The Kenosha Unified School District board voted 5-2 this week to give Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss two more years in office, with an option for a third, despite opposition that crossed party lines and a record that includes a failed $115 million referendum, a wave of school closures, rising local taxes, and a string of employee-misconduct cases.
The new contract runs from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2028. Weiss will not receive a raise. His car allowance and tuition reimbursement were cut. Board President Carl Bryan called him collaborative and said he was “pleased to continue this partnership.” Critics said the question was never whether Weiss deserved a raise. It was whether his record justified keeping him in charge of one of Wisconsin’s largest districts.
Weiss has led KUSD since October 2022. Public payroll records put his 2024 salary around $220,000; local reporting has cited figures in the $220,000–$240,000 range.
Bipartisan no votes, and a dissertation problem
The two no votes came from Democrat Sabrina Landry and board member Bob Tierney. Republican Assembly candidate Valerie Kretchmer also asked the board to reject the extension. That mix undercut any claim that the fight was only partisan.
Landry said the board should “open up our options and see if there could be a better fit.” She pointed to the district’s right-sizing, the closing of Lincoln Middle School, and property sales. Closing seven schools at once, she said, was “detrimental to the community” and helped sink the referendum. “It’s frustrating when you have someone that’s leading the district that doesn’t truly listen to you and truly listen to the community,” she said. “If he gets his contract renewed, I hope he can prove me wrong.”
Tierney called his vote a “hard no.” He said he likes Weiss personally and believes he has a “big heart,” but added, “I just don’t think he’s strong” when hard personnel decisions have to be made. Tierney said at least three district leaders he thought “should have been fired a long time ago” were allowed to retire instead. He also said Weiss publicly promised to improve student behavior and did not deliver.
Doviel Hill accused Weiss of failing his daughters after he complained about alleged discrimination. “I had to move two students, both my daughters away from this district because he chose not to do anything about the discrimination that they were suffering,” Hill said. He also said Weiss had served on Bryan’s dissertation committee. Weiss later confirmed that to Kenosha County Eye: “I was on Carl’s dissertation committee.” He said the work was unpaid and that universities set their own criteria. He did not answer whether that arrangement created an actual or perceived conflict of interest.
Amanda Meyer, founder of Kenosha Students First, said an informal poll of more than 200 respondents found 70 percent opposed Weiss’s renewal, 21 percent were unhappy with how the board handled it, and only 7 percent wanted him back. She called rushing an extension during a financial crisis “a complete disregard for our community transparency.” Parent Ellen Tracy argued that private-sector leaders who miss performance targets get a performance-improvement plan or get replaced. “That includes the superintendent,” she said.
Supporters said Weiss did the right-sizing previous administrations avoided and that replacing a superintendent would be costly and destabilizing. That argument carried the room. It did not answer the cases that have defined his tenure.
Closures, a failed referendum, then higher taxes anyway
Enrollment has been falling for years. In December 2023 the board, acting on administration recommendations, voted to close EBSOLA-Creative Arts, Jefferson, McKinley, Stocker, and Vernon elementary schools and Lincoln Middle School, and to cut staff at Reuther Central High School. Charter programs were consolidated. The changes took effect for 2024–25. Officials said the district was built for about 23,000 students and funded for fewer than 19,000. Weiss called it a long, difficult process with a major community impact.
Those cuts did not close the structural gap. On Feb. 18, 2025, voters rejected an operational referendum that would have raised the revenue limit by $23 million a year for five years — about $115 million in all. Unofficial results were roughly 54 percent no and 46 percent yes. The district had projected a deficit of more than $19 million for 2025–26. After the loss, Weiss said the proposal “was not the right solution at this time” and that “difficult decisions” on programs, services, and staffing would follow. CBS 58 reported last year’s closures had been framed as saving about $10 million a year — and that the next deficit was nearly double that.
The district then raised the tax levy anyway. Board budget materials for 2025–26 described an overall 16.06 percent increase in the total tax levy, about $13.07 million more in local property taxes, and a mill-rate increase from $5.13 to $5.56. KUSD blamed an unfunded $325-per-pupil state increase, a drop in equalization aid, and voucher and independent-charter levies that pass through the district’s tax bill. Critics called that a bait-and-switch since voters said no to a large referendum and still saw a sharp levy hike.
At Tuesday’s meeting, former employee Arik Espinoza listed budget cuts, staffing reductions, school closures, continued financial problems, a district cyberattack, and the failed referendum, and asked for measurable results that would justify more years for Weiss. “If his leadership produces the results the district needs, the board can act accordingly,” he said. “If it does not, this board should be willing to consider new leadership.”
The hiring that would not stay buried
The personnel record is what many parents said should have blocked an extension.
In April 2026, Kenosha County Eye reported that KUSD hired Jesse I. Franklin, 43, of Kenosha, as a Tremper High School staff member even though he had a felony drug conviction and had served prison time. Franklin was later accused of making inappropriate comments to a student. District officials then fired him — not for that alleged conduct, but for lying on his job application, the outlet reported. The story was updated the same day with comments from Weiss. Parents used the case to attack hiring screens and transparency. They argued a public court-record search should have stopped the hire before a convicted felon was placed in a high school.
The district did not tell the public it had removed a staffer because of alleged grooming-style behavior toward a student. It said it removed him because he lied on paperwork. The conviction and prison time were already in the record when he was hired. The student complaint came after he was already in the building.
Franklin’s case did not stand alone.
Christian Enwright, a science teacher at KTEC West, was the subject of a police investigation that described a Snapchat relationship with a former seventh-grader as grooming. Fellow staff had reported girls hanging out in his room, closed-door meetings, and long hugs. KUSD placed him on leave, then fired him in May 2024. He later pleaded guilty to 15 counts of disorderly conduct and was sentenced to 15 months in jail and probation. Wisconsin later created a standalone felony grooming statute; Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) cited the Kenosha case. A family sued the district, alleging staff knew and the district failed to act. Weiss was already superintendent when the case broke.
Steven Edward Telkamp was hired as a Bradford High School math teacher after a reprimand in the Mukwonago Area School District over concerns involving a student. KUSD put him on leave, investigated, kept him employed, and moved him to eSchool — a reassignment critics said reduced his contact with high-school girls while placing him in a building shared with younger students. He was later fired after new student allegations and further reporting.
Taken together, this demonstrates it was not one bad hire. It is a district that has repeatedly been slow to act and inscrutable behavior when adults around children become the problem. Tierney’s comment at the contract meeting was the plain-language version of that record. He said Weiss is not strong enough when people need to be fired.
What the board just bought
Weiss’s defenders have a real point on demographics. Birth rates fell and several buildings aged. State revenue limits are tight. Closing schools is ugly work, and previous boards delayed it. A superintendent search is very expensive, so continuity has value. However, those facts do not erase the other column.
Under Weiss, KUSD closed a cluster of neighborhood schools, asked voters for $115 million, lost, then raised the levy by more than 16 percent. Families and board members say student behavior and special-education services have not improved as promised. A board president whose dissertation committee included the superintendent helped lock in that superintendent’s next two years. And the district hired a man with a felony drug conviction and prison time, put him at Tremper, then — after alleged inappropriate comments to a student — dismissed him for lying on his application rather than for the conduct parents actually feared.
The contract is signed. The question is no longer whether Weiss can describe a deficit. It is whether the next two years look any different from the last four when the next warning about an adult in a school reaches the office that just got extended.
Source: Kenosha County Eye, CBS 58
