From Rick Waski

Monroe

To the Editor:

I am a proud Monroe resident included in the “retired and on a fixed income” category. I retired in the spring of 2022 after 27 years in Wisconsin in education. While I understand that nobody enjoys paying taxes, it is my strong contention that now is the time to build a new school in Monroe for the first time in nearly 40 years. I will be voting YES in November to support the School District of Monroe.

First of all, the condition of the high school is awful. The foundation leaks, exterior and interior walls are shifting, the air quality is atrocious (not to mention the mold), and the accessibility to students with disabilities fails to meet minimal standards. If the district pursues an extensive remodel combined with new construction on the existing site, the price tag is only a few million dollars from the cost of a new school. If the district just fixes what is broken, the cost over a 5 or 10 year referendum is the same or more per year than new construction and will lead our community to answer the same questions in 5 to 10 years.

Secondly, our students and community deserve a functional facility that supports collaborative learning.  Students need to be prepared to function in collaborative work settings that are technology-rich and motivating. No matter what is done to the current MHS building, it will remain an old, sprawling space with closed off rooms promoting instructional isolation. A new school offers possibilities for the best learning spaces with career and technology education labs that could make our community a destination for new families

I have heard people say, MHS was “good enough for me so it should be good enough for our kids”. That might have been true 20 years ago, but it has never been true since I served in our district. While our staff has done everything they could with the facilities they have had, our students have fallen behind students in the Badger and Rock Valley conferences at the high school level, and that is where our facility gap lies. Simply put, Monroe has the worst high school facility in Green County, the Rock Valley, or the Badger Conference, and our students and families deserve more from our community.