have to add a route or a van back. Food service streamlining is nice and a welcome addition to making it all work. Community Ed does need to be streamlined everywhere possible that wont lose us kids to open enrollment. We can be where the other small schools are with 3 coaches for BBB and GBB and VB. Look to see what we can do with fall and spring sports. NWEA can go away and get some more classroom time back. UNLIKE THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS, WE CAN JUST ABOUT BANK ON THE MAJORITY OF THESE FOR CUTS UNLESS WE HAVE CHANGES IN STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS. Walnut Grove Building Retirement est. $40,000 Elementary fte reduction by 50% est. $18,100 Sell Elem Adm time to Red Rock Ridge (If Loy finds other) $ 8,000 Custodian shifting Study Island est. $ 1,400 Office reduction to 1.5 ladies est. $ 8,000 re assign and do not hire additional Sped. Paras Possible para reduction of an overall .5 est. $ 7,000 Comments on this Section Elementary staff will have to continue to be reduced. A major concern is the unfortunate but increasing number of at risk and IEP students. Large sections are more difficult than before. Students need to be prepared for Westbrook in order to make the teachers in WB more successful as well as passing the tests. Mr. Olson is willing to sell time. It will be a matter of putting it all together and selling more of Mr. Woelbers time as well. Keeping administration and the connections here while saving money for the district. As with Westbrook, buildings and grounds in WG are great but make sure everyone is where they need to be and work with peoples schedules. Office can work well with 1.5 during the critical times. Patrons appreciate the good service and now expect it. Paras are needed and the panic comes when they are not there. Make sure to re assign current folks whenever possible vs. bringing in someone new. Westbrook Building Spanish reduction by 25% $ 9,500 Shop reduction by 25% $10,750 Art reduction by 25% $12,000 Ag reduction by 25% $ 9,750 FACS reduction by 25% $10,750 Social Science reduction by 25% $10,750 Band / music reduction by 25% $10,000 Math 3 sections of 7/8 and eliminate sem. overload $ 2,000 Para / lunch asst. (full year cost) $ 9,000 Charger Learning Center scaled back Comments on this Section Is it better to have many suffer a little or a couple to suffer a lot with % cuts. What determines the value of a program. What can we do well with and what can we lose and still have other staff members morph into something similar? In small schools a teacher is valued in the classroom, in extra curriculas and in the community. What % value to we place on each of the trio of qualities? What is the 5 year plan? What do we have to have if / when we have 180 students in WB? The sudden threshold of the need for the schedule to be a 7-12 schedule vs. 2 separate ones for 7-8 and 9-12. Our kids are in good hands so how can we make it work the best for the staff? SUGGESTIONS FOR THE NEXT 1-3 YEARS: EST. $$$ 4 DAY WEEK o Pros: with training it gives the opportunity for HS certified sitters. Money saved according to other schools. Make up snow days immediately. Family vacations more practical. Scheduling appts. There might be an academic advantage with at risk students and those that need make up work. Would have to take a serious look at this the fall of 10 to move forward for 2011 2012. o Cons: Would busses still run for shuttle / practices etc. Longer days or longer year? Can some support staff afford to stay? Daycare issues. ELEMENTARY MUSIC / PHY ED EVERY OTHER DAY (45 MIN) o Pros: Less staffing o Cons: Kids need exercise and kids need the brain stimulation of music more often than every other day. REDUCE AMOUNT OF K-12 MUSIC o Pros: Better room utilization. Other schools have less music in 7/8. Great program but so are the other electives for 7-12. o Cons: Great program has been built over the years. Arts help academics in students. Quality vs. quantity POOL OUR SUPPLIES AND KEEP ORDERS DOWN (CAPITAL OUTLAY) o Pros: Have employees share a list of what they get so there is more of an awareness to share. Gets done a lot but some areas get borrowed from more than others. 7 OR 8 PERIOD DAY VS BLOCK o Pros: Which is cheaper and more user friendly? Which is best for a 7-12? Will we have study halls or not? Will staff feedback will it be considered? More classes for students in 8 period day. o Cons: We need to see which works best for part time staff. Music feels they lose kids to classes and classes feel they lose kids to music. MULTI AGE ROOMS PART OF DAY o Pros: Less ftes with K-6 split in morning and together in p.m. Ok for 7/8 to be together much like 10-12th. o Cons: More IEPs and students that come from at risk families. Not the classrooms of 20 years ago. ABSORB THE ELEMENTARY P.E. FROM WITHIN o Pros: Yes we do not need to hire outside. Good people from within to absorb. Have someone licensed COACHING / SPORTS NUMBERS REVIEWED o Pros: Give timelines to wrestling for upping their numbers. Have all junior high activities have numbers to warrant having a coach / existing. 1 coach for jr. high per sport. Do not reschedule lost non conference BB games. Less non conference games and stop the Marshall trip. All coaches should have Herbie license. Start with 1 less game per year for boys and girls BB over the next 3 years. (Hard to reschedule, kids need sleep and time for homework) We need the State to cut all schools on number of games. Have the 7-12 boys and girls BB play the same night same place with more games. (longer night but 1/3 the travel) (But no varsity practices can be held before the game) Have the boys and girls 7-8 BB travel and play together. FREEZE SALARIES o Pros: Save money. Keep the same pay next year and budget for it. o Cons: better to reduce days if possible. Open up negotiations? INCREASE ALL FEES (SPORTS/PRESCHOOL, ETC.) o Pros: What do other schools charge? We should charge for all activities and not just sports. Drop extra programs and extra curriculas that do not have the numbers. Include the 7/8 in the fees. o Cons: If students cant afford, we absorb anyway. GET SERIOUS ABOUT UTILITIES / HEAT REDUCTION o Pros: Go for 68 degrees and stick with it. Have a sweatshirt bank in each school. Reward employees who can land a grant with a set stipend. Shut off and unplug electronics. CUT WAY BACK ON FUND RAISING / SENIOR TRIP o Pros: Time for the senior trip to end and become a day for all. Fundraising and substitutes add up. Our communities are tired of fundraising. Class of 2011 is the last overnight senior trip. Give the fundraising to the clubs and sports. Have a cafeteria plan for senior trips where they ALL must pick a level of trip such as a day to Shetek, an overnight to Duluth etc. o Cons: Senior trip is a rare experience. SHORTEN THE NUMBER OF TEACHER CONTRACT DAYS AND DEDUCT PAY ACCORDINGLY ($13,250 per day). We need to reserve a total of 4 teacher days for the FLY per year out of our 7. o Pros: Less work for less pay is ok. Helps more people stay put. o Cons: Short term and does not save folks in long run. What about the next year? Open up negotiations. Be sure its all legal with State for minutes etc. if we take student days. Hard on teachers budgets vs. a freeze of what they already have. COMPUTER LABS STAFFING SHIFTS o Cons: Good to have the assistance we have now LIBRARIES STAFFING SHIFTS o Pros: We have good service with great paras in the library. Our librarians are good teachers and could offer more electives. Our librarians can pick up some lost electives with other classes COUNSELOR TIME o Pros: Principals do a lot of scheduling. Some things could be covered in classroom. What do other schools have? Weigh the overall counseling benefit vs. teachers that can put a little more on their plate. o Cons: We dont want kids falling through the cracks FIELD TRIPS K-12 o Pros: Take more together. Have a rotation. Have parents do more travel since they go anyway. Does FFA pay for all their own trips? Not having a senior trip allows clubs more of a chance to fundraise for field trips. o Cons: Some kids in poverty will never see many of these things. SECONDARY BAND / CHOIR EVERY OTHER DAY o Pros: We have a good program but other schools do it. The kids still will have a good music experience. Band and choir needs to be by itself with no classes opposite. o Cons: Possible reductions in concerts and pep band. Practicing every day just like in sports is good. ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS THAT HAVE COME IN Knowledge Bowl could be cut for a 7-12 cost of: We have a lot of extra bussing with WG and WB such as dances, concerts etc. Do we baby some of our students by picking them up near their doors? In area papers, other schools have early retirement incentives do we? Flexibility with licensing and scheduling. Do we have travel budgets that we stick to with FFA / FLA / Sports? Hold community education expenditures to only what it brings in. Kindergarten is full day, if other schools cut back then do we? Drop / freeze all trips and use the fundraising that currently goes on to put back into the school and community good will. Drop a contest from each FFA team. An article or note from Supt. explaining what PSEO is and how much it costs the district. Increase the selling of online programming. More college classes in house. Lets get a small committee of folks 6-8 together to look at the little things that we can save and bank on that for next year. Can we trim 40k? 70k? o Snacks, meals, heat, travel, ???? cut before we trim GRANTWRITING!!!!!!!! THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH! This is a great list with some great suggestions. Next year will be a critical year to see how well the cost saving measures that have been suggested add up and hopefully we dont have to make another $200,000 in cuts! We will see how everything shakes out with our enrollment, our legislature, and our economy. Keep the comments, tweets, calls, texts coming. I always welcome a visit and good conversation. All I ask for is your trust that I will make fair, reasonable recommendations and that I will not let this school go broke. ONE LAST NOTE is that this is tricky stuff! There might be a shift of time from WB to WG and there might be a shift of cutting back in WG and it goes to WB and there is a bump. The administration will be as open and sharing as possible when we get the information. The idea of a survey has been floated but that can be influenced by only a few so I dont know what to think of it. I will bring a narrowed list of recommendations to the board and they will have to make some tough choices. ( I guess we shouldnt have froze their pay 12 yr. ago) |
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January 26, 2010 |
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| Westbrook Walnut Grove All School Reunion Updates January 20, 2010 The picnic tables for the WB park events and the WB Sunday meal after church are ordered. Jim Schmidt and others from WB in charge of tables and tents. The 2 tents for the WB park and 2 tents for the WB school are ordered. The portable toilets are ordered for WB. The caterer is lined up for the Sunday meal following service in WB. Mailings have been sent to WB and WWG alumni. Lost the computerized database for Walnut Grove and re entering information is underway. Next years seniors will design a t shirt for the reunion. Current and retired teachers will host a teacher tea in both Westbrook and Walnut Grove Saturday morning. Both Westbrook and Walnut Grove Schools will be open Saturday from 8 4 p.m. for visiting and touring. The Westbrook Firemen are hosting a waffle feed on Sunday morning opposite of the church meal to handle the non alumni, out of town guests. The Westbrook Area Volunteers (WAV) and the Westbrook Womens club will still conduct their annual events including kid games, bean bag and volleyball tourneys, karaoke, beer garden, and fireworks. Thursday night, the Westbrook Kiwanis will hold their annual Night of Praise service after the hospital appreciation meal to kick off the weekend for both communities. Friday night will be a street dance in Westbrook. Rain location is the Westbrook Community Center. Saturday night there is a desire to have some additional entertainment in the Westbrook Community Center to give an alternative to the Karaoke in the tent. Looking for a nice locally connected group to come in _________________??? We need people for taking pictures in each school on Saturday morning and selling 5X7 classes etc. Westbrook???_____________________________ Walnut Grove???___________________________ The WWG class of 2011 will have a whopper feed in the Walnut Grove School for alumni and anyone else. Hosts for each building sitting by the gyms that know a lot of folks and will be social butterflies for the class gatherings Saturday morning. We will have a Logger, Wildcat, Charger Ecumenical Service at the Westbrook Gymnasium on Sunday. The Madson families of Westbrook have volunteered to take charge of the service! We need to line up the choir director?____________ We need to make sure we have enough food vendors in Westbrook and Walnut Grove We need folks to help make packets (schedule, tickets for Sunday meal, t-shirt order forms, class photo orders) for all attendees. A few of our Charger alumni have been suggested and will be contacted. Pam (Horkey) Hogan, Megan (Jans) Wiborg, Brittany Nelson, Molly (Bertschi) Kimball, Sue (Doubler) Herding, and Manda Amundson as well as others. Superintendent Loy Woelber will give a brief speech and dinner prayer at the picnic following the Sunday ecumenical service. There is a Veterans Memorial dedication service at the Westbrook Park on Sunday afternoon. Our next meeting for all willing to help out will be at the St. Olaf Church on Monday February 15th at 6:00 p.m. Notes: |
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January 22, 2010 |
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| Westbrook Walnut Grove Schools State of the School Address January 18, 2010 I. We have a great school with great people working here taking care of and educating great kids. We have a great place to hang our hats! II. Current financial status a. We have a good fund balance with the amount most recently recommended by our auditor. Our unreserved / undesignated fund is $1.3 million = about 3 months of operating. This is very nice but with the State borrowing money from us it may get very tight and we may have to borrow money and pay interest on the money that the State is borrowing interest free. b. We passed a referendum that will bring in about $110,000 next year and then slowly decrease by $700 per pupil unit (about $10-15k each year as enrollment goes down). This levy is in place for 10 years. c. We made small cuts two years ago for the first time since 1999. This year the cuts were noticeable but not taking programs away. d. It does not look like we are going to get any funding increases including our referendum for the next 5-7 years. III. Looking ahead a. This years revised budget is in the red and will drop our fund balance $46,470. If everything (State) stayed the same next year as this year, it stands to reason that we would lose that again. b. Next year well drop 25 students at $9,000 each ($225,000) c. Next year the raises for all employees at 2.25% will be $18,635 for support staff and $52,136 for teachers for a total of $70,771. d. Next year the referendum will soften the blow by $110,000. e. Next year if any one eligible to retire does its a total package of $59,600 of which 2/3 of that $39,733 would be saved next year with a severance payment in January. f. Prior year loss of $46,470 + student loss money of $225,000 + employee raises of $70,771 = $342,241 taken away from fund balance. BUT referendum increase is $110,000 + retirement of $39,733 saves $149,733. TOTAL LOSS TO FUND BALANCE IS $192,508. g. I will ask Bill and Paul to take a look at their staff and make recommendations of areas to reduce as we fall back to enrollment levels of 7-9 years ago. I asked them to set a target of $100,000 for each building. I will look to see what can be saved in the areas of community education, food service, and transportation. I would love to avoid cutting any one person. I will put out feelers to see if there is anyone looking to share our staff as well. I will come up with my own ideas of cuts for each building and we will get board feedback at a public session before any formal action is taken. h. IF the State decides to penalize us even further by making actual education cuts then we would look at even larger reductions. i. These cuts for July of 2010 are deep and unfortunately we will have to repeat this process for July of 2011 as well as July of 2012. j. The flexible learning year is a good idea and worth trying something new. i. The districts will be held accountable with their test scores. If they dont show noticeable increase after 3 years it wont continue. ii. I am guessing that 24 of the 28 districts will move forward. k. I feel one area that I hope we can make better around here is staff development. We have been very good about attending all things requested but I dont have much to report. I would love to have a staff member from each building come forward and say well run this Next year holds some neat things with Doug Lee doing a web conference with other shop teachers bragging how his houses have no lost tools in the walls as well as Tina sharing with other art teachers. l. At the same time we can cut staff development and save on part of a job. I am asking Bill and Paul to get me a list of the essentials the staff development that are annual must haves etc. If we can take a year off from extra workshops that would help a lot. m. Its tough out there I must admit but we are very blessed when we look around the world and many of our neighborhoods. I welcome any suggestions that you may have and we will make it through and try to keep our family together for another year. Some of you may not be full time but I hope we can keep you here. The board will have the final say and the administration will do their best to bring solutions to them. Thanks for all you do and well get through this! Loy Woelber Page 2 |
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January 07, 2010 |
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| Greetings, We have our first blizzard of the year going strong this morning. This is our second snow day of the year and it seems that this year we'll have more. It's been over 10 years since we've had this kind of weather and it's good for the students to have some memories of what "tough weather" is. I am including a letter that will be in the paper giving a brief explanation for why a large group of SW MN school districts are looking at a "common school calendar" for the next three years. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me at lwoelber@mntm.org or call me at 507-828-6608. Flexible Learning Year Dear Parents/Guardians, A group of twenty eight school districts in southwest Minnesota have been meeting regularly to discuss how we can do a better job of sharing services and improve the educational programs for the students we educate. It was determined that great benefits could be yielded if a system was created that: added student teacher contact days prior to these key April test dates; improved the professional development we are delivering to our teachers; as well as increasing cost effectiveness for our districts. It was determined that our schools must be allowed a flexible learning year to meet these objectives. Last spring, a flexible learning year application was submitted to the Commissioner of Education by thirteen school districts. Due to time constraints, the commissioner did not move forward with our application. The commissioner did strongly encourage this consortium of districts to reapply during this school year with improvements to their application and the commissioners staff to do a fair review. Since then the interested districts have grown from thirteen to twenty eight. If approved, our school year calendar would look very similar to other calendars, but would have an August 23rd start date and approximately a May 20th end date. This proposed change in the WWG school calendar would allow between seven to ten more instructional days prior to the high stakes MCA IIs, GRAD, ACT and AP exam dates. It would also provide improved professional development opportunities for teachers. The district is not adding more than the already scheduled 175 student contact days to our school calendar. In later August, student energy level is higher as they are anxious and eager to start school. A majority of our high school students are already actively participating in MSHSL fall activities at this time. We strongly believe that schools are missing out on these high impact teaching days that occur in late August and would love to trade them for the less impactful student days that are after the April high stakes tests, those days occurring in late May or early June. If the flexible learning year application is approved, our school will work cooperatively with students and families with State Fair commitments just as we used to years ago. This calendar change may be beneficial to graduating seniors by allowing up to two more weeks to work over the summer before they head off to a post-secondary school. This flexible learning year calendar allows schools to build into their school calendar meaningful staff development days that occur within the school year instead of being lumped at its beginning and end. These staff development days would improve professional development delivered to staff. Currently, the common practice is for school districts to work independently instead of cooperatively. Working cooperatively will allow schools to share expenses incurred for presenters as well as provide training specifically for each teachers subject matter. For example, WWG has 2.5 high school science teachers; providing professional development for them could be improved if their professional development was designed specifically for teachers of science and with the joint efforts of southwest Minnesota schools. For more information, a power point presentation regarding this flexible learning year application is available at our service cooperatives website at www.swsc.org/flexiblelearning As part of our districts request to the Commissioner of Education to have a flexible learning year program, the WWG School District needs to conduct three (3) community meetings. These meetings will allow for questions and answers and are scheduled to be held at the Westbrook and Walnut Grove buildings. Each meeting will cover the same content, most of which is included in the power point presentation. These meetings are made available at different times to provide flexibility that one will work within your busy schedule. Community meeting dates and times are: Monday January 4, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. in Westbrook Monday January 11, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. in Walnut Grove Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. in Westbrook If none of these meeting dates will fit your schedule, please dont hesitate to contact me at 507-828-6608 to set up a time to meet. Thank you for your support Loy Woelber Superintendent Westbrook Walnut Grove Public Schools Below is a list of the twenty eight school districts that are seeking this flexible learning year application: ADRIAN, BREWSTER, CANBY, CEDAR MOUNTAIN, COMFREY, EDGERTON, FULDA, HENDRICKS, HILLS-BEAVER CREEK, IVANHOE, JACKSON COUNTY CENTRAL, LAKEVIEW, LUVERNE, LYND, MARSHALL, MILROY, MINNEOTA, MOUNTAIN LAKE, PIPESTONE AREA, REDWOOD AREA, ROUND LAKE, RTR, SLEEPY EYE, SPRINGFIELD, TRACY AREA, WESTBROOK-WALNUT GROVE, WINDOM, WORTHINGTON |
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December 21, 2009 |
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| Charger Notes Greetings from WWG School, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We have a lot to be thankful for in our corner of the World and I hope that you are able to brighten someones day over the holidays. A few updates: We approved our levy this week. It will be higher due to the excess levy referendum that you graciously approved last month. We heard from our auditor this week. The very good news is that our fund balance increased last year due to some reductions and a rebound in a few students from previous budget projections. The coming concerns revolve around no help any time soon from the State and the fact that we are graduating classes of 45-55 in the next 3 years and are bringing in classes to the elementary of 20-30. We are very fortunate to have a good fund balance. It gives us a little breathing room for when the State delays funding to us. We do not have to borrow money like a majority of the schools in the State just to cash flow. The other reason to have a good fund balance is that it allows us to whittle away at it and not have drastic cuts but instead reduce as folks retire. We approved a revised budget this week. The good news is that the bad news is that we will continue to lose students due to larger classes graduating than classes coming in. I will continue to explore options to bring in revenue as well as finding reductions that that dont cripple our programs. BLEACHERS, yes, the wonderful Westbrook bleachers that are in the top 3 in SW MN for being comfortable thanks to the backrests. The bleachers are 35 years old and are getting very tough underneath. Of course the wood is wonderful but the frames are bent and worn. We have gone from one person putting them away to a crew of able bodied folks. I am going to find out if there is a way to revamp the frame and weigh that against getting new ones like the set in Walnut Grove (with backrests of course). The bad news is that the price of bleachers has doubled in the past 8 years. A new set that is motorized for Westbrook will be in the area of $100,000. No matter what we do it will cost money but our gym is the center of our school and community! We need to keep it the best! I am confident that we can get the funding needed for the project from the Westbrook Education Foundation, having family plaques much like we did in Walnut Grove and using some district funds. Ideas are welcome and I will keep everyone informed every step of the way. Monday evening January 18th we will have our second all school reunion meeting in Westbrook. We are looking for folks that will head up various committees such as: 1. Friday night entertainment in WG and WB for the folks that do not want the street dance in WB. 2. Saturday night entertainment in WG and WB for the folks that do not care to be in the WB park. 3. The Sunday meal in WB after the ecumenical service at the school. 4. The open house and meal in WG Saturday at the school. 5. The open house Saturday at the Westbrook School. 6. A person to be in charge of a crew to set up / take down 3 tents and many picnic tables. |
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November 30, 2009 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools, I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We are a couple weeks into the second quarter and the students are doing great! We wrapped up the fall season last week with the conclusion of our annual fall musical. We had a lot of great experiences with our sports and the arts and I look forward to seeing many good things happening throughout the winter. We are continuing to retool our central office and will look to hire a finance director to replace Russ Widman who had been with our district for 28 years before leaving at the end of August. School finance is a very complicated issue in MN and I hope to get a great person on board to assist me with continuing the great fiscal responsibility we have demonstrated over the years. I continue to have a good experience serving this district as well as the Lake Benton School district on Wednesdays. I'm looking forward to a great Christmas season. Thanks for your support, Loy Woelber |
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November 05, 2009 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools! A big congrats to all of you and to all of us for passing the operating referendum this week. I am pleased to report that the referendum passed with 81% of our voters saying yes! I was also very pleased that it had the same percentages in both the Westbrook and Walnut Grove communities. I appreciate the great turnout and will continue to work to keep this school district a community that we can all be very proud of! Thanks again for all the support, Loy Woelber, Superintendent |
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October 25, 2009 |
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| October 25, 2009 Greetings from WWG Schools, I think we all know the feeling in the gut when the officer comes over the hill when you are going 70 miles an hour or when you are 3 hours from home and are sure you left the stove on. Well folks, take that crappy feeling and have it last for 2-6 weeks and youll realize what our farmers are feeling. It has the ability to eat away at you when youve had a couple good years of crops and then wham this could be one of the 3 longer harvest seasons since 1968. There is so much at stake when you have to make the payments on equipment, chemicals and rent. Last week a wise man at Kiwanis put much of this in perspective when he said we have GPS on our tractors, tracks on our combines and agronomists at our beck and call. Yet the amount of corn and beans taken out of a field still depends on what God allows us to take out. Farming is the reason there is a Westbrook / Revere / Dovray / Walnut Grove. We all have our own lives to worry about but yet this is one year when I have had many folks and especially our teachers asking me about how its going in the field and how my farmer connections are doing. Since coming to WWG in 2001 we have always had great negotiations with our teachers. To no surprise to me we were one of the early districts finished this fall because the staff wanted everything settled before the election and they wanted a settlement that was in the lower to middle of other schools in the region. As we enter the month of Thanksgiving in one of the most turbulent years of our kids lives let us take time to remember our agricultural community and the businesses that depend on them. Take time to pray, meditate, light a candle, whatever you choose. The kids in our schools deserve to have as good of childhood as most of us had. These small schools are proud to be a 2nd family to the kids but we need everyones help in making it work. Remember to vote on November 3rd from 12-8 p.m. at your respective school on the referendum. If you need any help getting there or advice on which box to check you can call me at 507 828 6608. Thanks and have a dry November. |
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October 14, 2009 |
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| Greetings from WWG School, We just mailed out the notices to all property owners in the district regarding our upcoming levy referendum. We are proposing to cancel our existing $500 per pupil levy and replace with a $700 per pupil. We are losing enrollment at a fairly rapid pace the next couple years and need a bump to keep our programs intact. By voting yes this will increase taxes on a $50,000 house by about $21. A $100,000 house would see an increase of about $42. Please contact me with any questions you may have. To be honest, this amount will not carry us for a long period of time if the State does not step up to the plate and make some changes for assisting rural schools. We will continue to do all we can to make this school run as well as it has for the past many, many years. Thanks Loy Woelber |
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September 15, 2009 |
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| WWG School #2898 Questions / Comments on the Upcoming School Referendum? Please join us for snacks and a discussion on why we are having the referendum and how it impacts our school. Westbrook Monday September 21st at 6:00 p.m. Westbrook BOLT room Walnut Grove Monday October 19th at 6:00 p.m. Walnut Grove School History Center PLEASE REMEMBER TO VOTE ON NOVEMBER 3RD AT THE SCHOOL IN WG OR WB. |
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September 04, 2009 |
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| Greetings to everyone in WWG and beyond. |
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September 04, 2009 |
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| Greetings to everyone in WWG and beyond. I wanted to quickly report before the weekend that I am very pleased with how the employee inservice went this week and how ready everyone is for the beginning of school. We have went through many expected and some unexpected changes this summer and I feel that we have a well oiled machine! The employees have been very flexible and the new staff are feeling right at home. After the first week of school I will have a few more details on our enrollments and class schedules. We are all part of a pretty wonderful district! Have a great labor day weekend. Loy Woelber, Superintendent |
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August 08, 2009 |
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| WWG School and Election Referendum Updates 8/9/09 I. We are going into a new fiscal year on good financial footing. I am well aware that I often paint a conservative and at times (gloom and doom) picture for our school. But I want to point out that it is often to keep all of us including me aware of what could be. Many, if not most of you have not had a taste of statutory operating debt or forced consolidation or even a split community that got kinda nasty over close the building vs. you are traitors for turning your back on your alma mater. Well I am lucky to have experienced all except borrowing money.. until now in Lake Benton. I do not want WWG to experience what I have had to go through in years past. Lets celebrate! We finished the 2008 2009 school year with a preliminary total fund balance of $1,580,462. This is good news considering we made minimal cuts and started the year with a fund balance of $1,204,810. At the end of June 07 we were $1,333,708 and the end of June 06 we were $1,626,207. The year prior we were at $516,878. It changes fast and as you can see we have finished a year in which our last big class left and we are beginning a downward trend. This is why we made substantial cuts for this year and hope to stay ahead of the enrollment decline. II. The WG main boiler discussion made the front page in the paper and I have found out a few more prices. The first was to remove the burner, repair the boiler and remount the burner ($5,200). The second was to install a new boiler with all costs included except for the removal of the old one at ($69,400). I would need to get a second price on that one to see if its in the ballpark. Of course it would also cost another $5,000 to move the newer burner to Westbrook. Lots of money but well know more if there are other prices to compare to. III. More great news came out of our Westbrook Education Foundation! They recently received a check for $11,000 from the Maylen and Alyce Peterson estate. The group continued its focus on beefing up technology in our schools and purchased 3 projectors and 4 SMARTBOARDS, and a few graphing calculators with most of the money. The students are moving faster than the adults and this will go a long way in catching up to them and their learning styles. A big thanks to the Ed Foundation in Westbrook from everyone at WWG! IV. Ive had some initial feedback from the letters that I distributed around town and had in the paper regarding the upcoming referendum in November. One point to clarify is that the State gives us 66% of the money we ask for up to $700 per pupil no matter what. If the election fails the State still gives us 66% of the $500 per pupil that we currently have. If it passes, the State will give us 66% of the $700 that we are asking for. The board is being as conservative as possible by only going with $700 because an amount over that will net a lower % of State help. I will be distributing around the towns a packet that will show an estimate of the impact that voting yes will have on your taxes. If you have a tax value on your home of $50,000 your taxes would increase about $20 per year. If your home is valued at $100,000 your taxes would increase about $40 per year. I know this may not seem like much but we all understand that every dollar counts these days and we the board of WWG want to make it easier for everyone to get on board and support the school! I will also have a sheet that shows how WWG compares with our neighbors and I believe youll all be pleased to find that we are amongst the lowest in the region and the State even after it passes! I want you to all remember that we have spent close to 1 million dollars improving our facilities thanks to a Federal renovation grant in 2002 and an estate gift in 2004. Our facilities are great for years to come! Please be sure to contact me to come to your group / club or to explain it to you personally. I want to send a big message to the State and others about the support that all of you have for our schools! I want this passed at 90%! Thanks, Loy Woelber, Superintendent |
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July 20, 2009 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools Middle of Summer updates At our June board meeting we voted to increase our $500 per pupil levy to $700 per pupil. I had written earlier about the need to increase due to our declining enrollment and our building maintenance costs. Even though our neighboring districts all have levies from $700 - $1,900 per pupil we felt this was not the time to ask for more. We will make adjustments and make it work! o AN OPERATING LEVY REFERENDUM PUTS EVERY HOMEOWNER ON EQUAL FOOTING. YOU SUPPORT THE SCHOOL BASED ON YOUR HOUSE, GARAGE, AND 1 ACRE. The only vote that affects farm land differently is bond votes when a school chooses to build. o WE WILL ASK ALL OF YOU TO REVOKE THE $500 AND REPLACE IT WITH $700 PER PUPIL. The State of MN helps every school that chooses to have a referendum. Because of our high percentage of free and reduced meals, the State helps us more than many of our neighbors. o BY VOTING YES TO HELP THE SCHOOL WITH $700, THE STATE WILL PAY 65% OF IT AND YOU THE TAXPAYERS WILL PAY THE OTHER 35%. If you vote no on the referendum the State will not pay any way. In order to get more aid from the State, the voters must support the fact that theyll pay their 35% in order to get the 65% from the State. As you may have heard, we will be starting school on September 8th this fall. Fall sports will be up and running with practices beginning on August 10th. We have formally made the move to pair with Tracy Milroy Balaton in Wrestling for next year. Most practices will be held in Tracy. Mr. Olson will have youth wrestling practices in Walnut Grove. We will continue to pair with TMB in soccer as well. I hope to have the bus routes ready by the end of the month. We should be able to reduce a rural route in Westbrook this year which would leave both Westbrook and Walnut Grove with 3 country routes. We will be able to have a few students that live on the fringes picked up by a van in order to save time and wear and tear on the busses. Our new bus has arrived and will be used for trips and be kept off the routes in order to save on its wear and tear. We hired a Special Ed teacher and a High School Paraprofessional this summer. We have all our staff together and I believe we are sitting in good shape heading into August. The Westbrook offices have been scaled back with Russ and Jane at part time but please do not give up, we are here! Dixie is wrapping up summer rec schedules and Friday activities. The fitness centers look great and we continue to be a model for other schools/communities trying to get one going. I will be at Lake Benton every Wednesday and you can still email me at the same address and call the same cell phone number. |
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June 23, 2009 |
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| WWG # 2898 School Board Highlights for 6/22/09 Regarding the decision from the Dept of Ed on the early start, Dixie or I will email / call all of you the minute I find out about the school calendar. We did approve having a four day weekend over Labor Day if we start early. Tabled approving the Health and Safety attachment 99 Clarified the previous meetings discussion regarding some teachers penalizing students for being absent with school events. Handbook states that students cannot have their grade penalized. Checked with attorney and verified. Support Staff increases for 09 10 were tabled pending the teacher settlement. Approved selling Supt. Woelbers services 50 days to Lake Benton for Supt. time and 22 days to the Service Coop as a substitute administrator for the Windom ALC/SettingIV/Daytreatment school. Board also approved buying back 20 vacation days from Woelber. Approved a 2 year contract with no salary increase. Approved a preliminary budget with Revenues of $5,686,137 and expenditures of $5,644,237 for a positive figure of $41,900. We made around $314,700 in cuts for next year. We are staying ahead of the curve but cannot afford cuts like that again until the staff retirements start happening. The aid payment withholding next year of $1,000,000 should be able to be borrowed from our general fund. By having a healthy fund balance we are saving $40,000 in interest payments. We chose to increase our operating levy referendum in November from $500 per pupil to $700 per pupil. We took into account factors including our healthy fund balance, the stimulus money the next couple years, upcoming retirements and the current strain on our local taxpayers with the economic conditions. With the passage of the referendum we would still be one of the lowest levied schools in the region. We will have our audit performed by Eide Bailey for the 08-09 school year. We will postpone joining MREA until we actually get the invoice. We declared a bunch of books surplus in Walnut Grove. They will go to other schools. We approved the annual Title application as submitted by Paul Olson. We have an increase of $22,000. We hired Lori Lee from Westbrook to assume the additional special education position we needed in the Westbrook building. We approved the coaching hires of Steve Leboutilier as 7&8 boys basketball, Pat Merrick as asst boys basketball and Dan Peterson as 7&8 football. We approved our annual property insurance and workmans compensation insurance for the new year. Supt. report included the report of buying a new copier for the secondary office, getting the bathroom stalls finished in WG, and selling the 2 surplus busses for $750 each. We also decided to put in a used condensing unit and air condition the library / computer lab for $1,000 over the cost of an air handling unit to cool the area. Secondary Principal report included the Magnet Arts report, the schedule and room arrangements being tweaked. Test scores were reported as well as a great graduation. Elementary Principal report included Title grant reporting, summer lunch program update, science room cleanup and preparation for preschool. |
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June 18, 2009 |
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| Westbrook Walnut Grove District # 2898 To: Members of the School Board From: Loy J. Woelber, Superintendent Subject: Agenda for the regular School Board meeting Location: June 22, 2009 in the WG Board Room at 7:00 p.m. Tim Gene and Marv at 5:30 with Negotiations for all Members present: ________________________________________________________ Members absent: ________________________________________________________ Guests: Agenda I. Call meeting to order II. Correction and approval of previous meeting(s) III. Amend / approve agenda IV. Consideration of claims and accounts V. Visitor reports / comments: A. B. VI. Old business A. Legislation report B. Class trip presentation from upcoming seniors C. School calendar update. School to start on the ____________________. Alter early school start to have no school on Sept 7th to allow for a 4 day weekend and replace it with having school on Friday May 21st. VII. New business A. Approve annual attachment 99 for Health and Safety. B. Support staff increase for 2009 2010 ______________. C. Attendance policy and absent students for school events. (attachment a) D. Call for quotes on bread, milk for 2009 - 2010. E. Approval of selling 50 days of Supt Woelbers time to the Lake Benton School District for 2009 2010 school year to serve as Superintendent. ($20,000). Conferences / workshops to be billed back at prorated amount to Lake Benton on top of daily rate. F. Approval of selling 22 days of Supt Woelbers time to the Southwest / West Central Service Coop as a substitute administrator at the Windom ALC/Setting IV/Day Treatment School. ($8,800) G. Approve contract with Supt Woelber for the 09 10 school year. Purchase back extra vacation days and no % increase in salary. H. Approve preliminary budget for 09 10 School year. i. Revenues of ________________________________. ii. Expenditures of _____________________________. iii. Cuts of __________________________________ 1. Administration 2. Health insurance contributions 3. Transportation 4. Teachers 5. Support Staff 6. Athletics 7. Early Childhood 8. Food Service 9. Capital Outlay iv. Increased expenditures of ______________________ 1. Sped 2. Staff salaries 3. Shuttle busses 4. I. Set excess levy referendum amount at _____________ per pupil for the November election. J. 08 09 audit recommendation to use Eide Bailey. K. MREA membership for 2009 2010 (______). L. Approve TMB and WWG wrestling pairing agreement for 09 - 10 M. Declare surplus books in Walnut Grove. N. Approve annual NCLB Consolidated Application for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (Title) as prepared by Mr. Paul Olson. O. P. Q. VIII. Mr. Woelber and District Report A. Buildings and grounds going well (copier, sidewalk, bathrooms) B. Transportation (both surplus busses sold for $750 each)(new trailers $3500-$4500) used ones hard to find. 6 or 7 by 14. C. Food Service (summer lunch program going well) D. BOLT report E. Community Education (Food and art market in WG has begun again) F. Employee updates G. Collaborative report. H. INTEGRATION HANDOUT FOR 07-08 I. ELL J. Wrestling meeting with Tracy Area K. Thank you from Deb Berg family (mother) IX. Mr. Olson and Walnut Grove Site A. Schedule B. Staffing C. Students D. Events / extracurricular events E. Other X. Mr. Richards and Westbrook Site A. Schedule B. Staffing C. Students D. Events / extracurricular events E. Other XI. Additional Reports XII. Adjournment |
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June 10, 2009 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools! It rained!!!! Halleluiah it rained! I think I know what God was up to. He was so distracted with all the stuff (economy, Korea, etc.) that he forgot to turn the sprinkler on for all of us wonderful folks in SW MN. I hope the churches were full of smiling faces yesterday! Of course I could say that I was thinking about just not asking for a levy increase with the dry weather but since it rained well sock it to ya. We are still going to be looking at a levy increase from $500 per student to an amount to be determined not to exceed $1,000 per student. We understand that every dollar counts in these tough times and we realize that no matter what amount we raise there will still be staff reductions due to our larger class sizes graduating. Next year is our last class in the 50s and we hope to have 5 classes yet in the 40s. The rest of the classes are in the 30s and we are planning accordingly. We also understand the fact that this district has 3 buildings to heat and maintain. I hope that we have proven to you over the past decade that this district uses your money wisely and offers a great well rounded education to its students. With that in mind we are making progress on our changes with the K-6 and the 7-12. We switched classrooms on the last day of school and it only took 4 trailers in 4 hours! The students were wonderful with helping and I appreciate the fact that we live in an area where the kids dont mind rolling up their sleeves and helping out without being forced to. We have made minimal reductions in our teaching staff and are working on the reductions in our central office. I believe we have it worked out for the reductions of Russ Widman and Jane Hass to � time in the finance and payroll side and I believe that I have a couple other arrangements figured out to reduce my cost to the district by farming myself out to a couple other places. I believe that we will also be able to reduce a bus route for next year. I am focusing on these areas now before we have to move on to reductions in our electives. Im still hoping that well get a few new kids showing up on the first day of school! I am hopeful that the Governor will not actually cut our funding. I guess its odd that I am hoping for a simple freeze. I believe that we will make the States budget look better by payment shifts to schools. Next fiscal year of July 1st to June 30, 2010 we would normally get 100% of the money owed to us for the students we are educating. In tough times though, the State borrows some of our money to make the books look better and give it to us the following year. What I understand will happen is that the State will give us about 73% of the total pot throughout the next school year. After July 1, 2010 they will give us the remaining 27%. They would then do the same the following year. Technically we get our money but the districts that do not have a savings account for these situations would have to borrow money to get through the year. WWG has a fund balance that can handle this for a year or two but well need the help with more levy money from all of you. Its tricky that I and all local Govt. folks have to ask everyone for extra tax help but yet we dont raise taxes statewide. I personally would rather tax all clothing like South Dakota does and let folks choose what they buy. There are a lot of out of state folks buying clothes in the Metro that could be helping my school out instead of putting it on property taxes. Its easy for me to talk though with all of my clothes coming from the clearance rack at Shopko and Target but it seems that it would be spread out more and give us choices. As always if you have any comments please feel free to email me at lwoelber@mntm.org or go to the website and comment or call me from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. at (507) 828 6608. Have a great rest of June! |
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May 25, 2009 |
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| May 25, 2009 Employee / Community Updates: Good day to all of you and I sure hope you all had a great weekend with the beautiful weather. I have a few updates and a brief report from the board meeting last week. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or items that I can help to clarify. As you may have heard the board approved moving forward with 14 others schools in SW MN to asking for a flexible learning year. We will have the same number of student days but would start earlier (August 24th). A suggestion was brought up the other night to have a 4 day weekend over Labor Day and I believe that can be worked out. I will pass that on to the board to have Friday September 4th off and instead end school on Friday May 21, 2010. I would appreciate a reply to this idea. Another big item that came up at last weeks board meeting was student absences due to school activities. It began when we talked about the calendar and the State Fair. It then became apparent that we have some staff that do not penalize a student at all for being on a band / FFA / Golf excursion and some that do. A teacher at the meeting gave an example of giving a possible 4 participation points every day. When a student is at a band outing they are deducted some of those points. I would encourage everyone to get feedback to the Principals so they have a clear message for the board to understand. I understand that there is extra work involved for a student that is gone. Id like to put this one to rest. Last week the administration met with Ann Wendorf of Windom. She is the building leader for the alternative school center, the level IV behavior center, and the area Day Treatment center. We are looking at starting a middle school at risk program in WB for our 7th and 8th grade students. A definition is a student (non IEP) that is in risk of failing or quitting school. We have a few that fit this and this could be another way to help. We would have to provide some pullout time for this group but in year 2 we would get money from the State to have after school tutoring and free summer school. More later. We have the trailers ready for our Friday frenzy of classroom shuffles. I think well have about 6 so there should be plenty of things moved to ease the transition. Im hearing good reports from the community! We discussed the proposed levy request for an increase. The November election is approaching and we will need to increase our revenue per pupil from $500 per students to ??? We looked at a level of $700 and a level of $1,000. To double the amount per student would more than double the taxpayers school portion. This could get a little tricky but we will soon decide on a target. I have a couple different opportunities that I am exploring for next year in order to save on our administrative costs. Balaton ends June 30th and I hope to find something to fill that void. I will not be around tomorrow. I have a run to Pipestone in the morning and then to Marshall and Balaton for the afternoon and evening. Wednesday Friday look good for being around. I will talk to Bill and Paul to see if well have everyone together on Monday June 1st. A big high five to Aalex Kells and Colby Pack for all they have done with our kids in Walnut Grove. Please take the time to shoot them an email or a call. Thanks for your efforts this year, LJW |
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May 14, 2009 |
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| Good morning, I received a call from my connection in the cities and I believe I will be able to acquire for free 9 more file cabinets (the three foot wide white ones with doors like in Dixie office/Karens copy room/WG work room. Let me know by Wednesday who needs one for next year and let me know if you are swapping out regular file cabinets for it. My goal is to continue to rid our school of clutter with old shelves etc. I believe we are going to have excess stuff from here on out. I think we should focus on having the best and getting rid of the marginal. I believe we have enough desks now for the 7-12 with the multiple rooms coming to WB of furniture. We do have tables that seat two students but are kind of bulky / loose formica. If I dont hear much on them we will dismantle a few this summer. I have 4-6 trailers lined up and reserved for the last day of school to make the move with furniture. We should be able to move most of it. We should have vehicles covered with 2-3 school pickups, a school van, a Stan pickup, a Dale pickup, and a Loy pickup. Drivers of Loy, Stan or Rick, Jeff or Dale, and a couple bus driver subs. It would be good to keep Principals and a bldg ground person at their home site to make sure stuff gets where it needs to be. Well have 2-3 trailers in each town in the morning to load and hopefully time it so we are on the road equally. We have a board meeting Monday night with highlights to include: 1. Calendar hearing for next year and action that needs to be taken. 2. Old business of finalizing capital outlay. 3. Old business of fitness center weightroom. 4. Old / new business of CPT for next year. 5. Action to take on Wrestling and other coaching for next year. 6. Levy referendum discussion and next years budget. 7. Maybe hear from some FFA folks. 8. Move June board meeting to the 22nd. 9. Annual Support staff leave of absence for the summer. 10. Julie Jakobi added to para list not coming back next year. 11. Might be about it. Thanks Loy |
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May 05, 2009 |
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| A Flexible Learning Year As we know, the month of April brings upon the feeling of Spring. We look forward to this seasonal change that allows us to partake in much needed outdoor activities. For schools, April has become known as the month of state tests. Students in grades 3 through 11 annually participate in these state tests. For some grades, test taking devotes up to five school days. The Minnesota Department of Education measures our schools academic performance by these state tests. Specifically they are the MCA II (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment 2nd series) and GRAD (Graduation Required Assessment for Diploma) tests. High school students must pass the GRAD tests in Reading, Math and Writing to be eligible for a diploma by Minnesota law. ACT and AP exams are also given this time of year for interested students. A group of nearly twenty southwest Minnesota schools have been meeting regularly since January to discuss how we can do a better job of sharing services and improve the educational programs for the students we educate. It was determined that great benefits could be yielded if a system was created that: added student teacher contact days prior to these key April test dates; improved the professional development we are delivering to our teachers as well as increasing cost effectiveness for our districts. This group determined that we must be allowed a flexible learning year to allow us to meet these objectives. This group of approximately twenty southwest Minnesota schools is drafting a formal joint application to the Commissioner of Education to allow participating districts the ability to enact a flexible learning year. If approved, this would allow our group of districts to begin the school year on August 24, 2009 instead of the Tuesday after Labor Day or September 8, 2009. This proposed change in the WWG school calendar would begin the school year towards the end of August and would allow for up to ten more instructional days prior to the high stakes MCA IIs, GRAD, ACT and AP exam dates and provide improved professional development opportunities for teachers. In later August, a majority of our high school students are already actively participating in MSHSL fall activities. The energy level of all students is extremely high as they are anxious and eager to start school. We strongly believe that schools are missing out on these high impact teaching days in late August and would love to trade them for the less impactful student days of late May and early June that occur after the April high stakes tests. We have drafted what the flexible learning year calendar may look like. It is very similar to other calendars that the district has had, but has an August 24th start date. The district will work cooperatively with students and families if they have State Fair commitments just as we have in years past. This may be beneficial to graduating seniors by allowing up to two more weeks to work over the summer before they head off to a post secondary school. This flexible learning year calendar will allow schools to build into their school calendar meaningful staff development days that occur within the school year instead of being lumped at its beginning and end. These staff development days would improve professional development delivered to staff. Currently, the common practice is for districts to work independently instead of cooperatively with other school districts for their professional development. Working cooperatively will allow schools to share the expenses incurred for presenters as well as provide better training specifically for each teachers subject matter. For example, WWG has two high school science teachers. Providing professional development for them could be improved if their professional development was designed specifically for teachers of science and with the joint efforts of southwest Minnesota schools. Participating school districts have also created this flexible learning year calendar to serve as a common calendar that will help facilitate neighboring school districts that share staff as well as coordinate broadcast times for courses delivered to students over the instructional television(ITV). As part of our districts request to the Commissioner of Education to have a flexible learning year program, the WWG School District needs to have three (3) community meetings. These meetings will allow for questions and answers and are scheduled to be held Thursday May 7th at 7:00 p.m. in Westbrook, Monday May 11th at 7:00 p.m. in Walnut Grove, and Monday, May 18th, at 7:00 p.m. in Westbrook. If none of these meeting dates will fit your schedule, please dont hesitate to contact me to set up a time to meet. I look forward to seeing you there. Sincerely, Loy J. Woelber Superintendent WWG Schools lwoelber@mntm.org or (507) 828 - 6608 |
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April 19, 2009 |
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| Westbrook Walnut Grove District # 2898 To: Members of the School Board From: Loy J. Woelber, Superintendent Subject: Agenda for the regular School Board meeting Location: April 20, 2009 Walnut Grove History Center at 7 p.m. Members present: ________________________________________________________ Members absent: ________________________________________________________ Guests: Agenda I. Call meeting to order II. Correction and approval of previous meeting(s) III. Amend / approve agenda IV. Consideration of claims and accounts V. Old business A. Legislative update B. Senior Class trip update C. Planning updates from June 08 i. College credit options (Mr. Richards) ii. Math and reading scores (Mr. Olson) iii. Balance testing and instruction iv. Communications (Mr. Woelber) v. Student accountability, responsibility, flexibility vi. 7th and 8th grade schedule (Mr. Richards) VI. New business A. Capital Outlay / Supplies / Texts (current REAP money on technology) i. Westbrook has a total of ______________________________ ii. Walnut Grove has a total of ____________________________ B. Site improvement / remodeling updates. ($78,750) i. Sidewalk replacement by Pauls office ($5,750) (PROCEED) ii. Sidewalk replacement Tech campus ($16,500)(PROCEED) iii. WG bus door replacement ($3,000)(HOLD) iv. WB boiler room drainage system ($5,000)(PROCEED) v. Wall in WG west hall ($5,000)(CHANGE TO HOLD)*** vi. WG finish Bathroom stalls. ($2,500) (PROCEED) vii. WB electrical panel in west wing & auditorium ($6,000)(HOLD) Art room conversion in the area of ($7,500)(HOLD) viii. WB toilet conversion from 2 to 1 ($3,000) (PROCEED) ix. Roofing projects that come up ($20,000) x. Playground cleanup in WB ($500) (PROCEED) xi. Concession Stand remodel ($3,000)(HOLD) xii. Powering the baskets (4) in Westbrook ($7,500)(HOLD) xiii. Window in library computer lab ($1,000)(PROCEED) M______________________ S___________________ Action_________ C. Updates on next years budget planning. � Supt. sharing still up in the air (absorb bus route and other tasks) � Business office reduction of 1 fte: 2 part times. ($40,000) � Reduce 1 fte in K-6 and 1 fte in 7-12 level. ($71,000) � .5 science reduction and absorb ($25,000) **Changed** � Athletic reduction ($13,000) Cross country program An asst. FB coach An asst. VB coach A jr. high BB coach A jr. high VB coach � Early Childhood Special Education ($20,000) � Music program part time by � ($9,000) � Food service breakfast site cut in WB ($3,000) � Community Education Kids Klub ($4,000) � Capital Outlay reductions ($30,000) � Paraprofessionals scaled back by 3fte.($32,000) � Transportation � Total initial reductions of $247,000 � Additional expenditures next year: � Tracy does not want to share ELL any more ($24,000) � Additional special education time ($10,000) � 2 additional shuttles ($8,000) � Severance for one or two people: ($18,000 36,000) � Salaries increase for the teachers at $30,000 for every 1% � Salaries increase for the support staff at $9,000 for every 1% � A 1% increase across all employees would be: ($39,000) � THE NET REDUCTIONS WOULD BE $142,000 Estimated reduction in revenue of 35 pupil units at $7557 each = $264,500 If Govt. funding is flat we erode about $122,000 out of our fund balance. D. Resignation of Garrett Bitker M ___________________ S _________________ Action____________ F. Enrollment 08 09 i. K 38 ii. 1st 31 iii. 2nd 34 iv. 3rd 36 v. 4th 41 vi. 5th 33 vii. 6th 38 viii. 7th 42 ix. 8th 36 x. 9th 44 xi. 10th 50 xii. 11th 55 xiii. 12th 58 TOTAL 536 G. Membership in the MSHSL for the 09 10 school year. H. Negotiations to begin soon. I. Referendum handouts and discussion J. Approval of summer recreation coaches K. Health insurance discussion L. M. VII. Superintendent Report a. Buildings and grounds b. Transportation c. Food Service d. BOLT report e. Community Education f. Staffing g. Collaborative reports h. Thank you cards from the Vondracek family and the Larry Weeks family. i. Calendar update j. Mr. Olson and classes for Supt. VIII. Principal Report Walnut Grove A. Schedule B. Staffing C. Students D. Events / extracurricular events E. Other IX. Principal Report Westbrook A. Schedule B. Staffing C. Students D. Events / extracurricular events E. Other X. Additional Reports XI. Adjourn |
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April 09, 2009 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools, I have been slipping on my updates and hope to get in full swing after Easter. I guess giving updates was a poor choice of things to quit during Lent. We are working on 3 different things at the district level: 1. The administration and board have met and will be deciding before the end of the school year on an amount to come to you the taxpayers for an additional levy for operating. There will be an election in November for this sole purpose. We are currently operating at an excess of state basic aid of $500 per pupil. By all of you paying this extra tax it generates about $311,000. Because of our support of this extra levy and because of our high number of students on free and reduced meals, we locally only have to come up with $80,607 of this and the State picks up the rest. We have a pretty good deal when asking all of you to vote yes on $100 and you only have to pay $26 of it. This local levy is only on your house and one acre no matter how much you farm or how much you own. 2. We are preparing our budget for the next year and looking beyond knowing that we are poised to lose 1/5 of our students in the next 4 years. Yes, we will be down about 35 students from January 09 to September 09. This and the 3 years after that are due to our larger classes of 45-55 students graduating and only bringing in about 25-30 students. We hope by May 1st to have a comment section on our website at www.wwgschools.org where you can post your concerns and / or ideas about our budget priorities. We have the Cadillac version of offerings and staffing at the present time. We will be reducing every year and will be keeping in mind the delicate balance of having something for all students. 3. We are getting closer and closer to the end of school and a planned moving day of a few 7/8 grade classrooms from WG to WB and our K-4 classrooms from WB to WG. The employees have been great with their planning as well as their attitudes. The administration is working on staffing and I strongly feel it will be a great transition. I am beginning bus routes for next year and will make sure that our little tykes are not spending too much time on the bus. We can ride out these times if we are in it together! We have a great spot on the planet and should count our blessings. I appreciate all the support and look forward to coming to your group / club to visit about our school. Thanks, Loy Woelber |
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March 13, 2009 |
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| Westbrook Walnut Grove District # 2898 To: Members of the School Board From: Loy J. Woelber, Superintendent Subject: Agenda for the regular School Board meeting Location: March 16, 2009 BOLT Room 7 p.m. Board Planning Session at 4:00 p.m. in Superintendent Office Members present: ________________________________________________________ Members absent: ________________________________________________________ Guests: Agenda I. Call meeting to order II. Correction and approval of previous meeting(s) III. Amend / approve agenda IV. Consideration of claims and accounts V. Old business A. Legislative update B. Senior Class trip update C. Planning updates from June 08 i. College credit options ii. Math and reading scores iii. Balance testing and instruction iv. Communications v. Student accountability, responsibility, flexibility vi. 7th and 8th grade schedule VI. New business A. Capital Outlay / Supplies / Texts i. Westbrook has a total of ______________________________ ii. Walnut Grove has a total of ____________________________ B. Site improvement / remodeling updates. ($78,750) i. Sidewalk replacement outside of Pauls office ($5,750) ii. Sidewalk replacement south of the Tech campus ($16,500) iii. WG bus door replacement ($3,000) iv. WB boiler room drainage system ($5,000) v. Wall in WG for community separation ($5,000) vi. WG finish Bathroom stalls. ($2,500) vii. WB electrical panel in west wing & auditorium ($6,000) viii. WB toilet conversion from 2 to 1 ($3,000) and fix smell?? ix. Roofing projects that come up ($20,000) x. Playground cleanup in WB ($500) xi. Concession Stand remodel ($3,000) xii. Powering the baskets (4) in Westbrook ($7,500) xiii. Window in library computer lab ($1,000) M______________________ S___________________ Action_________ C. Updates on next years budget planning. � Supt. sharing/reductions: ($10,000) � Business office reduction of 1 fte: 2 part times. ($40,000) � Reduce 1 fte in K-6 and 1 fte in 7-12 level. ($71,000) � Hour of science to RRC. ($5,000) **Changed** � Athletic reduction ($13,000) Cross country program An asst. FB coach An asst. VB coach A jr. high BB coach A jr. high VB coach � Early Childhood Special Education ($20,000) � Music program part time by � ($9,000) � Food service breakfast site cut in WB ($3,000) � Community Education Kids Klub ($4,000) � Capital Outlay reductions ($40,000) � Paraprofessionals scaled back by 3fte.($32,000) � Transportation � Total initial reductions of $242,000 � Additional expenditures next year: � Tracy does not want to share ELL any more ($24,000) � Projected known student loss 8.5 units X $7557= ( $64,000) � 2 additional shuttles ($8,000) � Possible science time ($10,000) � Severance for one or two people: ($18,000 36,000) � Salaries increase for the teachers at $30,000 for every 1% � Salaries increase for the support staff at $9,000 for every 1% � A 2% increase across all employees would be: ($78,000) � THE NET REDUCTIONS WOULD BE $130,000 Estimated reduction in revenue at 26 pupil units at $7557 each = $196,300 With a revised budget for 08 09 that puts us close to $90,000 to the good makes For a little different game plan compared to a month ago. D. Early out retirement letter / statute handout M.S. 122A.48 1. Up to $17,000 towards a health savings account. 2. Possibility of offering a window. 3. Only good until July 1, 2009 M__________________ S ________________ Action ____________ E. Resolution proposing to place Garrett Bitker on unrequested leave of absence. M ___________________ S _________________ Action____________ F. Enrollment 08 09 ii. K 38 iii. 1st 31 iv. 2nd 34 v. 3rd 36 vi. 4th 41 vii. 5th 33 viii. 6th 38 ix. 7th 42 x. 8th 36 xi. 9th 44 xii. 10th 50 xiii. 11th 55 xiv. 12th 58 TOTAL 536 G. Calendar approval for the 09 10 school year. (Table until April) H. Membership in the MSHSL for the 09 10 school year. I. Negotiations to begin soon. J. Resolution to fix the Federal Governments NCLB mandate. K. VII. Superintendent Report a. Buildings and grounds b. Transportation c. Food Service d. BOLT report e. Community Education f. Staffing g. Collaborative reports VIII. Principal Report Walnut Grove A. Schedule B. Staffing C. Students D. Events / extracurricular events E. Other IX. Principal Report Westbrook A. Schedule B. Staffing C. Students D. Events / extracurricular events E. Other X. Additional Reports XI. Adjourn |
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March 08, 2009 |
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| Staff Updates March 7, 2009 � Lets hope this week holds the last snow for the season, keep clicking your heels and hoping for spring. � I sent out an email recently to a bunch of elementary folks in the area regarding integration days. Ive been getting a few good responses and appreciate that. With money tighter than ever, its important that we keep improving the days while also tying it to teacher salaries. I believe that the Superintendents are meeting again this week to fill out reports and look forward to next year. � Ive been getting a little feedback from staff and community regarding our changes in store for next year. They are all very positive regarding the elementary and secondary. � Ive also been getting a little bit more feedback regarding the budget and our future. The Govt. holds the cards regarding our requirements in math, reading, writing, and science. We have to maintain certain requirements to keep up with the standards. Ive gotten a few comments from patrons regarding the importance of music, the need for basic home living skills etc. the list goes on and on. Trust me, I have been through this before in the late 90s. I will hear a very strong, passionate argument for every subject in the next few years. The challenge is to make sure that we can figure out a way to make cuts and yet have a balance with all of them. No matter how uncomfortable many of you may feel; my schemes of sharing resources, selling time, raising money, etc. will continue to happen for many years to come. Keeping a positive outlook is the key to our future. � We have so many changes coming our way and I am very excited for them. I think the upcoming changes to our buildings are very exciting for folks in our 4 communities. I think the concession stand switch in Westbrook will really take off and give our patrons something fresh next fall when they enter our buildings. I still hear a lot of great feedback from our fitness centers and our improvements over the years keep enthusiasm amongst the non-parent community members. � I believe our P.R. happens in many different fronts. Your work in the classroom is the most important but often the least understood in terms of all the requirements and changes. Sell the message but dont make it out to be whining. Our world is depressing enough and folks need a positive spin on the great things that we do in the classrooms. � Ill try my best to get to more staff meetings in order to answer any questions that you may have. I hope all of you always know the door is open to any of your questions / schemes / hopes for the future. � I will have a planning session with the board, Bill, Paul, and Tom next Monday before the board meeting. If anything new comes out of it I will let you all know in the updates. Have a great week, LJW |
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February 28, 2009 |
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| Charger Updates for the end of February Greetings to all of you, I believe the worst is over for our weather and the winter blues. As we head into March I hope that we all can get a bunch of sun to charge us up for the remainder of the year. A look at the updates: - I apologize for Thursday morning. I should have been a bit firmer as a leader. I caught some crap for having our students go home at the worst part of the day. I was in contact with my neighboring Superintendents and the plan was to let out around noon. But a few panicked and the rest is herd mentality history. Hopefully we are done for the year with our weather woes. - Marvin and I were at the MREA board meeting / legislative action committee meetings Thursday and Friday. We heard from a few groups that wanted support and visited about other legislative items. Its going to be an interesting session to say the least. o I was pleased to hear that it looks like the high stakes math test will change in two ways. In the short term students that do not pass will have to take 2 retakes and if they still fail they will still graduate if they are passing all classes. In the long term it looks like they will move towards course completion tests. When all students get done with Geometry they will take a state test to demonstrate their knowledge. When all students finish Algebra II they will take a test etc. There will be much more to come but this is a step in the right direction vs. a single high stakes test. o The stimulus package will come to MN whether you believe in it or not. We will get some Title I (poverty help) dollars and some Special Ed dollars for our schools. The only thought I issue on this is that there will be some strings attached and there will be maintenance of effort issues. Maintenance of effort means that if we are given $20,000 extra dollars to help low income students we will have to keep giving that $20,000 every year even though $20,000 was only given for 1 year. It is complicated but we will play the game to make sure that we get the money for our kids. o Hopefully money is given per student and tied to grants for any extra money for construction etc. Our school as well as others could sure use new boilers. - Marvin and I met with a financial group that assists schools with different items including referendums. We will need to go to the voters in November and ask for an increase to our $500 per pupil unit levy in order to keep what we have. What we have for instance in our 7-12 next year includes: full time home ec, full time industrial arts, full time agriculture, full time art, full time Spanish and almost three full time administrators. The board and administration will have a work session sometime soon in order to have a frank discussion on what our future holds in terms of what we can support and how much money are we going to ask our tax payers to give us to keep that. This is the time to be shooting me emails about your thoughts for the future. - Small note includes the vans. I feel that I demonstrated the Legislators/ Governors proposal that all school save money with shared services including sharing staff between districts and buying products together to get a better deal. Balatons only van became outdated March 1st. We have a van that will become outdated at the end of the year. We traded them vans. We said goodbye to the Easter egg green machine from Walnut Grove and acquired the big blue whale. We will turn it into a cargo van to haul commodities, band instruments, football equipment, theater stuff and anything else one can fit into an 11 ft. long cargo bay. - Health insurance was another big item discussed at MREA. WWG is a perfect example of what high premiums are with us looking at yet another increase of 20% next year which would put a family plan over $23,000 a year. We are a district with a tough history but premiums are still very, very high. There will be another bill brought before the legislature for statewide health insurance. I asked questions in order to make sure that all schools including the Cities and Duluth were included in this bill because most feel all schools should be in or out. Mandatory participation for every employee also gets brought up so there are items to sort out. MREA is neutral on this issue. Lets hope we can get some answers. - Congrats to our GBB team on a great year. Give them a pat on the back when you see them and tell them thanks for being committed to something and for the discipline to work hard throughout the season. The boys are rolling this week and get the encouragement out. Maury and Derrick have difficult jobs dealing with young adults as well as their parents. A personalized thank you note would be a nice gesture after a long winter. Thanks Loy Woelber |
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February 01, 2009 |
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| Charger Updates from Superintendent Woelber 1/30/09 As we venture further into the New Year with new and exciting times ahead for WWG, Id like to give a few updates for the last week of January 2009. � I reviewed proposed cuts to the board at the meeting last week. o We are looking to cut $244,000 for next year. o Our revenue will be reduced about $280,000 due to student losses and state budget cuts. o Well have additional expenses of $8,000 with 2 extra shuttles. o This does not even include the possibility of pay raises for next year. For every 1% raise on employees, its $39,000. o With a 1% raise on all employees that puts us at a negative $83,000 for next year that will come out of our fund balance. We will need a referendum increase in November to ease this slide. o THE FOLLOWING ARE O.K. WITH THE BOARD AND WILL BE FORMALLY APPROVED IN FEBRUARY. o I will make sure I sell a minimum of $10,000 of my time next year like I did this year. I will look for more. o Jane and Russ will both be cut to � time. Dixie, Kathy, Kellie and myself will make up the workloads. o We gave notice in the K-6 to Mr. Pack. We gave notice at the 7-12 level to Miss Kells. o We will be selling out additional time of Mr. Bitker to RRC. o We are cutting cross country, an asst. FB coach, an asst. VB coach, a jr. high BB coach, and a jr. high VB coach. o There will be changes made with our early childhood special education program that are yet to be determined with staffing. o The music program will be reduced from 3 fte to 2 � fte. o Food service is yet to be determined with streamlining. o Transportation is yet to be determined with streamlining. o We are hoping to cut our capital outlay back by $50,000. o We gave notice to three paraprofessionals (Lavonne Villa, Kalia Lor, and Linda Benson) that they will not be coming back next year. We are also planning on reassignments of paraprofessionals to match with special education needs. o We are planning on finishing this year with a $70-80,000 balance to the good. This will be beneficial as we face the deficit next year. o We will be approving a calendar for 09-10 as early as February. About 25-30 districts have agreed to a common calendar with 172 days. Those of us that have more days will tack them on at the end. If the legislature allows a start before Labor day, we would begin September 1st and end May 28th. If we have to start later we would begin September 8th and end June 3rd. o A common calendar is a move to help with shared services and staffing into the future. There are also 4 other schools in our area that are seriously exploring 4 day weeks. If thats not enough to fog up your brains there is talk about extended school year that would bring an additional $500,000 of new money to a school our size for having classes in June and a couple days in July while having less days in the winter to save money. Exciting stuff that will be explored in order to keep the great things that we have! o The more I think about it I would answer the at risk student location with leaning more towards being in Westbrook because of the Special Ed services / experience, the elective offerings, the lunches, the computers, the library, and the transportation. We will continue to look at the possibilities. o ECFE will still need space and play/mtg. Area in WB. We have some ideas and are working on it to keep it in WB. o The glass is half full people! Help spread that word! Our levy is lower than most other schools in the region! Other schools have taken a lot of hits over the years. We are half the size of Jackson, Windom, and Pipestone but we have about the same ftes in art, shop, music, and family consumer science and administration as they do! We are doing our best to not cut these or any other programs and I feel great about making it not happen. o Ill give credit to Pat and Leo amongst others for doing some out of the box thinking regarding the east end of the WB building. We had a meeting earlier regarding a 7-12 fitness center that could be utilized by P.E. classes as well as a wider variety of students. The latest on this traveling within my brain is: � Not touching walls but moving a fitness center to the wrestling room with equipment along the walls and a mat in the middle for exercising / stretching. � We can move the phy ed equipment to the old weight room to allow for better security and access. � We can expand the concession stand into the old storage area and make it a more user-friendly environment for all groups and their advisors. � We will be moving the wrestling room to Walnut Grove. I believe it will be on the second floor. This will get more youngsters involved and be easier for Paul and the RRC wrestlers. � We will work on a nice spot in WG for cheer team to practice. � We will keep the lunchroom free for dance teams and have team meals in workroom or a classroom. � This is exciting stuff and I believe a win - win for lots of people! Another update coming your way next week, stay tuned. lwoelber@mntm.org or 507-828-6608 to chat or set appt. |
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January 17, 2009 |
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| This month's board agenda Westbrook Walnut Grove District # 2898 To: Members of the School Board From: Loy J. Woelber, Superintendent Subject: Agenda for the regular School Board meeting Location: January 20nd (TUESDAY) in the Westbrook Bolt Room 7 p.m. Members present: ________________________________________________________ Members absent: ________________________________________________________ Guests: Tom Merchant, ____________________________________________________ Agenda I. Call meeting to order by Supt. Woelber A. Election of officers i. Chair _____________________ ii. Vice Chair _________________ iii. Treasurer __________________ iv. Clerk _____________________ v. Compensation (30) (300) (650) (300) (mileage from home) vi. Committees II. Correction and approval of previous meeting(s) III. Amend / approve agenda IV. Consideration of claims and accounts V. Old business A. Legislative update B. School Board Convention report from Greg Madson / Marv Kleven C. June planning update for the 08 09 school year. i. College credit options ii. Increase math and reading scores iii. Balance testing and instruction iv. Improve communication between comm./board/staff v. Increase student accountability, responsibility, flexibility vi. 7th and 8th grade scheduling D. Guest questions, comments, concerns. VI. New business A. Para professional recognition week January 19th 23th. M_______________________ S__________________ Action______ B. 07 08 Audit Report from Joel Stencil / Larry Wiecks of Wolf Etter. M_______________________ S_________________ Action_______ C. Bus purchase shifting to this current year vs. next school year. M_______________________ S__________________ Action_______ D. 09 10 School Calendar. M_______________________ S__________________ Action_______ E. Enrollment 08 09 i. K 38 ii. 1st 31 iii. 2nd 35 iv. 3rd 36 v. 4th 41 vi. 5th 33 vii. 6th 38 viii. 7th 43 ix. 8th 36 x. 9th 44 xi. 10th 50 xii. 11th 55 xiii. 12th 58 TOTAL 538 F. Updates on next years budget planning. ($230,000 discussed) � Supt. sharing: I have feelers out and am checking options. ($10,000 - $40,000) � Business office reduction of 1 fte: 2 part times. Selling time an option? ($40,000) � Notice given to 1 fte in K-6 and 1 fte in 7-12 level. ($71,000) � And additional hour of science to RRC. ($5,000) � Athletic reduction Cross country program An asst. FB coach An asst. VB coach A jr. high BB coach A jr. high VB coach ($13,000) � Early Childhood Special Education will be partial but could be replaced at the 7-12 level. ($10,000) � Music program part time by � to � . ($9,000 18,000) � Food service � Community Education Kids Klub ($4,000) � Capital Outlay reductions ($50,000) � Paraprofessionals scaled back by 3fte. ($32,000) � Transportation Total initial reductions of $244,000 � Additional expenditures next year: 2 additional shuttles ($8,000) Severance for one or two people: ($18,000 36,000) Salaries increase for the teachers at $30,000 for every 1% Salaries increase for the support staff at $9,000 for every 1% A 2% increase across all employees would be: ($78,000) THE NET REDUCTIONS WOULD BE $140,000 Estimated reduction in revenue at 26 pupil units at $7557 each = $196,300 With a revised budget for 08 09 that puts us close to $90,000 to the good makes For a little different game plan compared to a month ago. � Watch for a 50% property tax recognition shift being brought forward. � Watch for a change from a 90/10 aid payment shift to an 80/20 or 75/25. � I understand that in the fiscal year 2010 Whatif has the $51 taken away as well as some technology money that amounts to between a 1-2% cut already! � Watch for a suggestion to go back to a RETROACTIVE FUND BALANCE PENALTY for anything over 1.5 months expenditures in the undesignated fund balance. This flies in the face of auditor recommendations and flies in the face of the payment shifts. WE WOULD BE PENALIZED FOR BEING RESPONSIBLE WITH OUR TAXPAYER MONEY! G. Revised budget for 2008 - 2009 approval. Revenues of $6,067,064.00 and Expenditures of $5,976,376.00. M______________________ S___________________ Action_________ H. Resolution of non renewal of probationary teachers. i. Erin Richards ii. Colby Pack iii. Aalex Kells iv. Brenda Derickson M______________________ S____________________ Action________ I. Other M______________________ S____________________ Action________ J. Superintendent Report a. Buildings and grounds b. Transportation c. Food Service d. BOLT report e. Community Education f. Employee updates / staffing needs. g. Collaborative reports h. January in-service K. Principal Report Walnut Grove a. Schedule for next semester / year. b. Staffing c. Students d. Events / extracurricular events L. Principal Report Westbrook a. Schedule for next semester / year. b. Staffing c. Students d. Events / extracurricular events M. Other N. Adjourn |
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December 07, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools Here we are marching closer to Christmas and I hope that everyone gets a chance to spend some time with friends and family during this season. We get dumped on with crazy news all around us and it can get more difficult to find something positive. Hopefully we can all make the effort to get our kids away from the media for a few weeks and enjoy the holiday traditions and the classic shows that most of us got to grow up with. Great news even came out last week that said happiness is contagious! Thats one disease that I hope you all catch and spread to others. � We are planning for next years K 6 in Walnut Grove and the 7 12 grades in Westbrook. It is going very well and I feel very confident on a smooth transition. o All after school activities will remain the same in terms of location. o We will have to add an extra shuttle from each town. The K-1 and the 2-3 grade busses from Westbrook to Walnut Grove will have a chaperone every morning and afternoon. In my humble, Ive got little kids too opinion, I would agree that its a long ride with the route and shuttle for the little tykes BUT they are wired in the morning and hardly notice the length and after school they will probably get that nap on the bus that they wouldnt otherwise take at home so I might see that as a benefit! o The school day in both buildings will run from 1st warning bell at 8:25 until 3:10. The shuttles then would leave at 3:15. o There will be 4 informational meetings for further questions coming up in January and February. � Quite a budget report last week from the State. Its amazing how it gets to a point when your average Superintendent starts hoping that we wont get less money from the State instead of at least an inflationary increase. � We are going to be looking at a loss of 20 students next year with a big class graduating. I am working on a preliminary budget that will look at cuts in the range of $200,000 for the next school year. The kids and their classrooms are #1 priority and we are working together to find other areas to reduce. We are projecting to lose another 40 students by the time we level off in 2012. � I am proud of the fact that we have kept the school portion of your taxes about the same the past 4 years. We are going to be coming to you next November and asking for an increase in order to avoid another 2 years of major cuts. We are one of the 3 lowest districts in SW MN in terms of taxes per student. I just want you to be aware that well need your help next fall to keep things rolling the way they are now. � I am proud to be a part of this great district! I was reminded of that again this weekend by being able to participate in the annual Feather Party at the WB VFW in which there was bingo and drawings for turkeys, ducks, geese and hams. Walnut Grove also had its annual Belgium Waffle feed Sunday for the Foundation. What a great area to live and enjoy one another! God bless all of you and our kids in this great district! |
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November 10, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG! We all survived the election last week! With regards to the school we had all of our incumbents remain on the board. Neng Yang also had a great showing for a 1st time of throwing his name in the hat. Our district is rare in it's willingness of board members to serve for many years. They all have a passion for the kids, their communities and the folks that make it all go. We hope to keep on top of the great experience that we offer to students as well as continually looking at ways to keep our district powerful in the future. Have a great week! Loy Woelber |
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October 23, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools, We had a short regular board meeting Monday night which our visiting students from Govt. class loved! There will be much more to report in November as we 3 administrators will have the first of our recommended changes / reductions to report for the 09 - 10 school year. We have scheduled our first four parent information sessions in order to keep parents up to speed on changes. The dates are Monday January 26th in Westbrook and Thursday January 29th in Walnut Grove. The next set of meetings are Monday February 23rd in Westbrook and Thursday February 26th in Walnut Grove. All meetings will start at 6:30 p.m. I feel great about this year and am equally confident that next year will be a very nice transition. Thanks Loy Woelber |
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October 02, 2008 |
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| October 3, 2008 Board and Staff / Charger Notes Greetings to everyone and I hope the homecoming week went well. I wanted to communicate the various updates that I have floating in my head this week. � Homecoming week went well with a very nice program Monday night and some good things happening on and off the fields. Our dress up days (me included) did not gain a lot of steam, hopefully we can get more participation in the future. � This week I attended a State task force comprised of about 30 representatives of different organizations and facets of education with the charge of finding a workable solution to Special education licensure. I am representing MREA on this one and hold the opinion that we do not need many different endorsements for Special Ed teachers such as EBD, LD, OHD, ASD, etc. It is hard enough to attract and retain Special Ed teachers without trying to mandate that they have all these endorsements. A good Special Ed teacher / para will find ways to help any kid regardless of their diagnosis. We will meet again about 3-4 more times this year and a recommendation will go to the Board of Teaching next summer. Im thankful of the quality Sped staff that we have. � Transportation has had a big week! We are finishing our first full week of some big changes with our shuttle busses. In an effort to get ahead of the game in terms of our budgets we first worked out an agreement to have the district own all of the busses. We then started the practice of leaving the shuttle busses in the opposite towns during the day and having the drivers take a school car back in order to save fuel and wear and tear. This week a light bulb came on and we realized we could go one step further. The two shuttle busses from each community are meeting at the St. Olaf Church in the morning and the afternoons. The students remain in their busses and only sit long enough to squeeze in a prayer before the drivers switch seats and return to their respective towns. This will now save the shuttle drivers a little time as well as the gas and wear / tear on a school car. We are continually working on the timing and trying to get the students to school as quickly as possible. We have about 4 minutes to make up yet. I am very proud of all our transportation folks and the can do attitude and pride they take in their jobs. Actually, Ill proclaim Thursday should just be Charger Bus Driver Day! Get out and greet and thank our drivers for a job well done. If you cant get close enough, just give them the old semi honk the horn signal. � Our budget is looking better than anticipated this year. I am hoping we finish with a positive this year rather than an anticipated negative. This will really help us when it comes time for the combination of a K-6 / 7-12 transition and facing a larger graduating class being replaced with about 25 less students. The reason that I say this is that we will be in a position to not have to make the full amount of cuts that are needed to balance the budget for 09 10. We can absorb a little next year and continue our reductions the following years. We will need all the help we can get to make sure the transition next year goes as smoothly as possible. Next November we will be coming to you the taxpayers for additional help in operating our schools. � I will be out of the office the week of October 5th 10th for a Redwood County Blandin Leadership training. I will have my cell phone and computer and will return calls and email. � Thanks and have a great week. Loy Woelber, Supt. |
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September 15, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools, We are off and running as we enter week #3. I am very excited to see our enrollment up by 10 students from what we had planned. Its tough to see some of these kids leave unexpectedly after all the progress we were making but at least we got to know each other and hopefully each of them knew how much we cared. Being up 10 student will definitely be able to help with the budget and what wonderful kids they are! Its definitely a day brightener to see all of these students in the halls. Septembers board meeting will consist of a legislative report from board members Marv Kleven and Maydra Maas. We will also hear a summer community ed wrap-up from coordinator Dixie Severson and an athletic report from Leo Theisen. It is that time of year to take an initial look at the amount of money that the district can levy the taxpayers in the calendar year 2009. Taxes from 2009 fund the school from July 1, 2009 June 30, 2010. We have been in pretty nice financial shape the past few years therefore the board has not levied the max and kept it the same at $312,000 for the past 3 years. Our goal / philosophy is that if we are going to ask taxpayers for extra money to operate we want it to be matched by the state. Some of the levy money we ask for is not matched by the state so we have decided not to do this to our taxpayers. It is much better to ask the locals for $1 when the state will match that dollar with $3. We get this great big bang for our buck due to our high poverty rates. We are hoping to keep our budget in line this year and go to the taxpayers in the fall of 09 to ask for help in our operating expenses. At our board meeting well also look at a new transportation safety policy that is mandated by the state. Ill give an update on board elections with all of our incumbents filing as well as an individual from Walnut Grove. Well have lane change requests from teachers who have completed additional credits. Well discuss preschool and possible additional time, building trades updates, and discuss transportation needs. I am planning on attending the Blandin Community Leadership training project along with 23 other RW County community members during the 1st week of October. I hope to bring back good experiences and become a better leader in order to help our small communities in the area be the best they can be. Thanks for your support Loy Woelber |
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September 03, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools! We are off and running with a great start to the school year. I do not have final enrollment numbers yet but it's always nice to see new faces in the halls. We made some great hires this year and I really feel good about how the staff is connecting with eachother as well as the students. One couldn't ask for better weather for the first week with the cooler temperatures sliding in. Thanks Loy Woelber |
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August 12, 2008 |
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| Greetings to everyone from WWG Schools, Wow, you would think that school has begun! This week we have started our fall sports practices and have been having a bunch of staff members working on future planning for our students. I have never seen the parking lot so full! These are exciting times for students as they get ready for a fresh start. We are very fortunate to be coming off a great year in which we continued going the extra mile for our students and in turn we were able to get off the dreaded "Not Making Adequate Progress" list. Everyone in the district should be commended for all they have done in the midst of these seemingly political times with education. I feel great about our students and they get a great education here whether or not they don't make these "magical" standards. I am enclosing at the end of this, a statement written by Charlie Kyte the Minnesota Association of School Administrators Director regarding No Child Left Behind. It speaks a lot about what our folks are faced with. I also handed out a nice editorial from the Marshall paper to our staff that is titled "Parents: Don't be blinded by the AYP list" It closed with the statement that stated "As long as our teachers keep working hard on improving their craft, and as long as your kids are bringing home good report cards, and studying and doing their homework like you did when you were a kid, everything will be fine - no matter what list your school is on." He said it well, and I am confident we'll keep the best interests of our kids in mind as we proceed throughout the year. Thanks for your support Loy Woelber AYP IS A PUBLIC RELATIONS DISASTER FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS by Charlie Kyte In Minnesota nearly 1000 of 2000 schools didn't make AYP in 2008. In our neighboring state of Wisconsin 153 of 2200 schools were in the same catagory. 50% versus 7%! And our systems are very similar in every other measure of success. This crazy system, as it is being employed in Minnesota, is absolutely destroying the public's confidence in our schools. Most people read a headline and a couple of paragraphs. Education leaders are forced into a defensive posture as they try to explain the results. Teachers are becoming demoralized as they see no chance of their schools being successful. In Minnesota, our leaders have devised a system in which there are only going to be two kinds of schools.... those not making AYP now and those not making AYP in the future. Wouldn't it be great if the state education leadership would acknowledge that 'bludgeoning' our schools and undermining the publics confidence is not the way to get to better results. Every public educator in Minnesota wants to provide our kids a great education, but need support and help, not this type of negative attack publicity. |
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July 28, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools, We had a late board meeting this month due to my sister in laws wedding. This was our annual new fiscal year meeting in which we name our official bank, newspaper, attorney, etc. We will continue to meet every 3rd Monday except for January and February in which we meet on the 3rd Tuesday. We will continue to meet in Walnut Grove during the even months and in Westbrook during the odd months. Our meetings are at 7:00 p.m. Other board items of note: 1. As part of our beginnings of budget reductions we will contract 25 days of my time to the Balaton School. Balaton is a neighboring K-6 district. We will also be sharing counselor time with Red Rock Central and ESL time with Tracy. 2. We will lose Erika Kleven as a bus driver and para. She will be moving on to work for the State Highway Dept. 3. We discussed our current phone system in Westbrook. 4. We accepted getting our bread for the Westbrook building from the Slayton bakery and our Milk from Land O Lakes. We are still waiting to make a decision on bread for the Walnut Grove site as well as providing for 2 bus routes. 5. Due to the rising food and transportation costs we did decide to raise lunch prices for all students and adults by .25, which will mean 1.75 for elementary, 2.00 for secondary, and 3.00 for adults. We will keep the family max for participation in activities low with a ceiling of $100 per family. 6. We accepted the resignation of Kelly Falch who taught MS Language Arts. We accepted the resignation of Kathy Vondracek, a wonderful, long time band and choir teacher. Shes going the administration route and is currently an Elementary Principal in Balaton. In other matters, the 7-12 staff had a meeting last week to set an agenda for an upcoming mini retreat to get a jump on planning for our move to a 7-12 in the fall of 09. There will be a lot of good ideas and I look forward to some exciting changes and opportunities for kids and some challenging changes for the staff. Thanks |
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July 15, 2008 |
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| Greetings to all, I am going to be leaving town for 6 days for a wedding. Anything more than 2 nights is a tough one for this farm boy. We will be moving our regular July board meeting to Thursday evening July 24th at 7:00 p.m. in Westbrook. July is our normal time to look at fees for the upcoming year. We will have to look at raising our lunch prices and maybe our activity fees but will most likely keep all other rental fees the same. We as a board have had many discussions regarding the fine line of charging high fees to the same folks who pay the taxes. That is why we are one of the lowest schools in the region for fees. Yet we also recognize that participants drive the programs and they do need to be able to contribute a little as well. I have seen a few new kids in our towns and I am excited at the opportunity to welcome a few new families into the district. Let's all hope that we can keep our enrollment steady! Have a great week. Loy Woelber |
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July 07, 2008 |
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| Greetings to all, Some tough news for the folks in Westbrook with the loss of the grocery store. I am very confident that something much better will come of this and Westbrook will soon see a great new store. In the meantime there will be options for the patrons in Westbrook. Here at WWG we're proud to offer a bus to Walnut Grove and to Fulda twice a week for citizens to get groceries. We have acquired funding help from the Sanford Westbrook Hospital to help defray costs! The spirit of WWG will get us all through this tough bump in the road. Thanks Loy Woelber |
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July 02, 2008 |
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| Great news from WWG! Our spring test scores looked much better and we improved from last year in many areas. On the surface we see a few areas that we can work on and will be meeting as a staff later in the summer to work on improvements. The staff and students are to be commended for their efforts in making WWG a great place to be a student! | |
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June 30, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG Schools, We had a special board meeting Thursday evening June 26th to approve a preliminary budget for the 08 09 school year. It looks as if we are going the finish this school year with good news of being in the black. The bad news was that our enrollment is beginning to drop and will continue for the next five years until it stabilizes around 35-40 per class. Fortunately we are ahead of the game and aware of the situation early in order to plan accordingly. These estimates are very preliminary and will be adjusted midway through the school year when we have better enrollment numbers. We approved revenues of $5,803,658.00 and expenditures of $5,846,270. At first look that puts us down about $42,612 for the next school year. That can change for the better as well as for the worse once we get more actual figures during the year. I will be putting updates 2-3 times a month on our schools web page at www.wwgschools.org. I invite you to check out the site and see all the things that happen in and around the school. On a bright note, I am very proud of all the support for our schools. I have heard many positive comments on the year and all that we are doing for kids and the communities. We had yet another little angel named Mae Kleven (a retired school teacher) drop off a gift of cash and asked to spruce up an entryway to the Peterson tech campus. What a great idea and its done! If you see her out and about thank her for the great support! The summer is going very well and Im very proud of our building and grounds staff that always gets the job done and makes our buildings something to be very proud of! As I am writing this I am also very pleased with the first look at our test scores from this spring. It looks better and I am glad that we are moving our kids in the rights direction. Have a great week. Loy Woelber |
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June 17, 2008 |
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| Greetings from WWG, We had a great board meeting last night! We covered many of the normal June items quickly which left us time to discuss our end of year all staff workshop. We left the workshop with 6 goals / thoughts that we wanted to take forward into the 2008 - 2009 school year. i. Increase math and reading at all levels. (Intervention and remediation) ii. Balance testing and classroom instruction (Skill reinforcement in all curricular areas) iii. Improve communication with community, board, adm, and staff iv. Implement college level options for HS students. v. Increase student accountability, responsibility and flexibility. vi. Schedule 7 & 8th grade to provide best environment for 7-12. These goals are things that we have always known to be there but yet we discussed bringing them a bit more to the front. We also realize that there are two big factors facing us as we move into the coming 08-09 school year: The transition to K-6 / 7-12 and the problem that our enrollment is dropping and we need to make budget reductions. We will continue to list these 8 items under old business at every board meeting from here on out. We have a great school system and these challenges will only make us stronger. Thanks Loy Woelber |
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January 18, 2008 |
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| January 12, 2009 Charger Notes Greetings from WWG Schools We are very near to the halfway point of the school year and Im very pleased with how its going so far. The students never cease to amaze me with their great attitudes, behavior, and respect for their school and staff. If one even tried to follow all of the activities in this school they would be running in circles at least 3 nights a week. Soon, along with the sports we will be having our one act play and before you know it well be looking forward to spring. The K-6 / 7-12 planning is going very well! I believe that the timing is perfect for change and I am very glad that this district was able to enjoy the current setup as long as it did. I continue to believe that the timing is perfect for 3 main reasons: 1. We are moving towards some tough budget times combined with some real declines in our enrollment. By combining our forces we will become more efficient and have more flexibility with our employees in each building. 2. We are quite diverse with our Hmong population accounting for about 1/3 of the students. The State requires integration of students but I feel we do not have to wait to challenge the State. Most of our students are getting an incredible multicultural experience. Its time for all of our students to enjoy one another before the 5th grade. 3. High stakes testing is before us and we can make our small school a bit more ready to take on the challenge by circling the wagons in a single site. I believe that a K-6 building and 7-12 building will do very well in terms of centralizing resources and focusing our Principals at either elementary or secondary students. I have a lot of confidence in our Principals to ease into the transition for September. We have scheduled 4 meetings in late January and into February to give updates and answer any questions that folks may have. I will give a brief district look at our finances, transportation and answer any questions. Principals Olson and Richards will then follow with a brief snapshot of how their respective building will look in the fall when school starts in September. Granted Im a bit of an optimist and a romantic but this transition will work very well and I will be there to answer questions and address concerns. I will continue to be on duty any time and anywhere you see me. Please dont hesitate to call my cell phone at 828-6608 or email me at lwoelber@mntm.org. All of us are going to be facing some pretty tough times and I believe the economy sting has not even made its way out to SW MN yet. The next couple years with our declining enrollment will be pretty tricky and that will make our schools budget that much more dependent on the extra local support of a levy. As much as I am sick of the past election, you will hear a lot from me all the way up to Election Day of the need to help our schools out into the future by approving a bigger operating levy this November. Well do what we can to be as efficient as possible and well need you the voters to help. Thanks and have a great finish to January. |
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