Welcome! It’s great to be celebrating the new school year. We have many new teachers, supports staff, and administrators joining our Mineral Point School’s family and we want to especially welcome these new colleagues:
- Kipalee Bakken Middle/High School Business Education
- Bridget Beinborn Kindergarten Teacher
- Brad Brogley Elementary Principal/District Curriculum
- Kevin Cooley Middle School Band and Middle/High School Choir
- Heather Dampf Elementary Administrative Assistant
- Dixie Dempsey Director of Pupil Services/School Psychologist
- Kari Kabat Elementary Instructional Technology and Information Specialist
- Angie Schubert District Administrative Assistant
- Erin Vale Speech and Language Teacher
I am eager to return to our school year and am ready for kids. This community is well aware that Mineral Point Schools collectively comprise a quality school district. In today’s political climate, a school district with a good reputation is hard to find, and yet Mineral Point Schools enjoys a reputation of leading Southwestern WI as being a premier school district. For that I thank our staff for their quality work with students, parents for their support, and our community members that partner with schools to create this well-deserved reputation.
The challenges we face in Mineral Point Schools has more to do with state funding than student achievement. Please know that the Board of Education is working very hard to have quality schools while facing the fiscal challenges ahead. Despite recent challenges the District has forged ahead with a strategic plan that has four focus areas: academic achievement, fiscal responsibility, technology, and community engagement.
New this year the District moved food service to a third party provider named Taher. Taher will assist the district with remaining fiscally responsible while offering enhanced menu options. Taher uses current staff along with locally hired employees to deliver food service to our students with a focus on wellness and farm to school offerings. I am excited to learn more about student’s responses to the new school menus.
The District purchased 120 Chromebooks (laptops) for district-wide use by students to enhance student’s engagement in the classroom and bolster 21st century learning skills. Communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking (the 4 C’s) are an instrumental part of today’s curriculum. Our teachers are being trained on infusing technology into today’s classroom as part of our curriculum. Students will embed technology in the classroom to research, collaborate, and report out to peers evidence of learning both the content aligned to state standards as well as how to embrace the use of technology.
In short, we are ready! The doors will open with our buildings cleaned with appreciation to our custodial staff and all staff will be ready for another exciting year of educating our youth at Mineral Point Schools.