Recapping This Week’s School Board Meeting

When we last checked in with the School Board, the path toward a November referendum was coming into focus. This week’s meeting shed more light on the coming details, and specifically, what next Tuesday’s community focus groups may actually look like. Additionally, the board discussed what the Village has requested from the district on the Armory Memorial if they create a formal memorandum of understanding, and whether a community survey is happening.

Key Takeaways from the School Board Meeting: A Path Forward Coming into Focus

To view Superintendent Dr. Jamie Foeckler’s memo that outlined much of the referendum discussion, click here (loaded to Dropbox, for those not fond of Boarddocs). 

Here’s what was debated from my perspective.

The Village Wants an Answer: Building or Green Space?

Last time, we talked about how the Village and the School District wanted to formalize their potential transfer of property (the Village owns the Armory Park land) should the School District decide to move forward with a plan for a new middle school on the site. Architect Nicholas Kent from PRA walked through what a memorial could look like if a new middle school were built at Armory Park. He was careful to stress that there are no designs at this point, but the concept identified three exterior opportunities:

• The northeast corner facing Lake Drive, where the memorial sits today, as a high-visibility anchor that could incorporate elements of the existing memorial
• The east face of the building along Ardmore, which could extend the memorial experience southward
• The south face overlooking the playfield, a future potential gathering spot for events like the well attended Memorial Day ceremonies

The Village would need the district to choose, for purposes of the memorandum of understanding, whether the memorial would be integrated into the new building or rebuilt on the green space that would open up at the current middle school site. And for all of this to align with the timing of a November referendum, it would likely need that answer by the end of August.

Several board members weren’t ready to commit. One pointed out that the Armory has been at least a small part of educating Whitefish Bay students since 1932, and that the memorial group and veteran community haven’t yet weighed in. The suggestion was even floated that the answer might be “both”: a prominent memorial at the new building plus a garden space at the vacated middle school site.

Focus Group Format: Set for Next Tuesday

The first focus group is June 16, with a second on July 14. About 100 residents have signed up so far (there is still time to sign up). The potential structure:

Tables of six to seven people, each with a moderator/note-taker from the administrative team or partner groups.

After considerable wordsmithing, the board seemed to land on three questions for discussion:

1. Please share why you voted the way you did on the referendum question. (Non-voters will be asked to share their perspectives.)
2. What stands out to you as the greatest needs and constraints across our facilities?
3. Please share your thoughts on tax impact tolerance.

The board was clear the tax tolerance discussion should stay at the level of an overall number, not get tied to specific projects. A reference sheet recapping the April referendum projects may also be on each table, deliberately framed as what was proposed, not what will be proposed. As one board member put it, the projects may change but “the needs are constant.”

Running beneath the question-wording debate was a familiar tension: is the board open to completely new proposals, or is this process headed toward a relative do-over of the April referendum with a smaller price tag? One member stressed that the sessions should be about collecting community feedback before the board comes up with a referendum question — not that the board has a question in mind that they are asking people to give feedback on. Others were equally insistent that nothing fundamental has changed since the April vote: the needs identified six months ago are the same needs today. 

The Survey is Back on the Table

The board supported moving forward with a community survey, this time through the Donovan Group, the communications firm hired last month. The board president was blunt about the reasoning: the focus groups will reach less than a tenth of the community, and quantitative data is needed alongside the qualitative.

The timeline is tight. The Donovan Group will provide a draft within days, board members will submit individual feedback by Monday, and the board needs to approve a final version at its June 17 meeting. The survey will then run the full month of July, with a postcard and QR code going out to the community.

Notably, this process will differ from the earlier survey used before the April referendum. It will be web-based, every resident in a household can take it (a point of confusion last time), and paper copies will be available if needed.

Enrollment Watch

The School Board also discussed new enrollment projections for next year. There has been significant discussion about the numbers in the past in the context of investing in the distinct’s future needs. The overall projected numbers are down from this school year, but still ahead of the projected numbers from the Community Change & Projections Report in 2025. 

Total enrollment across the four schools is projected to be 2,837 students for the 2026-2027 school year. The most recent numbers from January were 2,896 students. The CC&P Report had projected a drop to 2,783 students for 2027.   

The report had also concluded that nearly 100% of the recent historical drop in enrollment for Whitefish Bay was due to 1) the sunsetting of the Chapter 220 program due to changes at the state level and 2) the choice to not take any students through the open enrollment option from outside of the district. Chapter 220 enrollment next year will decrease from 37 students to 22 and will drop to 0 in two years.

The calendar gets tight from here: The first focus group is Tuesday, June 16th, with a second on July 14th. The survey window would last the month of July with results landing at the August 12th board meeting, where a draft referendum question would need to take shape, before the August 25th statutory deadline.