VOICES FROM THE FIELD
Regional Re
Ryan Silvola
WASBO Marketing &
Communications Coordinator
WASBO’s seven
Regionals have
always served as a
local support network
for district
professionals.
That hasn’t changed since the pandemic
closed schools and made meeting in
person all but impossible. In fact, many
Regionals and their members are now
more connected than ever.
The Northeast/Bay Area Regional, which
is comprised of 97 districts, used to meet
every other month at a different school
district within the Regional. The group
is now meeting virtually every Thursday
morning. Regional Chair Angie Mae
LaBine, business manager for the Howard-Suamico
School District, said attendance
at the weekly virtual meetings has
slightly increased compared to attendance
at the bi-monthly in person meetings.
She said the weekly
discussions often
have focused
on
how the Coronavirus is affecting her Region’s
school districts, though the weekly
conversation also has focused on referendums,
payroll, parent contracts, budgets
and much more.
“The Regional is like a big support group
and sounding board. You can throw
anything out on the table, and someone
is going to have a solution for you or an
explanation on how they’re doing it,”
LaBine said. “You also might get a couple
of people doing it in a couple of different
ways, and you can decide how you can do
it personally.”
Meanwhile, in the Southwest Regional,
which encompasses 30 districts, Chair
Demetri Andrews, business administrator
for the Platteville School District,
said his Regional meets on a quarterly
basis and has been meeting virtually
since March. The group most recently
met in May. He hopes to bring his Regional
together before school begins in
September to discuss re-opening, as well
as any new information from the DPI
or WASBO. During the group’s May
meeting, he noticed a slight increase
in the number of attendees and noted
some new faces.
“In small school districts in southwest
Wisconsin, we’re often times a department
of one, so it’s really hard to
get out of the office for half a day
when there’s payroll and accounts
payable that one person is responsible
for,” Andrews said. “The benefit
to meeting virtually is instead of a
half day of being gone from the office,
we did our virtual meeting in a little
under an hour and a half, whereas some
people are driving an hour for a meeting
to get to CESA 3. So for some people
it was saving two hours of travel time
meeting virtually.”
Members of the Northeast & Bay Area Regional m
LaBine agrees, saying that many business
managers in her Regional also are departments
of one and often wear multiple
hats, such as human resources and overseeing
food services.
“The virtual meetings have been giving
everyone the opportunity wherever they
are to just jump in,” LaBine said. “That’s
been the renewed energy with the flexibility
of virtual meetings.”
Both Regional chairs believe one of the
reasons for this renewed interest in the
regionals is that districts are trying to decipher
and plan for all of the unknowns
that come with the pandemic, such as
how to prepare their district to open in
the fall and how districts are setting up
records related to the CARES Act.
“Everything happened so quick with
COVID,” LaBine said. “The virtual meeting
has opened up more avenues to meet
more often even if we’re not able to meet
in person.”
Andrews, who has served as chair of the
Southwest Regional for about five years,
24 June 2020 • Taking Care of Business • WASBO.com