GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A consultant’s report identifies hundreds of facility repair and improvement projects for the Green Bay Area Public School District to consider — including a recommendation to tear down one school — as it embarks on a 10-year planning process.
The school district hired ATSR Planners, Architects, and Engineers, which produced hundreds of pages of documents outlining work needing to be done at all of the district’s facilities.
“We have a number of aging facilities that need some work. We also have some enrollment challenges within the district, so the study is really about looking at our facilities and what makes sense going into the future for the health of the district,” says Joshua Patchak, chief operations officer at Green Bay Area Public School District.
The district assembled the Citizen Facilities Task Force. The group will prioritize and decide which projects should be done first.
“The task force is made up of community volunteers; there is no staff or administration or board members on that task force,” says Patchak.
One of the recommendations is to demolish MacArthur Elementary School on Hobart Drive. It was built in 1968.
“This building is recommended to be reconstructed — existing building demolished. There are multiple issues that either cannot be corrected or are cost prohibitive to correct, as well as large educational adequacy issues with existing configurations,” the report states.
“This building has multiple structural issues, cracking and foundation settling, that are really difficult to deal with. There is also an underground water source that’s continually running underneath that building… those kind of things are really difficult to repair, so therefore it’s our recommendation that that building not be reused for student use,” says ATSR Architect Nancy LaBissoniere.
“Really anything is on the table — it could be a rebuild, it could be any combination of things,” says Patchak.
Because of declining enrollment, the task force will also be looking at possible boundary changes.
“How modifying boundaries could help fill out those schools that have empty seats and help ease crowding in schools that have maybe too many students,” says Patchak.
Patchak says the timeline for the projects could be years.
“I wouldn’t expect any major changes this school year or next school year. We are probably talking the 2024-2025 school year at the very earliest… it could be anywhere between five or 10 years before we are complete,” says Patchak.
Each of the task force meetings are open to the public.
“It’s theirs to take it from there to see what the best way to move Green Bay forward is, to create the best learning environments for students,” says LaBissoniere.
For each of the schools, ATSR identified repairs and other work which should be completed. The projects are divided into high, medium and low priority categories. Across the entire district, more than $400 million in projects are outlined for the next decade and beyond.
The panel’s first meeting is at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Baird Elementary School on Laverne Drive.
