On Monday, January 12, Mike Janke testified before a meeting of the Board of the Appleton Area School District. His remarks are presented below. You can also find video of the meeting at https://aasd.granicus.com/player/clip/146?view_id=1&redirect=true. His remarks begin at the 25:20 mark.
Good evening. My name is Mike Janke, and I am a candidate for the Appleton Area School Board. I want to address the referendum request proposed this evening.
In 2022 the School Board went to referendum asking taxpayers to fund a new elementary school and exceed the revenue cap limit by $5,000,000 annually. Those requests were approved. Since that time enrollment in the school district has declined by approximately 500 students and revenue per student has increased by $860 to $16,207 from $15,348.
Student performance in the areas of reading/writing and math have declined. Due to the performance recording changes by DPI, I could only compare the last school year to the one prior (2023–2024 school year vs. 2024–2025 school year). Looking at only Appleton North, East, and West High Schools reveals the following results:
Basically, more than 50% of our students graduate unable to read, write, or have math skills at grade level. In some cases, well over 60%. Now we’re being asked to support a $13,000,000 referendum that doesn’t address student performance, but just merely plugs a budget deficit hole.
I’m sure that a spending/revenue issue exists. I went to the school board public forums and listened to the facts surrounding the deficit. What I didn’t hear was what has been done to cut costs in administration, infrastructure, and contracts. The administration has been clear in what they feel must be cut if the referendum fails, but not how they plan on balancing the reality that we have a declining school age population versus future spending needs. I also haven’t heard how this new spending will improve student performance if the referendum does pass.
I understand that this is a complicated issue, but I also see that this is a crisis that has been years in the making. I am not opposed to a future referendum request, but I feel that now is premature. If we are going to ask for additional money, we owe it to the taxpayers to exhaust all avenues of cost-cutting, and we owe our children a plan as to how we will better prepare them to face the challenges of adulthood.