Menasha district's only Doty Island school will close at the end of this school year

MENASHA - The Menasha school board voted to close the nearly 100-year-old Nicolet Elementary School on Monday night.

"It's served us well for 98 years," Superintendent Chris VanderHeyden said, but there are multiple reasons to close the school.

Before the vote, VanderHeyden reviewed a five-part rationale for closing the school, including declining enrollment, budget concerns, class sizes, layout of the building and staffing efficiency.

Despite the multitude of reasons, VanderHeyden said, the decision was not made lightly.

Students will finish out the 2021-22 school year at Nicolet, but it will not reopen in the fall. Nicolet's sister school, Jefferson Elementary, which houses kindergarten through second grade students who go onto third through fifth grade at Nicolet, will remain open.

There aren't any offers yet, but VanderHeyden said the district's plan is to sell the building.

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Over the past nine years, MJSD has lost 500 students taking total enrollment from 3,700 to 3,200. VanderHeyden explained at the meeting that the enrollment has been steadily declining, and there's no way to know if or when the downward trend may reverse. However, if there were an uptick in enrollment, the district would have enough space even without Nicolet, he said.

If Nicolet were to be open next year, there would only be 88 students, so it wouldn't be feasible to have multiple classes for each grade level. Ideally there would be three to four sections of each grade to meet the needs of special education students, English learners and even families with twins who may want their children in different classes, VanderHeyden explained.

With the declining enrollment, the district has also received less funding from the state. Not operating Nicolet would save the district about $100,000 per year in operating costs such as heating, air conditioning and other utilities.

"This is a fiscally responsible decision for us to make," VanderHeyden said.

There are structural issues with Nicolet that contributed to the decision to close it. For example, its age makes it difficult to access technology throughout the building. And there are limited bathroom facilities.

Last week, VanderHeyden met with staff at Nicolet, Jefferson and Butte des Morts elementary schools to talk about how enrollment would shift and where students would attend next year with the closure.

No staff will lose their jobs as a result of the closure. Some staff have already resigned or retired, and the remaining will find new jobs at Butte des Morts, Jefferson or elsewhere in the district.

The third and fourth graders currently at Nicolet will move to Butte des Morts. The current second graders at Jefferson that would have been moved to Nicolet next year will stay at Jefferson for third grade. The fifth graders will move onto Maplewood Middle School next year as usual.

Vanderheyden also met with Nicolet parents last week. There were about 20 to 30 parents in attendance.

Parents brought up that closing Nicolet will mean closing every school located on Doty Island after the Neenah Joint School District voted to close Roosevelt Elementary School — its only school on Doty Island — at the end of the 2022-23 school year.

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Nicolet is the Menasha district's only school on Doty Island, located at 449 Ahnaip Street. In line with the district's existing transportation policies for students who live too far to walk or who would need to cross unsafe roads, there will be transportation in place for the new enrollment configuration.

At the time of the decision to close Neenah's Roosevelt Elementary, there was more than an hour of public comment during which Island residents asked board members to delay the decision while teachers said it's challenging to teach in the current school. But there weren't any public comments at Monday night's meeting in Menasha City Center.

Reach AnnMarie Hilton at ahilton@gannett.com or 920-370-8045. Follow her on Twitter at @hilton_annmarie.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Nicolet Elementary School in Menasha to close at end of 2021-22 year