Ettrick board to fight for elementary school

While trustees speculated that any referendum that would close the Ettrick Elementary School wouldn’t be approved by voters and that keeping that option as a possibility is merely a scare tactic, village trustees acknowledged they need to ensure the broader Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau community understands why keeping the school open is important.

“Even the slightest chance (of closing the school) is worth the biggest fight,” Trustee Kaylee Waldvogel said.

“It can’t be a nibble, it has to be a full bite,” President Marc Baures added. 

Trustees acknowledged that they likely don’t have to convince each other or other Ettrick area residents that keeping the school open is vital, but Baures pointed to the results of a survey that is being used to make a decision by the G-E-T school board. Of the 400 respondents to the survey conducted by Minneapolis-based market research firm Morris Leatherman Company, 63% supported closing the Ettrick school. With that information, eight members of a community task force voted to close the school. 

“The school board is going to expect that we say, ‘No, keep our school open,’” Baures said. “We need to convince other members of the public. Yes, money is a thing, but we are worth that money. Keeping the school open is overwhelmingly a benefit to the district.”

Ettrick trustees were skeptical that the survey was an accurate representation, pointing to the number of respondents who were from the Trempealeau area compared to Ettrick. 

“That is a flawed poll,” Trustee Dan Molstad said. “You can make a poll say anything you want it to say.”

The eight task force members who voted to close the school were in the minority and the official recommendation to the school board was to keep Ettrick Elementary open, however the option of closing the school is still being presented to the school board. The school board will decide if it wants to go forward with a referendum that would close Ettrick, one to keep it open or opt not to go to a referendum at all. 

“It came out that if the task force said to keep it open, it would stay open. But, all of a sudden, out of the blue, the school board got the option to keep Ettrick open or close it,” Harold Olson, who is a member of both the Ettrick village and G-E-T school boards, said. “As far as I knew, if the task force said to keep it open, that was it. But somebody came in and put it back on the agenda.” 

“Who is pushing it? The superintendent?” Molstad asked. 

Olson said he hasn’t been receiving any communication about the issue.

“The communication from the administration is terrible,” Olson said. “Even your elected representative doesn’t get information.”

Baures said he has only received information through his employment with the school, not as village president. 

Trustees speculated that the threat of closing the school might be to help push another referendum across.

“They’re using Ettrick Elementary as an emotional bargaining chip,” Trustee Pete Filla said. 

Olson agreed, saying the school was being used as a “pawn.” He said he thinks any referendum put to the public would be difficult to pass, but one that included closing the Ettrick school would certainly be doomed. 

“I don’t think there is any way in #@!! that a referendum is going to pass if they intend to close Ettrick,” Olson said. 

Trustees agreed that a letter from the village board should be sent to the district and encouraged each other to come up with ideas of what to put in the letter. Among the topics brought up at last Tuesday’s meeting was that if the district were to close the elementary school, the village would take ownership of the property for $1. 

“Does that sit well with anybody, saying the village of Ettrick gets the building and grounds for $1,” Trustee Dana Stoner said. 

“They’re building a new building, they want this one to go away,” Baures responded. 

Olson indicated G-E-T decision makers didn’t want that to be public information.

“It has never come out that the village gets the building and grounds for a dollar,” Olson said. “The school board hasn’t put that out. The administration hasn’t put that out. Why haven’t they? There is a lot of stuff that is going on under the table that the public and us board members don’t know. The public should know and hopefully it will come out eventually.”

Among the other selling points was the test scores at Ettrick, which has scored higher than any other Trempealeau County school on the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction report cards over the past decade. Though, Baures suspected that argument would be dismissed because critics would point to the teacher-to-student ratio at Ettrick compared to other schools. 

Baures said he remembered the idea of closing Ettrick coming up at another point in time. He said the Ettrick community responded “forcefully” and it was determined that closing the school would not be cost-effective. 

In addition to getting their own idea across, trustees encouraged members of the public to fight against closing the school as well. Olson said there are meetings planned for Nov. 20 and Dec. 18 in which the referendum topic is going to be discussed. He encouraged area residents to make their voices heard.