PRESCOTT – The Prescott School Board approved a March 2027 trip for Prescott High School choral students to Hawaii 4-1 at its June 17 meeting, with Vicki Rudolph voting against.
Choir students …
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PRESCOTT – The Prescott School Board approved a March 2027 trip for Prescott High School choral students to Hawaii 4-1 at its June 17 meeting, with Vicki Rudolph voting against.
Choir students will be given the opportunity to attend the Aloha Music Festival, where they will study Hawaiian and Polynesian music and culture.
“If you’ve been to a choir concert in the last two or three years, a large chunk of what our choral program is trying to do is look at music just outside of kind of the traditional European tradition of music or very Americanized traditions,” PHS Principal Josh Fiege said. “Often times there’s a blend of different language music or different cultural music.”
Fiege said the district realizes this is a significant investment for families and participation is voluntary. Fundraising opportunities will be made available with no direct cost to taxpayers, he added.
Rudolph said she would be more comfortable with the choir doing big trips like this every four years like the band does, considering it went to New York City two years ago.
“I understand the reason behind it, the Polynesian aspect of it, the music, learning something new, but again, I do feel that that just is, I don’t know, giving a little more special treatment to choir,” she said.
She worried about giving families more time to plan financially for such a big trip, especially if they had a student go on the international trip to Japan this summer or the band’s last trip to Disney.
“This could be a limiting factor and unintentionally isolate kids and singles them out if they can’t afford it,” Rudolph said.
Fiege said the New York City trip was an “off schedule” trip and the 2027 Hawaii trip would be the choir’s “four-year” scheduled trip. Band Director Allison Cornish wanted the band to go to Hawaii as well, but Fiege vetoed that because of the recent Disney trip, he said. He didn’t feel it was fair to ask families to spend thousands of dollars again so soon.
“I think a number of participants who are in our choir right now never had the opportunity to go on the New York trip,” Fiege said. “That was in conjunction with Community Ed. A lot of our students were in middle school at the time, so this would be a completely new group of students going.”
The music staff is trying to provide students with more than an urban lens of music opportunities, such as what they encountered in New York City or past Las Vegas trips, Fiege explained. The goal of the choral program is to travel every two years, he added, synchronizing it with the band or combining it to be a “music trip.”
Board member Brad Stubbe said he has no issue with the trip since it has no taxpayer burden, but he agrees with Rudolph.
“At some point we need to get a regular cadence where families can plan for these type of things because it is a significant amount,” Stubbe said.
Board Vice President Tonya Holub asked how the trip impacts classes and if it puts unintentional consequences on kids who can’t go.
Board Clerk Pat Block doesn’t want to stifle an opportunity and trusts that administration will find the right balance in the future but said he recognizes the grind it is for families to keep coming up with money.
Rudolph wanted to know if the band and choir directors had considered doing a joint trip in 2028 rather than this year’s trip. Fiege said no. Rudolph reiterated that even though she knows trips like this are recruiting and retaining tool for the music programs, she believes it’s too expensive and will limit students who might not be comfortable taking a long overseas trip.
“I just feel like this trip is going to cause some roadblocks for some of our families,” Rudolph said.
She proposed the band and choir planning trips together in the future, giving families more time to raise money. She pointed out that the trip also causes students who go to lose two days of in-school instruction time and forces the district to pay for substitute teachers, which is a cost to taxpayers.
“With a trip of this size, I would feel more comfortable seeing it spread out or down the road another year. And if they’re looking at bringing both band and choir together to do more of these more substantial trips, I would much rather see that first,” Rudolph said.
Meal prices
Food Services Manager Nicole Lenzner updated the board on proposed meal price increases before they approved them.
“If you child eats every lunch all year long, it’s $45 a year more,” Lenzner said. “Like we have in the past, we try to minimize that as much as we can, but unfortunately prices of other things aren’t coming down.”
Meal prices are increasing by 25 cents, which means breakfast prices will increase to $2.75, lunch at the elementary to $3.75 and lunch at the middle and high schools to $4.
Four hundred kids signed up for the summer meal program, which provides free meals to children age 18 and under every Thursday beginning June 18. Each child receives 1 gallon of milk and breakfasts and lunches for the week.
Lenzner said goals for 2026-27 are to increase participation in school meal programs, expand summer meal participation, strengthen community partnerships, continue sustainability initiatives, enhance menu offerings and student engagement, support staff development and training, explore opportunities for additional nutrition education.
Price increases are necessary because of:
Neola updates
The board heard a first reading of school board policy changes relating to Act 89, which updates the anti-grooming law by adding the definition of what actions are allowed by staff and volunteers (such as school-approved communication apps) and clarifies mandating to parents requirements. It also adds annual training requirements.
“We’ve been enforcing this as far back as our institutional knowledge knows,” Superintendent Jim Reif said.
The following policies will be updated:
Virtual Charter School
After much discussion and research, the board approved the next step for implementing the River’s Edge Virtual Academy: signing a formal contract. The district is looking to target homeschooled and virtual students living in the district this fall. They plan to start local before reaching out to students in surrounding communities.
“A great step forward for Prescott,” Board President Mike Matzek said.
Other business
“Suzi wears countless hats each and every day: supporting students with scheduling, grades, counseling appointments, transcripts, career planning and so much more,” the description read. “She is often the steady point of communication for students and families as they navigate important milestones throughout high school.”
Local and state education agencies are rated annually by the federal government on a series of indicators in special education that have to do with educational environment codes (how much time a student is spending in special ed vs. general ed), special ed student participation in standardized testing, timeliness of evaluations, etc.
“Last year we were on a corrective action plan because we had a disproportionate number of students with special needs that were opting out of state testing,” Strand said. “After last year, we were able to have 100% participation rate, so we came off that.”
Prescott’s overall score in meeting requirements went from 88% to 100% from 2024 to 2025.
Strand said she’s proud of the work they’ve done the past two years.
“This is an indication that our students are well cared for,” Strand said. “They are included in their general ed classrooms and they are participating at a high level with their same age peers.”
