“As a small district, we are being creative with our grant dollars and making them work in different areas,” said Nate Burklund, superintendent of Niagara schools.

About $66,000 in Wisconsin Department of Justice Safety Grants looks to make students more secure both inside and outside the school.

“We were able to add fencing on the back side of our playgrounds from our sports complex up to our school district building. We added additional security cameras and surveillance cameras and monitors so we can get a better view about what is going on around the building and in the building,” Burklund said.

Magnetic door locks and shatterproof windows also will be installed in the near future.

Sherri Petschar, curriculum director/guidance counselor, packs bags of food for students who participate in the backpack program, which sends food home for the weekend.

In a sign of the times, Niagara staff recently received trauma-sensitive training in Green Bay, Wis., and revamped the entire safety plan after the sessions.

“Several of us went down and did multiple trainings to ensure safety and look at safety measures and how to assess situations and de-escalate situations that might come about,” said Sherri Petschar, curriculum director/guidance counselor.

Grant dollars from the Dickinson Area Community Foundation helped fund permanent tower gardens in the school library.

These gardens include hydroponic growing systems with LED lights on a timer and a watering system that fills each separate pod.

The students are continually growing vegetables that are used in meals served in the cafeteria kitchen. “Some classrooms are having little salad days when the lettuce grows. We are bringing in healthier snacks, more nutrition and learning about cleaner, more organic foods,” Petschar said.

Superintendent Nate Burklund points out the new technology available with a zSpace virtual reality computer that would allow students to interact in a three-dimensional way. The Niagara School District is hoping to secure a Carl Perkins grant to purchase that technology.

Elementary students Carly Sanicki and Jaelyn Kleikamp helped their second-grade class cultivate butter crunch and romaine lettuce. Sanicki said she enjoyed the salads made by the students’ efforts, though she admitted both varieties tasted the same to her.

Kleikamp recently worked to hand-pollinate flowers on the cucumber plants. “There are no bees in the room,” she explained, “so we have to do it.”

Added Sanicki, “We have to pollinate because the plants need to get healthier and grow more.”

Some of the fresh produce also is being sent home with students through the backpack program. Funded with grant money from the M&M Area Community Foundation as well as the DACF, the backpack program is a way to help families in need have food over the weekend when students aren’t in school.

If families indicate they want to participate in the program, volunteers each Friday discreetly place bags of food — such as bread, peanut butter and jelly, fruit, macaroni and cheese, granola bars and cans of soup — into backpacks for those students to carry home.

With the new tower gardens, fresh-cut greens have been added to the mix.

The backpack program is used as a teaching tool for intellectually disabled students and students with special needs as well, as they are sent to the grocery store for supplies, Petschar said.

“They do the shopping for the backpack program. Students are learning hard skills and some basic skills, like how to shop and pick things out, looking at the nutritional facts but also what is the better bargain. It has been pretty successful for us,” Petschar said.

The students benefit from therapy dogs, too, that come into the building a couple of times a week. “They are primarily working with kids with special needs, but they are out and about in the classrooms. We have two trained professionals that come with them. Some of the kids that are not necessarily verbal; you can see the smile and the excitement when the dog comes in and it’s really a relaxing time for them to interact. It’s the highlight of their day,” Petschar said.

A few other notable new developments happening at the school include a Career Day planned for early February and a new media class that was started last year with Megan Lynch.

“It’s an elective,” Petschar said of the class. “The kids go out and do the interviews and write the articles. Then students deliver the school newspaper to community members in Niagara. I’ll submit a letter from the superintendent. They do different recipes; they’ll interview staff members, talk about up-and-coming events, and they just had a big buck contest,” Burklund said.

The students also update the hallway monitors and social media sites.

History/science instructor Ben Larman is working on his seventh service trip that takes students to large cities, such as New York, Washington D.C., Chicago and Detroit.

This year, the students will travel to Philadelphia. These trips include having them work in soup kitchens, talk with homeless people and study different cultures.

“It’s pretty intensive,” Petschar said, but “it’s just so rewarding for these kids.”

Niagara’s Parent Teacher Organization, or PTO, recently purchased two welders for the welding program and 10 tons of Jelly Bean rubber mulch that will be placed on the playgrounds this spring.

Petschar said the school recently applied for a Wisconsin Technology Initiative grant that will help them integrate Makerspace education at the school.

“We are intending to order a 3-D printer, 3-D scanner and materials that would be considered Makerspace-like. They’re going to go on Tinkercad and create 3-D things so they will be able to print things like game pieces, like dice, and then they can integrate that 3-D model across our curriculum and in our STEM primarily. The teachers will all go to a training in Three Lakes, so they will learn how to use all of this new technology,” she said.

In addition, the district is pursuing a Carl Perkins grant to eventually purchase a zSpace virtual reality computer that allows students to interact with 3-D images.

“You can take a heart and project it from the 3-D computer onto our smart boards so the kids will see it in 3-D and be able to turn the heart around and dissect the heart and talk about the ventricles and everything else in it. Or they would be able to see inside an engine or a plant. It is something that will really enhance our curriculum here. I was amazed by what we can bring to our kids,” Petschar said.

Theresa Proudfit can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 45, or tproudfit@ironmountaindailynews.com.