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Clintonville schools discuss staffing needs

Teachers needed for 2019-20 school year

By Erik Buchinger


The Clintonville Public School District has staffing needs for the 2019-20 school year.

Bilingual teacher

Superintendent David Dyb told the school board on June 10 the district posted a bilingual teacher position, but as of the meeting date there were zero applicants.

“If we do not get any applicants, we are allowed to show support in other means or other ways as we have done in the past,” Dyb said.

School Board President Ben Huber said it is unlikely there will be any applicants with a shortage of bilingual teachers in the state.

“We can take a look at our numbers and see if we can provide support in other ways,” Dyb said. “That involves juggling para assignments and putting them with teachers who have bilingual experience and skills, which we have done in the past, as many districts do. This is a statewide shortage.”

According to the Department of Public Instruction, the district must make an effort to post the position.

Special education

Dyb said the district will wait to see the amount of special needs students coming into the school year before making adjustments to the staff.

“For Dellwood, we’re going to wait till August and see where our numbers are at with 4K in regards to whether or not a para 1 position is needed to be added due to the high number of incoming children with special needs,” Dyb said.

Dyb said a few special needs students registered for classes late in the summer last year, which is why the district holds off until it has the expected numbers for the school year.

The district assigns positions to where the needs are in a given year.

“In a perfect scenario, you’d be able to assign a teacher to that grade level, but because our numbers are up and down across grades five through eight, we’ve got to put the resources to where the needs of the kids are,” Dyb said. “We’re going to have three teachers working with two grades and one teacher working with two grades. It’s a little cumbersome, but with the balance of things that’s the best way to do it right now.

“In the next year, we’ll reassess it again, and it might look differently depending on how it all plays out.”

Rexford-Longfellow Elementary

A physical education position was posted, and there were seven applicants at the time of the board meeting.

This is a daily, half-time position, which might be difficult to fill.

“It’s every day, and it’s not clean to be honest,” Rexford-Longfellow Elementary School Principal Tom Burkhalter said. “It’s going to be a difficult one to find somebody to fill right now. I’m going to continue to work on it and try to get creative. I’ve called a ton of different schools to see how they’re doing it, and nobody has a system they like if they’re following the law.”

Clintonville High School

Clintonville High School will need to increase its science section, Dyb said.

“The reason for the increase was we have two science classes with 27 students each,” CHS Principal Kelly Zeinert said. “They are in their lab classes and it’s really hard to do, which is why we’re asking for an additional period so we can break it down and make those numbers more reasonable. It’s better for the kids.”

Dyb said there is an active posting for substitute teachers.

Personnel

The school board approved resignations from CMS art teacher Victoria LeBeau and elementary cross-categorical teacher Megan Kilsdonk.

“Both of these teachers live in the (Fox) Valley and have accepted positions very close to where they live,” Dyb said.

On June 24, the school board approved the resignation of Katie Holbrook from her elementary teacher position, effective at the end of the 2018-19 school year.

A contract increase from 57% to 62.5% was approved for high school science teacher Jamie Dins as a result of scheduling requirements for the 2019-20 school year.

The board approved the hire of middle school art teacher Meredith Ulman.
Extra-curricular hires included Robyn Bartal as head swim coach, Jeremy Young for middle school girls’ basketball and Dave Pugh for middle school football.

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