Dear Editor,
“We need schools and they need us.” We see this quote on signs all across Dodgeville. Yes, it is that simple. If we don’t support our schools, then we won’t have local schools. Look at the example of Hustisford, WI. They refused to pass their referendums several times, now this year they had to close their school district. We don’t want that to happen for the Dodgeville School District.
The Dodgeville School District serves 1,035 students in Dodgeville and Ridgeway. Think about those kids. The referendum has been reduced, trying to operate on bare minimum. The schools can only cut so much. It angers me when I hear some people say things such as “Learn to live within your means.” The schools don’t have a choice. They must serve every child. They can only cut so much. Classroom sizes should only be so big to serve the students, special needs students need more help sometimes including an aid just for them, students in high school should have choices of a variety of subjects including AP classes. The list really goes on and on. Public schools MUST serve all their students, and that comes with a price tag. Many people have no idea how difficult it is to create a budget for such a large operation – meet the needs of all students and try to be fair in pay to teachers and staff.
Also, our teachers are some of the lowest paid in the area. Did you notice how many left this past year? They were able to go to nearby schools and make more money. We cannot risk losing more and more educators. Many of you know my husband, Denny McGraw. He taught Agriculture at the high school and continues as a cross country coach. When he was teaching, other schools in the area approached him to be their Agriculture teacher. He said no, even though it would have been a significant pay raise. He had loyalty to his home community. We are so fortunate to have many such educators, who continue to stay in spite of lower pay. Their loyalty to our district is priceless. But, it is not fair.
Here is a quote from the Facebook “Public School Apologist”. This is written by Michael Hiatt a teacher in Florida.
” … education wasn’t designed to generate a profit or maximize the return from every dollar spent. It was designed around a very different promise: we’ll educate everybody.
Sometimes keeping that promise is expensive.
We hear people talk about public schools “losing money,” but public schools don’t really lose money. They cost money. So do fire departments, police departments, highways, libraries, parks and the military. That’s how public services work. We collectively decide something is worth providing, and then we collectively pay to provide it.”
Schools cannot run in the same way they have in the past. We need our state legislators to redo how funding for public schools work. The voucher schools within our state are taking away too much money from the public schools. The current system makes many schools throughout the state have to go to referendum to fund their public schools. Wisconsin has 468 public schools, in the past 5 years there have been 1,024 referendums. This shows you how many school districts are struggling throughout the state. We need to step up and help the Dodgeville School District be as productive as possible. We need to help the Dodgeville School District survive until we see the state of Wisconsin step up to create a better system to fund public schools. That means voting “Yes” on November 3 for the referendum.
Susan (and Denny) McGraw, Dodgeville, WI