Hello world. Welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report. Probably brought to you by
Crockett Sceptic for this August 22nd 2025. Have your host James here. We're
joined right now by some members from the Wisconsin Rapids Public School
system. We have Superintendent Ron Rasmussen with us. Ron, good to see you.
Hi James. You couldn't avoid me any longer, Ron. Oh, I had to come back after the
summer break. We will put you to work in a little bit here. Thanks for being here,
sir. And we have Kelly Schafer with us. Principle of Washington Elementary. Kelly
always good to see you. You two James, thanks for having me. I, Ron knew how
non-noses audience. He knew, okay, how can I, how can I get him James's good
grace as well? Just bring somebody from Washington School and that's always
gonna make him smile. I really do appreciate you guys here. And especially
perfect timing as the school year is right around the corner. We want to make
sure that all of our residents here in the area are ready for these kids, ready
for our teachers, ready for the school year in a really good school year ahead.
Kelly, I'll start with you if you don't mind. When it's, when it comes to my
old stopping grounds of Washington and everything, how are these last days,
these last weeks, building up to the first day of the school year? What is that
like? It's the most exciting time of the year in my opinion. It's, you know,
we're starting to fresh slate. The floors are waxed. We have some really exciting
news. We have a new playground that we put in this summer. We partnered with the
Legacy Foundation to really do some nice upgrades. So we're putting the
finishing touches on that. And most importantly, next week we get to welcome
in our families. So they get to come in, see all the great things that we're
ready to get started for the year, meet the teachers, open those fresh school
supplies and get things rolling for the year ahead. I can't be alone in the
nostalgia. I was just waved over me with as you were saying that and
everything. And for a lot of us, when we think about that, we think about our
first days of school and that. But there are teachers that are also
preparing and getting ready for this as well. So I mentioned that that's part of
what's going on right now, too, is them getting accumulated with things, whether
their new teachers are been there for a while? Absolutely. The other biggest
piece of these last few weeks and even the week ahead is education is all
about learning. And it's not just the students. It's the adults as well. Whether
it's myself and our team, our professional staff, our teachers, there's a lot
of learning that goes into things year after year. Education's never stagnant.
Always growing and we've continued to do that. And I'm excited for our year ahead.
We do have just one or two new staff members at Washington. But across the
district, we've been preparing everyone to be ready with any new initiatives we
may have or making sure we're strengthening our parent communications. And
what does that look like across our community? And how do we all partner to make
sure we get off to a great start this year? Well said. And I appreciate
you noting that, Kelly, because I think that we sometimes think of the education
system as well. I went to school. I got my, I went to school so many years, got
my degree. Now I'm a teacher. Teaching is a learning experience. Teaching is
a growing experience. It never stops. It never ends. It's one of the things I
love about it's one of the things I like about education in general. There's
always something to learn. The smartest human being on the planet has stuff to
learn. There's still room to grow. And our teachers get that and realize that
noting that I think is really important when we go into this school year, not
just as adults, but especially adults like myself that don't have kids in
school anymore or anything. We're voting on things and involving our public
schools or just talking about them in general and being a little more
educated, no pun intended. When it comes to things involving your schools, I
think that's encouraging as well to hear that. Not just as somebody who cares about
kids and wants them to get smarter and better every day and all that, but for
our teachers, it keeps it interesting and invigorating for them as well. And
that's always important in education. Absolutely. You had a great note in our
pregame here that I wanted to get to. If you don't mind, you were talking
about things involving the beginning of the school year and how important
routine is. As adults, I think we understand whether it's kind of some
conscious or not, how important routine is. You know, that early, we all have a
beginning to our day and, you know, how we're going to do that. But it's maybe
you can make the argument never more important than when we're young and how
much whether kids fight against it or not, those brains need routine. They
strive for it. I thought that was a really good note by you. For you, what does
that mean getting a good routine in place? Absolutely. And during the summer, we
know that we have a lot more flexibility as parents. Our days might look a little
different here and there or there might be a really strong routine because their
life doesn't change. The adults still go to work every day. But school creates a
different pace. So what do you do to set the stage for your kids to make sure
that they're successful? Starting things off, if you haven't enrolled your
child yet, they're still time. So, you know, good note. I can always visit our
website or our enrollment center on Lincoln Street and the old East Junior
High Building and get that taken care of because that'll open up our
communication with our teachers. You can visit them at our meet and greets that
are all scheduled across the district next week. They would love to see all of
the smiling faces. Bring your school supplies in or don't. We will always take
care of anything that might be needed to help them be successful at school.
But then at the home side, what can you do? What does that look like? What does
bed time look like? I don't know about you, but if I don't get to bed and get
asleep, I know that I don't wake up ready to go the next morning. Yeah, ask the
audience how I do it. What does that routine look like? When do you turn the
electronics off? You know, to get yourself in a spot that where you're ready to
get a good night's sleep? What does your morning routine look like? Are you
racing every morning to get out the door or do you have a few minutes to do
everything that needs to be done? Give that hug to send them out for success and
and ready with those smiling faces. Thinking about those little things can
really make a big difference. One thing that I started to do when I finally got
a little consistency for myself going to school and being in one school and
one community and all that, I didn't have a ton of clothes in growing up.
But I liked knowing what I was going to win. I didn't, being honest with
everybody, didn't want to wear the same shirt twice and wake or something like
that. So I would plan out what I was going to wear for the next day and I didn't
put a ton of thought into this or anything, but it was just something I did.
And I didn't have the one last thing I didn't have to worry about in the
morning, the rushing around you talk about didn't have as much of that. As an
adult, it's a game changer. It's been huge to me as an adult. So I think little
things like that go a lot farther than we realize and they could even have
an everlasting kind of an impact on you and something you do the rest of your
life sometimes that can really help your day to day life. There's so much chaos
at life is entropy. We don't know what's going to happen always. What we can plan
and what we can do can go a long way whether you're a child or an older or a
parent or somebody and have to get your kids ready for school or any of these
kind of things. I think it's a great note. Really good idea about just, you know,
talk with your kids, getting a good routine, something that works for them,
something that works with them and not just kind of dictating to them. I think
that's a big part of it too. Kids love to feel included. Kids love to feel like
they have a little say in things or responsibility. Whether they do or don't,
that's us for adults does figure out. But it isn't there's no downside to
something like that. Absolutely. And it's a process. And if you're struggling
with it, you will not be the only parent. We had our student services teams are
always willing to help and talk those things through and even create a plan
together with your child if you're really struggling with it. So there's never a
bad question. Don't hesitate to reach out and we're happy to help. Yeah, a great
note by you. You know, no different than when we were in school. There are no
bad questions and it's no different now. And I really do encourage parents to
reach out. Along that note too, always encouraging parents to be supportive of
other parents as well. What you say, you know, to your significant other or
behind closed doors, that's all between you guys and everything. But in public and
with other, when you're around other parents, I don't see any reason not to be
supportive. I think we judge ourselves. We are our own harshest critics as
parents and everything. You probably don't have to be critical. That parent is
already got it in their head. We get hesitant to ask for help because of those
things. Don't be hesitant. Don't hold back. There is no question that you can
really ask them that they probably haven't heard and would not help you find
the answers to. And they're there. That's their job. They're there to help.
They want to be able to help. So encourage everybody to reach out with that.
That's great stuff, Kelly. Thank you. We will have you back later if for any
other reason nostalgia for me. No, I'm kidding. Anytime. Washington Wolves are
always there for you. We know. Appreciate that. No, really, look, look
forward to talking again real soon. We'll touch base with you before we wrap up.
Ron, Kelly mentioned playgrounds. Yes. I want to get to some reminders in a moment.
But I didn't want to touch on this because it's been a consistent thing. And I'm
sure audiences picked up on it that most of our grade schools, a lot of our
schools have gotten new playground equipment in the last couple of years. Now
that we're getting here where we've had so many of them getting it, can we
just take on it? I don't really have a question here. I just want to step back
and appreciate this. This is really, really cool for kids. This is something
that's really unique and wonderful for our area. Yeah, we're really lucky and
blessed that our partnership, the Legacy Foundation, to be able to part, to put
new playgrounds at many of our elementary buildings because we're lucky that
we have community schools. We have local schools. So, you know, a playground
hopefully is within a few blocks of your house. So you can just go on and go play
on the local playground and it's not you're available after school, three, you
know, soon as school ends to the end of the day and all summer long. So this
summer we're in the next week and a half opening up new playgrounds at
Washington Grove, Howe, and Think Elementary and Rudolph. So those projects are
pretty near completion. That partnership has been great. We also, you know,
partnerships is what we are as a school district. We realize we need to work
together with everyone. And so also at Washington, we have now paved walking
paths around the soccer fields. So any community member have that ability to
walk around those soccer fields, but also provides accessibility for parents,
grandparents, anybody who needs that extra assistance to go watch their kid in
youth rack program or kickers club program or just the assumption or Lincoln
programs that ready access to what's occurring. And that's really a great
partnership between us and the Rapids area soccer incorporated. And that just
has continued all summer. We've grown a lot of partnerships throughout the
summer. The YMCA has moved their gymnastics program over to Lincoln. And
that's been great. And they're very excited. I've had spent a lot of
conversations. That's been exciting. We hope to grow that program because we
need them to be successful for our kids to be successful as being the only
high school in the area that offers gymnastics. So we're excited about that.
The city a year ago moved their swim program, a park and wreck to Lincoln as
well. So that's a partnership that we're continuing to grow and expand on.
And I just had some further conversation about that earlier this week. And
over the summer of school district provided breakfast and lunch to a lot of
families. So those are those community points that were able to supply that
once again, trying to be where our students are, where the families are versus
all incoming to one of our locations. So we were spread out next summer. We
plan an opening location just on the street here at the zoo for accessibility
for for students and families in that. And the other cool thing is our
participation. We participate in all the parades over the summer. So really
our focus is really relationships and engagement with each other with our
community. And that's really our focus for the year. So unfortunately, you know,
rained out of the Kellner corn parade, cornfest parade, but we're very
happy to participate and be visible. And that's a partnership with the
Convention and Visitors Bureau with Meredith. So all those things are
really important for us to be successful. Our community, we just can't be
solo people. We need to collaborate and work together for the betterment of
our community. And that's what we're here for. It takes a village. It takes
a village. It's not that it's certain things in society change. And
others just they stay the same. No, different than when we were all in
tribes or any different now, you know, it takes a village. I'm glad you
noted the I didn't have it in my notes. And I meant to as far as the food
chair and kids being able to get free meals throughout the summer and
everything. It's one of the better programs that we have in this area. And
it personally just means the world to me that we do something like that. And
we have great community people yesterday. A individual stopped over at
Central Office and wrote a check for $1,000 to assist families. I got
goosebumps here saying it you and me. And just to support families as a
school year beginning and donated additional supplies for our caring
closet for families and students in need. So such a supportive community
individuals that we kind of act as the conduit of that to the families. And
so appreciative of that support of our community. I don't mean to get us
down a side path here, but I will get to the notes you have there Ron in a
second. But I am presented with a thought that I can't help, especially when
we're talking about these playgrounds. If you've told me that the investment
in these playgrounds was strictly for safety, you got me. Sounds good.
That, you know, one kid safer. That's great. All these kids say for
wonderful. All the added parts that you mentioned, Ron, again,
signed me up. That sounds great. But how many of us have really thought
about the purpose of recess? It's not just to give the teachers a break.
It's not just, you know, to get the kids out of there or anything like that.
The purpose of recess is integral to the learning process. You have young
people who are whatever age, whether they're children or their teen, you
know, teenagers or anything like that with a lot going on in their bodies, a lot
going on in their minds. We forget this the older we get. They need to get
that out of their system, whether it is through learning or it is through
physical activity, or just even almost letting their brains decompress from
learning a little bit. So those sectors can kind of refill up and get ready
to go in the second half of the school year and learn. I think we forget
that sometimes it's not just about not getting picked last. There's a lot
more to recess than that. Yeah, movement is so key for students and it doesn't
matter if you're eight years old or you're 18 years old. That movement
throughout the school is important. And the system is set up that we don't
have as much of that when you get to the secondary level where Kelly's
level is integral. It's built in. We have recess up through our eighth
graders at our middle school and we put a nice new playground in their last
year's part of the lunch period. They get a recess period. So that movement
just reinvigorates you, moves you a little further. I don't know. Well, and I
would just add that we have to remember we learn more than just reading and
math than all of those academics at school. It's that social emotional
learning. And we learned so much of that through play with interacting with
other students with adults, which learning how to problem solve. You know,
there's a lot of rock paper scissors that sometimes needs to happen on that
playground. And and that's a process we need to learn and continue to use
as adults. Yeah, and learning how to handle that conflict is important. I
mean, we get jumped to certain directions of that being mean or rude or
being a bully. But sometimes it's conflict. And if we can learn through play,
how to handle conflict, that makes us all better in the end. The the purpose
of of all adults really when it comes to the young is to help them get ready
for the next stage to get ready to be the best adults they can be. And in a
safe environment, you know, if a kid never deals with conflict until the
18, I don't know how that works out. I don't know how that goes for that
person. Getting it in when they're young with their peers and everything.
It's also learning other things like how to make friends. I had I'm the world's
worst person at making friends. But soon as I got into grade school at
Washington, they saw I was fast. Oh, I started making friends real quick recess
gave me that. I was able to do that through there. I know that that happens
for a lot of other kids too. There's so many other layers to this that are
bigger than that. So when we talk about an investment in our playgrounds, it's
so much bigger than anything that we could really put in the words. I think
it's I don't put it on the same level of getting new textbooks or something.
But it's very similar to that in that regard. Yeah. And it's important. Our
community is really focused on this is important for us. I know assumption. I
know you had Matt talked Matt how we could go about the assumption playground
that's going in. So just that accessibility around our community is just
going to be great for everyone. Thanks guys. Good conversation. Ron, I know that
you had some other reminders over there. What you got? Yeah, we're kind of
excited. One day we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of Think Elementary
and Rudolph. And so it's been around here 50 years. So we're excited about that
and one day it's also going to be their playground dedication as the
sigway for that topic. So at 530, there's going to be a brief program in the
gym. And then at 545, we're going to invite all of the former students,
faculty alumni of Rudolph and think for a group photo. That's going to look
cool. So we're excited out there to do that out at Rudolph on Monday night. Next
week, Tuesday is schedule pick up the last one at Lincoln from 230 to 730. And
then Wednesday's really the big day in the district for open houses. So our
elementary schools have open house that Wednesday, some started three, some
started at four o'clock. That information's all available on our social media
fees as well as available in parents square as well as Rams as their meet
the teacher from three to five. Next Wednesday. And then the cool thing about
Rams is they have their web rally and their web rally is a six grade really
transition from 1030 until three on Wednesday. So if you have a six grade or
coming to Rams, we strongly encourage you to do that just to ease those fears.
The first thing we've the Rams building has been open all week for kind of
to stop in, get your locker open. But we know those fears are such an
extent because our elementary kids don't use lockers and many aspects. And
so that's one of the biggest fears I had as a kid when I first went to that
area. So remember those numbers. I remember those numbers. Along those ways
for exciting about that. And then something new this year dealing with that
transition is the first day of school at Lincoln on September second will be
freshman only. So sophomores of juniors and seniors get an extra day off,
which I'm sure they're extremely disappointed about. Yeah. But I can hear them
complaining from here. Exactly. But we begin school on to say September
second, but the those sophomores juniors and seniors will have that extra day
off. Run real quick. Is this new? Is this just this year?
It's this year. It's based upon feedback that we've been looking at. So much
like the web rally at Rams Lincoln had a similar program calling crew,
which we ran in August. Just parent schedules and student work schedules
really precluded some of that to get the full engagement that we wanted to
ease that transition. And so the feedback after last year, we said, let's
look at the trying something a little different moving forth. So I love this
idea. I really, really do. It feels like one of those things it's not a really
great original idea. And at the same time, oh, well, we maybe maybe we should have
done this before anything. It's just one of those things. It's not
not anybody's fault or anything. Just, huh, that makes sense.
It's not only good evidence of you guys listening to your community and
paying attention to it, which I know for a fact that you do very well.
But it's also just kind of like, oh, hey, you know, as those things you're
talking about that first day as for those in a new building for the first
time, man, to have that kind of to yourselves a little bit. That's really
cool. That's fun for the kids and the parents.
Yeah, and it's a little different at Rams. You know,
our six graders kind of have their own little area. So it's a nice transition at
six grade. You come from the elementary. And then you have the six grade
wing at Rams. And then you kind of move out of seventh and eighth grade.
Then when you get to Lincoln, the ninth through 12th graders are all together.
And that can be a little intimidating sometimes. If you're a freshman, you have that
big senior next to you over there, that other kid next to you or your locker.
So just trying to ease that transition into Lincoln a little bit for those
students is important. Very cool. Speaking of Lincoln, we have
refinished all our tennis courts this summer. They opened up yesterday over at
Lincoln. So the nine tennis courts are all refinished.
The friends of tennis were great to get those courts started.
This is the second refenishing of them. But due to the growth of pickleball in
our community, five of them are now lined for pickle all lines as well. So
there's another resource for community members.
And hopefully early next week, the six tennis courts at Rams will also be
refinished. And three of those will be lined for pickleball as well.
So once again, the importance of play, it doesn't matter if you're three or if
you're 83, that accessibility for you is there as well.
I do want to welcome. We have 24 new teachers on our WRPS staff
over this last year. And so we've spent this week with them. So we're excited
to welcome them to our community. We tried to bring them into various
sites in our community last night. Yesterday we ended our day with
launcher anchor bay. So that was a nice opportunity for them to engage
with a local business. And it's important that we want when we hire staff to
be involved in our community and learn about our community.
And so we want to thank anchor bay for that partnership as well.
And speaking of knowing our community at Lincoln, if you come in the new front
doors, straight in front of you will be a new history wall.
The class in 1954, excuse me, 59 donated a wall mural, which is pictures of
all the high schools in the Wisconsin rampage school district through our
history. So I'm going to check that out from the all how high school up to the
current Lincoln high school. It's really neat. It's been a project. I want to
thank Dr. Watson, the principal at Lincoln,
Jair Fluno and Phil Brown. They spent a lot of time and effort to make that
happen. And without that partnership, and it's really
cool walking in the front doors. And it's exciting to see the students there.
Have to see that all great people and Phil is a special, is a
favorite one of ours around here. He's a treasure. That's awesome.
Yeah, having Phil around in his insights into it was really important for us.
And when you come in the front of Lincoln right now, obviously Lincoln's the
red raiders and as a wolf is a mascot. One of the things we really wanted to
look at for school spirit was to increase of a mascot. If you think of a warrior
at wasa west or the panther, it's bash, it's kind of been a wolf but
hasn't really been part of it. So we're excited that we're unveiling a new mascot
as part of the schedule pickup and orientation.
Student council and the students will be naming what the wolf is like.
So you're going to be seeing a new mascot logo coming up as a wolf.
You feel it's already appearing on t-shirts, which are all available in the
school store at Lincoln as well. I'll be heading over there. I'm very excited for
that. Very soon. I cannot wait to see that.
And then lastly, I just encourage you know if anybody's got any concerns or
questions to reach out. We do use parent square as our
communication tool at the district. So we've gone to one
social media platform. We spent a lot of time last spring talking about that
but parents, that's going to be your primary resource for access to the
district, your school and your teacher within the area.
And as I said, we've gone to one social media page. So we have one
Wisconsin Campus Public Schools Facebook social media
Instagram for the district. But then we also
WRPS athletics that'll handle everything dealing with athletics between
Rams and Lincoln. And as part of that, we started a community newsletter.
So volume two went out this last week. We only have 169 subscribers.
So I encourage people to subscribe. You can go to the district website and
subscribe to that as well because we do want to communicate as much as we can
moving forward. And that you know those
newsletters are vital to getting that information out there. And there's
so much in those. I encourage you to sign up for it everybody. And
just a quick reminder that as we're getting closer and closer to the school year,
keep an eye out for the little ones, keep an eye out for our buses out there
and make those roads as safe as we can for our little guys out there
and everything as we get into the school year.
Appreciate you both so much. If people have follow-up questions
would like to know more, Kelly, is there a good way to contact you?
Well, if in doubt, you can always call Washington. And we will make sure to
to follow up. You can always check our website. There's contacts there as well.
If you're looking for something more specific, but
I think the biggest piece is don't wait. Feel free to give a call. We're there.
That's what we're there for. And we want to make the school year a great year.
And Ron, how about for you? Yeah, easiest is a phone is 715-424-6701.
Extension 1-001. Kelly, Ron, thank you so much for joining us.
Have a great start to the school year. We'll talk again real soon.
Thanks, Shane. Thank you. And thank you everybody for joining us.
Big shout out to our friends at Crock,
and Septick as well sponsoring the Revitze Report.
