DE PERE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A community taskforce recommending a new high school in De Pere made a presentation to the school board Monday night.
The plan carries a $206.6 million dollar price tag and would ease overcrowding issues. The six schools in the Unified School District of De Pere are near or over capacity.
About half the district’s population comes from Ledgeview, which has seen heavy growth.
The western boundary also runs along the Fox River, which is expected to see growth when a new southern Brown County bridge is built. It’s expected to be done by 2030.
“It’s going to make it a lot easier for people to live on the east side of De Pere and still get down to Appleton in less than 30 minutes,” said Superintendent Christopher Thompson, who notes the district is growing between 50 and 100 students each year.
To accommodate the growth, the community taskforce recommends building a new high school where there are currently practice fields between the current high school and Dickinson Elementary. The current high school would become the middle school and the current middle school would become a second intermediate school. Fourth graders would go to the intermediate schools, freeing up space at the elementary schools.
“We did look at several lower cost options and it brought us to a point where it felt like it would be a very, very expensive band aid that would only kind of plug the hole for a little bit,” said Kerri Herrild, a business education teacher in the district who was on the community taskforce.
The plan would increase taxes by $284 dollars per $100,000 of assessed property value.
However, De Pere’s tax rate is currently the lowest among school districts in Brown County at $5.49. The plan would raise it to $8.33, but would still be lower than the state average of $8.64.
“Well I think you sell it as an investment,” said Jeff Kinzinger, a parent who was on the community taskforce. “Our schools are excellent here in De Pere and they have been for a long time….In order to keep doing that we need to be looking forward.”
One concern multiple school board members raised was what adding another school would do to traffic on an already congested Chicago Street.
“If we’re adding 1,800 students, faculty and staff, unless we’re putting four lanes on each side, it’s going to probably be pretty difficult,” said Chad Jeskewitz, the vice president of De Pere’s school board.
A traffic study has not yet been done on the proposal.
A community survey on the recommendation is expected to be issued later next month.
From there, the school board is expected to make a decision on whether a referendum will be put on ballots next spring or next fall.
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