District Administrators fight for funding

By Gail Peckler-Dziki

Correspondent

“Schools are chronically underfunded,” Salem Grade School District Administrator Dave Milz commented at a recent special school board meeting.

He’s not the only area district administrator holding that opinion. The Wilmot High School District Administrator Daniel Kopp and the District Administrators from Wilmot feeder schools have crafted and sent a letter to the families, staff and communities of their districts to explain the impact of the proposed legislation.

The June 3 letter begins, “We are writing to you today as advocates not only for the children in our districts, but also on behalf of the 870,000 children across the state of Wisconsin who attend public schools. As you may be aware, funding for public education has become a heated topic once again. The proposed legislation (both budgetary and policy driven) will have profound impacts on our public schools.”

The letter states that, since 2008, Wisconsin has a 15 percent decrease in per-pupil spending and in the coming budget, total state aid for public schools is less than it was in 2010.

Under the current statute, students who enroll in a different public school have $6,635 that follows the student to the new school.

The current proposal provides $7,210 for K-8 students and $7,856 for high school students who chose to attend a voucher school.

A voucher school is a non-public state approved school and includes all religious schools. The amount that will follow a student to a voucher school is proposed at 18 percent more than the amount that would follow a student to a different pubic school.

Letter recipients were encouraged to contact several state legislators, including Rep. Sam Kerkman.

In a telephone interview last week, Kerkman explained that more than 85 percent of the state budget goes to health care and education.

“Health care and education always take the biggest bite out of the budget and recent changes in the health care law, Obamacare, have placed a greater strain and created a greater challenge for us,” she said.

“We will be increasing the amount per pupil by $150 for the first year of this new budget and another $100 the next year.”

The states will put in additional resources for charter schools and vouchers apart from the money slated for the public schools.

“Education is a priority, and giving more education choices to parents is a good thing,” Kerkman said.


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