UPDATED 5/12/23
Thank you for submitting your questions regarding the Task Force recommendation. Questions have been grouped together by a topic or modified if there were multiple questions regarding the same concern. For many of the questions, there are no answers yet, as this is an ongoing process. Please check this document frequently for updates.
Timeline
May 8, Task Force Presents to Board of Education
5:00 p.m., District Office, Board Room
May 9, Presentation and Tabletop Discussion on Recommendations
5:30 p.m., West High School, Commons
May 10, Presentation and Tabletop Discussion on Recommendations
5:30 p.m., East High School Commons
May 24, Public Forum
4:00 p.m., Washington Middle School, Auditorium
June 5, Special Board Meeting to Vote on Recommendations
5:00 p.m., District Office Board Room
2023-24 School Year
Planning year to determine how to implement the plan the Board of Education approves, and to determine if there are any unintended consequences that would require further study. Convene a Boundary Committee to develop new boundaries, which requires Board approval.
Spring 2024
Potential referendum to enable improvements to facilities and any required construction.
2024-25 School Year
Potential boundary changes could be implemented, where no construction/additions are required.
2026-27 School Year
Earliest any boundary changes could be implemented for schools that require additions/new construction
Boundaries
There were multiple questions about boundaries. Based on the Board approved recommendations, a Boundary Committee would be convened to determine the new boundaries. Proposed changes would need to be approved by the Board of Education before they could be implemented.
Pathways
There were multiple questions asked about the various pathways (IB, STEM, Fine Arts, Environmental, etc.). As the Task Force has been providing feedback on the various schemas/solutions, District administrators have been reviewing the schemas to determine their impact on District programming. At this time, there is no decision to eliminate any of the current programming by the District. The Task Force was to provide recommendations on the school buildings, with the understanding that programming could move to another building, if needed, depending on the final recommendations passed by the Board of Education.
Intra District Transfer/Open Enrollment
At this time there are no policy changes being requested regarding Intra District transfer or Open Enrollment (state law). Students that have intra district transferred or open enrolled and have been accepted in a school will continue to be enrolled in that school. The Board will need to make decisions regarding how students who have transferred or open enrolled will be addressed if the school they are currently attending closes, and the boundaries for that school are split between multiple schools.
Athletics/Co-curriculars
With changing of attendance boundaries, concerns of how students will participate in after school activities were raised. Decisions regarding how to address these concerns would be determined during the 2023-24 implementation planning year.
Grandfathering Students to Allow Them to Stay at Their Current School
One repeated concern is whether or not students would be able to stay at their current school, if a boundary change placed them in a new attendance area. The decision to grandfather or not is a Board decision, which we anticipate would be made as the District works through the process of boundary changes.
Enrollment (Is there enough room to move students to a particular school)
Schema 12 uses 2025-26 school year projected enrollment, which is lower in many schools vs. current enrollment. View enrollment data here.
Class Size
Class sizes are determined by Board policy 343.2.
District Office Building
The District Office Building will be addressed once student movement occurs. Right now the location for DOB is fluid, and dependant on what part of Schema 12 is implemented.
It appears students from East will travel across the river to attend West. Is that accurate?
Schema 12 would have the East, Preble and West boundaries shifting West to increase enrollment on the west side at the high school level, while providing additional room at Preble to accommodate potential east side growth.
Katherine Johnson Academy of Enriched Virtual Learning (KJ Academy) was not mentioned on the schemas. Where will this school go?
Because KJ Academy is a virtual school, it was not discussed, since the focus was on buildings. During the 2023-24 school year, as the District works on an implementation plan of the Board approved recommendations, KJ Academy’s location will be further discussed.
Are there any other options for JDAL? One of the elementary buildings? Could JDAL be moved to UWGB or NWTC? Can walls be taken down at West to accommodate the learning environment that JDAL currently has in its current building? When would JDAL be moving to West? How would you ensure that JDAL would still feel like its own culture and building?
If the Board approves the recommendation to move JDAL into West High School, West would be renovated to provide JDAL its own learning space and efforts would be made to provide for its own identity and culture. Schema 12 moves JDAL into West to address the declining enrollment concerns at West, but the Task Force also felt that by moving JDAL to West it also provided additional opportunities for JDAL students as they would have access to a gym and other programming at West High school.
Has the district discussed the proposed new housing developments being built on the NE side of Green Bay?
The Task Force is aware of the proposed developments on the east side of Green Bay. However, even with a full demographic study completed by Cooperative Strategies, (view documents here about half way down the page), at this time no significant growth is projected for east side schools. The Task Force suggested at its April 5th meeting that the Board of Education conduct a boundary study every 3-5 years, so that new developments can be reviewed.
What exactly do you mean when you say a school will be repurposed?
Repurposing a school means it will be used differently than it is currently. It may serve additional grades, for example a 4K-5 becomes a 4K-8, or a current school may serve as District offices.
Will DOB staff move to West and JDAL (as shown with arrows) and Washington (as shown with the computer icon)? What departments will be moving to each location? When will some of these transitions begin?
Plans for moving District offices will be dependent on if the recommendations the Board approves provide space for District offices to move to another location. District offices will most likely be the last move, as all of the school moves would need to occur first. So any movement of District offices is most likely 5-7 years out.
Is it possible to have the new site be on MacArthur vs Kennedy seeing as both those schools are about the same age? (MacArthur is more centrally located).
The MacArthur site is too small, as well as has site issues, such as the river on the property, which has caused significant structural issues with the current school building.
Why has the task force not considered a combination of consolidation/new construction and a recurring referendum to avoid closing so many neighborhood schools? Why has the task force not even considered looking at balancing median income/poverty level for schools?
The Task Force was asked to review the current facilities and to make recommendations based on the condition of the buildings and enrollment projections. During the process, District administration reviewed proposals to determine any unanticipated outcomes regarding shifts in school demographics. This work will continue as a Boundary Committee looks to draw new boundary lines.
Will you have enough bus drivers and buses to take these children to school? Many people live close to the schools that are closing and do not have to worry about transportation but with this new plan they do.
During the 2023-24 school year, District administration will be working on planning for implementation. This will be a time to determine if all Board approved recommendations are viable.
What evidence is there that K-8 schools have better educational outcomes?
While the research varies on academic outcomes for K-8s, the District consulted with Racine School District, which several years ago moved to more K-8s. They report that they saw better behavioral outcomes, and met their goal of retaining more students in the District. It was too early due to COVID, for them to determine whether the switch to K-8s resulted in better academic performance. K-8s were also included in the schemas, as a facility survey in 2019/20 and again in 2022/23 showed strong community support for K-8 schools. Finally, McAuliffe as a 4K-8 was presented as a solution to address potential east side growth.
Can you please consider moving da Vinci to the old Friedrich Froebel school off of Finger road?
Froebel is too small to house the Leonardo da Vinci School, as it currently has only 8 classrooms. It has approximately 20,000 square feet, as opposed to Leonardo da Vinci’s 45,000 square feet.
Why are two moves being made with regard to moving Webster students and da Vinci students instead of just closing Webster and moving one school? Secondly, the board has a guiding principle of giving preference to newer facilities and recent investments…why would you close da Vinci in light of the fact that da Vinci has newer capital equipment and was built with that specific student population in mind to a school established in 1956 with negligible capacity difference…what is the compelling business case? Please explain how many dollars over the next 10 yrs will district save by moving da Vinci from current location and building a middle school program and with maintenance at the new location which is Webster elementary school?
There are several reasons why ATSR felt that Webster was a better facility than da Vinci building:
1. The original da Vinci building is a one of the oldest buildings in the district originally built in 1929, with small 2013 office and corridor connector additions. Webster is a 1956 original building with 1959, 1989, 1992, and 2018 additions. The three most recent additions comprise about a third of the building.
2. Webster’s site has more green space. Da Vinci has a very small site with little green space, and students must cross the street to access the playground.
3. Both da Vinci and Webster have combined gym/cafeterias, which is not desirable. Webster is called for in the plan to have a gym addition, as the site is big enough to accommodate it. DaVinci’s site has no room for a gym addition.
4. DaVinci has a less-than-ideal layout for a school, as portions were a former convent / private school, and has many undersized classrooms. Webster was designed as a school and has appropriate classroom sizes. These larger classroom sizes could allow larger class sizes if desired, and therefore larger capacity, than da Vinci is able to achieve right now.
5. Webster’s square footage is about 23% more than da Vinci’s.
6. Da Vinci has an undersized LMC (Library Media Center).
7. Da Vinci has had some recent facilities investments, so has fewer facilities needs right now. But the older age of the building, its layout, and its smaller classrooms sizes and small site size are factors that cannot be corrected. Webster does have some facilities needs right now, which have been identified for correction. The building’s newer age, better layout, better classroom sizes and better site make it a better overall building long term.
I do not understand if schools are closing to SAVE money why you would spend millions of dollars to build a new school? What is the rationale behind this?
The purpose of the facilities master plan is to address aging facilities and declining enrollment. As a part of this process the District is looking to address inequities across the District. Schema 12 proposes a way to eliminate 3 aging buildings, that are costly to operate, because they are smaller schools, and recommends a new elementary school that is able to run more efficiently.
Staffing. What will be the process for reassigning staff as several buildings merge and there will be a need for fewer sections at some grade levels? Will it be based on district seniority?
The District’s plan to address staffing will be through attrition. Every year the District hires approximately 200 educators due to retirements and resignations. Specifics on school consolidations will be outlined for staff through the implementation planning process. The Board of Education approved on February 27 new reduction in force language for the Handbook that would be used, should layoffs be necessary.
How will consolidating schools affect class sizes?
Consolidation of schools will better balance the class sizes across the district, which will also create greater efficiency in the District. Class sizes are determined by Board policy 343.2.
Will the after school programs continue and be available for students it now serves who may be moving to a different building?
Decisions regarding the after school programs will be made during the 2023-24 implementation planning year.
What will the class sizes be at the new 850 student [correction/this was misstated as 600 in the staff/family letter] elementary school? What will security, staffing, and supervision look like? Will it support evidenced based data to facilitate the most conducive environment for education and safety specific to this age group?
The District currently has several larger elementary schools: Danz, Sullivan, Eisenhower and Baird, so the model is already in place.
My kids currently go to Aldo Leopold. While it is a great school and we loved the teachers and staff it has always lacked opportunities for sports. I have been thankful that my kids could do sports at Washington. As you move to having more K-8 schools. What will happen for sports opportunities for those kids? What about Aldo? Will Aldo kids now have no opportunity for any sports other than running club? The facilities master planning process has a goal of improving what we are able to offer our students, rather than decrease opportunities. With that, during the implementation planning we will review items such as co-curriculars to ensure equity to access for all of our students across the district.
How do you justify putting 866 students at Langlade, requiring all kinds of new construction, while leaving Washington, where many of those students would otherwise go, vacant?
ATS&R has developed the following rationale for considering closing Washington Middle School
-- No on-site green space
-- The original building (1939 with recent additions
-- Low Educational Adequacy score
-- High priority roof replacement needs (ATSR work began before the November referendum)
-- Will have longer-term exterior envelope repair needs
-- In addition, in the most recent survey, the community expressed support for more K-8s in the District. With declining enrollment, the District would need to move away from having as many middle schools, if more K-8s were added.
What will be done with all the vacant schools? Will they just sit vacant in our city's neighborhoods or is there a plan for their sale/use?
There are some buildings that the District may consider selling. Others the District may consider retaining in case circumstances change, and the District would start to see enrollment grow.
When looking at the schemas, and schema 12.1 going forward, I am curious as to the reasoning behind every other charter school in the district getting a new/updated separate site, whereas JDAL is in a plan to move to West HS.
There are only two charter schools in the District, JDAL and Northeast Wisconsin School of Innovation, which is housed on the NWTC campus.
Are we going to keep the autism program for kennedy elementary when the new school gets build in that area? Is there going to be more educational support for special needs children at the new school that might replace kennedy elementary?
Location of programming will be determined during the 2023-24 planning year.
Why now? Why is this now becoming an issue? If you combine schools, won't you have to then think about the cost of who might not stay in GB? as well as extra parking costs, playground usage, etc? Why isn't Wequiock Elementary school of Environmental Science being supported by the district as a whole? Why is nobody talking about what we do here with our students and how it positively impacts the families who attend here?
The District has been having conversations about its school facilities since 2016. The urgency has come with the significant budget deficit and the declining enrollment. The soonest the District would implement these changes would be the 2024-25 school year. When the public looks at enrollment numbers, they should use the 2024-25 projected enrollment numbers, which show a decline in most schools. This process has been about facilities and not programming.
Many of these building structure changes will require a referendum, but taxes payers already passed a referendum for work that is now going to go unfinished. At what point, do we consider that these tax payers might not be willing to say yes again, and how does a no vote impact this plan?
If a referendum does not pass, consolidations that require additions or new construction would not be able to proceed forward.
My wonder is why is Langlade being repurposed as a K8 and Doty closing when Doty has has had recent renovations and there is much more open space for expansion than Langlade? Langlade seems to be very landlocked. Both schools are only approx. 1 mile from each other. Who will be shifting to Eisenhower? Our spanish speaking population? If so, is that equitable? Will Langlade also be servicing our multilingual learners or does that program get shifted to Eisenhower since they already have that program? Will public perception be that Eisenhower and Edison are the schools that our spanish speaking students go to? Why the shift when Doty already offers EM programming for multilingual students?
During the Task Force presentation, rationale will be shared for each of the schools chosen to be closed. Boundaries will be the next step in the process, and a boundary committee will need to be developed.
With consolidation of all of these buildings, support staff (ie. OT/PT/SLP/interventionists/etc) will need private offices/spaces to do their meaningful work with students. Consolidation does not mean the number of students needing these supports decreases; in fact, the number of students needing these supports is increasing. Where are all of these private, confidential spaces going to come from if we are consolidating large numbers of students, and along with them, all of the support staff that will be needed to properly help these kids in their education? I am highly concerned about this. I have worked in an actual janitor's closet in the past and would leave the district if forced into space that does not support proper student learning. This includes multiple staff in one room without actual walls.
The goal of the Facilities Master Plan is to improve our aging facilities. This means improving the learning environment for students, and having adequate and appropriate spaces for employees.
Originally, all the plans had students in the southern part of Allouez now going to East. Looking at the new plans it looks like they are staying at Southwest. Is that correct?
The final schema/solution moves boundaries west to smooth out enrollment. With that change, the solution continues to have some 4K-8 students who would attend Langlade, attending Southwest for high school.
How will these changes affect class sizes?
Class size is governed by Board policy.
Will Kennedy close or stay open?
According to the current Schema 12, Kennedy Elementary would be replaced with a 860 student elementary school.
How do we sign up to participate in the table top discussion?
Anyone can attend the tabletop discussions - no need to sign up.
Currently Langlade is targeted as conversion to a K-8, over what was presumably the other option, Doty. It looks like Doty has more room on its site to support a K-8, including athletic fields, so why was Langlade selected? Is the District counting on the adjacent YMCA property coming available?
The current schema/option does include the YMCA property. The 2023-24 school year is a planning year. If the YMCA property would not be available to the District, a new plan would need to be determined.
When will families be informed of the changes to boundaries for schools? It states that things will move West, but who will actually be impacted?
A Boundary Committee would need to be created during the 2023-24 school year to determine new boundaries. No boundary changes are final until voted on by the Board.
Are there options of making some of the downtown schools into k-8 buildings - Howe, Nicolet, Fort Howard - so that students that currently attend Washington aren't bussed so far out of their neighborhoods?
Downtown schools have very small sites, which do not allow for them to be repurposed into K-8 schools, that still provide opportunities for middle school elective courses and co-curricular activities.
What about our students with disabilities as well? Are we truly serving them to meet their needs with all of the changes to be made?
The Task Force was asked to look at building and enrollment. During the 2023-24 school year, planning will occur to determine where programs will be placed.
What kind of penalties will the school board incur if they don't follow through on these recommendations?
The Board of Education is an elected body that serves at the will of the voters.
Part of the curriculum for Aldo Leopold involves regularly taking advantage of the very close proximity (safe walking distance) of natural resources such as the Fox River for STEM project work. Moving the school will erase this resource crucial to hands on learning. This is one of the strengths of the school, it's location. Why move it?
The Task Force recommendations do not have Aldo as one of the schools that would move.
Why close Webster?
Please see decision matrix.
I attended the May 10th tabletop session at GB East where I believe I understood the district faces a $36 million dollar projected budget shortfall as of August of 2024; while at the same meeting if I understood correctly, we were told that whatever decision is made regarding buildings & closures or consolidations will not happen until at least 2025-2026. Given this, what is the district doing or what can the district do in the interim to address the budget shortfalls until a facilities plan is finalized and able to be implemented?
Since fall of 2022, the District has done the following to address the budget deficit.
- Eliminated some software programs
- Ended administrator/emergency staff cell phone stipends
- Reduced vendor contracts
- Reduced hotspot fleet
- Moved graduation ceremonies to eliminate rental fees
- Eliminated or downgraded several administrator positions
- Reduced early release days
- Reviewed all open positions to determine which ones could not be replaced
- Modified health insurance options for employees
My wife and I are in the Doty School District which is targeted for closure. Who has the final say on building disposition? Also, ultimately if/when district schools are closed, are there concerns for securing the vacant buildings to prevent break-ins and/or vandalism?
The Board of Education would have the final say as to what happens with any schools that are closed and not repurposed. The District currently has one school (FROEBEL) that was closed, and the District continues to maintain the property.
What has the taskforce done to ensure that proposed changes are equitable and address disparities among our most vulnerable populations? Equity is a part of our logo but how has it been addressed in this process?
The Task Force’s work was just one step in the process. Should the Board approve moving forward with all, or some of the proposed recommendations, further study and boundary work would need to be done. The Facilities Master Plan process is about providing equitable facilities across our District.