School Official Retires

Board Accepts Request Of Curriculum Director

— In a short meeting Tuesday night the Rogers School Board reviewed reports, authorized an insurance purchase and approve the retirement of Phil Eickstaedt, executive director of secondary curriculum and instruction.

Eickstaedt, who has been with the district five years, brought new ideas in teacher development, and worked to make transitions easier between the elementary and upper grades, said Superintendent Janie Darr.

“We hate to lose Mr. Eickstaedt,” Darr said.

In the past three years a number of Rogers teachers have been trained to plan their lessons following an outline of setting a goal, getting students to remember what they already know about the topic, teaching new information, making application and then generalizing what they have learned. Teaching strategies such as looking at similarities and differences or summarizing what they learned by taking notes are also part of the process, said Roger Hill, assistant superintendent for human resources.

At A Glance

Public Meetings

Rogers’ School District will hold public meetings on attendance boundaries drawn for its schools at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28 at Heritage High School and at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 29 at Rogers High School.

Source: Staff Report

“Putting something in your own words means you have internalized and summarized and you understand,” Hill said.

Eickstaedt focused on getting teachers ideas that get results, Hill said.

Those techniques focus learning on the student, Eickstaedt said. However, no one thing can make students successful, he said.

“It's like you're making the perfect cake. You can't say one ingredient is responsible for it,” Eickstaedt said.

The future for Rogers is full of promise, Eickstaedt said, and he will keep watching, but from the sidelines.

After 45 years in education he is ready to do other things, Eickstaedt said.

His wife Susan, an assistant at Northside Elementary School, was ready to retire and the two had always planned to retire together. He hopes to visit his grandchildren in Pennsylvania and to visit every national park, Eickstaedt said.

Eickstaedt was an administrator in Oshkosh, Wis., for seven years before coming to Rogers. He started his career as a social studies teacher but worked in gifted and talented classes, private schools and as an assessment director in Milwaukee during his 39 years as a Wisconsin educator.

The board unanimously approved Eickstaedt’s retirement.

The posting for his position will be open nationwide. If a candidate is selected before he retires Darr said she hopes they would get the opportunity to job shadow Eickstaedt for a few days.

In other business, the board granted administrators permission to select an errors and omissions insurance policy. A $25,112.88 proposal from Western World didn’t include out-of-state coverage. ACE, the district's current insurance company should give them a price soon that includes the out-of-state protection, said business manager David Cauldwell

“In state you basically have the protection of the state (laws),” Cauldwell said. “We have a lot of stuff out-of-state.”

In-state laws offer torte protection, but the district has purchased a general liability policy for out-of-state during the past two years.

The School Board also approved a Rogers Insurance Agency bid through the Cincinnati Insurance Company for a $277,413 premium with a $25,000 deductible for all perils. A $25,000 per-occurrence, per-building deductible would apply for wind and hail damage or flood or earthquake damage, Cauldwell said.

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