Says there continues to be ongoing mistrust of Medford school district administration

Vox Pop

Dear Pat Sullivan, I am writing this in regard to the upcoming 2022 spring referendum. If you remember the previous referendum in November 2021, I wrote a letter in response to the proposed $39.9 million. Just to refresh your memory, here is what I wrote: “It is obvious that there is a reason the referendum was defeated. The number one reason is mistrust. To convince or persuade someone of your beliefs, you have to build a trusting relationship with the person or people you are trying to persuade. That relationship has not been established between the district administrator, the school board, and the voters.”

Since this letter was published on March 18, 2021, I do not believe that there has been an effort to investigate or mend this mistrusting relationship.

Listening to the MASH referendum 2022 promotional video, it is very apparent that you don’t think trust was a factor for voting down the last two referendums. Your reasoning why the referendum was turned down was, “We listened to the community and what we heard over and over again was, had you not included a theater and a gymnasium in those referendums, many people would have supported it.” This may have been one reason why, but not the determining factor.

Trust plays a big part in spending someone’s money. We still don’t believe that the pitch for the 2022 proposal can be trusted. The theater and the new gymnasium were removed but many additional things were added. In the sales arena, this is called bait and switch.

Attending the informational meeting about the referendum on March 16, 2022, provided some information to reinforce the fact that I had concerns about this proposal. I asked a simple question, “After the school is remodeled and the classrooms are expanded, how many rooms are being eliminated in the current building?” Two architects and the principal could not provide an answer. That question should have been answered and used as criteria for the scope and justification of this project. If you don’t know how many rooms you are eliminating, how do you know how many rooms to add? Another citizen and the principal went through this and determined an answer. There will be six rooms eliminated and 16 rooms added in the current $29.9 million proposal. That leaves 10 extra rooms. Once the French class is eliminated as an elective, there may even be 11 extra rooms. A simple question revealed that this is an ill-prepared proposal.

The proposal, along with other information presented at the meeting, leads us to mistrust. Laura Lundy explained and highlighted the AP programs and college credits offered, but as a salesperson would do, neglected to tell us the current academic state of Medford Area Senior High. As parents, we had suspicions that there were concerns with the high school academics when this year’s junior class spent hours upon hours of precious learning time prepping and pretesting for the ACT test that was administered on March 8, 2022. To answer our question as to what the current academic status is of the high school, I searched the public-school ranking. Medford Area Senior High placed in the bottom 50% of all schools in Wisconsin for overall test scores, with math and reading proficiency ranking in the bottom 50% percent. The percentage of students achieving proficiency in math is 25-29%, which is lower than the Wisconsin state average of 43%. The percentage of students achieving proficiency in reading/language arts is 35-39%, which is lower than the Wisconsin state average of 41%.

This leads us back to the referendum. The focus should be on the current state of our academics. The main goal should be to determine why and how we can better deliver a five-star education for our children. Updating our current facility and adding classrooms will not change how well our children are taught math and reading. A building is a tool, but curriculum and the delivery of that curriculum is the foundation of our education system.

As experienced parents, living through the startup and continuation of Common Core, we can see how unprepared and ill-informed our educational system was prior to implementation and it continues to be today. We feel this is the same road we are taking with the introduction of the proposed collaborative teaching theory. Adding break out spacing will not magically make our children more collaborative. Are all the variables covered? Is this method of teaching proven? Where is the science? Laura Lundy’s statement, “In order to solve problems, kids can’t sit in a desk facing the front and listening to a lecture all day,” is not supporting data that this method works.

I agree with Chris Schield when he said, “We are looking for individuals that can collaborate well with others.” On the other hand, I do not agree with his statement, “Having modernized facilities is really important as you think about what those facilities will do to enable the students to be at their best.” Facilities are a tool, but they do not teach students to be their very best. Parents, teachers, and curriculum are the key factors of our children excelling.

Since when does offering a larger or broader lunch menu constitute building a new cafeteria? Since when does adding security include adding a new administrative office and student services?

The ill-prepared justification for this referendum is not the only factor to consider. It is a time of high inflation; cost of living is the highest in 40 years. Gasoline prices are over $4.00 per gallon and rising. In the Medford Area School District, many people are living on a fixed and/or poverty level income. No matter the justification of “how little it will add to our taxes,” it would still be an additional burden for 25 years.

— Greg and Maureen Heier, Medford