Nobody expected the school board to joke about scheduling a pickup game of basketball, but after Seniors Autumn Earney and Mason Anderson were officially recognized by the Ellsworth Community School Board at Monday’s meeting, their next meeting may have to be held in the gym.

High School Principal Mark Stoesz shared Anderson’s accomplishments with the board before the standout senior thanked the group for all of their hard work to give all of the Ellsworth athletes a chance at competing. Stoesz informed the group that the four-year letter winner finished second all-time in points scored, roughly 30 shy points of breaking the record.

Girls’ basketball coach Jason Janke brought Earney to the floor to share the story of her career.

Janke said that on top of breaking the Panther scoring record, Earney made it cool to for girls in Ellsworth to play basketball again.

The recognition portion of the meeting was hardly over.

High school AP History teacher Anne Pechacek was recently named a Kohl Fellowship recipient, making her a finalist for the Wisconsin Teacher of the Year award.

Pechacek is the eighth Ellsworth teacher to receive the honor.

Superintendent Barry Cain informed the meeting that they won’t have an empty chair at the meeting forever, as the new member should be in attendance next month at the April 12th meeting.

Cain also shared that they have received four resignations already. The district plans to be proactive in the hiring process, since there are a higher-than-average amount of job openings springing up around the state.

Vaccinating the staff

Pierce County Public Health has been working with all six school districts in Pierce County to schedule a day to inoculate all the staff members that are willing.

In an informal poll in late January, at about 72% of Ellsworth School District staff said they would choose to receive the vaccine.

Cain expects that number to rise as official counts are taken.

The staff’s first vaccination day is scheduled tentatively for mid-March and would receive the second dose early April.

Due to a percentage of staff that may deal with adverse reactions to the vaccine, the board voted to schedule a working day with no students on April 5th. They also scheduled two more such days, April 26th and May 10th.