Cascade students to stay together next year

PLYMOUTH — Their school is closing, but elementary grade students from Cascade will be staying together next year.

Plymouth School District Superintendent Clark Reinke announced that students from the Cascade Elementary School would be assigned to Parkview Elementary School this fall.

“After careful analysis, the decision was made to assign all Cascade students to Parkview, which has four classrooms available,” Reinke said. “This option will enable us to keep Cascade students together and minimize the number of families reassigned to other schools, district-wide.”

The Plymouth School Board voted last month to close the school in Cascade this fall in an effort to close a $440,000 budget gap created by the loss of state aid due to last-minute changes in the recently signed state budget.

That decision was met with anger and resentment by parents and residents of the village, as well as areas in the towns of Lyndon and Mitchell whose children also attended the school.

Parents and village officials explored detaching from the Plymouth School District and seeking attachment to the Random Lake School District, along with other options, but found that any other moves were not practical given the lateness of the board’s decision.

Reinke acknowledged that closing Cascade was, “a sad and emotionally laden decision that will cause the elimination of more jobs and break the heart of the Cascade community.”

He said that the options for placing the 115 Cascade students into another school were weighed by the district’s leadership team, looking at the impact on teaching and learning, keeping Cascade students together, moving the fewest number of families, transportation route and staffing efficiency, and parent feedback.

As part of the reorganization, Reinke said, four additional classes and teachers will be added to Parkview. The board had earlier voted to move all district fifthgrade classes to Riverview beginning with the 2009-10 school year as a cost-saving measure, so only Cascade students through the fourth grade will be moving to Parkview.

Reinke noted that the move of Cascade students to Parkview would necessitate the reassignment of some students previously assigned to Parkview, Fairview and Horizon schools to other schools. “These families being reassigned have received additional communication regarding the placement of their children,” he said.

“While we face extremely difficult financial challenges, I am confident that the reorganization of our elementary school model will still enable us to offer an outstanding educational experience for students, which is our top priority,” Reinke said in his statement announcing the assignment of the Cascade students to Parkview.

“Despite all of the challenges and the changes, I hope we can continue to count on the enthusiastic and positive support of our parents and others that understand how important quality public schools are to our community. We will also need for everyone to join forces in challenge to our legislators to bring about a change in the way schools are financed in Wisconsin, so we can prevent any future erosion of our educational programs,” Reinke concluded.