By TRICIA HILL
After three years of service, the Riverdale School Board accepted the resignation of High School Principal Dan Kiel at the Board’s meeting on Monday night.
Kiel has accepted a job offer in Elkhorn as an Associate Principal and District Director of extra curricular activities. Kiel accepted the job offer to Elkhorn in southeast Wisconsin as it was closer to his wife and family.
Leaving Riverdale was not an easy decision for Kiel, as he is going to miss everything about the Riverdale School District.
“The students are extremely nice and I was able to work with a nice group of people,” said Kiel.
Kiel will be starting his new position in Elkhorn on Friday.
New Principal
Jonathan Schmidt started his duties as high school principal of the Riverdale School District on Tuesday, with Kiel giving him a helping hand.
Schmidt was a current sixth grade Math/Science teacher for Riverdale, as well as the Dean of Students.
Schmidt graduated from the UW-La Crosse in 1993 with a bachelors degree in Park and Recreation Management. In 2001 Schmidt enrolled in the Master’s of Education Program at the UW-La Crosse and graduated in the summer of 2004.
After Schmidt was married and had two children, he decided to go back to school to receive his Masters degree in education and began his teaching career at Riverdale in the fall of 2004.
Elementary Class Size
The Riverdale Elementary School is considered a SAGE school. This means that the district receives funding through the SAGE program.
In order for this to happen, the 5K through third grade class sizes must be one teacher to 18 students, or two teachers to 30 students, otherwise they can do team teaching classrooms as they did last year with the Kindergarten class.
With Riverdale being in the SAGE program, the board may have to consider hiring a new teacher as there has been some growing in the class sizes, especially in first and third grades. The first grade class has 53 students and third grade has 54. This will put the first grade at one student below the limit.
“These numbers will change throughout the next couple of weeks,” said Principal Shari Hougan.
Currently, the district has advertised for an elementary SAGE teacher, so in the event the numbers increase they are prepared should they need to hire a new teacher.
PBIS
The Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports program (PBIS), is the behavioral intervention program started for the 2012-13 school year, and has now finally formed a committee for this year. It will be headed by Jon Schmidt and Jen Tarrell, to continue to add PBIS ideas to the REMS.
The committee recently visited with other districts and formed ideas specific to Riverdale. The hope is that the PBIS programs will help students and staff approach behavioral interventions in both a positive and unified way.
Starting when the students return in September, the staff will introduce the “Riverdale Way,” during the first few weeks of school.
This will be a big topic, not just at the beginning of school but also at the upcoming board meetings, as the program will be introduced more in depth soon at a school board meeting.
Principal Hougan along with other Riverdale District members, wanted to make sure to thank the St. Vincent de Paul in Muscoda, for donating over $200 of school supplies to the Riverdale School District. They would also like to thank the Grant County Thrift Shop for their generous donations of $100 for school supplies.
“We appreciate this greatly and out students and families do as well,” said Hougan.
