Brown County High School Secretary Jenny Bowden and Guidance Secretary Ronna Snyder assisted students and families at the high school registration.
Students prepared for their high school experience at the Brown County High School registration where they could walk around the campus, test out their lockers, receive vaccinations and take their school photos.
Brown County High School Assistant Principal Sarah Roberts and Principal Steven Sherohman
The Brown County Middle School is currently under construction. They are working on creating a secure front door. The projected end date is by fall break in October.
Brown County Middle School’s registration provided the opportunity for students to meet their classmates, locate their lockers, pick up gently used school supplies and meet the faculty.
The Brown County Middle School halls were filled with chairs and desks from classrooms in the area being renovated during registration.
Brown County Middle School’s construction on creating a secure front door is phase one in a two phase project at the school.
The rate of enrollment in Brown County schools has declined from 1,787 in fall 2018 and 1,764 in spring 2019 to 1,504 in fall 2023 and 1,466 in spring 2024. This graph only measures the enrollment in 2024 during the 2023-2024 school year, it is not a reflection of the 2024-2025 year.
Graph courtesy of Emily Tracy
Zip up those lunch boxes, lace up your sneakers and bust out the color-coded notebooks, Brown County schools are back.
As some students are yawning through their morning classes, others have been counting down the days since the end of last school year.
Many parents have also been counting down the days for school to start again.
Superintendent Emily Tracy told the Democrat that the district has enough staff, bus drivers and coaches for the schools, but it’s been tough finding teachers to fill all the spots at the high school. Brown County High School had three teaching positions as of this writing that they were still looking to fill — special education, business and computer science.
Interested and qualified individuals can apply on the Brown County schools website at www.browncountyschools.com/employment/.
Tracy said that Brown County Schools have around 100 teachers in the district. In 2023 they had 101 teachers and 98 in 2022.
“We are continuing TEDx,” Tracy said. “We’ve been approved for 2025. Other than that, there is no new programming we are introducing. I’m always looking forward to TEDx. We just came off a successful referendum and a positive note from the 2023-2024 school year. We’re looking forward to giving teachers the things they need to do the best they can for our students.
“We also have a new principal and assistant principal at the high school, we are very excited for them.”
The Brown County Middle School is currently undergoing the first phase of construction. Tracy told the Democrat that they are building a secure front entrance and construction is projected to wrap up by fall break in October. The second phase of renovations will be replacing the HVAC system in the middle school, which is on the books for next summer.
On July 25, U.S. Senators Mitt Romney and Chris Murphy introduced bipartisan legislation aiming at reducing smartphone usage in the classroom, the Smart Kids Not Smartphones Act.
School districts that enforce a policy prohibiting smartphone usage during instructional time, other than in cases of emergency or for educational purposes, will receive an award in the form of a banner or website badge recognizing that the school district is participating.
“They just passed legislation where students cannot have cell phones during instructional time, so we will be adhering to that,” Tracy said. “They can have their cell phones on them, they just cannot have them out during class instructional time.”
Instead of using their cell phones, unless instructed, each student will have personal laptops that are supplied at no cost to the families. Tracy said that the funding for the laptops is built into the budget each year and will be supplemented by the current referendum.
Enrollment is an ongoing issue for schools around the nation, including Brown County schools. In 2018, Brown County’s enrollment was at 1,787 in the fall and 1,764 in the spring. This last school year saw 1,504 students in the fall with 1,466 in the spring. Tracy said that they will not have an idea on enrollment for this school year until school’s been in session a couple of weeks and they can monitor how many students actually attend. Enrollment numbers are recorded twice during the school year, once in October and once in February.
