July 21, 2017 – West Bend, WI – After a little more than 35 minutes of discussion the West Bend School Board on Thursday night, during a special meeting, voted 4 – 1 to implement a standard of two principals at the West Bend High Schools rather than the current standard of one principal for both schools.
Tiffany Larson, Tonnie Schmidt, Nancy Justman and Joel Ongart voted in favor of the two principal motion. Monte Schmiege was the lone dissenting vote. Ken Schmidt and Tim Stellmacher were not in attendance.
Details such as cost, salary and implementation of a two-principal structure were not discussed. Calls have been placed to school board candidates and we will post those details once more information is provided.
Below are some bullet points from the meeting:
Tiffany Larson – “If two principals in the original setup can improve the responsiveness and the understanding and the identity communication then I would regret waiting another year to promote that kind of positive change.”
Monte Schmiege – “Was the listening session about dividing up into two principals?”
Tiffany Larson – “There’s been multiple listening panels over the past year. The most recent one was, no not about dividing into two principals it was it was simply the wonderings after the interview session and one of the wondering was I wonder if we’d function better with two principals. Is this job too big for one person?”
Monte Schmiege – “This has come up rather quickly, in my opinion too hastily to provide the opportunity for the entire community to express their opinions and …. you know I believe the superintendent was intending to have this matter looked at in this coming year and have it studied and come up with a reasonable recommendation to divide into two principals I would certainly endorse that plan and approve it without any hesitation. But it has not been studied so this is just a hasty move.”
Monte Schmiege – “I find it a little surprising that there’s an agenda that says ‘high school administrative reorganization’ and we have three or four speakers who already know it’s about two principals. I don’t know how the community would know that from this notice but four people currently know about it. So I don’t think the community has been properly involved in making this decision.”
Monte Schmiege – “I’m in favor of delaying this decision until there’s been a proper study and input by the community on the decision.”
Tiffany Larson – “In my opinion the two-principal structure was studied for about 40 years and then we studied the one principal arrangement for three or four and we decided it just wasn’t working as effectively as the old model. So I don’t see it necessarily as a hasty decision as much as one that was perhaps three years in the making. And we’re finally at a point where we can actually make a decision and I consider it really doing what’s best for kids…”
Joel Ongert – “I’d like to make a motion. I don’t have a prepared motion in front of me so I apologize for that. I move to proceed with the hiring of a principal for East High School and a principal for West High School for the upcoming school year.”