| By Big Radio News Staff |
About 40 people — a mix of School District of Beloit administrators, school board members, school staff and parents — gathered and broke into small groups to discuss priorities for a potential referendum vote in April.
One idea that came up more than once: finding ways to improve students’ home lives. Lamikka James, a district parent, had one idea.
“Irregardless of how well we teach a child, how well you all as educators do, you are returning them to the same environment that they came from,” James said. “So if we don’t address the family as a whole, we’re going to continue to spin our wheels and spin our wheels. … My two cents is that parenting skills, parenting classes, some way to make the playing field equitable, is going to help us as a district.”
Other recurring themes included reducing class sizes, improving safety and discipline, and mental health support for students and staff.
For others, communication will be key. That includes explaining the consequences of a referendum not passing.
Here’s Staci Brandt, another district parent and a counselor at Converse Elementary School, on that front.
“I think it’s really important for the community to know, too, if the referendum doesn’t pass, what specifically is going to be cut,” she said.
“The community needs to know what is at stake. Like for example, buildings will lose administrators; you’re going to lose psychologists, counselors and social workers; every middle school sport is going to get cut; there won’t be activities like plays at the middle school. When you can lay it out like that specifically, that’s where it kind of hits people.”
Other ideas for improved communications included distributing pro-referendum yard signs and finding a simple way to show cost estimates at the household level.
Superintendent Dr. Willie Garrison is taking an optimistic outlook despite referendum questions failing in 2023 and earlier this year.
“Hopefully as we educate our community through this process, people will again see that we are doing the things that we say that we were going to do,” he said.
“We have balanced the budget through the work of the administrative staff and the teaching staff. We had to do some restrictions over the past two years. Our academics are moving in the right direction, and I just believe that now, that synergy is in a correct space for us to come to the community with another question. We are in that dire space right now.”
District officials are still finalizing the type of referendum they want to pursue and the dollar amounts associated with any referendum question or questions.
Garrison says the district is planning more listening sessions after the holiday break.
