School Board opts to bring 4-K in-house, irks partners

The Port Washington-Saukville School Board decided Monday to end its 13-year partnership with the private institutions that host the district’s 4-year-old kindergarten program and teach those students in district schools next year, a move administrators insist will improve education but one that angered its partners who said they were blindsided by the board. 

“It’s really disheartening that the board just up and tore this all apart,” said Rob Johnson, CEO of the Kettle Moraine YMCA, which operates the Feith Family Ozaukee YMCA in Saukville, one of the five facilities that host Port Washington-Saukville School District 4-year-old kindergarten classes. 

Johnson and Kristine Klein, principal of St. John XXIII Catholic School, which also teaches public school 4-K classes, said they were unaware that administrators would recommend ending the partnership and the board would make a decision Monday.

“Why wouldn’t you survey participants and past participants before making this decision and before blindsiding us?” Johnson said during an interview Tuesday. “Where’s the transparency in our kids’ 4-K educations?”

The board voted 8-1 to hire three 4-K teachers for the 2021-22 school year, effectively deciding to teach those classes in district schools.

Board Vice President Brian Stevens, who suggested the decision be delayed until the district could seek input on the change, particularly from parents, voted against hiring the teachers.

“Frankly, I’m a little reluctant at this point in time because of the lack of feedback,” he said. “Not having any feedback from parents, I’m wondering if it’s OK if we put this decision off for a week.”

But Director of Business Services Mel Nettesheim told the board that if it delayed the decision the district would be hard pressed to make the change by next school year. In addition to needing time to hire teachers, the district typically begins disseminating information to parents of prospective students in January.

Nettesheim, who made the recommendation to the board, said that by offering 4-K classes at each of its three elementary schools the district would ensure that these students have “equitable access” to all of its resources, including specialists like therapists, counselors and special education teachers.

In addition, administrators said, teaching 4-K in-house would give the district control of professional development for teachers and allow for collaboration among educators.

And, because most students would remain at the same school as they advance to regular kindergarten, it would ease what can be an unsettling transition for children and their parents, Nettesheim said.

“This is going to improve the consistency with which our curriculum is delivered,” she said. “This is a huge win for our students and parents.”

Nettesheim’s recommendation was supported by Dunwiddie Elementary School Principal Joanna Bannon, who oversees the 4-K program. She said many parents don’t understand why public school classes are taught at private institutions.

“It’s overwhelming and very confusing for parents,” she told the board. “They say, ‘So they don’t get to go to school here (in public schools)? Why do they have to go to the basement of a church or the YMCA?’”

What parents will lose, however, is the seamless child care option that is key to the existing half-day 4-K instruction. Institutions that provide 4-K instruction also offer before or after-class day care, or both, so students can remain at the same facility all day. 

Nettesheim said administrators hope the district’s current partners will continue to provide child care for 4-K students. The district, she said, will pay to bus the students from district schools to day care centers.

Klein, who was informed of the board’s decision by a reporter Tuesday morning, said she was shocked. 

“It started out as a rumor,” she said. “They (district administrators) said there was going to be a discussion, but when we asked what would be discussed, we didn’t get response. We had no idea a decision was going to be made.

“It’s unfortunate and a little disheartening because we have been partners for such a long time.” 

Because of that partnership, public school 4-K has become an integral part of St. John XXIII, Klein said. The school offers its own 3-K and 5-K through eighth-grade classes, and now will have to scramble to fill the gap left by the district’s decision.

“If we didn’t offer 4-K, we’d be slightly broke,” she said. “We have to implement our own 4-K, and quickly.”

Since its inception in 2008, the district’s “community-based” 4-year-old kindergarten has been a public school program taught in private facilities, a decision made in large part because district schools did not have classroom space for those students.

That, Nettesheim said, has changed. Because students now have individual computers assigned to them and classroom technology has been upgraded, computer labs at elementary schools are no longer needed and can be repurposed as 4-K classrooms she said.

Half-day classes are taught Mondays through Thursdays at five sites, which in addition to the YMCA and St. John XXIII in Port Washington are Port Preschool and Community Learning Center in Port and Saukville Preschool.

The district plans to offer morning and afternoon classes five days a week next school year, Nettesheim said.

Each of the 4-K sites hires its own teachers, although the curriculum is set and overseen by the district. 

Because 4-K is a public school program, tuition is not charged. The district receives state aid for each student in the program and counts them as their own in determining its tax levy limit.

The district pays participating facilities a total of about $320,000 annually to host the program, Nettesheim said. It has budgeted $345,000 for hiring four teachers next year. Although the board approved three teachers, it is likely the district will need a fourth, she said. In addition, the district plans to spend about $50,000 on furniture and 4-K classroom improvements.

“We believe it will be break-even,” Nettesheim said

This year, there are 150 students enrolled in 4-K, less than a peak enrollment of about 175 shortly after the program began.

The financial loss will be a blow to the district’s partners, including the YMCA, which is paid about $60,000 a year to teach 4-K classes, Johnson said. 

He noted the Kettle Moraine YMCA, which also operates centers in West Bend, teaches about 250 4-K students at its facilities — most of them West Bend School District students. And while the Port-Saukville School District pays $2,071 per student, the West Bend District pays $879 more per each pupil.

But what’s particularly irritating, he said, is that longtime partners including the Y, which have worked closely with the district for years and went out of their way to adapt to its unconventional approach to pandemic instruction last year with a day of virtual instruction, were not even made aware of the district’s intent to end the partnership.

Johnson said Nettesheim contacted representatives of 4-K sites last week to request a phone meeting the morning after the board meeting. Representatives asked via email if administrators were making a recommendation regarding the program but did not receive a response, he said. 

By chance, Johnson said, he saw two items on Monday’s School Board agenda  that caught his eye — an “update on 4K” listed under Supt. Dave Watkins’ report but delivered by Nettesheim and an item lower on the agenda asking the board to approve three 4-K positions. 

He attended the meeting and said he intended to speak during the time for public comments at the beginning of the meeting but didn’t.

“I wanted to talk but I didn’t know what the recommendation was,” he said.

The board’s decision, Klein said, turns one-time partners into competitors vying for students.

“That’s unfortunate,” she said. “I believe we have a collective responsibility to educate all students.

“I think we’ve learned a lot from the district, and I think the district has learned from us.”