Granton School Board holds listening session to address ongoing education concerns

By Cheyenne Thomas On March 3, more than 50 people came out to a special listening session with the Granton School Board to address some longstanding concerns that parents and community members have expressed over the past several months with the education of their children at the district. The listening session served as a forum where parents could discuss the issues they have seen and offer suggestions on what the administration and board can do to address those concerns, with some follow-up on the topics raised at the meeting being provided by the board at its regular meeting March 10.

At the beginning of the session on March 3, Granton District Administrator Nancy Popp informed the public attending the meeting about the main categories that were to be discussed. The main topics of concern she had seen brought up to her and other members of the administration and board on previous occasions were school staffing, the structure of the middle and high school, and collaboration with other districts. Additionally, issues related to staff morale, student behavior, and communication also emerged during these discussions, shedding light on the deeper challenges the district is facing.

Staffing Popp opened up discussion about staffing at the district by clarifying to the public at the meeting where the school stood with regards to its staff. Currently, the Granton Area School District has three open positions that have not been filled since the beginning of the 2024-25 school year. They currently do not have a music teacher and do not have an English teacher for middle school or high school.

“We have not found any candidates that were qualified on WECAN (Wisconsin Education Career Access Network),” said Popp. “Other than a few people from the Philippines who would have to come to the U.S. to teach, we have not found anyone. We want to fill those positions with three qualified people and have the goal to have an in-person English teacher for our students next year.”

Popp also addressed some of the other teaching positions that no longer exist at Granton, with those classes no longer being offered, or only offered virtually through Rural Virtual Academy or the CWETN network. Classes such as business education, home economics, and Spanish have all been dropped as offered

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classes in Granton in the past several years. A lot of that, Popp said, is due to the cost of having those teachers in the building.

“It would cost us approximately an additional $200,000 beyond our regular budget to be able to offer those positions again,” she said. “But we don’t have the additional money to be able to do that. Can it happen? I would like to bring it back, but we need to look at options.”

After informing the people in attendance at the meeting about where the district stood on staffing, the floor was opened to allow discussion. Several of the parents asked questions with regards to considering other options for hiring teachers, as they considered what would happen to the school if they were unable to find any staff for their needed positions.

Some of the suggestions offered by the parents and community members in attendance were to consider posting the positions on other job sites besides WECAN, such as Indeed or LinkedIn in order to reach a wider pool of candidates. They also asked about considering the possibility to hire a teacher from overseas to come to the U.S. to teach as well as the possibility of getting emergency teaching licenses for those individuals who would be willing to teach classes and had education in those areas, but did not possess a Wisconsin teacher’s license.

“We have a dire need for teachers,” said one parent. “Why can’t we get an emergency license for someone who is overqualified but doesn’t have a teaching license in Wisconsin to teach our students? There are people here that would love to come and teach classes, but they don’t want to have to go back to school to get a teaching certificate.”

The community members also offered a couple of suggestions on how the district could change its budget to try to afford additional staffing. They asked questions about how much virtual classes cost compared to offering classes in-person, and also brought up the possibility of having the district hold operational referendums like other local school districts use to be able to keep their programs.

“Are we being competitive with other schools in the area?” asked one parent. “What does Granton have to offer that these other districts don’t offer? We need to think about a referendum and making sure our students have those real-life skills they can use.”

Morale During the discussion on staff, the topic of staff morale was brought up. Several parents and a few teachers spoke about their observations of how the administration and school board have been offering little to no support to their teachers during the school year. If that is not addressed, they said there was the very real possibility that the school would not retain its current staff as its employees may begin looking elsewhere for a more positive work environment.

“You have a lot of unhappy teachers right now,” said Mark Kayhart. “I don’t think you have a happy teacher on staff. You guys need to look into this or it will be a lot harder than you have it right now.”

“Staff morale has not been great,” added Jessica Schier, fourth grade teacher at Granton. “We need to see the school board check in with staff. Conduct in person check-ins, like once a month. Help with student behaviors and session planning. You need to help educators feel seen, heard, and valued and that is not the case right now.”

Even student morale has not been positive. “I guess a lot of issues are had with students being rude to teachers,” said one student in attendance at the meeting. “They can be verbally and emotionally abusive. I do think something needs to be done, because this is not OK. Most of them just find it funny that they are being sent to the principal’s office.”

Middle and high school structure When speaking to the public about the structure of the middle and high school, Popp began by addressing some recent rumors that had been floating around the community the school district closing was its middle school and high school portion of the building and sending its students elsewhere for that education. She said the district has not been considering that as an option and is confident the school can continue operating as it currently is.

“Granton is not closing,” she said. “We don’t need to close. We are fine and we can maintain a go-ahead and go forward. Does there need to be a structure change here for the middle and high school? It is a lengthy process that is at least a year and that is not something that we are doing for next year. We want to have 4K-12 being at Granton.”

After the point had been clarified, there was not too much further discussion on the topic, although a few parents asked the board about the future of the school down the road and if the topic of making Granton a K-8 school should be seriously considered.

“At what point do we say we need a structure change?” asked a parent. “We could be in a disaster if we keep losing students and staff.”

Several of the parents noted that Granton has a very strong and successful elementary school program, with many parents bringing their students to the district for that education. Instruction and extracurricular activities at the middle and high school level is where parents are seeing the most struggle, with the issues of having staffing for positions at that level and other concerns affecting student learning.

“We can’t do quick fixes,” said one parent. “The elementary is good and everyone can agree on that, but I have a high schooler and right now the only reason she is still here is because of the FFA. A lack of sports and other classes are affecting the students being willing to stay.”

Collaboration Popp opened discussion on collaboration by informing everyone where the district is at with communications between the other local districts of Neillsville, Loyal, and Greenwood.

“This has come up a lot,” she said about the topic. “Neillsville is the closest to us and we have co-oped sports with them. We reached out to them but we didn’t get very far with the request. I reached out to their board and heard nothing. I talked with the superintendents of Greenwood and Loyal and they are willing to work with us. What will happen if Loyal and Greenwood consolidate? That is on their ballot in April and I will ask more about that from them after their vote. I don’t know what that will look like. And even if they do commit, it is a three-year process and they have said they are willing to collaborate with us if we want to do that.”

There has been some collaboration in the past few months with the Greenwood School District for the band and choir programs, with students being bused over to that school for class. However, there were several recent incidents with student behavior that morphed the conversation into a larger discussion about student behavior overall.

Student behavior Staff, students and parents at the meeting all discussed their issues with current student behavior and how something needs to be done to encourage students to behave and help staff so there are not disruptions in class that prevent students from learning.

“Communal punishment is pointless,” said one parent. “It tears down student morale. My daughter has come to me before telling me about the naughty students in her class and how they get all the attention and has asked, ‘Should I be naughty too?’ That is not what you want them to learn.”

Part of the problem, said Dale Rollins, who is the academic behavioral interventionist at the school, is the overall lack of support staff to handle behavioral issues. Some of the students need to be pulled out of class or have oneon- one intervention done with them, but there is not enough staff to take care of all the students who need it, leaving teachers stuck.

“We don’t have the staff to set students aside,” he said. “Sometimes you have to spend all day with one student, but we don’t have the staff. Teachers need to have resources to help with classroom management. Right now it’s a 50/50 of if you’re having the entire class sitting out in the hallway due to the behavior of one student or getting those extra resources.”

A few of the parents and members of the board directed questions at Rollins about the behavioral situation of students, asking about how the parents and administration are involved in those conversations. He said that was another area where the shortage of staff is a problem, as there are not enough hours in a day to both try to deal with students and call parents.

“I’ll make a call and the parents won’t answer,” he said. “I don’t have the time to do so many phone calls and wait on the line for parents to actually answer.”

Several of the parents asked the board to consider using harsher forms of punishment on students that have shown to have continual behavioral issues, with some requesting that the district consider expelling unruly students or making the students perform cleaning tasks while in detention.

“There is no fear,” said a parent. “And I know that makes me sound evil, but if behavior is an issue, then make the detention unpleasant. I expect the school to hold kids accountable. If my child misbehaves, I want to know that there will be consequences. Kids need to learn that.”

Communication Communication was another topic of discussion brought up during the discussion at the meeting. Many of the parents who were at the meeting told the board that the district has not been doing a good job informing parents about the things going on at the school, including behavioral issues and the decision to have students bused over to Greenwood for music class.

“I don’t know what’s going on at the school unless my kids tell me,” said one parent. “I don’t receive communication from the school.”

When asked by the board what methods of communication would be the best ones to use to make sure parents were informed, the parents unanimously agreed that they wanted to be provided messages in as many different formats as possible. They suggested messaging through ClassTag, Facebook, text messages, emails, automated phone calls, and paper mail.

“We will take anything,” said a parent. “Because we haven’t gotten anything.”

Follow-up After the listening session on March 3, Popp provided some initial follow-up on some of the immediate changes that the district is working on to address the issues brought up, with many of the people in attendance at the previous meeting attending the meeting on March 10. She told them the school is working on looking at options for staffing and for offering those additional classes that are currently not being offered or offered in-person at the school. She said she hopes there will be decisions made on those issues in April or May.

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With collaboration, Popp said the school is working on its school calendar to make it align more with Loyal and Greenwood’s school calendars, so they can avoid having days where one district will have school and the other will not, resulting in missed instruction time. They also will be reaching out to some of the other districts to discuss behavioral issues and Popp said she would be going with students to Greenwood to observe those classes to see what can be done to encourage positive student behavior.

Popp also said there will be efforts made to improve communication with the parents and community, with information about the recent discussions to be sent out to parents in paper format this week. Other communications will also be sent out to parents using ClassTag and emails.

Finally, Popp said that as a result of the previous meeting, she would like to establish a committee made up of parents, students, and teachers to discuss what needs to be done and how to improve things for students in the next school year. She will also be meeting with teachers on an individual basis to work on improving staff morale.