GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – No overall boundary changes and no fifth high school were among the recommendations Green Bay’s school board heard Monday night to fix enrollment issues within the district.
The district’s boundary task force is recommending shifting some middle and high school students from Green Bay’s overcrowded east side schools to undercrowded west side schools.
After meeting eight times, leaders of the task force say their group poured over data to try to balance the district’s enrollment numbers.
Dan Kiernan is co-chair of the task force and parent to two district students.
“The very revealing fact is this: great movement occurs by students in the district.”
As it stands now, Preble High School is 260 students above its target capacity.
East, West and Southwest High Schools are all well below their target capacities.
As a short-term solution for Preble, the task force recommends shifting some students to west side schools by altering feeder school patterns.
It also recommends promoting specialized programs in west side schools, and/or providing transportation options.
Luke Davis is another task force co-chair and a recent graduate of Southwest.
“We need to strengthen and build programs to pull students to schools where capacity actually exists.”
Two other recommendations made for overall east-side growth are building a new pre-k through 8th-grade school and monitoring east side development.
“Since GBAPS approaches its mission with one for students through data-driven decisions that are fiscally responsible, the task force could not recommend an $85 million high school at this time,” said Kiernan.
Brenda Warren, the president of Green Bay’s Board of Education, tells FOX 11 she respects the work of the task force.
“It was obvious to me that they spent a lot of time talking about the data, the population studies and all of that to really come up with these not cookie cutter recommendations.”
Warren says the board will likely take up the task force’s recommendations individually over time.
“One of the recommendations was to look at strengthening our programs, marketing our district better. We may just look at one or two things initially and then decide if we want to move with that.”
Task force leaders stressed their recommendations were not unanimous and that the tough decisions must come from the elected school board.
