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The first day of the 2022-2023 school year in Williams Bay kicked off with a polished red apple start on Thursday, Sept. 1, prior to the Labor Day national holiday.

With seven full school days logged to date, Williams Bay School District administrators reported to the Board of Education on Sept. 12 that the new school year had gotten off to a positive launch at all levels.

“We’re off to a great start, a really good start to the school year,” said Williams Bay District Administrator Dr. William White.

New Williams Bay Middle School-High School Principal Emily Soley-Johnson reported the 2022-2023 school year “started off well,” highlighted by a well-received and “well attended” Aug. 24 evening ice cream social for incoming sixth-graders and their parents making the transition to middle school.

“There was lot of positive feedback from parents, from students,” Soley-Johnson said of the event, which is hoped will become an annual event as part of middle school orientation activities.

Soley-Johnson also reported that she, English teacher Emily Evans, and Williams Bay High School seniors Anna Lock, Rosa Jimenz, Citlali Carbajal, Keileen Weberpal and Hannah Abram were among the 90 attendees at the Sept. 4 Celebration of Women Leaders event sponsored by George Williams College in Williams Bay and hosted by Women’s Leadership Center founder Ann M. Drake, a Chicago business leader and president of Lincoln Road Enterprises, LLC, a transformative organization invested in the advancement of women’s leadership, now and in the future.

“That was a ‘lifetime’ event that several of our students got to attend,” Soley-Johnson said.

It was noted that several Walworth County students from Delavan-Darien and Big Foot high schools were in attendance as well.

The event, intended to impact and advance women’s leadership for generations to come, included women leaders from across a variety of professional fields, including former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, architect Jeanne Gang, former Charming Shoppes, Inc. chairman, president and CEO Dorrit Bern, and former U.S. Senator, Secretary of State and 2020 presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A full week of Sept. 19-24 “Dancing Through the Decades” homecoming festivities will be held at Williams Bay High School, 500 W. Geneva St. (State Hwy. 67).

Activites this Friday, Sept. 23, include a 4 p.m. parade followed by the 7 p.m. homecoming gridiron matchup pitting the hometown Bulldogs against Abundant Life/St. Ambrose. The homecoming dance will be held Saturday, Sept. 24, from 8-11 p.m., with the crowning of the homecoming royalty court at 8:15 p.m.

This Friday’s homecoming parade will start at 4 p.m. at Lions Field at Williams Street and proceed south on Williams to Geneva Street and then east to Edgewater Park in downtown Williams Bay on the scenic shore of Geneva Lake. The American Legion Riders from Lake Geneva, along with the Geneva Lakes VFW Post 2373 Color Guard, will lead the homecoming parade.

A complete list of homecoming activities at Williams Bay High School is available online at https://www.williamsbayschools.org/.

At Grades PreK-5 Williams Bay Elementary School, 250 Theatre Rd., Dr. Ali Bond reported the school was “also off to a great start,” praising her staff for their “energy, excitement and positive attitudes.”

“It’s been a lot of fun to start these first few weeks of school,” Bond said.

Events kicking off the school year at Williams Bay Elementary included its well-attended Aug. 23 supply drop-off and open house in the lead-up to the Sept. 1 first day of school.

Upcoming events of note, Bond said, include student-led parent-teacher conferences on Thursday, Oct. 27 from 1:15-7:15 p.m.

There will be no classes district-wide on Friday, Oct. 28, which is Fall Break Day.

Williams Bay School Board President Jack Lothian called the positive start-of-year reports from district and school administrators “great to hear.”

In the absence of Business Director Jennifer Frederick, White reported to the board that the district would not have to seek short-term borrowing this fall as originally anticipated, noting that a cash flow analysis by PMA Financial Networks, a provider of comprehensive financial management solutions to the public sector, indicated that the Williams Bay School District does not need to short-term borrow.

In August, the board had approved seeking short-term borrowing.

Historically, White noted the district has taken out $1-1.5 million in short-term borrowing annually in the fall while awaiting receipt of the district’s settlement share of December-January property tax collections.

“We’re not having to do that, which is a big, big plus, thanks to the management of our budget, building our fund balance, and Jennifer really overseeing that,” White said. “Jennifer advanced that, PMA did the analysis, we are certainly lined up to do a short line of credit if we need to ... but we should have enough money in our fund balance to carry us until all the tax money comes in.”

White said not having to do short-term borrowing would help the district avoid a projected $30,000-35,000 in borrowing fees and interest costs.

Lothian called not having to short-term borrow “a great thing” for the district.

In other developments at the Sept. 12 meeting, the Williams Bay Board of Education:

Approved the hiring of Williams Bay resident Amanda Cornue as a full-time Grades 3K-5K special education paraprofessional.

Approved job descriptions for the district’s new 60% full-time equivalent school social worker position shared with Woods School, and the new middle school-high school Engliance language teacher position.

Approved the $101,712 expenditure of some $300,000 in district Fund 50 food service fund balance for the purchase of a replacement dishwasher, two milk coolers, a pass-through heated commercial food warmer holding cabinet, and a battery-operated walk-behind disk floor scrubber.

Approved the acceptance of $4,000 worth of metals donated in support of the district’s technology education program.

Set Saturday, Oct. 22 from 8-11 a.m. as the date and time for its board work session on the district’s 2022-2023 budget and property tax levy.

Williams Bay sophomore offensive lineman Diego Valadez (52) gets in his stance on the line in the game against North Crawford on Friday, Sept. 3.

Williams Bay senior quarterback Dominic Robbins jukes a North Crawford defender in the game on Friday, Sept. 3.

Williams Bay senior Dominic Robbins punts in the game against North Crawford on Friday, Sept. 3.

Williams Bay senior cornerback Karson Cox runs with the receiver to make a play on the ball in the game against North Crawford on Friday, Sept. 3.

Above: Big Foot/Williams Bay number two singles player Lauren Decker leaps to hit the ball in their matchup against the University School of Milwaukee on Tuesday, Aug. 23.

Williams Bay's Tyler McKean (20), Kelton Randall (1) and Elian Valadez (7) line up on the outside at wide receiver in the game against North Crawford on Friday, Sept. 3.

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