Maple School District Surveys Support For Referendum

The Maple School District wants to know whether residents would support a $1.7 million operating referendum next spring. The district is sending out a survey to around 5,000 families this October.

Maple School District administrator Sara Croney said they want to know whether voters would be willing to pay more in property taxes to maintain the same quality education for their roughly 1,300 students. She said the district is struggling with declining enrollment, transportation costs, keeping quality educators and maintaining academic and athletic programs.

“The difficulty is when Act 10 happened … the burden for education shifted from the state paying 58 percent to, instead, the taxpayers paying 58 percent. That makes it very difficult for our taxpayers. We get that,” she said. “But it also means that the amount that we’re even allowed to levy goes down and down.”

Croney said the survey will gauge voters’ views on funding education. If voters don’t support a referendum, she said the district may have to start cutting programs they can’t afford to fund.

“Another option to save money is to limit the variety of elective classes offered at the middle and high school,” she said.

Elective classes that are currently offered at the Maple School District include agriculture, art, choir, band, physical education, technology education, shop, marketing, consumer education, business and foreign languages.

Croney said they may also explore combining bus routes in the roughly 500 square miles they cover. Without support for a referendum, she said she fears the district may lose quality teachers to wealthier districts.

The results of the survey will be reviewed in a public meeting on Nov. 13.

An informational meeting about the referendum will be held on Thursday, Oct. 12, at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Northwestern High School.