School Closure Options Increase Before Board Narrows List

The Elmbrook School Board added more school closure options Wednesday but plans to narrow them to present two or three top choices for community consideration in September.

The board might whittle the list at its Aug. 23 meeting at the district administration building, 13780 Hope St.

One father urged the board to keep all six district elementary schools open, while other parents said there must be other ways to close projected budget deficits.

Board President Tom Gehl said recent state changes have decreased Elmbrook's projected five-year deficit from $16 million to about $11 million.

Despite the savings Elmbrook will receive from the state's collective bargaining and health and pension contribution changes, however, another state budget move will reduce Elmbrook's annual revenues by 5.5 percent.

"There just aren't any pain-free options," Gehl said.

If a school isn't closed, other options would be cutting teacher salary and benefits, trimming educational programs, reducing transportation options, or increasing class sizes, he said.

Gehl said he realized that closing one or two schools would be very painful for families involved. 

Some parents urged the board to consider adding four-year-old kindergarten for a couple years to see if it stabilizes or reverses Elmbrook's declining enrollment and increases revenues.

One woman said she'd be willing to pay to have her child attend Elmbrook 4K. But unlike private schools and day cares, public school districts by law can not charge.

Declining enrollment, deficits and unused school building space are driving the school closure debate.

Last year Elmbrook didn't use about 29 percent of the total space in its six elementary buildings. The six schools have space to provide a total of 25 sections or classes for each of the six grade school levels, kindergarten through fifth grade.

But the district only needs a minimum of 19 sections per grade level, or six fewer sections, according to a recent .

Hillside and Tonawanda Elementary each have three sections per grade level, as the district's smallest and oldest buildings. They also are on the far east and west sides of the district that covers Brookfield and Elm Grove, with small parts of the Town of Brookfield and New Berlin.

Closing both would eliminate six sections.

Or closing just one of the district's two bigger schools would accomplish the same thing: Burleigh has six sections and Swanson has five.

Here are seven school closure and redistricting options presented to the board Wednesday, plus two more mentioned for possible study:

1. Close Hillside: All Hillside students would move to Brookfield Elementary. Some Brookfield Elementary students would move to Swanson. 
2. Close Tonawanda: All Tonawanda students would move to Dixon Elementary. Some Dixon students would move to Burleigh Elementary.
3. Close both Hillside and Tonawanda: The student relocations would occur as listed in No. 1 and 2.
4. Close Burleigh: Details of student relocations were not yet available.
5. Close Swanson: Relocation details not available.
6. Repurpose Burleigh and relocate Elmbrook's district offices: Burleigh would be reduced from a six-section school to three sections, making room for the district offices to move onto Burleigh's second floor. Some Burleigh students would move to Dixon. Some Dixon students would move to Tonawanda.
7. Close Hillside and repurpose Burleigh with relocated district offices: The changes listed in No. 1 and 6 would occur.

Board member Meg Wartman said the district should also consider repurposing Swanson from a five-section school to three sections and relocating the district offices at Swanson. Similar to No. 7 the district could close Tonawanda and repurposes Swanson with relocated district offices, she said.

Superintendent Matt Gibson said there were many complex variables to consider, including the financial savings, community support, disruption to families, impacts on student learning and class size and changes to the school feeder system.

Closing one bigger school (Burleigh or Swanson) instead of two smaller ones would require Elmbrook to change which elementary schools feed into which middle and high schools.