The Hatchet Hub - Winter 24

At the November meeting, the School District of Tomahawk School Board approved a four-year, non-recurring operational referendum that will appear on the ballot for voters on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.

If approved, this referendum would allow the district to continue to raise its revenue limit by $3.25 million annually through the 2028-29 school year. This funding will help us maintain our current programming levels and support strategic investments that enhance learning and student opportunities through 2029.

This referendum replaces the measure voters approved in 2022, which is set to expire soon. Therefore, the district’s portion of the property tax rate is not expected to increase. We anticipate a levy rate of $5.59 per $1,000 of estimated fair market value, assuming the February 2025 referendum passes. Please note that levy rates may vary across townships due to various factors, but the overall average levy rate will be $5.59 per $1,000 of property value.

As you may know, our district is facing significant financial challenges. Many of these challenges stem from the state’s funding system and the rising costs due to inflation. State aid to public schools has not kept up with inflation, and if funding had kept pace with inflation since 2009, our district would be receiving approximately $3,300 more per student for the 2024-25 school year. This has led many districts across the state to seek additional support through operational referendum questions.

Additionally, because state aid is tied to property values, the high percentage of lake properties in our district results in very little state aid. While the average Wisconsin district receives $8,060 per student in state aid, the School District of Tomahawk only receives about $3,300 per student. Our district also does not qualify for poverty or sparsity aid.

We are committed to keeping our community well-informed and addressing any questions before Election Day. In the coming weeks, we will launch a webpage with detailed information about the referendum, along with answers to frequently asked questions.

We encourage you to stay engaged throughout this process. I will continue to provide updates at staff meetings each month, but if you have any questions in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thank you for all that you do for our students!

Purchasing Reminder:

As we approach the upcoming school breaks and the end of the semester, I wanted to remind you to plan ahead for any items or supplies you may need either before the break or when we return.

• Textbooks for the new semester
• Check requests for upcoming field trips
• Student chairs and desks
• Payment requests for dances and parties

Thanks for your help in making sure everything is in place before the breaks!

Skyward:

We are excited to transition from Skyward 2.0 Employee Access (our current platform) to Skyward Qmlativ in February 2025! Qmlativ is a modernized platform designed to improve the functionality and accessibility of our Employee Access platform. Skyward 2.0 Employee Access will be down for about a week while the data is migrated. True Time and Time Off will not be available during this time. We will temporarily return to paper time cards while the system is down. For time off requests, please email your supervisor and Jeffrey. Once we are live, Jeffrey will add your time off requests to the system for the period of time that we are down. Red Rover will be accessible for you to request a sub. When we get closer to February, more details about the timeline will be shared.

Want to get a sneak peek at some training materials? Click here to watch some Skyward-produced videos on YouTube Qmlative Employee.

Paid Holidays:

As a reminder, School Term hourly employees working full-time or part-time are eligible for the following holidays for the 2024-2025 school year:

• September 2, 2024 (Labor Day)

• November 28, 2024 (Thanksgiving Day)

• December 24, 2024 (Christmas Eve)

• December 25, 2024 (Christmas Day)

• January 1, 2025 (New Year's Day)

• May 26, 2025 (Memorial Day)

To be eligible for holiday pay, an employee must work the scheduled workday preceding and following the holiday unless the employee is on an excused absence with pay (personal leave/sick leave) and has been approved by the District Superintendent and/or his designee.

These dates are already built into your Time Card. You can verify this in Employee Access by clicking True Time - My History - Upcoming Scheduled Tracked Time. Please contact Jeffrey if the total hours listed differ from your regularly scheduled day.

Revised Personal Leave Policy:

As Wendell shared in his July board meeting update, after your third consecutive year in the district, you can convert up to 3 days of sick leave each year to “Supervisor-Approved Personal Leave.” These days should be used after your personal leave days have already been used. You must communicate with your supervisor before entering the request in Skyward.

Hello Hatchets!

It’s been a mild “fall”, but we could be just weeks away from slippery conditions. Please take a minute to read and share the information and attachment below.

This time of year, freezing rain is perhaps the most sneaky and most threatening. In this case, a raindrop falls through above-freezing air, until it lands at ground level still as a liquid raindrop. The problem here is that there is a very thin layer of freezing air right at the surface, which causes surfaces (walkways, roadways, tree branches, power lines, etc.) to form ice from the liquid rain that is falling. As each drop of water lands, it freezes, and the ice grows thicker (or “accretes”) on the surfaces. It doesn’t take that much accretion on untreated surfaces before your surface turns into an ice skating rink. A quarter-inch or more of ice accretion starts bringing down tree branches and power lines.

To make things worse, if you are located in the zone for “mixed precipitation” (any combination of snow, sleet, graupel, or freezing rain), you don’t know what you will end up with, which makes it harder to prepare appropriately.

See the photo below for a quick reminder on how to walk like a penguin!

Be safe, slow down when walking outside and inside.

Let’s all Walk like a penguin!

Arland Wingate

Director Buildings, Grounds & Safety

Did you know that you do not need a username and password for Skyward to log into Skyward? If you are logged into your school myhatchets.org email account and go to the Skyward login page; just click on the link titled “Single Sign On Staff AzureAD”. You will be instantly logged into Skyward. This works for both the employee and student Skyward.