The results of Tuesday s election is the start of a new era for the small community of Gresham. For the first time in 50 years, voters are electing their own school board.
Residents feared for years the Shawano-Gresham Public School District would close down the K-12 school in Gresham to make budget cuts.
So last November, Gresham became the first town in Wisconsin history to secede from its school district.
The candidates for the new Gresham school board have worked as a group for months to make the school its own district.
"It s that committee -- there s about ten, eleven people on that committee -- and they are all running for the school board.
Only seven of them can be selected," Curt Knoke said.
"The election was in November, so since then we ve been sitting on pins and needles, kind of waiting for this exciting day," Gresham school principal Pat Dwyer said. "We re very anxious for the outcome.
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While the election is one of the final hurdles in creating a Gresham school district, it ll also be the beginning of a lot of work. All the decisions that have been on hold until a board is created still have to be made.
"Right now I think our first priority is going to be getting some well-qualified staff hired and getting some of the programs.
We want to keep as many of the programs that we currently have offered to the students and get schedules arranged," Principal Dwyer said.
Each staff member has to decide if they want to say. Since the school is forming a new district, all seniority is lost.
And since the most school year planning is done at least a year in advance, the school is already behind in preparing for next year.
But people in Gresham say the security of knowing their school is in their hands makes all the work worthwhile.
"We understand it s going to be a struggle.
We knew that going into this, but I mean, all good things take work," Dan Huntington said.
The school board s first meeting will be held April 23rd.
The Gresham School District becomes official on July 1st.
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