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Thursday, July 5, 2018 • Vol. 54, No. 7 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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Verona Area School District
New VAHS
Committee turns focus to behavior, charter process 2 new subcommittees aim for efficiency, action this summer SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
The Verona Area school b o a r d ’s C u r r i c u l u m , Instruction and Assessment committee has tackled some of the district’s most complex issues over the past two years. But board members are hoping a new process this summer can help avoid the sometimes “unwieldy” discussions and foster quicker turnaround on a pair of hot-button topics here: behavior and charter schools. “I think this is a way for us to really dive deep on some issues that are really important to our community and make sure we’re doing the best that we can,” board president Noah Roberts said. “It is an evolving process.” The behavior subcommittee, with Roberts and board member Meredith Stier Christensen, will r ev i ew b e h av i o r p o l icies, philosophies and
practices, with a focus on making sure it is “consistent” at each of the schools and communication is clear for parents to know what to expect. The charter committee will also work on consistency, but rather with how the independent public schools report to and work with the district. The biggest advantage of the smaller groups is the “flexibility” they will provide for meeting more often and at different times with fewer people involved, Stier Christensen said. Coordinating full CIA committee meetings, which include all of the central office department heads as staff because of the range of topics covered, can be especially complicated over the summer. The meetings will still be open to the public – when not discussing information about specific students – and the board members will share regular updates at board meetings. “We want to make sure we are providing as much
Turn to CIA/Page 13
Inside
Photo by Scott Girard
Jon Roach, a 2010 Verona Area High School graduate, will have a part in the new high school. He and a pair of subcontractors are milling wood from the trees cut down on the site to be used in the building. Here, he moves one of the pieces of milled wood onto a forklift to be moved.
Milling about
VAHS grad helping to reuse trees taken down from site SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
When the new Verona Area High School building opens in 2020, many will excitedly look at the classrooms, fieldhouse, performing arts center and pool. Jon Roach will be looking at some of the walls. “That’s one of the things I’m really excited about is seeing the true final product,” Roach said. Roach, a 2010 VAHS graduate who lives in Oregon, has spent parts of the last few weeks with a couple of others
off to the side of the project site, feeding logs through one of two milling machines. He and the two subcontractors he’s working with are milling the wood to be reused in the school – much of it for walls, with some of the larger pieces expected to become tables or benches. The full-time firefighter mills wood as a side business under the name Living Wood Creations, and this is his largest job yet. He said he heard about the project through Wisconsin Urban Wood, which he works with to help turn wood that would otherwise be trashed into furniture or other useful
pieces. “There’s been a lot more awareness on (reusing urban wood),” Roach said. “It feels great to be a part of something bigger than just my business.” Verona Area School District superintendent Dean Gorrell loved the idea, and has visited the work site to watch Roach and his colleagues in action a couple times. “It was awesome,” Gorrell said with a big smile. “Otherwise, all of this would be in a landfill.”
Turn to Milling/Page 8
Invasive species found in Mount Vernon Creek New Zealand mudsnails threaten area water systems AMBER LEVENHAGEN Unified Newspaper Group
Photos from the first Music on Main Page 16
At just 4-6 mm, it’s hard to imagine a creature so small could pose such a significant threat. The New Zealand
mudsnail, an invasive species that has been in the area for a few years, was discovered by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in Mount Vernon Creek this spring. Upon its discovery, the Wisconsin DNR and the Upper Sugar River Watershed Alliance began working independently to combat the invasive snail and protect Verona area natural
resources. Wade Moder, USRWA director, told the Press last month the snails were previously found in Black Earth Creek in 2012 and Badger Mill Creek in 2016. “ ( T h e i r d i s c ove r y i n Mount Vernon Creek) confirms what we’ve believed all along, that they jump from creek to creek, and with Mount Vernon being o n l y o n e o f t wo t r o u t
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streams in the county, people need to clean off their equipment and be a lot more detailed about it,” he said. Moder is among the group from USRWA that has invested hundreds of hours into protecting the snail-infested creeks. The alliance spent the last spring installing brush stations at
Turn to Mudsnails/Page 14
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