Discussions about the possibility of closing schools in the Manitowoc Public School District were pushed to a future meeting.
The Manitowoc Public School Board approved tabling two recommendations yesterday from a 3-phase facility plan with four recommendations from Superintendent Jim Feil.
The board only talked about the first two recommendations with the first recommending closing two elementary schools and remodeling the former Stangel Learning Center.
The second recommendation would have allowed the district to borrow money to make improvements to four other elementary schools.
The school board and some members of the public were still divided on how the recommendations should have moved forward.
Citizen Ben Hansen asked why the decision is being made before an evaluation.
“Our staff has already registered an incredibly low vote of confidence for our current district leadership,” he stated. “And we’ve seen an out of the norm exodus of staff over the last several years. A hasty decision about closing schools will only lead to more dissatisfaction of staff along with the anxiety that comes with threatened job security. And more teachers heading for the exits.”
Board Members Kerry Trask and Biff Hansen reiterated their point from a previous meeting that the public needs to give input before anything moves forward.
They compared the quick decision of the board to the sudden implementation of the Success for All or SFA curriculum without the public’s take.
“We need to tell the truth to the people,” he exclaimed. “And let all the parents know and all the taxpayers be fully informed about the task that lies ahead in terms of handling our responsibilities to provide safe and decent buildings in which their children can be educated.”
The conversation eventually led to how the taxpayers won’t be affected by the facility upgrades.
Board Member Tony Vlastelica says he’s in favor of the recommendations because the district shouldn’t wait any longer to save money.
“That’s huge,” he explained. “That’s a million buck a year in our budget that we could get back. We have more capacity now than we need. We can literally fund it through savings, which is almost a slam dunk for us, like that’s not going to cost taxpayers much out of pocket if anything. And we can work towards building that goodwill that you guys (Trask and Hansen) are talking about with the community.”
He also expressed that he doesn’t want the district to go into too much debt when they don’t have the funds to pay it off.
District Director of Business Services Angela Erdmann says that’s not going to be feasible. Superintendent Feil said whatever the board chose, but something needed to happen.
“You know, you’ve fund balance you can use,” he said. “You got some of these offsets to not incur these costs. In some ways I think that this is a no brainer. I’m not saying it won’t have implications.”
The closures stem from a facility audit for the district which shows that all the schools in attendance in the district are in disrepair with some needing immediate fixtures.
All projects would cost around $450 million and could be done in three phases.
The first phases, which was tabled last night. Phase 2 would be to finish fixing issues in the elementary schools and start doing projects in the middle schools.
Finally, phase 3 includes improvements to the high school.
The last two phases would be done by referendum.
It’s not clear which of the four elementary schools the district would close, although the names of Jackson and Madison have been said by some board members.
The tabled motion will be moved to a future special meeting later this month.
