This story is courtesy of the Tomahawk Leader.
TOMAHAWK – The School District of Tomahawk last week took a step towards establishing a social worker position within the district.
During its meeting on Tuesday, June 9, the School District of Tomahawk Board of Education voted to accept a grant from the Lincoln County Opioid Task Force.
The grant dollars would be allocated to bringing a social worker onto the district’s staff.
Opioid settlement funds
The grant funding comes from Lincoln County’s share of a national legal settlement with major drug companies over the widespread damage caused by opioid misuse.
More than $600,000 was allocated to the county via the settlement, and nearly every other county in the state also received settlement dollars.
The Task Force and other entities have sought several ways in which to utilize the funds.
In Dec. 2025, the Task Force and the Lincoln County Health Department launched a grant program to dedicate monies to county projects focused on combating the opioid crisis. A total of $50,000 was available through the program, with an award of up to $10,000 per application.
That program is separate from the effort to allocate grant funding toward implementing a social worker position at the school district.
Prior to last week’s meeting, the Task Force and the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors had each given their respective stamps of approval to allow the district social worker proposal to move forward.
District Administrator identifies ‘significant need’
During the meeting, School District of Tomahawk Administrator Wendell Quesinberry said one of the challenges the district has faced is “being on the same page with Child Protective Services (CPS).”
“We feel that there is a significant need throughout our student population here for different county resources, and the needs continue to grow in that area,” he stated.
Quesinberry pointed to a “disconnect” that sometimes occurs between “how education personnel view a need versus the way a social worker would view that same need” and said having a “consistent liaison” skilled in the social services field working within the district would help students and families receive available services and while also contributing to academic success.
Presentation from Lincoln County Social Services Director
Jessi Rumsey, Director of the Lincoln County Department of Social Services, provided the board with a presentation on the impact of school-based social work services.
Rumsey also recently addressed the Lincoln County board on the subject.
Statewide, there were more than 71,000 CPS reports in 2025, according to data from the agency. Of those reports, about 19,000 (roughly 26.5 percent) were “screened in,” meaning they met the state’s legal definition of child abuse or neglect, and an investigation was subsequently conducted by CPS.
The top two reporters of child maltreatment in Wisconsin last year were law enforcement and education personnel, with neglect and physical abuse being the predominant maltreatments reported.
According to agency data, of the 412 total CPS reports made in Lincoln County last year, 105 were screened in, accounting for approximately 25.5 percent of all reports. Education and law enforcement were the top two reporters of maltreatment in the county in 2025, and neglect and physical abuse were the most common types of maltreatments reported.
Diving deeper into the local data, Rumsey told the board that 96 CPS reports came from Lincoln County education personnel in 2025, with 14 (about 14.5 percent) being screened in.
Rumsey noted that Lincoln County is in line with statewide data and noted that Wisconsin’s screened in rate typically fluctuates between 25 percent and 30 percent.
Rumsey said state laws and definitions of child abuse and neglect prevent Social Services from “just (interjecting) ourselves into people’s lives” when the agency is approached.
“We really do have to screen through them and make sure they rise to a certain level before we are allowed to require that they become part of a mandated system,” she explained.
Rumsey noted that the department does not want to discourage individuals from making reports, but rather, she said she hoped the screened in data would demonstrate to the board that there is a population of youth in the county who have a need for services offered by a social worker, but do not meet the statutory standards required for a court to mandate the involvement of child welfare personnel.
“That’s where coordination throughout your community, in your community partners, with education and medical personnel, behavioral health and all of those – that’s where that comes in, that ability to provide those supports around your family and children, because we are not able to just intervene whenever,” Rumsey stated.
A school social worker would serve as “that critical conduit,” Rumsey told the board.
Rumsey explained that a district social worker would coordinate treatment, assess needs within the student body, connect students and families with resources and “integrate some evidence-based practices” regarding trauma-informed care, strength-based approaches and other areas that would “help enhance protective factors in the home and in the community.”
Rumsey said the county Social Services Department and the Opioid Task Force both feel that the implementation of a social worker within the district would be a "good investment.”
“Upstream versus downstream,” she said, explaining that the goal would be to “ameliorate some of those issues in the home prior to court intervention and ultimately potential removals, which studies show are harmful.”
Discussion, vote
Under the proposal from the Task Force, the county would contribute a total of $154,000 in settlement funds, distributed in equal installments over a four-year period, towards offsetting the cost of hiring a district social worker. The district would cover the remaining costs. After the four-year period, the district would be able to assess the impact of the position.
It is currently unknown whether or not the Task Force would be able to contribute funds past the initial four-year period, according to Rumsey. If the district would wish to maintain a social worker after that point, it may need to pull the position fully within its own budget, she said.
Adam Speigel, School District of Tomahawk Director of Special Education and Pupil Services and the district’s representative on the Task Force, pointed to several reasons why a social worker may be necessary at the district.
“Enrollment may be going down across the state of Wisconsin, but the needs of this – our referral rate, and our number of students in poverty, and our number of students with special needs, our at-risk youth, is not going down,” Speigel said. “It’s the opposite.”
It was noted during discussion that although the district encompasses parts of both Lincoln and Oneida counties, all students, regardless of which county they reside in, would have the opportunity to utilize a district social worker.
The board also discussed educational and professional requirements for the position, as well as potential compensation.
After further discussion, the board unanimously voted to approve the acceptance of the grant from the Task Force.
Next steps
Looking forward, the Task Force will collaborate with Lincoln County Corporation Counsel Karry Johnson on drafting a contractual agreement, while the district will work to officially create the social worker position ahead of the upcoming hiring process.
