The Fennimore School Board unanimously approved the school district’s contract with CESA No. 3 for the 2012-13 school year during a meeting Tuesday, March 27.
“We have the exact same services as we’ve had in the past, we are not asking to increase any services,” District Administrator Jamie Nutter said. “Two years ago the CESA bill dropped three percent, last year it stayed equal and this year it looks like all the services we have will be an increase of $3,487.”
The cost for CESA No. 3 services was $48,629 during the 2011-12 school year and will increase to $52,116 for the 2012-13 school year.
“That does represent a seven percent increase over last year, but it’s not a fee that is just tacked on at the end,” Nutter said. “There are several line items and several services we receive. It’s $100 in one area and $50 in another and so on, and with all the line items it adds up.
“If you average that over the last three years it is still pretty reasonable for what we’ve done…I don’t think that it is unreasonable based their commitment to keep costs down the last three years.”
TDS donation
The board also accepted a donation of six new netbooks from TDS Telecom.
“Through our negotiation process with TDS for our Internet, we talked about how budgets are tight and some of the things we are facing financially for them when they are considering our prices,” Nutter said. “And as you are aware we had $17,000 damage in the burglary, so that was part of that whole process when we were talking about cost.”
Fennimore High School was burglarized during the early morning hours on Friday, Dec. 9.
Upon breaking into the building, the burglars broke into the school’s technology education room and stole a cordless drill, which they used to gain access to additional rooms. They used bolt cutters to break into lockers and steal bookbags. They took laptops, computer hard drives, cash from the office safe, student medication, electronic scales, snacks from the kitchen, and more. They also used the drill to vandalize the Golden Eagle on the middle of the gym floor.
 “TDS felt like based on our situation we were a great candidate for a donation,” Nutter said. “The netbooks are brand new and we could sure use them in our science lab in the high school.”
In other action the board:
• approved several volunteer coaches for the 2012 spring sports season.
Chad Freymiller (softball), Nate Myhre (golf), Joel Engelhart and Josh Kreul (baseball), and Greg Jentz, Jon Buslaff, Kevin Everson, Matt Rutkowski, Shea Bierman, Leslie Larson and Lynsie Eckert (track and field) were all approved.
“This is a practice that we started a few years ago. It helps us understand who is working with our young people in an official capacity,” Nutter said. “Even though they are not getting paid they have to abide by the WIAA rules and have the training required within two years to be a volunteer coach.
“Part of that is having you as a board approve those coaches. We are very fortunate we have high-quality people who want to give their time to help out young student-athletes.”
• approved the hiring of a junior varsity golf coach and a junior varsity baseball coach.
Larry Albrecht will serve as junior varsity golf coach. He has been junior varsity golf coach the last five seasons.
Brad Van Epps will serve as junior varsity baseball coach. He was the junior varsity baseball coach in 2011.