LETTER: Why didn’t PW-S district seek public input on opening plan?

To Ozaukee Press:

On July 20, the Port Washington-Saukville School Board met in what could be considered the most important school board meeting of the past few years. On the agenda was discussion and voting on how the district is to return to classes in the fall.

Similar discussions are being held in all five Ozaukee County school districts. But the handling of them in the Port Washington-Saukville School District has been markedly different than in other districts.

The Port-Saukville School Board has failed to proactively use technology to engage the public. From mid-March until June, the board met online, allowing community members to attend the meetings virtually via WebEx. The pandemic has not ended, and in some ways our risk of attending an in-person meeting now is higher in the county than it was three or four months ago. However, the School Board has now stopped providing online access to the meetings, preventing constituents from safely hearing the board’s discussions.

The Grafton School District states on its meeting agendas: “Due to health concerns related to the Covid-19 pandemic, members of the public are asked to consider not attending the meeting and will be required to adhere to social distancing guidelines if they do choose to attend. The meeting will be live streamed and can be viewed by accessing this link.”

Similar instructions are provided by the Mequon-Thiensville and Cedarburg districts on their meeting agendas.

Live streaming is not expensive and it is the very technology teachers and students will be using for part of virtual instruction.

Unlike other school districts, the Port-Saukville district released a plan and approved it without any opportunity for the community to comment. In fact, as best as can be ascertained, School Board members had not even seen the details of the plan prior to the meeting.

In the Cedarburg and Grafton districts, both of which are planning for students to be in class five days a week, a detailed plan was uploaded on the districts’ websites for community feedback in advance of any formal discussions or approval by their boards.

The Port-Saukville plan is also lacking in substance. If we compare it with those of other districts, our elementary school students will be losing 20% of instructional time right off the bat, as they will only be in class four out of five days. A more dramatic loss occurs for the middle school and high school students, who will only be in the classroom 40% of the regular time. The plan is also vague as to remote instruction.

The Grafton and Cedarburg school districts are very similar to Port-Saukville.  The total number of students and school buildings is similar and, in general, the desire of parents to have their students be educated in person is very similar. What is unclear from the last week’s meeting is why the Port-Saukville district is so different from the other districts and why the board is not adequately engaging their main constituents – the parents – in the back-to-school planning.  

Why is the board itself not using the technologies it will expect its teachers to use three days a week? And why has the board not put the same level of effort and details into its planning and communication as in other districts?

Walter Schilling
Grafton