GBAPS board hears findings from facilities task force
By Kris Leonhardt
Editor-in-chief
GREEN BAY – During their May 8 meeting the Green Bay Area Public Schools (GBAPS) Board of Education heard the results of five months of work by the community task force for the district’s facilities master planning.
Board President Laura McCoy conveyed the numerous hours that task force members and district staff committed to the development of the presentation.
“They had eight meetings, I believe, and these are long and detailed meetings with a lot of data and a lot of hard work,” she said. “There [were] 26 members and that group consisted of parents and students and representatives from throughout our district.
“It was a huge ask and I went to all the meetings I could, which turned out to be six; and I’m just speaking for myself now, what I witnessed was such determination and openness and just sort of camaraderie and cooperative thinking. I could tell right away that they kind of understood the mission and understood what was at stake. Because the stakes are high and we want to get this right.”
History repeating
Superintendent of Schools and Learning Vicki Bayer said that when reviewing the history of the district two important facts have stood out since the onset of this district.
“The two things that stand out are that change is inevitable and that the board of education — the group that oversees this district — always put kids first,” she said.
“Our district has tackled facilities issues for decades while still improving the educational opportunities for our students.”
Bayer chronicled how district enrollment has flexed — growing and shrinking — over its long history and how the district met those changes.
“Our last boundary change was made in 2019. Many of you will remember that we shifted Jefferson Elementary over to Fort Howard, and then turn the existing Jefferson Elementary into our Head Start Learning Center. In the 2000s, we had new schools added. We added John Dewey Academy of Learning (JDAL), Leonardo da Vinci School for Gifted Learners, Northeast Wisconsin School of Innovation and the Katherine Johnson Academy of Enriched Virtual Learning,” she recalled.
“Today, the district is again facing aging facilities, declining enrollment; which by the way, a reminder that both state and national [have a] declining enrollment and projected budget deficit.
“The task force joins us tonight to share their recommendations for how the district could address these important challenges while maintaining Green Bay Area Public School District as a vibrant school district that meets the needs of all of our students with modern learning facilities.”
The need
The task force representation reflected the district at 76% of its capacity, with an estimated one in four vacant seats in schools.
And those numbers don’t appear to be increasing; with declining birthrates nationwide, that downward trend is expected to continue.
The highest declines in the district are seen in the western two-thirds of the district.
A 10-year projection with no changes made in the district displayed a 67% capacity, with one in three seats empty.
In addition, the district is facing a 2024-25 budget deficit of about $20 million.
Decreasing facility capacity would decrease operational costs.
Diverting the student population to larger buildings would also make the facilities more efficient to run, as opposed to smaller buildings.
The goal of the committee was to reduce operational costs by 10%.
The process
The task force started in January by reviewing the district’s 42 buildings, their costs and the condition of the facilities.
They also looked at the adequacy of the spaces in delivering a quality education.
During the assessment process, the group visited several sites and looked at 12 options with multiple variations and looked at the community survey results.
The task force said that they had several “drivers” that influenced some of the decision-making on the facilities, including the possible implementation of 4K-8 schools, which were well-received in the community survey and required fewer transitions.
They noted the Racine School District’s success in K-8 schools, in which the district said they saw “improved behavior and student retention.”
The task force also expressed the advantages of introducing a larger and more efficient elementary school building on the west side of the city to replace smaller existing schools; this would allow three elementary schools to come together as one.
This would implement the Kennedy School site, which they said was the only property on the west side that would be large enough to accommodate the new facility, which they viewed as more comparable to the newer, existing Baird Elementary facility on the east side.
The group also took crossing the river into account and the possibility of moving the boundary further west to create more capacity for future growth on the east side.
The community survey showed support for moving the boundary at 45% overall and 61% at the high school level.
The task force said that West High School also became a focus because they saw a “trickle-down” effect caused by whatever happened with that facility, which has the lowest high school enrollment.
They said that by using it to its full capacity, it could accommodate other properties and handle an influx of students if boundaries were adjusted, which in turn could open up room at Preble for future development on the east side.
The recommendations
The recommendation presented by the task force would close or repurpose 12 buildings and add a new west side elementary.
Franklin, Langlade and McAuliffe would be repurposed as 4K-8 schools; West would retain its standing as a high school and JDAL and a portion of the district office would be relocated there.
Minoka-Hill would move to Lincoln and Leonardo da Vinci would move to Webster.
The remaining portion of the district office would need to be located to another district facility, with JDAL having the potential to accommodate.
The task force presented the rationale for the repurposing or closing of each building noted based on facility offerings, conditions and costs, as well as a school use decision matrix that helped guide the decision-making.
One of the schools marked for closing — Leonardo da Vinci — would be relocated to Webster as that school has 23% more square footage and is one of the oldest buildings in the district, with the original portion constructed in 1929.
The task force said that the school also has many undersized classrooms, a “less-than-ideal” layout, little green space, a small site, would need a gym addition with no space to accommodate it and an inadequate library media center.
Other buildings with a potential for closing include Beaumont, which is close to Jackson; Doty, which is near to Langlande and more centrally-located; three buildings constructed in 1939 — Elmore, Tank and Washington; two buildings with low enrollment — Wequiok and Keller; and two with high construction concerns — Kennedy and MacArthur.
The task force also recommended that the district perform a demographic and enrollment study every four to six years, so they make adjustments routine.
What’s next
The task force also said that future work would include community tabletop discussions and public forms, meeting with GBAPS staff to find the best fit for programming in the new facility configuration and a boundary committee to make final determinations.
“I think it would be the next necessary direction, depending on where the board goes on June 5, but to direct us to have another task force convene, and it would be a large one and it would be the group that would help implement whatever plan they choose,” Bayer said.
“There is data I pulled out of things that I just can’t quite get past. One is one in four seats in our district right now is vacant. The other one is that there are wildly divergent costs per student in our buildings across the district that needs to be evened out. That’s my opinion,” McCoy said.
“Every single thing in this room is paid for with tax dollars and we need to respect how we use those tax dollars. That doesn’t mean we don’t take into consideration a whole bunch of other things, but we’re limited. That pie is only so big and we can’t count on the state legislature to adequately fund public education. So this is where we are, and we also know that other districts are going through this process, maybe on a smaller scale, but we’re a huge district, so you’ve got to scale everything. And it’s happening across our state in various degrees.
“So, what are we talking about here? We’re really talking about the future. We’re talking about the future of this district. And not just in two years or three years. We’re talking about 20 years, 30 years, what is our community going to look like? What is our community kind of need?”
For more information, visit www.gbaps.org/our_district/facilities_master_plan.