When will the Green Bay School Board decide the fate of the remaining schools recommended to close?

Danielle DuClos, Green Bay Press-Gazette
·3 min read

GREEN BAY — In May, a community task force recommended the Green Bay School Board close 11 schools. That's almost a quarter of the schools in the Green Bay School District.

Another seven schools were recommended to be repurposed as either K-8 schools or to accommodate programs that would need new homes because of closures.

Over the last few months, the school board voted on five of the 19 schools recommended to either close or be repurposed:

  • Keller Elementary — board voted Oct. 23 to close

  • Leonardo da Vinci — board voted Sept. 25 to keep open

  • Tank Elementary — board voted Oct. 23 to close

  • Wequiock Elementary — board voted Aug. 28 to close

  • John Dewey Academy of Learning — board voted Oct. 23 to keep at its current location. JDAL's building was not recommended to close but to be repurposed as the district headquarters.

There are seven schools recommended to close that the board has not voted on or brought up for discussion: Beaumont Elementary, Doty Elementary, Elmore Elementary, Kennedy Elementary, MacArthur Elementary, Washington Middle and Minoka-Hill alternative school.

When will the Green Bay School Board vote on the remaining schools recommended for closure?

In June, the board approved a series of resolutions to guide the district's closure planning. One of those resolutions included hiring a consulting firm and forming another community task force to guide boundary changes that would result from closing Beaumont, Doty, Elmore and Washington and repurposing other schools as K-8s.

The board won't make decisions on whether to close those schools until the consulting firm and the community task force have their recommendations, and those aren't expected until June 2024.

Students at Beaumont, Doty, Elmore and Washington wouldn't move until the 2026-27 school year, according to a May memo from the interim superintendent at the time, Vicki Bayer.

While the board hasn't officially voted for the closures of Kennedy and MacArthur, it is likely those schools will close. The plan has students at both of those schools moving to a new west side elementary to be built on the Kennedy property.

The timeline for the new elementary school is tentative since the project depends on the successful passage of a capital referendum. The district plans to put a $150 million capital referendum on the ballot in the spring, just over a year after a $92.6 million capital referendum was passed in fall 2022.

The district estimates students at Kennedy and MacArthur would move to the new school in the 2027-28 school year, according to the district's timeline. The board will wait to vote on closing Kennedy and MacArthur until it knows it can build a new elementary school.

Under the original plan, students at Minoka-Hill, the district's alternative school, were recommended to move to Lincoln Elementary. However, students at Tank will be moving there next school year because the school they were recommended to move into was too small to accommodate all the students.

At the Oct. 23 board meeting, the district said it would look for a different location to move Minoka-Hill students. According to the preliminary timeline presented in May, students wouldn't move to another school until the 2026-27 school year.

When will the school board make a decision on the downtown district headquarters?

The district said it would cost upward of $26 million to relocate the district headquarters from its downtown office building. Closing the office at 200 S. Broadway is a popular move among community members, with 78% in favor, according to a district survey.

However, it doesn't seem like the board will approve closing the building with such a high price tag.

More on the district office: Green Bay School District says closing downtown office would cost $26M. Here's what to know

At the Nov. 13 board meeting, member Andrew Becker said it's unlikely there will be a decision one way or another by the next meeting on Nov. 27. At that same meeting, board President Laura McCoy and Vice President James Lyerly encouraged the members to come to a decision and lay the issue to rest.

Danielle DuClos is a Report for America corps member who covers K-12 education for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at dduclos@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @danielle_duclos. You can directly support her work with a tax-deductible donation at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA or by check made out to The GroundTruth Project with subject line Report for America Green Bay Press Gazette Campaign. Address: The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Drive, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon 97008-7105

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: When will the Green Bay School Board decide on the remaining schools recommended to close?