Roessler elected as new G-E-T board president

Several months after missing out on the position in a random tiebreaking draw, Todd Roessler was elected president of the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau school board at their most recent meeting.

Prior to last Monday’s regular monthly meeting, the board held its reorganization where winners from this year’s spring elections were sworn in and new officers were elected.

Two new members were sworn in on Monday night: Sara Olson as the Village of Trempealeau representative (succeeding the retiring Larry Moore) and Amy Schaefer as the at-large representative. Schaefer will serve out the final year of Pat Malone’s three-year term after the latter resigned when she moved out of the district last fall.

Additionally, two incumbent board members were sworn in for new terms: Deb Lakey as the Town of Caledonia representative and Adam Leavitt as the Town of Gale representative.

When Malone resigned late last year, it created a vacancy for the board president position. After several rounds of voting among the eight remaining members left a 4-4 tie between Leavitt and Roessler, the board elected to break the tie with a random drawing of one of their names and Leavitt was selected in that process.

During Monday’s reorganization, Leavitt and Roessler were again nominated for the board president position and Roessler won in a 5-4 secret ballot vote. Leavitt and Mark Kopp were nominated for vice president, with Leavitt winning in a 9-0 vote. Sara Olson and incumbent Cindy George were nominated for board clerk, which Olson won in a 5-4 vote.

Lakey was re-elected board treasurer in a voice vote after she was the only nominee proposed.

Facility assessment 

presentation

The G-E-T school board received a facility assessment presentation in an early step in the process of deciding whether or not the district will eventually go to referendum for capital improvement projects.

Client executive Ellie Gilliam and senior development engineer Brian Winterle with Nexus Solutions, a program management firm that works with K-12 school districts to find facility solutions, presented their findings to the board at Monday’s meeting, concluding a process that began last August in which they conducted a staff survey, a facility assessment and an educational adequacy assessment.

The staff survey found high marks for the buildings being welcoming and providing “safe and secure environments” and indicated room for improvement in areas such as spaces that could be “reconfigured for group sizes” and “appropriate special education spaces” among others.

Assessments on the district’s schools — which range in age from Trempealeau Elementary (constructed in 1932) to G-E-T middle school (constructed in 2010) — resulted in a detailed and comprehensive list of recommendations that covered everything from emergency generator replacements and electrical systems upgrades to exterior door upgrades and changing door knobs to ADA compliant door handles.

The total estimated price tag for all the building needs identified in the facility assessment at all five schools came to $77,673,300. However, Gilliam and G-E-T Superintendent Michele Butler emphasized that a capital improvement project would involve the district picking and choosing from that comprehensive list rather than doing every single recommendation.

“Keep in my mind, I’ve never had a district that said ‘hey, let’s do it all,’” Gilliam said. “You’ve got to prioritize and come up with the right project for your community and for your district.”

The next step in the process is to put together a community taskforce to go over the options and help put together a community survey. Butler said that she’d be able to find teachers, administrators and parents for the taskforce, but asked board members to help recruit others in the community such as business leaders, retirees and people who don’t have kids in school to provide broader perspectives.

“I want to get the community taskforce together, pronto,” Butler said. “Your school becomes the heart of your community. We want to make sure that it’s representing what our people want.

“We want to get folks that have all different views about tax dollars and how you use them when we bring this group together.”

Other business

In the aftermath of this month’s elections, Lakey brought up her concern to the board that some constituents might be confused or mistaken on how the district’s board elections work.

Lakey said she’s had several people come up to her to talk about the elections who were under the mistaken belief that you can only vote in elections for representatives in the municipality where you reside. 

In reality, those who live within the district can vote in any school board race. For example, someone living in the Town of Trempealeau could vote in the race for the Village of Ettrick representative.

This month’s list of personnel approvals included three retirements that will go into effect in June at the end of the 2024-25 school year: Deb Harter as an administrative assistant at Trempealeau Elementary, Nancy Wagner as an AGR interventionist at Galesville Elementary and Wayne Gholson as a special education teacher at the high school.