MANITOWOC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Manitowoc’s school board is pumping the brakes on plans to close schools; however, the board has put the district’s central office building on the chopping block.
Familiar problems to many school districts across Wisconsin are prevalent in Manitowoc.
“First of all, we have declining enrollment and so we have excessive capacity and it’s costing us about $3 million plus to maintain two facilities we don’t need,” said Manitowoc Public Schools Superintendent James Feil.
Feil has been pushing a plan to close two elementary schools as the district faces $161 million in maintenance needs over the next decade. Feil says a revised version of his plan would save $30 million in that time.
“Since the problems of our buildings took decades to make, I think it’s worth taking appropriate time consideration to solve,” said Karen Hansen, a parent in the district.
Parents and school board members have taken Feil to task for not involving the community with decisions, not consulting neighboring districts who’ve faced similar problems, and presenting limited or no alternative options.
The board voted 5 to 2 against the school closure plan. Board member Matthew Spaulding went against his personal beliefs.
“According to what I’m seeing, nobody else cares to come to the board meetings and cares to speak to the fact that we’re hemorrhaging money and by prolonging this we’re going to end up paying more down the future,” said Spaulding. “However, the ones that did come and do care to email me, I go to go with what they say.”
The board, however, did vote 4 to 3 to move central office personnel out of its current standalone building and into vacant school building spaces.
“I honestly believe a lot of the stuff that is in here that if we had central office people seeing that stuff everyday never would have gotten to the point that it did,” said Christopher Able, the president of the school board.
The motion to move administrators out of their building and into the schools appeared to come out of left field, certainly surprising people that were at Thursday night’s meeting.
The next step is to come up with a plan. If it can’t be done, another board action would need to be made, according to Able.
The board also agreed to set community meetings to gather input on potentially closing schools.
“Come with some solutions and we’re here to listen,” said Spaulding.
It would not have been known tonight which two elementary schools would have closed if the board had chosen that route. That was going to be decided in the fall.
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