Schools

Divided Elmbrook School Board Approves Open Enrollment Seats

Board members vote to accept 16 siblings even though most said Elmbrook needs to curb its non-resident enrollment.

In the grand scheme of things, the question of whether to allow 16 students to open enroll into Elmbrook represents a drop in the bucket of Elmbrook's 6,900-student district, one father said. 

But to some on the Elmbrook School Board, it represents a great deal more.

The politics of capping the percentage of students who live outside of Elmbrook's district clashed Tuesday night with the pathos of parents and children who asked that siblings of existing open enrollment students not be blocked from the schoolhouse door.

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"Please don't vote against me," Ashley Martyniak said. Her parents said she wants to re-join Elmbrook at Pilgrim Park Middle School after leaving the district for two years to be homeschooled while pursuing a national gymnastics dream. Her siblings stayed in Elmbrook, including one brother who graduated from Brookfield East High School last month.

The parents, divorced and now living respectively in Mequon and the Town of Brookfield (on a lot that is part of the Waukesha School District), said the family was deeply invested in Elmbrook and wanted Ashley to return there.

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Cindy Martyniak said she was an Elmbrook alumnus who has been on the parent-teacher organizations of all her children's Elmbrook schools and an officer with the Elm Grove Junior Guild. 

Mark Eagon stood flanked by his children — Stephan, who already is a student at Elmbrook, and Gabriel, who wants to transfer from the Milwaukee German Immersion School to Elmbrook in fall for sixth grade.

Eagon, who said his wife works for Milwaukee Public Schools so they must live in Milwaukee, said the couple is grateful for the Elmbrook education and volunteers time in repayment.

Ultimately, the School Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to enroll all 16 wait-listed siblings of existing open enrollment students. 

But the vote was contentious, and two of the four who supported it agreed with the minority that Elmbrook should work to curb its non-resident enrollment and focus on educating children who live within its borders of Brookfield, Elm Grove and a sliver of New Berlin.

Voting in favor of enrolling the 16 siblings were Glen Allgaier, Dick Brunner, Jean Lambert and Bob Ziegler. Voting against were Tom Gehl, Meg Wartman and Kathryn Wilson.

Gehl, the board's president, said he continued to believe Elmbrook allows too many open enrollment students. He noted he opposed the board's move in January to add 102 new open enrollment seats, bringing the percentage of non-resident enrollment to as much as 13 percent.

"Sooner or later, this district is going to start thinking on a long-term basis," Gehl said. "I don't know when." 

Lambert said she agreed Elmbrook should look seriously at "racheting down our open enrollment." But she agreed with Ziegler that Elmbrook should support families of existing students, no matter where they reside.

"Once we've committed to one family member, we've committed to the family," Ziegler said. "These kids are our students."

Lambert was swayed by parents, such as Ashley's mother, who explained how difficult it would be to attend events and transport siblings to schools in more than one district.

Brunner said, "I don't like the idea of open enrollment. Why do we have school districts at all?"

But he said given that their siblings were already in Elmbrook, "there's no reason we should keep these kids out."

Allgaier said he struggled with the decision because he believed non-resident enrollment creates a need for more staff or larger class sizes. Yet he wanted to support keeping families together.

Superintendent Matt Gibson noted Elmbrook was taking steps toward focusing on resident enrollment by considering closing an elementary school rather than filling extra space with more non-resident students.

"I just don't think we balance that on the backs of siblings," Gibson said, a comment that Gehl later strongly protested.

The practice of adding wait-listed siblings is not new. In each of the past three years, the Elmbrook School Board has added between nine and 11 siblings in summer, above and beyond the open enrollment figure sent months prior.

In an all-or-nothing mandate, the district must approve all wait-list siblings or none and can not pick and choose certain ones. It does have flexibility, however, in saying which schools the siblings can attend.

Wartman noted that some of the siblings want to enter at 11th or 12th grade, which Elmbrook never has allowed before. She also said she had concerns adding adding students to the middle school where class sizes are likely to rise. 

Burleigh Elementary School Principal Bil Zahn urged the board to allow the siblings, saying separating them could cause student achievement problems.

"Don't split up our families," he said.


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