GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The community group looking at Green Bay’s school boundary lines went over two scenarios Wednesday night that both include closing six elementary schools – three on each side of the river.
The work is being done as the district projects an enrollment decline of 12% over the next decade.
Green Bay’s boundary adjustment advisory committee was presented with two different scenarios during a virtual meeting centered on different futures for the current Franklin Middle School.
One would make Franklin a 4K-8th grade school. The other would make it a 4K-6th grade school with West High School accommodating 7th-12th grades.
In both scenarios, six elementary schools would close. On the west side, Chappell and Elmore would consolidate with Franklin and MacArthur students would go to Kennedy.
On the east side, Doty students would head to Langlade as a new 4K-8th grade model, Howe students would go to Washington, which would also convert to 4K-8th grade, and Webster students would split between Langlade and Washington.
McAuliffe Elementary would convert to 4K-8th grade in both scenarios.
Under the scenario that sees Franklin converting to 4K-6th grade, Lincoln and Fort Howard Elementary schools would also serve 6th grade students.
“The soonest we saw much of this happening would be ’27-’28 when you take in the time it takes to design it and the construction,” said Lori Blakeslee, the communications director for the Green Bay Area Public School District.
Converting Langlade, McAuliffe and Washington to 4K-8th grades would require referendum approval. The district says that could be on the ballot in November, along with building a new elementary school at the current site of Kennedy Elementary, which would house students from Kennedy, Keller, and MacArthur Elementary Schools.
“The Franklin K-8, K-6 scenarios could possibly happen sooner because there you’re really not having so much to add on space as much as just reconstruct the space in the building to make it appropriate for the age groups that are in there,” said Blakeslee.
Community members said they liked west side boundary changes that should increase safety.
“Like Mason Street is really being respected as that boundary because that creates a huge transportation like, walkability issue, specifically for tiny humans,” said Samantha Meister, a boundary committee member.
Bridget Van Laanen believes similar changes need to be made on the east side.
“Up by Nicolet there, it’s literally holed in the far right corner of its attendance area,” said Van Laanen. “I’m not hot on the whole Wilder, Martin squiggle that you guys came up with where you’re pushing people up into Martin. I think there’s just some things that can be done to make some of these neighborhoods more contiguous.”
Community members also said it was interesting both scenarios included maintaining the status quo of busing students from Allouez to Southwest High School – an issue that has been raised as inconvenient for decades.
Under the scenarios, some schools would split which schools they would feed into, including Eisenhower Elementary students splitting between Langlade’s 4K-8th grade school and Edison Middle School, Sullivan Elementary students splitting between Preble and East High Schools after attending Edison, and both Edison and McAuliffe 4K-8th grade students splitting between Preble and East High Schools.
Changes based on the group’s feedback are expected to be made before the public gets its chance to weigh in, which is expected to start on March 12th.
Blakeslee says live presentations of the boundary change scenarios will happen at the Neville Public Museum on the 12th. Recorded presentations and large maps will remain available at the museum the following three days.
Surveys are also expected to be emailed to families.
The school board has already approved the closures of Tank, Keller, and Wequiock Elementary Schools after this school year.
Of the other schools the first community task force recommended to close, the board has decided against the relocation of Leonardo da Vinci School for Gifted Learners and the district office building. That leaves six schools that were recommended to close without decisions made yet on their futures: Doty, Elmore, Beaumont, Kennedy, MacArthur, and Minoka Hill.
A $150 million referendum is being considered for November that would include building a new west-side elementary school to house students from Keller, Kennedy and MacArthur.
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