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School Board Choses Pleasant Hill Over Class Sizes |
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Thursday, 13 September 2007 |
The Waukesha School Board chose to keep Pleasant Hill open by taking the total population of Pleasant Hill and Hillcrest schools and putting K-3 in one building and 4-6 in the other. This didn't eliminate the underused facility problem, just spread it between two schools. Instead of closing Pleasant Hill, which could have saved the district -$300,000-$400,000 per year and provided the one-time cash windfall from the sale of this very valuable piece of property, the board embarked upon what looks like an educational fad that doesn't save the taxpayers one dollar. The administration put the fear into school board members with the threat of "we will lose all the students to Elmbrook if we do this" and the parents reinforced this message. Whatever. We have heard this threat before and as the school board continues to underperform, we will continue to hear this well into the future for each and every proposed increase in class size and every elimination of programs.
Why did we use the word threat above? Because we know that while parents are willing to say they will put their kids in the neighboring district, it isn't as easily done. While the neighboring district may be willing to let the kids in, it takes a parent or parents to get the kids there and home or to pay the extra to bus them. Additionally, there are all the other events that surround school-scouts, concerts, meeting with teachers, etc.
Do we doubt we are losing students to other districts and to private schools? No. But we also don't believe that the school board should be making decisions based on this potential but rather the cold hard numbers that drive the budget and where potential savings can be found.
Kudos to Pat McCaffery and Frank Finman for their NO votes and for doing it for the right reason.
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