GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Many students on Green Bay’s east side are heading back to overcrowded schools again this year.
But new classrooms are being built right now to address the problem some buildings face.
“This is one of our busier summers that we’ve had in the last four or five years just due to all the referendum work that we have,” said Mike Stangel, executive director of facilities for the Green Bay Area Public School District.
Voters approved $68.25 million for Green Bay schools last year. The largest project is rebuilding Baird Elementary School.
Work started on 11 schools this spring.
Construction on six other schools starts next spring.
Some of the work is just renovations, but seven schools are putting in more secure entrances.
Stangel tells FOX 11 six schools, all on Green Bay’s east side, are expanding specifically to increase student capacity.
“We still need to look at our capacities at our middle and high school level. Both Edison and Preble High School are close to capacity or over capacity.”
Preble is 260 students over its target capacity. The city’s other three high schools are all under capacity. East is 142 students under capacity. Southwest has room for 362 more students and West is 429 students under capacity.
“I think Preble has done an outstanding job of really working with the student body to make that successful there, despite the fact they’ve been over capacity,” said Lori Blakeslee, the district’s director of communications.
The district had two task forces look at the issue. In 2017, a facilities taskforce concluded a fifth high school should be built on the city’s far east side.
Blakeslee tells FOX 11 a boundaries taskforce recommended not building a new high school and no major changes to school boundary lines.
“They had some thoughts around marketing our schools, looking at putting popular programs that are here on the east side and having some duplication of that on the west side.”
Administrators are expected to look at recommendations once school starts. They hope to present a plan to the school board later this school year.
Stangel says construction won’t seriously impact normal school activities.
Also of note, this will be the first school year where all schools in the district have air conditioning.
It was added at Eisenhower and Webster Elementary Schools this summer.
