Verona Press The
Thursday, March 7, 2019 • Vol. 54, No. 42 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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Verona Area School District
Plan: Middle schools ‘aligned’ by 2020-21 Photo by Kimberly Wethal
Nancy Valentyn, mother of Kenzi Valentyn, who died of complications with retinitis pigmentosa and Kearn’s-Sayre Sydrome in 2017, points out a memory from when her daughter was being silly on the picture boards used at Kenzi’s funeral. Kenzi is being honored at this year’s Cycle for Sight on Saturday, March 9, with two $4,000 research grants being named after her.
A cure in sight
Cycle for Sight fundraiser to honor late Verona woman KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
Kenzi Valentyn hadn’t been able to see the stars in the night sky for a long time before her family found out something was wrong with her vision. Then, as a second grader, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that was part of a disorder that would
eventually claim her life. Her Verona family believes a cure for that disease is “within sight,” and they have spent the past eight years participating in a fundraiser to help research that cure. This year, the Cycle for Sight indoor biking fundraiser – held March 9 in three Madison locations, will honor Kenzi, who died at the age of 30 in March 2017, for her “struggle and perseverance against
her illnesses” by giving out two $4,000 research grants in her name, according to a news release from UW Health. Nancy Valentyn, Kenzi’s mother, said it’s important to keep the research going at the UW “in their own backyard” because researchers are closer to a cure for retinitis pigmentosa than what Dr. Dave Gamm, director of the McPherson Eye Research Institute, ever thought they’d
be in his lifetime. “We need to keep the wheels turning,” Nancy said. “Kenzi always said they probably won’t find a cure in my lifetime, but she said, hopefully they’ll find one soon.” The family has yet to miss a Cycle for Sight, even in 2017, when Kenzi died of complications from her illnesses the week of the fundraiser on
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Schedules, language offerings among areas to work on SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
The years-long effort to bring consistency to the Verona Area School District’s middle schools is nearing its completion. According to a timeline presented to the school board Monday, remaining changes to scheduling, class offerings and languages at the schools will be in place by the beginning of the 2020-21 school year. That’s the same time the schools’ attendance areas will shift and Badger Ridge Middle School will move into what is now the high school building. The middle school study was first discussed in 2016, after administrators
and board members expressed interest in creating a “common” middle school experience, in contrast to the many distinctions between the schools that had evolved out of years of site-based governance. One of the most significant changes so far has been the move to standards-based grades this year, which had been in place for years at Savanna Oaks Middle School but were added at BRMS. Throughout the process, teachers and administration from the two schools have spent time together reviewing their processes and curricula and discussing how to align them. While it won’t mean students at both schools read the same books in the same class, for example, the consistency will ensure they’re analyzing the literature in more similar ways,
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City of Verona
Inside
Commission mixed on Valley proposal JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
A plan to develop part of a 95-acre tract southwest of the current city limits got a mixed reaction from the Plan Commission on Monday. Commissioners and the mayor were generally in favor of the idea of putting commercial development n ex t t o t h e U . S . 1 8 - 1 5 1 bypass, homes near the Sugar River and its nearby
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Verona Press
wetlands and reserving space for a medical clinic near state Hwy. 69. But those who spoke up were far less comfortable with the idea of a big box store locating there. The plan also calls for a grocery store and a hotel in one section, and the initial proposal for housing was for 500 to 700 apartments, which commissioner Scott Manley pointed out was 21-27 units per acre. “How much is too much?”
he asked, saying he favored a transition to single-family homes in that area, the northwestern part of the land just north of Valley Road. That discussion prompted the developer, Kurt Welton, to ask whether city assistance, such as tax-increment financing or other grants, might be available to promote affordable housing, a term that’s commonly used by municipalities and developers around Dane County
but rarely specific or clear. Planning director Adam Sayre replied that TIF and other financial decisions are up to the Common Council, which will review the proposal next week. Welton and his company’s vice president, Paul Molinaro, previously had explained to the commission that the only deal Welton Enterprises had worked out with the
Turn to Valley/Page 12
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Stoner Prairie Elementary School students meet “Noah the dog”