MATTOON - Carmin Grall remembers the days when Mattoon Elementary School was the hub of her small northern Wisconsin village.

It was where each of her five children went for their first years of school. And, Grall recalls with a smile, they loved it.

It was the kind of neighborhood school where retired community members got out of the house each day to help kids with their homework or read with them during and after school. Mattoon Elementary was also where just about everyone in the village of 420-some people found out what was happening in their community.

"It was something that a little community school could offer," said Grall, who owns Mattoon Market, the town's grocery store, with her husband, Ron. "You go to bigger schools and they don't have that."

But as costs to operate a school that served fewer than 100 students mounted, the Antigo school district shuttered Mattoon Elementary School in 2016.

Now, Grall sees many Mattoon families worrying as they send their children off each morning on a 45-minute bus ride to a school in Antigo, where standardized test scores show about two of three district students, grades 3-8, are not considered proficient in reading and math.

Others, like Grall's daughter, enroll their kids in schools in nearby districts like Wittenberg-Birnamwood or Bowler. All the while, they wish there was a school in town again.

Enter Mattoon's Wade Reimer, who started a local nonprofit he calls Shepherd's Watch in hopes of opening a Christian community center at the former site of Mattoon Elementary and, eventually, a Christian school that would become part of the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program.

Although it has community support, Reimer's quest to buy the building is embroiled in a legal battle over who owns the vacant rural school. At issue is whether the school district can limit the building's use, a question that has made the tiny village the latest battleground over Wisconsin's school choice program.

'Why not do good right here?'

When Reimer retired and sold his beef farm, the self-proclaimed "man of faith" knew he wanted to do something good — perhaps missionary work — with the money he made.

Reimer has friends from church who travel around the world to help others, and he thought for a while about doing the same.

But one day while tapping trees for maple syrup, he thought of the vacant school not far from where he stood, in his own community. Reimer recalls thinking: "Why not do good right here?"

"This is about educating our kids so they can do the best for the future," Reimer told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin in an interview in mid-July. "I care more about the education of our kids than I do about the money it's going to cost."

Reimer approached the Antigo school district last year about buying the school. The district was happy to sell the school to the village of Mattoon for $1.

But the sale would come with a catch — a deed restriction that would not allow the property to become a K-12 charter or choice school.

"We don't know what two, three, four, five years down the road is going to bring — that's why I was hung up on not wanting that deed restriction," Reimer said. "To not use a building like this for educational purposes is crazy. There's nothing crazier — I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican ... It's already paid for."

Reimer didn't want the restriction to hamper the rest of his plans to better the community, where he spent his teenage years and raised his family. So he decided to buy the property and fight the restriction later.

But village of Mattoon and town of Hutchins officials, who support Reimer's plans for the property, discovered the school's ownership was never formally transferred to the district when it absorbed the Mattoon school district in 1962.

They were no longer going to play along with the district's terms.

In January, the village and town filed a lawsuit against the Antigo school district in Shawano County Circuit Court to obtain a declaration regarding ownership of the property. They argued that the municipalities claimed possession and control of the school site when the district stopped using it "for school purposes" when it closed the school two years ago, according to court records.

Antigo schools superintendent Julie Sprague declined USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin's request for an interview, citing the pending litigation. Emails seeking interviews with Antigo school board members were not returned.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty in April filed to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of Reimer and Shepherd's Watch. The Milwaukee-based conservative law firm frequently has become involved with legal cases revolving around school choice and religious freedom, among other issues.

A Shawano County Circuit Court judge is expected to decide if WILL can join the lawsuit on Aug. 28.

Anthony LoCoco, a deputy counsel with WILL, said Antigo's concerns about losing students to a new choice school are understandable, but WILL objects to the district's "tactics" to prevent the school from opening.

"There's no question that rural education has its challenges," LoCoco said. "At bottom, this is about Antigo not wanting competition and that’s not a good enough reason to keep a community from providing a high quality school to the children."

Deciding to leave

Zak Kickhaver, superintendent of the village of Mattoon, said he loves Reimer's idea of a community center that could host events, drug abuse counseling, a prison ministry, a thrift store and a coffee shop for locals to gather.

But what's more exciting, he said, is the prospect of once more having a local school.

"I have two little kids at home and I really want to see them go to school in this village," Kickhaver said. "I want to be right here when they get home. I want to watch them go to school and be able to drive by where they're going to school."

Mattoon parents fought the Antigo school district when it announced it would close the school two years ago. They said the district didn't give them enough time to find alternatives for their kids, and they worried that families would not want to live in Mattoon if there was no longer a neighborhood school.

Still, school officials pushed ahead with plans to close the school, at the time telling The Shawano Leader that the school was no longer financially sustainable. In response, the village unsuccessfully attempted to form its own school district, Kickhaver said.

Katrina Resch, of Mattoon, said her then 4-year-old son sobbed when she told him that he wouldn't be attending Mattoon Elementary — the school that was just a block down the road from her work, the school that his grandparents attended.

"We wanted to use the school — that's what it's here for," Resch said. "But there's no way I was having my kid ride a bus for an hour each day. There was just no way."

Resch opted to enroll her son and later her daughter at Birnamwood Elementary School in the nearby Wittenberg-Birnamwood school district. It's not much closer than Antigo is to Mattoon, but Resch said driving the kids the 20 minutes to and from school is worth it because the district's students perform better on state standardized tests.

Data from the state Department of Public Instruction in the 2017-18 school year show just 38.7% of students at Birnamwood Elementary are proficient in reading and 47% in math — a slight improvement from Antigo's marks.

Resch isn't the only one who made the choice to leave the Antigo schools.

"There is a line of cars in the morning going to Birnamwood from Mattoon," she said.

Bringing a part of the community back

But it's not just about test scores or bus ride times that's deterring Mattoon parents from sending their children to Antigo.

Reimer said many in the community feel targeted by Antigo's refusal to allow a school to open in Mattoon.

"It just feels very personal," he said.

More than that, Reimer's idea for a Christian community center and choice school have become something of a community movement. The bulk of Reimer's ideas to fill the Mattoon Elementary building come at the suggestions of folks around town.

Reimer said he's also received an "outpouring of support" in that people have offered to volunteer at the community center or donate items if they're able.

Nearby businesses have also jumped in to offer support — Reimer said the Marshfield YMCA donated professional exercise equipment to Shepherd's Watch so that the community center can also have a gym area.

But what the community really rallies around, Reimer said, is the idea of again having a school — regardless of whether they have children who could attend.

Although Resch considers herself an avid supporter of the school, she doesn't plan to send her kids there now that they've settled at their schools in the Wittenberg-Birnamwood district.

Or take Grall, for example. Her five children attended Mattoon Elementary when it was open, so what does she care about a school?

To her, it's about attracting people — particularly families — to Mattoon again.

"We just want to make this place somewhere everybody wants to move to," Grall said. "This isn't just about opening up a school ... it's about bringing a part of the community back."

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Other rural districts face similar challenges

Antigo is far from the only rural school district facing challenges due to declining enrollment and, in turn, less funding.

In many areas, farming is the main industry and as farms struggle, fewer families are drawn to staying in communities like Mattoon.

That, in turn, causes declining enrollment at those schools and a drop in state aid to the districts, said Dan Rossmiller, government relations director for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.

"It's a scenario that's played out throughout the state," Rossmiller said.

Enrollment in the Antigo school district fell by nearly 400 students between the 2005-06 and 2017-18 school years, data from the DPI shows.

Because K-12 education funding is awarded based on student enrollment, the school gets less money from the state. Meanwhile, local costs remain level or increase.

"You don't get a savings from fewer students," Rossmiller said. "Teacher's salaries are fixed costs, the light and heat for a building is a fixed cost. And, you usually have to run the bus the same distance, but there's fewer students to pay for it."

So school districts shut down schools in an effort to save money — the Antigo school district closed another three small schools this year — and make other cuts just to get by.

Districts in this situation, Rossmiller said, often seek referendums to increase revenue limits in order to keep the district running.

They typically fail, as parents vote them down as a way to express their disapproval with the closure of a school, Rossmiller. said. That may continue to fuel further losses as parents choose to send their children elsewhere, whether to another public school district or a private school, perhaps through the state's voucher program.

When a student enrolls in another public school, he or she still counts for the resident district's state aid and revenue limit, Rossmiller said. That district then transfers about $7,000 — $7,379 this coming school year, according to DPI — to the district that the student is currently attending.

But when a student open enrolls to a voucher school, the state pays the amount of the child's voucher — $7,754 for children in kindergarten to eighth grade and $8,400 for high school students, according to DPI — to the choice school and reduces the state aid to the public school district in which the student lives by the same amount.

The state then increases the amount the district can levy in property taxes by the same amount to make up for lost voucher funds — but usually, it's not enough, Rossmiller said.

While parents who choose to open enroll to another public school are responsible for transportation to and from school, kids who receive vouchers are bused using public funds, taking even more money away from the public school.

LoCoco argues the primary concern should be about the children of Mattoon, not school finances.

"They deserve to have their own elementary school," LoCoco said. "There's a vacant school building in Mattoon that could be used, but Antigo won't allow that. ... To us, that’s just harming the children and it’s exasperating the education problem that exists in rural communities in Wisconsin so we’re trying to step in to help."

Reimer said he holds no ill will toward the school district and has faith he'll be able to open a school because it's for the good of the community.

He also believes he and the village of Mattoon will win the case, and when they do, Mattoon "can be a model to other places" that further promotes the expanding voucher program.

"We're going to win this thing with love," Reimer said. "We're going to shake Antigo's hand and say what's behind us is behind us and let's start working to make things better. I'm willing to help and I'm willing to work as a team."

Contact Samantha West at 920-996-7207 or swest@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SamanthaWest196.