River Valley School District

you

On our morning show today, Lauren Glassbrenner is in with us to talk about all the good things going on in the Valley.

Lauren, the District Administrator with the River Valley Schools.

We saw you a few times over the course of the last week with the River Valley volleyball team.

How exciting was that?

That was incredible.

There's only a few words that can describe how proud you can be of just a great group of kids that have worked together for an entire season and get to finalize that journey up at the state tournament.

It was an incredible ride.

They have nothing but actions to be proud of.

You know, they worked hard.

They had true grit where they came from behind multiple times to get to the place that they were.

So, so proud of the River Valley volleyball team and their coaches, Mariah and Jane, Mariah Hill and Jane Briel for really leading some fine young students to perform in just such a way that the community could be so proud.

So, nothing but pride.

Nothing but pride to watch those girls just fight it out up in Green Bay on Friday night.

And there must not have been any way you left in the district.

I don't know, did you

drag

Eric

Breel with

you?

Mr. Breel.

I don't believe Mr. Breel.

I can't remember if I saw Mr. Breel.

I think he was back at the building.

I

think he was back at the buildings.

Here's the thing.

A few people judge me because we canceled school for the day.

And I worked with my school board president, Fred Yowsley, on that.

And I just have to say that

It's a once in a lifetime chance for us as a community to go up and support our girls doing this incredible feat of getting to the state tournament.

So yes, I did make that decision and we took the day off and many of us traveled to Green Bay.

There was a huge River Valley Black Hawk Proud group there to show their pride.

Phil, I'm not sure if I could have staffed the buildings.

And I'm being totally honest to everybody out there.

We already had many people that were involved in this game in a smaller district like us.

That includes staff that are a part of the coaching staff.

That includes staff that are parents.

So if you take even just, I'll even be kind and say a dozen teachers out of the mix.

I can't come up with a dozen subs.

That would mean combining classrooms.

That would mean combining a lot of different things.

It just got to a point where it was pretty plain to see the entire community was going to be in Green Bay and that having school on that day was going to be futile.

So we jumped at the decision.

We made a good decision and decided to take the day off and go support our kids.

And so I'm really proud of what they did.

And yeah, I don't know if we could have had school because there were so many people that wanted to be a part of the celebrating with the girls team up in Green Bay.

the day kicked off with a tremendous national anthem and my request is to bring those young ladies with you sometime.

They can sing for

us.

Yes, I can.

Not a problem.

Miss Spahn and Miss Mahoney have some pipes, right?

Like they truly are gifted singers and Miss Spahn was there and of course Josie's are starting setters so she was there and they sang the national anthem with pride but also to break out the morning

kind of jitters with some beautiful songs.

So again, to honor our country and just did a great job.

Proud of Lillian and Josie for doing that great work there too.

Yeah, it was a great, great way to start the day.

Yeah.

And you know, you talk about it a day off of school, but I've always believed that the, the gymnasium is kind of the extension of the classroom and learning.

It's a, it's there.

There's still learning.

It's a great opportunity.

It is.

And I think the community wanted it.

I had so many people reach out to me saying, you made a good decision.

Glassmaner, we have to get there.

We have to go as a community to support our kids.

We then got a spectator bus.

going.

I'll leave it anonymous at this point, but our spectator bus was paid for by an anonymous alumni who wanted to make sure that any kid that wanted to get there could get there.

So our spectator bus was paid for and we took up a nice group of kids.

Beyond that, there were probably, I would say, another 150 people from the community that were there cheering them on, whether it's neighbors, relatives, aunts, uncle, grandparents, parents, all those folks were along for the ride.

So it was just incredible.

So if anybody is out there and they're listening, I wanted to thank these ladies for an incredible season that they gave to the River Valley School District.

Mackenzie Weaver, a Huntley Grant, a Brookie White, Paige Stafford, Natalie McElwee, Kendall Schaefer, Braylin Tafts, Ashlyn Stokes, Bella DaVini, Kenley Strocka, Josie Mahoney, Carly Birchfield and Hannah Birchfield, the sisters on the court.

Ella Myers and Kylie Smith, just incredible group of young ladies, many of them seniors that finalized their season with just some incredible celebrating and hard work.

And so nothing but pride, as I say, for the River Valley volleyball

team.

Congratulations to Coach Hill and company.

Well, since the last time we talked, there was an election.

Some people may have heard of that.

And so with that election, many people around our area, we didn't in Richland Center or Ithaca or River Valley or Riverdale have a referendum on the ballot, but I do want to bring forward that there were districts near me that did have it on the ballot.

We know that Reedsburg had a capital referendum under the direction of Mr. Burke Halter up there to redo their middle school.

Their middle school has been plagued with mold with

poor conditions and that passed successfully in the Reedsburg community so congratulations to them and then up in Dodgeville.

Dodgeville had an operational referenda and that passed as well.

to Ryan up in Dodgeville and to Tom, congratulations on your results, but also congratulations to those communities of Reedsburg in Dodgeville for putting in the hard work and really looking at what a referendum has to do for your district due to the lack of funding that comes from the state.

And when you look at

Over 400 school districts in the state of Wisconsin and there are 421 of them.

When 400 or so districts have to go to referendum to keep their programming, we know this is not a management of funds.

This is not that the River Valley team spends too much money or the Richland Center or the Ithaca team spends too much money.

This is about our state needing to redo the funding formulas

for the state of Wisconsin for education.

And I just want to say that out loud that now that possibly there is some big change in Madison, I really want to see them go to work.

I want to see them do the heavy lifting of really looking at the funding formulas, that fund education, and really taking a look at whether or not it is appropriate to put that on the back

of property taxes.

That's something that's really important for us to take a look at as a state.

So I don't want anybody out there in radio land to let up on their legislature.

I want them to continue to press and say, okay, now you're in office.

What are you going to do?

What is that hard work that's going to be on your back now?

Politicians

I believe, have an incredibly hard job.

They're hearing it from both sides.

They're hearing a lot of what I'll call static coming in from, whether it's right wing or left wing, whether it's from a very segregated group of people, they're hearing that static commotion and they need to take all of that in and then devise a plan.

And what I'd really like to see is a plan for how to redo, of course, because I'm an educator, educational funding.

But everybody's going to have, you know, they're played at the table, Phil.

There's going to be counties begging for money for roads and bridges.

There's going to be people wanting to have high speed rail.

There's going to be people that want to legalize certain things in Wisconsin that are not legal right now.

There are going to be people clamoring to say, well, we need to have more money for small business.

There are going to be people that say, no, property taxes are too high.

I want all that money to go to property tax relief.

And all of those have to be

listen to and we have to find this infinite balance of how to get all of that done.

So to the 45 of 79 districts that were out there trying to increase their levy or to bond for big projects, congratulations on that.

But let's also remember that 34 of them failed, right?

34 districts in the state of Wisconsin have failed and many of them not so close.

And some of those are really interesting.

Some of those are really small towns that they don't know what to do because they're being priced out of their market.

And that's the worry that we have.

So to Mr. Kurtz, who made it through another time around, thank you, Tony, for the work you do.

But now work with the people across the aisle to come up with some solutions to Sarah Kieske.

Again, thank you for the work that you do, but work across the aisle to get those big conversations flowing so that we can help out everybody across the state of Wisconsin.

Again, we cannot make up for 20 some years of not keeping up with school funding.

It's going to take a plan.

And so I'm not sure if everybody knows, but anybody that won the election last week will take their seat in January.

So they take their seat January.

27.

There's no way they're going to be able to fix the budget immediately.

They're not really in office until January, and the budget's due in July.

So that gives them six months to do some work.

Well, there's no way they're going to get through six months, actually 20 years worth of work in six months.

so they're going to really have to think about a focus and really have to think about a long-range plan.

So my ask would be that do some stopgap things, try to give us a few band-aids if you will for that 2027 budget.

That gives you six months and that you can finally come up with some ways to help your local school districts.

But then you have a plan.

I would expect

and this is just me being selfish that by 2031 that gives you two budget cycles there'll be one that goes from 27 to 29 and another one that goes from 29 to 31 that they could come up with a four to five year plan of how to balance the budgets across the state for not only education but for local governments for small business

and for tax relief, that they really look at this in a long, hard conversation, not as a one-sided issue, but that there are many issues here to jump into.

So again, the hard work starts now.

And I wish them the best of luck.

If they want any advice, I'm down at the River Valley office.

They can call me anytime.

But I just really think that we need to be careful.

We don't want to pick up a pet project.

I don't want them to come in and say, okay, we're going to come up with paying for everybody's breakfast.

Okay, I would love that they paid for everybody's breakfast.

That would be great.

They probably could even in the dairy state give everybody cheese and milk.

Great.

Thank you for that.

But that's not going to start or stop our needs for funding.

So I don't want pet projects.

I want a long conversation.

This is everybody in the state kind of going through some deep counseling and getting at the family table and figuring out how to balance a budget for the future of Wisconsin.

Again, if we're in a car accident of 20 years, we don't need a Band-Aid.

We need true surgery on the big problems.

I know it's not very popular to say that we have a lot out there that are going to come to the table.

And I know as an educator, I should fight for just schools.

But I don't think that's a solution.

I think we need to look big and really plan out a five year plan.

So to Sarah and to Tony, thank you for the hard work that you do.

But also now let's steamroll ahead with deliberate specific research based conversations

around funding.

Right.

Well, and hopefully everybody can get along, you know, you, or you don't care who gets the credit, right?

Correct.

Correct.

Yeah.

There were, there was a blue ribbon study done by Luther Olson, um, probably 10 years ago now.

The research is old.

They need to redo it.

And the assistant superintendent of schools Thomas McCarthy and I have had conversations and he's been to regional meetings as well.

He knows that it's needed.

Jill Underly, our state superintendent has made it a political platform to say we need to redo the funding formulas for the state of Wisconsin.

I think people are finally saying what needs to be said, but that doesn't, that's just a sound bite.

Now go to table.

Now go to the table and fight over all the things that are on the table so that we can, again, not like you say, Phil, take a pin and put it in my coat pocket.

I want them to not take credit.

I just want them to have the hard work and it's gonna take some research.

I have said it before, other states have done this differently.

There are states that get great,

results that also have great tax relief.

And some of those states are also large agricultural states that rely on tourism funding.

One of the examples I can give you is Montana.

Montana is bigger than Wisconsin, but Montana is an agricultural state.

Montana also has incredible tourism dollars going in and out of it.

That's an example of a state that has a demographic very similar to Wisconsin, declining enrollment, tourism dollars, agricultural traditions, but yet

They get good scores and they don't have the property tax heavy burden that Wisconsin does.

So I think Wisconsin legislators should go to the table but also look at some of the things that other states are doing.

Yes, each of the 50 states is unique in their own way, but I think other states do it differently and we have to take a look at those.

A common answer from both sides has been, well, declining enrollment, declining enrollment, but it's, it's, uh, you know, that's a, that's a fact, but it probably costs more to educate now, even with less students.

Absolutely.

And they've also given us many more requirements that we have to meet declining enrollments there for sure.

But I also have mandated requirements and I should bring those next time, Phil.

There's like a list of 225 federally mandated requirements that I have to meet that didn't have to

be met back in the 50s and 60s when there was burgeoning population.

So the demands to me that talk about federal fundings or federal testing or even making sure things like I'll give a couple examples that indigenous tribes are taught at certain levels to make sure that certain things are covered, to make sure that health curricula are covered, to make sure that all of these things that are federally mandated or state mandated in Wisconsin, they weren't mandated before.

And each one of them cost dollars.

So you're right, population sizes have gone down all across Wisconsin.

It's all across the Midwest.

But the mandates of what I have to do with those dollars also goes up.

So it's so interesting to me that they require us to do more, but fund us less.

And it can't just be based on one single formula that all the money follows the kid.

So we'll figure all that out.

It is interesting.

It is interesting.

I also think,

We will have to have the hard discussion as a state around how many districts do we need.

I'm just old enough in the state of Wisconsin to be nearing the end of my career as a public educator, but we just went from 421 districts down to 420.

I worked a lot in the Columbus School District, which is up near the Columbia-Dodge County border, and Hustisford.

a little district up there in Dodge County, who's right next to the Dodge Land School District, instead of consolidating, asked the state if they could disband.

We can't afford it.

don't want to remain a district, so we would like to disband, if you will.

And that went to the state.

And last week, the state of Wisconsin at a board approval, there's a separate board that looks at like the disillusionment, I think is the big word for this district, dissolved.

Hustisford is no longer.

So the 421 is now 420.

I would say across the state of Wisconsin, there's probably at least another 20 that should have that conversation.

I just was at a conference where a little district up north was talking about the lack of funding that they were receiving.

And you feel bad for them.

You feel bad that they're receiving less than $500 from the state.

And then you jump in and you think, less than $500, how can that be?

How can they get less than $500 from the state of Wisconsin

to fund their schools and upon me doing some research, there are fewer than 75 children in that whole district K-12.

Is that the best management of funding for that area?

I guess that's a local decision, but I think that needs to be a state decision as well.

I think somebody in the state of Wisconsin is going to have to jump in and provide some leadership on how to consolidate or disillusion other districts so that it becomes more affordable for the citizens of their communities.

I know that's a heartbreaking effort.

I know that that's not fun.

I hear from my constituents in River Valley that when you take away a school, you take away the community,

And I feel bad about that, but the facts are real that we're not as big as we used to be, and thus we don't need as many school districts.

So the state needs to get some guts, I guess, I guess you would call it and say, okay, let's have the big conversation.

Maybe if there are fewer than, I don't know, I'm gonna take a stab at 250.

If there are fewer than 250 students, you need to look at ways that possibly have

bigger conversations about what to do.

Yeah, I think there's also that idea of maybe in the local areas where there's lots of little towns like that, you unify and come up with a high school and keep the elementaries in their communities so that you come up with K-8 districts that support a 9-12 high school that becomes a unified district in its own.

So there's ways of doing it.

It's just gonna be hard work and it's not gonna be popular work.

And I know

If you're elected to an office, that's something you don't want to talk about because nobody's going to like it.

But I think there are people in the state that are clamoring for leadership.

And I think some of our state legislators and some of our state leaders need to jump in and have some of those big and hard conversations.

In the case such as Hustisford, what happens to those students?

Is it kind of a school choice then where they go to school?

Or how does that

work?

So in the example of Hustisford, they chose and they were very deliberate in saying that all of the boundary

of our district would become part of the Dodge Land School District.

So that

just subsumed.

They didn't say, and this year they actually in the process, if I'm understanding this correctly, they made a deal with Dodge Land to send every child to Dodge Land.

And so every child that was in Houston for this year is going to Dodge Land and they emptied their buildings and they only have a staff of three right now trying to finalize this disillusionment process.

And so you make deals with the other districts around you and you kind of subsube them.

In that example, it was easiest for them all to go to one.

If it was in a different area, it might be that they start divvying it up and figuring out where the new boundaries would be for the districts around them.

It just would be different, I think, in every circumstance.

All

right.

And as you mentioned, if

it's a couple of budget cycles before things are figured out, that could be a reality for more.

Yes, correct.

Correct.

And

as unfortunate as it is, people are not having families as large and we are an aging population, you know, like, um,

yeah it's really interesting you and i aren't getting any older but

no we are not

sir

we're trying everybody else is

but you know we came from larger families i was one of four you know i only had two that's my example um my dad was one of five my mom was one of five so if you just think of family demographics many of them have gone from

eight households now down to six households now down to four persons in a household.

And it just changes the way that we as a state look at education.

So we have to fund it differently as the as the population changes.

Lauren Glassburn our guest on the morning show will have more coming up after the time out.

Lauren Glassbrenner, our guest on today's morning show as we talk about some things going on in the River Valley School District and also some topics that affect all of us across the state.

Recently, you were a part of the Southwestern Wisconsin Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy meeting.

Yeah, they just had a meeting up at Dodgeville last weekend.

It was an incredible meeting and it really brings light to the work of everybody kind of coming together.

I don't believe that competition always equals everybody getting their fair share.

And so what I really liked about this meeting is it really brings together five counties.

So again, when I say that, it really is bringing together the counties of Iowa County, Lafayette County, Grant County, Richland County, and I'm forgetting one county and Green County.

There we go.

And those five counties coming together to work on some infrastructure as well as planning so that they're not in competition with each other, but they are looking at what's best working in each one of those spaces so that Lancaster understands what's happening in Highland so that we understand what's happening in Ridgeway so that Argyle isn't feeling left out with Platteville and Richland Center, really.

So these five counties have banded together to really take a look at their capacity.

and really be a part of economic development of Southwestern Wisconsin.

We all know that Southwestern Wisconsin is one of the most beautiful spaces in all of the United States, with the Driftless being our geographic area.

I think we have some things that are incredible that we have as gifts.

Some of that is farmland.

and the agricultural development of that farmland.

But also some of that is tourism.

We have the beautiful driftless area that has the Mississippi and the Wisconsin River that flow through it.

And upon that, there's all these tributaries that go with that too.

So these five counties have gotten together and put together a plan.

So I'd really wish that everybody could just kind of jump into, if they're ever online, the Southwestern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

I get to go to the meeting because I'm one of the tiers, right?

I'm an education

tier.

There's local government tiers and there's local business tiers.

So if you take a triangle and put education, business and government together, it brings all of them together to take a look at the infrastructure and really analyze some basic things.

They're really as a team looking about how do we address the basic needs of our communities, but also respond effectively to the aging population.

The only thing that we all have in common is that we're getting older and the biggest population of getting older

is about 55 and older.

So the biggest growing population is people that are getting out of the workforce.

So retirees.

But how do we build resilience through that?

How do we welcome and promote our areas to new residents?

How do we promote a diversified economy?

How do we

cultivate and strengthen local leadership while not in competition, but by sharing and then investing in that.

And so it takes some long range planning.

You don't want Highland to fight with Cobb, to fight with Monford, to fight with Dodgeville, to fight with Livingston, because nobody's going to win.

There's not enough dollars for everybody.

So it's really taking a look at that.

So it's not only looking at the infrastructure, but it looked at the population.

And again, I talk about it every time, but

truly the age 65 and above population is the population that's growing.

They're also big voters, right?

And so within that, there's the reality that that population grows, but they don't have a lot needed from a local school district anymore unless they believe that their local school district is the backbone of their community.

And so at some point though,

If you tax them out of their own budgets, that's when all these referendums start to crumble.

And so I don't want anybody to think that I'm not ignorant or that I am ignorant to the ideas that our populations are growing and that I have to be aware of that, that baby boomer generation is getting to a point where they now are past the need of a school district.

Yeah, I believe that education is essential to the economic development of these communities, right?

So I believe that the school age population in these regions need to, even though we're declining, meet the needs and really be out there so that our businesses in our communities understand what we're doing.

So within those five areas, one of the ones that really worries me the most is that Richland County

Almost every district in Richland County is declining by over 40%.

And that's something that I think we need to be really careful about.

Over the past 20 years, the average graduating class size has dropped.

And if you average them out in general,

It's not even over a hundred.

If you're looking at these five counties, it's gone from like the sixties down to in the fifties.

River Valley is going to be a little bit bigger than that.

Ours is right around 75.

But when you look at around the other areas, many of these little districts around me have only about 50 kids per graduating class.

So that's something that's really interesting to me.

And at the same time, excuse me, everybody.

at the same time, your property values are going up, right?

And so property values going up, everybody's house is worth so much more.

You're going to say to the school district, everything that you keep asking me, you're raising my taxes, you need more money.

I do need more money because things cost more, but also there's that idea that your property is worth more.

And it's all of these things that come together.

And I guess more than anything, I just want to highlight that poverty levels are going up

the only populations that are increasing.

are the oldest people in our school districts.

And the biggest needs in my school districts are increasing.

So the needs for children of poverty, the biggest needs are the children that don't speak English.

And another big need is a child that has special needs for special education.

So things that are going up in population size cost more.

And the people that vote to keep those things is also my 65 year older.

So it's just a big study.

And I guess I just want everybody to understand that

comprehensively, we do as districts come together as villages, as towns, as regions and now as counties come together to really take a look at all those big things so that we can plan to the future so that in 50 years, the face of our communities continues to have incredible public school districts.

Yeah, I'm guessing your district, not unlike a lot, you know, it's kind of becoming a little bit of a retirement community.

It is.

It is.

You know that River Valley is made up of the four communities of Plain, La Rock, Arena and Spring Green.

And yeah.

They're popularly becoming spring green as a popular retirement community.

Arena is getting a little younger because it's close enough to Madison that people go up and down.

Lone Rock is getting older.

And Plain kind of runs right around in that middle range, but it's getting older as well.

So it's one of the things that I have four communities to keep my eye on, but it's certainly, yeah, the aging population around us is definitely affecting the way our school districts

run.

Sure.

But hopefully people have kids or they have grandkids.

and great-grandkids that you want to keep supporting.

And

again, I do believe that a school district, a strong school district, is the foundation of a strong community.

They work side by side.

And so we offer great things.

We offer great opportunities.

We offer a great basic education so that the extras, like volleyball, where you get to go to a state tournament, kind of round out that experience for every kid.

Well, I know that there, I think the, the flurries word came into the forecast for later this week.

So it won't be long.

You know, we're going to be thinking about snow days and things like that.

Change with the policy for river valley.

No, there are really no changes for my policy for river valley coming in.

Um, it is, they, they keep talking about we're under a large La Nina winter, right?

So that means it's going to be a little bit warmer.

That's their forecast.

God only knows.

And I mean that truthfully, he only knows what's going to happen, right?

So, um, but within that.

that we may see fewer inches of snow, but what we may see is more ice or more rain that turns into ice.

And

so

yeah, I like the warmer temperatures, but you know, there's a given take Lauren.

I don't like ice

either.

Yeah, I know.

And ice is worry.

That's a worry for me.

So as much as I speak about, I love this job.

I love the district.

the thing that I dislike the most is probably calling a snow day or a weather emergency because it inconveniences everybody and I'm sorry about that, but it is something that I have to do.

So the responsibility for me is to be up early.

So I'll get up around four o'clock in the morning, really reach out to little cross weather service, reach out to the Milwaukee Weather Service.

And I start on this long band of emails that go back and forth between local residents and local district leaders.

And we get together and we start having conversations and try to make a decision by 5.30 in the morning.

And then we really try hard to make sure that the decision is made at 5.30 so that families can make parenting decisions after that.

If school is canceled, again, without delay, I try to make that conversation and that decision by 5.30.

And then I call somebody like Phil Knee over at WRCO Radio and let him know so that he can tell everybody in the world about that.

We also try to get it on Facebook pages, get it out in emails and text to our parents and then get it on our TV stations as well.

One of the things I've noticed in the last several years is the fact that districts are calling it off the day before.

And it's easy to sit on the sidelines and second guess, but I think the number one thing is safety that you're concerned with, with staff and students.

It is, it is.

And that's something that I actually don't like to do.

I'm being honest about that.

I have other neighbors that around me to the South like to call it the day before.

I don't like to call it the day before.

And parents will say to me, well, you knew it was going to snow that much.

No, I didn't.

I can believe what I can believe from the weather guys or gals, but I need to basically have some proof in the pudding.

So I try to make the call the next morning.

It's really hard to make it the night before because unless it's truly going to be a blizzard condition,

it could go three inches one way or the other.

Well, a couple inches and a heavy bus, we can get to school.

It's okay, right?

That's okay to me.

The biggest worry is kids that drive because they are not as reliable in their decision making as a bus driver.

But I try to make the decision the day of.

I think that's

just respectful to my parents so that I don't make a call and then we have no snow or ice and everybody's sitting at home.

So yep, people do like to make those.

I try to make it as soon as I can, but I have to use the facts that are in front of me.

So again,

we try to make these decisions to the best of our ability and we thank the parents for all their help because I know it's an inconvenience but it's something that I have to do based on safety.

I can tell lots of times say you know the storms track so many different ways but you know maybe to the north of us like your your kick-a-poos and North Crawlfords and Lafarge you know they're canceling school but

you know, nobody here and vice versa.

You know, you can kind of see it'll track somewhere just hammer a district and other districts neighboring aren't really getting anything.

Yeah.

When you consider that I have to, you know, the district is big and I love that our district is big, but I go all the way over to Wisconsin Heights.

I go all the way up to Mount Horrib.

I go all the way over to Dodgeville.

I go all the way down to Highland and Riverdale.

I come all the way over to Richmond center.

I go all the way up to Ithaca.

There are some really steep roads when you're up by, you know, plain that I

have to worry about.

There are some really steep roads kind of over on the Butternut Road or Dane Hill Road or some of these famous roads that I don't want a bus to go on.

And so if anything in the northern part of my district has a need, I have to make a decision based on all.

Even though across the river over in Iowa County, it might not be snowing.

I might have a couple inches of ice on the northern side of my district.

So again, I have a lot to consider and I do my very best.

So

to families out there, just be patient with me.

I'm doing the best that I can, but...

it is based on the whole.

And it is based on the decision of a very big district in Southwestern Wisconsin that has to really think about safety for all the kids.

And we do have many days planned in.

I won't give you the exact number, but there will be several snow days where you don't have to go to virtual this year because I heard from parents, they're not doing anything on virtual days anyways.

I don't know why he just doesn't call it a snow day and let him go out in the snow.

So we did plan some of those in this year.

So there will be a couple snow days out there

for everybody, where if we have a nice weather emergency, you'll just get to sit back and let your kids get bundled up and go outside and play in the snow.

Old

school.

Old school.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Well, always good to see you.

The next time we talk, you'll be getting close to River Valley Musical in December,

right?

I love that idea.

I'll be bringing some kids along then so they can give you some of that show and I think that'll be great.

And again, I apologize for my throat.

I've been fighting this late summer, early fall cold that's been really kicking me in the head.

So I'm doing my best to talk through it, but thank you to everybody as they helped get things moving ahead and will, yes, have the musical and all our winter sports to be featured on the next talk.

Wonderful.

Thanks, Lauren.

Appreciate you coming up here.

Lauren Glassbrenner, administrator with River Valley School.

The morning show continues in just a moment.