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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Wausau East had a proud high school hockey history. Now the hockey program is literally down to nothing.
For some years the team was uncompetitive and had fewer kids coming out for the team. Then they merged with Merrill, another struggling hockey program. As a combined East-Merrill team, there have been far more Merrill kids than East kids.
Merrill will discontinue to the co-op next season. They say they now have enough skaters to field their own team. The handful of Wausau East hockey players don’t have a home for now.
The obvious solution is to combine the Wausau East and Wausau West hockey teams. But that requires approvals from other schools in their conference. And Wausau West is hated – the other schools, except for D.C. Everest – voted no. As things stand now, Wausau East kids who want to play hockey would have to open-enroll and transfer to Wausau West. That’s imperfect, having to leave all of your friends and teachers behind to play a sport. The Wausau school board is said to be working on other options.
This is a small part of a bigger change that’s happened in the Wausau School District. When I arrived in town, the school district was meticulous in making sure that it’s two high schools were substantially the same. Both schools had roughly the same enrollment. They offered the same or similar classes. The educational experience at either school was similar. Over the years, Wausau has drifted from that. Wausau East is a smaller school with a newer building. Wausau West has a big-time athletic program, East doesn’t. The schools even have different advanced placement classes, and different class schedules.
Some of this has happened by accident. There’s more land on the west side of town, so more housing has been built there, and there’s been more population growth there. The Wisconsin River is no longer a useful dividing line to equalize the two high schools.
I think students get an excellent education at either Wausau East or Wausau West. What is concerning is they get a different high school experience. It used to be whichever side of town you lived on, you got the same schooling. The school board, and parents, should have a debate if this is the best choice.
Chris Conley
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