4 CLARK COUNTY SCHOOL BOARDS MEET
Friday, August 26th, 2005 -- 12:01 PM
A quorum of the Loyal, Greenwood, Neillsville and Granton school boards attended a joint meeting Thursday night in Greenwood.The boards were ?charting new waters? according to Greenwood interim superintendent Marcia Hochalter, who said she believed it was one of the first times so many school boards had met to discuss their futures.
Hanging over the meeting was a much talked about ?feasibility study?. While three of the boards ? Granton, Loyal and Greenwood ? have agreed to take part in this study, there seemed to be a good deal of confusion as to what was going to be studied.
There were wide-ranging opinions as to what the future holds for area schools. Neillsville board president Walter Wetzel, who?s been serving on a panel looking at the dissolution of the Florence school district, said it wouldn?t be long before there were only three schools in Clark County.
"There's going to be a school on (hwy) 29, one in the eastern part of Clark County and one on the southern part of Clark County," Wetzel said. "These smaller schools will fall by the wayside."
"When legislators from the district of Florence said that they can't do nothing [sic] about bankruptcy in the schools and (they'll) just have to live with what they have today, you will have no salvation in the next five years," Wetzel said.
Loyal Superintendent Graeme Williams took his prediction a bit farther saying within 20-years, there would only be one school in Clark County.
Loyal board member Dave Clouse said the boards should start small if consolidation was their goal. He doesn?t believe consolidation between more than two school districts could work.
"Because any one district can throw it out. It has to be passed and approved by (the voters) of every district," Clouse said. "If we're going to have a four school or five school consolidation, one voter throwing it in the minority can throw the whole thing out. Then we've just wasted money on the study and did two years of planning for nothing."
When pressed by Clouse if the Greenwood board?s goal was consolidation, Greenwood board president Sharon Rogers said it was, noting that consideration of consolidation was listed on the 5-year financial plan adopted by the board before they took a revenue cap exemption referendum to voters earlier this year. That plan would have the board considering consolidation next summer.
After the meeting, Rogers said the board intended to follow their 5-year plan, but would need a willing party to make consolidation happen.
"That is in our plan. But you can't consolidate if you don't have a partner. If no one else is interested in consolidation, we have to look at all our other options," Rogers said.
While the smallest district in the area, Granton?s school board doesn?t seem ready for consolidation. Interim superintendent Jerry Nelson said their school board was only interested in participating in the feasibility study if it wasn't strictly exploring consolidation. He said Granton is actually well-positioned for the next few years, and he didn?t believe consolidation was the best option.
"It may be an ultimate goal for some districts, for others it's not going to be, "Nelson said. "Is (consolidation) really going to benefit students? There might be some other steps in between there that will be more beneficial than what consoldiation will do."
He said he didn't anticipate big changes to the Granton school district i the next five years.
The boards agreed to brainstorm amongst themselves as to what they?d like the future to look like, gather more data and meet again on September 27th.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.