What a difference a year makes

By BILL SCHANEN IV

Ozaukee Press staff

It’s fitting that the Port Washington-Saukville School District will purchase 10 acres of land for a new Saukville Elementary School on July 1, a year to the day that Michael McMahon started his first job as superintendent and took over a district reeling from turnover in the highest ranks of its administrators.

If the district was wallowing before McMahon’s arrival, it has sparked to life under his leadership.

Consider what has been accomplished in the last 365 days:

The district passed a $59.4 million referendum to pay for a new school and overdue maintenance, wiped out a $1.2 million deficit to balance the 2025-26 budget, adopted a new math curriculum to address its flagging state report card, implemented new professional development strategies, revised its policy manual and completed a strategic plan that stresses accountability.

“That’s a really impressive list,” School Board President Sara McCutcheon said. “Michael was absolutely the right person at the right time to lead this district.”

McMahon said it doesn’t seem like it has been a year since he took the helm of the district.

“It’s just flown by,” he said. “It’s been an outstanding year.”

McMahon admits, however, that he broke the golden rule of administrators in his first year as a superintendent.

“The rule is you don’t make changes in your first year on the job,” he said. “But if you don’t, nothing will change your second year, and there were some things that needed to change.”

McMahon hit the ground running so fast on July 1, 2024, that it was like he had been studying the district for years.

In fact, he had been.

As the director of curriculum for the Grafton School District and a Saukville resident, McMahon routinely studied the Port-Saukville School District — its academic performance, enrollment trends, finances and policies — while comparing Grafton’s performance to that of its neighbors.

“While there is that collaborative nature to the relationship among districts, there’s also a little competition,” he said.

During the pandemic in 2020, for instance, McMahon noticed that a significant number of Port Washington-Saukville students opted to attend Grafton schools under open enrollment.

“Then after Covid, they stayed,” he said.

And while the Port-Saukville School District didn’t know why it was losing students under open enrollment, McMahon did.

“It was about our curriculum, our academics and our environment,” he said, referring to the Grafton School District.

McMahon also noticed while working in Grafton that the Port-Saukville School District’s math curriculum wasn’t aligned with state standards, which he said helped explain why the district’s academic performance lagged in comparison to that of Grafton.

So this year the Port-Saukville School District adopted a new math curriculum to be implemented during the 2025-26 school year. But as important as having a new system for teaching math is the fact the district has ensured that teachers have the resources and training to successfully implement it, McMahon said.

“A new math curriculum is huge,” he said. “But so is putting our teachers in a position to be successful by ensuring we have a guaranteed and viable curriculum.”

McMahon inherited other challenges, among them school buildings in need of millions of dollars of maintenance. But the question was, did a first-year superintendent who lacked the connections veteran administrators develop with their communities, have enough influence to convince voters of the need to borrow $59.4 million?

He said his goal of meeting with 100 community leaders in 100 days as well as hosting scores of referendum meetings and tours were key.

“I expected it to be a challenge, but I got the feeling the community was ready for it, that people realized the need for it and, when they walked through Saukville Elementary School, that they were convinced of the need,” he said.

McCutcheon said McMahon’s ability to connect with people and articulate the district’s need for improved facilities belies the fact he was a first-year superintendent.

“To think that he took time to meet with 100 people in 100 days while handling all his other responsibilities ... it’s hard to believe he wasn’t a superintendent previously,” she said.

The result was the overwhelming approval of the most expensive referendum in the district’s history to pay for a new Saukville Elementary School on Orchard Lane at Buck Trout Road on the west side of Saukville and maintenance projects at the district’s other four schools.

“I’m excited for a new Saukville Elementary School, but even more excited about a new roof at T.J.,” McMahon said, referring to Thomas Jefferson Middle School, where failing roofs have led to flooded classrooms.

Having asked for and received $59.4 million, it was particularly important to make sure the district’s finances were in order, and therein lied another challenge — a $1.2 million shortfall in the proposed 2025-26 budget.

“I anticipated the need for some budget cuts, but not to this extent,” McMahon said.

The district cut spending across the board and eliminated teaching positions at a time when its enrollment continues to decrease to balance the budget.

“It was definitely a challenge, but it is extremely important to have a balanced budget when you just passed a referendum,” he said. “I consider this one of our biggest accomplishments.”

While referendums, curriculum changes and budget challenges make headlines, the district under McMahon’s leadership has been working on less flashy but equally important systemic changes intended to guarantee future success.

That includes a painstaking overhaul of the district’s policy manual, a process it hired Neola, a policy service provider for school districts, to assist with.

“Neola said we have set a record for the number of questions asked and changes requested,” McMahon said.

Efforts to ensure compensation equity and provide meaningful professional development continue, but it is the strategic plan the district intends to roll out next month that is intended to be the answer to what everyone from taxpayers and parents to teachers and School Board members have called for over the last three years — accountability, McMahon said.

“That’s one word I’ve heard a lot in my first year,” he said. “We have all this information from the school report card, but the question has been, who’s accountable for it?

“The strategic plan will be an accountability report card so the public can see exactly how we are doing. Here is what you can expect, and if we’re not improving on something, you’ll see it.”

As the School Board’s longest serving current member, McCutcheon has been around long enough to see how important continuity is to a school system. That is something the district enjoyed for 21 years under Michael Weber but lacked under his successor, who remained on the job for only two years before the board tasked the business director with doing double duty for a year at a time when other key administrators left the district.

McMahon, she noted, has made a long-term commitment to the district.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere,” he said in April 2024 after being chosen as superintendent by the board.

That pledge sounds even better now that McMahon has a year under his belt, McCutcheon said.

“He’s competent, effective and compassionate, and the added bonus is that he’s committed to this district and to being here for a long time to come,” she said. “Continuity in our leadership is so important to building upon our successes, and that’s especially true for the academic success of our children.”