The Manitowoc Public School District is looking to get more students who go to different schools back in the district.
In Wisconsin, families are able to openly enroll in whichever school district they choose.
That means a student can live in Two Rivers and come to the MPSD, but students who live in Manitowoc can also go to other districts.
MPSD Superintendent Lee Thennes explained on WOMT’s Be My Guest program that the district feels that the number of students going to other districts is too high, and they’ve tasked the Public Relations Advisory Committee with finding a way to bring students back.
Thennes says he sent out a survey to families who both open-enroll in and out of Manitowoc Public Schools.
“And really just ask some basic questions about, why did you choose our district over the district that you live in?” he explained. “And the other question for the ones that open enroll out is, why are you choosing to go to Two Rivers, Valders, Mishicot versus Manitowoc? Because we really want to find out what the reason is.”
Thennes says the job of the committee is to reduce the number of students enrolling out of MPSD by 10% by next year.
One idea is to reintroduce a full-time online option through the Stangel Learning Academy.
“Through looking at all this data, we realized that there’s about 80 families who are currently choosing to open enroll through outside online schools that we can serve in our own community.”
The MPSD school board could be voting on the idea during this evening’s meeting (May 13th).
Last year, the board voted to move from the virtual learning option because it was costing the district hundreds of thousands of dollars with not enough student enrollment.
