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Goodman-AC seeks more school funding

District to vote Tuesday on referendum for additional $200K a year in revenue

The Goodman-Armstrong Creek School District will ask voters Tuesday to allow levying up to $200,000 more a year to cover increased costs.

The district needs to catch up after having a roughly $140,000 annual deficit, said Allison Space, superintendent and administrator for the district for the past two years.

With only 121 students in 4-year-old kindergarten through 12th grade, Goodman-Armstrong Creek is the second-smallest school district in the state in terms of enrollment, Space said. Its elementary teachers handle two grades each, she said. She acts as principal for all grades, plus oversees curriculum.

Yet state and federal regulations mean the district must provide certain services if a student has special needs. The district can’t reduce its staff of 15 full-time equivalent positions any further, Space said — they already share a guidance counselor, special education director and all therapists with Florence and have a part-time business manager.

So they are turning to residents for help.

The three-year, $750,000 referendum would replace a $550,000 measure that expires at the end of this school year, officials said. If approved, it would add about $201 a year to the property tax bill on a $100,000 home, according to the district.

The additional money will go toward building maintenance, such as replacing kitchen flooring, as well as purchasing two school vans to reduce costs for extracurricular travel. Goodman-Armstrong Creek now has co-op arrangements with neighboring districts for several sports — such as Northern Elite Predators football with Niagara and Beecher-Dunbar-Pembine — and has students going to Florence to use its Fab Lab and partnering on drama productions.

A breakdown on how the $200,000 would be spent through the 2021-2022 school year can be found on the district’s web site, www.goodman.k12.wi.us, under the “district” tab, then “referendum documents.”

The district attempted this same referendum in November, only to see it fall 15 votes short. Space said they’ve already heard from voters who didn’t go to the polls then, but plan to back the measure this time.

Still, officials aren’t taking anything for granted with this second try. They had a public information session March 20 that Space described as more like “a trade show,” with businesses and others setting up stations to talk with those who attended.

Together, they made their case for why Goodman-Armstrong Creek should remain an independent school.

The district is able to turn out “some great graduates,” yet maintain small-town familiarity and sense of community, Space said.

“It was absolutely a home run,” she said of the forum. “We had so many people that were so positive … it was wonderful for our students to see that people care about them.”

Betsy Bloom can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 40, or bbloom@ironmountaindailynews.com.

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