February 18, 2014 at 3:24 p.m.

Board moves ahead with facilities project

Increased grad requirements, yearbook fundraising also approved
Board moves ahead with facilities project
Board moves ahead with facilities project

By Marcus [email protected]

The School District of Rhinelander Board of Education gave final approval Monday to a proposal to contract with HSR Associates, Inc. of La Crosse to complete a facilities plan for the land around Rhinelander High School and James Williams Middle School.

The firm was recommended by the district's Capital Projects Ad Hoc Committee earlier this month.

HSR charges a $5,000 fee for its services, plus additional fees for the completion of an environmental impact survey ($500-$1,000), geotechnical soil testing ($2,000-$2,500), site surveys ($2,000-$12,000) and a wetland delineation survey ($2,500-$3,500).

The committee recommended contracting with HSR at a cost not to exceed $15,000. That recommendation was unanimously approved Monday.

The board has already set aside $170,000 to resurface the track around Mike Webster Stadium, however other improvements are also needed. Board members and district officials said surveys need to be completed before any fundraising or other work can be done.

"In a nutshell, we've already approved redoing the track, but before we do the track we want to look at the out-buildings, we want to look at the lay of the entire athletic field and we have to do soil testing and we have to do general groundwork," board member David Holperin said.

"We'd really like a proposal on the best way to make this fit overall for our needs for the next many, many, many years to come."

Superintendent Kelli Jacobi said HSR would survey of all of the district's facilities.

"HSR brought us a very good proposal. One of the additions that they made to their proposal that we did not request in the (request for proposal) was to review the district facilities," Jacobi said.

"They're not going to do an in-depth anything, but they're going to look at our facilities and offer suggestions for our long-range planning."

Jacobi said the plans and surveys need to be done before any type of fundraising can begin to help finance the work.

"We're starting with this piece because we've got community interests that are looking to raise money and this is the purpose they want to raise the money for," Jacobi said.

"We don't want to spend the money that the board set aside for the track resurfacing and then find out we should have waited to do (the other work) at the same time. We want to make sure we have a comprehensive plan before we spend the money to resurface the track. We need to know what the costs would be to upgrade all of the athletic facilities for the group that wants to raise funds to begin that work."

Other approvals

In other news, the board gave final approval to two other committee recommendations.

First, the board gave final approval for the Central Intermediate School Yearbook Club to sell special "shouts" to area businesses to help raise money for additional yearbook equipment.

The "shouts" would consist of a one-line tag at the bottom of a yearbook page. Each "shout" would cost $25.

The board unanimously approved the motion to allow the students to visit area businesses.

Second, the board unanimously approved raising the science and math graduation requirements at the high school and Northwoods Community Secondary School (NCSS) starting with the diploma class of 2017.

The changes are needed to bring the district's curriculum in line with Wisconsin Act 63 which increased the number of math and science credits students need to graduate.

At present, students at RHS need two credits of math and two and a half credits in science to graduate. NCSS students need two credits in each subject to graduate. The change would require students in both schools to earn three credits in each subject.

Make-up days

Two elementary schools have experienced closures this term due to widespread illness and electrical failure.

Pelican Elementary School closed in December after a spate of respiratory and gastrointestinal illness hit both students and teachers.

Central closed for a day earlier this month after the building lost power over a weekend and the boilers did not turn back on once power was restored.

Board president Ron Counter announced that those days will not have to be made up.

"We've missed some time due to sickness schoolwide at Pelican and recently at Central for an electrical power shortage. We had built into the schedule extra minutes of time and the state is going to allow us to use that toward our total. That means the kids at Central and Pelican do not have to make up the time for those two particular items," Counter said.

"We are still two days short on the calendar as far as snow days and those will have to be made up district wide."

Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected]..

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