Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this December 22nd, 2023.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
We're welcoming to our WFHR stage, our good friend Craig Braun,
superintendent, Wisconsin Ravics, public schools.
Craig, good to see you.
Good to see you.
And we brought some friends with you.
We have Ron Rasmussen, principal of Lincoln High School.
Ron, good to see you.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you very much.
And we have Steve Thayer with us,
associate principal at Lincoln High School.
Good to see you, Steven.
Thank you, James.
It's good to be here.
Appreciate the time.
I have to start off thanking you all for addressing the season.
Thank you very much.
Steve, even Craig's got some red on.
You know, you're in this Christmas spirit.
You got that going.
Thank you very much, you guys, for doing that.
For having some fun, for being in studio today.
I do need to let the audience know, journalistically,
I am very biased on this subject.
I graduated from Lincoln.
I love my red raiders.
So I'm not going to have any integrity with this interview.
I'm joking, I'm joking.
But we'll have some fun.
I do want to catch up with Lincoln
and find out how things are going over there.
Let's start right there, you guys, with not just Lincoln,
but principaling in general.
Talking to our listeners and them really enjoying these segments.
And I do have to give you a big shout out, Craig.
I've heard from many listeners,
they've enjoyed this segment in part,
the guests that you've brought on, local principals.
It's been a lot of fun.
And I know how you guys know this way better than I do.
Parents and teachers need to share more
and beyond the page of the same page.
Not for themselves as much as for the kids.
And I think that a lot of our listeners
have really, really felt like they understand
much, much more about our public schools.
One of the things that I thought was really interesting
was an individual I talked to who hasn't had kids
in public schools around here for almost 20 years.
They've really been enjoying this.
They have really, so I didn't think much
about that angle of things,
but that's been a really fun part of this.
Thank you for doing that.
Absolutely.
Let's start with that right there.
What is principaling to you?
How do you principal?
Ron, I'll start with you.
Yeah, I think being a principal at a high school level
is really interacting with your community
and your students itself.
Obviously, the schools are just a symbol
of what our community as a whole.
And we're preparing students right now
for jobs that don't even exist yet.
So it's that aspect of providing opportunities
for families having relationship building
with families and students to look at,
where do you want to envision yourself in 15, 20 years?
No, I always tell our seniors
when I have my last meeting with them
at graduation practices,
I want you to go out and explore the world, all right?
But I always want you to come back to Wisconsin Rapids
because right now they all think they're going to leave
and they're never going to come back home
because they see media, social media,
everything, what's out there.
And I said, go explore everything that's out there,
but you're going to want to come back
at some point to Central Wisconsin.
Yeah.
It's a great place to live, great environment.
And so part of that process of being a principal
is to open those doors for students
to provide those opportunities for kids,
but then also highlight all the great things
that occur around them daily
and their teenagers, often teenagers
are self-centered on themselves.
They're very focused on themselves,
but trying to keep them open
to what those experiences are
and the importance of family, friends, and community.
That's great, Ron.
Thank you for that.
Thank you.
Steve.
Yeah, so for me, my lens is a little different
as an associate principal,
I deal a lot more with student discipline.
And so because of that,
me and my two other associate principal colleagues,
we really try and focus on the humanity of the incidents.
We see some of our students at their worst, right?
We were all young, we all made mistakes.
We all did things that we are not proud of.
And so reminding our students that these decisions,
they don't have to define them moving forward,
that it can be something that creates who they are,
not predicts who they are.
And so we try to really bring in the humanity of it
and let our students know that tomorrow's gonna be a new day.
We're gonna learn from this
and we're gonna be better moving forward.
And so just providing that connection,
kind of like Ron had said,
one of the things we do specifically at Lincoln
to try to do that is we travel with our kids to graduation.
So when I took over the freshmen,
when they came into Lincoln,
I will travel with them as one of their people
all the way through to graduation,
supporting them through their struggles,
supporting them through their classes
and helping them grow into the kind of person
that they wanna be and that we want them to be
to positively impact our community.
I think a key thing that you said there
that seems very different approach
to the way things might have been at one point
is the idea that it doesn't predict anything.
I think that's a really key part of this.
I say that in part with a little bias
because boy, you guys would've known my name.
Oh man, Steve, you would've known me, you'd've known me.
I was a knucklehead, but I was also very fortunate
to not only be in this town and being that person,
but I had a great principal in Mr. Mankusa,
who I always thought that he did a great job.
I felt like he knew me by name.
When all those kids, all those different people
and there was more than just me, it was a knucklehead.
But yet he knew me right from day one.
Even before I got in trouble, I was able to.
And I don't ever remember being called to his office
and being talked down to.
I don't ever remember him treating me
like I was less than or anything.
Even though I expected that from somebody in that position,
he never treated me that way.
I think that your approach is so similar to that,
so much a key to that.
And I do think that it's part of the reason
not only why our public schools are doing so well
in this area, but why we have so many individuals
that do come back to this area is things like that.
I was one of those kids that you're talking about there.
And not only not from here originally,
but didn't appreciate this area very much.
I was one of the kids that couldn't wait to get out
and didn't see the individuals
and the things that this town offered.
It wasn't until I came back that it all dawned on me,
that it all came through.
And now I'm gonna spend every second of my life
and I'm in this area making sure that I support this area,
promote it and make sure that I kind of give back.
I keep that right, I make right by that.
There's a lot of individuals out there
that you can avoid to happen to do that.
You can just do right now.
And you guys are helping with that.
It's a key part of this process,
but you can't do it alone.
You gotta have great staff,
gotta have great teachers,
have support system from the superintendent,
a lot of these things and certainly from parents.
And you need good activities.
You need fun things, things that keep the kids interested,
keep the school year going and rolling along.
Let's go into some of the activities coming up
in Lincoln now.
What are some of those that you can tell us about?
Yeah, so obviously you talked about how we're dressed
kind of festive today.
So it's been a very positive thing
of seeing all the ugly sweaters or Christmas
that we're happening across the building.
But obviously we're in full swing
of our winter activities right now.
Over the holiday here,
basketball teams are participating
at the Century Classic,
over at the Quant Field House,
our hockey team is participating
down in Wisconsin Dells.
Wrestlers are out there as well.
Tonight, for example,
we have the welcome back to the 1974
first state championship wrestling team
on the 50th anniversary of that.
So that's tonight after the,
oh, it's 7.45 pm.
But just those involvements.
Last Sunday we had our community holiday concert
with our combined orchestra choir and band.
So those activities are really important
to keep kids not only engaged in school,
but for some of them,
it will become a career passion for them as well.
So we offer over 55 activities,
23 sports at Lincoln.
So there's always something for a student
if they want to provide that to learn and go do.
Obviously, it would start snowing at some point.
We have a ski.
Any day that goes up to Granite Peak.
So, it'll start snowing
and they'll have those opportunities as well.
So pretty much every night of the week,
we're the buildings open till 10 o'clock at night
because there's something going on.
But that involvement of students,
we know students who are involved
in activities perform better academically,
attend school more frequently
and trying to gather that involvement
and there's very important.
Yeah, and certainly,
not only as they get closer to possibly going in,
continuing their education,
we know whether our tech schools or college
that helps the resume certainly doesn't hurt there.
And there are so many different things
that, like you said, can be sparked from those activities.
Yeah, so obviously when COVID hit,
we were really concerned
when we started live streaming events.
And also then we created this live stream club.
And now we have a full green room at Lincoln.
And now that's morphed into a whole
curriculum and a course for students.
So just that, what obviously was unexpected for us
moving forward is led to a group of about 30 kids
and a class of approximately 25 students
to learn that that basis
and they're working on technology
that they can run the video board at Lincoln.
And that's the same equipment
that they can go to Lambo Field or Pfizer Forum.
And they run the exact same equipment
that professionals do in those professional venues.
So that's what's really awesome
about partnerships that you develop
and be able to explore what's out there for students.
It would be really easy for me to be jealous of these kids.
Really easy.
I mean, whether it's the PAC,
the performing arts center that just arrived
like a year or two after I graduated
and I would have killed to play on that stage
or some of these things that you're mentioning there Ron,
they're so great assets.
But it's not, I don't feel any jealousy
because I am excited about the future.
I'm excited about what these kids are going to learn
and what they're going to grow
and add to these industries.
I'm going to keep coming back to that spark
and you just don't know what can happen there.
I had a teacher at Lincoln, Mrs. I,
who took an interest in me in video productions.
And she let me bow her the camera on the weekends
and different things.
And I got to do all this different stuff
that is applying right now to the job I'm doing.
I didn't plan on being in radio.
I didn't think I'd ever be in radio.
And here I am.
And it's so much because of the speech classes
and the different things I took at Lincoln
that prepared me to be in this spot to do this job.
I think, okay, I mean, I get a little better, certainly.
But it really, there's no way I'm in this chair
without going to that particular school
and having those particular teachers and everything.
It all comes together all that's up.
And you're exactly right.
You know, it's not just about the activities
and the doing stuff.
It's about the development.
It's about helping young people find out
where their passions are.
And it's about that development,
whether it's development in a particular skill
or just development as a leader.
You know, we're doing that too.
We're sending some of our captains
of our athletic programs to different
athletic leadership conferences where we,
I have the privilege of every year working with anywhere
from 65 to 80 juniors and seniors.
As a part of our link crew is what we call it
where they do an orientation for all of our freshmen
every year and they come in and they welcome them
to Lincoln and in teaching them that servant leadership
and you know, investing in other people.
It's like you said, it's providing that spark.
It's letting kids identify those things.
Oh, shout out to them.
That's a great group.
That's a great idea.
That's very, very cool.
There's a lot of groups like that at Lincoln.
There's a lot of different things like that
available at Lincoln and I want to get into
some of the other different projects,
different things that are coming around.
One of them, I have to be honest with the audience.
I just heard about in our pre-game
as we were beginning to talk,
they direct to Mitt that they get into that
if we can a little bit.
Yeah, so obviously we have great educational partners.
Obviously in Tom and Midstake Technical College.
So beginning with the class of 2024,
the class that will graduate in June,
they will all be directly admitted
to Midstake Technical College
no need to fill out an application.
They'll just go straight to Midstake
if they pursue to do that.
And right now we believe we have about 50 to 60.
In the last numbers I've seen talking back and forth
with Midstake, pursuing that as their educational endeavor.
So that's a great partnership.
Our students at Lincoln can earn a lot of college credit
through Midstake Technical College
or actually just adding two more for got okayed yesterday.
So next year students who are in our AP US History course,
they take that course all year,
they'll end up with six credits that go to Midstake
and they'll be able to either continue
that education in Midstake
or that transcript will transfer out
to other colleges and universities.
Beginning in the class of 2025,
we're working with the UW system
that all our graduates from Lincoln will be directly admitted
to approximately three quarters
of the UW system schools automatically.
No process of having to worry about the essay,
the application, as long as they graduate from Lincoln.
No fees.
No fees, they take that diploma and say yep,
that's good for their direct admit to our university.
So those partnerships are phenomenal
with UW system as well as with Midstake Technical College.
For example, my daughter is a freshman
at a different university right now.
She ended up with 26 credits from Lincoln
that transferred into her university.
So that's almost a whole full year of college
that's gonna save you on the far end.
So working with UW Siemens Point,
working with Midstake Technical College,
providing those college opportunities for students.
And it's not just if you're pursuing a four year degree,
a lot of our students do two year associate degrees at Midstake.
Those credits will transfer right to Midstake
and speed up that option for that
two year degree at Midstake Technical College.
So those are options that never existed
when I was in school, even 10, 15 years ago dead exists.
So those possibilities to save money for families
and speed up and to move to employment
and workforce is important for students.
This is where I would ask a follow up question,
but I'm a little speechless.
Because it's such an amazing program.
It's such a really unique and cool thing to hear about.
I don't know, I don't want to assume,
but I imagine a lot of our listeners
and you guys might have heard of what UW did recently
where with Native Americans and allowing them direct access
to the school and being able to be enrolled
and that I thought that was just,
I thought that was the most incredible story.
I was gonna hear all week.
This is right there with it.
That is so incredible.
It, as you touched on there Ron,
financially could be very beneficial
with the crossover of credits and that.
And we've heard a lot of red pony of stories
about financial debt and how that can hold back some people
from wanting to continue their education.
So I feel like we cover that a little bit
with something like this.
But the investment in our future, this is.
I don't know how we put in the words.
Like it's just so remarkable.
I know in my graduating class,
shout out to class in 96,
there were individuals, friends of mine
that talked about, I'm gonna take a couple years off
to save money or to do this because I,
and being honest, they're friends of mine
and most of them did not go and do that.
They didn't go into college and everything.
You take some of that out of the scenario as well.
Such an important program.
That is really cool.
Thank you for bringing that to us.
Yeah, so we figured,
last year, they made about $1.1 million
for the credits taken.
Antlink and talk by our teaching staff.
Wow.
But accredited through mid-state technical college
or through WC Ms. Pointe.
And that's obviously a significant savings
for all the families.
Now they may not all use those credits in their future,
but that's a really important savings
for them as they move forward.
Ron, just one last question about this.
Do you know how this came about
where this idea came from?
Some of the background is just directions from the state,
looking at how you can partner with your local
educational partners.
And it takes a lot of training on our staff at Lincoln as well.
They have to have a master's degree,
minimum in the curricular area.
So they have to have a master's degree in English
or a master's degree in math or in business.
So it's a lot of work on the teachers aspect as well
to make sure they earn that master's degree in that area
because then they can get certified as an instructor,
as an adjunct instructor at the institution
that we're partnering with.
And then a shout out to those teachers
taking that initiative and being able to do something like that
and be able to do it back that up, that's fantastic.
Craig, this has got to be quite a game changer too
for our kids when we're talking to women grade school
and we're talking about them the future of their education.
We can offer this now.
We can, you know, keep, hit them up on this very young.
Yeah, so that's one of the key differences.
And I think, you know, in speaking
with what you referenced regarding your listeners
and some of the things that are appreciative of hearing,
having been out of education or having not having kids
and have graduated multiple years ago,
there's clearly a ton of things that are the same, right?
I mean, the overarching goal and kind of how a classroom looks
and the idea that you have homework
and, you know, these sorts of things,
these, this is not atypical, right?
We've all had that kind of experience.
But one of the pieces that I think that Lincoln brings
to the table based on its size.
So there's some downfalls, right?
You hear, I don't want to be in a high school that size.
But clearly, the biggest upshot to that is these things
that you've heard described here today.
And I can speak from an incredibly informed viewpoint
because I had three kids, you know,
one of them graduated from Lincoln a couple years ago
and my twins are going to graduate this year.
They take after their mother
so they'll get their diplomacy so forth.
But my point is is that I don't even know how I can relate
to your average listener what our kids do
and what they're involved in at Lincoln.
It's shocking, it's unbelievable.
And I didn't, I wasn't the best student myself either.
I mean, I straightened up a bit in later high school
but academically speaking was fine
but behavior-wise was an idiot like many of us.
And we have some of that circumstance
but when we focus on that,
we're talking about maybe 2% of the building population,
right?
But the things you hear about what these kids have access to
and what our students are involved in, it's unreal.
Most of the adults I know aren't involved
in the amount and number and impactful things
that Lincoln high school students are.
And one of the other things, Ron and I are both
in a new and rotary, part of the new and rotary club
and there's student rotarians that join
from Lincoln, three from Lincoln
and one from Assumption typically.
And that's an avenue where, you know,
members of the rotary can hear what our students are doing.
And of course, I know what my own kids are doing
and some of their friends and so forth
and I'm clearly aware of all the programs
and opportunities that Lincoln high school offers.
But when you hear individual students describe,
so they'll say, okay, so you just introduce yourself,
tell us who your parents are
and tell us what you're involved in at Lincoln high school.
And I'm not kidding you,
there's some of these students that'll talk for five minutes
about all of the things they're doing.
So they're in two sports, they're in three clubs,
they're in band or choir, in orchestra or both,
in theater, it's unbelievable.
And those students when they graduate in Lincoln high school
regardless of what they do,
clearly have written their ticket.
They know, I mean, they know all of the tips and techniques
of what it takes to be a successful human being.
And ultimately, that's the focus of all of the staff,
including Ron and Steve at Lincoln high school.
We are concerned about academics,
we want our kids to be challenged.
But I've never had a conversation with Ron or Steve
or anybody else on the administrative team about,
man, if that kid's test scores don't go up,
we're really gonna have a problem.
It's about how do we create decent human beings?
That's the primary focus.
And guess what, when you're in the process of doing that
and that's your focus, test scores tend to go up
or kids do well, but I can't underscore enough
the amount and depth of opportunities
that kids get at Lincoln high school.
It's incredible.
And there's certainly, we got great high schools
all across the country and everything.
When we're talking about Lincoln,
that there are some things that stand out with Lincoln
about it not only because of the team, the staff,
and though that you have there,
but the accessibility to do certain things,
I think is also really benefited over there.
And the option of, and not only for Lincoln students,
but for all around, we know that a lot of our high schools
use some of the facilities over there
with the Bad New Baseball field and some of that.
How much has that changed things for you, Ron,
with some of those new additions at Lincoln?
It's made me busier, that's right, I'm at it.
So my goal has always been that a kid that attends Lincoln
or has the same opportunity as any student
that would be attending, let's say a suburban walk,
a medicine school, and just to provide those opportunities,
be it on the athletic field, on the stage,
or in the classroom.
And that's really been my focus since I moved here
13 years ago was, what are the opportunities
that we can do and with obviously the support
of our community with some of the additions
to Lincoln physically, and then programmatically,
we're able to do that.
And that's the important thing,
is just because you grow up in Central Wisconsin,
it's not the medicine market that you're
going to compete against students from all those areas
moving forth in your life and to provide that basis
that's sound educational footings for kids
moving forward is really important.
The other cool thing that occurs now,
when you get other schools that visit us and say,
hey, what are you doing?
Well, I mean, our science labs is part
of the most recent referendum project.
Our top of the line, they're better than the university lab.
My daughter participates in right now
in her science courses, that those were able to program kids
for the future in those areas.
And our science teachers and now they
each have their own classroom, they can get all their stuff
ready for students during the day.
They're not on top of each other when
they're providing lab experiences for students.
And that support from our community and the students see that.
They can see, yeah, my community really
wants me to move forth and to learn.
And that's what's been appreciative of all the projects
that Lincoln in the last two years.
So much of these classes and the different things
that you've touched on, the activities and that too,
I feel an underlying theme of empathy, too,
of creating more of that, giving more opportunity for that.
And that's one of those things we're always looking for, too,
with our youth, and as we go forward here.
And we're wrapping up.
Before we do, you mentioned dual credits, Ron, a little bit.
I wanted to take some time with that.
Did you cover that as well as you'd like?
Yeah, I think that's important.
So I just was sitting in a junior meeting.
So one of the nice things as well, we have five school
counselors at Lincoln, is every year you
can meet with your school counselor with your parents
and kind of plan what your years are going for in the future.
So this morning, I sat in with a student and his parents
regarding their future and looking at it and going,
wow, I can have 18 college credits moving forth.
And I'm thinking of this as my four year.
And they were like, oh, my freshman year wasn't really great.
And we're like, yeah, that's OK.
But that's expected.
You're 14 years old.
Yeah.
Look at how you've done.
And so when you begin to write your scholarship essays
or whatever, you talk about, yeah, I came in as a freshman.
I didn't know what I wanted to do.
And look how much I've grown moving forth and that empathy,
that one on one, that relationship building.
We all fully realize, as Steve stated here,
that students are going to make poor decisions.
We all make poor decisions.
But it's how you grow from that decision-making process.
And so it's important to do.
The dual credit is an important aspect of that.
But as Craig said, as well, it's just important.
The importance of being just a good human being
is really what we want you to do when you graduate.
Well said.
We have to have more questions, but we have to wrap up.
Well, we're going to have to have you guys back.
If people have follow questions, you want to know more
about some of the things we've talked about today.
Craig, how can they reach you?
So districtwebsaidwrps.org 715-424-6701.
Thank you, Craig, absolutely.
Ron, how about for you if people want to reach out to you?
Yep, same thing, go to wrps.org.
And a number at Lincoln is 715-424-6751.
Steve, I'm guessing it's the same for you,
but it'd be kind of funny if it was different, isn't it?
Well, I can give you a different number to it.
To a different secretary.
Yeah, 715-424-675-0.
I hope you want to go that route, but you can also
find my contact information on the website as well.
Thank you both for being here.
Really good to meet you guys.
Looking forward to having you back.
Craig, it's always good to see you.
Thank you so much for the time, as always.
Appreciate you.
Thanks, Steve.
Happy holidays, Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year to all of you guys and you and yours.
And we'll see you again next year.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you to the best listeners and radio.
We appreciate all of you for joining us this week.
We will have more midday magazine for you next week.
Do want to send a special shout out to Pam Hilke,
the heart of this station, great work, Pam.
We appreciate you.
Have a great weekend.
Be good to each other.
We'll talk to you soon and later right here at WFHR,
locally grown radio.
