On the field, Boscobel’s football team has yet to prove its mettle this season.

In the classroom, however, the team is scoring big-time.

Ninety-two percent—20 out of 22 players—made the school’s honor roll this semester. (One player is homeschooled.) Assistant Coach (and Dial correspondent) Jimmie Kaska reported the stats to the school board at its December 4 meeting.

Last spring, according to Kaska, just 12 of the students currently on the roster made the honor roll.

“To have 20 of 22 (plus both managers for 22 out of 24) make honor roll is incredible,” Kaska said in an email. “I’m the one that puts together all the stats, and there is not a single stat I kept all year as important as the ones highlighting the academic success the team had this fall, learning a new system under a new coach.”

Kaska credits in part to recently hired football coach Marc Chiefari.

“One of the biggest components to what we reinforce as football coaches is that the classroom comes first,” Kaska wrote. “It’s the part of Coach Chiefari’s vision for the football program that I appreciate the most, because football can teach us about life, and it’s fun, but ultimately, students are here in school to learn.”

At press time, Kaska reached out with additional honors achievements in the athletic program: The cross country team has 17 of its 19 players on the honor roll, and the volleyball team has 21 out of 23.

Those are stats that will rack up a win at life, if not on the playing field.

District report cards in

The school board heard an explanation of the district’s “report card,” compiled by the state Department of Instruction (DPI).

District Administrator Lisa Wallin-Kapinus explained that the report card is based entirely on student performance on standardized testing. Scores are averaged on a rolling threeyear basis, and the scores are weighted in an attempt to measure the progress of students who face the highest challenges in the classroom.

“This is just one snapshot at one point in time,” Wallin-Kapinus said “It’s only one measure that we use to check our students’ performance.”

The elementary and high schools, as well as the district overall, received scores in the category of “meets expectations.” The middle school achieved an “exceeds expectations.”

Elementary principal Danelle Schmid expressed frustration with how the scores are calculated.

“To be honest with you, I’m extremely disappointed in how this was scored and how this was weighted,” she told the board. If you look at our performance levels by year, you can see the significant growth that our school is making.”

A growing number of students at the school, she explained, are achieving higher scores on their standardized tests. Lower-achieving students, however, are not improving at the same rate—resulting in overall lower scores than would otherwise be the case.

Middle and high school Principal Pete Schroeder echoed these concerns and focused on lower math scores of an area of concern.

“English language arts is getting there, and I think that’s been a focus of this district for the last few years—on reading curriculum and things like that,” he said.

The school has recently rolled out a new math curriculum that emphasizes more critical thinking skills. Schroeder, whose specialty is math, hopes this change will improve scores. “With our new curriculums in mathematics we’ll be heading the right direction there,” he said.

Design phase complete

Plans for the new school addition are out to bid, according to contractors seeing the project through completion.

Representatives of the architects and construction firms hired to build the addition, funded by last year’s referendum vote, showed their progress thus far, which takes the project through completion of the design phase.

Molly Ryan of Plunkett Raysich Architects, LLP told the board that the completed design is on track for the footprint and budget that was determined by the district voters.

That includes the new baseball field, which will be a shared facility with the City of Boscobel parks department, located at Kronshage Park.

“We’ve been working hard as a group to make sure that we can accommodate the size of the baseball field, along with the fencing, lighting and the reconfiguration of the infield, as well as, possibly for dugouts and other sort of ancillary things,” Ryan said.

The reconfiguration of that field—including fencing, lighting, dugouts, and other needs—was not included in the original budget funded by the referendum, according to Ryan, who said the focus has been on building a plan that can be funded within the overall project budget.

“At this point, I feel like I can comfortably say that we are hoping to incorporate more of the baseball and softball bits as bids come in to try to hopefully provide what the baseball and softball group is asking for.”

Bids will be awarded in early February. Construction begins at the close of the school year.