For the past two years representatives of the Westby Area School Board and the Viroqua School Board have been holding bi-monthly meetings with a goal to eventually save money for both districts through the sharing of joint services, educational classes, co-curricular activities or through volume purchasing power.

If nothing else both districts have learned thus far that change does not happen overnight and that any interaction between the two governmental bodies, although conducive to eventual change, will take more time and a continual effort to produce a productive end result.

Topics for discussion during the Sept. 22 meeting included the Vernon County Farm-to-School program, athletic co-ops, transportation, AP/Shared classes, school year and day calenders and weather reports.

The farm-to-school program produced the widest conversation with both districts with all members eager to learn more about the program and its potential for savings in the district food- service program. The farm-to-school program was designed to bring healthy food from local farms to schoolchildren across the country and allow school districts the ability to purchase more local commodities for their food-service programs reducing the amount of travel time from harvest to ingestion providing students with healthier choices and fresher meals.

Currently 39 states utilize the farm-to-school program, with 1,978 programs in operation nationwide. The farm-to-school program is making headway in the Viroqua School District thanks in large part to the efforts of local Chef Monique Hooker, along with former Westby and now Viroqua School District Food Supervisor Marilyn Volden and Valley Stewardship Network Coordinator Jessica Luhning.

According to Viroqua School District Administrator Robert Knadle the project is intending to reach out to all school districts in Vernon County including Viroqua, Westby, Hillsboro, Kickapoo and La Farge, with the assistance of representatives of the AmeriCorps Farm-to-School program. He believes the investment would be minimal for all school districts, but would provide school districts the power to purchase and incorporate more locally grown crops into the school menus leading to improved diets for students and staff who utilize the hot school lunch programs.

Nationally 10,944 school districts already operate under a farm-to-school program, which allows school districts to purchase farm fresh foods including fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey, meat and beans locally.

“Considering food typically travels an average of 1,500 miles before it gets to a school district, it just makes total sense to incorporate more local crops into our school lunch programs. We need public support for the project and there’s a lot of hoops to jump through before it becomes a countywide reality, but I believe it’s a step in the right direction, both for students and our local farming economy,” Knadle said.

Westby representatives agreed to further investigate the program.

A discussion was held regarding the possibility of combining the Westby and Viroqua girl’s golf program, but the probability of it actually happening was doubtful due to WIAA rules, which takes into effect the total number of students in a school district when determining division placement for competition. It was determined that if Westby and Viroqua formed an athletic co-op program that they would be moved to Division 2, from Division 3 where they currently are competing. School board representatives relayed concern about the degree of overall talent in the higher divisions, considering that neither school district’s programs have huge participation numbers. According to Knadle the Viroqua program was set to be dissolved in 2008 due to low participation numbers, but is still functioning thanks to a private family donation. He went on to say that unless the numbers change or the program co-ops with another school district in 2009 the program will be dissolved and the girls could be allowed to try out for the boy’s golf program in the spring.

Westby Area School Board President Mike Sebion stated his belief that it’s good for students to be challenged, but he wasn’t convinced co-oping with Viroqua and moving the girls program to a Division 2 level of play would be beneficial for Westby at the present time.

Discussions were also held regarding AP/ Shared classes, which are basically nonexistent at the present time, due in large part to differing school calenders and class schedules. Both school districts agreed to continue negotiating changes to their school calenders and class schedules to make them coincide with each other in the future. They also agreed to investigate more online class credit opportunities for students in both districts.

The next joint school board meeting will be held in November at Viroqua.