Options for declining schools enrollment considered

By Dave Fidlin

Correspondent

Waterford Graded School District officials are keeping an eye on the future while tending to the present.

Like many districts, Waterford Graded is embarking on an extensive, detailed long-term budget planning process that outlines future spending priorities.

Before any heavy lifting can take place, however, officials are attempting to forecast student enrollment into the future. In recent years, the district has been in a state of decline, and all indicators show the trend continuing.

“We have an older population in this community,” School Board President Dan Jensen said this month’s Personnel and Finance Committee meeting.

“Unless we have a big influx of students, I don’t know what we can do.”

Committee members and administrators have discussed looking to an outside organization to develop a population study.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Projection Lab conducted such a study several years ago, though it was deemed inaccurate by some members of the board.

Another option on the table entails consultation with Racine County and studying recent birth rates within Waterford.

“Having another study would be good so we can get a pulse of where we’re heading,” Superintendent Chris Joch said.

No firm decisions were made on a population study at the recent committee meeting, though the issue is expected to be taken up again in the near future.

Four schools could be down to three.

In terms of facilities, there is a looming question of whether all four WGSD schools can, and should, remain open. Based on the current configuration, Evergreen Elementary School is pinpointed as the facility with the largest enrollment decline.

One proposal broached during the recent committee meeting entailed closing a school.

The remaining three schools would then be converted, with one for students in kindergarten to grade three; another for students in grades four to six; and another for students in grades seven and eight.

Such a proposal remains under review, with final decisions in the future.

In the state’s post-Act 10 environment, officials say Waterford Graded continues to refine and reshape the benefits it is offering to employees. A number of offerings, including post-retirement benefits, remain under review and will be taken up in the near future.

“As we strategize and think about our message to the community, I want people to be informed,” Joch said. “I want people to know we’ve bent over backwards.”