Community Concerns about the ECASD

This letter was written by a Luther/Midelfort physician to his colleagues about concerns about the ECASD and the implications for future recruiting of physicians to work at L/M when the quality of local public education is in question.

I have permission from the author to share it on the blog. Maria



MY OPEN LETTER TO MIDELFORT CLINIC/LUTHER HOSPITAL PHYSICIANS AND SENIOR ADMINISTRATORS

Recent happenings and changes in the Eau Claire School District - My Concerns
A call for Action – Luther Midelfort Corporate Existence May Be At Stake


I humbly seek your full attention as you go through this memo.

We moved to Eau Claire, from Lutherville, MD, in September 2002, for me to take up appointment with Luther Midelfort as a Physician. At the time we (my wife and I) made the choice to transition to Eau Claire, WI, one thought that was clear in our minds was that Eau Claire Area School District (ECASD) Public Schools in general were very good and could offer, at about the highest level, nationally speaking, the necessary range of educational and extracurricular activities including accelerated programs (Gifted and Talented courses), music and band, school sports, special education, and so on, that our children needed.

As our recruiting Staff can attest, since joining Luther Midelfort, I have at various interviews for potential Physician recruits, looked candidates in the eyes and honestly and strongly admonished them that Eau Claire public schools were great and that they should have no concerns about their children’s education if the Physician chose to accept the position.

All that has changed and is changing even as you read this note.

Please read on.

About 2 years ago, there was a District-wide debate about the need for a different grading system for Gifted and Talented programs to streamline ECASD with similar changes taking place in other districts in the country. My wife and I attended the public meetings and made our contributions. My wife actually made a written submission of her research findings on the matter to the ECASD. Suffice it to say that the move was not approved by the EC ASD/School Board.

More recently, about two months ago, a referendum sponsored by the ECASD and the School Board to approve more local funding for the ECASD schools failed. As a result, there have been and will continue to be, at a slow but hemorrhaging pace, ongoing cuts in virtually all the programs and courses offered by ECASD schools. There is a plan to close down an entire school in the ECASD. Teachers will be cut at different levels in all the schools. Janitorial staff will be cut. Courses have been scrapped in all the schools. At Memorial High School, Eau Claire, music, band, accelerated physics, etc have been cut. Classes are now oversized and some courses including core accounting courses have had their credit hours reduced. At a point, the School Board was to cut all Middle School Sports! The current plan is to reduce Teacher Staffing of Sports programs in Middle Schools such that you may end up with one Teacher “coaching” up to 50-100 students, or more. How useful is it for a Teacher-coach in Middle School to teach 50 new 6th graders how to learn to play lawn tennis – some joke!

I can go on and on. If the current slide in ECASD schools is not halted and subsequently reversed, it is my humble submission that very soon, corporate entities in the area including Luther Midelfort can no longer recruit and retain needed trained professionals including physicians, nurses, administrators, etc. The guy who fixes your lawn mower who has lived in Eau Claire for 55 years, all his life, with children and/or grand-children, until recently, could boast of a good education for his kids and grandchildren. That is no more. I can no longer look a Physician interviewee in the eyes and say to him or her, “Come to Eau Claire because the schools are good”!

Is this personal? Yes, if you mean whether we are not very worried about the decline of the schools our children attend. Not personal, if you mean attacking any person or persons either in the ECASD or ECASD School Board. That is not the intent of this memo. We need a concerted community-wide effort to begin to reverse these changes and make ECASD schools great, again. It is my humble submission that Luther Midelfort should play a leading role, here.

Luther Midelfort must be involved in reversing these changes to salvage its corporate future. It is my suggestion that the Practice Committee and/or the Clinic/Hospital Board set up a Committee to look into these issues dispassionately purely from a Corporate perspective without being overtly political in any way. The Committee would develop strategies that the Clinic/Hospital could assist the Eau Claire area Community, in general, and the ECASD, in particular, to retain and eve enhance all the programs that had made ECASD schools stand out here in the Midwest.

Or else, in the not too distant future, it is my prediction that Luther Midelfort will begin to lose already employed Staff at every level, and at the same time, will be unable to attract new ones.


Macaulay A. C. Onuigbo MD FASN
Nephrologist/Transplant Physician