The new year is upon us and we are looking forward to the rest of this school year and the school years to come. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning so much about this school district over the last couple years and I see so much potential in the years to come! One thing that has been crystal clear to me from day one is how much pride there is for our schools. So many of our students come from families who have attended our schools for generations. Even those residents of our district without a personal connection to our schools still are connected through friends and relatives. That pride is one of this district’s greatest strengths and it will undoubtedly serve us well far into the future.

The residents of this district have been asked on three occasions over the last nine years to approve a referendum to provide additional operating funds to the school district. On all three occasions the community stepped up and said “YES!” in those votes. As I’ve discussed in past newsletters, in a perfect world, the state would provide the funding needed to operate our schools and we would not have to ask local voters to vote “YES!” on a referendum. In reality, however, the state provides less and less financial support every year. That is why districts like ours have to ask our community for help.

Earlier this year, we shared a survey to gather feedback from the community. Thank you so much to all who responded! The board looked over those results and spent many hours deliberating about the financial situation of the district and the desires of our community. After much discussion, they have decided to ask voters to approve a referendum on April 2, 2024. The ballot question will ask voters to approve $2.5 million per year for the next three years. The board is not asking for an amount that escalates each year, as was done in the past, but is simply asking for the same amount each year.

It is important to us as district leaders to ensure we are only asking for funding that we absolutely need. Before ever considering a referendum, our first step was to look internally to determine where we could avoid costs. Over the last couple years, we have reduced our teaching staff and eliminated several support staff positions, saving over $350,000 per year. We have implemented significant changes to our childcare program to ensure it is financially self-sufficient, saving about $85,000 per year. We have implemented new budgeting procedures, reduced outside contracts, and reduced insurance costs, saving over $250,000 per year. We have also sought out new funding sources, such as a federal grant that covers all costs for two counseling interns for each of the next five years, with a value of about $200,000 per year.

These are tremendous savings in a budget the size of our district’s! But unfortunately, we cannot continue to sustain the district on cuts alone. That is why our board came to the difficult decision to ask the voters to once again approve an operating referendum, providing our district with $2.5 million per year for the next three years. We greatly appreciate your consideration of this request.

If you have any questions or comments about any of this, or would like to schedule someone to come to a group or community meeting, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or my assistant, Deb Merwin, at 920-348-5548 x.278, or to any of our Board members.

Thank you for your support and unwavering pride in our school district! We couldn’t do it without you!

David

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I enjoyed the long weekend with family, and I had the extra bonus of celebrating my 50th birthday on the 26th! It was a great weekend with plenty of fun and way too much food. As this holiday season continues, many of us will enjoy additional time feasting with friends and family over the coming weeks.

Food is such an important part of our lives. Shared meals are a great time for fellowship and a favorite meal can make a special event all the more enjoyable.

Food is an important part of our school district as well. We are pleased to qualify for a program that allows us to provide free breakfast to every student in the school. During the pandemic and through last year, we were also able to offer free lunch to every student. Unfortunately, the federal support for that free lunch program expired, so we are back to normal for lunch fees.

About half of our students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. This allows them to eat lunch for free or at a significantly lower cost. However, many more families make slightly too much money to qualify for that program, but still struggle to pay for meals. We continue feeding students who request a meal, even if their family is unable to provide a lunch from home or pay for a meal at school, because proper nutrition is essential to learning. We don’t give them the stereotypical cheese sandwich and water, we give them the same meal that everyone else is receiving.

We need your help to continue offering lunch to students regardless of their family’s ability to pay. Help us continue feeding these children by donating to Hilltoppers Conquering Hunger! 100% of the funds we receive are used to pay down account balances for families struggling to pay for meals. Unlike many charities and foundations, we don’t keep any of the donation to cover overhead costs. Every penny we receive goes to this initiative.

To donate:

• Pay by credit card or from your bank account: by visiting our online payment site (at https://payments.efundsforschools.com/v3/districts/56053) and choosing "Pay for Hilltoppers Conquering Hunger!" (Please note that our payment processor charges a small "convenience fee" that they deduct prior to submitting any funds to the district.)

• Pay by check: by sending a check made out to "Cambria-Friesland School District" for the amount of your choosing. In the memo, write "Hilltoppers Conquering Hunger!" Mail the check to Pam Drews, District Bookkeeper, at 410 E. Edgewater St., Cambria, WI, 53923.

• Pay by cash: by visiting the district office inside the elementary school entrance during normal school hours and asking for Pam Drews, Deb Merwin, or David Dude.

Donations may be tax deductible, so be sure to check with your tax advisor!

-David

Last month, I shared some history of our school district and how the majority of our funding now comes from local property taxes. The members of the school board and I understand very well the impact of property taxes on individual households and we take our responsibilities as stewards of those funds extremely seriously. From the jobs we fill, to the salaries and benefits we offer, to the supplies we procure, we consistently focus on whether each of those investments is an appropriate use of our limited funds.

Public schools are the bedrock of our democracy and like all government services they are paid for by the citizens. Our students are provided a free education because investing in the education of our children helps ensure a strong economy in the future through an educated and capable workforce. Many in our community already benefit from the taxes paid by younger citizens through programs like social security and medicare, and many others will soon be receiving such support. Whether or not you agree with how our government systems like public schools, social security, and medicare have been set up, all will benefit from them at some point.

Because our state’s system for funding public schools is largely based on local support, our district periodically has to ask voters to approve our funding through a process called a referendum. The voters have approved referendums for operational funds every time we have had to ask and for that we are all very grateful. As the state has decreased their financial support, our community has stepped up time and again to ensure the Cambria-Friesland School District remains adequately funded.

It is approaching time for us to ask for your support again. As we begin planning things like the amount of funding we will need to request, we need your input. Please take a moment to complete our Community Survey so we can hear from you. For your convenience, there is a copy of the survey on the next page that you can carefully remove from this newsletter, answer the questions, fold up according to the instructions, place a stamp, and drop in the mail. If you prefer completing the survey electronically, you can scan the QR code and take the survey online.

In the coming weeks and months, members of the board and I will be attending various community events and meetings of community organizations to share additional information and answer questions you may have. There is also an open ended question on the survey where you can share questions and concerns. The administrative team will review and consider every survey response and will share all responses with the board as well.

Thank you for all you do to support our students! We couldn’t do it without your support!

Like all government services, public schools are funded by taxes. Different states fund schools with differing ratios of property taxes to income taxes, but ultimately the funding for schools comes from some sort of taxes. No one likes paying taxes, and many disagree on the effectiveness with which government leaders use our tax dollars, but we all benefit in many ways from that investment in our villages, townships, cities, counties, states, and country, and of course, the investment in our public schools.

In the early years of our nation, children had few opportunities for formal education and those that were available required tuition payments. Shortly after the American Revolution, political leaders recognized the importance of a formal education to a thriving democracy so they proposed implementing a unified system of publicly funded schools. Around 1837, as the Northwest Territory was being divided into states (including Wisconsin), federal land grants included provisions that the new states had to create a system of public schools.

In 1847, the year after Columbia County organized, the settlement that later became the Village of Cambria organized the first school district in the county. The following year, Wisconsin became a state, and two years later Randolph Center (later known as Friesland) organized a school district. In the mid-1950s to early 1960s, smaller area school districts merged into Cambria, including Sanderson, a part of Roosevelt, Penhros, Welsh Prairie, Inglehart, parts of Kingston and Manchester, Engle Prairie and a part of Rosedale, McKinley, a part of Hilldrop and Springvale, Rust, Healy, and a part of Woodside. Soon after, Cambria Union High School, Joint School District No. 2, and Joint School District No. 3 merged to become the Cambria-Friesland School District. What all of these school systems had in common, both pre- and post-merger, was that they were all supported by taxes. Early schools were supported completely by local property taxes and later schools received some funding from the state.

So how has that mixture of state and local taxes come together over the years for the support of our school district? In the 1990s and 2000s, state aid represented about 64% of our district’s funding. Over the last 10 years, state aid has only represented about 48% of our funding. The formulas used by the state are shifting the costs of public education away from the state and onto the local property owners.

The 2023-24 school year is off to a great start! As I mentioned last month, there were a lot of things going on around school over the summer. All of that work helped lead to a very successful first day of school.

On our first inservice day, where we have all of our staff together at once, it was really fun to catch up with people we haven’t seen all summer while getting to know new people who have joined our crew.

Speaking of people new to our district, we have several this year. Our new elementary principal, Chelsea Showers, started work in July and was instrumental in making sure our elementary school was ready to go for the new school year. We also welcomed several new teachers that I hope you will welcome to our community:

• Catherine Klein is our new Elementary Cross-Categorical Special Education Teacher.

• Abby Zimmerman joined us to teach Kindergarten.

• Tasha Henkel is our new Health/PE Teacher.

• Nick Snellenberger (Mr. S.) joined us as a middle school Social Studies/Science Teacher.

• Jill Jones and Martin Cavazos joined us through the US Department of Education Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program (MHSP) and will be serving as Counselor Interns at the elementary and middle/high school levels, respectively.

• Morgan Yelk will be with us four days a week as our Speech-Language Pathologist.

• Jeff Hetcher (who retired at the end of the last school year) is helping us out by teaching three science classes as a long-term substitute teacher.

You’ll find profiles of some of these folks in the coming pages, and will see other profiles in future newsletters.

We have an amazing staff team serving the students of the Cambria-Friesland School District! It is an honor and a privilege to work with such selfless and dedicated individuals. Thank you for your support of our students and staff!

David

Each summer, district leaders spend a good bit of time handling staffing for the coming school year. Unlike businesses that typically have a continuous, year-round schedule without natural breaks, schools have a clear annual cycle and most transitions in staff occur over the summer. As I have mentioned previously, we were able to reduce our staff a bit at the end of the year by eliminating some vacant positions. For example, instead of two social studies teachers we will now have one; instead of three special education teachers we will now have two. If our enrollment grows in the future, we may have to revisit those decisions, but in the meantime we anticipate changes like those should work well.

We’ve also been busy interviewing people recently for various vacancies, such as kindergarten, elementary PE, and MS/HS science teaching. We were able to find great candidates for the first two of those positions and we look forward to welcoming Abby Zimmerman and Tasha Henkel, respectively, to those positions. I think you will find they will both be a great addition to our elementary school team!

Filling the MS/HS science teaching position has proven to be more difficult. Science is traditionally a difficult area to fill and with nationwide teacher shortages it is especially difficult in recent years. We are working hard to identify potential candidates and working on contingency plans in case we are unable to find someone by the start of school.

In an unexpected development, our elementary principal, Wyatt Tramburg, announced that he had accepted a principal position in Beaver Dam. He has been instrumental in many different aspects of our school district and we wish him well as he and his family undertake this new chapter of their lives. Luckily, there are a lot more people interested in elementary principal positions than MS/HS science teaching, so we had no shortage of great candidates! A team of teachers, staff, and parents joined me in interviewing candidates. From an initial group of 17 candidates, we narrowed the pool to 11 for a first interview and then narrowed that down to four candidates for a second interview. Choosing just one from those four was extremely difficult, but we did. I'm pleased to share with you that our new elementary principal is Chelsea Showers. Mrs. Showers has extensive elementary experience that will serve her (and us) well. I look forward to you all getting to meet her and our other new staff.

I hope you all are having a fantastic summer! Our employees have been busy cleaning and prepping, teaching and learning, and resting and rejuvenating as we look forward to starting the 2023-24 school year in about a month!

David

While out for dinner the other night, I overheard a conversation between two couples seated near me. They were discussing a classroom teacher in a very negative way. As I listened, it was clear to me that there was likely a very reasonable explanation for what they saw as a negative, and the situation was likely handled by the teacher quite appropriately, even just hearing their “side” of the story. If I had known them, or the teacher of whom they were speaking, I would have attempted to engage them in discussion about alternative perspectives of what they were sharing. But since I didn’t know them or the teacher, I went on with my dinner. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, though, because human nature seems to include a belief that we can do things better than others, that the story we hear first must be the truth, and that anything contrary to our personal interests must be bad. We especially see this type of interaction in social media. This got me thinking about a speech that President Theodore Roosevelt gave back in 1910, soon after he finished his second term in office, and I’d like to share a portion of that speech with you.

“The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities—all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affectation of contempt for the achievement of others, to hide from others and from themselves their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The teachers, administrators, and other support staff of our school district are in the arena every day serving the young people of our community. They have dedicated their lives to serving others and have chosen to do so with our most important resource, our children. As you engage in discussions this summer and in the coming years, about our schools or whatever else, I invite you to take a moment and reflect on whether you are approaching the topic with a cynical sneer or valiant devotion. I know I will strive to do the latter. I value getting to see our employees in action every day and am impressed daily by their care for our children. It is an honor and a privilege to work alongside them all.

-David

It is hard to believe we are already to May! The last month of school! It seems like just last week that I started my service to this community. What a year it has been! I have really enjoyed getting to know so many people who make this community great. There are such deep roots here and it has been wonderful learning about all the interconnections among staff, students, parents, and community members.

We have accomplished a great deal this year. I know principals and teachers will be sharing a lot of academic and extra-curricular highlights, so rather than repeat them, I’ll share some of the highlights more germane to my district office role (in no particular order):

• We carefully reviewed our financial position and made changes to ensure continued viability of the district, including reducing staff positions to better align with our current student enrollment, renegotiating outside contracts to lower costs, cutting expenses, and finding alternative sources of funding.

• We moved the Child Enhancement Center to new rooms, installed exit doors and sinks to comply with DCF requirements, hired a new Director, implemented interim rates and policies and developed new, stable, rates and policies for the coming school year.

• We pivoted quickly when our staff health insurance company notified us they were going out of business in six months. We researched options, identified the state health insurance as the best choice, and implemented the new health insurance program.

• We updated key technology equipment including our three multi-function copiers–with a system that allows one to print anywhere and then log into a machine to release the print job–and replaced computers and “smart” boards.

• We transitioned to a completely new Board policy system, sunsetting our previous policies and implementing over 400 new policies that had to be individually reviewed and adjusted to our district’s needs.

• We addressed several personnel situations to ensure we operate a fair and equitable organization.

• We capitalized on the availability of one-time funds to replace several aging pieces of equipment including the zero turn lawn mower, the plow truck, and a vehicle for transporting students.

• We hosted a Wisconsin Department of Justice training for our staff and others from area schools and law enforcement as part of our project to ensure our safety planning is up to date with the latest best practices.

I’m looking forward to May 26th when we celebrate the last day of this school year and recognize the accomplishments of our kindergarten, 8th grade, and 12th grade students through their graduations/promotions (at 8:30 am, 10:00 am, and 7:00 pm, respectively). If you haven’t shared a “thank you” with a teacher or other member of staff recently, I hope you will consider doing so this month. We have so many dedicated, hard working employees that give so much of their passion and energy to our students! It’s never too late to let them know how much you appreciate what they do. Thank you to all in the community who have contributed to helping our students thrive this year!

David

Over the last several weeks, I have overheard comments like “if our district still exists in a couple years” and “if we haven’t merged districts by then.” I can understand why folks would be talking like this but I have to say I think we are quickly getting into a stable financial position that will allow this district to continue to serve the students of our community long into the future. From my perspective, there are only two major hurdles to overcome in the near future. One is to stop or, even better, reverse our declining enrollment by bringing new families to the district, attracting additional open enrollment students, and reducing the number of students who open enroll out of the district. The other is to secure additional revenue, hopefully through increased state support but likely through a referendum. If we are able to clear those hurdles, we will be well positioned for our financial future.

Regarding putting an end to our declining enrollment, I’ll again share what I shared in January, which are some things that each of you can do to help with this. “When you gather for village or township meetings, in your community clubs, or around the dinner table, consider what decisions you could make to help bring families to our community. Are there people with whom you can share some of your great experiences in the school district? Are there policies you can revisit that would allow or encourage new houses that could draw young families? Are there other ways you can support our students?” As I look at the list of students who open enroll out of our district, I wonder how many of them have even considered staying here? How many of them have been approached by a friend or neighbor who tries to help them see the benefits of keeping their children enrolled here?

From a financial perspective, in my January newsletter, I mentioned that we are focusing on living within our means. Last month I shared that “we cannot maintain the status quo when it comes to our District finances and expect everything to be okay.” As I previously mentioned, our enrollment has been dropping while our staffing has been increasing, and that is not sustainable. We have made good progress on the difficult work of identifying exactly what we need to deliver a robust educational program for our students, particularly when it comes to staffing.

A major first step in this process is reducing our staffing numbers. We know we will be able to reduce our teaching staff by three or four positions next year by not replacing some teachers who retire or move away, while better utilizing existing human resources to continue delivering high-quality courses. We have also identified a custodial position and close to four paraprofessional positions that we can make do without next year. Unfortunately, the paraprofessional reductions will likely be involuntary, so the administrative team is working hard to ensure we create a fair and unbiased process to identify which paraprofessionals we are able to invite back for next school year.

I have also been working hard on reducing some of our costs for various contracts. CESA 5 provides us with important services, but we have still been able to reduce our contract with them by over $100,000 for next year. That is a tremendous savings in a budget the size of ours.

Finally, we recently completed the challenging work of reviewing our childcare and 3K preschool programs to ensure they can be financially viable. We had to raise rates in both programs and make some other changes for next year, but we are now in a much better position to continue offering these programs.

We are well on the way to creating a balanced budget that allows us to operate within our financial means while continuing to provide a high quality school experience for our students. Thank you for all you do for the Cambria-Friesland School District! I am excited to leverage this community’s incredible support to make this district the best little district in Wisconsin! We have so much to be proud of! Go Hilltoppers!

David

It’s the time of year when we begin thinking about budgeting for the coming school year. It’s hard to believe it’s already that time given that we had our annual budget hearing for the current school year just four months ago! As I mentioned in the January newsletter, our student enrollment has been dropping for quite a while. Unfortunately, the number of employees we have has not been dropping at the same rate (in fact, it increased over the last several years). That is not a sustainable pattern, so I have been very focused on the financial aspects of our district since I arrived. Like any business, we have to ensure that our expenses don’t exceed our revenues. Unlike a business, however, we don’t have a whole lot of control over our revenues, as most of our funding comes from the state.

We do have control over many of our expenses, however, so we have been “tightening our belt” and will continue to do so to ensure we live within our means. The wages we pay to our employees, along with the benefits we provide to them, like health and dental insurance, represent the bulk of our budget. There are of course other expenses, but we are in the business of serving students so the vast majority of our funding goes to our employees, as it should.

In the fall, our teachers certified as a union with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC), so there are some new rules we will be following as we determine changes to next year’s wages. For example, we can now only negotiate with the teachers – i.e., the Cambria-Friesland Education Association (CFEA) – on “base wages” and the total increase in base wages that we settle on cannot exceed a cap based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The cap this year, as determined by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR), is 8.00%. This cap does not apply to any other employees as they are not included in the CFEA.

This change will result in a couple procedural changes to our budgeting process but the overall process should look relatively similar to past years. One change you will notice right away is that the Board may have some closed sessions to discuss potential total base wage proposals, potential base wage adjustments that are subject to negotiation, and/or supplemental compensation that may be offered to individual employees in the CFEA bargaining unit. There will also be a time or two in upcoming Board meetings when the Board and the CFEA present their proposals for potential changes to teachers’ base wages.

As I shared at the February Board meeting, we cannot maintain the status quo when it comes to our District finances and expect everything to be okay. We have time to “right the ship,” however, so with some careful financial planning and disciplined decision making, we should be able to create a balanced budget that continues to provide high quality education to our students while operating within our financial limits.

When today’s parents and grandparents were in school, they may not have spent much time on learning specifically about life skills. Today’s schools, however, explicitly teach life skills in order to help build the citizens of the future. We focus on qualities that help our students grow to be productive, contributing members of our community. On her page of the newsletter, Mrs. Torrison shares information about some life skills, including respect, collaboration, responsibility, and organization. On Mr. Tramburg’s page, he shares the February trait of the month for the elementary school: inclusive. I’d like to take a moment to discuss the theme on the cover of this month’s newsletter: kindness.

When I was growing up my mom would frequently say “kill ‘em with kindness.” We had a LOT of sayings in our house, but that is one that has really stuck with me and I find myself using it with my kids. Kindness is a choice and it is a choice that can significantly impact not only our interactions with others but also our own mental health. If you deliberately choose to focus on kindness, it can have really profound effects on your outlook. When you see something aggravating on social media and feel you have to comment on it, take a moment to consider kindness and you may find you either don’t need to comment at all, or you can take a different approach than you may have otherwise taken. When the referee makes a questionable call in the game, you can holler at him about what a terrible choice he made, or you can demonstrate kindness by recognizing his humanity and focusing instead on cheering on your team. When someone makes a snarky comment to you at work or at school, you can choose to respond with a kind word.

Choosing kindness is obviously not a new idea. I’d like to wrap up my thoughts this month with some quotes. I invite you to reflect on these quotes and what they mean to you.

—

“Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance or my kindness for weakness. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.”

- Dalai Lama

—

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

- Mark Twain

The Village of Cambria has beautiful signs welcoming everyone as they drive into the village. “A growing community” is the tagline with multiple meanings. Cambria is indeed a growing community, with agriculture a ubiquitous aspect of Cambria’s fabric. Local agriculture-based businesses bring jobs and farming continues to be an important endeavor throughout our school district. As we are all too aware, however, farming has changed considerably over the past several decades. Many small family farms have been absorbed into bigger farming operations. Where the school district used to pick up child after child as the bus stopped at farm after farm, that is no longer the norm. Which gets us to the other meaning of “a growing community.” 

The school-aged population of Cambria and surrounding areas is not growing, and that has a direct and immediate impact on the school district. Enrollment in 4-year-old pre-kindergarten through grade 12 has dropped from 470 in the 2005-06 school year to 309 this school year. The class of 2011 averaged over 40 students during their journey through the school system, but the class of 2029 has averaged less than 20 students. Our most recent enrollment projections indicated the enrollment will continue dropping if the status quo continues.

So what is the point of my sharing this information? It has been clear to me since I arrived that the Cambria-Friesland School District is a crucial part of this community. So many people care deeply about the school district and its impact on them and their families, and for good reason. This is an exceptional place with dedicated staff and volunteers who want to provide our students with the best school experience possible. As enrollment drops, however, that becomes more and more difficult to achieve. One obvious reason is because when enrollment drops, funding drops. But what may be less obvious is that the options we can offer our students also become more limited as the population of students declines.

The school system is approaching these challenges with a focus on living within our means and providing the best experience we can for our students. We are working on various aspects to make this a destination district that draws in families and encourages those looking to utilize open enrollment to stay if they live here and to come here if they don’t.

So you may be wondering what you can do to help. When you gather for village or township meetings, in your community clubs, or around the dinner table, consider what decisions you could make to help bring families to our community. Are there people with whom you can share some of your great experiences in the school district? Are there policies you can revisit that would allow or encourage new houses that could draw young families? Are there other ways you can support our students?

In my short time here so far, I have been incredibly impressed with the people of this school district. I know that this is a challenge we can face and through which we will persevere. I look forward to working with you all as we help make the Cambria-Friesland School District and our villages and townships as strong as they can be.

David

Some of you may know Sheila Posthuma, the amazing leader of our elementary school office. In case you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Sheila, you should know that she is a daily breath of fresh air. She is kind and positive, serves as the “school mom” for hundreds of students, and shares funny and inspirational messages. One of her recent messages really resonated with me. It said, “IT IS NOT HAPPY PEOPLE WHO ARE GRATEFUL, IT IS GRATEFUL PEOPLE WHO ARE HAPPY.” So often in life we chase happiness by looking for the next thing that we can get, whether that’s a higher paying job, the next cool gadget, or some other thing that will help us “keep up with the Joneses” (or should we now say “the Kardashians” ?).

I hope that you have been able to take a moment over this Thanksgiving season to reflect on the things for which you are grateful. I’d like to take this opportunity to share some things I am grateful for as they relate to my work here at CFSD.

I am grateful for a great team of district office staff and school leaders. Deb Merwin, Pam Drews, Wyatt Tramburg, Deb Torrison, and Ashtyn Gutzman are amazing people who are such a pleasure to work with. I feel blessed every day that they are my colleagues.

I am grateful for our teachers who show up every day to face the challenges of not only managing a group of students larger than most people could handle, but also helping those students learn and grow into amazing members of our community; and to our counselors who help guide our students through life’s challenges.

I am grateful for our instructional assistants who help in so many different ways, whether by working with an individual student one-on-one, providing additional support to small groups of students, shuttling students between schools, or the myriad other things they do on a daily basis.

I am grateful for the amazing food service staff who not only keep us fed, but do so with a smile on their faces and a sprinkling of love in every dish. It is easy to take food service for granted when it is as delicious and nutritious as it is here at CFSD.

I am grateful for the Child Enhancement Center staff who take such good care of our youngest community members. So many of us are overwhelmed caring for a single infant or toddler, and they embrace entire groups of them every day! They are such a positive influence on our next generation of students.

I am grateful for all of the other staff who often toil in the background keeping everything running, like Brad DeYoung in maintenance, Janet Peters (the “Queen of Clean”) and her team of custodians, Pam Hendrickson, Michelle Vant Hoff, and Sheila Posthuma who keep our school offices running smoothly, or various folks from CESA 5 who share several days a week with us, like Dave Van Spankeren, Katie Bortz, Ramon Tafolla, Austin Tafolla, and Amy Hauge.

I am grateful for all of the staff and members from the community who serve as coaches, mentors, club sponsors, and for so many other things they do for our students; and for Katelin York, our fearless Athletic Director.

I am grateful for our school board members who are courageous enough to put themselves out there to be elected by their peers, to devote considerable time to representing the community’s needs and wants, and to put students first even when doing so can sometimes make for very difficult decisions. I feel blessed to have such a great group of seven “bosses” to work for.

Finally, I am grateful for the students and their families for trusting us with the education and development of our next generation. We take our work extremely seriously and recognize the importance of helping our students become all that they can be.

While I have probably missed some groups or individuals for which I feel grateful, my gratitude is present nonetheless. I feel truly honored and blessed to have this opportunity to serve as steward of this school district on behalf of the greater Cambria-Friesland community. Thank you to everyone who makes what we do possible. The gratitude that I know I, and many others, feel brings great happiness and for that I am thankful.

Gratefully yours,
David

In many jobs, if you are absent from work for a day, the work will just wait for you to return and you can pick up where you left off. In other jobs, the work may just fluctuate depending on who is at work that day. Teaching is somewhat unique, however, in that the process is the product and the means are the ends. We don’t create widgets and ship them to customers.One group of our customers, students, visit us every day and we grow their understanding in various subjects. Another group of our customers, parents, not only expect us to grow their students’ skills and knowledge, they also expect us to supervise their children and keep them safe. 

When a teacher is absent, the students can’t be left alone until the teacher returns. That is why schools are reliant on having a pool of substitute teachers who can supervise a teacher’s classroom while they are out on leave. Substitute teachers are essential to the efficient and effective operation of a school, and they are becoming harder and harder to find. CFSD continually advertises for substitute teachers but we rarely get any applicants. 

For the second year in a row, we hired a “permanent” substitute teacher. This person works for the district full-time and is our first “go to” person when a sub is needed. This has worked out very well and we are currently considering adding another such position in order to attract candidates who are only interested in a full-time position.

We have also recently implemented an incentive for existing employees to help find substitute teachers. If they recommend someone that would be a good substitute, they receive $100 after that person has completed five full days of subbing this school year.

Even that is not enough, however. Most days we do not have enough substitutes to cover all needs. The principals and I substitute on a regular basis, and we sometimes have to pull teachers from their preparation time and from other employee groups as well. Occasionally, we may have to combine classes together in order to ensure students are appropriately supervised when their teacher is absent.

What we really need, though, is a larger pool of people willing to substitute for us. If you have a bachelor’s degree in education or have been through an educator preparation program, you are already eligible to be a substitute teacher! If you have an associates degree or higher from an accredited college or university, you are eligible to be a substitute teacher once you successfully complete an approved substitute training program. Since there is a cost for such programs, CFSD will reimburse you up to 100% of your cost to participate in the training.

We recently raised our pay for substitutes as well! You could be making between $121.28 and $134.90 for a full day and between $67.45 and $80.94 for a half-day. If you take on a long-term assignment in a single classroom (more than 21 days, like when someone goes on maternity leave), you could make between $161.88 and $215.84 per day!

You can find more information on substitute teaching, and other job openings, on our website at https://www.cf.k12.wi.us/district/employment.cfm. Please also feel free to contact Deb Merwin at 920-348-5548, ext. 278 with any questions you may have.

Thanks for considering joining our team in support of our student Hilltoppers!

David

Fall has arrived! The temperatures are dropping, the leaves are turning, and I saw frost on the grass on my way to work this morning. I really enjoy this time of year with the sunny days and cool nights.

I have enjoyed watching our student athletes compete. The Homecoming football game was really exciting! We’ve had some nail-biters in volleyball and the partnership with Randolph for cross country is going great. I am proud of the hard work and dedication our student athletes demonstrate on a daily basis. It is a lot of work to be a full-time student and a competitive athlete, and they are doing a great job balancing the two.

Speaking of athletics, we are always in need of coaches. We have many great people from the community who dedicate themselves to coaching our student athletes, but we can always use more. While coaching is a serious commitment, it is also a fulfilling one. Having the opportunity to work with our incredible students and mold them into student athletes is an excellent opportunity. If you have any interest in exploring coaching opportunities, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Athletic Director, Katelin York. She can fill you in on current and upcoming opportunities. You don’t have to be an expert to coach, but some experience in a sport is helpful and a desire to be a positive influence for our student athletes is essential.

Fall sports:

• Cross Country
• Football
• Girls Volleyball

Winter sports:

• Basketball
• Wrestling

Spring sports:

• Baseball
• Softball
• Boys Golf
• Track and Field

Thank you for all you do to support our students and staff! Go Hilltoppers!

David

We are off and running with the 2022-2023 school year! When I write 2023 it really hits home how far we are from the 1900’s. That’s what my kids call what I would refer to as the ‘90’s…the 1900’s! :-) As we begin the process of rebuilding after several difficult years, this year we are going to be focusing on moving from surviving to thriving!

We kick off each new school year with professional learning days for teachers and other staff. On August 18, we hosted new teachers and staff. The highlight of the day was a bus tour of the district (with Brad DeYoung driving and Stu Quade as tour guide) that culminated in lunch at Merica’s Diner in Cambria (paid for by M3 Insurance). It was really awesome to see so much of our district and to learn about our history from Stu and Brad.

On Monday, August 22, we had our biggest professional learning day of the year when we welcomed back all of our employees. We had a great day! One focus for the day, which will carry on throughout the year, is the role of constructive feedback. We are going to be working on best practices for providing feedback to students as well as feedback from supervisors to those they supervise. For the latter, we have a new staff evaluation system in place so all staff will be evaluated on a regular basis. While some employee groups, like teachers, have state-mandated evaluation systems, all of the others will use our in-house system. The new system is designed to be collaborative and is more about having constructive conversations than assigning a numerical rating to someone’s performance.

On Tuesday, Cambria Oil Convenience Store generously donated sub sandwiches so we could feed our teachers on their second day of professional learning. We really appreciate when local businesses support us like this, so thank you to Cambria Oil Convenience Store for providing this great meal!

Wednesday and Thursday had very few all-staff or all-teacher trainings scheduled. Most of the time was used for teachers to prepare for students arriving the following week and for various meetings of our professional learning communities and other groups.

Our custodial and maintenance staff continued their work getting the building ready for school to start. The inside is looking spic and span and the outside is getting some much needed tuck pointing and brick repair. On the east end of the building you may have noticed two holes we’ve cut in the wall under some windows. Those windows will soon be removed as well and new emergency egress doors will be installed. Those doors allow for our two child care rooms serving our youngest children to have direct access to outside in case of a need to exit in an emergency. The doors won’t be used day-to-day, so you may notice they won’t even have an exterior handle for entry.

I am proud of all of the great work our employees do and look forward to observing how that impacts the growth of our students over the coming school year.

Go Hilltoppers!

David

Welcome to the 2022-23 school year! I am so excited to have the start of the school year right around the corner! This school year is going to be awesome! The staff and I are going to be laser focused on meeting the varied needs of our students. We have several new employees coming on board and are looking forward to welcoming back our seasoned veterans as well. In late August, just before school starts for students, we will have several inservice days where we will complete training, discuss changes in the district, review data about our students, and begin planning for the future.

I officially started in my new role as Superintendent on July 1, but was able to work a good bit in June as well. I have really enjoyed getting to know so many great people in the district and greater community! I appreciated being able to be here during summer school so I could see some of our students and staff in action. I knew this position would be a great fit for me when I accepted it, and that gets confirmed every day when I come to work. Like every district, we have our fair share of challenges, but we have great people in place ready to tackle whatever comes our way and that makes all the difference.

This summer our custodial and maintenance staff have been extremely busy cleaning and repairing throughout the school, and preparing classrooms for the start of school. That is a big enough job by itself, but this summer it was made even bigger by changes we need to make with our Child Enhancement Center (CEC). Due to building and daycare codes, we determined we needed to move our CEC classrooms to an exterior wall so we could provide emergency evacuation doors directly from each room to the outside. We sought out contractors to remove one window in each of the two classrooms requiring modification, so exterior egress doors could be installed. We hope to complete that work yet this summer. In the meantime, teachers and staff have been hard at working swapping rooms to make this all possible. We are excited by the opportunities this change brings and look forward to the possibility of decreasing our waitlist by offering additional childcare slots in the near future.

I am enjoying working with the Board to look carefully at our district finances. We take our responsibilities to the taxpayers very seriously! We are looking for efficiencies and opportunities to manage our costs in order to reduce our reliance on local funding as much as feasible. I am hopeful that some of our local businesses will join their peers in sponsoring various aspects of the district. We are very thankful for all of the support so many have shown in the past and look forward to continued and possibly expanded support in the future!

I am proud to have joined the Cambria-Friesland School District and look forward to the future! Thank you to everyone who contributes to making this an exceptional district!

Go Hilltoppers!

David