Rocket Roundup

All staff are invited and encouraged to attend the annual Employee of the Year/Educational Foundation of Neenah (EFN) awards event to celebrate their colleagues who are recipients for the past year. The event will be held on Monday, Oct. 7 at 3:45 p.m. at Bridgewood Conference Center. The event will include appetizers and a cash bar with the awards program beginning at 4:15 p.m.

This year's Employees of the Year include:

Elementary Teacher of the Year - Jessica Martine, Spring Road Elementary
Middle School Teacher of the Year - Betsy Jacobson-Holtz, Neenah Middle School
High School Teacher of the Year - Jen Hager, Neenah High School

Special Services Teacher of the Year - Jeff LaPlant, Neenah Middle School

Operations/Maintenance Employee of the Year - TJ Severson, District Groundskeeper
Administrator of the Year - Mike Elkin, Neenah High School
Administrative Asst./Technician/Exempt Employee of the Year - Andy Dubey, Neenah High School
Educational Assistant of the Year - Kelsey Keller, Coolidge Elementary
Team of the Year - Tullar Elementary School Staff

The EFN Award recipients are:

Alliance Charter School - Erica Cates and Stephanie Gorski

Clayton Elementary - Beverly Stearns

Coolidge Elementary - Ashleigh Jones

Hoover Elementary - Heather Hocks

Horace Mann Elementary - Stefanie Monroe

Lakeview Elementary - Jill Bowden

Spring Road Elementary - Lauren Lange

Taft Elementary - Hope Wreath

Tullar Elementary - Jennifer Kangas

Washington School of Early Learning - Renee Poeschl

Neenah Middle School - Rina Hill and Jennifer Kuenster

Neenah High School - Lisa Reimer

A proposed 2025 health insurance plan, seclusion and restraint data from the previous school year and a District Administrator evaluation process were reviewed by the Neenah Joint School District Board of Education at its October 1 meeting. Click here for the full recap

Flu shots will be offered at sites throughout the District on a variety of dates over the next several weeks. Individuals on District insurance may receive the shots free of charge with proof of insurance. Those not on District insurance can request their insurance carrier be billed when scheduling. Signup links are currently in the document attached to the clinic dates. Please note, the links to sign up don't go live until three weeks before the clinic date, so there is a note attached when registration for each event opens.

A complete schedule of flu shot clinics with sign up links and other details is available by clicking here.

By Prevea Nurse Practitioner Sarah Bleier, APNP, FNP-C

We’ve talked about influenza (respiratory flu) in the past few weeks, so let’s talk about flu shots. A flu shot is the most effective way to prevent infection with influenza, as well as its potential complications. Receiving a flu shot allows the body to develop antibodies against respiratory flu by about 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine. Then if the person is exposed to the flu, they are less likely to become sick. If you’ve had a flu shot for the year and you do get the flu, symptoms are likely to be milder in nature and you are at decreased risk for complications. Click here to read more

The annual Homecoming parade is set for Friday, Oct. 4 at 5 p.m. in downtown Neenah. The parade will follow the same route as last year (see map below), beginning on Clybourn St. on Doty Island and heading south on Commercial St. before turning west on Wisconsin Ave. and ending at Doty Ave. The parade is followed by the football game at 7 p.m. at the high school when the Rockets host the state's top-ranked team, Kimberly.

Please adhere to the following guidelines when using the district laminator:

• You must sign up to use the laminator within Google Calendar. No exceptions!
• Within your calendar, select Create - Event
• Enter your name for the title
• Enter the time you want to use the laminator
• Select AD-Laminator for the room
• Laminating hours are Monday-Friday 8:00am-4:30pm.
• Check in with the front desk.
• It is required that you fill out the log book for tracking purposes.
• If you run into issues with the laminator contact the front desk. Under no circumstances should you try to fix the problem or replace the laminating film.
• Improper use of the laminator could result in the loss of laminating privileges.

We would like to let you know about some upcoming changes to Google Meet meeting access default settings. Starting October 7, these Google Meet Host Control default settings will change. Please note, you will still be able to go in and adjust the settings as needed. Starting on October 7 all meetings by default will be set to Host must join before anyone else. This means that a host or co-host must start a meeting before others can join.

Additionally, all meetings will be set to Restricted rather than Trusted for Meeting access type. This means that only individuals added directly through a Google Calendar invite be able to automatically join after the host starts the meeting. All others will be directed to the waiting room and the host will let them in.

In addition, attendance tracking and meeting recordings will be off by default. If you would like to get a meeting record, you will go into Host Controls and turn on Attendance tracking for the meeting. It can be found below the meeting access type in the Host Control Settings.

October 2 is National Custodian Day! We thank our school custodians and maintenance staff for all they do year-round for our students, staff and facilities. Please take a moment today to thank one of our custodians for all they do!

NJSD staff are reminded to complete the mandatory SafeSchools training as soon as possible. Every staff member should be receiving occasional reminders from SafeSchools with links to the trainings that need to be completed. Staff members with questions or experiencing issues should contact Angela Zanto in the facilities office.

The Department of Leadership, Literacy and Social Foundations at UW Oshkosh is interested in offering a new graduate literacy cohort based in the Oshkosh Area and open to PK-12 educators in the region, with an anticipated start for Spring 2025. Catering to teachers, we work to ensure our program addresses the current landscape of literacy, and the needs of teachers of literacy at a PK-12th grade level.

Our program emphasizes learning in conversation with one another, so with each cohort we work to bring together a variety of school districts and range in grade level and teaching area expertise to broaden the scope of discussion. Our courses are hybrid, which means they meet approximately 50% of the time in face-to-face class sessions and the rest of the work is done online or in projects. At an approximate cost of $475 per credit unit, we work to be competitive with other programs across the state. This fall we will be offering informational sessions on our program, but for immediate information, please see the attached flier, or visit our program webpage.

(NJSD staff members admitted free to all regular season events by showing staff ID)

Thursday, October 3

Girls Tennis - FVA Meet, 8:30 a.m. (at Kimberly, Kaukauna and Appleton East)

Friday, October 4
Homecoming Parade, 5 p.m. (Downtown Neenah)
Football - Home vs. Kimberly, 7 p.m. (NHS Rocket Stadium - televised on WACY Ch. 32)

Saturday, October 5

Girls Volleyball - Home, Neenah Invite, 9 a.m. (NHS Competition Gym)

Boys Soccer - Home vs. Madison Memorial, 10 a.m. (NHS Soccer Field)

Tuesday, October 8
Girls Tennis - WIAA Subsectional, 9 a.m. (at Manitowoc)
Girls Golf - WIAA Sectional, 9 a.m. (at Thornberry Creek G.C., Oneida)
Girls Swimming and Diving - Home vs. Appleton North, 5:30 p.m. (NMS Pool)

Girls Volleyball - Home vs. Appleton West, 7 p.m. (NHS Competition Gym)
Boys Soccer - Home vs. Appleton West, 7 p.m. (NHS Soccer Field)