Wausau School Board. MWC photo by Mike Leischner
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Wausau School Board has voted to end the consolidation of East and West High Schools while continuing to re-evaluate the district’s elementary structure.
“The combining of High Schools is not going to be logistically, financially, operationally, or financially sustainable,” said Board Member Pat McKee, who proposed the motion as part of a presentation that he put together based on feedback from staff, board members, and the community.
McKee added that the effort to consolidate East and West Highs into a single High School with two Junior and Senior High campuses has divided the community, therefore taking that emotion out of the discussion would help them to focus on getting the elementary school structure right. “We will at least allow people to breathe and approach it with a more calm, level-headed, and hopefully common-sense-oriented approach.”
The vote was 5-4 in favor of McKee’s amended motion. No votes came from Lance Trollop, Jim Bouche, Cody Nikolai, and Joanna Reyes.
Karen Vandenberg noted that the proposal allows the district to focus on one piece of the restructuring plan, calling the current elementary school footprint out of control. “I’m not interested in continuing with a ‘it might happen, it might not happen’ approach. Let’s focus on what we know we can do first and get that accomplished.”
Vandenberg also said she would leave the door to high school restructuring open in the future. “Then if we find there is a continued changing, a west demographic shift. There’s another conversation to have. But that’s not the conversation to have right now and it’s not something that can be done without [another referendum] from the community.”
Vandenberg was referring to the recent discovery that the current East and West High School buildings would not support the proposed Junior and Senior High split due to a lack of science lab and storage space. An issue that would cost more than $6.5 million to fix, and would likely require the district to ask taxpayers for more money on top of referendums that had previously been approved for staffing and school updates.
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“I just think there is a benefit to saying ‘enough. Everybody exhale. You are being heard.’ We care about that and we don’t want to lose more people just because of the limbo,” added Vandenberg.
Monday’s vote was met with applause from the full audience at the School Forest. Hundreds more were watching the live stream of the meeting on YouTube.
Discussion on the matter lasted more than 70 minutes. The board also heard a handful of public comments from those in attendance.
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