River Valley School District

Eric Shade is joining us, Community and Schools Manager with Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, talking about a really cool idea, the Adopt a Cow program.

Hello, Erica, how are you?

Okay, how are you?

Wonderful.

How long has this program been around?

This program has been around for quite a few years now.

For Wisconsin, this is about our fifth or sixth year hosting the program through Discover Dairy.

It

is a great opportunity and it's one of those where I'm surprised we haven't done this for 50 years or something.

I mean, it's a really cool thing, isn't it?

Yeah, it's an amazing program and it's completely free for anyone who's interested in dairy.

It's definitely geared towards classrooms.

But we have nursing homes and assistant livings who also do it, libraries.

And it allows you to adopt a calf from a real dairy farm throughout the school year and get monthly updates like the calf's growth and the care that our dairy farmers are putting into that calf too.

I'm guessing school children that have never been on a farm are amazed at how much this calf grows, right?

Yeah, it's amazing to see how excited the kids get about

seeing their adopted cow through updates, but also a lot of our schools go to the farm at the end of the school year and visit the calf in person.

It's awesome to see those kids who haven't had a connection to dairy get excited about dairy for the first time.

But it's also really fun to see the kids who do grow up on a dairy farm and have a connection now to their peers.

and be able to talk about what's happening on their farm versus what's happening with their adapted cows farm.

So it's opening the connection to both sides for students.

Have the calves been born yet?

Yes, our calves were born the last week of August.

And so we have about eight to 10 calves within the program for the state of Wisconsin.

Are they from all over the state?

Yes, so we have four host farms and we have Wisconsin broke up into quadrants.

So we have a farm up in Eau Claire, a farm over in Kiwani, Watertown and then Lancaster.

Wow.

So this is a fun really for all ages, isn't it?

Yes, we have all the way from gay cares all the way up to nursing homes, adult living centers, libraries, anyone who's really interested in learning about dairy farm in your area.

And it's a great way to connect to your community.

Who names the calf?

All of our farmers named the calves and those are going to be announced here in a few weeks.

When you sign up for the program, you will get a birth announcement with photos and then also their name and their height and their weight.

Tell me about some other things that you're involved with as far as part of dairy farmers of Wisconsin.

Yeah, on top of the Adopt a Cow program, Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin also has classroom resources available for teachers, so they can be able to mix in dairy within their curriculum.

We also have virtual escape rooms for middle school and high school that bring kids out onto a virtual dairy farm and do puzzles throughout to really learn about dairy careers.

And then we also have a variety of other resources available for teachers, but also for people who want to learn more about dairy.

So what would be in the curriculum?

What would be involved with that then?

Yeah, we have a lot of different curriculum, everything from introducing dairy into science into math every day.

And it all connects back to how dairy farmers are using that math and science and technology.

on their dairy farm.

And so you're able to connect all of that into your lessons already.

And so it's an easy way to connect students to Wisconsin Dairy, but be able to still connect to those lessons that teachers need to teach in the classroom.

Very important.

And I'm sure there are some students that think, well, why do I need to study this?

I'm going to be a farmer.

They don't realize all of the things involved, right?

Yes, there's a lot of science, technology, engineering, mathematics within the dairy farm.

Our dairy farmers are not just farming, but they are nutritionists and they are soil scientists.

They're working every day to better their land community and their animals.

Did you grow up on a farm, Erica?

I did.

I grew up on the farm until I was about 13.

And then I actually was an agriculture teacher for quite a few years until I decided to come back to the dairy community and work as a community schools manager at Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin.

Awesome.

So what's a typical day like for you?

My day ranges from everything from being out on farm to being in the office working on making curriculum and lesson plans for teachers.

But I've also done videos out on farm and just developing everything that we have on the teacher and education side of Jerry Farmers of Wisconsin.

This curriculum and this Adopt a Cow program, is that pretty much for all grade levels or is it one specific grade?

Yeah, so Adopt a Cow can be geared towards every grade level out there.

It is more focused on elementary school.

But we have high schools and middle schools who also use the program too because who doesn't want to get cute adoptecow updates every month and see those calves growing.

Awesome stuff.

Anything else you'd like to add, Erica?

If you're interested in signing up for the adoptecow program, you can visit discoverdairy.com slash adopt.

All of our other resources are at Wisconsindairy.org.

Awesome.

And then it goes through the school year.

Um, what about if somebody wants to stay connected with their calf in the off season next year?

Yeah, our farmers are always getting letters and updates, um, and questions from their classrooms.

So they're always willing to send photos, but then next year we'll have a brand new subject to follow along with

lots of fun.

Well, thanks so much for joining us today by phone, Erica, and good luck with your work.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

That's Erica Shade, Community and Schools Manager with Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, talking about the Adopt a Cow program.

you

We begin a busy morning show week here.

We have a great schedule lined up and kicking it off today.

Leading off from River Valley administrator Lauren Glassbender.

Hi, Lauren.

Hey there, Phil.

How are you?

A happy good morning to you.

It's a beautiful morning out there.

I love that cool air.

It just feels right, right?

It feels like fall is being ushered in with the right kind of weather.

makes going to football games or running across country meet or being out, you know, in the yard work even seems to feel a little bit better when it's not 100 degrees that it's 70 so it feels good.

It does.

Wonderful weekend for weather and you had the River Valley imitation lacrosse country meet which is

renowned and it sounds like that went pretty well.

It was a successful day.

Our cross-country meet in our cross-country team led by Steve Stettler is just an incredible group of kids but they host this invitational annually and it's been going on for years and years and years but it becomes kind of a southern Wisconsin kind of thing.

There's teams from Wana Key or as far away as Milwaukee that come on over to the valley and kind of come into spring green and go down on our municipal

golf course and just have a heyday.

It's a fairly flat course so it's a it's a fast time and teams come from all around to kind of match up what they're going to be looking at for sectionals or what they're going to be looking at for state runners and so it's kind of a spying game of who's going to lead the pack.

in the state cross country meets.

And so it's a really exciting day.

We had almost 2000 runners is what I heard come to our area.

The whole town gets email notices because we know traffic is going to be crazy.

We know that any traffic that's kind of head toward tally us and house on the rock or APT or anything in the spring green area gets slowed down by all the people coming to watch them runners.

Yeah, really.

And I've watched it before when they take off.

It's like this

thundering herd.

It sure is.

It sure is.

It's a great day.

So they had great weather.

I think it was right around 65 degrees when they took off in the morning and it gets hotter as the day goes on.

But it was an incredible day for running and just fun to see the different teams, whether they're local guys and gals or whether they're regional area people.

It's fun to have them come together and do something just kind of for fun down in the valley.

We had some of your FFA students on along with Sherry Grafunder a little bit earlier this school year talking about the 63rd annual River Valley School Fair, but it's it's near.

It is near.

So our 63rd annual River Valley School Fair will be on September 25th, so it's not this Friday.

But it's a week after that.

So it's a week from Friday.

And we're so excited about this.

Our homecoming theme is once upon a homecoming kind of a medieval kind of princesses and castles and kings and lords and all that.

So we're excited for the 63rd, though, annual River Valley School Fair.

We are one of the three, I believe, school fairs left in the state of Wisconsin.

And there's one regional.

So I think I believe theirs is maybe this coming week.

It is right on Friday, possibly Friday.

them the best of luck on that.

That'll be exciting times for them.

I think there's another one nearby maybe Belmont?

and then we have one.

Beyond that, there are no school fairs left anymore.

And again, this fair started with the Everly family really trying to bring people together.

So the heart of this fair is around agriculture and it's also around bringing kids together to make sure that they understand they're better together.

And so when River Valley became a district, way back in like 64, I believe, they really wanted to make sure that Lone Rock and Plain and Arena and Spring Green came together to

celebrate the roots of what they had.

And so when they did that, they came together and put on a school fair.

And again, I believe it was Mrs. Everly who has just recently been recognized again for her contributions, just wanted to have something come together.

And so it came together around agriculture, but it's turned into more than that.

It's really turned into like the spotlight of our homecoming week, but it's also an annual reminder that together we can build something well.

and it's just been incredible to see the families embrace this year after year after year.

So this school fair, which I didn't quite understand right away when I first came to River Valley is something to be, I guess, not only proud of, but you should all come and watch.

It's bigger than a county fair and we put it on in the big yard behind our intermediate school.

It has hogs, it's got cows, it's got dairy with the beef, it's got goats, it's got sheep, it's got

cats and dogs and all the chickens and a lot of poultry and a lot of different things.

But it's really organized by our outstanding FFA alumni team.

And so a shout out to the FFA alumni, if you're Mr. Johnson or some of the Everly family, just know that we appreciate the hard work that you guys put in.

So again, it's coming up and we're excited about it.

Not that it's not always been a big thing, but I've been around a few of them.

I've not been to all of them, but in the last few years, it seems to me that it has gotten bigger.

I mean, you've had to expand the animal area, and I think it keeps growing, doesn't

it?

It does and it goes off without a hitch and it's only because of our volunteers.

So again, to all our volunteers, I got to give a shout out, but I also have to say it does get bigger.

We will have more hogs, meaning swine, in our category in the Department of Swine than some of our local county fairs.

because it allows kids to really start that project, you know, early spring and then put it out there in the fall.

And also know that we're following all the rules, laws and regulations that anybody would have to have to have a whole county fair.

There are county egg buildings, they're entire

entire acreages set aside in every county for these county fairs, and we put ours on in the backyard of a school.

But they follow all the rules.

So like with that, we have a big animal auction.

And with that meat auction, they have to coordinate with local butchers.

And so we have all of these things arranged so that people can come show their animal, have this great success, the kids get to shine.

And then at 12 o'clock, they can kind of have that child be a part of the big

I guess like I call it that meat sale, that animal auction, and then that swine or hog or sometimes we have poultry or turkey or beef cattle go off, all of those things go off to market.

And it really does teach the community about the roots of farm to table in a really cool way.

So we're excited about it.

We're so proud of the efforts and so proud of Sherry Grafunder and her FFA team over at our high school.

But in coordination with that alumni team, they put on just an incredible show.

following of course all the animal health regulations and everything we would have to do to have an entire fair.

But that's outside.

Phil, that's the stuff outside whether it's horses or goats.

Don't forget we have an entire horse show that happens right in the parking lot area of our high school too.

So then we'll have ponies and novice and senior horse and pony pleasure and all the things that go along with that.

Everything for a horse show that will continue.

That's in a different part on our campus.

We also have small animals.

So we'll have kids showing rabbits and chickens and exotic small animals.

So we've had everything from chameleons to like ferrets, cats, all the different things.

And then if you come inside the intermediate school, we take over a great big gym and we have these incredible displays that

look just like a county fair.

So we'll have family farm displays, farm crops, we'll have garden plot displays, and then we'll have all the vegetables.

So we'll have the entire grouping of kids that are raising tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, eggplants, and all the things.

But then they go into all the arts and crafts.

And we really want every kid in River Valley to be exhibiting something.

So at our elementary school, Mrs. Peterson tries to ensure that every kid, whether they're 4K, 1, 2, or 3, make sure they have an art project that's kind of centered around the idea of agriculture.

So there will be great things there that every kid that's little can come and see.

And so they get a ribbon and they get to see what a fair is.

But beyond that, if you're not looking at the stuff inside,

outside we also have agricultural stations set up whether it's a soil lab or whether it's a welding lab or whether it's Mrs. Wisconsin coming to talk about great things in agriculture or animal husbandry.

It's all the things that go around education with agriculture.

Indeed.

And

then indoors, I know in the old gym, I call it the old gym at River Valley, it's always plum full the night before.

It is like it's a huge jigsaw puzzle that you need to figure out where all the pieces are going to go.

It is.

So on Wednesday, we start cleaning and prepping.

On Thursday, we start accepting all the entries.

And a lot of the judging happens on Thursday so that on Friday, it's on display and already judged.

So it's a week long event.

I mean,

I'll take that back.

It's a year-long event that gets organized but it's orchestrated basically in that week and by Wednesday we have stuff showing up in our gym and it's just an incredible time.

You can't imagine the great things that can happen but it also allows every kid to see themselves

in a constructive way.

And there'll be Legos.

I know you think of Legos as something that a kid plays with, but if you can tell a kid that it's going to be judged based on precision, it's going to be judged based on color, it's going to be judged based on whether or not it represents what it's supposed to represent, I think that realism and it really adds an elevated sense of learning for kids.

So again, it's around school.

This is an incredible demonstration speech, if you will.

When you are showing a calf, it's a demonstration speech.

If you're getting Legos ready to

be judged.

It's a demonstration of your skill and will as a learner.

So we love it as a great way to authentically assess how our kids are doing.

It's really an assessment of all the great things that a kid can do and it's hands on.

It's multi

cultural, but it's also very multifaceted in the way that kids get stuff ready.

So we're excited.

It's a great time.

You really all should take some time.

And I'll give you kind of the schedule on that day.

If you're going to show an animal, you already know this, but between six and eight, we have weigh-ins in the morning to make sure that everything is there for the veterinarians to double check.

And then we have all our weigh-ins to make sure that it gets marketed the right way.

But at Ada Clark,

8 o'clock, we start some of the animals showing up on the ring, which is behind the school.

And there'll be exhibits in the gym and opened by 8 o'clock as well.

But people walk around from 8 to 12 and just get to see the entire thing.

And then at 12, we have our animal auction.

And that auction is really to get markets off and ready, get market steers, get market hogs, get market lambs, all the things ready and auctioned off.

And we love the great work and donators that come in and buy those great things.

And then we pause for basically an hour, take everything down, and then we have our homecoming parade.

And we take over the entire downtown in Spring Green and have a parade from three until about 430.

And then right downtown, they usually shut down the street and they have food vendors and they have live music and everything happens downtown Spring Green.

And a lot of classes come back for that big day to make sure they have a class reunion.

So people from 25 years ago are meeting up with old classmates downtown Spring Green.

And from that, they come back over to our campus and they get ready for the JV or the varsity game.

And then we have a big varsity game that starts at seven.

And then at seven o'clock, we head off that game and then we recognize owners and we recognize businesses at halftime.

And we're also this year going to recognize a special team from the 2016 state football teams going to be back.

And they're going to get recognized during halftime.

And then we go back in and finish out that game.

So there's all this stuff that happens on Friday that we're excited for.

a kid or a mom or dad or a grandma or grandpa, you should be at our campus a week from Friday.

There's always something to see and do.

How does the school day work, Lauren?

Do the students go to school that day or are

they required to come back?

The staff come to school and orchestrate all of this.

The kids on that day are at home and brought to school by their families to come see what they've kind of submitted as an exhibition for the affair.

So it's a day off for the kids, but they all come.

Like there's thousands of people that come to our campus on that day.

And so we're all excited to have the kids come back, but they're chaperoned by their parents on that day.

Plus, it's a great fundraiser for a lot of clubs.

It is.

The food is second to none.

It is.

So our FFA team will have an entire food stand up behind the intermediate school as well.

So you can come, you can eat there for breakfast, you can eat there for lunch, there's brats, there's hamburgers, there's all the things.

But each one of our kids also could have an opportunity to have a fundraiser.

So each one of the graduating classes for the freshman, sophomore, junior, or seniors

have fundraisers as well.

So those are out front of the intermediate school, so it might be something like a...

I don't know, a boba tea or it might be a lemonade or it might be a donut.

I know the community garden is going to be there selling caramel apples.

There's stuff just like a typical county fair that's all really unhealthy but wonderful for you all over our campus the entire day.

So that's exciting.

That's our Friday.

But can I go back a day as well?

Yeah, go ahead.

So on Thursday, the day before that, we have the homecoming match, which is our volleyball match as well as our cross country team and all that.

But

Our volleyball team on that Thursday is having a special night where they're doing something called digs for Briggs.

And for the unfortunate accident that recently happened to an Ithaca student, we're having a special night to recognize Briggs Maxwell and to really make sure that he

And his family know that he's in our hearts forever.

And so that Thursday night, our volleyball team is hosting a digs for Briggs.

So we're going to have a special event that night.

And so his family will be recognized there.

And then that's our pep rally as well.

So we always have classes against each other for our pep rally.

And then everybody goes outside and we have fireworks on Thursday night at our campus as well.

If you're in our community, thank you for giving us the grace to jump into this great stuff.

That week, you know, cross country, volleyball, swimming, JV team, seventh grade teams, eighth grade teams, football teams, everybody kind of has something special all week.

So go to our campus, come on in River Valley, love to see you next week at some point in time because we've got great things happening all week.

Yeah, you sure do.

And again, getting back to the digs for Briggs, I think that's just an outstanding gesture.

You don't realize how a young man like that affects how many districts and how River Valley was.

I was

at the

football game a couple

of weeks

ago, and I never thought I'd see the day, but the student section at River Valley, we're wearing Ithaca Bulldog shirts.

I mean, I'm never going to see that again.

We're a small town, whether we like it or not, we're a small town in the sense that we are together a small town.

Richland Center, Ithaca, River Valley, Sauk, Riverdale, all of us together are a region and we love each other.

We also compete against each other but we love each other and together we create that feel of

I don't know.

I guess I call it authentic family.

You see these kids, they competed each other.

You know, on a Thursday night or a Friday, they run against each other.

They fight against each other on the wrestling mat.

They compete against each other.

But at the same time, they're friends and they know each other and they know the brothers and sisters of all these competitors and they know who each other are.

So when this unfortunate accident happened out at Ithaca, God bless the family that they allowed us to be a part of that so that our kids could heal as they heal because it affected the entire region.

The young man was known to be an incredible student.

He was an FFA member.

He was an athlete.

He was just a great kid.

And so

Every kid then kind of looks at themselves and wonders about their own, sadly, mortality.

And so it really does affect every kid.

So we have to embrace it.

We have to provide those kids guidance.

We have to provide those kids support.

And it's beyond Ithaca.

It goes to all our communities where we want to continue to support the understanding

and the safety of what happens on a farm.

But we also want to recognize the great things that this kid brought to our communities.

And so with that, Diggs for Briggs is a special way for us to just give a small kind of recognition to the great memory that he will provide for us.

So we're reaching out to the family.

Again, his uncle was a part of a coaching team for us.

His grandma, Sue Maxwell, has been in our schools for years.

She is somebody that's

deep in our hearts because not only is she just a part of our community but she's been on a part of our teams for a long time.

She and her husband were a great big part of our district and she continues to sub in our buildings as a head secretary in any of the buildings because she knows all the kids.

you know, when something happens that's so unfortunate to a local family, it affects our region.

And again, I don't want to belabor on it too much, but our hearts go out to that family and we're excited to just be able to remember him one more time in a really courageous, but also honoring way.

Yeah,

well said.

How about the career fair?

I know I received some info on that not too long ago, but that's one of the next things in line after the school fair.

Yeah.

So the school fair does a great thing.

It highlights agriculture, and that is one of our great big parts of our CTE.

So career and technology education, you hear us throw around letters all the time in education.

That means something else.

So that acronym of CTE, career and technology education, really that department is a bigger department than you think.

That would include agriculture, like I said, for the school fair, and you can't find anything better than a school fair to highlight agriculture.

But agriculture itself also includes food and natural resources.

So if you have a kid that's really interested in something like a DNR job someday, I think of a DNR person, they might be working in hunting fields, they might be working in natural resources, they might be working with waterways, they might be working in so many different spaces, but truly that's agriculture on how to use our nature in a productive way.

So agriculture, food and natural resources go together.

But in CTE we also have to recognize technology and engineering.

So that makes me think of Rockwell and that makes me think of Cardinal Glass.

Those are great big employers and that's all about technology and engineering.

Then we have marketing, management, entrepreneurship and that really thinks about the businesses and the kids that are going to maybe go on to apprentice or go to school for business.

Then we have business and information technology which is all our computer systems which are around us.

We also have family and consumer science.

Within family and consumer science, you've got hospitality, you've got events, tourism, education, arts, entertainment.

Well, you can't be around spring green without understanding arts and entertainment because of APT or House on the Rock.

or the local vendors or our restaurants, then you have health sciences under CTE as well.

Health sciences dig into public service, but also healthcare and human services.

So if you want to be a doctor or a nurse or a CNA, it fits that CTE realm.

So within those six big parts of a CTE scope, we have to basically recognize and get kids ready to leave River Valley and be ready for a job, for service or for more learning and all those areas kind of hit.

So then we jump into do the kids understand the vast opportunities that are out there for them in CTE.

And so what we try to do on this kind of a day, so we are hosting a day, the career fair at River Valley High School on October 7th.

We are trying to promote your local business.

So if you're a business owner or a worker out there and you think nobody ever applies to us or we'd love to have more youth understand the great work that we're doing, I'd love to have you reach out to River Valley High School.

We've got 29 businesses thus far that are coming on in.

They're going to basically set up booths so that seventh and eighth graders in the morning and then in the evening, excuse me, afternoon, in the afternoon, grades nine, 10, 11 and 12 will.

kind of flow through an entire career fair around CTE to make sure that kids understand the great things that they could still do in our region without moving away, right?

We want them to learn.

We want them to grow.

And we also want them to live in the valley, right?

Not maybe even in spring green, but it'd be great if they stayed in our region.

We don't want what everybody worries about in Wisconsin is brain drain.

We get them all educated.

We get them all ready.

We get them ready for the workforce and then they move away.

We want them to stay local.

So this career fair is a great way for local businesses to really kind of entice kids to go into a field that connects to their business.

So again, we're offering student options, we're promoting businesses, and we're helping students choose careers and the pathway toward that so that they feel honored as they go through high school.

High school is a time where kids really get their core, they expand on that core, but then they go into elective fields where they're really in business class or egg class.

or maybe they're in welding class or maybe they're in art class.

All of those things get to the idea of career.

And so we're really trying to make the connection between school and career at this great career fair.

I think it's important too because a student might be interested in a certain field.

You go and maybe you work a few hours or whatever.

Maybe realize that that's not

for

you too.

I mean

it works that way too like maybe you save some years of education

or you

kind of go in a different direction.

Yeah we hear often that kids go and get a degree and then they think oh is that exactly what I wanted to do?

We want them to try it off now.

We want them to try it out maybe have an apprenticeship in that field get out there during your junior or senior year you could do a youth apprenticeship from your local high school and what that allows you to do is to be

kind of sponsored by a local business, paid by that local business, but mentored by an educator in your district.

And that's what youth apprenticeship really does in their junior or senior year that allows them to go to one of these great fields out there, but allows them to stay close to home and try it on.

So you're right, Phil.

And I'll say that again, you're right, Phil.

We want to make sure that our kids are trying these things on so they don't go spend four years on a degree and then think about it later.

We really want them to try it on for size and then really experience what it is and really learn about those

great opportunities.

But again, local businesses, you want our youth.

They're great kids.

These kids are like no other and you want to inspire them to come back and work for you.

So again, reach out to River Valley High School if you want to be a part of our school fair because we'd definitely love to have you there.

Sounds good.

Lauren Glass, our guest on the morning show will be back with more in just a moment.

River Valley District Administrator Lauren Glassbrenner in for his monthly visit today to talk about all the great things going on in the Valley and Overall, is it the third?

It hasn't been the third Friday of the month yet.

Not yet.

It's coming up.

Yeah, so the third Friday count is coming up That's a good segue Phil because third Friday count is a big deal in our local school districts across the state of Wisconsin That's when you do your initial count of the number of students that showed up for school this year and in Wisconsin our

our funding is based on, well, some of our funding is based on the number of students in your doors, right?

Even if a kid's absent that day, I can't count them, but third Friday count is a big deal.

So on the third Friday count, we get to go around our schools, whether you're at the elementary, the intermediate, the junior high, or the high school, and we jump in and count every kid, and we can send that off to the department of public instruction, and DPI then gives us that amount

per kid that comes back to the district.

We do that in September, and then we compare those numbers to another third Friday count that happens in January, and that kind of sets your per pupil, as they call it, amount within our budget.

We also get some federal funding.

You guys know this, we get local funding, we get state funding, and then we have the federal funding, but that per pupil count is a big deal for River Valley, because, as you guys all know, I speak to the idea of

us getting smaller as school districts across the state of wisconsin wisconsin's population is getting smaller there are a lot more old people than there are young people there are people that are having one or two children in a family not six like they used to so the days of a big old farm family inside a big brick house out on 200 acres with 50 cows is a day

of your.

That's not there anymore.

We have smaller families.

And that's just what we deal with.

I'm not sad about that.

That's just our reality.

But our funding mechanisms that come out of the state of Wisconsin are old and still pretend that we are huge houses filled with children that are coming in and busting through our doors.

We don't have the number of kids that we used to.

It's just a fact.

But they haven't redone the funding.

And so that's why districts have to go to referendum, operational referendum to make sure that they can continue to offer the great things that we can offer.

When I talked before about CTE and the great things that we offer at River Valley, I have three technology education teachers.

I've got somebody that teaches wood shop.

I've got somebody that teaches carpentry.

I've got somebody that teaches aeronautics.

I've got somebody that teaches

Pressure gauges.

I've got somebody that teaches welding.

I've got somebody that teaches small motors and large motors.

I have somebody that teaches like motor skills for the average person, meaning how to change your oil, how to change attire.

All of these are classes that we offer at River Valley that are part of an elective wheel.

None of those are required by the state of Wisconsin.

There's a few experiences that the state of Wisconsin says, yep, you should have, and yes, you have to provide some electives, but they don't tell you exactly in your high school that you have to offer those.

And so we choose as a district to offer those incredible CTE, those technology education courses.

Those are not funded.

The state doesn't give me a pile of money because I'm offering welding.

Carla Carmody for years has provided an incredible welding experience.

And she goes out to local businesses and asks for donations because she knows how expensive it is to get the raw material that we're using for welding.

She shouldn't have to, but she does.

And we try to help augment that budget the best that we can, but those are expensive classes.

Everybody wants their kids to have these great experiences, but they don't remember that the state of.

Wisconsin's not funding them.

You are in your local entities.

So when you're voting for a referendum, you're voting for art.

You're voting for music.

You're voting for agriculture.

You're voting for small animal science.

You're voting for welding.

We still offer those great things in our schools, but the state is not.

funding it, though they love to tout it and say that they're a great state and they want to continue to count all those numbers.

So I'm trying not to get on my high horse, but I am trying to say, you know, Howard Markline will be.

proud of the fact that we have all these great things that try to continue out in the valleys, but I haven't heard him fighting for school and public school education funding.

So again, advanced courses, AP classes, everybody that's going off to college wants their kids to have AP classes within their high school so they can kind of get some of those credits right away.

Great.

It's not funded.

Nobody's given me extra dollars to make sure that that teacher is trained, ready, and has all the materials to do so.

So advanced placement, dual enrollment, industry recognized credentials, and work-based learning.

all incredibly wonderful things on my school report card, but I'm not getting a lot of incentive from my state to help fund that.

So I'd throw that out there.

When I talk about CTE, I want people to understand these are the great things we offer you in your schools for the kids, for your grandkids, for your community.

But just understand when we ask for operational dollars, it's for stuff like that.

That's probably not such a thing in some of the, especially in the bigger cities, right?

The school to work and work.

I mean that's not such a big thing is

it?

Not such a big thing.

I think rural Wisconsin provides an incredible opportunity for kids to do these apprenticeships, to get out there into the workforce, to really have a career fair so that they can really see themselves in the local supply chain of employment.

I don't think it's as big of a deal.

We're excited to continue to offer those great things.

I just want people to know that those cost money and that we're proud to do that work.

I just wish everybody would understand the funding formulas, dig into it a little bit and understand how hard it is to come up with funding for stuff like that.

If there's a kid absent on that third Friday, do you go out and drag them in?

You know,

they're sick.

If they're sick, we do our best to try to get everybody there on that day.

And again, it allows us then in January to do it one more time to catch them up if they were just absent and sick on that January day.

But those numbers come together to really give you your.

per pupil count and it's more complex than that entirely but it's something that we really work hard to make sure that people understand these are days that we really want your kid in school.

Not that I don't want your kid in school every day and if they're obviously sick with a fever you're not going to send them just for a third Friday count but we do want people to know that

I guess more than anything, we are here to offer your kid a rich experience.

We are here with a great tradition of providing opportunities for kids and we'd love your kids to be there.

So if you

ever have questions about River Valley or public schools in general, feel free to give me a call.

I'm more than willing.

I'll blather on about it as much as I can.

But I have the best job in the world, supporting kids and the teachers of our local school district.

But it's hard work for us when we feel like people are pounding against the public school dollar.

And we really just want to continue the great traditions that we've offered for so many years.

The state surplus has been in the news now for several years, you know, and maybe hopefully that changes.

That's maybe the one of the things, you know, there's an election coming up in November.

Maybe that's one of the things you can talk to the candidates about bringing that to the forefront.

Yeah, I think more than anything, if anybody's listening, as they think about who they vote for in the back of your mind, just put the bullet point of education question mark.

Are they pro education?

And if they say yes,

Think about researching a little bit.

Did they vote for certain bills around that?

Everybody gets mad about, oh, Governor Evers gave us a $300 increase for the next 300 years.

He did that as a way to force them into the education funding question.

It's not a forever 300 year solution.

That's not what I think the intent of that was, though it's out there for too long and it seems weird, I agree with that.

But really when you're going to the voting booth, think about what you're voting for

and think about the candidates and whether or not they're there for your public schools.

Many of them have children that are in private schools.

And some of them went through public schools.

I just hope that everybody researches it so they keep their local schools in mind as they check the ballot.

How you spent your summer vacation.

You worked at APT a little bit.

I did.

How did it go with the theater?

APT season is not over.

The American Players Theater out there in Spring Green.

I love that place.

I've always been a big fan of American Players Theater.

are a repertory third theater, obviously for Shakespeare, but they also do a lot of English plays, obviously American English plays as well.

So there's great things that are out there and they continue through October.

So if anybody, you know, gets bored on any kind of evening, you really should check out the great things that we have to offer.

I feel so fortunate.

I mean, with House on the Rock, with Caliessen, with APT, with the Wisconsin Riverway right here, we live in such a beautiful space and we're about to go into the most beautiful

time of year where the weather kind of embraces this idea of getting outside, the humidity goes away, the fall colors come on, and we need to hop in our cars and go to a local orchard.

you know, get up and have a good time.

So get out to your local orchard, get out to your local schools, and more than anything, I want to see you a week from Friday at your school fair over at River Valley School District.

Absolutely.

So that somebody told you to break a leg at APT or break a foot.

I did have a little mishap.

Hey, it's not going to slow down this old man.

I'm going to do my best to keep up.

So yes, I'll do my best to keep up.

And again, thank you everybody for always listening and understanding the great things that are happening in your public schools.

I appreciate it, Lauren.

Thanks for coming in today.

You betcha,

have a great day,

Phil.

River Valley District Administrator Lauren Glassbrenner for his monthly report on our morning show.

you

We begin a busy morning show week here.

We have a great schedule lined up and kicking it off today.

Leading off from River Valley administrator Lauren Glassbender.

Hi, Lauren.

Hey there, Phil.

How are you?

A happy good morning to you.

It's a beautiful morning out there.

I love that cool air.

It just feels right, right?

It feels like fall is being ushered in with the right kind of weather.

makes going to football games or running across country meet or being out, you know, in the yard work even seems to feel a little bit better when it's not 100 degrees that it's 70 so it feels good.

It does.

Wonderful weekend for weather and you had the River Valley imitation lacrosse country meet which is

renowned and it sounds like that went pretty well.

It was a successful day.

Our cross-country meet in our cross-country team led by Steve Stettler is just an incredible group of kids but they host this invitational annually and it's been going on for years and years and years but it becomes kind of a southern Wisconsin kind of thing.

There's teams from Wana Key or as far away as Milwaukee that come on over to the valley and kind of come into spring green and go down on our municipal

golf course and just have a heyday.

It's a fairly flat course so it's a it's a fast time and teams come from all around to kind of match up what they're going to be looking at for sectionals or what they're going to be looking at for state runners and so it's kind of a spying game of who's going to lead the pack.

in the state cross country meets.

And so it's a really exciting day.

We had almost 2000 runners is what I heard come to our area.

The whole town gets email notices because we know traffic is going to be crazy.

We know that any traffic that's kind of head toward tally us and house on the rock or APT or anything in the spring green area gets slowed down by all the people coming to watch them runners.

Yeah, really.

And I've watched it before when they take off.

It's like this

thundering herd.

It sure is.

It sure is.

It's a great day.

So they had great weather.

I think it was right around 65 degrees when they took off in the morning and it gets hotter as the day goes on.

But it was an incredible day for running and just fun to see the different teams, whether they're local guys and gals or whether they're regional area people.

It's fun to have them come together and do something just kind of for fun down in the valley.

We had some of your FFA students on along with Sherry Grafunder a little bit earlier this school year talking about the 63rd annual River Valley School Fair, but it's it's near.

It is near.

So our 63rd annual River Valley School Fair will be on September 25th, so it's not this Friday.

But it's a week after that.

So it's a week from Friday.

And we're so excited about this.

Our homecoming theme is once upon a homecoming kind of a medieval kind of princesses and castles and kings and lords and all that.

So we're excited for the 63rd, though, annual River Valley School Fair.

We are one of the three, I believe, school fairs left in the state of Wisconsin.

And there's one regional.

So I think I believe theirs is maybe this coming week.

It is right on Friday, possibly Friday.

them the best of luck on that.

That'll be exciting times for them.

I think there's another one nearby maybe Belmont?

and then we have one.

Beyond that, there are no school fairs left anymore.

And again, this fair started with the Everly family really trying to bring people together.

So the heart of this fair is around agriculture and it's also around bringing kids together to make sure that they understand they're better together.

And so when River Valley became a district, way back in like 64, I believe, they really wanted to make sure that Lone Rock and Plain and Arena and Spring Green came together to

celebrate the roots of what they had.

And so when they did that, they came together and put on a school fair.

And again, I believe it was Mrs. Everly who has just recently been recognized again for her contributions, just wanted to have something come together.

And so it came together around agriculture, but it's turned into more than that.

It's really turned into like the spotlight of our homecoming week, but it's also an annual reminder that together we can build something well.

and it's just been incredible to see the families embrace this year after year after year.

So this school fair, which I didn't quite understand right away when I first came to River Valley is something to be, I guess, not only proud of, but you should all come and watch.

It's bigger than a county fair and we put it on in the big yard behind our intermediate school.

It has hogs, it's got cows, it's got dairy with the beef, it's got goats, it's got sheep, it's got

cats and dogs and all the chickens and a lot of poultry and a lot of different things.

But it's really organized by our outstanding FFA alumni team.

And so a shout out to the FFA alumni, if you're Mr. Johnson or some of the Everly family, just know that we appreciate the hard work that you guys put in.

So again, it's coming up and we're excited about it.

Not that it's not always been a big thing, but I've been around a few of them.

I've not been to all of them, but in the last few years, it seems to me that it has gotten bigger.

I mean, you've had to expand the animal area, and I think it keeps growing, doesn't

it?

It does and it goes off without a hitch and it's only because of our volunteers.

So again, to all our volunteers, I got to give a shout out, but I also have to say it does get bigger.

We will have more hogs, meaning swine, in our category in the Department of Swine than some of our local county fairs.

because it allows kids to really start that project, you know, early spring and then put it out there in the fall.

And also know that we're following all the rules, laws and regulations that anybody would have to have to have a whole county fair.

There are county egg buildings, they're entire

entire acreages set aside in every county for these county fairs, and we put ours on in the backyard of a school.

But they follow all the rules.

So like with that, we have a big animal auction.

And with that meat auction, they have to coordinate with local butchers.

And so we have all of these things arranged so that people can come show their animal, have this great success, the kids get to shine.

And then at 12 o'clock, they can kind of have that child be a part of the big

I guess like I call it that meat sale, that animal auction, and then that swine or hog or sometimes we have poultry or turkey or beef cattle go off, all of those things go off to market.

And it really does teach the community about the roots of farm to table in a really cool way.

So we're excited about it.

We're so proud of the efforts and so proud of Sherry Grafunder and her FFA team over at our high school.

But in coordination with that alumni team, they put on just an incredible show.

following of course all the animal health regulations and everything we would have to do to have an entire fair.

But that's outside.

Phil, that's the stuff outside whether it's horses or goats.

Don't forget we have an entire horse show that happens right in the parking lot area of our high school too.

So then we'll have ponies and novice and senior horse and pony pleasure and all the things that go along with that.

Everything for a horse show that will continue.

That's in a different part on our campus.

We also have small animals.

So we'll have kids showing rabbits and chickens and exotic small animals.

So we've had everything from chameleons to like ferrets, cats, all the different things.

And then if you come inside the intermediate school, we take over a great big gym and we have these incredible displays that

look just like a county fair.

So we'll have family farm displays, farm crops, we'll have garden plot displays, and then we'll have all the vegetables.

So we'll have the entire grouping of kids that are raising tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, eggplants, and all the things.

But then they go into all the arts and crafts.

And we really want every kid in River Valley to be exhibiting something.

So at our elementary school, Mrs. Peterson tries to ensure that every kid, whether they're 4K, 1, 2, or 3, make sure they have an art project that's kind of centered around the idea of agriculture.

So there will be great things there that every kid that's little can come and see.

And so they get a ribbon and they get to see what a fair is.

But beyond that, if you're not looking at the stuff inside,

outside we also have agricultural stations set up whether it's a soil lab or whether it's a welding lab or whether it's Mrs. Wisconsin coming to talk about great things in agriculture or animal husbandry.

It's all the things that go around education with agriculture.

Indeed.

And

then indoors, I know in the old gym, I call it the old gym at River Valley, it's always plum full the night before.

It is like it's a huge jigsaw puzzle that you need to figure out where all the pieces are going to go.

It is.

So on Wednesday, we start cleaning and prepping.

On Thursday, we start accepting all the entries.

And a lot of the judging happens on Thursday so that on Friday, it's on display and already judged.

So it's a week long event.

I mean,

I'll take that back.

It's a year-long event that gets organized but it's orchestrated basically in that week and by Wednesday we have stuff showing up in our gym and it's just an incredible time.

You can't imagine the great things that can happen but it also allows every kid to see themselves

in a constructive way.

And there'll be Legos.

I know you think of Legos as something that a kid plays with, but if you can tell a kid that it's going to be judged based on precision, it's going to be judged based on color, it's going to be judged based on whether or not it represents what it's supposed to represent, I think that realism and it really adds an elevated sense of learning for kids.

So again, it's around school.

This is an incredible demonstration speech, if you will.

When you are showing a calf, it's a demonstration speech.

If you're getting Legos ready to

be judged.

It's a demonstration of your skill and will as a learner.

So we love it as a great way to authentically assess how our kids are doing.

It's really an assessment of all the great things that a kid can do and it's hands on.

It's multi

cultural, but it's also very multifaceted in the way that kids get stuff ready.

So we're excited.

It's a great time.

You really all should take some time.

And I'll give you kind of the schedule on that day.

If you're going to show an animal, you already know this, but between six and eight, we have weigh-ins in the morning to make sure that everything is there for the veterinarians to double check.

And then we have all our weigh-ins to make sure that it gets marketed the right way.

But at Ada Clark,

8 o'clock, we start some of the animals showing up on the ring, which is behind the school.

And there'll be exhibits in the gym and opened by 8 o'clock as well.

But people walk around from 8 to 12 and just get to see the entire thing.

And then at 12, we have our animal auction.

And that auction is really to get markets off and ready, get market steers, get market hogs, get market lambs, all the things ready and auctioned off.

And we love the great work and donators that come in and buy those great things.

And then we pause for basically an hour, take everything down, and then we have our homecoming parade.

And we take over the entire downtown in Spring Green and have a parade from three until about 430.

And then right downtown, they usually shut down the street and they have food vendors and they have live music and everything happens downtown Spring Green.

And a lot of classes come back for that big day to make sure they have a class reunion.

So people from 25 years ago are meeting up with old classmates downtown Spring Green.

And from that, they come back over to our campus and they get ready for the JV or the varsity game.

And then we have a big varsity game that starts at seven.

And then at seven o'clock, we head off that game and then we recognize owners and we recognize businesses at halftime.

And we're also this year going to recognize a special team from the 2016 state football teams going to be back.

And they're going to get recognized during halftime.

And then we go back in and finish out that game.

So there's all this stuff that happens on Friday that we're excited for.

a kid or a mom or dad or a grandma or grandpa, you should be at our campus a week from Friday.

There's always something to see and do.

How does the school day work, Lauren?

Do the students go to school that day or are

they required to come back?

The staff come to school and orchestrate all of this.

The kids on that day are at home and brought to school by their families to come see what they've kind of submitted as an exhibition for the affair.

So it's a day off for the kids, but they all come.

Like there's thousands of people that come to our campus on that day.

And so we're all excited to have the kids come back, but they're chaperoned by their parents on that day.

Plus, it's a great fundraiser for a lot of clubs.

It is.

The food is second to none.

It is.

So our FFA team will have an entire food stand up behind the intermediate school as well.

So you can come, you can eat there for breakfast, you can eat there for lunch, there's brats, there's hamburgers, there's all the things.

But each one of our kids also could have an opportunity to have a fundraiser.

So each one of the graduating classes for the freshman, sophomore, junior, or seniors

have fundraisers as well.

So those are out front of the intermediate school, so it might be something like a...

I don't know, a boba tea or it might be a lemonade or it might be a donut.

I know the community garden is going to be there selling caramel apples.

There's stuff just like a typical county fair that's all really unhealthy but wonderful for you all over our campus the entire day.

So that's exciting.

That's our Friday.

But can I go back a day as well?

Yeah, go ahead.

So on Thursday, the day before that, we have the homecoming match, which is our volleyball match as well as our cross country team and all that.

But

Our volleyball team on that Thursday is having a special night where they're doing something called digs for Briggs.

And for the unfortunate accident that recently happened to an Ithaca student, we're having a special night to recognize Briggs Maxwell and to really make sure that he

And his family know that he's in our hearts forever.

And so that Thursday night, our volleyball team is hosting a digs for Briggs.

So we're going to have a special event that night.

And so his family will be recognized there.

And then that's our pep rally as well.

So we always have classes against each other for our pep rally.

And then everybody goes outside and we have fireworks on Thursday night at our campus as well.

If you're in our community, thank you for giving us the grace to jump into this great stuff.

That week, you know, cross country, volleyball, swimming, JV team, seventh grade teams, eighth grade teams, football teams, everybody kind of has something special all week.

So go to our campus, come on in River Valley, love to see you next week at some point in time because we've got great things happening all week.

Yeah, you sure do.

And again, getting back to the digs for Briggs, I think that's just an outstanding gesture.

You don't realize how a young man like that affects how many districts and how River Valley was.

I was

at the

football game a couple

of weeks

ago, and I never thought I'd see the day, but the student section at River Valley, we're wearing Ithaca Bulldog shirts.

I mean, I'm never going to see that again.

We're a small town, whether we like it or not, we're a small town in the sense that we are together a small town.

Richland Center, Ithaca, River Valley, Sauk, Riverdale, all of us together are a region and we love each other.

We also compete against each other but we love each other and together we create that feel of

I don't know.

I guess I call it authentic family.

You see these kids, they competed each other.

You know, on a Thursday night or a Friday, they run against each other.

They fight against each other on the wrestling mat.

They compete against each other.

But at the same time, they're friends and they know each other and they know the brothers and sisters of all these competitors and they know who each other are.

So when this unfortunate accident happened out at Ithaca, God bless the family that they allowed us to be a part of that so that our kids could heal as they heal because it affected the entire region.

The young man was known to be an incredible student.

He was an FFA member.

He was an athlete.

He was just a great kid.

And so

Every kid then kind of looks at themselves and wonders about their own, sadly, mortality.

And so it really does affect every kid.

So we have to embrace it.

We have to provide those kids guidance.

We have to provide those kids support.

And it's beyond Ithaca.

It goes to all our communities where we want to continue to support the understanding

and the safety of what happens on a farm.

But we also want to recognize the great things that this kid brought to our communities.

And so with that, Diggs for Briggs is a special way for us to just give a small kind of recognition to the great memory that he will provide for us.

So we're reaching out to the family.

Again, his uncle was a part of a coaching team for us.

His grandma, Sue Maxwell, has been in our schools for years.

She is somebody that's

deep in our hearts because not only is she just a part of our community but she's been on a part of our teams for a long time.

She and her husband were a great big part of our district and she continues to sub in our buildings as a head secretary in any of the buildings because she knows all the kids.

you know, when something happens that's so unfortunate to a local family, it affects our region.

And again, I don't want to belabor on it too much, but our hearts go out to that family and we're excited to just be able to remember him one more time in a really courageous, but also honoring way.

Yeah,

well said.

How about the career fair?

I know I received some info on that not too long ago, but that's one of the next things in line after the school fair.

Yeah.

So the school fair does a great thing.

It highlights agriculture, and that is one of our great big parts of our CTE.

So career and technology education, you hear us throw around letters all the time in education.

That means something else.

So that acronym of CTE, career and technology education, really that department is a bigger department than you think.

That would include agriculture, like I said, for the school fair, and you can't find anything better than a school fair to highlight agriculture.

But agriculture itself also includes food and natural resources.

So if you have a kid that's really interested in something like a DNR job someday, I think of a DNR person, they might be working in hunting fields, they might be working in natural resources, they might be working with waterways, they might be working in so many different spaces, but truly that's agriculture on how to use our nature in a productive way.

So agriculture, food and natural resources go together.

But in CTE we also have to recognize technology and engineering.

So that makes me think of Rockwell and that makes me think of Cardinal Glass.

Those are great big employers and that's all about technology and engineering.

Then we have marketing, management, entrepreneurship and that really thinks about the businesses and the kids that are going to maybe go on to apprentice or go to school for business.

Then we have business and information technology which is all our computer systems which are around us.

We also have family and consumer science.

Within family and consumer science, you've got hospitality, you've got events, tourism, education, arts, entertainment.

Well, you can't be around spring green without understanding arts and entertainment because of APT or House on the Rock.

or the local vendors or our restaurants, then you have health sciences under CTE as well.

Health sciences dig into public service, but also healthcare and human services.

So if you want to be a doctor or a nurse or a CNA, it fits that CTE realm.

So within those six big parts of a CTE scope, we have to basically recognize and get kids ready to leave River Valley and be ready for a job, for service or for more learning and all those areas kind of hit.

So then we jump into do the kids understand the vast opportunities that are out there for them in CTE.

And so what we try to do on this kind of a day, so we are hosting a day, the career fair at River Valley High School on October 7th.

We are trying to promote your local business.

So if you're a business owner or a worker out there and you think nobody ever applies to us or we'd love to have more youth understand the great work that we're doing, I'd love to have you reach out to River Valley High School.

We've got 29 businesses thus far that are coming on in.

They're going to basically set up booths so that seventh and eighth graders in the morning and then in the evening, excuse me, afternoon, in the afternoon, grades nine, 10, 11 and 12 will.

kind of flow through an entire career fair around CTE to make sure that kids understand the great things that they could still do in our region without moving away, right?

We want them to learn.

We want them to grow.

And we also want them to live in the valley, right?

Not maybe even in spring green, but it'd be great if they stayed in our region.

We don't want what everybody worries about in Wisconsin is brain drain.

We get them all educated.

We get them all ready.

We get them ready for the workforce and then they move away.

We want them to stay local.

So this career fair is a great way for local businesses to really kind of entice kids to go into a field that connects to their business.

So again, we're offering student options, we're promoting businesses, and we're helping students choose careers and the pathway toward that so that they feel honored as they go through high school.

High school is a time where kids really get their core, they expand on that core, but then they go into elective fields where they're really in business class or egg class.

or maybe they're in welding class or maybe they're in art class.

All of those things get to the idea of career.

And so we're really trying to make the connection between school and career at this great career fair.

I think it's important too because a student might be interested in a certain field.

You go and maybe you work a few hours or whatever.

Maybe realize that that's not

for

you too.

I mean

it works that way too like maybe you save some years of education

or you

kind of go in a different direction.

Yeah we hear often that kids go and get a degree and then they think oh is that exactly what I wanted to do?

We want them to try it off now.

We want them to try it out maybe have an apprenticeship in that field get out there during your junior or senior year you could do a youth apprenticeship from your local high school and what that allows you to do is to be

kind of sponsored by a local business, paid by that local business, but mentored by an educator in your district.

And that's what youth apprenticeship really does in their junior or senior year that allows them to go to one of these great fields out there, but allows them to stay close to home and try it on.

So you're right, Phil.

And I'll say that again, you're right, Phil.

We want to make sure that our kids are trying these things on so they don't go spend four years on a degree and then think about it later.

We really want them to try it on for size and then really experience what it is and really learn about those

great opportunities.

But again, local businesses, you want our youth.

They're great kids.

These kids are like no other and you want to inspire them to come back and work for you.

So again, reach out to River Valley High School if you want to be a part of our school fair because we'd definitely love to have you there.

Sounds good.

Lauren Glass, our guest on the morning show will be back with more in just a moment.

River Valley District Administrator Lauren Glassbrenner in for his monthly visit today to talk about all the great things going on in the Valley and Overall, is it the third?

It hasn't been the third Friday of the month yet.

Not yet.

It's coming up.

Yeah, so the third Friday count is coming up That's a good segue Phil because third Friday count is a big deal in our local school districts across the state of Wisconsin That's when you do your initial count of the number of students that showed up for school this year and in Wisconsin our

our funding is based on, well, some of our funding is based on the number of students in your doors, right?

Even if a kid's absent that day, I can't count them, but third Friday count is a big deal.

So on the third Friday count, we get to go around our schools, whether you're at the elementary, the intermediate, the junior high, or the high school, and we jump in and count every kid, and we can send that off to the department of public instruction, and DPI then gives us that amount

per kid that comes back to the district.

We do that in September, and then we compare those numbers to another third Friday count that happens in January, and that kind of sets your per pupil, as they call it, amount within our budget.

We also get some federal funding.

You guys know this, we get local funding, we get state funding, and then we have the federal funding, but that per pupil count is a big deal for River Valley, because, as you guys all know, I speak to the idea of

us getting smaller as school districts across the state of wisconsin wisconsin's population is getting smaller there are a lot more old people than there are young people there are people that are having one or two children in a family not six like they used to so the days of a big old farm family inside a big brick house out on 200 acres with 50 cows is a day

of your.

That's not there anymore.

We have smaller families.

And that's just what we deal with.

I'm not sad about that.

That's just our reality.

But our funding mechanisms that come out of the state of Wisconsin are old and still pretend that we are huge houses filled with children that are coming in and busting through our doors.

We don't have the number of kids that we used to.

It's just a fact.

But they haven't redone the funding.

And so that's why districts have to go to referendum, operational referendum to make sure that they can continue to offer the great things that we can offer.

When I talked before about CTE and the great things that we offer at River Valley, I have three technology education teachers.

I've got somebody that teaches wood shop.

I've got somebody that teaches carpentry.

I've got somebody that teaches aeronautics.

I've got somebody that teaches

Pressure gauges.

I've got somebody that teaches welding.

I've got somebody that teaches small motors and large motors.

I have somebody that teaches like motor skills for the average person, meaning how to change your oil, how to change attire.

All of these are classes that we offer at River Valley that are part of an elective wheel.

None of those are required by the state of Wisconsin.

There's a few experiences that the state of Wisconsin says, yep, you should have, and yes, you have to provide some electives, but they don't tell you exactly in your high school that you have to offer those.

And so we choose as a district to offer those incredible CTE, those technology education courses.

Those are not funded.

The state doesn't give me a pile of money because I'm offering welding.

Carla Carmody for years has provided an incredible welding experience.

And she goes out to local businesses and asks for donations because she knows how expensive it is to get the raw material that we're using for welding.

She shouldn't have to, but she does.

And we try to help augment that budget the best that we can, but those are expensive classes.

Everybody wants their kids to have these great experiences, but they don't remember that the state of.

Wisconsin's not funding them.

You are in your local entities.

So when you're voting for a referendum, you're voting for art.

You're voting for music.

You're voting for agriculture.

You're voting for small animal science.

You're voting for welding.

We still offer those great things in our schools, but the state is not.

funding it, though they love to tout it and say that they're a great state and they want to continue to count all those numbers.

So I'm trying not to get on my high horse, but I am trying to say, you know, Howard Markline will be.

proud of the fact that we have all these great things that try to continue out in the valleys, but I haven't heard him fighting for school and public school education funding.

So again, advanced courses, AP classes, everybody that's going off to college wants their kids to have AP classes within their high school so they can kind of get some of those credits right away.

Great.

It's not funded.

Nobody's given me extra dollars to make sure that that teacher is trained, ready, and has all the materials to do so.

So advanced placement, dual enrollment, industry recognized credentials, and work-based learning.

all incredibly wonderful things on my school report card, but I'm not getting a lot of incentive from my state to help fund that.

So I'd throw that out there.

When I talk about CTE, I want people to understand these are the great things we offer you in your schools for the kids, for your grandkids, for your community.

But just understand when we ask for operational dollars, it's for stuff like that.

That's probably not such a thing in some of the, especially in the bigger cities, right?

The school to work and work.

I mean that's not such a big thing is

it?

Not such a big thing.

I think rural Wisconsin provides an incredible opportunity for kids to do these apprenticeships, to get out there into the workforce, to really have a career fair so that they can really see themselves in the local supply chain of employment.

I don't think it's as big of a deal.

We're excited to continue to offer those great things.

I just want people to know that those cost money and that we're proud to do that work.

I just wish everybody would understand the funding formulas, dig into it a little bit and understand how hard it is to come up with funding for stuff like that.

If there's a kid absent on that third Friday, do you go out and drag them in?

You know,

they're sick.

If they're sick, we do our best to try to get everybody there on that day.

And again, it allows us then in January to do it one more time to catch them up if they were just absent and sick on that January day.

But those numbers come together to really give you your.

per pupil count and it's more complex than that entirely but it's something that we really work hard to make sure that people understand these are days that we really want your kid in school.