Residents tell School Board to stop fighting and fix the problem
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
Tempers flared Monday night at the East Troy Community School District Board of Education meeting when nearly 70 people showed up to have their say about the failed facility needs referendum.
Emotions ran high as nearly 20 residents, School District staff and even a School Board member took the floor one after the other to voice their concerns about the district, the referendum process and sometimes the specific actions of some board members.
If there was one message the sometimes angry community members wanted to get across, it was a plea to the board to put aside personal feelings and agenda and find a solution to the district’s needs because it was the children that were suffering the most.
The board heard from several teachers in the district who expressed disappointment in the failed referendum and the acrimony among the board members that led to a deep divide with two members openly opposing the referendum and urging voters to say “No” on Election Day because they didn’t believe it was the right solution for the district.
Board member Steve Lambrechts chose to speak in the public participation section of the meeting as a resident and blasted board members Dawn Buchholtz and Martha Bresler for their actions in the days before the election.
“As a concerned citizen, Martha, I’m embarrassed by your actions,” Lambrechts said.
He went on to say that because Bresler is a former teacher for the district, she shouldn’t have let her personal feelings influence her decision.
He told Buchholtz he was “appalled” at what he called her many “transgressions” that included taking out the back page ad in the East Troy Times with Bresler the week before the election asking voters to vote “No” for the referendum, and “things you said at School Board meetings and in to the newspaper.”
Community members expressed deep concern over the division within the board and how it affected the referendum process and what the future holds if the district can’t move forward.
“I’m very disappointed the referendum failed,” one resident said. “And for the sake of the children, the board needs to move the School District forward. I urge you to work together and pass a referendum the public can support.
“If you can’t do that, then you need to step down for the good of East Troy.”
“Not having a consensus of the School Board members is hurting the district,” an elementary school teacher said.
Other teacher spoke on the difficulty of providing 21st century learning in the district’s outdated facilities and implored the board to consider how the children weren’t getting the advantages they needed for today’s world.
“Much is different in the district than what we were doing 10 years ago, because of all the changes, we need to have a structure to accommodate that,” one High School teacher said.
“The hardest part for us is that the dissidence caused it (the referendum) to fail,” she continued. “And the losers are our kids.”
Survey results
One of the flash points in the debate is the district’s referendum survey from spring. Several citizens have recently questioned why the raw data from the survey has not been made available to the board and the public.
The survey results as compiled by the Donovan Group for the district are available on the district’s website (www.easttroy.k12.wi.us) and have been for months but the raw data has not been made public.
Board members Dawn Buchholtz and Martha Bresler asked to see the “complete survey” months ago, during the work on the referendum, but because the whole board didn’t make the request, nothing came of it.
“Frankly the reason this became such a big deal is because they weighed the survey so much and if it was that important than it’s important to see all the results,” Buchholtz said.
At least two residents – Terry Dignan and Tim Griffen – have submitted open records requests to the School District asking for the raw data from the survey.
In a written response to Dignan, District Administrator Dr. Chris Hibner denied the open records request, explaining that the district did not have the records requested because the district did not own those records, the Donovan Group, that did the survey did. The denial also cited confidentiality for the survey takers and exposing “trade secrets” for the Donovan Group and their propriety online survey techniques as other reasons.
The reasoning provided by the district doesn’t sit well with Dignan or Griffin.
“That’s bizarre if you ask me,” Griffin said. “If I paid for the survey I should be able to get all the information. There’s no reason not to get the raw data.”
“I am not satisfied with the response that I received from the District Administrator regarding my request for the full raw data responses to the survey that was sent out,” Dignan wrote in an email. “He has stated that this data is the property of the research firm that conducted the survey and that no one from the district has seen the raw data and the district has no right to the data. If that is, in fact, the situation, then I would contend that those who negotiated the contract did not do a competent job in that negotiation.
“We the taxpayers paid for that survey and the results should be fully open public records.”
For Griffin, the biggest problem with the raw data not being made public is that the School Board members didn’t get to read all the comments made by the residents at the end of the survey.
“No where on the survey did it say my comments would not be read by the board,” Griffin said last week. “And the reason I think it’s important to get all the comments is because the end of the survey was worded in such a way you couldn’t get your opinion across, it was very difficult to express what you wanted and there may have been a lot of other people who felt the same way and in particular I wanted to know what people wanted on the Doubek site.”
Hibner acknowledged Monday night that some people might not be satisfied with his decision and that they did have a path of recourse through the District Attorney’s office, should they choose to pursue the matter further. Something he wrote in the open records request denial as well.
School Board President Ted Zess and Hibner both said they had not seen the raw data and was not part of any decision-making as to what went into the survey results.
“I get the impression that its been implied that the survey has been manipulated,” Hibner said Monday night. “I find that very disheartening.’
“I don’t have the raw data, I didn’t see it, I didn’t want to see it. The best thing I can do is not see it,” Hibner continued. “And I did recommend for the School Board not to see it the raw data because of the issue of confidentiality.”
“We don’t own that data,” Zess said Monday afternoon before the meeting. “It should be possible to have the names redacted, though. If somebody wants to see more data they can call them (Donovan Group) and ask them.”
Hibner told the board that if the members wanted to see all the comments, or the raw data, the whole board would have to make a request. It could be put on a future agenda and discussed at that time with action taken if the board chose.
Bresler and Buchholtz said they didn’t think it was necessary at this time to do that because they were focusing on moving forward. But Buchholtz said if the survey was going to be used in the future for the next referendum, then she thought they should consider it.
What’s next?
Hibner spoke at length after the public participation on his feelings about the failed referendum and what’s up next for the district. He admitted he was at a loss at the moment and that there were many questions out there.
What is the right solution? How do we rebuild the trust? What about the operational issues the district is facing. The plan was to get the facility needs referendum passed first and then bring an operational referendum to the public a few years later, but that’s no longer possible since the facility needs have not been addressed. What does the district do about the delayed maintenance projects that will not be solved by new facilities. And more.
Hibner admitted he didn’t have the answer to these questions, but they were going to have to be answered one way or another … and soon.
He closed with a reminder that the reason everyone was there tonight was the same – “To promote the cause of education.”
The School Board is holding a special referendum working session at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 24, to start looking at a new solution for the district.
With all the mistrust and anger at Monday night’s meeting, board members are moving forward cautiously, hoping to rebuild some of that trust and repair the damage this past election.
“I’m looking at it as the start of healing process,” Zess said. “I’m hoping people got the anger out and now we can move forward, it was difficult but now we can move on.”
All the School Board members have expressed the desire to hear more from the public about the district’s needs and next referendum.
Zess said it would be nice to see 70 people show up for the working session to help the board craft a referendum the community would support.
