Catholic school files claim after Wisconsin school district refuses to sell vacant building

[Michie]

Cheryl Sporie, chair of the board of trustees at St. Thomas Aquinas Academy in Marinette, Wisconsin, stands in front of the vacant Garfield Elementary school building in the Marinette School District. Sporie filed a claim against the district on June 25, 2024, urging the district to sell the property after it refused to sell it to the Catholic school. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

A Catholic school has taken legal action after a Wisconsin school district refused to sell it an elementary school building that has sat empty for two years.

The former Garfield Elementary School building in the Marinette School District in northeastern Wisconsin has not been in use since it closed in 2022. The district listed it for sale at about $300,000 but later rejected a full-price offer from St. Thomas Aquinas Academy (STAA), saying that it could create competition for the public school district and citing declining enrollment.

“If [the building] was owned by another entity that provides these similar services, more dollars could go to that entity, which then has an adverse impact on our taxpayers,” Marinette School District Superintendent Corry Lambie said in February.

Cheryl Sporie, the STAA chair of the board of trustees who made the offer, filed on June 25 a claim against the district with the nonprofit conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), urging the district to sell the property.

WILL Associate Counsel Lauren Greuel called the school’s decision a “slap in the face to the community,” citing cases of crime at the empty school building.

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Catholic school takes legal action against Wisconsin school district

A Catholic school has taken legal action after a Wisconsin school district refused to sell them an elementary school building that has sat empty for two years.

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