Music group targets PW-S budget plan in a rare rebuke

A prominent parent group has taken the unusual step of publicly opposing the Port Washington-Saukville School District’s plan to balance its budget by eliminating the equivalent of just more than 10 positions and changing teaching schedules for next school year as enrollment continues to decline.

In a statement signed by its officers, the Port Washington High School Music Boosters said a plan to have Port Washington High School’s two music teachers also teach at Thomas Jefferson Middle School “threatens our award-winning and nationally recognized music program in multiple ways.

“Our music program is successful, effective and unique. It draws families into our district in an era where districts are challenged to maintain enrollment. While the administration purports to support the music program, these proposed changes will have consequences.

“The Port Washington Music Boosters ask the administration to review these decisions and come up with an alternative plan that does not detrimentally alter the music program in our district.”

But Supt. Michael McMahon said the changes planned for the 2026-27 school year will not negatively affect the district’s music program and are, in fact, needed to ensure the high school’s two music teachers remain full-time employees.

“This is not a cut to the music program,” he said.

Key to balancing the district’s budget by reducing teaching positions is a schedule change at the high school that will require full-time educators to teach six classes during the eight-period day, adding about 50 minutes to the amount of daily instruction they provide. Currently they teach five classes a day.

Port High Band Director Chris Clothier will have four classes to teach at the high school next school year. That would make him a part-time employee, so to retain his full-time status he will also teach two courses at Thomas Jefferson Middle School.

Choral Director Dennis Gephart will have five high school classes to teach next year, so he will also teach one course at the middle school to maintain his full-time status.

But the Music Boosters group contends that having Clothier and Gephart travel between schools will cost them the time before and after school they need to lead important extracurricular music opportunities for students.

“Time at the beginning of the day and end of the day will now need to be used for traveling, making some, if not all, of these programs impossible to continue at their current level,” the group wrote in its statement.

The hope, McMahon said, is that Clothier and Gephart, who are paid a stipend to lead extracurricular programs, will still have time to offer the programs. If they don’t, the district has options that will allow it to maintain extracurricular music offerings, he said, noting that because of staff reductions last year elementary school music teachers do not have full-time contracts.

“If, indeed, this schedule change puts a strain on activities, we’ll reach out to another teacher to support those programs,” McMahon said.

The schedule change, he added, will allow the high school to continue offering popular although relatively small music courses such as jazz ensemble and Limited Edition, an a cappella group that has helped put Port Washington High School on the map as a school nationally recognized for its music program with multiple trips to the Varsity Vocals a cappella championship in New York City, including one next week.

“The decision to have Mr. Gephart and Mr. Clothier travel was made to both maintain all current music course offerings at PWHS and preserve their full-time status,” McMahon said.

The music teachers will not be the only educators traveling between schools next year. So, too, will a phy-ed teacher and a tech-ed teacher, as well as a school psychologist who will split time between the high school and middle school, a move that  a parent recently called “a huge mistake.”

“Our students are struggling more than ever,” Sara Pashak, a parent of children in the district and a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told the Port Washington-Saukville School Board last month. “We’re seeing that at the college level where I teach and we’re also seeing it at the lower levels.

“Psychological needs and mental health issues are very prevalent, and I think to decide to change the way school psychologists are deployed in the district is a huge mistake.”

Following the resignation of Port High’s psychologist earlier this school year, the district contracted for those services at a cost of $80,000 for two days a week, McMahon said. Next school year, the middle school’s psychologist will travel between the two schools while the district maintains full-time psychologists at each of its three elementary schools.

The debate over the district’s budget-balancing plan comes as the School Board continues to work to reduce the equivalent of 10.2 teaching positions. On Monday, it met in closed session to hear an appeal from a teacher who received a preliminary layoff notice, then voted 7-1 to issue him a final layoff notice. Kierstin Cira voted against issuing the notice and Karen Krainz was absent.

The board will have to make decisions on two other pending layoffs by April 27. The majority of the staff reductions are being done through attrition — resignations or retirements.

The reduction in positions for next school year is expected to save the district $847,250 in salaries, even with a 2.63% — the equivalent of the Consumer Price Index — average pay increase for all employees, according to what Director of Business Services and Human Resources Mel Nettesheim described as a “very, very preliminary” 2026-27 budget.

With enrollment declining, McMahon said, the district has no choice but to reduce its staff.

“Every district is facing these challenges, and I truly hope that someday we are an increasing enrollment district and I don’t have to tell a teacher we’re making cuts,” he told the board last month. “That’s not what I got into education for, and it’s not what anybody in this building got into education for.

“But the reality is, with 81% of our budget being people and benefits, that’s the first place we have to look.”