Rural Wisconsin school district to shutter after voters reject spending proposal for fifth time

The Hustisford School District, in eastern Wisconsin, is going away.

Wisconsin’s School District Boundary Appeal Board on voted to dissolve the district. It is the first time since 1990 board agreed to close a school district.

Hustisford has just 238 students in the entire district and has been losing students for years. The school district asked voters for a $4 million referendum in April, but it failed.

Quickly after the election, Hustisford Schools then began the process of shutting down.

The vote was the final step.

Wisconsin's state superintendent blamed a lack of money, and how the entire state of Wisconsin pays for schools for the shutdown.

"The Hustisford School District is a casualty of decades of an antiquated, broken school funding formula that has failed to keep pace with the costs of educating our children," State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly said in a statement.

But Hustisford Schools were spending about the state's average per student.

Budget numbers show Hustisford's budget was more than $6 million per year and show that the school spends about $22,000 per student. That's more than Wisconsin's state average of nearly $18,000 per student.

Hustisford is in rural Dodge County, and school leaders have been working with the neighboring Dodgeland School District to get students into their schools next year. Dodgeland is already educating students from Hustisford. Dodgeland high school says it has 118 Hustisford students in their classrooms. Dodgeland is also a tiny school district, with an official enrollment of just 233 students.

Wisconsin has 421 individual public school districts. Records show less than 140, or nearly a third, of them have fewer than 500 students.