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Wausau School District task force outlines options that could close up to three elementary schools
Summary
The elementary facility task force presented several consolidation scenarios and a matrix of data for 13 elementary schools, saying task force members most often supported options that would result in up to three school closures; additional options will be discussed Oct. 30 and recommendations are expected by December.
Mark Roffers, presenting for the elementary facility task force, told the Wausau School District Board of Education that the group is still exploring options for the district’s 13 elementary schools and has not yet made any recommendations.
"The task force has not made a recommendation on any particular school. It will be talking and has been about particular schools at particular meetings, but it's far from a recommendation," Roffers said, describing data dashboards the task force used to compare options against five board-approved criteria.
The presentation explained that the task force compiled a matrix of each school’s condition, capacity and projected enrollment and evaluated several consolidation approaches. Roffers said members most often favored options that would close three schools, with two-school closures as the next-most-supported outcome; he cautioned that options closing four or more schools did not meet capacity constraints.
The task force displayed multiple models, including so-called 1-to-1 pairings in which students from one school would move en masse to another; examples discussed included John Marshall to Hawthorne Hills, Franklin to Hawthorne Hills, and Rib Mountain potentially sending students to South Mountain if small classroom expansions were added. Roffers said 1-to-1 pairings are often infeasible without grade-group reconfiguration or modest construction.
A board member asked whether future cost-per-student estimates would be supplied for each scenario. "Will the recommendations come with a future cost per student should an action be taken?" the board member asked. Roffers said the task force could show operating-cost savings, staffing-reduction estimates and some utility savings, but modeling future per-student operating costs at a receiving school would be more challenging and would need to account for added busing and other changes.
Board members also raised boundary questions, fifth-grade-to-middle proposals and wraparound daycare as policy considerations. Roffers said boundary adjustments and grandfathering could be worked out after the board makes any consolidation decision and stressed that the task force remains in an exploratory phase.
The task force will present additional options at its Oct. 30 meeting and intends to narrow and prioritize alternatives through November, with a goal of providing a recommendation to the board in December.
