Verona Press The
Thursday, August 1, 2019 • Vol. 55, No. 11 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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Verona Area School District
Next steps begin after boundaries Grandfathering, school start times for 2020-21 still to be determined SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
Battle between buddies
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
Friends Noah Malcook, left, of Oregon, and Cody Austin play Spikeball together before participating in a “tournament” with a half-dozen other friends on Monday, July 29, at Harriet Park.
City of Verona
Two admin finalists get other jobs City finishing background check on Belleville’s Wilson
Timeline Feb. 5: Jeff Mikorski signs resignation agreement April 7: Initial applicant deadline April 29 and May 3: First interviews May 20: Second interviews May 28: Candidate identified; background check begins July 23: Interim administrator contract extended July 25: Hudson, Wisconsin, announces Aaron Reeves has accepted position there July 27: Hastings, Minnesota, announces it’s negotiating with Dan Wietecha Aug. 12: Background report expected at Common Council
JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
The city administrator candidate the Verona Common Council will be considering this month has been identified. Brian Wilson, village administrator in Belleville, is the lone remaining candidate among three finalists for the position that were narrowed May 20. Wilson Since then, the city has been involved in background checks. During the past week, the other two apparently became no longer available, and Mayor Luke Diaz confirmed Monday night a background check is being done on Wilson. He reported after a closed-session discussion the previous week that the background Aug. 12. According to reports from report is expected to be finished in time for the council’s next meeting, two Minnesota newspapers, two The
Verona Press
other candidates are out of the running. Aaron Reeves has resigned from his administrator job in Cloquet, Minnesota, to lead the city of Hudson, Wisconsin, and Bath Township, Michigan, superintendent Dan Wietecha was chosen by Hastings, Minnesota, to be its next administrator. Verona’s council decided July 22 to extend the contract of its interim administrator, Adam Sayre, the city’s permanent planning and development director, after it became clear the city would not have an administrator hired before his contract ended July 31. It now runs through November. Wilson, who has been with Belleville since 2015, spent four years before that as the administrator for the Town of Beloit and has 22 years of government experience overall. A year ago, he was a candidate for Sauk County’s administrator job, according to a Wisconsin State Journal report. The newspaper reported Sauk County supervisors claimed he had withdrawn from the search,
Determining new attendance area boundaries last month was the most time-consuming and public decision the school board has had to make for planning the opening of the district’s new high school in fall 2020. While many of the important decisions like school start times and staffing that remain will be behind the scenes by staff, the board still needs to tackle grandfathering, which will determine what, if any, students will remain at their current elementary school even if their attendance area changed. Superintendent Dean
What’s next The school board plans to discuss potential grandfathering options at its Aug. 19 meeting and make a decision at its first meeting in September. Gorrell added the district still has to prepare to get the new and shuffling buildings physically ready for students. “Sooner than later, moving six buildings is going to happen,” Gorrell said. Much of that moving will be done next summer, with school this year ending early. The new high school will open in fall 2020, with Badger Ridge Middle School moving into the current high school and Sugar Creek Elementary School
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Road construction forcing bus changes this fall SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
Orange barrels will cause some headaches for yellow buses this fall. The Verona Area School District announced in an email Friday that area road construction will affect “many of our elementary and secondary bus routes,” including potentially
substantial changes to pickup and dropoff times. Bus routes are not yet final, and some will change in the first few weeks of school as they do in any other year, the email from superintendent Dean Gorrell stated. “Please note that it is typical for a handful of
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Inside Verona youth at the Dane County Fair
Turn to Administrator/Page 16
Pages 10-12
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