More Cross Plains voices on the school board, not fewer.
Lead with this: today, only neighbors who live in the right two slots of the Cross Plains Area can run for a Cross Plains seat in any given year — an artificial restriction nobody is actively defending. This plan removes that restriction. Every Cross Plains resident keeps their anchor seat and becomes eligible for four district-wide open seats too. That's five paths for a Cross Plains neighbor to serve, where today there are two.
The positive case — three things to say first
- More candidates from Cross Plains, not fewer. Today our representation is capped by the number of reserved Cross Plains seats up that cycle. With four open seats district-wide, any qualified Cross Plains resident can run for any of them — at the same time as the Cross Plains anchor.
- No artificial restrictions on who can serve. An engaged Cross Plains neighbor who happens to live a few blocks from a sub-area line shouldn't be locked out of running. This plan ends that.
- Have faith in your voters. Cross Plains voters already cast a ballot for every single board member across the whole district — including the open-seat winners under this plan. The voters decide. The petition just widens who's allowed on the ballot.
If they push back on the math (two reserved seats → one), the honest answer is below — but lead with the case above.
If they push back on the seat number — the honest answer
Under this plan, the two board seats reserved for the Cross Plains Area become one. You're owed that number straight, up front.
Here's the number that should change how you feel about it: the City of Middleton's reserved seats drop from four to one. This plan doesn't hand the big city more power — it dismantles the biggest block of guaranteed power on the board, and puts every community, for the first time, on equal footing.
"Cross Plains is the smaller town. Our reserved seats are the only thing keeping us at the table. Cut them and open seats to 'anyone,' and Middleton's bigger population just takes over."
The honest trade: Cross Plains gives up one reserved seat. In exchange, the community that today holds a near-majority of the board by address alone — the City of Middleton, with four of nine — gives up three, and every community lands on the same single anchor. The thing you're afraid of losing is small next to the thing this plan takes off the board.
Reserved seats, by community — today vs. equal footing
Seven reasons the trade favors Cross Plains
Each names the principle underneath it, so you can pressure-test it yourself.
You give up one reserved seat. Middleton gives up three.
No spin: the Cross Plains Area goes from two reserved seats to one. But the City of Middleton goes from four to one. The single largest concentration of guaranteed power on this board belongs to the biggest community — and this plan is what breaks it. You're being asked to give up the least so the most can be opened up.
What's happening: a deconcentration of reserved power — and by design it lands hardest on the biggest holder, not the smallest.The "protected seats" you're told to defend are mostly Middleton's.
Four of the nine seats are reserved for one community by address. No matter how the district votes, the City of Middleton starts every election already holding four seats — one short of a majority — before a single open ballot is counted. That is the real structural advantage on this board. Keeping the reserved system to hold onto your second seat means keeping Middleton's four.
Principle — entrenchment: guaranteed seats insulate the largest bloc from the voters. The status quo protects Middleton far more than it protects you.For the first time, you stand on equal ground with the city.
After this plan, the City of Middleton and the Village of Cross Plains hold exactly the same thing: one guaranteed anchor seat each. No community gets a reserved head start. Population still counts — but in the four seats the whole district competes for, not baked permanently into the map as a four-seat lock for the largest town.
Principle — equal footing: the one-person, one-vote logic of Reynolds v. Sims (1964) belongs in the contested layer, not in a reserved block one community holds by address.You can run for five seats now, not two.
Today a Cross Plains resident may run only for the two seats tied to your Area. This plan keeps one anchor for you and opens four at-large seats any resident may seek. The seats a Cross Plains neighbor can actually compete for rise from two to five.
Principle — descriptive representation: who is allowed to run is the gateway to who represents you. More than twice the doors are now open to a Cross Plains candidate.The open seats must be won district-wide — so their holders must court Cross Plains.
Middleton's four reserved seats answer to no one outside Middleton; a member keeps the seat by living there. Convert them, and four seats must be won across the whole district — which means whoever holds them has to build a coalition that includes Cross Plains. You trade one seat reserved by address for leverage over four seats that have to earn your vote.
Principle — the electoral connection: officials answer to whoever can remove them. Locked-by-address seats answer to no one; district-wide seats answer to everyone.This is a hybrid — your anchor is the firewall, at-large is where a united town wins.
The textbook risk with at-large seats is a big community sweeping them all. The remedy political scientists and courts reach for is exactly this design: keep guaranteed anchor seats and add at-large ones. Your one anchor is a permanent floor a sweep can't touch. And in non-partisan, low-turnout board races, a cohesive Cross Plains that turns out behind a neighbor regularly beats a larger but scattered city vote for an open seat.
Principle — the Gingles framework (Thornburg v. Gingles, 1986): hybrids preserve a safe seat for a smaller community; turnout and cohesion decide the rest.The honest worst case — and why it's a poor bet against you.
Be clear-eyed: if the City of Middleton ran the table and won all four open seats, it would hold five of nine — a majority. So could it get worse? In that one scenario, yes. But it requires Middleton to sweep every seat in a low-turnout, non-partisan, multi-candidate field — the hardest thing to pull off in exactly these races, where votes scatter and organized smaller communities punch above their weight. And even then, those four members had to win district-wide and answer to you — unlike today's four locked seats, which never do. Weigh a rare worst case against a guaranteed status quo where Middleton already holds four.
Principle — decision under uncertainty: compare a low-probability downside to the certain one you already live with. The status quo isn't neutral — it's Middleton at four, every year.It's the Senate-and-House idea, applied locally.
Small states feared being swamped by big ones — so the federal design gave them both: an equal-by-place chamber (the Senate) and a by-population chamber (the House). Open Seats does the same here: five anchor seats, equal by Area — one each, where Cross Plains and the City of Middleton finally count the same — plus four open seats the whole district competes for. You keep an equal guaranteed voice and gain a real seat at the bigger table.
| Today | With Open Seats | |
|---|---|---|
| Cross Plains reserved seats | 2 | 1 (−1) |
| City of Middleton reserved seats | 4 | 1 (−3) |
| Seats a Cross Plains resident may run for | 2 | 5 |
| Seats whose holders must win the whole district's vote | none — all reserved by address | 4, district-wide |
| Communities on equal guaranteed footing | no — Middleton holds 4 | yes — one anchor each |
| Sitting members displaced | — | 0 — gradual at re-election, 2027–2030 |
The one row that moves against Cross Plains — reserved seats, 2 → 1 — moves against the City of Middleton three times as hard. Every other row moves in your favor.
This isn't the big town taking over. It's the big town's lock coming off.
Same nine seats. No one displaced. For the first time, Cross Plains and the City of Middleton stand equal — one guaranteed anchor each — and the four-seat block the largest community has held by address for decades is finally opened to all of us.
Sign by Thu, Aug 20, 2026 · Vote Tue, Sept 22, 7 PM — District Services Center, 7106 South Ave.
On the figures and principles. Seat counts reflect the current MCPASD apportionment — the City of Middleton's Area holds four of the nine seats and the Cross Plains Area holds two; the plan keeps the board at nine (five anchors + four at-large). Reynolds v. Sims (1964) established one-person-one-vote apportionment; Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) set the framework for evaluating vote dilution in at-large systems and underlies the modern preference for hybrid (anchored + at-large) bodies. These are offered as the analytic lens, not a legal opinion — the petition itself was prepared with counsel under Wis. Stat. § 120.02(2)(a). Questions: [email protected].