Wausau School District. MWC file photo.
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — It was a busy night for the Wausau School Board considering several different topics up for potential action.
Monday night the Wausau School Board met for its regular biweekly meeting. At the meeting, the board considered a number of topics including two resolutions, and a recap of the April 6th referendum questions.
First, the board also passed a resolution in support of all LGBTQ+ students, staff, and families in the district along with Asian-Americans, Hmong, and other Pacific Islanders. Superintendent Dr. Keith Hilts says the board felt the need to bring the issue to light given the current climate surrounding all of those groups.
“Board members felt a need to support certain populations in our school district and community, particularly those who are marginalized and facing some current threats,” said Hilts. “They are often targets of, at the very least, misunderstandings and certainly discrimination. So we really wanted to get ahead of it.”
Lance Trollop said he fully supported the LGBTQ+ measure but did take issue with some of the paragraphs and wording which he considered unneeded. That included information regarding US Court cases and WIAA policies. He said much of the feedback he received expressed concern that the district could have been either changing or going against previously set policies, which wasn’t the case.
After much discussion, Trollop proposed the removal of those paragraphs, which passed. Hilts said the slimmed-down proposal didn’t diminish the message being sent.
“I think President [Tricia] Zunker’s intent was to say here are all these sources that support our LGBTQ community, and in addition here are some positions we should take.
“[Instead,] I think the board really wanted to say ‘let’s just make our own statement. Let’s make sure that our kids, our families, and our staff know that we love, care for, and support them.”
Hilts added that he feels the board took the best stand that they could given the time-sensitive nature of the issues. Especially given that there are students in the district who don’t always feel they are represented or seen for who they are.
“I talked to Principals today and there are students who don’t always feel supported. So this is one more piece to that puzzle to let them know we do care about them.
Much of the public feedback presented at Monday’s meeting was in support of the resolutions. Board Clerk Ka Lo, who also serves as a Marathon County Supervisor, received applause after telling her own story about dealing with threats against the Asian community.
WHAT’S NEXT FOLLOWING REFERENDUM RESULTS
The Board heard from District Chief Finance and Business Services Officer Bob Tess regarding the two referendum questions that appeared on the April 6th ballot. One of the referendum questions posed passed, allow the District to exceed the revenue limit by $4,000,000 on a recurring basis to maintain education programming and staffing, providing full pupil services teams at elementary schools, and other safety, operational, and maintenance expenses.
The second referendum question posed by the District failed. If it had succeeded the second question would have let the District borrow $148,800,000 for various capital improvements like building upgrades and the school forest project.
Hilts says despite not having both questions pass, it gives the District another great opportunity to hear from the community. “Re-ask the questions you know, what is it you want from your schools, and for your schools, and for your children and families? And just take another look. We certainly know some of the components that would be included. That deferred maintenance can’t go away. But maybe there are some new opportunities here,”.
The District would likely pose a retooled referendum question for the Spring Election in 2022. But Hilts says that any potential referendum would need to be approved by the new School Board and would be like starting from square one. “There’s some components like the deferred maintenance that would likely be there. But yeah we’re kind of going back to the drawing board,”.
Some of the services the approved referendum will provide include staffing school psychologists, school social workers, and health room assistants in every elementary school, helping fund safe schools and ALICE training, alternative high school budget support, short-term technology replacement, and other areas.
At the meeting Monday night the school board also unanimously approved starting the 2021-2022 school year in-person 5 days a week.
WSAU News reporters Liz Holbrook and Mike Leischner contributed to this report
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