Oconto Falls School District shifts plans after referendum rejected

The Oconto Falls School District is heading back to the drawing board after a $49.9 million referendum failed April 5.

By a 55% to 45% margin, voters rejected a proposal to build a new middle school and make improvements to the district’s other three schools.

During the April 11 school board meeting, Superintendent Dean Hess said administrators, staff and the public plan to work as a team to understand why the community didn’t support the measure and to decide whether to move forward with a different proposal in the November election.

“Most people can understand our facility needs still exist, and we hope to work together with our parents, our community members and business owners to create a proposal that will enable us to address these needs before the interest rates climb to a point that the work will be fiscally out of reach,” Hess said.

Emilie Trudell, a member of the community task force that worked to develop and support the referendum, expressed frustration at the social media campaign that questioned the district’s corporate culture and planning process.

“We’ve heard an awful lot from people lately who seem to sure know a lot about this board, this district, this administration, but have not attended any recent school board meetings,” Trudell said.

Over the years after a building referendum fails to pass, the district does research and hires experts to determine the actual need, only to get voted down again with opponents saying the district did not do enough research, she said.

“Can’t you see how frustrating this vicious cycle is?” Trudell said. “And the only way to break it is to get the public’s trust that we are learning from previous years, and that we are proposing a sound plan gained from people whose career it is to better the student experience.”

Trudell called out new board member Chad Earley for announcing he supported the referendum but not taking a more active role in the campaign.

“You had 266 more votes than ‘yes’ votes for the referendum,” she said. “If those votes against the referendum would have been the opposite, the referendum would have passed and we would be having a much different conversation tonight.”

The board also heard administrators were working with the consulting firm School Perceptions to draft a staff feedback survey to be taken in October; most board members urged Hess to get some sort of survey to staff by the end of the school year and continue it annually or twice a year.