Loyal, Greenwood school boards approve facility study

On the road to consolidation, the members of the Loyal and Greenwood boards, as well as the school district’s administration have all been asked an important question numerous times: Which school buildings will be used for which purpose? With the approval of a request for proposal (RFP), the boards may have an answer to that question — as well as an idea of what a consolidated district will look like — by April of next year.

During a joint board meeting held on Sunday night, several topics were discussed as the two districts began work to hammer out the details of what consolidation will look like for Loyal and Greenwood. This included topics ranging from the timeline to consolidation, to the creation of ad hoc committees, and to the approval of a facility study.

Timeline to consolidation The boards presented a rough draft of a timeline for consolidation, which is set to be completed — if a binding referendum is passed — on July 1, 2028. Between now and December, the joint board identified several items that need to be completed. Ad hoc committees needed to be identified and formed, a meeting schedule for the joint boards has to be agreed upon, a facility study started, and financial models have to be updated. In addition to this, the Greenwood School Board is considering adding two new board members at its annual meeting in September to bring their board up to seven members.

Once December rolls around, the timeline lists the next major tasks the boards need to tackle: adopting a non-binding resolution to consider consolidation, aligning the Loyal and Greenwood school handbooks, and aligning school schedules and course offerings. They are also considering the upcoming April election, where new board members could be installed for both districts, including potentially two new members on the Greenwood board as they look to expand their membership.

The next phase would begin in July 2026. There the timeline outlines the steps of preparing a resolution to consolidate, preparing the consolidation plan, and asking a binding question on the November 2026 ballot on the question of consolidation. After this, in December 2026, both boards would adopt a binding resolution to consolidate

Please see Consolidation, page 7 the two districts and in July 2027, an operational referendum question for the new Loyal-Greenwood consolidated school district would be formed, which would be taken to referendum in April 2028 along with the election of members of the new consolidated school board. On July 1, 2028, the consolidated district would begin operation.

Greenwood District Administrator Joe Green said the timeline presented at the meeting is a very rough draft of what to expect moving forward, with more changes and additions to the timeline added as they iron out the details.

Facility study Staying true to their identified timeline, the two boards discussed what should be done for a facility study. One thing the boards agreed on right away was the need for emotion to be taken out of the decision, having the facilities looked at from a completely neutral standpoint in order to examine what would be the best option for not only the students at both districts, but of benefit to the communities from a financial standpoint. To that end, the boards agreed that an RFP needed to be done, with a third party conducting the study and giving at least one recommendation to advise the schools on what they should do.

“It is a third party consultant coming in and looking at everything collectively,” said Loyal board president Derek Weyer. “And they would take the passion or emotion out of the decision. I think that is going to be important in some of these decisions that we’re about to make because there is going to have to be emotion taken out of those decisions.”

The RFP, which was approved by the two boards, would be focused on the physical facilities that both districts have, the maintenance of those buildings, and what different scenarios would look like for building use. The information from the study, Green said, is not binding, allowing the boards to make their own decision on what they want to do and what would ultimately benefit the community the most.

“We could look at multiple scenarios from a third party,” said Weyer. “And we could take a little from this and a little from that.”

Right now, the estimate to have a facility study completed is around $10,000. After an RFP is finalized, the boards will put out bids on the contract, approving a consultant by November. After that, the hired consultant will have several months to examine the facilities and compile a review of the facilities, which is expected to be complete and presented to the boards by the end of April next year. For now, the boards agreed to a facility study of the buildings only, but it could potentially be revised in September at their next joint board meeting to also include a financial study.

Ad hoc committees In addition to the facility study, the Loyal and Greenwood boards also discussed ideas for ad hoc committees, focusing on which committees to start forming immediately. The boards identified three areas to start with, with more committees to be added as more information regarding the consolidation process was figured out. The two boards approved three committees at the meeting: one for branding, one for technology and business partnerships, and one for scheduling and learning opportunities.

The branding ad hoc committee would focus on the school’s collective identity. They would be the ones to recommend a mascot, consolidated school name, and school colors.

“That is a big decision,” said Green. “We are going to have a lot of things we are going to have to discuss for this consolidation; we should give the community the mascot and branding to let the people tackle that.”

Technology and business partnerships was another committee that was deemed important by the boards. Prior to the meeting, the boards had visited the Luxemburg-Casco School District and toured their tech ed facilities. The visit gave them inspiration to consider reaching out to the local businesses around Loyal and Greenwood to gear their technology programs more toward careers in the area, as they begin looking at what classes should be offered to support students entering the workforce.

“Only 20% of the people that need to be hired in the state of Wisconsin need a four-year college degree,” said Loyal board member Kirk Harlow. “Eighty percent do not. So I think we need to focus our high schools more to focus on all the kids. But it has been highly focused on four-year schools. I think we need to start focusing more on the two-year schools and get the kids ready for work after school.”

The third ad hoc committee approved by the boards was for scheduling and learning opportunities. The two districts have slowly been in the process of getting their schedules to align in the past few years, now having very similar school calendars. But the hour-by-hour schedules and course offerings are not arranged yet. A letter from Holly Lindner also raised a concern about how the current freshmen classes at the Loyal and Greenwood school districts would be integrated together in their senior year, and the board decided this should be something tackled by that committee as well.

“I know how hard students work to achieve their class rank and I know how tight it can be amongst your top students,” wrote Holly Lindner. “These students will go through their freshmen, sophomore, and junior year in two separate schools and they will join together in their senior year. Does this mean that the number one student in Greenwood and the number one student in Loyal will now have to determine who the valedictorian of the combined school district is? Does this mean we are essentially giving up one valedictorian and the state scholarship that goes with it?”

Livestreaming During the meeting, the boards also discussed livestreaming of the meetings that are held at Greenwood. In the past, the Loyal School District has livestreamed its regular and joint board meetings on the school’s YouTube channel, while the Greenwood School District has not. For the joint meetings, it was agreed that the meetings held in Greenwood would now also be livestreamed and uploaded to the Loyal YouTube channel. The videos will be available for 30 days following the meetings and then taken down when the next meeting occurs. In that way, the most current information will be what was available for viewing.

There were questions, however, about the need to take down any of the meeting videos at all, as old videos on Loyal’s YouTube channel still get views even six months later for meetings. With no limits on storage space, there were questions on why the videos couldn’t remain archived on the channel.

“I see some of the numbers [on our videos] still ticking up,” said Loyal board member Matt Kubista. “Even six months or a year ago, people are still picking up on that. And when people find out what’s going on, they might want to go back and review those older videos. So I guess that is a concern that maybe we could leave them on. I guess I don’t know why we need to take them out.”

The Greenwood board voted unanimously to have the joint board meetings that are recorded and livestreamed at their school be available on Loyal’s YouTube channel for 30 days before being taken down. The motion was also passed by the Loyal board on a 3-2 vote.

Joint board meetings Also discussed was settling on a consistent date for joint board meetings. Both districts felt the need to begin meeting on a regular basis as plans for consolidation continue to unfold. While this meeting was held on a Sunday evening, members of the board agreed that would not be a good date for meetings moving forward, suggesting either a Monday or a Wednesday date.

It was tentatively scheduled to have a joint board meeting scheduled on the second Wednesday of each month moving forward. The next meeting of the joint boards will be Sept. 10 in Loyal.