Board urged not to cut staff, programs

Community packs library to urge support of teachers, finding solution to loss of students
By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

Parents, students and community members spent nearly an hour April 4 urging the Shawano School Board to listen to the people they serve, to find cuts somewhere other than teachers and support staff to close a $2 million budget gap, and to stop initiating new programs that are going to cost the district money until the budget is balanced.

Over 100 people packed the library at Shawano Community High School, and with each speaker delivering a different message, the applause emboldened people to speak out about what some consider to be an atmosphere of mistrust in the schools.

Megan Pyaskowit told the board that spending needed to be halted until there was a full account from the administration on how the district found itself in the red. By continuing to spend on new programs and Apple equipment, she said the board is sending the message that things are more important than people.

“I would point out that there have not been efforts to recover our open-enrolled students. Why not?” Pyaskowit said. “I am not willing to accept any downsizing, because that is what ‘right-sizing’ really is, unless a real assessment is made of our enrollment and an effort is made to reclaim our students.”

Chris Marcks, who’d previously worked at the district office in human resources, noted that a lot of students are going to neighboring districts or the parochial schools, adding she opted to keep her son, who is in kindergarten, at Sacred Heart Catholic School after the teacher she’d hoped to pair him with left the school district shortly before the school year began.

Marcks said that there are 74 students from Shawano in the Menominee Indian School District, contradicting a claim by officials with that district in March that the number was 88. She said there are also 25 students with the Gresham School District and that Bonduel is “maxed out” on its open enrollment numbers, with the bulk of them from Shawano and Pulaski. St. James Lutheran School has a waiting list for some grades, Marcks claimed, and the Wolf River Homeschoolers have welcomed 25 new families in the last two years.

“It’s easy to say that it’s going down all over the state,” Marcks said about enrollment. “Well, our little neck of the woods, it’s going up — everywhere but here. So what’s going on?”

Betsy Henning, a teacher at LEADS Primary Charter School, remembered that, when she started her teaching career in Marion, Shawano School District was the place to be for education in the area. Then in 2008, she got her opportunity to be part of the local schools.

“This already was a destination district,” Henning said, pointing out the charter school, the performing arts programs and other things that made people want to enroll their children in Shawano.

Shawano is no longer that crown jewel she saw two decades ago, she noted. Initiatives are rolling out so fast, it makes it difficult for teachers to keep up, and it seems like the district is being reactive instead of proactive, dismissing the concerns of teachers, even as they are leaving Shawano in greater numbers.

“Resignation letters are thrown into a pile, and they get a ‘If you don’t like it, leave’ attitude,” Henning said, noting she plans to also leave, even though she had planned to work in the district until retirement.

Kris Going, a literacy coach at Hillcrest Primary School, noted she has taught with the district for nearly 30 years, and she asked last October about early retirement because of what she described as a “toxic environment.”

“I was told that would be in the best interest of the district financially to do that and that it would be presented to the board,” Going said. “That hurt. It still hurts.”

Jackson Smits, a senior at SCHS, noted that every teacher and every program in the district has some level of importance. He is the senior class president and will graduate a valedictorian, and he noted that he would not be where he is without the opportunities that have been offered.

“I, myself, am a puzzle of many pieces — music, athletics, academics — pieced together by our phenomenal teachers and staff,” Smits said. “Not every puzzle that walks our halls is the same. Many of them are made of pieces of the wood shop, the arts department, machining, welding, auto shop and the list goes on.”

Preston McKinnies, another SCHS student, noted he’d been homeschooled for nine years before enrolling in the high school as a freshman. Even though he was in a bad place, the teachers helped him and have had a lasting impact, he said.

“While it might seem a good short-term solution to be cutting teachers, staff and programs, this district, this administration and this board is nothing without our teachers and our staff,” McKinnies said.

SCHS junior Leslie Lemerond, dressed in costume for the upcoming school play that was in rehearsal as she was speaking, said the programs being cut were a benefit to her, and the teachers facing layoffs have made an impact.

“These are the people I run to when I need help,” Lemerond said. “These are the places I go when I need to express myself.”


lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com