Two major decisions were made during yesterday’s special meeting of the Manitowoc Public School District.
The school board voted 4-3 to decentralize the central office building, meaning the MPSD Central Office on Lindbergh Drive would become empty in the future.
The vote came after a surprise motion from Board Member Matt Phipps.
The discussion started after board members continuously talked about trying to save the district money without having the facilities plan.
The facilities plan would have had the district borrow about $11.5 million for upgrades for Monroe while converting Stangel Learning Academy into a new elementary school.
The plan was again met with opposition from Board Members Kerry Trask and Biff Hansen, who’ve repeatedly asked for the public to get more involved before any action is taken because, to them, the board is moving too fast on a very serious topic.
They also again compared the quick decision to the one the board made implementing the Success for All Program.
The public also spoke against the facilities plan and Feil, including Parent Karen Hanson.
“One critical thing that’s missing from Mr. Feil’s plan is students,” she said.
“Schools are simply buildings without students. Neighborhood schools like the one my kids attend are special to the community. The pride our students and the teachers have in their schools and its impact on achievement should not be underestimated.”
Board Member Keith Shaw was also against the plan.
He said there should be more than one facility plan presented, and he was concerned about what would happen if the district couldn’t pay back the money they wanted to borrow.
“If we borrow money and we have to pay back $1.4 million back every year because we can’t meet our financial commitment, we’re going to pay it off by cutting programs,” he described.
“I would never ever ever support decimating our programs.”
Board Members Tony Vlastelica and Matthew Phipps see the plan as an opportunity to save the district $1 million by closing two schools while converting Stangel, because the facilities around the district are in bad shape.
“The way we look at it is I just pretend it’s my money,” Vlastelica stated.
“Right, if I was (explative) away a million dollars a year, I wouldn’t just sit there and allow that to continue, I would try to put that to an end as soon as possible.”
Phipps explained, “We understand that enrollment is dropping, and we’re going to do nothing except try to work on it together to facilitate a better plan and come back to the community. However, it’s going to cost you guys more and more every day we wait.”
Superintendent Jim Feil again advocated for the plan after a CESA Facility Audit showed the district needs to spend at least $161 million to update problems in each of the schools.
The district is also dealing with declining enrollment, losing about 1000 students since 2001.
The board ended up voting with 2 members in favor of the plan while the other five members including Board President Chris Able against it.
He says while the plan was voted down, the district isn’t back at square one as some might think.
He says there needs to be more dialogue with the community as well
“Obviously, total costs across the district are considerable,” he explained.
“And if we don’t have public support, we’ll never have the money for it, and we don’t want to find out that we don’t have support by them (residents for something like a referendum) voting down the money.”
The next step the board wants to take is to have listening sessions with the community to talk about the four schools the district has been talking about closing since the CESA 10 Facilities Plan came out.
No official dates have been set for the sessions or what the board is planning next.
