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School District of La Crosse elections (2017)
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Three seats on the School District of La Crosse Board of Education were up for at-large general election on April 4, 2017. In their bids for re-election to the board, incumbents Dave Rudolph and Connie Troyanek ran against challengers Allen Pruitt and Laurie Cooper Stoll.[1] Rudolph and Troyanek won re-election, and Stoll won the other seat on the ballot.[2]
Elections
Voter and candidate information
The La Crosse Board of Education consists of nine members elected to three-year terms. Elections are held at large on a staggered basis every year in April. Three seats were up for election on April 5, 2016, and three seats were up for general election on April 4, 2017. A primary election could have been held on February 21, 2017, if more than six candidates had filed to run.[3][4]
School board candidates had to be at least 18 years old, U.S. citizens, and residents of the school district for a minimum of 28 consecutive days before filing as a candidate. They also could not be disqualified from voting under Wisconsin law.[5]
To get on the ballot, school board candidates had to file nomination papers with the school district clerk by January 3, 2017. If incumbents whose terms were up for re-election did not file to run in the race and did not file written notification that they would not be running, the candidate filing deadline could have been extended until January 6, 2017. The terms of candidates elected in the race started on April 24, 2017.[5]
Candidates and results
At-large
Results
| School District of La Crosse, At-Large General Election, 3-year terms, 2017 |
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|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Laurie Cooper Stoll |
28.65% | 5,346 |
| Connie Troyanek Incumbent |
28.63% | 5,341 |
| Dave Rudolph Incumbent |
24.08% | 4,493 |
| Allen Pruitt | 18.08% | 3,374 |
| Write-in votes | 0.56% | 104 |
| Total Votes | 18,658 | |
| Source: La Crosse County Clerk, "Municipal Summary," accessed May 2, 2017 | ||
Candidates
Dave Rudolph 
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Connie Troyanek
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| Allen Pruitt | Laurie Cooper Stoll
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Additional elections on the ballot
- See also: Wisconsin elections, 2017
The La Crosse Board of Education election shared the ballot with elections for the office of Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction and one seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.[6]
Key deadlines
The following dates were key deadlines for Wisconsin school board elections in 2017:[7][8]
| Deadline | Event |
|---|---|
| January 3, 2017 | Candidate filing deadline |
| January 16, 2017 | Campaign finance deadline for candidates registered before January 1 |
| February 13, 2017 | Campaign finance deadline for districts holding primary elections |
| March 27, 2017 | Campaign finance deadline for general election |
| April 4, 2017 | Election Day |
| April 24, 2017 | Board members take office |
| July 15, 2017 | Post-election campaign finance deadline |
Endorsements
The Wisconsin AFL-CIO and the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans endorsed incumbent Dave Rudolph and challenger Laurie Cooper Stoll.[9][10]
Do you know of an official or organization that endorsed a candidate in this race? Let Ballotpedia know by email at editor@ballotpedia.org.
Campaign finance
All school board candidates in Wisconsin were required to file a campaign registration statement with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission after qualifying as candidates. This statement declares their candidacy to the county clerk's office and allows them to claim exemption from reporting campaign contributions and expenditures. Candidates were only required to report campaign contributions and expenditures if they did one or both of the following:[11]
- Accepted contributions, made disbursements, or incurred debt in excess of $2,000 during the calendar year
- Accepted more than $100 from a single source during the calendar year, barring contributions made by candidates to their own campaigns
There were three campaign finance report deadlines in 2017:
- The pre-primary report was due February 13, 2017,
- The pre-election report was due March 27, 2017, and
- The post-election report was due July 15, 2017.[12]
Candidates who filed before January 1, 2017, also had to file a continuing campaign finance report on January 16, 2017.[8]
Reports
No contributions or expenditures were reported in the election, according to the School District of La Crosse.[13]
Past elections
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What was at stake?
2017
Issues in the district
Election trends
- See also: School boards in session: 2015 in brief
The 2017 School District of La Crosse Board of Education election was guaranteed to add a new member to the board as one incumbent whose term was up for election did not file to run. All three incumbents whose terms were up for re-election in 2016 ran to retain their seats. One new member defeated an incumbent to win a seat on the board that year.
| School board election trends | ||||||
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| Year | Candidates per seat | Unopposed seats | Incumbents running for re-election | Incumbent success rate | Seats won by newcomers | |
| School District of La Crosse | ||||||
| 2017 | 1.33 | 0.00% | 66.67% | 100.00% | 33.33% | |
| 2016 | 1.33 | 0.00% | 100.00% | 66.67% | 33.33% | |
| Wisconsin | ||||||
| 2015 | 1.38 | 38.24% | 73.53% | 84.00% | 35.29% | |
| United States | ||||||
| 2015 | 1.72 | 35.95% | 70.37% | 82.66% | 40.81% | |
District seeks flexibility for school start date
La Crosse Superintendent Randy Nelson joined other school administrators throughout the state in February 2017 when he said his district was interested in starting school in August. A state law enacted in 2000, however, prohibited districts from starting school before September 1 unless a waiver was obtained from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for "extraordinary reasons."[14][15]
State lawmakers introduced a bill to repeal the September 1 school start mandate in the Wisconsin State Legislature in February 2017. It did not move out of committee before the 2017-2018 school year started on September 5, 2017.[16] Similar bills were introduced in past legislative sessions but were never passed.[17]
“An earlier start would help maximize learning,” Nelson said. “Students are most ready in August to learn. By the spring days, we start to see diminished returns.”[15]
Other school administrators said school calendars should be controlled by school districts in order to create optimal schedules for their students. They said starting in August would give high school students more class time before taking advanced placement tests in May and would help decrease backsliding during the summer as breaks could be shorter and more frequent.[14][15]
Officials with the Wisconsin Hotel & Lodging Association, the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin, and some city and county visitor centers, however, said they relied on student workers to close out the season through Labor Day. La Crosse County Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director A.J. Frels said August was a better time for families to vacation compared to June due to the weather. In 2015, the month of August brought in $130 million more in tourism revenue than the month of June, according to the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.[14][15]
“We just know that is a good time for tourism,” said Frels. “There would be a huge impact if there is a change to the school start day. We hope it doesn’t.”[15]
"Grow Our Own Teacher Diversity" program
The School District of La Crosse, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, launched an initiative to increase the diversity of its staff starting in the 2016-2017 school year. The initative, called the "Grow Our Own Teacher Diversity" program, gave scholarships to minority community members between the ages of 22 and 50 to go back to school and complete an education degree. The program was set up to hire those community members as teachers after graduation.[18]
In the 2015-2016 school year, 24 out of 588 teachers in the district were members of minorities, which constituted 4.44 percent of the district's teaching staff. In contrast, 25.8 percent of district students were members of minorities. "There is a degree of disporportionality that's occurring all throughout the state of Wisconsin, and quite frankly throughout the nation and we need to be even more responsive," said Steve Salerno, the district's associate superintendent of human resources.[18]
The School District of La Crosse's students of color were 1.5 times more likely to receive in-school suspensions than their white counterparts, according to Bethany Brent, senior multicultural education advisor at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse. "This racial disparity is alarming because it puts students of color at a greater risk of academic failure, of not completing high school and it seamlessly shuffles them through a juvenile justice system which has become known as the school to prison pipeline," said Brent.[18]
Brent said having more teachers of color in a school district has a positive affect on students of color, including better test scores and higher rates of students going to college. "We want them to finish school, we want them to graduate, we want them to go to college and so we are using every resource possible to make that happen," said Brent.[18]
Candidate survey
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About the district
- See also: School District of La Crosse, Wisconsin
The School District of La Crosse is located in La Crosse County in western Wisconsin. The county seat is La Crosse. An estimated 118,212 residents lived in the county in 2015, according to United States Census Bureau.[19] The district was the 21st-largest school district in the state in the 2014-2015 school year and served 6,814 students.[20]
Higher education achievement
La Crosse County outperformed Wisconsin as a whole and the national average in terms of higher education achievement between 2011 and 2015. The United States Census Bureau found that 30.9 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 27.8 percent of state residents. The national average was 29.8 percent.[19]
Median household income
From 2011 through 2015, the median household income of $50,539 in La Crosse County was below the state and national averages. The median household income for Wisconsin was $53,357. For the United States, it was $53,889.[19]
Poverty rate
The poverty rate in the county was 14.4 percent from 2011 to 2015, falling between the state and national averages. The poverty rate was 12.1 percent for the state and 13.5 percent for the entire country.[19]
Racial demographics
| Racial Demographics, 2015[19] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race | La Crosse County (%) | Wisconsin (%) | |
| White | 91.7 | 87.6 | |
| Black or African American | 1.5 | 6.6 | |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.4 | 1.1 | |
| Asian | 4.6 | 2.8 | |
| Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander | 0.0 | 0.1 | |
| Two or more races | 1.7 | 1.8 | |
| Hispanic or Latino | 1.8 | 6.6 | |
Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms School District of La Crosse Wisconsin election. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
| School District of La Crosse | Wisconsin | School Boards |
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ School District of La Crosse, "Board of Education: School Board Election," accessed January 4, 2017
- ↑ La Crosse County Clerk, "Unofficial Summary," accessed April 5, 2017
- ↑ School District of La Crosse, "Board of Education Members," accessed January 3, 2017
- ↑ School District of La Crosse, "Board of Education," accessed January 3, 2017
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Wisconsin Association of School Boards, "Guide for Candidates: 2017 Spring Election Edition," accessed December 16, 2016
- ↑ Wisconsin Election Commission, "Spring 2017 Election," accessed January 3, 2017
- ↑ Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, "Guided for Candidates," accessed December 16, 2016
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Wisconsin Ethics Commission, "Campaign Finance Checklist," accessed December 16, 2016
- ↑ Wisconsin AFL-CIO, "Spring Election Endorsed Candidates," March 9, 2017
- ↑ Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, "WIARA Spring Election Endorsements," March 17, 2017
- ↑ Wisconsin State Legislature, "11.0104 Reporting exemptions: limited activity," accessed December 15, 2016
- ↑ Wisconsin Ethics Commission, "Filing Deadlines and Reporting Periods," accessed December 15, 2016
- ↑ Abbey Smith, “Email communication with Judy Stangl, School District of La Crosse" March 28, 2017
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Proposed bill would repeal Sept. 1 school start law," February 3, 2017
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 La Crosse Tribune, "Educators, parents would relish chance to start early," February 13, 2017
- ↑ Open States, "AB 103," accessed September 5, 2017
- ↑ WXOW.com, "Should local districts decide school start dates?" February 21, 2017
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 WXOW, "New initiative works to increase teacher diversity in La Crosse," March 24, 2016
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 United States Census Bureau, "Milwaukee County, Wisconsin," accessed December 19, 2016
- ↑ U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, "Common Core of Data, file ccd_lea_052_1414_w_0216161a, 2014-2015," accessed November 16, 2016
| School District of La Crosse elections in 2017 | |
| La Crosse County, Wisconsin | |
| Election date: | April 4, 2017 |
| Candidates: | At-large: • Incumbent, Dave Rudolph • Incumbent, Connie Troyanek • Allen Pruitt • Laurie Cooper Stoll |
| Important information: | What was at stake? • Additional elections on the ballot • Key deadlines |
