In the case of Wisconsin K-12
schools, enrollment has been
on a steady slide.
In the 2024-25 school
year, there were 68,000
fewer students than in 2005.
Enrollment figures for this year
aren't tallied until the third week
in September.
Declines in school populations
mirror declines in the state
population and birth rates.
School buildings being emptied out
is happening all over the state.
And issue lawmakers are hoping to
address this fall by helping
districts consolidate.
Because student enrollment is the
primary driver of our state
school funding formula,
districts experiencing declining
enrollment receive less money
in state aid.
So to make up for this, many
districts go to referendum and
they raise local property tax bills
to pay for increasingly empty
buildings.
The already heavy burden on
taxpayers will only get worse over
time.
This is especially true for
rural districts.
We look at two of them now embarking
on consolidation in the small
Clark County cities of Loyal and
Greenwood.
For more on this, we turn to
Greenwood District Administrator,
Joe Green, and Loyal Administrator
Chris Lindner.
And thanks to both of you for being
here.
You bet. Thank you very much for
having us.
So, Jo, first to you, what is
the Greenwood District student
population right now, and how
has it fallen over the years?
Our 4K through 12 numbers,
they fluctuate a little bit between
about 350 and 370.
And it is on a slow decline.
It's been on a slowly decline for a
number of years.
You know, it ebbs and flows a little
but overall, you know,
we've, you know it's
been on a decline and it continues
to decline.
I do think we've reached a little
bit of a plateau, like I think
we're, we've steadied the
steady that a little it.
We've been real stable in
the 350 area for the
last.
What about in loyal?
I would say in the last handful
of years, we have gone from
approximately 530 down
to 480 in
our 4k 12 district.
Excuse me.
Our senior class is
one of our bigger classes at
approximately 48.
And then our junior class
has 44, 43.
Those are significantly the
larger classes that we have
throughout our building.
Then after that, and then you are
getting down to the mid to
high 30s, you might have a
40 in there. And once we get
down into.
Fifth grade and below, then it
takes another drop of
another, maybe down to
mid to low 30s per class.
So we have seen a
continuous decline.
I think we will plateau
after our juniors leave
after next year.
But that's a lot of money
that walks out the door when
they leave and your
4K come in and.
Cannot, you know, you're
losing five to 10 kids per year that
gets gets to be hard.
And so,
Joe, are these enrollment numbers
kind of the tipping point for what
prompted the moves to consolidate?
It's definitely one of the
factors. It's a significant
factor.
I think that, you know, when you
think about factors of why we
look to consolidate, it's the
declining enrollment paired with
the increasing difficulty
to hire
highly qualified staff,
which is then also, you now,
paired with creating more
opportunities for our kids
and maintaining the opportunities
that our kids need.
To be college and career ready when
they leave the district.
How,
Chris, how difficult is this
process?
It gets to be extremely, just
because in
Clark County, probably
15 years ago, we had
influx of Amish move in,
buying up farms and things like
that. And now within the last maybe
five to seven years,
Mennonites have come in and have,
I would say an influx them and
they are buying up farms and
between that and so
I won't say it's just in Greenwood.
I believe we are trying
to do something before
it gets to be too
bad, where you don't have
any students coming in,
or you're declining enrollment.
You can't deal with it because
you're asking taxpayers for so much
money in a referendum,
operator referendum.
So that's becoming
a bigger,
I wouldn't say hassle,
but just the situation is
difficult because you I don't
have the kids there.
Throughout our county, every
district is.
So how does the
kind of influx of
Amish or Mennonite
people factor into this?
They're valuable people to our
community. They provide a lot of
services and they
pay the same taxes that
other people do, but
they have their own schools.
So they're not sending their kids.
So the farms of the past that
used to raise kids
and send them to public schools
are largely owned by
the Amish and Mennonite communities.
And they
operate their own own school so
those kids are no longer coming.
So that is probably the main reason
why we're seeing in Clark County
a population decline within
our public schools.
What is the mood among
residents and
families for this consolidation?
I'll go ahead.
So this has been something has been
talked about since 1960.
That is when I believe
a big push was to consolidate.
You had a lot of consolidation
going on in the early 60s.
So talk has been there for
65, 66, 65
years or so.
Back in early 2000s,
they had in 96, 7, they
had a big push because.
To talk about it because
districts were looking at
expanding capital
referendums and
it was talked about but nothing was
done.
Early 2000s I think it was
approached once if
not twice, actually
had a vote on it, had a study done.
It did not pass,
so it seems like every 20 years
this continues to
come up.
And we are at 20, 25,
26 school year.
I believe
community members,
families.
Are ready to
make that move.
I know there's questions out there.
We have done a number of
things in the last two or three
years to help alleviate
some of the pain with co-opping
a number sports.
Marching band is co-opt.
We share some
students back and forth for
classes, some of your higher
end classes that may not
run because, or you run with three
or four kids.
Now you can add some more
kids to make it a little more
efficient for that teacher.
But I really see
both communities,
which according to the advisory vote
that we had last spring,
are for it.
And want to do something
moving forward to help
alleviate what I'll say
is is higher
taxes and
operating referendums.
Because, Joe,
if and when, I
guess, these schools are
consolidated, that will
mean that
the district would not
have to seek
operating monies
from a referendum.
No, it, what it means is we,
we are, our plan is,
um, to
significantly reduce the
amount of need for operational
referendum with the funding
formula in we, you
know, we would still be, you take
two, two districts that are
in declining enrollment, put them
together. There's still going to be
a district in a one district
in declining enrollment.
And when you have that formula,
that's a, it's a recipe for
disaster when it comes to.
Operational referendums.
You know, you will.
We will rely on operational
referendum.
Right now between the two districts,
we rely on between three
and three and a half million dollars
in operational referendams
each year.
So to just, you know, to
turn the lights on and keep the
doors open, and keep operating
the way we are.
Our hope is to significantly
reduce that.
And we haven't flushed
out know, the amount, but
I don't think it's unreasonable to
have a goal at, you know, a million
dollars less in operational
referendum needs, maybe more,
but I don t think that's an
unreasonable goal.
Chris, what are the opportunities
that a consolidation represents?
I think a lot of our services
can be joined from two different
districts into one
or CESA.
Would be one and
just working together with
some of the specialty areas
that you need to
have CESA for,
speech and language that are two
little districts.
We do share some things, but
those are things that.
Crucial that we can't afford and
we rely on CESA for some of that.
I think having under one
would be a benefit.
Other opportunities is.
Well, I'll say some of
the opportunities are going to be in
our courses.
You know, we have small class sizes.
So when you start looking
at combining some populations,
you're giving kids more
opportunities to compete
and work with
students of like needs.
Where sometimes we have singletons
that need certain needs,
or even some
of the higher level learning can be.
Challenging to provide for
some students. But now when you mix
a couple groups together, you're
sharing some of those needs.
There's gonna be opportunities in
say, TechEd,
between Loyal and Greenwood, we have
two TechEd programs and
we offer very similar courses with
small numbers of kids in classes,
some of the classes.
So when you put two
programs together,
that doesn't necessarily mean that
you're gonna reduce staff, Put it.
Hopefully can mean is that we
are able to offer more opportunities
because we no longer have to,
you know, we have one teacher maybe
teach welding, and
all of the kids and that
opens up time slots for
another tech ed teacher to teach
different things, whether it's
robotics or, or
mechanics or, you know, anything
like that.
So in the same thing for some of the
general curriculum, you're right
now, you know, Mr. Linder said
something a little bit ago about.
You know some of the classes where
we we share right now,
you know And I've always used things
like trigonometry or calculus
or advanced placement classes
where? We both have a class with
Two three four kids in it
and and we Teacher
for that class well combined
We would only need one teacher to
teach that class thus opening the
opportunity for the other teacher
to add something new or
or Add add something that we know
that our students could
benefit from.
So there's there's ways in
that perspective, in that light, to
create more learning opportunities
for our kids.
What are your opinions of the
state right now taking
an interest in helping districts,
potentially incentivizing districts
to consolidate?
Well, it's music to our
ears that there's some
interest. There was interest years
ago.
And I think I'm cautiously
optimistic that they
will take interest in consolidation.
But again,
would hate to see is then take
the local control
away from consolidation, it's not
right for everybody.
I mean, the school districts of
Greenwood and Loyal are going
down this road for
good reason.
And the reasons are, we
have a similar
tax base, we have similar mill rate,
neither one of us have debt.
We're six miles apart.
We share the same bus service.
There's a lot of things that.
Make sense for our district, but
that don't necessarily make
sense for every district.
So I hope that the
I hope the state supports in
there. If there is legislation, I
hope they support the
local control that districts have if
they decide that this is the right
course of action to help
their districts out.
Chris, that's on them.
I agree with that,
and we both
have talked to some representatives
and just say, you know, years ago
there was a good
benefit that the
state gave for consolidation.
It is not there, but we even
talked about just like dealing with,
helping out with studies
that have to be done and
things like that.
But there is, there is a need.
And I would say
throughout the state, you have a lot
of districts that are
probably watching Loyal
and Greenwood to see what happens
there.
And could be the pendulum
swinging the
other way if this does work out,
which obviously we hope.
I think the last couple of years
we've worked very
well together.
And like Mr. Green said earlier,
I think staff shortage was
a big push with it
in our declining enrollment.
And I hear at a lot of
superintendent conferences or
meetings just that if we don't
start working together, not just
Loyola and Greenwood, but all our
districts, we
will be on an island by ourselves
and it won't be, it will be a
sinking ship or island, whatever you
want to say, deserted.
So we need to work together
and help
not only survive,
but to thrive.
Are you hopeful this will
happen when by
2028, is that right?
Yeah, that's the proposed timeline.
I guess the tentative timeline would
be to.
We've been meeting as
joint boards for the better part of
a year regularly
to work
through this process and
our joint boards just earlier
this week.
Past emotion both passed emotion.
That there will be a binding
question on the November
2026 ballot,
that if both communities approve
that question, then it's a
binding consolidation, which then
would start the 18 month process
to consolidate July 1,
2028.
Well, we really appreciate you
taking your time out
today to talk with us, Joe Green
from Greenwood Schools and Chris
Lindner Loyal Schools.
Thanks very much, good luck.
Thank you.
You might have noticed that I took
that longer than
what we said we
allotted for this.
So we just want to let you know,
we'll probably do some.
We definitely have to.
My producer is like, yeah, we have
to shorten that.
But it was great.
It was great we have
a lot of really good information.
So thank you.
Yeah, good. We appreciate it.
That sounds great.
Thanks for all you guys do.
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you very much.