School Awaits Decision on What Future Will Bring; Small Size May Lead to Closing or Merger

By AMY HETZNER

Town of Brookfield – By the time Pleasant Hill Elementary School students slipped into their classrooms for the 2007-’08 school year’s open house, the Dumpsters that once fronted the building had been moved and a revitalized logo hung unobstructed at the entrance.

All in all, as the building’s halls bustled with the excitement that comes with the return to school, it gave little appearance of a small school facing a cloudy fate – despite the rain that fell outside.

By Wednesday, the Waukesha School Board could decide the future of the tiny school that serves residents in the district’s northeasternmost corner. Closing Pleasant Hill or combining it with nearby Hillcrest Elementary School and converting it into a building for fourth- through sixth-graders are the recommendations that have been made to the board.

Either way, Pleasant Hill seems destined for a change.

“This has been on the stove, on the burner, for at least two years,” said Waukesha Superintendent David Schmidt, who last year recommended the merger with Hillcrest and still supports that option. “It’s time to make a decision around it for the sake of the people who live in that attendance area.”

Pleasant Hill’s future has been a topic of conversation for most of the last decade.

The school’s enrollment slipped nearly 20%, from 246 to 198 students, in just five years between the 1996-’97 and 2001-’02 school years, state records show. The drop followed a court battle in which homeowners in the Weston Hills subdivision, which had been served by Pleasant Hill, won permission to detach to the Elmbrook School District. Even as the Waukesha district’s enrollment rebounded after that period, Pleasant Hill’s student counts remained low with 170 enrolled for the current school year.

Some residents in the area, many of whom live in the City of Pewaukee or Town of Brookfield, also have tried to join the Elmbrook or Pewaukee school districts by altering district boundaries in recent years.

They have been more successful in attempts to enroll their children in other school districts under the state’s open enrollment public school choice program.

Twenty-six children from the Pleasant Hill attendance area have transferred to other districts under open enrollment in the past two years. Another 13 left this year, according to the district.

“It wasn’t because of the school, the school was great, it’s because of where the school is located,” Pleasant Hill parent Gerrie Marincic said of the “mass exodus” that followed news that the school could close. “A lot of the mentality is ‘I live in Brookfield, I should go to Brookfield schools.’ “

The concern for the district is that the school has become too small, and that the financially troubled district could not justify the costs needed to continue the school.

In addition to the $300,000 to $400,000 in operational costs that closing Pleasant Hill could save the district annually, its Barker Road location also could bring an attractive sales price, the district’s Enrollment Management Committee noted in a mid-summer report to the board. But district officials fear they would see even more open-enrollment departures were the school to close, wiping out any savings that come with running fewer buildings.

Although the drop in students might have made tenuous the school’s prospects, parents say they have enjoyed the close atmosphere resulting from its small size.

“It’s kind of nice because it means we can just be that much more involved,” said Cindy Ebenhoch, who has a son in Pleasant Hill’s second grade. “It doesn’t take very long to get to know all the teachers and lots of the kids. And it’s kind of nice that way. It’s kind of homey.”

That’s how fourth-grade teacher Shirlee Opdahl, a 21-year Pleasant Hill veteran, also describes the school’s environment. This year, she anticipates having 14 in her class.

“So many think a small school is bad,” she said. “But if you look at it the other way, it’s great because you do get to know everybody. You know the kids, know all the teachers. The teachers know all the kids. The families form their own community.”

The school’s size made it too small, however, for Sandy Slowik who transferred her sixth-grade son to Heyer Elementary School in Waukesha and a first-grader to Hillside Elementary School in the Elmbrook School District. Both moves were for different reasons. Slowik said she moved the 11-year-old because, in a small school with only a few children in special education, his mild learning disabilities made him stand out when he would be pulled out of class. She transferred her youngest son because he was being disruptive with another boy and had no options for other classes in the school, which has only one teacher for each grade.

In addition, Slowik said, she worries about budget concerns facing the school district, which have some board members talking about the possibility of eliminating all extracurricular activities in the next school year.

“They could still lose some parents, and not just Pleasant Hill, they could lose parents at all the different schools,” Slowik said.

Of the two leading options for the school facing the School Board, parents and staff said they preferred keeping the school open as a 4th- through 6th-grade building and merging attendance areas with Hillcrest Elementary School.

Although they love the attention that comes with a small school, they say they also can see advantages to having more than one teacher per grade level and having elementary schools that focus on children in fewer grades.

That option, originally vocally opposed by Hillcrest parents, has gained more support from the nearby school as the effects that closing Pleasant Hill and redistributing its students along with those of Hillcrest and Heyer schools have become clear.

“Obviously people are afraid of change,” said Melanie Rooney, president of Pleasant Hill’s parent-teacher organization, who said she has recently been in contact with Hillcrest PTO leaders.

“I can see where Hillcrest parents are coming from. But there are so many things going on in the district, change is going to happen at some level. Even if they close this school, which I don’t want, there’s going to be change for other schools.”

Don Charpentier, who began his job as principal of Pleasant Hill on July 1, has been active in encouraging the school’s parents to make their feelings known to the board. He also has been busy contacting families who have left the school in recent years while also invigorating the school’s image.

One of his first actions was moving the Dumpsters that sat by two front entrances to the school to a less conspicuous location. Recently, he enlisted parent volunteers to repaint the teachers’ lounge. More volunteers helped plant and mulch flowerbeds.

“The cool thing about Pleasant Hill is it’s a public school with a private feel,” said Charpentier, who previously helped lead a school in De Pere and taught science at Pilgrim Park Middle School in Elm Grove.

“People spend big bucks sending their kids to private schools just so they get that sort of individual attention. They get that here. . . . I really think this school will grow. . . . I just think it needed a little push. And I’m here to give them that.”

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