TOWN OF BELOIT
In about three weeks, teachers will get their first official walk-through of Garden Prairie Intermediate School, the Beloit Turner School Districtâs newest school building.
âIâm feeling more excited every time I come here,â Superintendent Dennis McCarthy said. âItâs a lot more fun showing other people. This is amazing.â
The new building includes several collaboration areas where small groups of students or entire classes can rotate outside their usual classroom spaces during the day. McCarthy said the additional gathering areas will promote movement and offer flexibility.
âIt kind of becomes their community, their space,â he said.
Republican state Sen. Howard Marklein, cochair of the Legislatureâs Joint Finance Committee, had a question for Carolyn Stanford Taylor, state superintendent of public instruction: Are the pandemic-related needs of Milwaukee Public Schools five times greater than the COVID-19 costs of the Lancaster School District in Markleinâs southwest Wisconsin district?
Marklein asked because a Legislative Fiscal Bureau report said federal pandemic aid packages will give MPS an average of $11,242 per student while giving the Lancaster district aid averaging $2,213 per student.
Appearing on JFCâs first day of hearings on Gov. Tony Evers 2021-23 budget requestâa budget Republicans who control the Legislature plan to largely ignoreâStanford Taylor said MPS has 160 outdated school buildings that make them especially hard to safely retrofit for students, teachers, administrators and support staff.
For most of us the end of 2020 canât come quick enough. Goodbye. Good riddance.
It has been a year of challenges, in a sense, a lost year. Families, individuals, businesses largely have been hanging on, waiting for the pandemic to abate and better times to return. For some, it has been catastrophic. There have been empty chairs around too many dinner tables during the holidays.
So as the calendar turns and 2021 arrives, with vaccines beginning to go into arms, all thoughts turn to better times ahead. It will come slowly, not overnight, and will require more diligence and, yes, sacrifice. But with science and public health practices there is hope in the new year.