Questions are still being asked following a surprise vote from the Manitowoc Public School Board to close their central office.
The board voted with 4-3 to close the building which was talked about while discussing how the district should move forward with the plan to close two elementary schools due to a lot of building maintenance at all nine schools in the district.
School Board President Chris Able explained to Seehafer News that a plan on how the district office building would be decentralized falls on Superintendent Jim Feil and other district administrators.
“I think it’s great to get our administrative group out there in touch with the community that we’re there to serve,” Able stated.
The idea came to fruition after discussion from school board members questioning the need for the central office when there could be room at the nine schools because some classrooms are sitting empty because of declining enrollment.
Then there was suddenly a motion from School Board Member Matthew Phipps.
“I’d like to make a motion to close our central office building and relocate to one of the elementaries,” Phipps said during the meeting.
Board Member Biff Hansen added, “I’ll second it to empty rooms in elementary, middle schools, or the high school.”
Phipps responded saying, “I would accept that friendly amendment.”
Phipps ended up voting in favor of the closure of the central office while Hansen voted against it.
Able explained that district staff could be going to different schools depending on how much space is available.
Although the convenience of meetings is nice in the district office, Able says, “All of our administrators have these super shmazy phones with screens right on them that they can actually dial up each other and they pop right up. They could do them (meetings) on Zoom, on Google Meet I think it the other one. So, there’s lots of options.”
It’s not known when a plan from Superintendent Feil will be given to the school board.
It’s also unclear right now if the district would sell the building to get some money for facilities upgrades at some of the schools with the most needs.
A phase 1 facilities plan was voted down by the board during the last special meeting last week.
