Thursday, May 10, 2018 • Vol. 53, No. 51 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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Verona Press The
Verona Area School District
Making the grades Standards-based grading will be at both middle schools next year
Inside District considers new emergency protocols
SCOTT GIRARD
Page 7
Unified Newspaper Group
There will be no more A’s or B’s for Verona Area School District middle schoolers next year. Both Savanna Oaks and Badger Ridge middle schools will use “standards-based grading” in all subjects for the 2018-19 school year, administrators said Friday morning at a committee meeting. The grading system, which SOMS has used since 2014 and BRMS used in math this year, involves a scale focused on whether a student has “mastered” a skill, rather than using a percentage to assign a letter for achievement. Some parents at SOMS complained about the transition in 2014 and asked for a return to letter grades. A 2015 decision to assign a letter grade to the standard score did not satisfy them, and administrators said it confused the point of the standards grades. There will be no letter grades associated with next year’s report cards at either school, director of
curriculum and instruction Ann Franke confirmed to the Press in an email. Though the change means the entirety of K-8 attendance area schools will use standards-based grading next year, Franke said the district still needs to work on making the terms used consistent. That, she said, will help parents understand what they’re looking at. She and school board member Meredith Stier Christensen also specified the district is not planning to expand the grading system to the high school “anytime soon.” “This is a K-8 grading system,” Stier Christensen said. Survey data from the 2016-17 school year s h ow e d 9 3 p e r c e n t o f BRMS parents who took the annual perception survey wanted traditional letter grades along with a measure of student competencies to report student progress. At
Turn to Grades/Page 13
Inside Verona Artists and Farmers Market begins next Tuesday Page 5
Celebrate National Pet Week with our special section Pages B6-B11 The
Verona Press
Photo by Scott Girard
The Salsadoras dance groups performed traditional dances during the festival.
Celebrating Cinco de Mayo On the web
Verona hosted its first Cinco de Mayo festival Saturday, May 5, at Hometown U.S.A. Park. The Verona Area and Latino chambers of commerce collaborated on the event, which featured crafts, face painting, a market, tradi- See more photos from the Cinco de Mayo event: tional dancing, food and a car show put on by the Latino Nation group from ConnectVerona.com Verona Area High School.
End of an era
Hochkammer leaves Verona politics after 21 years, 12 as mayor JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
When Jon Hochkammer first entered Verona politics, the city had only one stoplight, was about half the size it is now and didn’t have an administrator or a planner. And Epic was eight years away from moving here. Now, as Hochkammer steps away from 12 years of being mayor and nine before that as a District 1 alder, along with two other longtime civic leaders, it signals the end of an era in Verona. Hochkammer’s history of politics goes back to the mid-1980s, when he was on the Manitowoc County Board while running his family’s dairy operation, then later as the rule-enforcing sergeant-at-arms in the state Senate. And helping to make decisions for Verona has been a central part of his identity for a long time. But if he’s had any difficulty
closing that chapter of his life in the five months since announcing last fall he would not run for re-election, he’s tried hard to conceal it. At his last Common Council meeting, April 9, he choked up a bit while giving a farewell speech but then quickly moved on to regular business. “I’m not sad about it at all,” he told the Press afterward. “If anything, I feel stronger about the decision I made.” Certainly Hochkammer won’t find himself bored. Seemingly always working, he is frequently traveling for his day job, as the outreach manager for the Wisconsin Counties Association, and he has joined the Leadership Wisconsin board of directors after being involved in a program with them that took him to Kazakhstan last summer. And he’s also increasingly busy
Photo by Jim Ferolie
Jon Hochkammer walks away from his Turn to Hochkammer/Page 12 final meeting as mayor, April 9, 2018, with his gavel in hand.
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