RC Superintendent Tidbits
By: Mark Otten
It is hard to believe but graduation is right around the corner. Rock County High School seniors
will be graduating on Saturday, May 8 with the ceremony taking place at 2:00. As of right now,
we will not be restricting the number of people attending graduation and masks will be
recommended, not required. We will be reserving some seating for families of graduates and
the public will be able to fill in the remaining seats. I am so thankful that we are able to plan for
graduation in person in order to celebrate this accomplishment of our 2021 seniors with them.
Rock County Public Schools has had funding available through COVID emergency relief funding.
Most of the funding that has been available has been used to backfill the general fund to pay
for expenses we would have incurred regardless of COVID. This has helped our general fund
balance for the year as we have been able to put around $34,000 back in the general fund. As
we qualify for more funding, we will be looking for ways to do more of the same while also
funding areas where we have needs moving forward. One of these areas will be technology in
the high school. Our current devices we have in the high school are becoming obsolete so we
are going to be needing to replace them. We have been able to apply for GEERS money to start
this process and we will be able to use ESSER II money to pay off the balance for laptops for the
high school students moving forward. The balance of the ESSER II money will be able to pay for
some math interventions we are providing to kids in the grade school as well as purchasing a
few cleaners which are designed to clean through misting instead of having to wipe everything.
These cleaners will be used for years to come as they will cut down cleaning times in
classrooms for our custodians. The Rock County Public Schools Board of Education is working
hard to spend these dollars responsibly knowing they are one-time dollars that we will not be
able to qualify for in future years.