Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Lee Pulaski Kristen Phillippi, who teaches second and third grades at Gresham Community School, asks her students to identify the prefix during a lesson Thursday. The school has been recognized as a Wisconsin Title I School of Recognition.
Leader Photo by Lee Pulaski Gresham Community School fourth-grade students, from left, Chad Meyer, Porter Hoffman and Chase Kaquatosh look over math problems on their laptop computers during class Thursday. The school has been recognized as a Wisconsin Title I School of Recognition.
Ask the principal at either of the two Shawano County schools recognized as a Wisconsin Title I School of Recognition about their key to success and the answer is the same: dedicated staff and students eager to learn.
Tigerton Elementary School has received the School of Recognition honor for seven consecutive years. Gresham Community School has been recognized at the elementary level for five of the last six years.
Both schools this year were among the state’s 117 Beating the Odds schools, meaning they are in the top 25 percent of high-poverty schools in the state and have above-average student achievement.
The schools will be honored March 14 at a ceremony at the state Capitol.
“We’re very proud of what our teachers are doing,” said David Battenberg, principal at Tigerton Elementary. “We think it’s an excellent place to send your children.”
Battenberg credited his staff for the state recognition.
“They’re really good now at identifying areas that we need to improve on and coming up with solutions year after year,” Battenberg said. “Once we improve the reading, maybe we look at the math scores and get a new math series. Now we see we need to work on writing. They believe in continuous improvement.”
At Gresham, the teachers see the importance of maintaining the high standards set by the School of Recognition program, according to Keary Mattson, the school’s principal and superintendent.
“They get a good effort out of their kids,” Mattson said. “A lot of how successful we’ve been is the attitude when we take the test. The students work really hard.”
Gresham has also been a School of Recognition at the high school level for five straight years before not making the cut this year. Mattson said the upper-level students are still transitioning to computerized testing.
“If you were to throw that out, the junior and senior high school did really well,” Mattson said. “It was a learning curve for everybody.”
Battenberg and Mattson also said low teacher turnover has helped the schools excel.
“We’ve been very blessed here in Gresham. There hasn’t been a lot of turnover in the nine years we’ve been here (as a separate school district),” Mattson said. “I think that helps, too.”
“They persevere, because they know that the education they’re providing to the kids in Tigerton is very important and very worthwhile,” Battenberg said. “They find the ways to change things.”
Both schools manage to maintain education levels despite dwindling state education funds.
“You have to try to figure out how to do the same (programs) with maybe less people,” Battenberg said.
Tigerton passed a referendum in November to override its budget cap for the next five years, and Gresham is holding a referendum in April for a new school.