Highlights from the School Board: October 10
Teacher of the month, budget recaps, committee updates, and the man who thinks the board members have no decency.
Monday’s meeting of the Wauwatosa School Board clocked in at a relatively blistering 1 hour and 55 minutes. I’ll try to be similarly brief.
→ This month’s Brewer’s Grand Slam Teacher of the Month award went to Wauwatosa East Latin teacher Nate Kolpin.
After Superintendent Demond Means presented him with a certificate, Mr. Kolpin gave a brief speech whose concision and lack of embellishment would make Julius Caesar proud.
Mr. Kolpin: I think Latin is the most important thing one could ever study. And if you want to live a good life, you have to study Latin… Yeah, what else should I say?
Superintendent Means: I think you said it all.
→ Stephen Oliver, Summer School Coordinator, gave a short presentation on the 2022 Summer School Report. While “staffing shortages led to canceling classes like Geometry, English 9 and 10 for credit classes and math and reading support classes in grades K-8,” the school district was still able to offer summer classes for 1,338 K-8th grade students and 937 9th-12th grade students while coming in 15% under budget. Contrary to my understanding of summer school as something only for those who had failed classes or were at risk of not graduating, there is, at least at some schools in the district, a culture that “families just do summer school,” according to Board President Eric Jessup-Anger. In testament to this, the Summer School 2022 Executive Summary report did say that things like: “Art offerings (Ceramics, Paper mache, Art Explorations and Recycled Art) were very popular and received positive feedback.”
School board members suggested ways to encourage more staff participation in 2023.
→ At this point, a member of the public becomes agitated because he hasn’t had a chance to speak. Mr. Jessup-Anger asks him if he has a comment on the summer school report. Man does not. Mr. Jessup-Anger says the time for public comment on non-agenda items has already passed. Man says he got here late because he works in Illinois. Mr. Jessup-Anger apologizes and says the time for public comment has passed.
“Does anybody have any disagreement with me saying what I have to say?” Man asks.
“Sir, you cannot speak right now.” Mr. Jessup-Anger responds.
“I paid $60,000 dollars in property taxes, and I want to say something.” [My note: this seems like a lot. Maybe he said $6,000? It really sounded like $60,000 though.]
Tensions are defused when Man is informed that he’ll be able to speak at the end of the meeting if he wants to stick around.
“My bad I’m sorry, I’ll wait. I thought you guys were closing for the meeting...”
→ Chief Financial Officer Keith Brightman presented results from the Third Friday Student Count. People care about how many students are enrolled in the school district and how many residents of Wauwatosa attend school either inside or outside the school district because those numbers determine the level of funding they’ll receive from the state as well as the limits on how much the district can raise through property taxes.
Wisconsin’s formula for determining revenue limits and state aid for education is bizarre and confusing, but you can read my attempts to explain it here:
But at its most basic, declining enrollment and membership means less funding which makes it harder to keep our schools open and running. Enrollment and membership has declined slightly from last year, although the good news is that kindergarten enrollment has gone up significantly which tends to bode well for the future, according to Board Member Mike Meier:
A tremendously important indicator is the senior kindergarten count […] Over the years that senior kindergarten number tends to stay in the district for 12 years which is phenomenal to believe, but it’s what happened. And our senior kindergarten count is above our 19-year average. That indicates health. It’s only one year, but my question over the course of the past two years with Covid and things…are we going to start decreasing? And the answer from that senior kindergarten count is “no.”
→ Mr. Brightman also presented a recap of the 2022 budget. Overall, there was $2.3 million in additional revenue and $3.4 million less in expenses, leaving a budget surplus of $5.7 million in the General Operations Fund (Fund 10) at the end of the year. The district received larger-than-expected state and federal reimbursements and spent less on substitutes and supplies than expected. They anticipate a Fund 10 balance of $41 million at the end of the year, up from $35 million last year.
→ Subcommittee Discussions:
Board Member Mike Phillips proposed the creation of a Finance and Operations committee that would consist of one or more board members, the district CFO, and potentially others to review budget, buildings, grounds and technology issues affecting the school district. Meetings would be held on the first and third Mondays of the month and open to the public. There was some discussion among board members and members of the public about including a liaison from the City of Wauwatosa’s Senior Commission for issues related to recreation facilities and Board Member Leigh Anne Fraley said she would like to see the Board Treasurer as a required member. The proposal was tabled until the October 24 meeting pending more information on the committee’s composition.
Mr. Jessup-Anger gave an update on the activities of the Policy Committee whose members, Jenny Hoag and Jessica Willis, were absent on Monday. Over the next year, they plan to review and propose updates to policies covering the district’s relationship with the police department (policy 5540), social events (5850), student attendance at school events (5855), suspension and expulsions (5610), due process rights (5611), open enrollment (5113), the district’s bylaws (0000 section), and a few others. You can read the district’s policy manual on BoardDocs.
Ms. Fraley gave an update on the Legislative Advocacy committee comprised of herself and Mr. Jessup-Anger. It’s not actually clear to me what exactly this committee does (lobbying? letter writing?), but she mentioned focusing on school safety, funding for high needs students, and trying to map out a strategy for making “an extremely, extremely complicated [state funding] process more understandable to our voting constituency.” Ms. Fraley mentioned that as someone who works “in education nationally, […] I can say with confidence that Wisconsin has one of the most complex funding formulas in the nation.” One of the challenges she mentioned is that school districts must propose a budget before they even know how much money they will be getting from the state. I agree that this seems dumb, and I hope their lobbying or letter writing can get it changed.
→ At this point, the black man from earlier in the evening returns to the mic for the final period of public comment, and says: “I’m here tonight because I have questions. And since you seem like you’re the head honcho, I’d like to address my questions to you, Mr. Eric Jessup.”
Mr. Jessup-Anger responds that this isn’t really a Q&A. He can ask his questions, but he might not get an answer.
Man : “I have questions tonight because from what I heard was that we have this sex education curriculum that’s being taught. And from what I heard from a source, a radio source, is that a Wauwatosa school teacher has shown a four-year-old kindergartener a female’s private part? Am I correct?” He looks around the room to see if anyone in the audience is willing to answer his question, and then adds, “I could be wrong.”
Mr. Jessup-Anger: “Umm, I’m not aware that has occurred.”
Man: “Okay, well we’re introducing this sex education curriculum to kindergarteners, am I correct?”
A faint ‘mmhmm’ comes from someone off-camera.
Man: “Don’t you people have decency? A kindergartener? I have a three-year-old granddaughter that attends the Tosa schools, and you’re going to try to teach her this? What's wrong with you people? Who, who would even approve of something like this? I’m lost for words here. I don’t, I don’t even know how to address this.
The exchange lasts for another five minutes, the Man accuses the board of being too scared to answer his questions, Mr. Jessup-Anger bravely asserts that he is not scared, and it ends with Man exhorting the board members to “look yourself in the mirror and say ‘I have no decency.’”
For the record, Mr. Jessup-Anger did end up trying to answer some of his questions, though I don’t think the man was very satisfied by them.
It was an interesting conversation for a number of reasons. It would be easy to dismiss the man as ill-informed, but I think there’s something important going on here. Perhaps I’ll dive into it more next week.
Have a good weekend!
The funding formula is a mess, but seemingly the status quo is acceptable to the legislature. I’d like to see it simplified to tiers based on enrollment and geography where the state establishes a floor of per pupil spending that will be funded at the state level. A ceiling would also be established to protect tax payers. Individual districts would then be empowered to spend between the floor and ceiling with that amount being levied on property taxes at the district level. That’s where the concept of local control comes in. Let communities, through school board elections and public meetings, determine what level of spending they want. Certainly there would need to be a phase-in period as some districts based on a tier level would currently be outside the boundaries and would have to make adjustments over time. After all, the current spending is base-lined from budgets 30 years ago....which is insane, considering we’ve had a census done in this country three times since then.