School continues to adapt to virtual world

NEW KNOXVILLE — The start of the school year continues to go well for New Knoxville School as 4-12 Principal Jenny Fledderjohann was quick to thank her staff for all their hard work preparing for the school year. She said their participation in profession development days leading during the week prior to the start of classes.

“We hit them with a lot of things and we got our aides involved to get their perspective on a lot of things,” she said. “We did breakout sessions on a lot of remote learning topics and the teacher led

those so it was good to see them really taking ownership of how this year was going to go. It shows a lot of leadership from our teaching staff to step up and do that.”

Fledderjohann also thanked the students for adapting to the new rules and lessons as well as being open to doing more events that are normally in-person sessions as virtual events. She explained that October is typically the school’s career and college readiness month and that will continue but things will look a little different with many things moving to a virtual format.

“On Friday, our freshmen will do a Honda virtual field trip and we’ll be having a virtual financial aid night,” she said. “We’re still doing these things, they just look different.”

As Fledderjohann transitioned into fundraisers student organizations are holding, board president Michelle Neuman mentioned that she would like to support some of the various fundraisers but lives on the outer edge of the district and was unaware they were happening.

“We don’t really have people that come all the way out to Burr Oak Road,” she said. “Is there a way we could help spread the word to people like me who may want to support the kids but either don’t have kids in the school anymore or those who live farther away from town and don’t get kids going door to door?”

Fledderjohann said she would look into options ranging from Facebook posts to adding a tab on the district’s website that people could periodically check to see if groups are doing fundraisers.

Currently and in the near future, the junior class is holding a laundry detergent fundraiser; FFA is holding a gifts to bring fundraiser and will start a fruit sale on Oct. 8 as well as a pork chop dinner on Oct. 25; spirit wear sales are ongoing and the school’s music boosters are holding a cookie dough sale.

In other business, the New Knoxville Board of Education:

• Heard an explanation of a quote for lighting upgrades from Energy Optimizers, USA.

The quote will be evaluated by the school’s building committee and further explained in the future. The plan is to change out the school’s current lighting system throughout the building to highefficiency LED lights to make the school more efficient.

• Heard a presentation from Diana Dyrness on the schools utility usage.

• Approved 21 items related to personnel.

• Approved nine items on the business consent agenda.

• Approved a change to the time for the Oct. 26 board of education meeting to allow for a scheduling conflict with the band concert.

The board meeting was changed to 6 p.m. on Oct. 26 in the cafeteria.