Wisconsin's School District Boundary Appeal Board voted 7-0 on Thursday to dissolve the Hustisford School District and fold it entirely into the Dodgeland School District, ending 175 years of public education in the Dodge County village. The dissolution takes effect July 1, 2027, and will send about 275 kindergarten through 12th grade students into Dodgeland classrooms. Many of those students are already there.
The board's unanimous decision was announced in a release from the Department of Public Instruction, which confirmed the vote came after the Hustisford School District formally asked the appeal board in October to approve dissolution. Hustisford's school system had covered 58 square miles in Dodge County and included an elementary school along with a joint middle school-high school, according to the agency. The move marks the first dissolution of a Wisconsin school district since the Ondossagon School District was absorbed into the Ashland, Drummond and Washburn districts in 1990, as noted by the Leader-Telegram.
A Transition Already Underway
Hustisford students have been attending Dodgeland schools this year under a tuition agreement even before the dissolution was finalized, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. The outlet reported that Dodgeland Superintendent Todd Greco said there are 150 Hustisford students in his district's schools, and that Dodgeland has enough capacity to absorb every Hustisford student once the dissolution formally takes hold. Separately, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that as of Oct. 13, 118 Hustisford students were attending Dodgeland under the tuition arrangement for the current school year; the two figures come from different points in the reporting and the available accounts do not clarify whether they measure the same date or the same enrollment definition.
Dodgeland has already hired 10 additional staff members this year, the same WPR report noted, as the district prepares to formally take on Hustisford's student body. Greco said the district aims to make every student feel welcome and supported as the merger moves forward.
Years Of Failed Referendums Led Here
The dissolution followed a string of rejected funding measures. Hustisford voters turned down a $3.75 million referendum by a vote of 861 to 612 in April, a decisive defeat that set the dissolution process in motion, per Wisconsin Public Radio's reporting on the failed vote. That defeat was not an isolated setback — voters in the district had rejected five referendums over the previous five years, the station reported.
Hustisford school board member Tracy Malterer said the district faced a budget deficit for the foreseeable future, pointing to rising education costs and state-imposed limits on property tax increases as the underlying pressure. The Hustisford School Board voted in April to consider dissolution and then passed a resolution in July formally ordering the district to dissolve, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's account of the timeline. The board's decision followed an assessment of long-term financial challenges, declining enrollment and the search for sustainable education options for its students.
State Superintendent Points To Funding Formula
Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly framed Hustisford's dissolution as a symptom of a larger structural problem rather than a local failure, calling the district a casualty of an antiquated school funding formula that has not kept pace with the rising cost of education. Underly said Wisconsin districts and communities are being forced into difficult choices because of insufficient state support — a warning that lands against a backdrop of statewide enrollment decline. Wisconsin public school enrollment has fallen roughly 7% over the last two decades, according to PBS Wisconsin, which also reported that more than 600 public schools statewide have closed over the same 20-year span, with nearly 40% of those closures concentrated in small rural counties of fewer than 100,000 residents.
Researcher Bradley Carl told the outlet that two-thirds to three-quarters of rural Wisconsin districts are grappling with declining enrollment, a pattern mirrored elsewhere in the state. At least four other rural school districts were weighing dissolution before the Nov. 3 election, Wisconsin Public Radio reported, suggesting Hustisford's outcome may not be the last of its kind. Not every district facing a funding crunch has gone the same route: Portage Community School District chose to close two elementary schools rather than dissolve after its own spring 2026 referendum failed, per PBS Wisconsin, while Palmyra-Eagle voted to dissolve back in 2019 only to have the appeal board deny that bid in 2020, the Journal Sentinel noted. In another close call, Butternut voters approved their own referendum by a single vote, 281 to 280, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
Staff Departures And A District's Final Chapter
The human toll of the closure played out well before Thursday's vote. Hustisford staff received non-renewal notices at the end of the previous school year, and the vast majority have since resigned, found other work, or retired, according to Hustisford Superintendent Todd Bugnacki, as reported by Urban Milwaukee. Bugnacki said the district had faced declining enrollment, rising operational costs and limits built into the state's school funding system, and he described the dissolution as a significant and emotional moment for students, families, staff and alumni. With the appeal board's vote now final, Hustisford's 175-year run as an independent public school system will end next summer, closing a chapter that outlasted every other Wisconsin district dissolution attempt in more than three decades.
