As the budget year comes to an end June 30, River Falls School Board Treasurer Mike Miller said the board needs to make adjustments as they receive finalized numbers of state support. Some financial aid is also received after July 1, so finances need to be moved around to ensure they can cover their bases for this year’s budget. The board approved the adjustments during the June 16 meeting.

“It doesn’t appear as though there’s going to be a lot of movement on the special education return rate,” Superintendent David Bell said.

The issue of special education cost reimbursement has been a notable one for schools and the state legislature in recent years. Miller said the ask was for 60% reimbursement, and they are at 30.6%.

“For every dollar we don’t get in aid for special ed, it comes out of our general fund, so that’s money we then cannot spend on other educational programs for our students,” Miller said. “The way they fund it is difficult for districts because they’re asking us or telling us we have to do different things with our special ed population, but they’re not funding us to help support those.”

Board Vice President Alan Tuchtenhagen said while this has gone through the Joint Finance Committee, it is not completely a “done deal.” He encouraged people to contact their local legislators.

“There will be an increase in state aid for education if this goes through, but because of that, over 70% of the aid will simply be property tax increases,” Tuchtenhagen said. “Income tax cuts simply mean property tax increases at the local level.”

Goals

The board frequently opens meetings with presentations about Wildly Important Goals (WIGs) from a school around the district. At this meeting, the board heard four different WIG presentations.

The Renaissance Charter Academy entered the 2024-25 school year with a goal of 100% of students reading a book of their choice each quarter, monitored by library use data. After putting a focus on carving out time for students to read and specifically encouraging it, the academy saw increases in proficiency in nearly every reading category. Renaissance hired a dedicated English teacher to work with 9-12th graders on English literature that can adjust to the needs of the students based on the data taken.

The second goal was for less than 20 technology violations per term across the student body. After 32 violations in term one, they worked the number down to 11, 5 and 12 in the final three terms. The final goal was to increase the student body size by 10%. That goal was met, increasing from 49 to 56 students (14.6% increase) from term one to four.

Meyer Middle School’s goal was for 90% of students to be 80% proficient on standards measured by May 2027. While the goal has not been met yet, they mentioned the goal was set high because there was no baseline data. At the end of the 2024-25 year exam, 70% of students scored proficient on 71% of standards.

The high school’s goal was for all students to achieve and sustain mastery in reading comprehension or show 10% growth each year. Average ACT scores were up by 2.5 for the Class of 2026 according to the school’s presentation. About 84% of students scored proficient on WIG assessments. There is a worry about the freshman class’s current ACT Prep reading scores, needing to increase them before they eventually get to the real ACT exam. They also have concern about next year’s junior class, currently predicted to score below a 20 on the ACT reading if they do not grow over the coming months. They have put a focus on the growth leading up to the exam to meet the standards.

The final presentation was from the special education department, which had a WIG of 80% of students showing above average growth on reading screeners from fall to spring. The district did not meet the goal, ranging from a high growth percentage of 25.7% to some grade levels sitting in the mid-40s. The district did sit above average at the first through third grade, middle school and high school levels, with fourth and fifth grade data not currently available.

Other business

• Approved six policy revision second readings including the third to fourth grade promotion and retention policy and the library media center materials policy.
• Approved changes to the coaches handbook as well as the salary schedule for the co-curricular salary schedule. The largest handbook change was adding wording that a program can use a coach bus when traveling to a location 150 miles away.
• Approved a school bus detailer job description, employee handbook updates and substitute teacher pay incentives.

Approved support staff salaries and administrator contracts.