Overview
- The School District Boundary Appeal Board voted unanimously to approve the Hustisford School District’s dissolution and to transfer the district’s about 275 K–12 students to the neighboring Dodgeland School District.
- Students are already attending Dodgeland this school year under a tuition agreement while most Hustisford staff left after receiving nonrenewal notices at the end of the last school year.
- Local leaders cited five failed referendums, long-term enrollment declines, rising operating costs, and statutory limits on property-tax revenue as the reasons the Hustisford board ordered dissolution.
- State Superintendent Jill Underly said the closure is a result of an outdated school funding formula that has not kept pace with education costs and warned the decision signals hard choices for other small districts.
- Dissolution is rare in Wisconsin and this is the first district to be dissolved since 1990; the board’s ruling could prompt closer review of funding policy as at least four other rural districts had considered similar action.