PRESCOTT – The Prescott School Board continues to examine how consolidating from four school building to three would affect operations and heard a presentation about gym space usage at its Feb. 18 meeting.

Athletic Director Matt Smith, Prescott Community Recreation Director Angela Magee and Prescott Community Education Director Penny Peterson analyzed how the district’s gyms are used, in particular the Malone Intermediate School gym, and shared their findings with the board. The board voted last month to pursue closing MIS (located at 125 Elm St. N.), which currently houses fourth and fifth grades.

Currently, PSD has four gymnasiums. According to Smith, Prescott is on the lower end of the Middle Border Conference for gym space with 33,778 square feet. Amery has four gyms with 41,000 square feet. Baldwin-Woodville is home to six gyms. St. Croix Central has six gyms as well totaling 49,180 square feet, while Ellsworth’s six gyms total 42,990 square feet.

“I think overall our district does an outstanding job of maximizing that though with what we have,” Smith said.

The gym at Malone Elementary isn’t typically used for competitions or events, he added. The bleacher seating doesn’t accommodate crowds and spectators’ feet already crowd the court.

“It’s just not conducive for that, in terms of space,” Smith said.

The gyms are used for multiple school district and community activities, such as sports tournaments, pickleball, dances, recitals and community education. In 2025, community education used the Intermediate School gym for 1,353 hours.

Smith said having the MIS gym means people don’t have to drive to another community to take part in activities they enjoy, such as adult volleyball or pickleball.

“If we don’t have in our portfolio the Intermediate gym, we’ll try to offer what we can but some things may have to be put on the back burner,” he said.

Board Vice President Tonya Holub said it’s nice to offer gym use to taxpayers who don’t have kids in the district.

“Not just people with kids in the school district pay taxes,” she said. “And so this is really an amenity that, and I’ve heard some comments like, ‘Oh, do we need a gym for community stuff?’ Well, they pay taxes too and the opportunities for them to be able to use that within their own community is an important piece too.”

Magee said Prescott Community Rec uses the Intermediate gym for a wide variety of activities, especially volleyball, basketball and indoor softball/baseball practices.

Without that gym space, teams would have to have more late-evening and weekend practices. January and February, which sees a lot of use for basketball practices and games, would become problematic scheduling-wise across the district with 18 basketball teams to accommodate. PCR’s spring and winter offerings would need to be scaled back, including the elimination of spring volleyball since that would overlap with winter basketball and spring indoor softball/baseball (15 teams), Magee said.

MIS also houses PCR’s two indoor batting cages that are sized to fit that space.

“Losing that gym, we would have to find another space for those,” Magee said.

Peterson listed community ed’s gym usage, including pickleball throughout the week (nine sessions capped at 20 participants, often at capacity), adult volleyball on Mondays (averages 14-20 players), Intro to Volleyball in April and May for grades 4-6, and intermediate hitting for softball/baseball for 12 weeks.

Without the gym space, PCE would have to host weeknight pickleball at 8 p.m. or later after PCR teams conclude; Gathering Place senior pickleball would likely have to be discontinued.

Other programs that could be affected as things are condensed include indoor youth soccer, adult basketball, pre-school open gyms, seasonal activities and miscellaneous open gyms.

“We might have to, if the schedules don’t work, have to cut some of those programs or again, push them way back into the evening which is going to obviously affect people wanting to come do things starting at 8 or 8:30 at night,” Peterson said.

Smith detailed the school teams’ MIS gym usage, including seventh grade volleyball practices and some C-team games in the fall, basketball games and practices in the winter, and C-team baseball and JV and varsity pitchers and catchers practices in the spring. The district was also looking to add a golf simulator to the stage area.

“Working with the golf team, they’re fundraising for a golf simulator,” Smith said. “We’re trying to find space for it and the stage down there would be a natural spot for it.”

Without that gym, scheduling for volleyball and basketball would be harder, possibly forcing more away games which would add transportation costs, Smith said. Volleyball and basketball practices would need to be staggered for both middle and high school. The district would also have to explore adding batting cages to another gym and possibly renting space from St. Joseph’s or New Adventures Learning Center. It would also be difficult to bring in revenue by renting out gyms, such as to the wrestling club or club volleyball. Wear and tear would also increase at the district’s other gyms.

Smith said he, Magee and Peterson will remain positive, supportive and solution-seeking whatever the board decides; however, they would like the MIS gym to stay in the district’s portfolio.

“If we need to sell the Intermediate gym, we will make the best of the situation, though renting space and adding amenities to other gyms might be a necessity,” Smith said. “And then we would strongly suggest, if we lost that gym, how would we replace that gym down the road?”

The district might need to add onto the existing high school gym, he added.

Board member Helen Stassen asked if adding morning practices would be a possibility. Smith said yes.  

Board President Mike Matzek has coached and is familiar with scheduling snags already present.

“Anybody that doesn’t think we have enough gym space, come to one of the PCR scheduling meeting for baseball, basketball or softball, just watch how the scheduling gets done and how people fight for gym space,” Matzek said. “For me personally, I think this is a non-starter. I think we need the gym. So any deal that we make, we have to figure out a way to have another gym put somewhere else or keep the one that we have.”

To tie everything into why the district is planning to consolidate buildings, Superintendent Jim Reif spoke about a declining enrollment workshop he and other admins attended in Chippewa Falls. Hosted by the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials, they learned that the number of school age children is down 6% statewide with 315 out of 421 school districts facing declining enrollment. Homeschooling, while still under 10,000 students, is up 43.7% across the state since Covid; there are 60,000 less students in Wisconsin schools than in 2015. The state funding model was decoupled from inflation in 2018, resulting in a $3.5 million decrease in funding for Prescott. Trends are showing that students with disabilities will increase by 6% by 2029 and English learners will increase by 10% by 2029, both of which cost more money to educate.

Reif said the district will continue to examine staffing impacts with enrollment projected to decrease, explore ways to promote the district to those looking to move to Prescott, expand social media outreach, retain preschool age children and more.

As for the school consolidation process, Reif said the admin team has been conducting staff listening sessions with MIS, Prescott middle and high schools, with conversations centering around academic models, curriculum and job stability.

“I was pretty honest. It’s not the adjustment from building to building,” Reif said. “But as we do have declining enrollment, will that eventually drive staff reductions.”

For example, this year’s graduating class has 99 students, while first grade has 67.

Other concerns staff expressed were the number of interventions (200 in grades 6-8 alone last year) that require dedicated space, the gym debate (selling the MIS and using the funds to build a new gym is seen by some as choosing athletics over academics), and the massive amount of work to reclassify library books if the eighth graders are moved to the high school.

Discussions will continue over the following months, with updates given at each school board meeting.

Lac du Flambeau

The board approved overnight attendance for students for the Wisconsin Council for Social Studies conference.

Social studies teacher and advisor for the Lac du Flambeau program said five Wauwautosa West and 13 Prescott students have been invited to talk about their experiences at Lac du Flambeau Reservation to hundreds of educators from Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.

“They’re going to talk about the why, the what and the importance of that place-based learning experience,” Ryan said. “The kids have really, really been working hard preparing for that.”

The theme of the conference is “Empowering Student Voices,” Ryan said. “I cannot begin to thank you so much for the support you’ve given to me and the students connected to this experience in Lac du Flambeau.”

Part of the point of the presentation is to show other schools what’s possible. Since its inception, 434 students have visited Lac du Flambeau, along with 150 community members. This summer will mark the 51^st trip.

Board member Vicki Rudolph, who has accompanied students on the trip, highly recommends the experience to others.

“This is part of the curriculum here in the state of Wisconsin, is to learn about the native peoples, so I think to finally have that platform for them to share, especially for the students to share to that many individuals is going to be fantastic,” she said.

Other business

• Art teacher Anne Kressly will retire at the end of the school year after teaching art in the district for 30 years.
• The board approved a sign-on bonus for “hard-to-hire” non-certified staff, such as bus drivers. The $500 bonus would be paid with $100 on the first paycheck, $200 on the third and $200 on the eighth.
• The board approved the hiring of Michelle Peterson as Malone administrative assistant and Todd Braunlich as high school administrative assistant.
• The next school board meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 11 (due to spring break the following week).