Reopening classrooms in Chester Byrnes considered
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Community Schools Board of Education met Dec. 18 in another referendum working session focused on pulling together several options to present to the community with the goal of bringing the capitol improvements referendum back to the voters this coming year.
Because the Jan. 20 deadline looms to have a referendum appear on the Spring Election on April 1, board members indicated Wednesday night that they probably won’t be ready to bring the issues to the voters until later in the year, either in a special June election or possibly the General Election in November.
Board President Dawn Buchholtz said she was in favor of a June election because the only other time the district was able to pass a referendum like this was in a special June election.
Other board members were not in favor of holding such an election.
“It would be a waste of time and money,” said Mike Zei. “I would never vote for that.”
Village President Randy Timms was in the audience at the working session, and spoke his concerns about a special election as well.
“If it’s in a non-election cycle, it’s expensive to the taxpayers,” he reminded the board.
“The district would fund the election if necessary,” said Buchholtz, citing the fact that it could ultimately save taxpayers money if they could get construction contracts in place before the spring building season began.
Board members were concerned that pushing an earlier referendum would hurt the board’s ability to have public hearings and informational meetings to get as much community input as possible, acknowledging the lack of community involvement in the two earlier referendum attempts was a problem.
One of the big issues with the referendum is the construction of a new auditorium at East Troy High School. The board recognized the nearly $10 million price tag is a tough sell in a struggling economy.
“Are you looking at pulling away from the ‘white elephant’ with the auditorium and fix the schools first?” asked resident Dusty Stanford, who is also a village trustee.
“Dusty’s correct,” acknowledged Buchholtz. “One of the biggest things hindering our process is the auditorium. It’s obvious after two failed referendums it seems to be the biggest stumbling block.”
Building an auditorium big enough to seat the entire high school appears to be a no go, according to several board members, but refusing to build one doesn’t solve the problem of where to hold plays, concerts and large gatherings other than using the gym, which comes with its own problems.
“Every time we use that gym we close Phy Ed classes,” said board member Martha Bresler.
Bresler also said that she has concerns with the fact that the School District is losing students to open enrollment at the high school level fare more frequently than at the elementary and middle school levels and part of that may be because East Troy isn’t offering things like a full auditorium.
With that said, however, all the board members seemed to agree that for now, constructing a new auditorium at the high school is not an option.
There was some discussion between board members when Buchholtz brought up the idea of renovating the old Chester Byrnes gymnasium into a theater. Board members Murray Mitten and Ted Zess were opposed to the idea, but agreed to look at the numbers from the architect before making a final decision.
Zess said he felt a project like that should be taken on by a community group, not the School District.
Zei pointed out that most school districts were in the business of providing auditorium space for community use.
Mitten said he hated to see good money thrown away on a temporary solution and who’s to say that in five years or so they won’t be able to build an auditorium at the High School like they wanted. It would mean the money spent now would be wasted.
As it stands, the board is requesting quotes from the architect on what it would cost to renovate parts of Chester Byrnes to utilize existing space there for Birth to 3 and Pre-K classroom space and an additional quote to see how much it would cost to turn the gym into a theater.
The board’s plan is to have 2 or 3 different referendum options to present to the community and obtain feedback to help them decide how the district should move forward. The biggest difference between the options, at the moment, is that one calls for turning Doubek Elementary into an administration building that also houses Pre-K, adding classrooms to Prairie View to house grades 1-5 and tearing down Chester Byrnes. The other option has the district reopening Chester Byrnes and utilizing existing space with no new construction to meet the district needs.
The renovations and classroom restricting for the middle and high schools remain the same in both plans with a focus on upgrading outdated equipment and fulfilling the STEM and Tech Ed needs of the district.
Martha Bresler is spot on, we are losing (and will continue to lose) top quality students to open enrollment due to the lack of an auditorium. And while some might believe this to be the job of a “community group,” I believe that there are two questions that need to be asked.
1. What community entity will derive the greatest amount of benefit from an auditorium? Obviously, it’s the school district and it’s kids.
2. Is there any other community organization that legitimately has the ability to pull this off? The answer…not even close.
What we are saying as community members (who consistently vote against the auditorium) is that we are willing to be a second class community. Sadly, it is that simple. It’s a chicken or the egg phenomenon, but in this case we are just chicken to think bigger.
$10 Million is an *awfully* large price tag to put up a building that may or may not actually address the ‘student loss to open enrollment problem’. I have to think there are many other factors that contribute more to that. In all this talk, I have not seen any facts stating what the projected ET Community Schools enrollment is going to be in 5 years.. 10 years.. etc. while all this Big Dollar construction will be getting paid for. Why is that?
I’m not saying I am thoroughly against the idea. But with a Ten Million Dollar price tag, the School Board needs to do a better job of telling me why this is a “need” and not a “want”. Here’s an idea: assuming seating for 600 or 700.. how about Community Movie Nights (like, on a Saturday) in the New Auditorium for the people that have paid, and are continuing to pay for the Big Fancy Building. (You know, the taxpayers in this community) Shouldn’t be too difficult to make that happen.
Everything has a cost – this should not be a surprise to anyone. In order for the community to grow and further the ability for our children to be successful post-education, we must make investments.
There are a few items that I would like to hear more about though before I blindly vote yes to a referendum.
1. How have we let all of our schools become so plagued with issues that we are now faced with a request for an overwhelming high amount of money? This is a failure of management and needs to be corrected before they are given the responsibility to manage another large investment. Please explain and provide some confidence that we have the correct management oversight to ensure this does not happen again. Also, please provide an analysis of the budgets over the last 10 years, so that we (taxpayers) can see where our money has been going and what costs have increased over the last 10 years.
2. We seem to have dug a deep hole here; I appreciate the time and effort that has gone into informing the community of all of the challenges at our schools. Now we need that same level of attention on planning a way out of this hole. Requesting a large amount of money to address these challenges should not be taken lightly. A detailed execution plan on what will be completed by priority order with timelines and costs for each item needs to be brought to the community for approval. Example: If you need a new HVAC system, tell me what priority it has compared to all other needs, the cost of the new system, and the month it will be installed. Since we have let so many things deteriorate, we (taxpayers) need to make priority calls.
I fully support making investments into our schools but it must be managed with responsible administration and respect towards those who are paying the bills. As the economy is still struggling, we need to have a better understanding of how taxpayer funds are being spent.