GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Green Bay’s Board of Education is meeting Monday evening to discuss updates to its consolidation plans, including keeping one school at its current location.
Green Bay’s school board has been methodically going through a spring recommendation to close 12 buildings in the district as it deals with declining enrollment and looming budget deficits projected to be between $14 million and $20 million over the next two school years.
Only Wequiock Elementary is officially slated to close so far, with that vote coming at the board’s meeting two weeks ago.
Documents for tonight’s meeting reveal Leonardo da Vinci School for Gifted Learners will not be relocating from its downtown location. That was one of the most contentious parts of the plan a community taskforce recommended in May.
Da Vinci parents were against moving the school to Webster Elementary, as more than $10 million was invested since 2014 to purchase and renovate the current school building on Monroe Avenue. It would have cost millions more to update the new proposed location at the current Webster Elementary building.
The district agenda for tonight’s meeting says the board will provide an update on potentially closing Tank Elementary, with those students heading to Fort Howard Elementary.
Moving the John Dewey Academy of Learning and/or the district office to West High will also be discussed.
There will also be an update on an April 2024 referendum, which is needed to build a new west-side elementary school, which would consolidate three aging and under capacity elementary schools: Kennedy, Keller and MacArthur.
There will also be more discussion on repurposing schools to be 4K through 8th grade models and changing school boundary lines.
Based on how the agenda is worded, it doesn’t look like any final decisions will be put to a vote tonight on the consolidation plans.
