Unified School District of De Pere honors Nicholson

DE PERE —The Unified School District of De Pere school board this week honored its student services director this week for the state recognition he recently received.

The Wisconsin Council of Administrators of Special Services (WCASS) named Student Services Director Jerry Nicholson as its 2024 Student Services Director of the Year last month at the three-day Wisconsin State Education Convention in Milwaukee.

Nicholson had to leave the event early to tend to a student loss and was not able to receive the recognition in person.

WCASS serves the state’s special education and student services leaders.
Nicholson joined the district in 2018 after having served in a similar role in the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District.

He served in leadership roles with WCASS, including as president.

In his written recommendation for Nicholson, Superintendent Chris Thompson said Nicholson led the district’s curriculum leadership team’s efforts to create a multi-tiered support system for addressing student academic and behavioral intervention needs.

That results in lower referral and identification rates for special education programming.

That’s a good thing, because intervention helps close gaps for students, which means a special education evaluation isn’t needed because student outcomes improve, according to Nicholson.

“By meeting student learning and social-behavioral needs within the regular education realm, De Pere closed the pandemic-related learning gap,” Thompson said in his recommendation, referring to the 2023 Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction state report card for 2022-23.

He said Nicholson found a way to use existing funds to enable districts to provide a mental health navigator service for students, staff and community.

“His foresight made mental health services truly accessible for all individuals within the De Pere community,” Thompson said.

Nicholson was instrumental in leveraging existing funds to hire additional school psychologists and increasing English Language Learner classroom support, according to Thompson.

He called Nicholson “an effective verbal communicator who creates reassurance and trust in those he serves.”

Board president Adam Clayton praised Nicholson’s ability to calm situations down and “bring the temperature down in a room from 1,000 degrees to zero, just with his voice.”

“That is truly a talent that you cannot teach,” Clayton said. “Very few people that I’ve known in this world have it, but you are probably the best at it.”

Thompson said parents routinely give him feedback about Nicholson.

“Barely a month goes by where I don’t have a parent coming up to me, telling me how much they appreciate what you do and that you make them feel that they are a partner in their child’s education,” Thompson said, adding that most are parents of students who are having difficulties in school.

“It’s not the parents of students who are your A students; it’s students who are struggling —the ones that need to have an ally and an advocate,” Thompson said.

“When you sit with them and partake in their IEP (individualized education program) team and provide them with that sense of safety that they can both ask questions and advocate for their child and feel that they are being heard,” he said.

“That means a lot,” he added.

Board member Brittony Cartwright said she’s dealt with Nicholson both as a board member and as a parent.

“When my husband and I needed your insight, we always felt heard and like you cared, and you were there to help us through things,” Cartwright said. “You are just so level. It doesn’t matter what’s going on.”

Those in the room applauded. Nicholson thanked them but said little.
“It is humbling to be nominated by my peers across the state and local leadership,” he said later.

“Especially since I have had the privilege to work with so many talented leaders across the state and here in De Pere.”