On the morning show today, we put the spotlight on the Richland School District.
We have Superintendent Steve Bord here today, and Richland Center Co-Principal Ryan Lemke is here today.
And of course, the thing I really want to talk about Ryan is baseball.
How about the post-season,
huh?
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
It's been awesome so far.
I'm from Chicagoland, and I'm not a Cubs fan.
I'm a White Sox fan, so I am very, very pleased with how things are going.
you know, I go to a lot of brewer games with the family.
So it's been fun to watch those two teams take off.
So far this post season, White Sox got a big one again tonight, or AS three o'clock.
So I don't know if Mr. Board is going to let me out early today or not, but to watch that game.
But yeah, they hopefully can close out the season.
And I know brewers weren't able to get it done last night, but hopefully, hopefully take care of business later.
The White Sox have the Pope on their side, so maybe they got a shot.
Right.
There's no better guy in the world in my opinion than you can have on your side.
Apparently he sent the, sent the team a letter thanking them for, they had Pope night earlier in the summer and he sent the team a letter thanking them right before the post season starts.
So I don't know if this is a coincidence on what's going on, but pretty, pretty cool stuff.
That's awesome.
And you know, and you as a head baseball coach too, I think you have to be happy when the state team does well.
I mean, I kind of, uh,
maybe associate that with why volleyball is successful in the state.
Cause the Badger volleyball team is so successful.
I think you see that when kids see the big guys doing it and they want to do it themselves, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I don't think, um, baseball has ever been as popular as it is now.
And I, and I'm, I'm kind of a baseball purist.
Um, so I was, I was had mixed emotions on, on the pitch count or pitch clock.
Um, but I think it has done wonders for the game and keeping our youth engaged in the MLB.
It keeps their attention span on what's going on and really speeds up the game so kids can enjoy it.
I remember watching games where one of my favorite pitchers at the time, and I would probably hate them now, but
Uh, he was a pitch for the white socks.
Freddie Garcia, he would take almost 40 seconds in between pitches and it was just, he'd get off the mound and wipe the slat and walk around and it was just, it took forever.
And now those days are done.
Right.
And I think that's for the better.
Um, so I think that's a big part of it, but yeah, the, the excitement around the brewers is, is real.
And it is fun to watch.
They're, they're a really fun team.
Jackson Cheerios, a stud.
So he's going to be a, a force in the league for years to come.
You bet.
Steve, what do you want to talk about?
I'm happy just listening to you folks talk about baseball.
I love watching them.
So the Brewers have been fantastic.
I love the way they play.
I love the grittiness that they have.
And to Ryan's point about the youth, not that we're here to talk about MLB all the morning, but the way that Pat Murphy has the Brewers playing is very similar to how a lot of high school teams have to play.
They're not hitting the ball over the fence three times a game.
And so they're grinding out runs and they're slapping singles all over the field.
to watch.
I think this little stretch of Milwaukee Brewer baseball has been some of the most enjoyable that I remember ever.
And I remember I got to attend the World Series game in 1982 and remember all of those glory years of the Brewers and the rebuilding of them.
But this is about as good as I remember them being in terms of just being entertaining to watch and just a lovable team, right?
They're
just down to earth.
people.
So that's cool.
1982.
You must have been pretty young at that point.
Yeah.
Let's just say I was really young.
I was, I was probably 11, you know,
it was
a great experience, you know, back in county stadium.
I still got to see game five against the Cardinals.
And yeah, my brother and I, we were, we were just a little bit apart.
We couldn't get four tickets.
My mom and dad and my brother and I went down.
I don't know where my sister was at.
She didn't get the, she drew the short stick, I think, but, uh, and we were just a few rows apart.
My parents were like four rows behind us.
My brother and I, we were down the, the first, excuse me, the third baseline right near the left field foul pool.
And a couple of groundskeepers sat right in front of us and they got us a couple of balls.
And so got him signed.
It was, it was a cool moment.
We thought we were on top of the world.
So, you know, and of course you're 11 year thinking, Oh, this will happen again.
Right.
And now here we are 40 some years later waiting for them to come back to the world series.
I know.
I remember saying that we got young, we got Molitor and we had everybody back next year and it doesn't work that way, but.
How about a Brewer White Sox World Series?
That would
be great.
Yeah, that's what I vote for.
Yeah, that'd be great.
That'd be awesome.
Well, let's talk a little bit about the Richland District.
That's why you're here today.
Yeah,
equally as exciting as the Brewer's and the White Sox.
Things are going great.
This is a great time of year.
And Ryan will get in and talking about it a little bit more with the excitement of homecoming and all of that.
But the start of the school year has its own special
Um...
you know, coolness to it.
You get to see staff again.
You get to see students again.
And then there's the settling in period.
And, you know, that's always a little unique, you know, as students, especially new students.
And we've had a ton of new students coming in, but they're kind of, you know, finding their way.
But now we're in week, you know, five, six, and things are settling in and homecomings a little later this year.
But there's just something about this kind of weather and fall sports and homecoming and the
Fiesta Parade and all of the things that go on locally that's really, really unique about this time of year.
And, boy, again, we couldn't ask for better weather.
We couldn't ask for a better group of staff and students and excited for an absolutely outstanding homecoming week and continuing this positive momentum that the Richland School District has.
What about the enrollment?
Third Friday of the month of September came and went?
Yes, it did come and go.
And that is something that every school district in the state of Wisconsin
is required to do two official pupil counts, one in the middle of September and one in early January for kind of the second semester count.
And this is always an exciting time and kind of a tense time for our schools because
A lot of the, are we gaining students?
Are we losing students?
A lot of it's just anecdotal up to that point.
Like it feels like we've enrolled a lot of kids.
It feels like we've gotten kids in.
And we can do some general projections and we can run some reports, but the reality is we can have kids enrolled, but if they don't end up coming to our school district or maybe they were open and rolled in and didn't attend and we've got to try to track them down.
There's a handful of kids that we don't necessarily know about.
Third Friday count in September is crucial because we find out where all of these kids are.
Are they coming here?
If they have gotten high anxiety and didn't come to school, we can make contacts with those families, find them a pathway that works for them.
But then we do that official count.
And it's a long process.
It's a tedious process, literally.
counting every kid, trying to figure out where they're at, whether they were here, whether we can count them according to the guidelines that the DPI has set forward, and then compiling all of the numbers.
And that's where it really takes place.
And we're very, very excited about the numbers.
Back in the 24-25 school year, we were educating 1,121 students.
And we had been right around that, 1130 to 1120 for the previous three years.
Last year, we bumped that up to 1150, 1149 actually.
And we thought, well, that was a good trend, right?
We bucked the trend a little bit.
We didn't really know where that would go this year, but this year we added another
40 students, so we were at 1190.
So that's up 70 kids from two years ago in terms of butts and seats, right?
Kids, actual kids that we are educating.
So that's kind of the number.
Now that's not necessarily the number that we get funding off of.
There's a little different formula for how that works.
But to have 70 additional kids in our school buildings or in our programs, we certainly have some virtual programming as well.
Over the last two years, considering that we've lost graduating classes in the 107, 108, 110, and replaced them with smaller class sizes, to offset those graduating classes and still increase our enrollment by 70 is outstanding.
So that's really, really exciting to see.
Demographically, what part of the count that we do is we determine how many school-aged children are attending a public school anywhere.
right?
It doesn't matter if they're attending in the original school district or elsewhere.
School-aged children that are attending a public school somewhere that live in the original school district boundaries.
And every school district has to do that.
And that's the number that we get funding off of.
So that number, just demographically, we have less kids living in our school district boundaries than we did in the past.
And that's kind of a
a phenomenon that's going on across the state, everybody is facing declining enrollment, maybe not everybody, but 80 plus percent of the schools.
And I would venture to say that...
95 plus percent of the schools on the western side of the state are facing decline enrollment.
They just don't have as many kids.
That's problematic for schools because that's the number that you get funding off of.
And so that number continues to decline.
That has nothing to do with how good any of the schools are doing or whether or not they want to attend the Richland School District or any of the resident.
That's just the fact that we have less kids being born now than we did, you know, 20, 30 years ago.
So that number has continued to decline.
That number has gone from, you know, the 1300s a couple of three years ago to 1250 now.
And so that's the number we're getting funded off of.
But the fact that that number is going down, we have less kids in our district.
that are school-aged, but yet we are increasing our enrollment.
That's pretty unique, right?
To know that we're actually getting a higher percentage of the students that live in our area and we're getting students coming from elsewhere.
And it's not just neighboring districts, it's also because of our virtual program.
We're getting students open and rolling to our district from Kenosha, from Wasaw, from Stevens Point, from Monacoa, just to name a few that I can think of that most recently, open and rolled, and we're still
getting them, right?
So lastly, just talk a little bit about the open enrollment trend.
And, you know, this has been the elephant in the room for years.
And when I was
honored to get the opportunity to be the superintendent of our school district.
That was one of the things I wanted to address openly and publicly that this is an issue.
This is a legitimate problem that we have.
We're not, every school district in the state is going to have some families that live on the border, that families are going to work in another school district and they take their kids there.
Every school district has some
certain percentage of students that are going to be open and rolling out, and another certain percentage of students that are open and rolling in.
That's just, it's inevitable.
But our numbers were so out of whack.
I mean, we were losing close to 300 students through open enrollment that lived in our district, but we're going to school elsewhere.
And our open enrollment in numbers were pretty close to average.
We were right around that 80 mark.
So we were bringing in 80.
from outside of our district, which was, again, pretty close to average, but we were losing close to 300.
And that was completely out of average.
It's completely out of whack.
It was something that needed to be addressed.
with the help of a great administrative team, the help of great staff that we have working here, and really just doing a great job of celebrating the positives.
We've been able to reverse those trends, and so we've gone from just shy of 300 a few years ago down to 194 students out.
Now, that's still a higher than state average number, but we've reduced the number of out students by 100, right?
That's a good trend.
We've gone from right around state average in those that 80 to 85 mark of bringing kids in up to 127 this year.
So, you know, when you look at those two things together, reducing our number of out and increasing the number of in, that's a real financial impact for us in a positive way.
And so that helps offset some of the increasing expenses that school districts have.
I mentioned earlier that our resident count was down, which means we will get less money, you know,
year because we have less kids, but yet all of our expenses continue to go up.
Staffing is always a huge issue, not issue, but a huge budgetary cost.
It's roughly two thirds to three quarters of our budget is allocated to salaries and benefits.
And again, not just teachers.
We're talking about all of the wonderful support staff that we have, our custodial crew, our food service crew, our IT crew, our nursing crew, all of those folks.
you know, those two and a half, 3% cost of living increases.
But when you multiply that over, you know, 240 employees, you know, we're a large employer in this area, that adds up.
And when you're increasing those costs, increasing transportation costs, increasing food costs and supply costs, and you're doing it with less money, that becomes problematic.
And we're fortunate that the community helped us pass a referendum a few years ago.
But as many celebrations as we have in the Richland School District, we do still have struggles.
And one of the biggest struggles that we are going to continue to face is.
the same problem that many school districts are facing and that's the financial implications that we have.
Schools are being forced to do more with less money and you do the math on how much time a student spends in school and it's about 14.2% of their life.
Yeah, excuse me, of their year, not of their life, but when they're a school-aged children, 14.2% of their time throughout the course of a year is spent in school, yet schools in general are really being asked to solve almost 100% of the problems.
We're forced to be medical experts and helping them with mental health, helping them with
physical health, helping them academically, helping them with family situations and problems.
And schools do a great job with it.
But my point is that we're being asked to do more and we're being asked to do it with less money.
And so that's a real concern of ours.
And I'll remind people now, and you'll probably hear me say it dozens of times here moving forward, the community passed a referendum back in 2024 for a four year
non-recurring referendum, which means that that does expire at some point and that expires at the end of next school year, the 27-28 school year.
So it's inevitable that the Richland School District, again like many school districts, are going to have to go back to ask the community to renew that referendum.
what that renewal is being asked for determines on whether or not we are able to continue to reverse the trends.
We're already trending in a positive direction, which means we would need to ask for less of an increase than we would have if we didn't.
And that's what we wanted the public to do, is trust us.
give us an opportunity to prove to you that we're doing the right things, that we're changing the trend, and I'm hoping that that's the story that we'll be able to tell, that we have done a good job with that, as our enrollment numbers indicate.
So that's kind of a lot of information there regarding enrollment, but it's tied directly into our budget.
We are likely facing a budget deficit this coming year, but
We're also doing a lot of great things with, with our alternative programming and we're hoping to minimize that deficit as much as possible, which will then mean when it is time to renew that referendum that the ask will be more minimal than it would be if we didn't.
I've always thought that, you know, the current state funding, you know, per pupil and almost like it seems kind of cold because the students are treated almost like dollar signs.
I mean, if you had your say, if they came to you and they said, Steve board, what would be a better way?
to fund in your
mind.
It was something that needed to be done in our state back in the early 90s.
Governor Tommy Thompson implemented the revenue limit back in 1993 because schools at that time were loving to their taxpayers any amount of money that they wanted to do whatever it was they wanted to.
And so, literally, if you look back at mill rates back in the early 90s, late 80s, mill rates were in the
$25 per thousand range, right?
Just for perspective, we're at, I believe, $8.44.
$8.44 per thousand is what the school mill rate is right now.
So that's three times the amount that it was back in 1992.
And the Richland School District was one of the lower spending school districts, relatively speaking, back then.
So you imagine what other school districts were like.
So I guess my point is a revenue limit was needed to put a
put some controls on on school spending and how much was being distributed to the taxpayers.
Okay, but in 1993 what they did was they simply looked at how much money did you spend in 1992
Okay, so if you were, for whatever reason, a school district that spent a lot of money in 1992, you were in a benefit.
If you were a school district that didn't spend a lot of money in 1982, you got penalized.
Whatever you spent in 1992, divided by the number of kids that you had in 1992, and that's the amount of money that we're going to give you per kid.
And so the Richland School District might have had, at that time, $8,000 per kid, where a school district like Royal, and I'll pick on them because that's where I'm from, they might have undergone some construction projects, levied more in 1992, spent more money in 1992, and for that reason, their member dollar amount might have been $10,000, okay?
That's what was set in 1993 and those dollar amounts have stayed with school districts for the last 30 years.
In fact, I did a study that I presented to Representative Kurtz that showed that the school districts that were behind in 1993 and the school districts that were ahead in 1993 continue those same trends all the way through.
And the lower school districts still are receiving less money and the higher school districts
are still receiving more money.
And the interesting part about that is when you overlay academic success with those, the lines almost mirror each other.
The school districts that had a lot of money in 1993 were performing well academically.
They're now having a lot of money in 2026, and they're still performing academically well.
And the school districts in the lower percentiles have continued to stay at the bottom.
It's been very, very much a struggle to overcome this.
So to answer your question, what would I do differently?
I think everyone in the state understands that a school district that has 2,000 students needs more money than a school district that has 1,000 students.
And a school district that has 1,000 needs more money than a school district that has 400, right?
That concept is generally pretty much understood.
The flaw, in my opinion with the funding formula, is that it's not realistic for school districts to make substantial cuts when they lose, say, 10 kids in a school year.
Okay, so I mentioned our resident count, our resident count that that we get funded off of.
Last year we were at 1265.
This year we're at 1250.
So even though we have more students in our seats this year, our resident count has gone down 15 students.
Let's just do simple math.
We're about, I believe, $14,000 a kid is what we get.
But let's just call it $10,000, right?
Very conservative.
That's $150,000.
$10,000 times 15 kids.
$150,000 that we have of less money to spend.
But yet those 15 kids are not all in one grade.
They're not all isolated in fourth grade, where we can say, OK, we have 15 less fourth graders.
We're going to reduce
fourth grade teacher by one, and therefore will save this $150,000.
No, we've got one kid in third grade.
We've got two kids in fifth grade.
We've got one kid in ninth grade, one kid in EC.
They're scattered throughout 14 or 15 different grades.
We don't get to reduce any staff, not that we want to, but we don't have the ability to.
We're not decreasing transportation routes.
We're not decreasing any expenses other than maybe, you know, a $30 workbook and a pack of crayons, perhaps, but the cost savings is minimal, like we're talking hundreds of dollars, but the expenses are thousands of dollars.
That to me is what needs to change.
Instead of looking at it as a per pupil member, we have to look at it in
number of students in a grade or cohorts of students so that we can really say okay you went from 36 second graders to 34 second graders you still need two teachers therefore we're going to fund you for two teachers.
Now, if you drop down to 18 students, okay, yeah, now you can reduce your cost.
It's somehow, in my opinion, it's got to reflect the actual number of teachers, staff sections that you would need in a reasonable ratio so that when you lose one or two kids in a grade, you're not penalized by literally tens of thousands of dollars.
And again, this is not unique to the Richland School District.
every school district is is facing this.
I think if you were to ask 430 school districts and all of our legislation, 95% or more would say the funding formula is broken.
The problem is no one can agree on how to fix it.
And so we just continue to get stuck in the same ways and the formula has
has
really
largely remained unchanged since 1993, and even though it's something that the different political parties talk about fixing, there's really never become any real
real movement in changing it and I think that's what needs to change when it comes to public education.
We've got to start investing in our future at a state level because we're being asked to do more and we're being asked to do it with less money while our expenses are increasing and that's just not a sustainable formula.
Yeah, a lot is made of the state surplus.
And I guess my thought on that is, you know, you eventually may get it, but then sometimes it's one time money.
And then, you know, you go ahead and maybe you do an addition or whatever, and then you don't have that money.
I mean, it's
yeah, absolutely.
Because yeah, if you have one time money, like we got not again, not just us, but school districts got in COVID, right?
They got that one time money.
And that was
used in a variety of different ways, but those school districts that invested that into staffing, then they felt a financial cliff when the COVID money ran out because now they had staffing plans, but they were now being funded, you know, four or $500,000 less money.
And so, yes, the surplus is there, but
you know, if it is just used as one-time money, that's not a long-term problem.
But then you've also got to look at the other side, you know, it can't just all fall on the taxpayers either because, you know, we do have a growing number of people that are on fixed incomes and, you know, they can't just have property taxes double just to fund anything for that matter, but so there's got to be a way that we can...
you know, generate more money at a state level, whether that's bringing in more industry.
I know there's been some talk about maybe
increasing the stales tax by a quarter percent, a half a percent statewide and putting that right towards education.
Things like that, I think, are sustainable because you'd still have an ongoing revenue stream.
But something's got to give.
School districts are at a tipping point.
We're fortunate.
We're in a great spot right now.
Again, we have growing enrollment and a lot of positive things happening.
But those struggles are still a reality for us and for all school districts.
And it's just a matter of time.
before it's gonna hit.
Referendums are at an all-time high across the state, and at some point, taxpayers are just not going to be able to continue to say yes, even if they want to, because of the financial impact on their pocketbook, and the state's going to have to do something to fix that.
Indeed.
We're gonna talk homecoming.
He's been collecting his thoughts, but Ryan Lemke will be back with us when we return with more on The Morning Show.
We put the focus on the Richland School District today.
Ryan Lemke, Steve Border here.
Ryan, happy homecoming week, pre-homecoming week next week.
Homecoming
Eve week.
Yeah, exactly.
Homecomings coming quick.
It was a later.
homecoming this year for us, but it is, you can feel the excitement starting to pick up in the building, which has been cool.
And I know Mr. Board mentioned earlier, you know, all summer, you think about like students and staff and what you're going to do.
And this is the week that everything like, okay, this is a great week, all the school spirit, all the excitement around our sports and just our new students get to experience that.
It's such a cool feeling.
And
I know we can't wait for it.
Next Monday can't be here soon enough.
That's kind of the kickoff for it and ready to rock.
So we're excited.
I wonder because sometimes you've had it a lot earlier.
It's all kind of dependent on when the football game works and things like that.
But having it the last week of the regular season for football, you can kind of hit the ground running and prepare better,
can't you?
Yeah, exactly.
You can.
um you know that like you said uh homecomings always football schedule driven um and it just fell uh the last week of the regular season this year um but it's kind of worked out okay for the community because we've a lot of times had other community events that have conflicted with homecoming dance so that's been a nice change of pace this year i know our
our light parade was a different weekend this year.
Last year there was a conflict there on the same day so our kids would have to go right from the light parade right to the homecoming dance.
So that wasn't super ideal for our students.
So it is a positive in a lot of ways and hopefully the weather holds out.
I mean it's been great so far, not on wood here, but we just want a nice brisk fall evening next Friday and it should be
fun.
Are you privy to all the information on, you know, the dress up days and all the fun stuff going on next
week?
Yeah, there's a lot.
There's a lot of it.
But yeah, for the most part, we are.
It's the themes, Hornets and Paradise.
So excited about that beach theme, although we'll still be in Richland Center.
We'll kind of make a little tropical paradise over at 1996 US Highway 14 West.
So I'm excited about that.
But yeah, a lot of cool dress up days.
Actually, Mrs. Perkins, the other co-principal was sending me texts with different costume
for me and her for next week.
So I got to rely on her for that.
So she was sending me costumes last night.
So excited to do that.
And I know our students get super amped up and invested and involved in all this stuff.
And it's just great for school spirit and awesome times ahead for sure.
They'll have home volleyball and soccer and football.
So those are all exciting events too.
Absolutely.
And I get that's the other reason for the late homecoming that all those events were home.
on this week so it kind of worked out but yeah I mean super excited about it all those home sporting events as well as all the stuff that goes on during the school day for our students we have a big intense volleyball tournament throughout the week with our male students are competing in that with our our volleyball
Athletes are the coaches for that.
And then on Friday, the big culmination of that is the winning team of all the students gets to play the staff.
And actually the staff, not to brag, but I'm going to.
We won last year.
And we actually have our first practice tonight at 6.30, our staff.
We're taking seriously.
Wow.
I joked that we're going to start out with conditioning, which we're definitely not going to do.
We'll have our first practice tonight and it's fun.
The kids are starting to jaw at us a little bit and it's all good fun.
I love the competition with our students and you know competition breeds success and I think it's fun but it's also really really cool to see.
Do you have skits this year?
We will have skits.
We have talents.
We have all the things.
Yeah.
So, you know, we're always excited to see those and watch those.
And just just kind of showcase some of our amazing students that we have that get up in front of the whole student body and do their thing.
It's awesome to watch.
And I'm blown away every year.
And the skits, you know, sometimes the skits are great.
And sometimes skits are like, oh, all right.
We've got a little work here.
So it's a little in between there, but.
Have you seen somebody
play you in a skit or?
Just about every year every year plays me.
Yeah.
So it's always, it's always a given.
Someone's going to be out there.
Um, I'm usually involved in a couple of skits, Mrs. Perkins as well.
So, um, it's great.
It's such a fun day.
And that all takes place on Friday.
Um, Friday, typically we have, uh, no, uh, classes run.
It's just all fun, all, all excitement and all just gearing up for the day.
And then we, we head to the parade and, um, and the parade's awesome.
It's another great event.
I know, um, you're always there.
and it's fantastic and we've been fortunate in the last few years.
The weather's been great.
Again, hopefully that continues.
You know, just a really awesome week with a lot of fun stuff packed in.
All next week, you wanted to talk a little bit about enrichment trips as well, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So our enrichment trips, I think we started in a big way last year.
At least we changed the model of them.
So last year, at the high school level, 712, we did a lot of great enrichment trips.
And those are all back this year.
We're really excited to be able to offer these for our students at a low, low cost of $0, right?
So families don't have to
to pay for our students to get to experience these awesome things.
And we do some really amazing things.
It's actually kicking off with our seventh graders the Monday after homecoming.
So October 19th, we're actually, with the whole 73 class, we're heading up north to Eagle River at an outdoor education camp at Trees for Tomorrow.
We'll be there for two nights, three full days.
And we were able to do it last year as kind of a trial to see what it would look like just for one night.
And it was so amazing.
And our kids had such a great experience that we excited to extend it to two nights this year.
And it is so awesome to be able to do this with them.
I'm actually going on this trip as a chaperone.
I love it.
It's great.
So it's great for me and the other high school chaperones that go with, because we get to learn about those seventh grade students.
They're new to us, right?
Relatively new to us.
So we're learning about them every day and getting to know them, but, you know, being.
at a camp with them for three days you really get to know who they are so that is that is super exciting.
We'll do a lot of awesome stuff up there from everything from fire start learning how to start their own fires and the wilderness to cooking outside to learning about the different ecosystems up in the north woods of Wisconsin so it is a really really awesome camp again super super excited for that and and the
thing I think I'm maybe most excited for the food up there was fantastic they found us so I'm really excited for this seventh grade group to get to experience that.
So that's the first one we've got kicking off.
And then we're kind of a Chicago trip heavy.
We were able to offer grades nine through 12, all a different Chicago and Richmond trip last year.
And we do a day trip to Chicago and do a different thing with each grade.
The trips for each grade level are going to stay the same, so no one is going to do the same thing twice or anything like that.
The freshmen go to the Museum of Science and Industry and then we take them out for supper.
The sophomores went to the
shed aquarium and took them out to supper.
The juniors went to the Field Museum in Chicago and the seniors, we did an architecture boat tour down the Chicago River and then got to hang out at Navy Pier as well.
So awesome activities for them on these enrichment trips.
It's a great experience.
We had a great turnout.
You know, we're talking 90
percent of our students in each of these grades were attending last year, which is when you talk about field trips or school sponsored activities, that is extremely high.
So that it was awesome to see.
And then our eighth graders in the spring will head to a brewers game.
That was an old tradition that we brought back a couple years ago.
Being able to do that with our eighth graders, a big awesome trip.
They go to see a brewers game and hang out for the day at
Miller Park, I don't even know the new AMFAM field.
There you go.
Thanks.
So it's a great experience for them.
But, you know, we're going to have to try to have a plan B in case things go south with the looming potential lockout for the MLB season.
So we have to kind of look into that a little bit.
So hopefully that doesn't happen and hopefully our eighth graders get to go to a game this spring.
But yeah, so super excited about all these enrichment
enrichment trips that are upcoming.
Well I think about there are a number of students that may never get that opportunity or you know have not had that opportunity may not so it's a great opportunity.
Yeah and that's the main reason not the main reason but one of the big reasons for these trips right we want to do something that kids are going to remember for the rest of their lives right they're going to look back at their high school career and or their middle school career and say I loved that trip.
That was a great trip to the Shedd Aquarium, hanging out with my friends, and it's kind of a relaxed environment, but they're still learning.
They're learning, but they don't even realize they're learning and change the classroom up from a high school building to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, which is a fantastic place.
So just because the classroom looks a little bit different on those days, the curriculum is still valid.
And yeah, our students are going to hopefully remember these things for
for their whole lives.
I remember when I was a sixth grader, I got the opportunity to go to kind of an outdoor education camp and I still remember that, right?
I couldn't necessarily remember a lot of my lessons that I had in sixth grade, right?
But I remember almost vividly that whole trip and that's the goal when our students get out into the workforce and get on with their lives, whatever they do after high school.
They remember these awesome experiences that
we were able to provide
them.
Well, if you come up short on a chaperone, give me a call.
It might be interesting.
It'll be our first call.
Steve, some other things that you wanted to talk about here
today.
Yeah.
As, uh, as Mr Lemke was talking about, uh, homecoming, it's kind of just reminiscing there as a, as a teacher, you know, it was all about the weather of homecoming week.
You know, you, you checking the weather, you're trying to make sure everything's going to be great as an administrator.
Not only are you checking the weather, but you're also checking the lunar schedule because
you do
not want a full moon.
of homecoming week.
It's
just something about the full moon.
You don't want that.
No, it's a great week and again, all of our buildings.
I know I've brought Mr. Lemke from the high school, but all of our buildings are gonna get to experience homecoming week in their own way and all culminated by that parade on next Friday, early release for our students.
So many of them will be in the parade, whether it's from a school activity or a club or a sports team, but also from some of our local, whether it's a dance.
Studio that they're a part of or whatever and then those that don't get to participate get to participate as a spectator and We encourage everybody to do that the parade route is very similar to what it's been in the past So get there early and enjoy the festivities of the week so
But yeah, some other things that just to wrap it up here.
The campus property that we've talked about numerous times over the last year or so is kind of coming to an end.
Last night at our city council was kind of the final hoop that it needed to jump through from a comprehensive planning standpoint for the county to be able to split up the number of acres that they have at that property and split off what the school district is purchasing, which again is
is Melville Hall and the gym, as well as the green space to the west and to the south by the creek there.
You'll notice that we've been renting that.
from the county for a dollar over the last couple of weeks, really since school started.
We were able to bring in some landscapers, clean that up.
I think we've got a lot of compliments on how great that looks.
But next Monday, October 12th, that is the date that we have scheduled for our closing on that property with the county.
So I will meet with folks from the county on the morning of the 12th.
I believe it's at nine o'clock and we will sign
paperwork on behalf of our councils and boards and that will get recorded by the by the register of deeds and that will officially be transferred into the Richland School District and that'll just be a nice project that's that'll get
get off of our plate again for all practical purposes.
We backed as if we've owned it.
We've maintained it and and we've got programming in Melville Hall.
We've got both our pathways program and our hive program over there right now.
So that's been a great spot for them.
But to get that closed up will be.
Nice project for both the county and the school district in both sides have been wonderful to work with and I know it's been a long process But we've been able to get through it.
So so that's exciting And then remind people about our annual meeting so every school district in the state of Wisconsin must have an annual meeting and this is not a meeting of
of the school board.
This is a meeting for anyone that is a resident of the Richland School District to attend and participate in.
And there, by state statutes, there's only a handful of things that annual meetings can, they have the power to do.
But those are important things that they have the power to do.
And so any resident of the Richland School District is welcome to attend, 18 and older.
The annual meeting on October 21st at seven o'clock at the Richland Center High School, IMC,
Same place that we have our normal board meetings.
But there will be board members there.
There will be administrators there.
But all of them, with the exception of myself to start the meeting, I'll still be acting as a district administrator for that brief moment in time.
But everyone else will be acting not in the role of a board member or an administrator, but in the role of a community member.
And so they, like any other community members, have the opportunity to come.
Make a motion as long as it's within the powers of the annual meeting vote on the motions that are presented at the annual meeting Also a key component to to every annual meeting is the presentation of the budget For the school year so mr. Bosworth will be presenting Kind of a quick overcap of where the 2526 school year ended up financially as well as a precursor to what the annual budget proposal will be for this year members of the
Public will get an opportunity to speak or ask questions in a budget hearing.
A budget hearing is opened up after the presentation.
Anybody who has questions can ask them at that time.
Mr. Bosworth can answer those.
And then on the 28th of October, that is when the school district, the regular school board and the board of education will adopt the budget.
There may be some changes from the annual meeting.
through more information or just through information that's obtained.
And then the levy is set on that day.
So there's some important days coming up here for the Richland School District and the community that represents the school district.
And then finally, just real quickly, speaking of the community and the members of the Richland School District, the hive mind that many people participated in last spring.
Our board voted this summer to make pillar number one, which was academic excellence, the priority pillar for the school year.
this when I was here in September administration now in fact we just met yesterday we're working through priority pillar number one and we're hoping November is kind of our timeline that we're hoping to present to our board the key performance indicators six or eight key performance indicators that that tell our public here are the things we're going to measure to determine whether or not we have
properly met the goals of academic excellence as determined by our community.
And so this will be a way for the school district to kind of keep score, if you will, and to keep our public notified of where we're at in making progress for those goals.
And again, just focusing on priority pillar number one right now.
And then next year, we'll move into pillars two through five at a much more rapid pace.
to get things started.
That's what it'll look like.
So we've been keeping the members of the steering committee informed through email communication.
kept folks that provided their email at the hive mind informed.
If there are other members of the community that want to stay informed, they are welcome to give Carrie Stoltz, our marketing and communications director or myself, shoot us an email.
She'll give us a call.
We'll get your name added to the email list and you can stay informed.
And then you'll get updated as well.
You can also get updates when we send out our newsletter.
We've got another one scheduled to go out late this fall, early into the winter, as well as any of our
board meetings, just continuing to be an informed citizen, I think is crucial and important.
Get the actual, accurate information, factual information from the school district instead of finding those sources online or through the rumor mill or hearing parts of it and then just filling in the gaps on your own.
Get accurate information so you can be an informed citizen of all the great things that are happening.
But also,
the struggles and the challenges that we as a school district face as well.
And I think that that's equally important.
You know, we've done a great job of celebrating the wins.
And I've said this before, we've always had a lot of great things happening in the Richland School District, but...
There have been times throughout our history where all of the positive good gets overshadowed by some of the muck that's going on.
And right now we happen to be celebrating a lot of those positive things, but I think it's important to remember that we do still face challenges and we do still have struggles and those struggles are real and things that our community needs to be informed about as well.
So the hive mind is a great way for them to stay informed and for us to be able to quantitatively keep track.
Are we meeting these goals and are we doing
what our community wants us to do.
Excellent.
Good to see you, John.
Thanks, Phil.
Appreciate it.
You bet.
And good luck.
You'll probably be looking at Amazon for your costumes for next week,
right?
Right.
I gotta spend some money here.
We'll see you next week.
Thanks.
You bet.
Ryan Lemke, Richland Center Co-Principal and Superintendent Steve Bohr representing Richland School District today.
As advertised this morning, a special musical guest, Bella Lam is in the studio with us.
Hi, Bella.
Hey, how you doing?
Wonderful.
So nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
Thank you for having me.
So you've been kind of criss-crossing the Midwest.
Oh, absolutely.
Yes, sir.
And I'm having the most fun.
This is my first time I've ever been in Wisconsin, and I'm just having a blast.
Wonderful.
Nashville, is that where you help?
I
was born in Nashville, actually, but I was raised in a small town outside of Memphis called Jackson, Tennessee.
And now we're based in good old Chattanooga.
So I fit all three stars of the state.
The song Jackson, isn't that about Jackson?
Oh, yeah.
I'm pretty sure it's cause Carl Perkins is from
Jackson,
Tennessee.
So I'm pretty, and he's buddies with Johnny.
So I'm almost positive.
I think it is.
There you go.
So you've been going about this career for quite some time, even though you're still quite young.
Yes, sir.
I've been playing as long as I remember.
My mama says I came out the womb singing.
My, my daddy always says that if I'm not singing, he's got reason to be worried.
And yeah, I grew up in a really musical family.
All my cousins play.
My grandfather played.
My dad is a doctor who has a music degree.
And yeah, my family is just really into music.
And I'm the only one who really wanted to do it forever and ever and ever.
And it's all I ever wanted to do.
So yeah.
Are you currently a college student?
I am part time at UTC, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Go Mocs.
Which which Tennessee University uses Rocky top for
it's that's utk.
Oh utk.
All right, okay
We're the lesser utc
utc.
What's the fight song there?
Um, you know, are
you gonna write it?
I hey, I will hey, I will I definitely will there's I find a way to put a mockingbird and mockingbird in a song for sure.
Oh, there you go.
Perfect
Tell us about your first single that we're playing here anyway.
It's called Boot First.
Yeah.
So Boot First, I wrote it with Kaylee Ann Lowe and Jessica Kane.
It was actually my first ever co-write, which is a Boot First in itself.
But it's really about how I was raised by people on two different sides of the spectrum.
My daddy, like I said, he's a doctor with a music degree.
He was raised by a first generation immigrant.
He is very calm and strict, and he thanks things through before he actually does them.
And my mother, country is cornbread, border raised Tennessee just like me, she was raised in the foster care system and she.
is my co-writer and I called her crazy.
She thinks it's funny.
I will put that on record.
She thinks it's funny that we called her crazy in the song.
I wouldn't say she's actually crazy, but she's very much I'm going to jump in and do something without thinking about it.
So I was raised with both sides of that spectrum and that's affected who I am as a person because I am either I'm going to think things through and I'm going to make a good decision before I do something or I'm going to just do it without thinking.
I kind of a song warning people, hey, if you wanna be my friend, if you wanna be with me, this is who I am, you gotta deal with it.
And yeah.
Wonderful, well let's play it here.
Bella Lam on
WRC.
Stumble rough and tumble either holes in my old blue jeans
Oh, there you go.
Jump it in.
Boot first.
Bella Lamb here on WRC Radio.
Honored and grateful to have you in the studio
with us.
Thank you for having me.
So tell us about your early days.
You had a struggle from the time you were born,
didn't you?
Yeah, I was born prematurely.
And I had a tension pneumothorax, I think is what it was called.
So growing up, that led me to having really bad problems with tremors in my hands.
I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking and speech impediment.
I had a lisp and I couldn't say my arms correctly and I just sounded a little funny.
And I thought that meant that music was always going to be a hobby for me.
It wasn't something that I'd actually be able to pursue because I couldn't play the guitar ride and I couldn't sing right just because of those disabilities and all throughout middle school and high school I started going to speech therapy and occupational therapy and of course we lived in Jackson and we didn't have that in Jackson.
So I think twice a week my parents would drive me to Memphis.
And we would go to speech therapy and occupational therapy.
And eventually, I think my junior of high school, I finally was able to not have a lisp and not worry about my hands shaking so much that I could have played my guitar.
And yeah, I was able to get over it.
And I always like to tell my fans and anybody who listens, you may have an impossible dream.
You may think that due to your circumstances, you won't be able to do it.
But there's
God always will give you away.
And he gave you that love in your heart for a reason.
And he will make sure you can overcome those struggles.
My goodness.
Yeah, you've overcome a lot.
And now it's all in the rearview mirror.
Yes,
sir.
Ah, interesting.
And then so during that time, you were kind of doing physical therapy, just staying home and playing guitar,
right?
Yeah, I didn't have a lot of friends.
And while everybody else was going out and having fun with their friends and being invited to do stuff, I was invited.
a couple times but most of the time I would be staying home and learning songs and writing songs and listening to artists that I loved and that's just just how I how I grew up and who I am as a person.
Sounds a little bit like the path of Taylor Swift.
Yeah yeah and I she's such a big inspiration especially for the song that I'm gonna play live in a few minutes and
No matter what you think about her, you cannot tell me that she's not like the most insanely racist and artist and she just has so much drive and love for what she does.
Yeah, very talented.
Yeah, and writes her own music.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, especially my favorite album of hers is Speak Now, which is she didn't have one co-writer on it.
She wrote it all herself and I just it's my favorite piece of work that she's done.
Who are some other influences?
Right now, Megan Moroney is a big one.
I love everything she does.
And I think that Laney Wilson, Ella Langley, Miranda Lambert, and ooh, some of the classics, Dolly, Reba, Loretta, Kitty, all of them.
Can't go wrong with any of them.
I've said it before, I think right now the women are ruling.
I think they're out doing the guys in country music.
Maybe a little bit.
Maybe it's girl power.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, tell us about the song you're about to play live for
us.
Well, it's called Take It Out on My Guitar.
And like I said, it's a little bit Taylor Swift inspired.
And I might do a little call out to her in there.
But I wrote it with Lauren McClam and Chris Raffetto, and it's about
how I am not the one to talk about my feelings.
If somebody makes me mad or somebody upsets me, I'll write a song about it instead of talking it through.
So it's called take it out on my guitar.
I hope you like it.
Wonderful.
Bella Lam live in the
studio.
If they're old, he's the kind of crazy I am Well, ain't gonna sit and lick my wounds I got a list of things to do No, I ain't one to cry over a man I'll strung these strings until they break Just like he broke my heart Won't scream it in
I could pull a carry with a Louisville slugger, but I'd rather be tailored with the song of the summer.
Reck him on the FM in his car.
I'll take it out on my guitar.
Well, I'll air it out on every line.
I'll twist a knife and make your arms so he can get a taste of what he gave.
What was his name again?
I'll take it out on my guitar I'll take it out on my guitar
I'll take it out on my guitar.
Oh, I'll take it out on my guitar.
Oh, I
love it.
Nice job.
I was trying to keep track of everybody that you were kind of tipping the cap.
I think
I did.
It's Miranda, Carrie, Taylor and the chicks.
Dixie chicks.
Yeah.
The chicks.
Yeah.
About earlier at the
end.
Oh,
that's great.
I love that.
Was that your first single?
No,
my first single was actually the one right before it was called tears my tequila.
Oh,
okay.
So you've had
also it has a little nod to Miranda and it too.
It does.
Wonderful.
Good stuff.
Well, maybe we can.
coax you to sing another song for you hit the road.
Oh
my goodness.
Yeah.
Well, would you like an original or a cover?
Well, we'll, we'll talk about that during the break.
And then we'll come back.
We'll keep our listeners hanging here.
Bella Lam joining us on our CEO.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back to our studios today.
Bella Lam is in the studio with us.
Just a real pleasure to meet you.
One of just a few music artists of Asian descent.
I think you have to be proud of that.
I am very proud of it.
Yes sir.
I talk about it all the time and my grandpa died when I was 12.
And I didn't really realize the weight of my culture until after he died.
So I like to talk about it so I can keep his memory alive and feel close to him.
You do a lot of great originals, but I applaud you because you like to go back and show your roots a little bit in songs that inspired you.
So would you play one for
us?
Absolutely.
And if y'all want to sing at home, please feel welcome to.
All right.
Bella Lam, take it away.
Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on?
Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?
He loves me here today To take you to that mansion in the sky She's 41 and her daddy still calls her baby And all the folks round and round will swear she's crazy Cause she walks downtown with a suitcase in her hand Looking for
mysterious dark haired man.
In her younger days they called her Delted Dawn.
The prettiest woman you've ever laid eye on.
Then a man of low degrees stood by her side.
He promised her he'd take her for
Creepy.
Could it be a faded us from days gone by?
And did I say he wasn't here today to take you to that mansion?
Oh very nice,
very nice.
Took me back to writing the bus as a young boy.
When that song was first popular there.
So yeah, Tanya Tucker, the original, Helen Reddy had a version of that as well.
Such
a good song, I love it.
Good stuff.
And that's kind of one of the cool things about country music is there's still a lot of story songs like that,
right?
It's my favorite part, the storytelling.
Right.
So how can people get a hold of your music?
Well, absolutely, y'all.
If you want to follow my socials, it is at itsbellalamits, B-E-L-L-A-L-A-M on all socials, except for Facebook.
That is Bellalam Music, B-E-L-L-A-L-A-M Music.
And if you want to go to my website, that isbellalamusic.com, B-E-L-L-A-M.
LAMmusic.com, you can find all my shows there, links to my music and all of that good stuff.
Are there Bellafellas then?
Like Ella has.
You know what?
Some of my fans have called themselves Bellafellas
and that
makes me feel nice.
Yeah.
I'm sure.
So where to next?
You're just still doing the radio tour?
Yeah, we go back home Friday, Friday.
So I think we're still in Wisconsin for one more stop and then Illinois.
And you're going to Jackson?
I don't think we even have to we even drive through Jackson to get back home.
I don't even know
Well, who knows how it's your kind of crisscross and everything so
I
was wonderful and talk about your influences Did you tell me you do a version of sweet child of mine?
I
do.
Yes, sir.
Yeah,
could you do a little walk out?
Oh my
gosh.
Yeah,
okay?
I'm just I'm just curious
Okay, well, um country five sweet child of mine
y'all
She's got a smile and it seems to me reminds me of childhood memories where everything is fresh as the bright blue sky.
Now women when I see her face she takes me away to that special place and if I stare too
It's a
Thank you very much for humoring me.
That's awfully good.
Bella lamb.
I think about you being a preemie and how you have your lungs have to develop.
And obviously, man, you got a booming voice now.
Thank you so much.
It took a lot of hard work and a little bit of breathing tubes, but I got there in the end.
All right.
Well, safe travels to
you.
Thank you so much.