
you
We have Paul Coonan, who is the superintendent of schools.
We also have the brand new principal, Dwayne Daly.
We'll introduce you to him in just a little bit.
Paul, exciting things going on here as we get ready for the school year.
Oh, I can't tell you how exciting it is, Phil.
I really appreciate being able to come and talk to you.
And I am extremely excited about how the school is starting to shape together.
We feel like we've kind of been behind the eight ball this summer with not a lot of time, but to say we've been truly blessed to have some of the higher peoples that we've hired.
come to us is just absolutely been astounding and one of them is sitting right across from me right now.
Mr. Dwayne Daly, our new principal, we're just so incredibly excited that he's here.
it?
Oh, absolutely.
You know, and it's been a struggle.
I'm not going to lie to you, but it's been tough going, but we have had a couple out of the park that are just truly amazing.
everything is going.
Um, it's sometimes, I would love to be able to walk out to football practice, but we've just been really busy, uh, trying to get things going, get the schedule set, uh, uh, you know, for the school year that's been set, but I mean, for the new teachers are returning staff.
Um, we've got some new exciting things going on our new virtual school and it just, it's taking time and it's taking
and we're spending a lot of time and effort getting those things done.
this
Yes, we're doing the wrap around care and for those of you that don't know what that is, wrap around care is like when you have a 4K student and they go to school in the afternoon but you maybe work all day, we have a service where you can drop them off in the morning or they can come to school in the morning and they're under supervision, they're at school, we've got people assigned to that room and then they go into school in the afternoon and they can go home on the bus as normal.
vice versa maybe they're in school in the morning where do you go with them in the afternoon well we have that wraparound service at no cost and actually it's a community-based program so if you have a child that's that age level and let's say a neighboring school doesn't have a school that day you can bring them the Ithaca
and at no charge, we will take care of them.
That's a rarity, isn't it?
Yeah, it is one of those.
But that's just one of the things that a place like Ithaca offers.
They offer those kind of personalized services to our family, our Ithaca family.
Because when you're part of our school, you're part of our family.
Yeah, we partnered with the Wisconsin Virtual School, which is out of CESA 9 up in Tomahawk.
They have been phenomenal and we're partnering with them.
We're offering virtual classes to our students, maybe on a blended type of program where they're partially in here for the day or maybe they've got a school to work program and they can't make it back to class for that that 8th hour.
English class, whatever they can take on their virtual online.
We also have a virtual coach that we're in the process right now of hiring.
We were hoping that he comes our way.
I think it's gonna work out, but an outstanding human being to run our virtual school within our school, or within our building, so that they have a coach on hand all the time.
24 hour tutoring, just a variety of different things.
But one of the things that it really will appeal to, or one of the families,
the families that are currently homeschooling their students or home educating their students we can offer free of charge to them computer plus the curriculum that they can utilize that at home they become a student of our school so that means that they're eligible to graduate with their peers they can play in sports they can be in clubs they can come and take some of those encore classes and still
have the ability to do their studies at home, and this is a big one when they graduate, they're eligible for some of those great scholarships that Ithaca is known for.
So they could come play in the band, you
We would love that.
Yeah, absolutely love that.
So it offers a little bit for everybody.
And we've even got some, you know, some elementary folks that are homeschooling their students right now are really excited about the fact that their kids then can also be tested through like the I forward or other exams that
students can be tested in throughout their years in school.
And so they have those assessments to make decisions.
to us.
Yes.
I would like everybody to get to know our new principal.
Very excited about having Mr. Daly on our team.
And I'm going to turn it over to him and let him talk a little bit about himself.
Well, good morning, Dwayne.
Good morning.
Good
to have
you in.
Thank you.
I'm thrilled to be back in this part of the state.
I've had the opportunity to be a part of great school districts throughout the state, my 20-year teaching career, and coached football and wrestling for 26 years in different parts of the state.
And growing up in the Iowa Grant School District and living in Livingston, I'm kind of back where I come full circle back to.
the southwest part of the state.
So excited to be back.
Yeah, I spent a lot of summers in high school up here.
I was a part of Wisconsin high school rodeo team and our state finals rodeo was always at Richland Center every summer.
So from 94 through 97 it was state
finals.
What event did you do?
I did
several events.
So I was in
team roping, calf roping and cow cutting were my three main events.
So awesome.
Yeah.
maybe we do in the week.
Sure.
For me.
My focus coming in is going to be connection, belonging, identity and productivity in that order.
I feel like you need to have that connection and belonging piece for students to be successful.
Small schools offer those opportunities that maybe don't come along in a larger school where you just don't have the face time with students and don't get to see them and don't have enough paths crossing throughout your day to make those connections.
So that's what I'm excited about for Ithaca.
thing.
Absolutely.
I feel like when you get to know students and they get to know you as a staff member, they start to form their identity.
When staff members focus on giving them opportunities where they can actually find their interests and hobbies and opportunities that match their skill sets, they start to develop their identity and get to really know who they are and then have a better idea where they want to go with their future.
Yeah, absolutely.
I feel like when kids are involved in one thing, they tend to be involved in more just because they see the benefit socially.
They're getting a lot of their social-emotional needs met by being involved with other students.
And what's cool about a small district is when you see different students in different contexts, you get to know them at a whole new level than you might otherwise, where if you only see them in one
sport or you only get to see them in one activity.
When there's crossover of activities and athletics and you see people in different environments, you get to know them in a different kind of way.
Paul, you wanted to add?
Well, I just, I think one of the big things that I've always, I've always enjoyed about Ithaca, you know, for when I came as a principal in 2014.
And even when I was gone, it never changed is that the community is the Ithaca school.
in the school is the community.
And they're so intertwined and there's so much support there from these people.
It's just a really neat place.
And those kids that are in that school right now, they get that personalized service.
We care.
We want to get to know them.
The numbers aren't so great that they become a number.
They're individuals.
And what parent doesn't want that for their kids?
They want their kids to be individuals.
They want them to be known for who they are, not just, oh, that's a fifth grader.
No, that's Joe.
or that's Josie or whoever it is.
They want that to be known and that's one of the great things and why I'm back is because I like those relationships and building those relationships with the staff as well as the kids.
doing that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm going to have a lot of new faces to meet and names to memorize, but
I'm looking forward to it because that's going to be a collaborative culture.
It's going to be something that we are all focused on as what is best for students.
So, and everything we do in and out of the classroom, it's going to be for the benefit of the students at Ithaca.
yeah, absolutely I think
As mentioned before like with the crossover of students being involved in different things That's something we're gonna focus on is there might be crossover of what currently is available But what is some interest of maybe that something we don't have offered so we're always gonna be focused on innovation and always investigating
new and further opportunities for students.
for
Yeah, I think the misconception is that small districts are limited, but it doesn't have to be.
Not in today's culture, not in today's society with the technology the way it is.
That was a motivator for us to bring on Wisconsin Virtual School as being a small school, we can still offer world-class education in terms of opportunities that are available outside
at our brick and mortar walls, course offerings that maybe we wouldn't have specialized staff for.
We'll have the ability to do that for students.
or is that different?
Yeah.
And I've mentioned this before.
Molly Casting up at Weston has been very, very helpful.
I really appreciate having her to bonus ideas often.
She's kind of helped me learn a couple of things because I am new at this position.
And we've talked about that.
right now both districts kind of have gone the route of hey listen we need to figure out what we need individually and that kind of they got a head start on that earlier in the summer now we're having a little bit later start on that because we just came on board but but Molly and I have also talked about that down the road that there may be like hey listen we've got a halftime position and they've got a halftime position maybe we can make that a full-time position so you can retain those people longer than just until they get a full-time position.
Yes, they do.
This is, I believe the first year and there's a scrimmage tomorrow.
Um, and so I'm kind of excited to hear all they do and, uh, talk to the coaches and see how things are going.
I'm one of those people.
Yes.
It's kind of, it's starting.
You know, you get about the, the 20th something of August and school is underway is I am one of those people.
Unfortunately, we can't do that.
I remember August 26th always being a big day on the calendar years ago for starting school right on that 25th, 26th day.
I believe it's a Tuesday.
have in the past?
Yeah, so the big one is the virtual school option and then We're gonna be figuring out ways to flex staff possibly in situations to where Students are gonna be having higher level opportunities And so we're looking into all avenues to make sure that students needs are getting met and opportunities are getting
offered to students.
I like that.
Yep.
Yep.
And I think, um, our job isn't really to make every student fit the system.
It's our job is to make the system responsive enough to serve the student.
So we're focused on that.
That's one of the things that is really neat that Dwayne brings to the plate here is he's got a lot of knowledge for some other really good school districts and he's been able to, um, you know, kind of bring some ideas in that we didn't think about.
And it's been very refreshing.
Would you
the way?
I'll always be a consultant role whenever given the opportunity.
I've been fortunate enough to be in some really successful programs around the state and both wrestling and football.
And so I'm willing to impart any kind of knowledge that was passed along to me and pay it forward if I had the opportunity.
But I know I'm going to have my hands full with the principal.
ship and curriculum.
So I'll be focused on that first.
Sure.
You know, I think initially for me, it's I just felt the genuine
sincerity from people, people being down to earth and grounded.
It was very appealing to me.
I felt kind of at home from that standpoint and fitting in with the people here.
A lot of districts sometimes tout their facilities or tout certain offerings they might have to offer, but when it comes down to it, the successful schools are about the people.
people in the building and in the community.
And so very impressed with the people I've had the opportunity to meet and the people I've been working with thus far.
has.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm kind of.
jumping at the bit a little bit for get some of those athletic events on so I can go and see the kids.
I've been working with the business end of things and hiring and working with Dwayne a lot here, but I'm really excited about getting into the school year, seeing the kids, seeing them at the sporting events and going in the evening and seeing a volleyball game or a football game or in the winter, the different sporting events in the spring again.
I enjoy that and it's neat because being part of the community is always important.
And I've told that story time and time again of eight districts that I was involved in in my 35 years in education.
Ithco is the only place, the only place that really made me feel welcome in a part of the community.
And it's even stronger now than it was eight years ago.
It's a neat place.
It's a special place.
And just recently,
You know, I went up to Oakwood for an event that they had to help a person in our community and it was amazing, the outpouring of people.
And I say amazing because it was so impressive.
But I expected that.
because I've seen that before.
Down at school, I went for an event down there to help a local person with some medical needs and stuff like that.
And it's elbow to elbow.
And the outpouring of people and the outpouring of love and support is amazing.
And it's really neat.
It's a genuinely a special place.
And I don't know if people, unless they experience it, they just don't understand it.
But Ithaca is definitely a neat, special place where
you can be part of a community and not born and raised here.
And I wasn't.
But I definitely feel part of this community and it feels great to have that.
They drug you out of retirement.
They did.
They did.
And, and, and, and, you know, Steve Lewis has been very instrumental in that.
Steve and I have retained a friendship through all the years from the first day I was at Ithaca, you know, 12 years ago to this current day.
And, and he's been very instrumental and, and kind of keeping me on board.
So to speak, we've talked through the years and, and had dinner, his wife and my wife and I. And, um, I've always enjoyed his company and,
and having Steve as a school board president has been really great because I have somebody that I trust that I can talk freely with and talk things through and, you know, he texts me and I text him and just the communication is there and he feels very comfortable telling things to me and I feel comfortable saying things to him and we can speak freely and then ultimately coming up with some, I think some great answers to some issues that we're having to deal with.
Absolutely.
Positively.
And I feel, I'm really starting to feel like Dwayne and I still have that chemistry as well too.
And I think that we make a great team.
We're different though.
He has a
story
about
that.
How
are you different Dwayne?
So, um, growing up where I did, my family, uh, used to do a lot of hunting with dogs and we do go coon hunting.
And my dad always had different types of dogs.
He had dogs that would bark on trail and then he had dogs that were silent trackers.
And I would like to say and describe Paul and I similar as I'm the silent tracker and Paul is the one barking on trail.
So we, we, we work pretty well together and we're, we're definitely in the hunt.
The same goal.
The same goal.
Same goal.
Same, we're hunting the same thing.
What is best for students?
Right.
There you go.
you
Yeah, absolutely.
I think when students are in a school environment, you know, they might have some answers about who they are coming in, but really that's an answer question.
They're constantly asking is who am I?
Where do I fit?
what can I contribute?
And so it's our job to provide those environments where they can decide to be an athlete, an artist, a leader, a problem solver, entrepreneur, tradesperson, scientist, caregiver, community leader, innovator, or just whatever they might find a niche in to match their skill sets or their strengths.
And sometimes they have a strength they don't even know about.
And so a student's future begins with an adult seeing something in them that they haven't even seen in themselves yet.
And I think we just have to pull that out of students sometimes.
could be a
Yeah.
There's a lot of research on it.
Hattie's research.
John Hattie's done a lot of research.
And the number one indicator of student success is teacher efficacy.
Everybody being on the same page that they can contribute, make a difference for students.
Number two is student relationships.
Having a student.
having an adult that they can connect with and make a connection with is another strong indicator for student success.
So
Yeah, I think it has to start with the foundation of that relationship piece.
Students are not going to know how much
content area knowledge you have, they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
And so you could have a doctorate in any kind of content area, but that information can only fully come to fruition if it has that fertile ground of a relationship with a student.
Yeah, Paul, anything you want to add?
Well, I just, you know, I can't help but echo.
um, the idea of positive relationships.
I think that's so important.
I remember, you know, so often when in years of school for me, whether it was high school, even college and stuff, I remember I met a custodian in college.
And I would see him just out of this class.
He was always there and we got talking and stuff like that.
And that meant something to me.
And in colleges, when there's a lot of kids and you feel like a number, being able to see that one person and his name was Dave and I would see David, hey Dave, you know, and say hi to Dave and talk to him after my power class down at the one hall.
I don't remember where it was at Stout, but that was really important.
And we have people that are willing to make relationships with kids.
all across the board, every avenue.
And I was talking to Laura in the office yesterday, and she pointed out a kid and said, he needs to come back here.
We really love him.
We want him back.
And so I was put on special assignment.
And I've been very busy calling families and leaving the door open and saying, hey, listen, you may have opened and rolled your student out, or maybe you had opened and rolled in or going back to that district.
I just want to leave the door open.
I want to leave the door open and invite people to say, hey, if there's something better we can do, let me know because we want to be better.
But I think that you never go wrong with building relationships with kids.
Absolutely.
You know, I've always said, you know, for starters,
I can't make stuff and I can't lie because my dad would have my hide and I wouldn't be able to sleep.
And this is no different in transparency and, you know, I make mistakes and I've already had to apologize for some of those mistakes.
And I'm not against that because how else do you learn and how else do you grow and how else can you build trust with people than, you know, to be completely honest with them.
And that's how you build relationships.
And I really enjoy the relationship piece of what I'm doing right now.
And that's part of why I'm really excited about the school year is building some of those relationships with those kids.
And we have a couple of young men right now at our school that are helping out with the cleaning and maintenance that's going on.
And they've been very pleasant.
And if they're a representation of what's going on at Ithaca, I'm pretty excited to meet the rest of them.
too, aren't we?
I think what you want is try to determine what success looks like for students.
And you want to teach them how to be skillful participants, skillful contributors, and skillful providers eventually, because those are the three roles that they're going to have when they're in the real world, when they're done with school.
In any capacity, they're going to be one of those three things.
And so we want to make sure that we're teaching students how to be confident leaders, responsible citizens, problem solvers, collaborators, communicators, leaders,
teach some resilience skills and just teach them how to be contributing members of their communities.
We want students to leave Ithaca not only knowing more, but knowing themselves better.
those intangible pieces.
I think whether it's in a school environment or a workplace environment, those intangible pieces help make bosses happy, right?
You're a good contributing member.
You treat people well.
You're reliable and productive wherever you are.
Paul?
Well, you know, I think one of the big things is they want their kids to be known.
They do want strong academics, and as I call people, they want to make sure that there is definitely a strong sense of safety and belonging.
One of the first meetings I had when I started a month ago was with our Sheriff Porter and Lieutenant Mike Sizz from the County Sheriff's Department to extend a hand that I want to work with them, and we need them.
to help us be safe.
We have a strong sense of I think
I don't want to say discipline, but also in the school, Dwayne and I have been talking about being transparent with kids so they know expectations I think is probably a better term.
And when kids know that, those expectations, they can rise to the occasion.
I've seen it before and we'll see it again.
But that helps with our safety.
That helps with the way that things go through calmly within the school day and kids can enjoy it.
because they don't want things to be crazy.
They want them to be controlled and they want to be working with people as well and enjoying their day because we want kids to enjoy the day.
We want our staff to enjoy the day.
And all I ask is that we're gonna meet every kid every day with a smile on our face and a spring in our step.
And our model this year is we build it, they will come.
We want to provide structure and support.
I think
it's important to have both.
Sometimes you can provide students too much structure and not enough support and they begin to start doing things because they feel like they have to and not because they want to.
When you add that supportive piece and meet their social-emotional needs, give them the resources that they need to be successful, now all of a sudden they're doing things because they want to, not because they have to.
Well, we're going to team it up this year just because initially we're both new in our roles, but we're going to have a very common language.
It's going to be used across the board throughout the building at all of our school levels.
We're going to have a behavior flow chart where that's going to use the common language where the people in the office, the people in the classroom and the people on the grounds are all going to have the same concept of what
that behavior expectations should be.
Well, it's been kind of one of those things where I throw an ID at him and he runs with it.
When I was a principal, one of the biggest things that I did was I created a rubric for behaviors and consequences.
So it was transparent.
And when I was in situations where it
previously had not been transparent to kids.
Kids were pretty quick to say, well, you did that because I this, or you did that because they wanted to look at what was going on or kind of throwing the blame off themselves.
And by doing this, you can come to that common language where it's like, hey, is this what happened?
Yes, we agree that this is what happened.
Here's what it says.
And I'm doing this for everybody.
And because it's written down and it's communicated, it's much easier for everybody to handle and it really
does reflect in the students throughout the day of how they respond to things.
And it's much easier to work with kids and they understand that, you know, we got a job to do and we got to keep a little, uh, law and order, so to speak.
Um, but that means that, uh, why can't we do that with some transparency?
So they understand.
Sure.
Dwayne, anything you wanted to add?
Sure.
I think it's a collaborative thing, right?
It has to be a collaborative effort between admin and teachers.
Um, you know, we're, we're, we want to,
model what we are going to do with staff, just like we would want them to do with students.
So as administrators, we're going to be listening to people.
We're going to be open to input.
We are going to be open to suggestion.
We're going to be open to innovation.
Those are all things that we want teachers and to return and
pay forward with the students and have those same offerings and expectations for students.
too, do we?
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think.
I think sometimes everybody is so focused on the standardized requirements and meeting certain assessment marks and everything as teachers and getting through certain curriculum benchmarks that they forget that we're in the care of students and we're in the care of people.
And we're also in the care of each other as colleagues.
And so I think it's important for people to relate to one another.
You know, some person might not be able to understand what it's like to be that other person and that other person might not be able to understand what it's like to be the other person.
But when they try to have some empathy and practice active listening with one another, then they can get some common ground and then have some common results.
Well said.
I see why you hired this guy, by the way.
Absolutely.
Are you kidding me?
Was it no brainer?
the
As I said before, one of the first impressions I had was the people at Ithaca.
And I just sense that the ground is ready for growth, right?
The ground has been worked and it's fertile and ready for growth.
And so what I'm excited about is kind of like five pillars or focus that I want to have kind of uphold the work that I do with people.
I want it to be focused on relationships, belonging, identity, opportunity, and innovation.
And I feel like if we can focus on those things, the soil is ready for all kinds of growth.
Paul?
Yeah, I can't echo that enough.
I'm just really excited for the year.
I'm excited to get going.
And I can't dwindle enough for all the things that he's bringing to the table here.
I mean, he's got things down.
I mean, very well organized and prepared for his future.
around that corner.
Right around the corner.
I believe it's the 18th and 19th of September.
We've got the block party on Friday the 18th and homecoming game and all the festivities and the fair on Saturday the 19th.
And I'm kind of looking forward to that because the last time I saw it, I was a passerby going down the street before they shut the street off.
And I'm excited to be there again for the festivities.
I normally am gone at that time of the year out to North Dakota, but I'm going to be back in time this year to be here for that.
So I'm pretty excited about that.
And they're very busy.
All the people involved, they're very dedicated to having the fair go off without a hitch.
And all the activities are getting prepared.
And I even got a whole bunch of really neat decorations.
because this year the block party is like surfs up or, you know, kind of that Hawaiian theme.
So we got a whole bunch of decorations for that.
So I'm pretty excited for this year.
Look for
Hawaiian shirt.
I need to get one.
I need to get one.
I don't have one.
or boots and for sandals that
day.
as we close?
Sure.
It's just something I come up with.
I just feel like I wanted to have something, a motto that would be encouraging to everybody.
And since our mascots, the Bulldogs, I come up with something called a Bulldogs Best.
And it's simply do the best you can with the best that you have because the best is yet to come.
And I think that applies to students, staff, community members.
Um, we all have different situations, different things going on in our life, but we can just try to remember to do the best we can with the best we have.
And it gives us a positive outlook on what's moving forward.
So
Absolutely.
Hey, and don't forget it is a great day to be a bulldog.