Community members who served on the district’s facility planning committee address why they support the referendum and balancing taxpayer concerns.
MARSHFIELD – As Marshfield School District voters approach a decision on a $71.5 million capital improvement referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot, community members of the district’s facility planning committee highlighted the needs of the district to offer quality education and the mounting costs of necessary repairs and upgrades.
After voters rejected a $99.5 million referendum in April 2023, district leaders initiated a planning process that better accounted for broader community needs. They did this by adding community members to the roughly dozen-member planning committee, conducting phone surveys, holding public meetings and other outreach efforts. The facility planning committee held meetings between March and July of this year.
The district has held four open house events since September, which Terry Frankland, facility planning committee leader and retired trucking company president, said have been well-attended by people of various graduation years, years of residence in the community and number of children or grandchildren attending the district’s schools.
“There were some good questions, ‘why,’ ‘why the need,’ but they toured the infrastructure and they could see the reasons for the infrastructure replacements and they could see the needs for school safety,” Frankland told a Marshfield News-Herald reporter. “People that come understand that our school district is a huge recruiting tool for businesses in Marshfield and we have a good school system, but we need to maintain a good school system.”
Committee member John Franseen, business owner and a 2000 graduate of Marshfield High School, said he cast a “no” vote on the 2023 referendum. He shared a common sentiment that the dollar amount was too high.
“I was still a bit skeptical about the need for a referendum, but after attending meetings and doing some tours of the facilities, educating myself, there’s a pretty plain need for a lot of things in our school and the referendum addresses a good amount of those,” Franseen said.
The planning committee identified three priorities − student safety, building infrastructure and student spaces − and two buildings with the highest needs: Grant Elementary and Marshfield High School.
“When we took the tours of the school it was kinda eye-opening that the school is exactly the same as it was the last time I saw it,” Dan Griesbach, a farmer, committee member and 2007 graduate of Marshfield High School, told a News-Herald reporter. “Nothing has really changed, and in a world where things change so fast, I was kinda surprised that the school was the same.”
The agricultural education and career technical education departments are set to receive much-needed updates if the referendum were to pass. Committee members said these and other updates are important for maintaining the district’s program offerings, competitiveness with other districts and ability to set students up for success working for local employers.
“As a business owner, I talk to other business owners, pretty much on a daily basis, and the problem in Marshfield isn’t a lack of work or a lack of commerce but it’s labor and young people that have some skills coming out of school to help get that work done,” Franseen said.
Committee member Tara McCann, an elementary school teacher, has been teaching in the district since 2008.
“Marshfield has been a top-notch school. When I applied the first time there were lots of people who wanted to get into the Marshfield School District and wanted to work here,” McCann said.
“The biggest thing is if our district is not a highly successful district parents don’t want to bring their kids here, people don’t want to move to Marshfield, that’s going to have a big negative impact on Marshfield,” McCann said. “If we can meet some of these needs of these learners in the 21st century that’s going to be really important.”
An itemized list of projects set to be completed through funding provided by the referendum includes several high dollar items that have drawn some skepticism from community members including almost $8 million for athletic facilities at the high school, over $9 million for agriculture and career technical education spaces, and over $13 million for entrance and office space renovations.
“I also don’t see any one addition like the wrestling room, for instance, as being a single-use room. Not that it wouldn’t be predominately used by the students that are participating in wrestling, but I do see it being used for other activities also,” Franseen said. “I think that’s one of the extracurricular activities that has been a little bit ignored, as far as space goes, in the past.”
Griesbach recalled taking technical education classes when he attended the high school that had 20 students. These classes now regularly have more than twice the amount of students using the same space his class used.
“It was a little chaotic and cramped at that time so I couldn’t imagine how they do it now,” Griesbach said.
Each committee member emphasized the needs of the district’s students, buildings and program demands will not go away and a rejected referendum would initiate another referendum planning process.
“As a business owner I know when you don’t keep your equipment updated it can turn into a ticking time bomb,” Franseen said. “If we don’t address them now, they’re only going to be a more expensive problem to fix in the future so that’s why I would cast my vote yes on Nov. 5.”
“It’s a big investment for the community to make,” Griesbach said. “As a committee, (we) discussed doing what’s right for the kids and doing what’s right for the taxpayers. We talked a lot about both.”
Erik Pfantz covers local government and education in central Wisconsin for USA TODAY NETWORK – Wisconsin and values his background as a rural Wisconsinite. Contact him at epfantz@gannett.com.