By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Show and tell time is over. Now it’s time for the Burlington Area School District to start making decisions.
After listening to the last of three presentations Monday night regarding long-range facilities planning for the district, the Long-range Planning Committee voted unanimously to allow district administration to move forward with references and background checks as it consider hiring a firm for a facilities study and planning process.
Superintendent Peter Smet said Tuesday the district would finish gathering information and then decide whether it could recommend a single firm.
“We’re going to take a look at the data and see if there’s a clear recommendation,” Smet said.
The Long-range Planning Committee – along with the rest of the School Board, which was present for the meeting – heard the Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB) planning presentation Monday night.
Officials had previously heard presentations by the Scherrer-Nexus Group, and the Peter Scherrer Group.
“Each group has its strengths,” Smet said.
Last up
Representing the WASB at the meeting were Louis Birchbauer and Roger Price, both of whom made the point that their first priority was to define what the district actually knew about its buildings and school demographics.
“Talk about what you know,” said Price, who was a school superintendent for 35 years. He added that he’d helped oversee many referendums, most of which were successful once all the data became available.
The other concept the two stressed was that the district needed an objective assessment of everything from educational trends, facilities and student data – and then that information needed to be presented to the public.
Birchbauer said that people are now asking how resources and student performance match up.
“Then you get, ‘this is what we need for our students,’” he explained. “We think you need to spend time getting community engagement and buy-in.”
For that, the WASB group would run a process called “Stakeholder-Driven Strategic Planning,” which would involve community members and school district officials. It is designed to get input from the community, and the planning process would then include an external review and an internal staff review in addition to financial and facilities assessments.
When asked by Smet, Price did say the group could perform a demographics study, and also determine what is being used – and how it is being used.
Both Price and Birchbauer stressed that the group would not accept more work than it would handle, and if costs came in under projections, the district would not pay the higher amount.
The group charges $150 an hour for on-site time, and $105 an hour for office time.
“You need to talk, and think about what you want to get accomplished, and then put together a proposal of what you want us to accomplish,” Birchbauer said.
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