Loyal, Greenwood school boards approve advisory consolidation question for April ballot

By Valorie Brecht The Greenwood and Loyal school boards have approved an advisory referendum question that will be placed on the April 1 ballot, asking voters if they support the consolidation of the Loyal and Greenwood school districts. The boards approved this question at their joint board meeting last Wednesday in Loyal.

The meeting began, however, with a public forum in which residents of both communities could bring up their questions and concerns. A few community members expressed their readiness for consolidation and wanting the districts to press forward; however, others expressed a variety of concerns such as where the high school would be located in a consolidated district, the financial implications of consolidation and affect on the mill rate, and others.

Hannah Olson was the first to speak in the public forum. Olson is a mother of five, middle school teacher, and coach with the Greenwood School District. She felt the districts were being stretched thin as far as staffing was concerned, and that consolidating could alleviate some of that tension to get the best educators in front of kids.

“I am concerned about where we are currently standing, and I’m asking our board, our admin, to truly consider why we are doing this work… (Our districts) are in survival mode. And that’s my opinion; others may have different ones. But I would certainly argue we are not thriving where we’re at. We have a lack of resources, primarily people. And that’s not getting any better. We see the retirements coming up; we see the turnover that’s happening on a regular basis. We can’t settle. I’m not OK as a parent of five settling for the staff that are in our buildings because we don’t have others available. We know based on the research out there that one of the most important factors to student success is effective instruction in every classroom. But when our staff oftentimes are underqualified, or are there because we just need somebody to fill in a role, but then we don’t have the resources to support them, build them, and help them grow, that’s concerning.

“Some of my best learning as a teacher has been when I’ve had the opportunity to go and observe good teaching. But if we don’t have subs available to cover our classes so we can do that, our students aren’t getting our best. And our students deserve a lot better… The people don’t want to be in survival mode; we will never be our best. I’m asking our board to really truly consider what is best for our students. Rather than argue which city the high school’s going to be in — from what I understand there will be a school building in both communities. Guess what? There is a lot of traffic going through our elementary schools every day — parents, community members. I don’t get the argument and why that’s a concern. I don’t.

“As a mom, I want effective teachers teaching our kids, that have support and are backed by good mentors and good time to devote to getting better each year.”

Adam Smith, a Loyal parent who is running for Loyal School Board, also spoke. He said he would like to see Greenwood livestream its school board meetings. He also questioned what had happened with the talks between Greenwood and Granton for co-oping girls basketball and why that had fallen through. He also asked what was the cost of busing students back and forth to Greenwood for coop sports, saying he had asked several times and never gotten an answer. He felt that parents, students, and coaches needed to be more involved in co-op decisions so board members weren’t acting on their own gut feelings.

“I’m not sure why this is a conversation of where the high school and elementary should be. They should all be right here (in Loyal). That’s my opinion. I’ll cut things off here. I guess it’s like someone wants to take a drink of cold beer, but doesn’t want to drink out of a can and doesn’t have a cup, so he dumps it on the ground.”

In response to Smith’s comments, Greenwood School District Administrator Joe Green said the district planned to have a parent meeting on Monday to hear the community’s thoughts about co-oping with Granton for boys and/or girls basketball. That will also be on the agenda for

Please see Consolidation, page 9 Consolidation,

from p. 1

the Jan. 29 Greenwood School Board meeting, so no decision has been made yet. He also said the decision to livestream meetings would not be his decision; it would be a board decision.

Loyal School District Administrator Chris Lindner said he could get the numbers for busing costs for co-op sports.

Shannon Toufar, Loyal parent, said she had heard at previous Loyal School Board meetings that Loyal wouldn’t be able to pass another referendum. So, she wondered, if the districts were to consolidate, what makes the board think the combined district would be able to pass a referendum?

“The referendums we have now — right now Loyal and Greenwood have the highest referendums of anybody in the county, percentage-wise what is allowed for their school by the state. If we could cut those referendums to half of what the people are paying right now (by consolidating), I feel we have a better chance of passing it than for the full we are currently paying,” replied Loyal board member Kirk Haslow.

Loyal board member Matt Kubista expressed concerns about what else Loyal stands to lose if it loses a school, whether the high school or the elementary.

“There will more than likely be loss of downtown businesses,” he said.

He said property values would also be affected. “Loss of your school in terms of population decline means less families moving into your town, loss of youth and vitality in your community. The loss of a school means loss of major employers in your community and reduces the sense of community cohesiveness. It also means loss of social opportunities. Why has there been no school consolidation that has happened since 2010 in Wisconsin? What have we found out about consolidations and what it does to your city?”

He said if you have less people coming into your community, major employers would have a harder time finding employees, which would hurt them.

Haslow said that based on the Baird meeting the schools had recently, one of the reasons districts hadn’t consolidated since 2010 was the amount of state funding available for consolidation had dropped. Also, he said, once they hit 2020, schools were just trying to survive and weren’t thinking about consolidation.

“One thing I think should be considered is, regardless of which town has the elementary school and which town has the high school, if we want people to raise their families in our towns, they need to feel good about the education and opportunities that their kids have. I think as a combined district we have a higher chance of providing more opportunities and attracting more people who want to live here, which then would also support the businesses… People who grew up here move away because they want their kids to have more opportunities than they had. So, if we can do that better together, I think we need to pursue that,” said Greenwood board member Eliza Ruzic.

Loyal parent and former Loyal board member Kim Bremmer also spoke. She said she would like to see a list of the classes that Greenwood and Loyal were sharing, because she hadn’t seen a list yet.

“When this discussion first started, we weren’t talking about sports; we were talking about math and specifically science because at the time, Loyal was struggling with our science program. We didn’t have teachers. So this was a solution… I think things that would help is if you could show us a list of examples of successes. I know we have examples of it not working. So when we have all this hesitation about details, show us some successes.”

“Thanks, Kim. That’s a good idea. I think we started out stronger in the beginning in communicating some of these, but there’s been plenty of successes, whether in academics or the co-curricular areas,” said Green.

He referenced Loyal students going to Greenwood for an AutoCAD class they wouldn’t have otherwise had, as well as a dual-credit science class through NTC, and Greenwood students coming to Loyal for welding, building construction and college prep English classes.

“So there’s been some of that. Do I wish there was more, as far as coursework? Absolutely. It’s a work in progress. Schedules get in the way sometimes. We line up really nicely until lunch, and then Greenwood has two lunch periods while Loyal has three, so it throws the rest of the day off. But there is some good sharing and I think those have been really successful,” said Green.

“On the other side, co-curricular, most recently has been one-act play. I know Loyal has had a handful of actors come over and they won some very nice awards… We’ve had some success with some of the sports we’ve been working on together. I do think we can do a better job of communicating those, so I agree with you on that.”

Loyal resident Viki Pieper brought up a concern. “When you talk about a consolidated school district and how even a consolidated district would have to ask for a referendum, are you taking into effect that we may lose enrollment? Because even just geography, I think we’d be silly to think that people would not open enroll to other schools. Just the few people I’ve talked to, they’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m not driving that far’ or ‘I’m not going to put my kids on a bus that far.’ So we will lose some. If we lose 50 kids, that’s over half a million dollars, if you’re looking at $11,400 per student,” she noted.

Loyal parent Jaime Wolf said she was disappointed in the Loyal board for not being concerned about where the future high school would be.

“It’s really disheartening when you hear one of our board members say that it doesn’t matter where the school is… We need to fight for our school. And I get it, with the numbers if we need that, I understand that, but to have a board member say that is disheartening from a Loyal parent’s perspective. I send my kids to Loyal and yes, I want them to have more opportunities. If that means consolidation, OK. But for you to say it doesn’t matter where the school is located, that’s what’s upsetting the community,” she said.

“Sorry to hurt your feelings. I have 11 grandchildren and I’ve had four kids graduate this high school. It’s more — it’s changed. I put on my letter jacket tonight. When I wore that letter jacket in this school, there were two car dealerships, two grocery stores. Now we have neither. But the school still has the same amount of teachers per grade and the education that we did then. Sorry, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m just putting reality out there,” replied Haslow.

Theresa Smith also spoke. She has grandchildren in the Loyal School District. She agreed that if the districts were to consolidate, they would lose students.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘If we’re not going to Loyal when we consolidate, I don’t want my kids driving 10, 15 more miles with the bus and stuff,’” she said. “I don’t think we need to consolidate at this time. Down the road, I can see it. But I don’t think this is the time… When you lose your high school, you lose your identity.”

Trish Williams, a Greenwood parent, said it was frustrating seeing so much discussion and no action.

“It seems like this talk has been going on for 30, 40 years. I don’t understand why it’s not happening when every year, financially it’s going to get worse. We all know that. You see it in everything — groceries, clothes, every aspect. If that’s where we’re headed… It’s just, we’re running out of time and eventually, you’re not going to have schools. You’re not going to have teachers that want to come here. You are going to have people that want to enroll in other schools… Personally, I don’t care where the schools are; I don’t care how it works. Something needs to be done. And then in the end, if Loyal’s not willing to work with us, when are we going to move on?”

Sue Roehl, Loyal parent, requested to see a budget comparison for the next five years for Greenwood separate, Loyal separate, and the two combined. She wanted to know the actual amount of cost savings. Pieper echoed that sentiment in saying that people need to know the specifics of what they are voting for. She used the analogy of buying a car; a person wouldn’t do so unless they knew the details. She said in speaking to community members, the main things they wanted to know were where the high school and elementary school would be, and would it be a two- or three-school model. She said it was hard to vote for something if you didn’t know what it would actually look like. She also said it took the pressure off the school boards by presenting the community a more detailed plan, because then they would know what the community truly wanted.

Haslow pushed back a little bit on that idea.

“I think the question we are putting on the referendum needs to be about the kids, and that needs to be solved later. Because things change over time,” said Haslow.

He said there could be maintenance concerns that come up that affect how much it costs to run a facility.

“We’re talking three years, four years? Them decisions need to be made down the road. That’s the way I feel.”

“And I would have to agree to disagree,” said Pieper. She said she was part of the strategic planning committee, which had been good, but “if I’m being honest, there are times when I feel like you’ve put in the time, but you’re not going to be heard anyway, because those decisions have already been made behind (closed doors). And I’m not the only one who feels that way and I’m passionate about our school. It just feels like things aren’t being resolved, and if I’m honest, I feel like we aren’t being heard. I don’t understand why you can’t put a question on the table that says, ‘Greenwood, this would be our plan moving forward; this is where the school is going to be. Are you OK with that?’ And the same for Loyal.”

Haslow said in the past when the school districts had tried consolidating, the location of the high school had been the major stopping point. He said he had questions too that he wanted answered before election time, and there needed to be ongoing dialogue between the public and the boards.

Loyal board member Tom Odeen said what he was taking out of this meeting was the school districts needed to understand the numbers and communicate those better. He gave some background information on Loyal’s financials. The district’s expenses have been increasing at a faster rate than income. Seventy percent of the district’s budget goes to salaries and benefits. There was a large increase in the cost of health insurance lately. The school has also had more students with special needs, requiring additional staffing to cover those needs.

Odeen said there were additional challenges with needing to pay more to attract teachers. The base salary went from $30,000 to between $40,000 and $45,000 without benefits. There are also less people getting into the field of education, so the school is not getting nearly as many applicants.

Odeen said the last time he looked, Loyal was spending $245,000 to $250,000 in sports every year, not including transportation, which was an additional $60,000. He said if the districts were to consolidate, there would be some cost savings in that area but he wasn’t sure the exact amount.

After Odeen, Ruzic chimed in again. “I also want to say that I care about our school and our town, but I care about my kids more,” said Ruzic. “I care about their education and what they do when they leave Greenwood. And I think the question on the ballot needs to make you think: does it matter where the school is if it’s the right thing for our students?”

Piggybacking off of Ruzic’s comment, Olson had something to say. She said many big decisions in her life such as marriage, starting a family, and taking a teaching job at Greenwood had been made without knowing all the details. But she made those decisions because she was ready to make a commitment.

“I’m asking our admin, school board and our communities to understand that most of what we do in life, we make a commitment based on what is truly important and we have to take what comes our way… Is our commitment holding a closed fist over the pride of our community or is our commitment to giving our kids the best we can give them?” she queried.

Jason Belter, who is the high school science teacher at Loyal, having just joined the staff this year, said he brought a bit of a different perspective since he didn’t have strong ties to either community. He said that in

Please see Consolidation, page 10

“Loss of your school in terms of population decline means less families moving into your town, and loss of youth and vitality in your community.”

– Matt Kubista, Loyal School Board member

“ Is our commitment holding a closed fist over the pride of our community or is our commitment to giving our kids the best we can give them?”

– Hannah Olson, Greenwood parent, teacher and coach Consolidation,

from p. 9

looking at the class rosters for Loyal, there was a significant drop in the number of students enrolled from the upper grades to the lower grades. The senior class has 38 students this year, the junior class has 50 and the sophomore class has 45. Freshmen, eighth, seventh, and sixth grades have enrollment in the high 30s. However, below sixth grade, there are about 30 students per grade. Belter said once those students reached high school, it would be hard to sustain classes and programming at the current level, because at some point it become impractical to offer a course if only three students want to take it, for example. Or, he said, the district would have to rely heavily on virtual classes.

“My advice (to the school boards) is to stay the coursewhile recognizing that things will keep changing. I do think the big picture is the best way to kind of communicate those financial concerns, and five years is a long time to figure out the details,” said Belter.

Chris Lindner agreed with Belter that the districts needed to prepare to face that drop in enrollment and subsequent decline in revenue.

“Obviously four or five years seems like a long ways out, but it will be here. But with the (ballot) question, at least it gets the direction moving forward. At least we have a defining answer that we can move forward with,” he said.

The question on the April ballot is advisory only, meaning the school boards are not bound by the outcome. However, if the outcome is favorable, it would give the boards confidence to move toward making consolidation a reality. The districts had discussed two timelines for consolidation. Both boards must pass a resolution indicating their intent to consolidate. If the boards passed a resolution this December, the first year as a consolidated district would be the 2027-28 school year. Otherwise, if they passed a resolution in December 2026, the first year as a consolidated district would be the 2028-29 school year. The district administrators previously said they thought passing a resolution in December 2026 would make more sense because both school districts’ operational referendums run out after the 2027-28 school year, so it would be a cleaner transition to start as a new district the following year.

After the boards pass a resolution to consolidate, a joint board is formed and all decisions go through that.

Becky Kohnert, who is secretary at Greenwood Elementary School, said she realizes consolidation could be a little scary for her position. But, she said, she feels consolidation is what’s best for her kids. She said kids having the best education possible was the most important, and she didn’t care where the school was.

Bucky Deegan from Loyal asked if Greenwood had a backup plan if the voters were against consolidation. He also said he would like to see the Greenwood School Board meetings livestreamed, as it would build trust in both communities. (The Jan. 15 joint meeting had 352 views as of Jan. 20.)

Nick Stieglitz from Greenwood said he was glad the boards were being proactive. He felt the boards just needed to get consolidation done.

“Having the state come in (to arrange the schools) scares me a lot more,” he said.

Loyal board member Matt Kubista, who is also the police chief, said he does not have ties to the area, but cares deeply about the community. His wife and one of his officers went to school in Minnesota and both ended up losing the high school in their town. He said both those communities have struggled since then, in terms of losing population and losing students out of their district.

“It will affect one of our communities. And I liked one of the last things that was said about a plan. This is what I’ve been saying. If this question is on there, why are we rushing it? Why isn’t there any plan? That’s what I want to hear. With such a great matter, we need that plan. When I first started and went to my first co-board meeting in June, I asked those questions. What about collaboration? What about the referendum? How can we support our own schools?

“I look at possibly with administration down the road, we’ve operated with two administrators before; why couldn’t we go back to two administrators?”

He also suggested using attrition to whittle down the number of staff, especially with several retirements coming up over the next handful of years.

“Consolidation may have to happen, yes. It might have to. Does it have to happen right now?… I’m not against consolidation, but I’m just saying, is there possibly through our own attrition, we could possibly do it ourselves? Have we looked at that? Have we gotten the numbers?”

He said people needed to know what they were voting for and what the referendum amount would be under a consolidated district.

Chris Lindner said he thought going down to two administrators would not work well, for meeting the needs present in the school.

“Just talking about going down to one principal and one administrator, that’s a lot. I was a 4K-12 principal for seven, eight years. You talk about (student) needs — needs were a lot back then and they have gotten worse, just throughout the building. And I believe our administration, our staff, are working their tails off and doing the best they can.”

Kubista said he agreed, and was not trying to say the current staff was not working hard; he was just trying to look at all the options and wanting people to realize there could be various negative ramifications with losing the school in one’s town.

Loyal board member Derek Weyer said that in addition to the Baird study, the boards had talked about doing a feasibility study, which had not gone anywhere “because we wanted to see what the public wanted us to do.”

“Now, if a generic question is going to be put on the ballot, I agree with Matt (Kubista) that that cannot be the final question that’s asked of the general public. If this comes back with a ‘Yes, we need to look at consolidation,’ then the feasibility study needs to take over and then, eventually, you go back to the public with the concrete plan and then we start the process,” recommended Weyer.

One community member who did not give her name said that, if she understood correctly, the basic question was if Loyal people were OK with having the high school in Greenwood, because that would be the scenario that would make the most fiscal sense — having the elementary school in Loyal and the high school in Greenwood, and eliminating the third building (the current Greenwood Elementary). Then there wouldn’t be a need to renovate the current Greenwood high school building to accommodate elementary students.

“There’s other options. There’s other scenarios too; we just haven’t talked about them. We haven’t talked about them because we want to know if this is the direction the communities want us to go. And if that answer’s yes, then it’s the work ahead to figure out what are those other options… I think it’s important for people to know those conversations haven’t been had at all. That’s where it’s, to Derek (Weyer)’s point, the facilities study is what’s to come next after the Baird study,” replied Green.

After the public comment, all the board members had a chance to share their thoughts. Roehl wrapped up his thoughts by saying that the board appreciated everyone’s comments and was truly listening.

“The hard part is trying to do what’s right for our community knowing that someone’s mad… I know we’re making people upset, but we are trying to do the best for our kids. There’s two ways of looking at this — one you can say, ‘Boy, it’s scary,’ and it is. And we don’t have all the answers; I don’t think we’ll ever have all the answers. But that’s kind of a negative way of looking at it.

“Another way of looking at it is, ‘What can we make of this? This could be the best, positive thing that there is.’ We can come up with new classes. We can come up with new sports. There’s so many new possibilities with this. And that’s where I focus my energy, is what can we make of this? Instead of ‘Boy, this is scary’ and it is. But I think we should focus more on what we can build together.”

“Yeah, I’ll back you up on that, Dennis. I think it’s what we can do best for our kids in both towns, regardless,” said Greenwood School Board President Jamie Gardner.

Greenwood board member Dean Lindner agreed and said what would scare him most would be if one of the school districts were unable to pass a referendum and tough decisions had to be made after that. He saw consolidation as a way for the districts to chart their own destinies and set them up for a strong future.

Greenwood board member Luke Smith said he also wanted the best opportunities for students and the location of the school didn’t matter to him.

After everyone had a chance to share their thoughts, the boards moved on to discussing the actual referendum question.

The question will state, “Do you support the consolidation of the School District of Loyal, Clark County, Wisconsin, with the School District of Greenwood, Clark County, Wisconsin?” (For Greenwood, the Greenwood School District will be listed first.)

Weyer asked if the board could put in its motion that there would be another question asked of the public afterward.

“I would love to guarantee people, ‘Vote on this, but you will have another opportunity to decide, when the final plans are put in place.’ And maybe that motion doesn’t need to be done tonight, but…” he said.

“My thought is, every time in the past it has stopped when we did the facilities study. Why are we going to be spending money on that, if it’s going to get shot down?” said Haslow. “It’s been done twice already; doing something a third time over is setting us up for failure. If we’re going to fail, might as well do it now.”

Roehl said the board could not actually vote on what Weyer was saying, because it wasn’t on the agenda, but they could put it on the agenda for a future meeting.

Kubista said he could see what Weyer was getting at. “Are we going to come back and ask another question somewhere? Will the public be able to vote on a ballot if they don’t like where the school is going to be? Is there going to be another question on the ballot, where they can say no to that when they find out where the school’s going to be?” said Kubista.

“I think we have to bring that up at our next regular board meeting and discuss it there, and if we want to do that, make a separate motion for that. We can do that,” said Roehl.

Kubista said because of the concern he brought up, he had voted no on last month’s item about putting a question on the ballot and would probably vote no again this time.

The Loyal board passed a motion 6-1 to have the question put on the April ballot; Greenwood passed the motion 5-0.

Background information Greenwood has been under an operational referendum since 2005. Chris Lindner wasn’t sure of the exact year Loyal first started operating under a referendum, but believed it was 2005 or 2006.

Green made the point that due to the inadequate state funding formula, 80% of the school districts in Wisconsin are currently relying on referendum dollars to operate. Even under a consolidated district, the district would still need to go to referendum to balance the budget.

Both school districts plan to post information about the consolidation question on their school websites, along with a Q& A portal in which a user can submit a question and the school district will do its best to answer that question within 48 hours.