La Crosse school leaders aim to please, when handling complaints

If you have a complaint with how public schools are run, who do you complain to?

The La Crosse School Board discussed the complaint processes at its meeting Monday. It found no major complaints submitted recently to the district.

Superintendent, Dr. Aaron Engel, said sometimes problems are best handled by a school principal and other times by a department head in the district.

Engel, however, added that all district workers should try to be as helpful as possible.

“If somebody has made a complaint, and they feel like we have obstructed them, or avoided trying to answer or be helpful, that would be bad,” Engel said.

The school board does set aside time at the start of each regular meeting for public comments. Nobody signed up to speak to the board on Monday night.

Engel says most complaints, which come to the school system, seem to be resolved pretty quickly.

“Ninety-nine, 100 percent of the time, they get answers that they may or may not like, but ultimately agree with,” Engel said, “and on very, very rare cases they start a complaint process that moves up.”

Engel added that complaints hardly ever get to him, at the top of the district chain of command.