School Forums Bring a Mixed Bag of Responses

Muskego-Norway School District Superintendent Joe Schroeder presented the findings from two school referendum forums that were held on May 18 at Lakeview Elementary, and on May 24 at Muskego High School at the school board meeting Monday night.

"We really have a tale of two forums," Schroeder explained.  "If you had just gone to one, you may have gotten just one side of the story, as the Lakeview results showed people less in favor of the revised referendum, and the High School forum leaning very much in favor of the referendum."

Schroeder explained that no reasons for or against that were expressed covered any new ground with respect to consolidating schools.  However, he wanted to disspell a misconception that the revised referendum leaves less room to grow.

"I want to say that it's not the case that we are building more tightly in the new referendum proposal, and we aren't building for fewer students," he said.  The initial referendum, which was defeated in November, had three elementary schools closing (Country Meadows, Tess Corners and Muskego Elementary) with Mill Valley being expanded and a new school being built off of North Cape Road. The revised referendum keeps Country Meadows in place.

What did surprise the superintendent was the response to the proposals for Mill Valley Elementary, located on Muskego's north side.

"There was a clear majority to build a new school on that site rather than renovate and build on to the existing building," Schroeder said.

Overall, he said the "community continues to be mixed, with opinions ranging from opposition to this or any proposal, to people who have indicated that we aren't going far enough."

Schroeder had distilled the responses based on the questions posed to the small groups during the forum into easier-to-digest formats.  The complete report is on the Muskego-Norway School district website.