BURLINGTON — Lyons Center Elementary School will close at the end of this school year.
The Burlington Area School District Board made the decision unanimously during a meeting March 11.
“It’s a sad day that we have to close Lyons,” BASD Board President Peter Turke said during the meeting. “I don’t think anyone wants to do that, but I think this is the best of bad alternatives.”
After a four-year, $11 million operational referendum failed in February, BASD had to close one elementary school.
Because the referendum failed, the district will have to reduce its 2024-25 school year budget by about $4.8 million and reconfigure grade levels.
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Changes next school year
Lyons Center had about 150 students in 4K through fifth grade in 2022-23, according to state data.
The closure could result in an enrollment decline for the district, but BASD is “fairly confident we would lose minimal students,” Superintendent Jill Oelslager said during the March 11 meeting.
Lyons Center is also the only BASD building in Walworth County, “which sometimes can be tricky when it comes to student services,” she said.
Turke said during the meeting that the board and district will consider selling or leasing the building.
“I think that’s going to be an option that we could explore,” Turke said. “If there was a good offer on selling Lyons and providing some cash, that would be something that the district and board would have to look at … I wouldn’t guarantee we’re going to sell it, because we don’t know who would be out there as potential buyers.”
BASD administration looked into closing Lyons Center or Dyer Elementary School before recommending the closure of Lyons Center.
Shuttering Lyons will have “the least amount of impact to students across the district,” Oelslager said.
With the closure, most BASD buildings will look different next school year. The main change is that most elementary schools will no longer have fifth graders, most of whom will attend Karcher Middle School.
Dyer Elementary will have early childhood learning and 4K through fourth grade students.
Waller Elementary and Winkler Elementary will serve kindergarten to fourth grade students.
Dyer, Waller and Winkler will each have at least two classrooms per grade level.
Cooper Elementary will serve Montessori students in 4K through sixth grade and students in the Wisconsin Connect Charter School.
Karcher will have fifth through eighth grade students.
Burlington High School will continue serving ninth through 12th graders.
One potential option was to have seventh and eighth grade students at the high school, but Oelslager said many people expressed concerns about that.
“We’ve analyzed every different configuration we could do and feel confident with this one,” she said.
School boundaries also will be redrawn for 2024-25, meaning some BASD students could attend different schools than they did this year.
“I can’t guarantee that all Dyer students are going to stay at Dyer, all Waller (students) will stay at Waller, all Winkler (students will stay) at Winkler, because we do have to think about where all of our students go geographically across the entire school district,” Oelslager said.
Oelslager told The Journal Times that BASD hopes to finalize new school boundaries by mid-April to early May.
Additional cuts
Because of the budget shortfall, in addition to closing Lyons Center, BASD will cut 35-40 staff positions, reduce the number of school days, increase extracurricular fees, and reduce its capital projects and building budgets next school year.
Eliminating staff positions will save BASD about $2.9 million, according to a presentation at the March 11 meeting.
Reducing the number of school days at BASD would save the district about $1.2 million.
Oelslager said that district administration’s plan to reduce the number of school days would lengthen each school day by about 15 minutes.
BASD wants to get input from families and staff about the proposed plan before finalizing it, according to Oelslager.
Oelslager told The Journal Times that BASD aims to finalize the calendar plan by mid-April to early May.
If approved, the BASD 2024-25 school year would start after Labor Day and end before Memorial Day.
Calendar adjustments will not affect the 2024-25 BASD winter break or spring break, according to Oelslager.
‘The new normal’
Oelslager said in February that there likely will be another operational referendum question on ballots this November to potentially aid the district budget.
If passed, referendum money would be spent on areas such as stabilizing the district budget, attracting and retaining staff, supporting staff and students, mental health support, local business partnerships and maintenance.
BASD has increasing projected deficits over the next several years.
The district is facing estimated deficits of $5.8 million in 2025-26, $7.3 million in 2026-27, $8.9 million in 2027-28, $10.6 million in 2028-29 and $12.2 million in 2029-30, according to a presentation at the March 11 board meeting.
Many Wisconsin public school districts are dealing with similar financial challenges and have offered referendums because the state revenue limit has not increased in several years, despite a $7 billion surplus in the state general fund.
“This is the new normal, and it’s really unfortunate,” Oelslager said in February.