Making their case for a new school

Port Washington-Saukville School District officials made their case for a $59.4 million referendum last week by showing the public the school that would be replaced if voters approve the spending plan in April — a school, they say, that is old, cramped and with its open-concept design fails some of its students and can’t be secured like other buildings in the district.

“The priority right now is truly Saukville Elementary School,” Supt. Michael McMahon told the dozens of people who attended the first of six referendum information sessions on Jan. 30.

The referendum proposal calls for a new Saukville Elementary School to be built on a new site for $45.8 million and $13.6 million to be spent on major maintenance projects at the district’s other four schools to address aging heating and cooling systems, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and security, as well as window and roof replacements, new playgrounds and emergency generators.

Saukville Elementary School was built in 1955 and last underwent a major remodeling in 1989, but beyond its age, its space limitations and open concept — a throwback to a fad that has largely been abandoned — create a noisy, distracting environment that is being blamed for compromising the academic achievement of students who struggle to learn as well as the school’s performance on key indicators such as the state report card issued by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for all schools that receive public funding.

Grade levels are organized in pods at the school, so instead of having three classrooms of 20 students each to accommodate second-graders, for instance, Saukville Elementary School essentially has one classroom for 60 second-graders and their three teachers.

Partial walls and furniture like bookcases and storage cubicles are used to roughly define classroom spaces as well as makeshift areas where teachers can work individually with students.

“The noise in these pods is really the biggest area of concern,” Principal Jae Henderson said.

The open classroom concept gained popularity in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s fueled by the theory that children learned at a higher level when they were educated in open spaces that fostered collaboration among students and teachers rather than when they were seated in rows of desks.

The concept, Henderson said, does promote some collaboration among educators.

“It brings together teachers who aren’t isolated in their own classroom,” he said. “It’s really like having three teachers for 60 kids.”

But for any collaboration it fostered, the open-classroom concept also created noise, distractions and a degree of chaos that interfered with learning for some students, and that’s the problem at Saukville Elementary School, administrators say.

“The kids in these areas don’t have the option of closing the doors so they can concentrate,” McMahon said, “Schools aren’t being built this way today.”

Henderson said, “Some kids will do great in any environment, but it’s probably not the best learning environment, not for all kids, and not when we talk about state report cards and accountability.”

Children who struggle to learn seem to struggle that much more in open-concept classrooms, and Saukville Elementary School’s state report card reflects that, administrators said.

Once a high-performer, the school’s report card score plummeted when a category called target group outcomes, which focuses on the lowest-performing 25% of students, was created.

“That means we’re not serving all of our students,” Henderson said. “Saukville used to be one of the highest-scoring schools in the state before target groups were introduced.” And anecdotally, administrators said, the school’s open-concept design and academic performance contribute to the fact a significant number of Saukville Elementary School students use the state’s open enrollment program to attend schools in other districts.

“Open enrollment has changed the game,” McMahon said. “Forty-one students this year decided to leave Saukville Elementary, three times more than our other schools.”

Stephanie Trigsted, who represents Saukville on the School Board, said in December, “I’ve heard from so many parents that they would never send their kids there because of the open concept.”

The school’s open concept also raises security concerns, administrators said. While students who attend conventional schools can be locked down by classroom in relatively small numbers, the only way to lock down students at Saukville Elementary School is by pod in relatively large numbers — 60 or more for the average grade level.

“In 1989 (when the school last underwent a major renovation), Columbine hadn’t happened yet. Sandy Hook hadn’t happened yet,” McMahon said, referring to the school shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 and Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 that together claimed the lives of 32 students and seven teachers. “We’ve updated this building for security, but it’s not like our other schools.”

In addition to the school’s open spaces, space in general, specifically a lack of it, is another concern.

“We’re using every little nook and cranny in this building,” Henderson said.

Because of a lack of private spaces, the school’s speech and language therapist meets with students at a small desk in the copy and supply room near the main office.

“In addition, our school psychologist has kind of lost her office, so she uses a conference room for those sensitive conversations,” Henderson said.

And while Saukville Elementary School has more students enrolled in the early childhood program than the district’s two other elementary schools, they have to go to Dunwiddie Elementary School in Port for services because there is no room for the program in Saukville.

“Based on the numbers, early childhood should be here, but we don’t have the space,” Henderson said.

The School District has ruled out remodeling or rebuilding Saukville Elementary School on its current Mill Street site because the property is in a floodplain and flanked by wetlands. Bray Architects, the firm that conducted a facilities study for the district and would design the new school, has advised that building a new school on a new site would be a better use of taxpayer money.

The district is considering three sites for the school, all of which are in the Town of Saukville and would have to be annexed into the Village of Saukville.

Borrowing $59.4 million is estimated to increase the school property tax rate by 26 cents per $1,000 of equalized value, an amount that would cost the owner of a $300,000 home an additional $78 in taxes annually.

The district will hold additional referendum information sessions on Thursday, Feb. 6, at Lincoln Elementary School; Tuesday, Feb. 18, at Dunwiddie Elementary School; Wednesday, March 5, at Port Washington High School; Wednesday, March 12, at Thomas Jefferson Middle School; and Tuesday, March 18, at Saukville Elementary School again. All sessions begin at 6 p.m.