Here & Now

The Continuing Closure of Rural Schools Around Wisconsin

Frederica Freyberg:
In other news, dozens of school districts around the state asked voters for $1 billion in ballot referendums in the latest spring election. Much of that money was just to keep the schools open and operating. But many of those referendums failed and that means some schools in rural Wisconsin will permanently close. “Here & Now” reporter Steven Potter has this report on rural school closures.

Steven Potter:
Thousands of the state’s public schools are closing for summer break. But there are two schools set next to farms in central Wisconsin …

Josh Sween:
We had to make the difficult decision to shut the doors of two of our rural schools.

Steven Potter:
… that won’t reopen next fall or ever again.

Josh Sween:
This is definitely the worst day of my career as an educator, and I think it’s one of the darkest days in the history of Portage.

Steven Potter:
Josh Sween is the district administrator for the Portage Community School District. He says the decision to close two elementary schools, one in Marquette County, the other in Columbia County, couldn’t be avoided.

Josh Sween:
Purely for budgetary reasons and that is something that’s going on all over the state.

Steven Potter:
Sween says they did try to keep Lewiston and Endeavor Elementary Schools open as long as they could.

Josh Sween:
The issue is funding, right? We just don’t have the funding to be able to do that.

Steven Potter:
After a referendum asking voters for more money failed this spring, the school district made the difficult decision. Portage isn’t alone. Last year, school districts in several rural counties such as Dunn, Vilas, Jefferson, Richland, Juneau and others all closed at least one school. The year before that, another handful of schools in other, lesser populated counties also closed. And earlier this spring, the Hustisford School Board in Dodge County voted to completely dissolve the school district, which means the elementary, middle and high schools will all close this year. Education experts say that the impact of school closures on small communities is very painful.

Bradley Carl:
A rural school is the heart and soul and the identity of a community.

Steven Potter:
Bradley Carl studies rural school systems for the UW-Madison Wisconsin Center for Education Research. He says that part of the reason that small rural schools are so missed when they close is because they do so much so well.

Bradley Carl:
Things like small class sizes and strong relationships between teachers and students, and strong relationships between school districts and employers in the community.

Steven Potter:
Services beyond the regular school day are important for working parents.

Bradley Carl:
School districts also provide after school care, before school care, and summer programs, and that has an economic impact in terms of allowing families to work.

Steven Potter:
Schools in rural areas can also be a social hub for the community.

Bradley Carl:
Everyone goes to the basketball games on Friday night or the football games on Friday night, but it’s so much more than that, too. It’s going to the theater productions and the homecoming parade.

Steven Potter:
School closures are not unique to rural areas. Over the last 20 years, more than 600 public schools across Wisconsin have closed, but nearly 40% of them have been in small, rural counties of less than 100,000 residents. In all, that’s around 250 rural schools that have closed. Like in Portage, there’s just not enough money to keep the doors open and that’s usually because there are fewer students enrolled.

Bradley Carl:
Two thirds, maybe three quarters of the rural districts in Wisconsin, as is the case around the country, are facing declining enrollment. Given the way we fund schools, declining enrollment means declining revenue from the state.

Steven Potter:
Figures from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction show that student enrollment in public schools has declined roughly 7% over the last two decades. Population experts agree that this is a nationwide problem, largely due to shrinking birthrates.

Jeff Eide:
Declining enrollment is real, and it’s a challenge.

Steven Potter:
Jeff Eide knows the problems facing rural school districts better than most. He’s the executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance.

Jeff Eide:
70% of the schools in the state are rural, so we have a lot of rural schools. Not the majority of the students are within our rural areas, but that’s a large footprint in Wisconsin.

Steven Potter:
Eide says rural schools are doing their best.

Jeff Eide:
They are working their buns off. They’re working hard to do the best they can with the resources that they have.

Steven Potter:
He adds that what the state provides in per student funding isn’t 100% of what a school needs to operate, so they pull in money from local government and property taxes to make up the difference. And over the years, more and more small and rural communities are having to go to ballot referendums to ask residents for more money to keep their schools open.

Jeff Eide:
I do see school referendums at this time as a continuing trend, unfortunately. I’m hoping one day that it becomes an anomaly and not a need.

Steven Potter:
Another major factor is the rising cost of everything from gas for buses to heating and cooling costs, to building and even playground maintenance, as well as school supplies and the need for new technology. It’s simply becoming more and more expensive to educate students.

Josh Sween:
But I think everybody’s struggling with the funding formula that we currently have.

Steven Potter:
Sween and Eide agree that changes to the state’s school funding formula are needed, like a per student rate increase tied to inflation. That was part of the school funding formula more than a decade ago but state lawmakers discontinued the practice back during the Great Recession.

Jeff Eide:
We need to make sure we’re doing the best we can to meet the rate of inflation. We haven’t done that for many years.

Josh Sween:
If inflationary increases had continued from 2009 to the end of this biennium, we would not have a gap of — it’s $3,573 per student that we would have gotten in state aid or in that per pupil revenue.

Steven Potter:
But in order for there to be a change in the school funding formula at the state level, state lawmakers and the governor would need to agree on what those changes would be.

Karen DeSanto:
There’s a lot of challenges in a rural district. Also, there’s a lot of really great things about a smaller, rural school.

Steven Potter:
In the state Assembly, Democrat Karen DeSanto represents the area that includes the Portage Community School District, where those two schools are closing. She says schools are a draw for residents.

Karen DeSanto:
When a school falters, especially in a very small, rural community, it affects everyone. If a school is not there in a smaller community, it discourages people to live there.

Steven Potter:
DeSanto is open to changes in school funding.

Karen DeSanto:
Our budgets are based on our values as Wisconsinites. Our values are to support our kids in public education and we are not doing that.

Steven Potter:
Across the political aisle, Republican State Representative Lindee Brill from Sheboygan Falls says state budgets need to be balanced.

Lindee Brill:
If we decide that education is a priority in our state, which I do believe our future generations is a priority, then we need to figure out where we’re cutting elsewhere.

Steven Potter:
As for changes to the state school funding formula …

Lindee Brill:
I do think we are well overdue to look at it now. That doesn’t mean a complete overhaul, but I do think we need to figure out if this is the best way to serve the state.

Steven Potter:
… unless there’s a compromise, school boards and administrators will continue to struggle and keep asking voters for more money.

Josh Sween:
But at the end of the day, we still need to balance the budget and we don’t have the money to do it.

Steven Potter:
And in many cases, it’s all but certain that rural communities will keep closing schools. Reporting from Portage, I’m Steven Potter for “Here & Now.”