Moving grades to high school, district calendar tabled

By Steve Van Kooten

The Prairie du Chien Board of Education did not make a lot of progress at their March 10 meeting despite several hot-button issues.

The board did not vote on whether to move grades 6-8 from Bluff View Intermediate School to the high school, electing to wait until they know whether the four-year $7 million operating referendum is approved by voters on April 1.

Two people spoke to the board about different aspects of the 2025–2026 calendar.

John Hying, a junior at Prairie du Chien High School, claimed to have spoken with 13 different school districts about the way they handle snow days on the calendar.

According to Hying, three districts had responses that stood out to him: Platteville has three days built into their calendar and virtual learning starting on the fourth day, River Ridge also has days built into the calendar and the option to utilize virtual learning and Baraboo has school days built into their calendar and virtual options for the district.

When highlighting other districts’ use of virtual learning components to circumvent adverse weather, Hying asked, “Why aren’t we?”

Amber Jerrett, a resident of Prairie du Chien, spoke about the time students spend in school compared to other Wisconsin school districts.

She claimed that all three schools were well above the hours required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), with all three schools over the minimum by more than 100 hours each.

Jerrett said the district has a longer school day than most of the other districts in Wisconsin and Iowa that are in close proximity.

“I looked at close to 100 different districts throughout the state, and I could not find even one school that goes as long as we do,” she said. 

She continued, “I get that as a school we want to be the best and do the best for our students and community, but I do not feel that longer days is how we achieve this.”

Jerrett also said that seniors and juniors are incentivized to perform well academically so that they can leave school at 3 p.m. instead of 3:40 p.m., but younger students don’t have the same option to reduce their time in school.

“My six- and nine-year-olds, who are good students and never had a bad report, are still in school for another 40 minutes every day,” she said.

Jerrett asked the board to consider putting two forgiven snow days into the calendar and to cut 20 minutes from the school day.

District Administrator Andy Banasik said a committee looked at concerns and suggestions for the 2025–26 calendar, and the current version recommended by Banasik addressed requests made by faculty.

Banasik said the time during the day is important for staff to develop support plans for the student body and for the high school faculty to have flex times to meet with students during the day.

“When we look at the calendar, what I know is the ability for our staff to be able to work in departments and together during the school day is tremendous for PLC (professional learning community).”

He added that the length of the school day would be brought to the strategic planning committee to look at a future solution.

“If you want less minutes for our kids and less days, that’s what we will discuss in that strategic planning committee and bring back to the board,” Banasik said.

Board of Education Vice President Nick Gilberts made a motion to take 20 minutes off of the school day and have three snow days built into the calendar. The motion failed 3-2, with White abstaining.

Gilberts made a second motion to take 15 minutes off of the school day and three snow days built into the calendar. The motion failed 3-2, with Board Member Noah White abstaining.

Board President Higgins, Jr., who voted against the motions, said the time on the calendar is used for teachers to participate in learning committees and for students to access their teachers for additional instruction. Cutting time out of the day could reduce flex time for the students and other programming at the end of the day.

Board Member Lacie Anthony voted against motions but said that the ideas brought up by community members are valuable and could be considered in the future. 

“I think those are good suggestions. I think they are things that can be brought to the strategic planning committee so that we can talk about how to implement those,” she said. “We need time to take that into consideration and figure out how we’re going to do it.”

The board voted to revisit the issue at their April board meeting.

Title IX

The Board quickly approved rescinding the Title IX policies pertaining to nondiscrimination on the basis of sex in education and activities and returned to the previous policies set in place in 2020.

The new mandates went into effect on Aug. 1, 2024.

The new policies narrowly received board approval on Sept. 9, 2024, with a vote of 4-3. Prairie du Chien adopted new policies that did not explicitly define the word “sex”; instead, they followed a recommendation from Bob Butler, an association executive director and staff counsel for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, that prohibits “unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex.”

According to Butler, many school districts adopted similar policies while others chose to explicitly define what the word sex referred to, including sexual orientation, gender identity and gender nonconformity.

The policies were a mandate from the Department of Education to update the grievance and governance procedure requirements. Butler told the board that the 2024 policies mandates created a lower threshold for sexual harassment claims.

When Title IX passed in the mid-1970s, it mandated equality in men’s and women’s sports; however, the DOE expanded federal regulations over the years, which now affect programming and legal procedures for school districts.

The nondiscrimination policies on the basis of sex modified earlier regulations put in place in 2020, which defined a regulatory process for sexual discrimination claims.

In attendance were board members Higgins, Jr., Lonnie Achenbach, Gilberts, White, Lacie Anthony and Dustin Brewer. Jim Hackett was absent. Banasik, Vicki Waller and the district’s three principals were also present.

The next regularly scheduled board meeting is on April 14 at 5:30 p.m. The Board of Education approved moving the meeting location to the high school’s Field House.

Hires

Jennifer Wagner, food services director, and Abby White, assistant high school track coach.

Resignations

Cory Koenig, business education teacher; Wendy Whitney-Scherer, Bluff View teacher; Abby White, head middle school track coach; Leslie Yager, middle school track coach; Elbert Hale IV, alternative education teacher’s aide; Vickie Stevenson, head volleyball coach; and Maddie La Rocque, alternative education teacher’s aide.

Other business

• Freshmen Irys Powell and Hope Walker were accepted to attend the National World War II Museum and the Student Leadership Academy over the summer. They received full scholarships for travel, accommodations and programming, according to Morris.

• Chaya Blackburn was selected by the World War II Museum to receive the Bill Michal Student Leadership Award. According to Morris, there is only one winner selected per state each year, and students are nominated by teachers. She will attend the 2025 American Spirit Awards to represent the state of Wisconsin.

• The school had received approximately 200 surveys about the operating referendum from residents in the school district as of March 10. Surveys were due on March 15.