PW-S cuts fuel concerns about class sizes, music program

Hobbled by declining enrollment and a “broken school finance system” in Wisconsin, the Port Washington-Saukville School District has no choice but to cut teaching positions for a second consecutive year, school officials said last week in their continuing defense of a proposed budget that promises to eliminate about 10 full-time teaching positions.

“Simply put, less students means less staff,” Supt. Michael McMahon said during the April 27 School Board meeting, noting the district has lost 350 students over the last decade.

School Board President Sara McCutcheon said, “We continue to operate within a broken school finance system that presents real challenges, particularly for a district with declining enrollment. Fewer students simply means less funding.”

Their comments did little to assuage the concerns of parents who told the board staffing cuts made for this school year have resulted in elementary school class sizes that compromise education and overtax teachers trying to manage classrooms of 25 students.

And next year’s proposed budget, other parents said, threatens the standout music programs at Port Washington High School and Thomas Jefferson Middle School.

“Over the last five years, our staff and students have endured a whirlwind — shifting leadership, three new curricula, rising behavioral challenges and a steady decrease in support staff,” Ali Zalewski, who taught in the district for 15 years before stepping away to raise her five children, who are in 4-year-old kindergarten through fifth grade in the district, said.

“To now max out these classrooms feels like the breaking point in an already strained ecosystem.”

In addition to putting teachers in a situation where “burnout is a predictable outcome,” crowded classrooms compromise learning, she said.

“For my first-grade student, a maxed-out classroom is a louder, more overwhelming environment. The quiet child stays silent. The struggling learner waits longer for one-on-one help. We’re asking our youngest learners to navigate high-intensity environments before they have learned to regulate their emotions,” Zalewski said, asking school officials to establish an anonymous teacher feedback system to monitor burnout, add support staff to help teachers and visit classrooms to see the challenges for themselves.

Alex Doney, co-chairman of the Dunwiddie Elementary School parent group whose three children attend the school, said the district’s strict focus on the number of students per class ignores the needs of children and how they impact learning.

“Twenty-five students with minimal behavioral challenges is one thing, but 25 students with higher needs is something completely different, and yet on paper we treat them the same,” she said.  

Large class sizes and the lack of assistance for teachers is taking a toll on students and exacerbating a situation in which behavioral problems disrupt learning and ultimately go unaddressed, Doney said.

“My first-grader used to love to go to school. He’s in a classroom of 25 kids, and this year he tells me he doesn’t want to go,” she said. “He’s bored. He spends a lot of time waiting through disruptions. He still loves his teacher. He loves his friends, but the environment has changed his experience, and I don’t think that should be happening in first grade.”

Last year, the district implemented an annual review of its staff in light of an analysis that showed the number of teachers grew consistently over the years even as student enrollment declined.

The result was a 2025-26 budget that eliminated teaching positions and was “really balanced on the backs of our elementary teachers,” McMahon said.

Seven sections of elementary school classes were eliminated, resulting in class sizes that have reach 25 students in some sections of kindergarten through third grade, he said.

“I was an elementary teacher and I certainly know the challenges I faced when I had a class of 25 vs. a class of 18 were different,” McMahon said. “Our teachers who have 25 kids are working harder than when they had 18.”

Staff reductions for next school year are focused on the middle and high school and may offer some relief for elementary schools in the future, he said.

“By adjusting our middle school and high school staffing, we could be afforded more opportunities to shrink those class sizes at the elementary schools,” McMahon said.

Key to the proposed 2026-27 budget is a schedule change at the high school that will require educators to teach six classes a day, one more than this year, to be considered full-time employees, which will allow the district to eliminate the equivalent of 2.5 full-time teaching positions in core subject areas.

The budget also focuses on maintaining full-time positions — considered important for teacher recruitment and retention efforts — which means that four high school educators will also teach courses at the middle school to give them the six classes they need to remain full time.

Among those teachers are Port High band teacher Chris Clouthier and choir teacher Dennis Gephart, and forcing them to teach additional courses and travel to the middle school, parents said, threatens a renowned music program that brings students to the district.

Kristine Morano, a product of Port High’s music program who became a music teacher elsewhere but was laid off because of budget cuts, said the demands of music classes are different than those of other classes. In addition to managing large classes, music teachers spend significant time outside of classes, or “between the bells,” tutoring students, preparing for concerts and other performances and leading valuable extracurricular programs, she said.

“I would like you to let them stay (at the high school) so they can take on those extra hours between the bells as part of their class time,” Morano said, noting that she enrolled her daughter in the district under the open enrollment program because of its music program before moving to Port Washington.

Andrea Gust told the board she lives in Fredonia but her children, a junior and senior, attend Port High under the open enrollment program because of its music program, which is now in jeopardy.

“I have significant concerns about the planned changes to our high school and middle school programs for next year,” she said.

Benjamin Laurin, a Port High junior involved in band, said the proposed changes “will absolutely injure” the music program.

“Adding two classes where he (Clouthier) has to travel to the middle school ... and deal with an entirely different age group doesn’t leave him much space for the extracurriculars and classes that I care so much about and so many other students care about,” he said.

McMahon, however, said the only program that will be cut next school year is business at the middle school because that teacher will be transferred to the high school to replace a retiring educator. Beyond that, he said, the offerings for students, including those in music, will not change.

“Students will have access to all the high school classes, clubs and athletic programs in 26-27 that they have this year,” McMahon said. “I can assure you, we have four full-time music teachers at TJ and the high school this year and we’ll have four full-time teachers at TJ and the high school next year.”

Although the district’s financial challenges are significant, they are not unique, he said, noting that declining enrollment throughout Wisconsin and the state’s public school funding formula has put other school districts in similar or more dire situations.

The solution for some of those districts has been referendums that allow them to exceed their revenue limits to fund operational expenses, something that hasn’t been done in the Port Washington-Saukville School District, where taxpayers are currently paying for capital improvement referendums approved last year and in 2015.

“There are simply two ways a district can increase its funding, and that is to increase enrollment or pass a referendum for operational expenses, and we are seeing more and more districts across the state ask their taxpayers to increase revenue to maintain staffing and not cut programming,” McMahon said. “At this point, we’re not there, but it’s certainly something districts across the area are doing.”

Less funding for education leaves the district with no choice but to cut spending, McCutcheon said, and while that has meant making tough choices, it has been done in a way that preserves educational programs for all students.

“While we have worked hard to preserve opportunities for our students, difficult decisions have been necessary, including issuing non-renewal (layoff) notices to valued staff, something none of us ever want to do,” she said. “This is not a perfect system nor is it what we’d choose if resources were unlimited, however, within our current reality, our board and this administration and staff remain dedicated, passionate and deeply committed to do the very best for all our students.”