By Ben Rodgers
Editor
DE PERE – Aug. 3 is a date parents and students in the West De Pere school district will want to circle on the calendar.
Amy LaPierre, director of curriculum, informed the school board Monday, June 15, that Aug. 3 is when she hopes a decision will be made about the reopening of schools that have been closed since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are different models for how to plan, and every one has one thing in common,” LaPierre said. ‘That one thing is we should have multiple plans ready so we can aggressively move among them, depending on the state of the virus level and what the state tells us.”
She said the district has created eight committees, which started to meet June 5, for work on different aspects of reopening schools.
LaPierre said there are five committees for each learning level, as well as committees for safety, policy/communications and relationships.
She said the learning level-specific committees are each working on four plans.
The first plan is schools open and return to normal with all teachers and students.
The second plan is remote learning, how the district ended the school year, with no teachers or students in buildings.
The third plan is schools are open with students allowed, but some parents choose not to send their children to school.
The final plan is a blended hybrid approach.
LaPierre said the goal is for all committees to have the work completed by July 17, with a meeting with parents to follow a week after.
The final plan for how the district will reopen is tentatively scheduled to be announced Aug. 3.
Superintendent Dennis Krueger said a parent survey will be sent out at the end of June or in early July.
“We’re still optimistic about our graduation on the 12th of August for the high school,” Krueger said.
Joe Berger, board vice president, suggested a thermal scan that would fit in a trailer that students could walk through to see if they are healthy enough to enter school.
“A lot of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines talk about that and they end with if it’s feasible, and feasible means is it easy to do,” Krueger said. “So how do we scale that and find out the appropriate level of safety? We’re working together with the De Pere Health Department, Brown County health, the other nine districts in the county, Bellin Health and Prevea.”
In July, he said school facilities will open for things like the summer musical program, athletics and community-use functions.
Taxpayer savings
Brian Walters, business manager, reported some good news for taxpayers in the form of lower-than-anticipated-interest rates, which result in potential tax savings for district residents.
On May 21, the board approved a pair of resolutions, one for a bond of $14.7 million and the other refinancing a bond from 2012.
“The interest rate we received, compared to what was projected at the May meeting, dropped from 2.89 percent to 2.18 percent,” Walters said of the bond issue.
The projected tax increase of 55 cents per $1,000 of home value, which was presented with the referendum before it was approved in 2018, is now down to 31 cents, he said.
Walters said the lower rate does not factor in any tax increases due to increased property valuations.
He said the rate on refinancing was down from a projected 2.2 percent to .8 percent, which means the district will save roughly $500,000 from 2021-25.
Other news
• Krueger also reported 33 percent of staff opted into a high-deductible health insurance plan, which means the district has funds available to start work on a modified compensation model.
• Meal prices will also not increase for 2020-21.