You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
During this interview, I'm talking with Superintendent Ron Rasmussen on Friday, April 24th, 2026.
Thank you for joining me, Ron, to bring the community an update from the Wisconsin Rapids Public School District.
Hello, Melissa.
Thanks for the invite.
Always good to see you here
and you
brought some special guests with you today Kim achy is the new principal of mead who will be starting next school year.
Welcome Kim
Thank you so much.
I'm glad to be here.
And the current principal, Amber Appleby, thank you both for joining us today.
Thank you, Amber.
Thanks, Melissa.
So no, I expect civility over there
from the two of you, right?
Oh, of
course.
Yeah, we've been working together a while now,
so it's
going to be good.
Excellent.
Well, Ron, let's start with you.
Give us a brief update on what's going on in the district.
This has got to be an exciting time as we're winding down the school year, graduation as well, underway planning, I'm sure.
Yeah, it's always when you get to the spring, you're
celebrating and
Talking about how the end of the year is happening, but you're also planning for the upcoming year.
So it's that time where you're kind of heavier hat in both school years as we go forth.
So first of all, I want to thank our community members who supported our district and our most recent operational referendum.
That will be a great benefit for our students to maintain programming, our extracurriculars, our co-curriculars, and our academic offerings for all of our students, K-12.
So I want to thank our community for their support of the Wisconsin Rapid Public Schools.
as part of that.
as we toured our community over the last few months and looked at that.
One of the things we heard pretty loud and clear from our community is, what are you doing with your buildings?
What is occurring?
And so we will be having a buildings and, excuse me, boundaries and buildings task force being formed.
And if anybody is interested in joining that task force from our community, you'll be able to hop on our social media.
There is an application that is there.
If a community member is interested, we're not able to take everyone on that task force that maybe
interested.
But we're excited to get
your applications
in your applications and we have a variety of parents that have us that have
chosen to be part of the committee as well.
And really we're going to look at our current elementary boundaries.
We have some elementary boundaries, schools that enrollment continues to grow in those areas and we're getting close to maximizing the number of students in those buildings and we have other buildings where we have less students.
That's good news, right?
That's good news, but we have other buildings where enrollment has declined.
So we may be looking at some of those elementary boundary changes and we want to really utilize our parent expertise and community members on what those lines look like because attendance
at schools is also an emotional issue and we know that families want consistency.
And so we really want to take our time, care and diligence as we pursue that.
So that's really important for us moving forward.
I want to congratulate John Krings and Kathy Stebbins-Hins who got reelected to the Board of Education, our Board of Reorganizational Meeting is this week, so that will occur.
We have a variety of teachers who have end of the year celebrations.
Joanie, fight.
was chosen as one of our Coal Excellence Fellows across the state of Wisconsin.
Joanie currently serves as a student engagement facilitator at Howe and Grant Elementary.
So it's really a great honor.
less than a hundred staff recognized across the state of Wisconsin ever for a Colt Excellence Fellow.
So that's pretty prestigious.
It's pretty prestigious.
And we're proud of Joanie's work within our buildings and with our students.
So that's pretty cool.
And Anne Hartley, who's a special education teacher at Lincoln was chosen by UWSP for their Excellence in Teaching Award for her work as well.
So I want to make sure I congratulate those folks on really furthering the profession of education.
We need more and more individuals who are dedicated to our
youth to continue to join our profession and joining and just exemplify that dedication not only to our students and our district and our community.
Wonderful.
So one of the other things that I think will be a nice transition over to Meade is we were blessed as a school district to have three of our elementary buildings be chosen as the Wisconsin School of Recognition by the Department of Public Instruction.
And that includes Grove, Howe, and Meade Elementary.
Congratulations.
Yeah, there are only 95 elementary schools across the state that were recognized.
And that's really for their work, working with students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and their efforts on continued academic.
growth for students.
So it's at only 95 schools in the state being recognized and three of them within WRPS.
So dedication to our administration and our staff for their work and continue that academic growth.
And Mead is one of those buildings that have invested a lot of time and effort in that student improvement.
And I know they're going to share some of their efforts and ideas as we move forward.
Well, I would like to hear about that principal Applebee because how long were you principal at Mead?
I'm wrapping
up my fifth year as principal at Meet Elementary.
And so we've worked really hard over the last several years to make sure that our staff are aligned with our common goals in the building and that we are finding balance in ways to support our students so that we're showing as much possible growth.
that we can.
Well, and that's a tricky line to navigate because students who come from an economically disadvantaged background, you don't want to single them out.
You don't want to call attention to, you know, the disparities that they're dealing with.
How do you navigate that line?
That's a great question.
I think
Fortunately or unfortunately, our students, our poverty rates about 80% of our students.
So there isn't really an us and them situation.
It's a majority.
Yep, we just show up and we take our students as they come through the door and accept them for who they are and teach acceptance across the students and know that everybody has their challenges.
But we say you can leave those things at the door.
And when you come here, you're part of the Mead family.
You are a Mustang.
And we are going to work to be responsible, respectful, and safe and do our best learning.
Wonderful.
And then Ron, if you would expound on that, how do you do that with the rest of the district?
Yeah, really, as we look at our curriculum across our buildings, we're very consistent.
It doesn't matter what elementary building you do attend.
We think we provide a high quality education within all of our elementary buildings.
We do know that we do invest some additional resources in our buildings based upon student need.
And it's really the building administration with their staff to utilize that additional staff that is provided in those buildings.
So if it's additional tutoring, homework club before or after school,
parent nights to really foster that growth with parents of what how do we bring this relationship together with the family to support their child and support their academic growth not only during the school day because we see the students less than half the year and what can be done at home to support those efforts not only academically but socially and emotionally as well.
And studies have proven that the parent
has a huge impact on the student learning outside of the school
day.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's most definitely, you know, reading with your child at night, giving them access to books.
It's not just pop them on the school bus.
Right.
And there they go.
And that's always become more difficult as technology has increased with the TV or an iPad or anything along those lines.
Easy babysitter.
Easy babysitter the phone, but really to take that time and invest in your child.
It's one of the reasons as we.
We looked at the new playgrounds across our community as well.
Really that was an effort to get kids outside in a safe playground, a nice safe environment, but also you learn so many additional skills on a playground that benefit you.
You learn collaboration.
You know how to handle conflict.
You both want that swing.
You both are climbing the mucky bars.
You get your little oopsies when you fall off and what happens when you get a skinny.
And so those are the things that are important for us to continue to provide as part of our
curriculum and sort of the not the academic curriculum but that socially emotional curriculum just really those soft skills of just being good people.
Well, before we dive into the changes that are happening with the leadership in Meade, are there any other district updates you want to share?
We'll hit on the other area.
We want to wish Officer Olivares, who has served as our school resource officer at Lincoln for the last, I think, five or six years.
He has been promoted to detective with the Wisconsin Rapids Police Department.
Congratulations to him.
Yes, congratulations to him.
But we're excited to also have Officer Matt McHugh join our staff at Lincoln as the school resource officer.
He's currently in training at Lincoln right now, so we're excited about that.
And obviously, end of the year, we have a lot of field trips and graduations, but I think I'll hold off those on just a little bit as we go forth.
We'll circle back to those.
We've got just a couple of minutes here in this last segment, so I'm going to put you on the spot, Ms.
Zeke.
Yes, Ms.
Zeke.
Ms.
Zeke, new principal at Meade.
Where did you come to us from?
Absolutely.
I've actually been at Meet Elementary the past five years as student engagement facilitator there.
And the other part of my position has been elementary math coordinator within the district.
But this is my 24th year in WRPS.
Oh, wonderful.
So you came to us from here.
I did.
Yes.
No need for a tour of the building.
You already got that down.
Right at home.
Yes.
And you know a lot of the students already.
I do.
The students and families.
Yes.
Great connections there.
So it should be a very
smooth transition.
And an exciting opportunity.
Yes.
Different situation for you.
And then Kim, where's your next journey?
I'm sorry, Amber.
My apologies.
No worries.
We're a lot alike in how we lead, so it's easy to mix us up.
Well, I'm going to be transitioning.
I've been in the district for this is my 20th year and be transitioning out of the district into a different profession.
But I can't be happier with who we've selected as Mead's leader.
She's going to do a beautiful job with...
the making sure it's a smooth transition, as she's already mentioned, she knows the students, she knows the staff.
We have an amazing staff at Meade.
They would do great with whoever is leading them, but having a person like him is, I just can't wait to see the things that Meade are gonna do moving forward.
They're ready to launch and it's gonna be great.
Wonderful.
Well, we'll dig into the nuts and bolts a little bit more in our second segment.
We're going to pause right here for a moment to hear from our sponsors.
I'm Melissa Kay talking with Superintendent Ron Rasmussen, Principal Kim Ake, and Principal Amber Appleby.
We'll be right back and you're listening to Perspective on 1320 AM, 97.5 FM WFHR.
Welcome, you're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM 975 FM WFHR.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
I've been speaking with Superintendent Ron Rasmussen of the Wisconsin Rapids Public School District as well as Kim Ake the new principal of Meade and current principal Amber Appleby and where we left off Ron we were just starting to dive into the hiring process and transition here with with these two principles.
Tell us a little bit about the
interview process because Kim wasn't the only applicant.
No we had multiple applicants from inside and outside from the school district and we offered interviews to eight individuals to come in and meet with us.
One of the nice things about obviously hiring internally you don't need to do a lot of that training.
Kim knows the building at Meade really well already but as an internal hire you're not given any
you know, favors that you're the internal hire, but it also shows the the work that Kim has done within our district that she rose to the top pretty easily with the committee.
And we're excited for her to join the team because she has been a student focus leader for her years within the district.
And knowing me is just an added benefit of that.
So it's going to be an easy transition, hopefully for the kids and families that need.
It sounds like it.
And Kim, for you, what was that interview process like?
Yeah, it was as soon as I saw the posting.
I just immediately knew that I wanted to apply for it.
I have loved working at Meade these past five years like Amber mentioned before.
Incredible staff.
We love our families.
We love our students.
And so just the thought of being able to stay there as building leader was really special to me.
So yeah, I applied and then
got asked to interview, and it was one interview that we went through.
And I found out pretty quickly that I'd been offered the position and did not hesitate to accept.
So it was, yeah, it was an exciting time for me.
Wonderful.
I'm glad to hear that.
And the two of you together collaboratively have been working, as you said, for five years now together.
How is that process changing now that you are transitioning?
I think
we're just working together even more throughout this process.
I mean, we work very closely on staff professional development.
We work closely with our pupil services team to support students.
inside the classroom, behaviorally, family support.
So that has continued.
We have some time slotted next month for Amber and I to just kind of get away to a different building and just spend a day planning the transition.
There's a
lot of behind
the scenes things that need to be learned.
And we want to make that as
smooth as possible.
So working on scheduling, building schedules for next year, just a lot of district protocols that administrators need to know.
we have a plan for getting those in place.
And Amber, for you as this career is, the sun is setting on this career and you're moving into something else, how is this process going for you?
I think it's going very smoothly.
I mean, I think, you know, it's always easy to say it's kind of bittersweet, right?
You know, because you're sad that things are coming to an end because it's been, you know, a great career working at WRPS.
I'm so grateful for all of my time and everything I've learned and all the relationships I've built.
I'm also very excited, obviously, for not only for my personal new journey, but also for Miss Zeke coming in as the new principal because it's going to go very well.
So I would say it's very harmonious these last few months.
Um, being able to, um, kind of talk her through a few things of, you know, here's how I choose to do it.
But if you choose to do it at different flavor, you know, that's fine as well.
But, um, you know, I think she's going to be more than ready than, um, anybody that's stepping into a new role for something like this.
Well, that sounds a little bit like mentoring and you do have a mentoring program, team rapids, but let's touch on that.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So, um, Gus Mancuso and, uh, Jay from the community came in.
kind of a grassroots type of a situation happened.
And they developed a program called Team Rapids, which is funded through some private source funding and kind of managed by encourage.
But they came to me.
at Meade saying they recognize that we do have a high population of students with high needs and they were wanting to know what they could do to help.
And so kind of in our conversation together, it came out that there are some students at Lincoln that would be very great candidates to mentor.
So we worked with Kelly Zubicki over at Lincoln High School to identify some high school students who could come on over and we have them assigned to different groups of students and it's going so well.
We have a few high school
students that you know one he had a trajectory I think he was going to go into some sort of chemistry degree and now he wants to be a teacher so
it's just
been very beneficial.
Students see these high school kids out in the community and they say oh that's my teacher and you know those types of things so it's always great when you can give those high school kids kind of that sense of purpose but then also it gives our kids a window into what they can see down the road right because sometimes you get stuck in your own day-to-day stuff.
Tell me about it.
Yeah exactly yeah and even when you're a kid right and so be
being able to see like, oh, I could grow up and be like, you know, so-and-so, who's a football player?
Or, you know, that kind of thing.
Which isn't as far of a stretch for them looking at it to a high school level versus an adult.
Right, you'd be surprised our fifth graders with the adult can tell them something and they don't want to listen to us, but the high school student says it and they're like, oh, that's gold.
That's a little, I don't know how that makes us feel, but I'll take it.
I mean, any positive direction for our kiddos is great to have.
And then also, let's talk about reading core.
Absolutely.
And then we'll throw that one
to you, Kim.
Yes, I can take that one.
So this year, we were able to benefit from a federal and state grant funded program called Reading Core, which was no cost to our school, but it was a program that allowed us to get a reading mentor to come into our building, get trained to give some reading interventions to students who otherwise might not be able to get service by one of
our in building reading interventionists.
So daily our reading core tutor is able to service between 15 and 20 students and provide some very intensive 20 minute reading interventions to our K3 students.
So we have a wonderful tutor this year and she'll be back next year.
Wonderful.
But
it's just a great program because we have just a lot of students that have some needs where if they can get that extra boost,
that
extra one-on-one time or small group time with a trained professional and just kind of pick up some of those skills, fill some of those foundational gaps,
it's been
really beneficial.
So as the internal coach, I get to work closely with the reading tutor.
get to observe some of the interventions.
We get to talk about the data.
I love looking at the progress graphs of the students because they are all making so much progress, especially our kindergarten students.
And at that age, just watching that light bulb come
on is so fulfilling.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And we're just finding that less and less students have the opportunity to get real books in their hands at home and read with adults at home just for a variety of reasons.
I know my.
of the parents are working multiple jobs and it's just tricky to find that time so they really cherish any opportunity at school where they can work one-on-one with an adult.
And being able to read and comprehend what you're reading is such a foundational
an important skill to have for,
I don't know, life.
Yeah, it absolutely is.
And you can just tell the difference in confidence when students finally, like you said, have those light bulb moments and something just finally clicks for them.
And then on the flip side, you can see students just really get a little down on themselves when they are struggling with something.
So we just are so happy to be able to have this program to provide that extra support.
And as students make progress, they can
at the program and then we can bring some new students in to get that support but we really feel that we're able to provide service to all students who need the boost this year because of the reading core program.
So it's been great and we're able to continue it for next year.
We already found out that we are going to receive the funding and to build on that we are actually going to be
um, adding math core next
year as
well.
It's a newer program.
So we've already been slotted to get a full time math core tutor at me next year to kind of boost that subject area, which is needed as well.
Many
of our long time listeners will know that
that is not my strong
suit.
Is there any way I can sign up for that?
Exactly.
Yes.
Parents are always very happy when they can find that their children are getting extra support.
I'm
great with homework help as long as it's not
math.
Right?
Excellent.
Well, let's transition back over to you, Ron, in our last couple minutes and talk about the end of the school year in graduation.
Yeah, so kind of just a few things at the end of the school year here.
One of the things that we will be...
a project in the district will be the new Howe parking lot.
Oh,
yeah.
And so that's going to break ground on Monday, June 8th.
Oh, is that where the old church
was?
Yeah, that will be the combination of the current parking lot over at Howe and the old Emanuel Church site.
We've worked with the city that Prospect Street will be vacated between 8th and 9th.
And so we're going to kind of take
over that area, but also add a lot more green space into that area too.
I think that's important for us to be good neighbors within our communities.
And we're going to be putting up a pavilion there in that neighborhood for parents to stay by the parking lot for pick up and drop off.
Nice.
And but then additional green space because the last thing you want to do when you look out your front window is just see a bunch of asphalt.
And so we're also going to be adding some green space into those areas over there at how.
At the end of the year, we really have
three graduation ceremonies at the secondary level.
One is our Project Search graduation, and Project Search is really an excellent program for students with special needs that are between the ages of 18 and 21, primarily with the Spirus Review Hospital and ODC.
and the students report to Aspirus Review for their classroom and then they have work environments and various departments at Aspirus.
So Aspirus has been a great partner and that graduation will be on May 21st at 6 p.m.
at the Community Theater.
Our
River City's High School graduation will be held in the Performing Arts Center at Lincoln High School on Friday, May 29th at 6 p.m.
And then we hope for great weather for Lincoln High School graduation on Sunday, May 31st at 1 p.m.
And the intent is for that to be out at Woodtrust Bank Field at Saltwater County Stadium.
And we hope to at this point by graduation, if you've been on those bleachers at Woodtrust, you know, they're a pretty high step.
So we're installing half steps for our community members and our individuals who may have a hard time walking up the bleachers.
So that should help.
I don't know why it wasn't done when it was built.
Maybe it was just wasn't a need 25 years ago when those bleachers were put in.
But that's one thing that as we continue to use that facility more and more, more state events come to our area and we do school events such as graduation out there, the importance for grandma and grandpa to get up in the bleachers.
I know my parents and my two kids graduated recently had a difficulty getting up into the bleachers.
So we're making those efforts.
So we hope to have that installed by that graduation time as well.
The last thing I do want to kind of mention here is our district was awarded the Skyward Leader Excellence Award.
We were one of two districts in the country awarded by Skyward for working with them and excellence in utilizing the data platforms.
And obviously,
Skyward being a locally based company.
Yeah, right out of Steven's point.
You're right out of Steven's point and many of our community members work at Skyward and families work at Skyward.
So it's been an excellent partnership between us and and the district and we just wanted to thank Skyward for recognizing our district and our work working with them moving forward.
So kind of excited and thankful for that.
And Phil Bickle helped and all our staff working with that.
Wonderful.
Well, I want to give a huge shout out to all the people working behind the scenes to get ready for graduation.
Having done that myself in the
and a past career.
I know it's a lot of work, so you guys are doing great.
Keep it up.
Yeah, it's exciting time of the year.
Senioritis has kicked in.
I think we have a social media post up there about making sure you're attending school, doing your best, doing your homework, because that senioritis really kicks in right now.
And you're so close.
You really
don't want to give up now.
You're almost across
the finish
line.
Yes, exactly.
Well, I really appreciate all of you taking the time to come onto the show today.
I'm Melissa Kay, speaking with Superintendent Ron Rasmussen, Kim Ake, new principal of Meade, and current principal Amber Appleby.
Thank you all for joining me today.
Thank you for
having us.
And thank you to listeners joining us for news in our community on perspective, 1320 AM, 97.5 FM, WFHR.
