WAPS Board hopefuls talk facilities, budget

This November, five candidates are on the ballot for the Winona Area Public Schools (WAPS) Board, including a few incumbents and a newcomer. They recently shared their perspectives on the district facing budget cuts in recent years, restarting discussions on how to address facility needs, reconfiguring elementary schools and asking the community to renew the capital projects levy, or tech levy, this fall.

Incumbent School Board Chair Nancy Denzer and School Board member Karl Sonneman are running unopposed for reelection to two at-large seats representing the entire district, and School Board member Michael Hanratty is running unopposed for reelection to the District Two (central Winona) seat. They have all been on the board for eight years.

Newcomer Michelle Cochran, running for the District One (western Winona) seat, was a reading specialist throughout her career in education, teaching for a number of years at Rochester Community and Technical College. Ted Hazelton, a WAPS graduate whose children also graduated from or attend the district, is running for the District One seat, as well. He previously served on the WAPS Board from 2007 to 2010 and has run for the School Board in recent years.

Denzer said she would like to serve another term on the board to continue to monitor elementary reconfiguration and be fiscally responsible. She is proud that district leaders installed geothermal heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems at Jefferson and Washington-Kosciusko elementary schools, received a $5.3 million federal tax credit for those systems, and are at work on improving career and technical education (CTE) programs.

Sonneman said he is running for reelection because he is committed to being civically engaged. “I think overall things are going well, because we have stability in how we’re operating,” he said. He cited the board renewing Superintendent Brad Berzinski’s contract for another three years. He wants to keep inspiring families to join the district. “I think Rios has been an enormous success and is bringing students in,” Sonneman said, referring to the district’s Spanish immersion program. He wants to strengthen music programming, as well.

Hanratty said, “I have spent the last eight years learning the district, school finance, the challenges, the great things about the district, and serving the community wasn’t something I was ready to walk away from. And if I did, I would’ve genuinely missed it.” He is glad the district installed the geothermal HVAC systems. Moving forward, he wants to prioritize music, art and PE programs and make sure adequate staffing is in place for these areas, as well as continue to improve CTE programs and use technology to provide better customer service for families.

Cochran wants to draw on her philosophy that education can be a great equalizer among people. “I don’t like to see education viewed or categorized as a commodity … I feel that the function of education is to make sure everybody is on that level field. So if you come into community college reading at a sixth-grade level, we’re going to accept you, and it’s our responsibility to help you get up to reading at a 12th-grade level,” she said.

Hazelton wants the district to be more transparent and make decisions backed by data. “And we need more fiscal responsibility and accountability in our schools,” he said. He feels district administrators took a positive step by consolidating some administrative positions last school year, and looking ahead, he would like district leaders to try to increase enrollment by viewing education as a product and working to make that product match what families want.

Facing tight budgets In the past few years, WAPS faced budget cuts and adjustments of $1.6-$2.4 million, and a few board members, including Hanratty and Sonneman, advocated for getting more information about the cuts administrator proposed, while a few, including Denzer, said it was not the board’s role to consider proposed cuts line-by-line.

“I think the board is the entity that develops the budget, to be honest,” Sonneman said. He also added, “We’ve got some good staff who are really helpful, give us really good information. But the board has to determine the priorities …”

Hanratty said the district’s Finance Committee, a group of a few board members and administrators that reviews the district’s finances regularly and reports back to the full board, has helped with budgeting, and he would also like to explore starting a board committee to review staffing and then report back to the full board.

Hazelton said, “… I think [the board] need[s] to be more reliant on being able to see numbers and crunch numbers and compare apples to apples, instead of being so dependent on department heads and administrator recommendations. And it also wouldn’t hurt to get more public input, because what the public wants might be different than what administrators would recommend.”

Denzer said, “We have been working toward looking at long-term fiscal planning rather than year-to-year fiscal reactionary cuts … It really does include analyzing cost efficiencies that we can make. Reconfiguration did help a lot with that. And then making sure we’re right sizing the district and the real estate we currently have in our buildings to focus on long-term fiscal planning.”

Cochran said she wants to further analyze the funding formulas for education and advocate for education being well funded.

Analyzing facility needs Sonneman said the district continues to have accessibility needs, and when considering how to fund facilities improvements overall, district leaders are generally moving toward using long-term facility maintenance funding received every year through the tax levy, WAPS’ federal tax credit, and potentially a referendum to upgrade facilities down the road. He would like to try to identify facility needs as soon as possible and have a plan for the next year or two so the public can also raise their priorities with the board.

A facilities referendum is not a priority, Hanratty said, adding that renewing the tech levy is top of mind for him, however. Like Sonneman, he said long-term facility maintenance and tax credit funding should be used for facilities upgrades.

In the same vein, Denzer said long-term facilities maintenance and federal tax credit funding will go toward facility upgrades, and at some point, district leaders may consider a facilities referendum, but her top priority is renewing the tech levy.

Hazelton wants to ensure the high school has appropriate locker rooms for female athletes. When it comes to a potential facilities referendum, he said, “I’m kind of on the fence on that one.” Referring to the most recent $94 million facilities referendum in 2023 that voters rejected, he said, “But the ask was too high.” Cochran said she would want to make sure facilities layouts match how to best provide the services students need.

Assessing elementary reconfiguration Sonneman said he has not heard much public input on reconfiguration. “…. Once the heat of the moment was gone, things settled down, and it’d become pretty accepted,” he said.

Hanratty said he feels data about elementary class sizes so far has shown some progress toward more balanced classes. Data this spring showed some improvement in the number of classes below the target range since 2024.

Denzer said, “… There was just some, kind of a difficult start to that process, but if you remember, our overall goal was to make our class sizes more balanced and to just give all our students a chance at [being] the most successful that they could be, and I think I give our teachers a lot of credit for stepping into this different environment and working toward that.”

Hazelton said he would want more feedback from district leaders on how reconfiguration has gone.

Cochran has heard various opinions on reconfiguration. “I think what I would like to do is I would like to just be present in those schools a little bit, maybe talk to teachers … So I think as the next school year passes and another school year passes, [it’s important] to just monitor that and make sure people have a voice — teachers, parents, administrators, kids,” she said.

Renewing the capital projects levy This fall, WAPS will ask voters to renew the capital project levy, aka tech levy, that has been in place for the last decade funding equipment, software, security, and staffing. District officials aim to use some of the funding, if renewed, for broader purposes beyond technology, such as CTE and safety upgrades.

“For me, that’s the most urgent item,” Hanratty said. “That is really going to impact the district. If it doesn’t get renewed, we really would have to try to protect the general fund as much as possible."

Sonneman also would like to prioritize renewing the levy. “We have to pass that levy,” he said.

Hazelton said it’s important to balance the use of technology with traditional learning. “That’s kind of a Catch-22,” he said. “Technology is nice, and it’s helpful, but I think we need to not be so reliant on it.” Cochran said she supported technical education programs, while wanting to make sure the district did not purchase technological equipment that was not needed.

WAPS Board hopefuls talk facilities, budget

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