The Whitewater Unified School District met Feb. 23 for its regular school board meeting. During the meeting, officials presented results from the January Strategic Plan survey to the board and provided an update to the district’s partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Children’s Center.
Superintendent Samuel Karns announced a pause in the partnership between the district and UW–Whitewater Children’s Center.
The Children’s Center is in the process of applying for the Get Kids Ready grant through the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. If it receives the grant, families would be able to access the center at a reduced rate. However, the center would be barred from district funding.
The Children’s Center expects to hear if it will receive the grant by April. Treasurer Jennifer Kienbaum suggested returning to the board with a new agreement in July or August if the Children’s Center does not receive the grant.
“I think we’re hopeful,” Karns said. “They’re in a really good spot given the status that they have as a five star rating in all those pieces. I think it’s something that we also said as a group… that we would wanna continue these conversations either way just to figure out what that looks like.”
Throughout January, the school district conducted a survey to gather feedback from students, staff, families and residents. The results will guide district priorities over the next three to five years. They were presented by Donovan Group Director of Survey Research Tracy Jentz.
The findings showed respondents believed the school district was meeting its mission, vision, inclusionary statements and core values. For its mission statement, 77.1 percent of respondents said the district was meeting its mission, 72.3 percent said the district was meeting its vision statement and 75.9 percent said the district was meeting its inclusionary statement. For core values, 63.4 percent of respondents said they had heard of the district’s core values prior to the survey and 68.5 percent said the district was meeting them.
The survey also included open-ended questions for additional feedback.
Respondents said the district met their needs through the efforts of teachers, support staff and inclusive teaching practices. Areas that needed improvement were student behavior and academic rigor. Communication was an area where the district met the needs of the community, but also needed improvement. Respondents said that there was improvement in the communication between the district and families, while also saying that there needed to be more transparent communication regarding budgeting, referendums and decision-making.
In total, the survey received 336 responses. This number raised concern among some board members, as the 2024 survey had 832 respondents and the 2016 survey had 869 respondents.
“I don’t know that enough people provided responses that I feel 100 percent confident in the survey,” Kienbaum said. “While I do find it reflective of what a greater population may say, I think it’s something that we should take into consideration that we’ve got a significant decline in the number of people that have answered the survey.”
However, other board members noted that the 2016 and 2024 surveys coincided with district budget referendums. The survey also was promoted as part of the Strategic Plan, giving the impression it was only meant for families.
“People are going to be like, ‘I don’t have kids in the school. I’m not doing it. That’s not my wheelhouse,’” board member Christy Linse said. “I can tell you in my house, that was exactly it. But when it was a referendum survey, affecting money, everybody in the house took it.”
Meeting minutes and the meeting’s recording are available on the district’s BoardDocs site. The next regular board meeting will be March 16 at 6 p.m. in the Whitewater High School Library Media Center.
