By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
A new task force within the Whitewater Unified School District will explore ways of attracting — and retaining — students, officials have announced. The group is being formed at a time when WUSD is grappling with enrollment declines.
Superintendent Caroline Pate-Hefty announced an informal, pilot effort at the deep-dive exploration at WUSD’s monthly School Board meeting April 26. Two meetings have taken place thus far.
At Pate-Hefty’s request, the School Board, in turn, officially created a more tightly structured task force that is to meet monthly. Plans call for two staffers, per WUSD building, serving on the task force to look into how the enrollment losses can be stemmed.
A range of issues related to the recent trend are to be explored within the task force, including family engagement, increasing athletics opportunities, exploring the possibility of a foreign language offering at the elementary school level and ramping up marketing efforts.
Speaking to the issue of enrollment loss, Pate-Hefty said, “This is a real issue we need to address. We need to make sure we’re hearing our community.”
More details on the task force’s efforts will surface at future WUSD School Board meetings.
In other matters April 26, the WUSD School Board:
– Approved the creation of three new positions, including one aimed at mitigating future enrollment declines within the district.
For the 2021-22 school year, WUSD will employ people to the roles of family and community engagement coordinator, a registrar with the business services department and a buildings and grounds director.
Earlier this year, Pate-Hefty had discussed with the board the proposed positions as preliminary considerations are made in the upcoming school year’s budget, which officially begins July 1.
The family and community engagement coordinator, a part-time position, “will plan, schedule and coordinate events and programming to promote education for children prior to school entry with education/engagement with families,” based on the district’s job description.
The person filling the registrar position will handle a range of duties, many related to student data, including processing new student enrollment, managing data that needs to be sent to the state Department of Public Instruction and maintaining records for students eligible to receive free and reduced meals.
WUSD previously housed a buildings and grounds director position, though it was scrapped years ago as a cost savings measure. More recently, Business Manager Matthew Sylvester-Knudtson has been overseeing the function.
– Approved Lakeview Elementary School Principal David Brokopp’s resignation. He leaves WUSD with 10 years of service.
– Approved the elimination of several positions currently on WUSD’s staffing flow chart, including a full-time speech and language pathologist.
WUSD will continue employing speech and language pathologists, though the specific position — vacated through attrition — is being nixed at this time because of enrollment projections for the upcoming year.
In a big picture sense, Pate-Hefty said she still views the position as an important one to the district.
