WAUWATOSA, Wis. — Standing room only in a Thursday night Wauwatosa PTA meeting. Parents showed up to Washington Elementary School, worried about the possibility of two schools closing next year.
The district says the hard decisions are coming from a lack of state funding.
A community task force has been charged with coming up with solutions to fix what the district is calling a funding crisis.
Two of those options include closing Washington and/or Jefferson elementary schools. The criteria behind picking these two schools were based on the costs of maintenance as well as the distance to other schools in the area that students would hypothetically transfer to.
The district says at Washington Elementary, the cost for deferred maintenance is $6 million.
Abi Gilman, a mother of three kids, one who attends Washington, was one of the many parents filling Thursday night's meeting.
“There’s no way we can close our schools, our children deserve more than that,” said Gilman.
Superintendent Demond Means says he has every intention of keeping schools open
“I don’t believe that it would be beneficial from a fiduciary standpoint but also a cultural standpoint to close schools,” Means said.
However, if schools don't close, the alternative option is having residents vote on a referendum to provide schools with the money they need.
In 2018, Wauwatosa passed a $125 million referendum for its schools which was used to build new schools and partially maintain others. Superintendent Means says part of the current financial deficit is coming from the state government not adjusting education funds over the past four years to rising inflation.
After the task force finishes their findings a survey will go out to the community for their input.
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