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Board closes Backus school PINE RIVER-BACKUS SCHOOL BOARD Staff Writer PINE RIVER - The Pine River-Backus School Board unanimously voted Monday to close Backus Elementary School at the end of the school year.
After board member Jim Coffland made the motion to close the school, he told audience members that it wasn't a decision any board members made lightly.
"If we could do it any way else, we would have. But I don't see any other solutions," said Coffland. "This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make as a board member."
The cost savings to the school district by centralizing services and sending Backus students to Pine River Elementary is estimated at $566,000, beginning in 2006-07. The district will still need to make about $800,000 in budget reductions the following year or find new revenue sources in order to balance its budget and not go into statutory operating debt, or SOD. The district is closing the school due to declining enrollment, limited state aid and lack of community support for referenda, most recently last fall, that would have increased operating revenue for the district.
According to the district, K-12 enrollment has declined by more than 350 students, from 1,339 to 987 students since 1999, a 26 percent decrease. Enrollment projections show continuing decline, to 843 students by the 2010-11 school year. Backus Elementary has 86 students enrolled in kindergarten through fourth-grade. The school also houses the Early Childhood Family Education, Early Childhood Special Education and School Readiness programs.
A public hearing was held Jan. 19 at Backus Elementary to hear comments from residents about the proposed school closing.
Backus Mayor Cloie Smith told the board Monday that there was a great deal of mistrust between Backus residents and the school district and said if she would have known what the board was going to do, she wouldn't have volunteered to help support passage of the recent school levy, which failed to pass by voters. She pointed out the Backus school was sold to the village of Backus in 1911 for $1 from J.D. and Sarah Newman. She recommended the school district sell the building back to the city for the same amount.
"We are not going to die," Smith said, referring to Backus without a school. Smith said there are plans for a charter school to be started in Backus but not at the elementary school building.
A couple of parents also spoke at Monday's board meeting, requesting the board ask Pine River-Backus voters again to support an operating referendum. They said there was support in the community for another operating referendum.
"If it meant so much to our public, why weren't they at our meetings?" asked board member Sandy Poferl. "No one voted for the levy. That's all they had to do. Where were they voting for the levy and voting for their kids?"
Poferl said she moved to Backus in 1991, after the Pine River and Backus school districts merged, so she wasn't in the community to experience the tensions that may have existed at that time between both communities. Poferl said Backus fifth- through 12th-graders are now attending school in Pine River and it's time for people in both communities to work together for the sake of the children and build a stronger district.
"Neither one of the cities come first, our kids come first," said Poferl.
The board met in closed session at the end of Monday's board meeting to discuss possible options for what to do with the Backus School.
JODIE TWEED can be reached at 855-5858 or jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com.
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