Thursday, April 9, 2020 • Vol. 55, No. 47 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.50
Spring Election
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Verona Press The
COVID-19 response
Preparing for the hit Verona dons masks, hunkers down as state COVID-19 death toll spikes
Inside Musician holds online show for charity Page 2
JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
Photos by Kimberly Wethal
Voters and poll workers are separated by a large plastic shield during the April 7 election at Verona City Center.
Voting proceeds despite pandemic High courts overturn postponement, deadline extension RENEE HICKMAN Unified Newspaper Group
Election Day continued as planned Tuesday, April 7 despite the ongoing threat of COVID-19. In Verona, a steady stream of people walked into the Verona City Center to vote in person, while others placed their absentee ballots in the drop box outside. Voters, many of them wearing masks, stayed six feet apart while poll workers counted absentee ballots on the Council dais. In an effort to halt the possible spread of the virus at voting sites, Gov. Tony Evers issued Executive Order No. 74
Wisconsin Supreme Court had overturned the order on a 4-2 vote, stating that Evers lacked the authority to move the vote on his own. More changes came that evening when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a previous extension of the absentee ballot deadline by a federal judge. That extension would have allowed state clerks to accept ballots postmarked or returned at any time up to 4 p.m. on A sign in front of Verona City Center. details safety precautions for the April April 13. After the 5-4 court ruling, absen7 election. tee ballots had to be postmarked or on Monday, April 6, which would have hand-delivered to municipal clerks by postponed the election until June 9. But Turn to Poll workers/Page 10 by late afternoon that same day, the
Verona Area School District
CIty, school dis-
With face masks now comtrict begin holding monplace, and a fight over online meetings whether to postpone a statewide election, constant change Page 3 was the norm in Verona during the fourth week in which the Hotels struggling coronavirus and COVID-19 with lack of travel has turned our lives upsidedown. Page 5 The Verona Area School District gave high school students the option of taking pass/ for virtual Easter services. The number of COVID-19 fail grades for the semester, the district and at least one musi- cases in the country more cian held online fundraisers for than doubled to 360,000 as of people affected by the pandemic and area churches prepared Turn to Quarantine/Page 12
Cancellation of FitchRona Art Crawl a loss for artists Three artists share how they are affected
weekend. The event, scheduled for March 27-28 and organized by Yahara Bay Distillery, was canceled due to concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus, as well as many businesses along the crawl being closed due to not being considered essential under Gov. Evers “Safer at Home” order. Whether helping artists
NEAL PATTEN Unified Newspaper Group
Seventeen artists who were prepared to set up work spaces in more than a dozen Fitchburg and Verona businesses during the annual FitchRona Art Crawl, ended up staying home that
Turn to Art Crawl/Page 10
High school will give grading choice Students can decide on pass/ fail option at end of year KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
Verona Area High School students will get a choice over how their report cards look at the end of the academic year. While the school board didn’t need to take action on the changes to grading because it didn’t affect its credit policy,
members seemed generally supportive of a plan to allow high school students to choose at the end of the school year either a letter grade or a pass/fail grade. The district also announced it would relax standards for middle school and elementary school grading. For students who want a letter grade on their report cards at the end of the year, their third-quarter grade would be applied to the entire semester, assistant superintendent for academic services Laurie Burgos said. Any virtual learning
completed during the fourth quarter would only benefit a student’s grade, not hinder it. Also, any assignments students complete will be considered extended learning and will not be required, she said. Students will be able to choose what they’d like for each class, and will have the option to ask for all letter grades or all pass/fail, or a mix of something in between, Burgos said.
Turn to Grading/Page 9
Photo submitted
Sara Meredith is a woodblock artist based in Madison.
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