Referendum Discussions vs. Facilities Discussions

The school board is responsible for maintaining our facilities. As part of that responsibility, they have frequent discussions of facilities, and how to best serve our students. For instance, last year there was much discussion regarding a possible reconfiguration from what we have now, to a K-8 configuration. These discussions are like the ones you have with your spouse on a Saturday morning over coffee -- just tossing ideas around. These discussions should be happening continuously, even before 1998.

But a referendum planning is completely different. It involves much more, especially when buildings will close, the school district configuration will be redesigned and the public is asked for 70 million dollars to fund the project. This type of planning requires much time to study the needs and receive proper input from citizens, teachers, students, and school administrators.  This referendum discussion just began last fall. It went from 26 million to 70 million dollars in about 2 weeks. There was a plan drawn up before the community had a chance for input, and most important, the plan changed without any notification, omitting our two middle schools completely. While the price tag jumped from 26 million to 70 million, the plan went from "all schools" to just some schools. 

Without formal planning meetings open to the public, this plan is still changing. It may or may not include the items you wanted to see included. Changes are often made based on input offered by one person at a single presentation.

Schools districts typically do things quite differently. A community planning committee is formed long before the board votes to go to referendum and the committee continues to work with the board all the way through to the end. Input is gathered at the public meetings held by the committee and is taken into consideration.

 This referendum was rushed.  It lacks planning and it does not meet the needs of each school. $70 million dollars will go toward an idea of reconfiguration that has no studies showing that it will work for Beloit, and worst of all, if it doesn't work, we are stuck with it, and we're stuck with vacant school buildings, and three of our largest schools with the most immediate needs never having been addressed. How will that help Beloit or our students?