Oconto Falls School Board hires Linssen as H.S. Principal

OCONTO FALLS – The Oconto Falls School Board has hired Marinette High School Principal Steve Linssen to replace Stuart Russ who is moving into the role of superintendent to replace retiring Superintendent Dean Hess.

“Steve Linssen has accepted the position, and the board moved forward with approval of his contract,” School Board President Clint Gardebrecht said on April 25. The transition is expected to occur at the end of the school year.

Linssen, who attended Oconto Falls schools and has served as an educator for over 20 years, was named Marinette High School Principal in August 2024, after a seven-year stint as associate principal at Pulaski High School. Linssen taught social studies and coached athletics previously. He served as an associate principal in Shawno and as the principal of Gillett’s secondary school, according to media reports.

At the April 14 Oconto Falls School Board meeting the board agreed to use $65,500 in available funds to resurface the running track this summer. The track is near the football field between the high school and the elementary school.

Gardebrecht said the track surface was at the end of its life expectancy. “This is a normal occurrence as a periodic maintenance requirement,” he said. The district plans to schedule the resurfacing for this summer.

They will also be continuing work this summer on the $37.6 million referendum project, which includes construction of a new middle school and renovations to Washington Elementary School. All three school buildings received new security-focused entry areas. At Washington Elementary School, which doesn’t have a cafeteria, existing space will be transformed into a cafeteria with a new kitchen and commons area.

Mike Frailing from Nexus updated board members on the middle school project, where interior pipework and ceiling grid work at the middle school are complete and painting and electrical work continues. The gym floor and another epoxy flooring are completed, while interior glass and plumbing work are ongoing.

The commons area will have a large screen television that can accommodate running several different programs, Frailing said. The building front is complete, except for the landscaping. With 82% of the project completed, about 41% of the contingency fund has been used and 59% remains in the bank, Frailing said.

While the budget allocated $35,000 for landscaping and concrete sidewalk work, the School Board agreed to accept a bid for a landscaping contract to Magnin Landscaping for $14,250, the lowest bid received, and concrete sidewalk work for $4,600 from Martel, for a total cost of $18,850, significantly under budget.

Overall, the referendum project is under budget, but Hess expressed some concern about what the future might bring.

In presenting an overview of the district’s financial reports, Hess said, at least one fund had a loss, which he said “is not surprising given some of what is going on in the world stage.”

Heather Kangas, director of teaching and learning, and Reading Specialist Crystal Beaman updated the board on Act 20 literacy progress. The school district is expanding its science-of-reading training by offering it to 4K and 3rd grade teachers and classroom paraprofessionals through virtual training courses.

To comply with the Act’s requirement for a science-based reading curriculum, the district’s Curriculum and Resource Committee first identified the district’s needs, then created an evaluation rubric. Committee members traveled to Gibraltar Elementary School to see one of the options in use. The district will implement personal reading programs next fall.

Act 20 requires school districts to use the Aimsweb assessment as a screening device to determine if a student is at risk of failing to learn to read at grade level by the end of third grade, Kangas said.

The school psychologist and learning specialists are being trained on the assessments, which look at the number of correct words students can read in a minute. “If students come up as being identified for needing reading support, then Act 20 says you need to do a diagnostic assessment… so that you’re trying to find the truth, because diagnostic assessments are used to tell you exactly what to teach tomorrow,” Kangas said. The diagnostics also are used to help teachers group students by reading ability.

The district uses Fastbridge to monitor students’ progress. Students are periodically asked to read a passage for a minute, and their results are graphed and measured over a period of time. Act 20 requires school districts to publish their early literacy remediation plans online. It also requires districts to adopt a 3rd to 4th grade promotion policy by 2027-2028.

Administrators and the Board Policy Committee are working on a new reading intervention policy, with specific language about how the district will continue to support students in reading after third grade.

After seeking input from teachers and parents on the school district’s academic-year calendar, Oconto Falls School Board agreed to continue the discussion about when to schedule breaks and days off and maintain the same calendar as last year.

The answers often vary, he said. Taking off the full week of Thanksgiving, as the district did in 2024, pleased some but not others. “It seems much more destructive to the elementary kids to have extra time off for Thanksgiving break and have that right before the Christmas break as opposed to how that affected the middle school and at the high school level, but that was pretty messy,” he said.

Some families said the stretch between early January and spring break was too long and requested the day after the Super Bowl as a vacation day or suggested a longer spring break instead of the full week of Thanksgiving off.

Hess said he appreciated the feedback and wanted to give people time to react before making a change some might feel was arbitrary or counterproductive. “There wasn’t consensus on what was the best, so I think that makes the decision to keep the calendar the same,” he said.

The board agreed no action would be preferable to making a hasty decision, especially given some families make vacation plans well in advance. “I think that we will stand the risk of seriously alienating the families that we serve because they made their plans and now we’re changing it,” he said.

With Russ stepping into the role of superintendent when Hess retires at the end of the school year, putting off a decision means Russ will be directly involved in deciding on the calendar and implementing it. Changing the calendar involves pulling together a calendar team and going through an arduous process, Hess explained.