When the students of the Conserve School in Wisconsin
poured into the auditorium on a blustery morning early this year, they
had no inkling of what would follow.
Stefan Anderson, the headmaster, told them that the trustees were
essentially shutting down the prep school because of the dismal economic
climate. Its four-year program would be converted to a single semester
of study focused on nature and the environment.
"We thought we would hear they were cutting financial aid," recalled
Erty Seidel, a senior on the wooded campus, which is filled with
wildlife and sprawls across 1,200 acres in Land O' Lakes.
Greta Dohl, a student from Iron River, Mich., in her third year at
the school, broke down and cried. "I was absolutely heartbroken," she
said of the closing.
Now students and parents are banding together and challenging the
action, contending the school's underlying financial condition does not
look so dire. In fact, the school's endowment would be the envy of many
a prep school. With $181 million and 143 students, it has the equivalent
of more than $1 million a student.
In a lawsuit filed in State Circuit Court in Wisconsin, the parents
argue that the trustees are acting in their own interests -- as
officials of a separate, profit-making steel company -- and want them
removed from oversight of the school.
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