(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
The Kenosha Unified School District is asking all residents to participate in a referendum survey to evaluate the district’s operational needs, consider possible solutions, and contribute feedback as it plans for the future.
Residents can take the anonymous survey online at kusdsurvey.com. It takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete and is available through Thursday, October 10.
(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
“While our schools are a big point of pride in our community, KUSD has financial needs stemming from the state’s inequitable funding formula and rising inflationary costs in recent years,” said KUSD Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Weiss. “We invite our community to take our survey, learn more about our needs, and provide feedback on how we can best address these needs moving forward.”
KUSD is facing financial challenges due to several factors largely out of the district’s control and related to the state of Wisconsin’s school funding system. The revenue limit imposed by the state has not included the expected inflationary increases over the years, which means that KUSD does not receive adequate revenue to support existing programs and services. At the same time, costs are rising across all areas of operations and unfunded mandates continue to be imposed on the district.
District leaders and the Board of Education have been examining these needs and looking at potential solutions for the community’s consideration. They will carefully review the survey results before determining next steps in this important process. This could include a possible referendum question placed on the ballot in spring 2025.
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58 Responses
Oh boy!
This is your chance to let these failures and people that call themselves ‘educators’ know about the absolute shitty job they do and you won’t be supporting their efforts to steal more money from the taxpayers.
You know why? It will never be enough money for these failures, they will come back for more. More money for all the pedophiles they hire and want to keep.
Give them the big middle finger and tell them to move along. This goes for the school board too and that useless superintendent.
Shut down KUSD and fund homeschoolers and private schools and the kids will actually learn something!
And be more safe!
As a homeschooler— no. I do not want the government funding my homeschool. Government dollars typically come with added government involvement, and right now, WI is very homeschooler-friendly.
This is a topic that frequently comes up in homeschooling circles, the the general consensus typically ends up being NO.
Start offering better tax incentives to traditional families. 2 parent, single-marriage, families where Dad works, Mom stays home and raises the kids. The type of family situation that sets children up to thrive & be happier & more successful.
I never said government should fund homeschools. I SAID to SHUT Down the public schools and parents should homeschool. get a grip. I homeschooled too
You literally said “fund homeschoolers” but nice try.
Hopefully you didn’t teach your kids to be a gaslighting liar.
Ok, so maybe you didn’t directly say that the government should fund homeschoolers. However, it would be up to the government to shut down KUSD, and you said “Shut down KUSD and fund homeschoolers and private schools…” So, who were you then implying should do this “funding”? Because your comment is written as such that the government, who would be the only ones to shut down KUSD, should do this funding.
That’s what I was thinking he meant too. I agree with the shutting down of KUSD, but definitely not having Gov’t fund them (which he now says he didn’t mean, but it did come across that way). They would then have a say in how and what you teach( other than what WI requires now). Illinois doesn’t even require you to register the kids to homeschool. Wi is pretty HS friendly, but even though Illinois seems like a corrupt state, they are more HS friendly that WI!
A distinction without a difference. You would have the government take a smaller share from the homeschooling household, while saying you did not want that households homeschooling to be funded by the government. For it not to be funded by the government, your taxes would have to be the same as those of an identical family that was sending their kids to a public school, while you were completely funding their education in all ways, to be schooled at home.
I would say the obvious answer is the current system where a certain amount of money is allocated for the education of every student across the state, and The homeschool student would have that amount applied to the household in the same manner that the public school student has it applied to the school system.
You would likely find that a majority of homeschool families would not want that, given the oversight that would inevitably follow.
This is something that is a frequent topic in various homeschool circles, and the consensus is always the same. No government dollars due to the stipulations that tend to follow.
Can we throw water bottles at them ? All jokes aside, the fact of the matter is that enrollment is declining . What’s not declining is the amount of administrative employees. But by golly , we’ll cancel football before we address the problem .
We’ve seen this saga before, lady’s and germs. Here we go again . The answer is ; no.
Not an additional Penny until they start taking out the garbage and the unnecessary positions. STEM only.
Don’t care if they do get rid of sports, as long as they get rid of the deadwood at the same time.
When schools seek out “public input” they will then come back and say “X number/percentage” of respondents say we need this or that.
What they don’t ask is, should we spend any money at all.
I looked at this survey. Very direct questions mostly geared towards money. Nothing I saw asking about programs or personal or administration.
Again, a survey hiding the cause of the problems and asking for suggestions (money) to solve those problems.
exactly! more wokeness in the schools. More porn in the library. More groomer teachers. less learning for the children
I think people should homeschool. They set their own schedule and parents KNOW what the kids are learning and it keeps the KUSD pedifiles away from them!
That’s great if you don’t work for a living, but the majority of parents work! So who is going to homeschool the majority of these kids?
Not everyone is qualified to homeschool or has the required amount of time, but this is why we need more small charter schools that can make better use of the per student payments and concentrate on education basics.
Question a system that has parents so poorly educated, that there is a belief they aren’t qualified to educate their own children. Instead, they send them through the same system that left them poorly educated.
Homeschooling doesn’t require you to have a vast amount of knowledge about every single subject. Homeschooling requires that a parent be willing to learn right along with their child, from time to time.
Qualified to homeschool?? Funny, most parents are more qualified and less creepy, perverse and less political than “teachers”.
The majority of people are qualified to homeschool! Call HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) and find out more on how you can get started.
http://www.HSLDA.org
540-338-5600
You would be surprised at how few hours it takes to teach your kids what they REALLY need to know . The majority of people ARE qualified to homeschool!
Call HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) and find out more on how you can get started.
http://www.HSLDA.org
540-338-5600
Bring back Montgomery Ward.
This will not change anything, since referendums
are not worth the paper they’re printed on.
Except maybe to give those in charge an opportunity to
show false results that reflect how they want
their gravy train to be paid for.
More money for even more dismal results.
Sell the educational support building
yes!
Or tear it down with most of the desks still occupied. 😁
More money for ALL there failures? If they want to save money all they need to do is look inside KUSD palace. Vote AGAINST higher taxes plus there are fewer students in schools!
How about they try to cut some spending like the rest of us have to do!
But it’s for the children!!!! NOT its for more overpriced administration
Do all you people need a rope?
Elaborate…
Not a penny more. They can cut some of the their bloated administration staff.
Get rid of Weiss. Cut the bloat. It took me less then 5 minutes to answer the survey.
definitely
Oh, and you can answer it multiple times. 😂😂😂😂
As the Dems always say, “vote early and vote often” 😉
How much has the district spent on lawyers in the last few years?
Exactly!
You cannot fix a spending problem with money.
Kevin can you add the salaries of the top 50 KUSD to the story so we can see where our money is going? Thanks for keeping us informed!
I think he did awhile ago. It might be in the previous articles.
May 8, 2024 article; Kenosha Unified Administrator’s Salaries…LONG list!
Too many overpaid administrators get rid of that huge building that sucks up all the tax money do background checks on these pedophiles that you hire.
Brandon, the sad truth is that most of these pedophiles don’t have a record when they do the background checks. If they are like KUSD, they let them resign, so they don’t have to fire them and nothing goes in their personnel files!! It’s the best way to hide their dirty secret!!
I’m sure the community is more than willing to pay more in taxes to support the “Leadership Chief” salary as well because every incompetent leader needs a real “Leadership Chief” at their side as well.
Superintendent Weiss has failed to keep our kids safe from the sexual predators that they hired! Thats should be his number 1 priority to KUSD and the entire community! KUSD shouldn’t receive another dime from any of us until he steps down!
The third Friday count showed a decline in enrollment of 358 (at $15,000 each student) for a savings of $5,370,000. Simply put they are educating 4000 less students ($60 million) than in 2017. Why would they need more money to educate less? A drop of 358 students would mean Ruether and Hillcrest could be closed easily, and probably an elementary school. The drop next year will be similar or higher because the largest class in the system is this year’s senior class. The public school system is imploding due to birth rates and abortions. The only way to survive as currently structured is illegal immigrants.
Bingo! Democrats not only want illegal aliens to boost up their voter base, but they also want them to fill up empty public schools to keep tax rates at higher levels to justify spending. Damn anyone who dare speaks the truth about the Democrats scheme to destroy America from within.
Public school referendums piled on top of existing school tax levy limits.
Wonder what the tipping point is for a community like Kenosha where property taxes, inflation, increased cost of living results in fixed income homeowners becoming….homeless?
Obviously KUSD and it’s employees don’t really give two shits.
Don’t worry, Democrats voters get more section 8 housing every time housing costs go up, so they don’t care.
Unexpected inflation? You mean the money printing for the Ukraine Scam and the
“Inflation Reduction Act”, formlery known as the Green New Deal was not expected?
How about you put all the stupid kids in a gym (lcage) with some cops, 1/2 can watch Tik Tok on their phones and 1/2 can play basketball and brawl, since that is what they do anyway.
Let the smart kids learn. F your property takes and referendums, all kids need to learn is a pencil, some paper, and halfway intelligent teacher.
Great survey. Im sure they wont be happy to see me responses
Nor mine
Far too much estrogen in the room.
Troll on, troll (aka guy who hates straightwhitemale )
Remove them all and start from scratch. They have more power than was intended. Some of the big shots should take pay cuts and maybe they can actually pay the teachers.
Ask Weiss if he is willing to take a pay cut for the children?????? Maybe the top 50 salaries also??????
Time for some Real World 101. Here’s how it works in Madison. They want to be political heroes so they tout a “no tax increase budget” (and this has been the case since Pat Lucey was governor in the 1970s) but they do it by cutting shared revenue to school districts, counties and municipalities. Political cost shifting. And then Madison came up with levy limits. The adequacy of school funding is not confined to Wisconsin. The Kansas Supreme Court found that Kansas legislature’s school funding scheme violated that state’s constitution.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about KUSD. I have near zero confidence in the school board and administration of the school district. They don’t listen to us, they tell us. They pared budgets, closed schools and are struggling to deal with declining enrollment which is a national trend due to decreasing birth rates. The board and administration cannot credibly seek support from a public they ignore and fail to properly serve. They must show that they have been good stewards of what they have been given and I don’t think they can make that case given the mismanagement and bureaucracy. No way I’m voting for a tax increase without seeing more responsibility and stewardship.
Has anyone called and done the survey about this? I received a cardboard flyer asking to call, but I think it will be trick questions and would end up helping them.