By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
About 15 people showed up for the East Troy Community School District Board of Education’s annual meeting Monday night, and many of them were school staff and building level administrators.
The meeting, which is advisory, is the one chance a year residents can have input on things such as the district’s budget and operations. With the Nov. 4 facility needs referendum looming, the district’s projected budgetary shortfall and other challenges facing the East Troy schools, there was a lot of information available for residents who wanted to learn more.
School Board President Ted Zess served as chairman for the meeting after being nominated.
State of the District
District Administrator Dr. Chris Hibner gave his “State of the District” address. He said he felt it was important to let the community know where the district is and where it’s heading.
“The annual meeting used to just be about the tax levy, but I think it should be a time to let the community know about the state of the district,” Hibner said. “It’s really easy to lose sight of what we’re all about. How are kids are doing. Are they engaged? Are they learning? Are we evolving?”
Hibner acknowledged the district is facing serious challenges such as losing twice as many kids out of the district to Open Enrollment than it gets in and the facility needs referendum which has split the board and the community on what is the best way to proceed.
But he also reminded those in attendance that there was much the district could take pride in. The recently release ACT scores for this year’s senior class had East Troy ranked in the upper-end of area schools and above average for the state.
He said the High School’s AP program showed huge successes last year with more kids than every taking AP exams and doing well on them.
He emphasized that the education market is a competitive market and the district needed to focus on becoming the “district of choice,” which he has been stressing all year.
He said there shouldn’t be a fear of failure for East Troy students and he wanted them to try new things without worrying so much about the grade because “you learn a lot from failure.”
He placed the responsibility of the future of the School District straight into the hands of everybody involved, whether it be staff, administration, elected officials or community members, “Our schools are what we make them.”
Proposed tax levy
School District Business Manager Kathy Zwirgzdas presented the proposed budget Monday night. She explained how the district goes about putting together the numbers for the $22 million budget and how the final tax levy can’t be set until October when the district gets the information about how much state aid it will receive and what the actual property values are.
She said a school district’s budget works in direct opposite of how everyone else budgets since the state sets revenue limits based on the number of students in the schools and then the budget is worked backward from that point.
“It’s a challenging funding formula,” she said.
As it stands now, there is a proposed 5.03 percent tax levy proposed with mill rate of 3.31 percent, but those numbers will most likely change.
Zwirgzdas said the district has been losing money steadily over the past five years and has made $4.5 million in cuts over that time to balance the budget.
She said that Open Enrollment is costing the district $743,700 this year. With a project shortfall of more than $600,000 for this year in the budget, that is concerning.
“It’s a budgetary line item we have to adjust for every year,” she said.
Volunteers honored
The annual meeting began with Hibner bestowing the district’s Voluntary Service Award to Shawn and Meg Hunter for their work in helping to establish the Middle School’s robotics program and with the PatronumBots.
“They not only helped with the robotics program, but they came in on their own time to help our staff questions and decision on where to take the program in the school,” Hibner said. “The community should commend these people.”
After accepting the award, Meg Hunter spoke briefly, saying how much she and her husband enjoyed working with the kids and the district in getting the now-mandatory class for sixth graders off the ground. “It’s been our pleasure and honor to do this and we also want to recognize your vision in developing the program. Thank you and everyone in the community for allowing us to be a part of this.”
