Greenfield School Board Candidates Address Public Days Before Election

Two candidates for the Greenfield School Board answered questions from the public Wednesday at a forum at Greenfield Middle School in advance of the April 5 spring election.

Challengers Pam Sierzchulski and Russell Spahn spoke of a challenging budget situation and the need for communication and cooperation at the meeting, hosted by the Greenfield Parents Education Association.

Incumbent board members Bruce Bailey and Donald Almquist did not attend the forum.

Spahn frequently related his experience as chief of the fire department and part-time teacher at Milwaukee Area Technical College to the tasks of the School Board. Sierzchulski spoke of her previous experience as a member of the board, and meeting with state legislators in that role.

Much of the conversation centered on providing a quality education in tight fiscal times. Both candidates agreed that any further cuts to the schools would affect the learning experience.

“These cuts have already impacted students. The cuts we make now are going to devastate students,” Sierzchulski said.

Sierzchulski recounted several years of increases in drivers’ education fees, until the program was eliminated altogether.

“No, that’s not reading, writing and arithmetic, but that’s the type of stuff that has been cut out of your schools already,” Sierzchulski said.

Spahn agreed that further cuts would negatively impact students.

“Things just aren’t going the way they should, and I want to be a part of trying to correct that,” Spahn said.

Sierzchulski suggested seeking endowments and naming rights and continued rentals of district facilities as ways to create revenue.

“You simply don’t put all that burden on the taxpayer,” she said.

She spoke against increasing participation fees such as athletic fees, because it would take away from the students, especially for those who could not afford increases.

Spahn called pursuing usage fees for facilities “phenomenal,” and suggested the district’s Greenfield Performing Arts Center may draw revenue from professional performances.

“It’s hard to come up with new revenue for a school district or a city,” Spahn said. “That’s all you can do is give it a try and see how it’s going to go.”

Both candidates said teachers and administrators should be consulted to set optimal class size limits. Spahn said he knew the challenges of adjusting curriculum to class size from his teaching experience. Sierzchulski worried larger class sizes meant gifted and challenged students would receive a greater share of teachers’ attention and learning opportunities.

“It’s that kid in the middle, that 80 percent, that I worry about the most,” Sierzchulski said.

Both expressed openness to changing school start times, based on the findings of an ad hoc committee of the School Board, provided that it could be paid for within existing budget constraints.

The candidates were asked how the district could continue to offer competitive compensation to attract high-quality educators given reductions in state aid. Both candidates stressed that the district must continue to be a responsible employer.

Sierzchulski pointed out that district teachers already contribute 10 percent to their healthcare benefits. Spahn said he has seen similar challenges in his work with the fire department, and raised minimum staffing levels and revenues to meet needs.

“We’re faced with the same sort of problems on the city level,” Spahn said.
“We came up with creative ways to deal with that within our staff.”

Spahn said he belongs to a union in his part-time teaching role, and had seen the employment concerns of K-12 teachers he studied alongside at Alverno College.

“You don’t want to lose the quality of teachers that have come here and devoted years of their career, years of their lives,” Spahn said.