*Opinions expressed in Letters to the Editor are not necessarily those of The Messenger.
We are one district. We can be united. U-Knight for all.
And so began the summer of 1995. With slogans and words of admonition from the study's author, Dr. Roger Worner, we were told that “We must detach ourselves from brick and mortar and attach ourselves to children and what is best for them.” Moreover, the late Jeff Evert, a longtime KW administrator, said, “There is not a more accurate statement that has been made about education than buildings do not teach students...teachers do.”
With the aforementioned in mind, a referendum to build a single site PreK-12 complex at Bombay was presented to Kenyon and Wanamingo residents in December of 1995. Once the votes had been counted, 54% of Kenyon voters said YES to the proposal and 84% of Wanamingo voters said NO...and the proposal failed.
Over the course of the past 29 years, the school district has not only spent millions of dollars to maintain separate sites in Kenyon and Wanamingo, but we now know that the school board has placed us in statutory operating debt to the tune of 1.5 million dollars. But there is more. Just recently, they spent an additional $43,000.00 for a one-year insurance policy, with a million dollar deductible, for the Wanamingo building. And to think that this kind of spending preceded a three million dollar cash flow loan while continuing to discuss what a current school board member said 'could be a four million dollar upgrade' to the Wanamingo site.
Today, we find ourselves in trouble in other areas as well. In addition to a student enrollment drop from 1089 in 1995 to a current enrollment of 665, our academic achievement has been substandard for some time. According to the State Department of Education, only 17.5% of our high school seniors are college ready and out of seven neighboring school districts, Kenyon is last in mathematics and next to last in both reading and science for the 2023-2024 school year testing cycle. But there is more.
To begin with, we find a division in leadership when it comes to unity. On the one side you have a superintendent trying her best to get the school district out of statutory operating debt and on the other side you have a school board continuing to spend money on a building that they cannot even get insurance for from a local insurance agent. And second, on the one side you have a superintendent planning for a single site in the 2027-2028 school year; and on the other side you have at least two school board members willing to fall on a sword (a quote) rather than close the Wanamingo site. In both cases, it increases the debt. But there is more.
In August of 2023, the school board began working with a consulting firm out of Minneapolis. Now that they have missed the deadline for getting a referendum on the ballot for this fall's elections, they have suddenly become interested in collecting data to determine what the voters of the school district are actually thinking about. Question: How in the world could they have missed the deadline for filing for a referendum that would have given the voters an up or down vote this coming November? Answer: By design. Is there any wonder why we find people talking about dissolving the school district so we can go our separate ways? Shame on the school board for putting us in harm's way.
In a recent article in the Zumbrota News Record, the school board listed dates for three referendum options. Beginning with Option One on November 5, 2024, they included Option Two for February 2025 and Option Three for the fall of 2026. Moreover, it was decided they would need at least two years before they could be ready for a tax payer vote. Here we have a school board that proposed three options and, yet, they picked the one that makes the least sense when one considers the condition the school district now finds itself in. For lack of a better vernacular, picking Option Three is like kicking the can down the road...again. But why? Read on....
During my search for an answer, I discovered that various school board members had made statements indicating that they were afraid of a large Kenyon voter turnout due to this year's Presidential Election. You see, unlike 1995 when both communities had to vote YES to the question of a single site, this time it will be decided by a total vote count on whether or not we will remain a two site school district into the future. Just remember, a NO vote would actually be a YES vote for becoming a single site...as it should be. That is what our current leadership is afraid of.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is time for a new school board at Kenyon-Wanamingo Public Schools. Although this may require a write-in campaign due to this year's registration timeline, we need to put an end to what has cost us more than we can possibly know. If we are going to restore our place in the educational community, it will start with a single site in Kenyon. In the end, it actually becomes the “Inconvenient Truth” that has been ignored ever since the NO votes were counted in 1995. Our children and grandchildren deserve better!
Dr. James Russell Lehman
Kenyon, MN
