JWMS ribbon-cutting highlights a day to cherish for SDR

With the afternoon’s grand unveiling of improvements at James Williams Middle School (JWMS) dovetailing with a school board meeting at which grateful high schoolers shared profound experiences from recent school trips abroad, Monday, April 20, was a day tough to top for the School District of Rhinelander (SDR).

A ribbon-cutting ceremony officially opened several new spaces at JWMS, including tech ed labs, art classrooms, family and consumer science classrooms, music rooms, office spaces, and Special Education spaces, funded through a $26 million capital improvement referendum approved by voters in 2024 to update the middle and high schools.

“The updated spaces are more than just renovations. They are opportunities — opportunities to push our students to think critically, to explore new ideas, and to engage in meaningful hands-on learning,” SDR superintendent Eric Burke told the sizable gathering. “They allow us to better challenge our students’ minds each and every day. Whether it is in our art classrooms, life skills room, or family and consumer education classrooms, students won’t just complete assignments. They will create, design, test, and then refine their work. They will experience productive struggle, critical thinking skills, and begin to uncover the talents and interests they may not have known they have. That is how we are empowering potential.”

Burke later shared some of the background with the River News. 

“There was about a two-year planning period to get to ask the voters in April of 2024 for the referendum,” he said. “So we included our community members, our employer partners, (and asked) ‘what do you want to see from our future workforce?’ And so facilities were a part of that discussion. And through that process, we were able to dream about what these facilities could be.

“And, you know, at the middle school, that’s where ideas and passions kind of start with kids, and (lead to) possible classes they’ll take in high school and maybe even possible careers … We thought that it was very important that we invest in that in the middle school, and that’s what we did.

“All in all, we are just very fortunate to be able to have these kinds of things for our students, and that our community invests so much into our schools here at Rhinelander. We’re very thankful.”

The ribbon-cutting ceremony also included remarks from JWMS principal Kyle Raleigh and associate principal Ingrid Bodensteiner, family and consumer education teacher Jaime Stepan, technology and engineering teacher Paul Oppman, and student Jack Congdon, as well as Dave Mertens of C.D. Smith Construction, Nate Considine of Bray Architects, and industry partner Joe Jaeger of Trident Maritime Systems, among others. 

A music prelude was performed by the James Williams Middle School Band, under the direction of music teachers Olivia Bowman and Jacob Kulba, and the school’s choir, directed by Chloe Shepard. 

When the big moment came, the Rhinelander Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors officially cut the ribbon. The crowd was then free to explore the impressive new facilities, with staff and students on hand to answer questions and demonstrate the new equipment in action.

STEM trip

After things wound down at the middle school, the school board meeting got underway nearby, in the Superior Diesel Advanced Learning Center at Rhinelander High School. 

Not just one, but two gratifying reports on student trips abroad over spring break awaited the board. 

In the first, after much planning and fund-raising, 20 STEM students and chaperones including science teachers Megan Cihla and Matthew Nichols journeyed to Belize for a seven-day stay.

The students’ adventures included working with radio telemetry with turtles, working with bats, helping a local farmer harvest cacao beans for chocolate making, worked with a Mayan women’s village to make tortillas, participating in a native drum ceremony, planting trees, picking up garbage from a beach, dissecting lionfish, and going to a local school and donating school supplies.

Students Ella Heck, Vivian Lamers, Kiley Pooch and Ella Miljevch described to the board their favorite experiences in Belize and thanked them.

Lamers said it was “really eye-opening to realize how fortunate we are” compared to the school they visited. “You kind of just take it for granted.”

Spanish teachers Nicole Losch and Alison Flores accompanied 14 of their students on a spring break trip to Spain, visiting historic places such as Madrid, Seville, Cordoba and more. A five-minute video of the trip, created by student Tatiana Vadis, delivered a vivid look at not only the stunning sights, but also at the students’ wonder and delight at what they were experiencing.

“They were so inspired,” Losch told the board. “The kids, a month after this trip now, are coming in every day saying, ‘I dreamed of Spain last night,’ ‘I dreamed in Spanish last night,’ ‘I want to go back!’ … It was life-changing for our students. Thank you very much for letting us do that.”

Vadis and fellow students Kamden Kostrova and Emily Schiek spoke on how wowed they’d been with the trip. Kostrova shared the results of a poll he’d taken of the students, including a comment he found particularly interesting. 

“I genuinely want to learn Spanish now instead of just being present in class. I want to start traveling and seeing things. The trip drastically changed my view on how to treat others because of the culture I was surrounded by in Spain. It was the best and most influential trip of my life.”

It was an influential trip for Kostrova, too. “I really love it there so much, I’m genuinely looking at studying abroad at colleges in Spain,” he said. 

Staff pay

Later in the meeting, the board took up staff salary adjustments. With the Wisconsin Employee Relations Commission having released the Consumer Price Index amount of 2.63 percent for one-year collective bargaining agreements with a term beginning July 1 of this year, the board approved a new starting pay of $49,300 for teachers, and increasing top steps by 3 percent for BAs (to become $77,662) and MA (becoming $84,872). All other staff will receive 3 percent. 

“We don’t know exactly how much new money will be on the revenue limit for 2026-27,” Burke wrote to the board in a memo proposing the salary adjustments. “Our best estimate is $560,000. The $666,785 increase in all staff pay would also generate about $113,353 of FICA and WRS costs.

“We have five retirements and some resignations which will generate savings as well. With the passage of the operational referendum we are projecting a very tight but balanced budget for 2026-27 with this proposal.”

Burke’s report

The board heard in Burke’s superintendent report that SDR took part in a Northwoods Summit April 15. 

“Five school districts and Nicolet College and CESA were represented out at CAVOC to talk about how we can work better together to provide our students with college and career opportunities,” he said. “Our next meeting will be at Nicolet sometime in the future, and we’re going to be inviting Oneida County Economic Development, Vilas County Economic Development, and some of our partners like Joe Jaeger (of Trident Maritime Systems) ... some of our partners that are helping to make these opportunities possible. 

“My dream for this is that our students will be able to take advantage of opportunities in other areas of the Northwoods and vice versa, and be able to help support the growth of the Northwoods, because there’s a lot of opportunity.”

Other matters

A closed session was held during the meeting, with the board emerging to accept several staff changes:

• The retirement of RHS Tech Ed teacher Michael Wojtusik, effective at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

• The resignations of Central Grade 2 teacher Michole Hegeman, Pelican Grade 1 teacher Sallie Spencer, and RHS English teacher Samantha Stieber, all effective at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

• The hiring of special education teachers Rodney Sternhagen for RHS and Debbie Schultz for Crescent, both for the 2026-27 school year.

Among other highlights of the meeting, the board:

• Was asked by juniors Hayley Schiek and Ella Miljevich to keep the current phone policy, a policy they said “balances focus with responsibility” in allowing the use of phones during passing time and lunch but not during instructional time. A new policy starting this fall, approved by the board last month, will not allow students to use their phones at all during the school day.

• Heard a presentation from Crescent Elementary School principal Alex Bontz on the positive impact on behaviors by the school’s Hodag Zone — “a predictable and safe environment” — and Social and Emotional Learning coaches.

• Accepted gifts or donations of $200 from Merlin Van Buren to help support programming and activities at CAVOC/School Forest, $100 from Patrick and Catherine Albrecht to be used by the RHS automotive shop to help offset the cost of supplies, and $25 from Julie McKenzie in honor of the late Kathleen Thom to help support programming and activities at CAVOC/School Forest.

• Approved revisions to Policies 1213, 3213 and 4213, each regarding student supervision and welfare, and described by Neola as establishing “a standard of care to protect student safety by clearly defining behavioral boundaries for all staff,” and to Policy 8462, regarding student abuse and neglect, and establishing “a comprehensive framework for the mandatory identification and immediate reporting of child abuse or neglect.”

• Accepted a resolution adopting the Rhinelander Safe Routes to School Plan, with district director of business Bob Thom noting, “We need to approve the resolution, and then the city will approve it and the county, and then they can apply for grants and hopefully make improvements for students to walk and bike (to school).”

• Enjoyed still-warm cookies baked that afternoon by JWMS students in their new Family and Consumer Science space that includes six kitchenettes, and delivered by JWMS math teacher Shari Wendland, with thanks for the board’s support.

The next regular monthly meeting of the full school board will be on Monday, May 18 at 6 p.m. in the Superior Diesel Advanced Learning Center in Rhinelander High School.

Ardith Carlton may be reached at [email protected].