{"id":10220,"date":"2024-04-16T12:59:27","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T12:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10220"},"modified":"2024-04-16T14:03:31","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T14:03:31","slug":"west-bend-school-district-eyes-november-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10220","title":{"rendered":"West Bend School District eyes November referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2024\/04\/16\/west-bend-school-district-eyes-november-referendum\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=west-bend-school-district-eyes-november-referendum<\/a><\/p>\n

My column in the Washington County Daily News<\/em> is online and in print<\/a>. Here\u2019s a part:<\/p>\n

\n

According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, 60.2% of the 103 proposed school referendums in Wisconsin passed this April. That is down from the 80.1% that passed in 2022 and 85.6% that passed in 2020. That last time that support for school referendums had this little support was in the wake of the Great Recession.<\/span><\/p>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

The core issue facing the West Bend School District is a decline in enrollment. After peaking about 10 years ago, enrollment has been steadily declining and is projected to continue to decline for the foreseeable future. It is a pervasive demographic trend throughout Wisconsin. According to the district\u2019s figures, enrollment declined 18.6% over the past 10 years and will be down almost 40% off peak in another 10 years. The result is that the district has far too much physical space for far too few students. The district needs to right-size its physical footprint to match reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, we must dispel the notion that any school district needs more money to shrink. When a business sees a downturn, they close stores and reduce staff. Nobody gives a business more money to get smaller. School districts do not need more money to get smaller either.<\/span><\/p>\n

They can close and sell facilities, move and reduce staff, and change bus routes at no additional cost to taxpayers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Voters must not allow \u201cdeclining enrollment\u201d to be conflated with \u201cneed more money.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

According to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction data, in 2011-2012, the West Bend School District spent $82.5 million to educate 7,010 children (DPI uses a three-year rolling average for student count, so actual student count is a bit lower), or $11,763 per child. In 20212022, they spent $121.9 million to educate 6,491 students, or $18,779 per child. That is a 59.6% increase in per-student spending in just ten years. Yes, inflation has been part of that story in the past four years, but not even that accounts for such an increase in spending.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where did all of that money go? Clearly it did not go to updating facilities or they would not be about to ask for more money in a referendum. According to ACT and other test scores tracked by the DPI, educational performance has been flat or declining. The district spent a fair amount paying off old debt from previous referendums. The district also abandoned a proposed merit pay system for staff in 2020. It is difficult to justify that much additional spending in a district with declining enrollment while failing to properly manage the district\u2019s facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2024\/04\/16\/west-bend-school-district-eyes-november-referendum\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=west-bend-school-district-eyes-november-referendum My column in the Washington County Daily News is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boots-sabers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10221,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220\/revisions\/10221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}