Closing schools a possibility for Manitowoc Public School District after facilities audit paints dire picture

MANITOWOC – After a facilities audit painted a dire picture of the condition of buildings in the Manitowoc Public School District, the school board now has to grapple with the question of whether they need to use, and fix, all 10 school buildings.

In a special school board meeting June 25, board members were presented with a 20-year plan that could cost the district up to $450 million to bring all school buildings to a safe and functional condition.

Here's what to know about the plan.

Closing some schools could be on the table

Declining enrollment and the poor condition of some schools have district administration questioning if some schools could be consolidated in the future.

MPSD Director of State and Federal Programs Lee Thennes said he believes the question of whether to close some schools, and which schools to close, needs to be answered first before many other plans are made to repair the other buildings.

"That answer would lead to a vision potentially for what a road map for success may be," he said.

In his analysis of school enrollment, he said the district has the capacity to support 2,200 elementary students, but there are only 1,786 elementary students in the district.

MPSD Superintendent James Feil said closing even one of the elementary schools would save the district up to $1 million, and closing one of the middle schools would save the district up to $3 million in his estimates. He said those savings would equal money the district could use toward repairing and upgrading other school buildings.

Board members want more community input

Board member Kerry Trask said the community will be instrumental in the success of any plans to make extensive changes to the district and its buildings.

"This is maybe the biggest project we could possibly take on," Trask said. "If we have a top-down approach to this like we're IBM or something, that's just not going to work for the staff, for the students, for the families and for the taxpayers in this community."

While Trask said the board needed to slow down on the discussion, board member Matthew Spaulding said he felt more urgency was needed.

"I feel like right now, we're all sitting on a boat and we're hemorrhaging like crazy and water's coming in and they want everybody to patch it up but a lot of people want us to talk about what we should do to patch it up," Spaulding said.

Board member Paul Hansen said Manitowoc has always been a community with neighborhood elementary schools, and he doesn't necessarily want to see that change.

What's next for the district's facilities?

No decisions were made during the board's June 25 meeting. The next board meeting will take place July 9 and people will have the chance to speak during public input in the beginning of the meeting.

People interested in speaking during public input are required to submit a formal request, the form for which can be found at manitowocpublicschools.org. Paper forms are also available at the District Office prior to the start of the meeting.

Alisa M. Schafer is a reporter for the Herald Times Reporter in Manitowoc. She can be reached by email at aschafer@gannett.com.