A year after the first public discussions, residents and educators in western Dane County still want to explore ideas to open a charter school that might draw upon the talents of local artists and farmers.

But a separate discussion about consolidation with another school district appears to be dead for now.

Kay Butcher, a Wisconsin Heights School Board member who initiated the consolidation talk and supports the idea of a charter school, said she remains optimistic that the public might support a referendum, after the rejections of two earlier referendums, to help the district through its cash crunch. No referendum has been scheduled.

After the district's finances are stabilized, Butcher said, talks about a charter school could be restarted -- and the idea of consolidation could be put to rest.

Mark Elworthy, who on July 1 succeeded Larry Black as superintendent of Wisconsin Heights, said his early conversations with residents have shown a continuing interest in opening a charter school.

A charter school could help reverse the district's sharp enrollment declines and increase residents' support for education, advocates say. Some hope to get students out of classrooms and into the community, where they would learn by doing projects at places such as organic farms or Black Earth Creek.

As a charter school, the publicly funded school would operate under an agreement with the district, free of many of the rules governing traditional schools. Dane County school districts already operating charter schools are Middleton-Cross Plains, Madison, Verona, Monona, Marshall and Deerfield.

"It would definitely provide some opportunities for our students," said Elworthy, who came to Wisconsin Heights from Kaukauna, where he was a middle school principal.

Wisconsin Heights, a rural district of about 850 students that includes the Black Earth and Mazomanie areas, has lost a fifth of its students in five years, intensifying financial pressures. Tensions in the district ran high after a February referendum narrowly failed and school programs were cut.

Now, though, those financial pressures have eased. The district's budget gap for the current school year is estimated at about $205,000 -- less than a third of estimates that were released last winter.

Elworthy attributed the improvement to cuts in programs that didn't greatly affect students, and to finding ways to make operations more efficient. The remaining deficit can be drawn from the district's fund balance, a measure of what the district owns compares to what it owes, which stands at about $1.7 million, Elworthy said.

"All indications are we're going to be OK," Elworthy said. "We're going to be here."

The School Board began discussions of consolidating or merging with another district last April. But that idea has been put on hold, thanks to the district's improving financial condition, Elworthy said.

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