Green Bay Area Public School District building. (IMAGE: Courtesy of Fox 11 WLUK)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — It’s been a turbulent road leading up to the Green Bay Area Public School District’s plea to voters to pass a $183M referendum.
“I’m just really really grateful to this community for passing this referendum and letting us complete the work. The decisions have been hard but we are moving in the right direction,” said GBAPS school board president Laura McCoy on Wednesday.
Those hard decisions include closing six district elementary schools after declining enrollment and multi-million dollar budget deficits. But the message of much-needed financial support got through to area voters.
“I mean it passed by 66%, that’s a huge percentage and my first reaction is of course gratitude to the voters and taxpayers of this community and the fact they’re willing to show so much support for our students and staff and families.”
McCoy explains that around $33M will go to safety and security improvements at schools around the district.
Some of which, she says, are easy adjustments to make, while others require architectural changes.
“Many of our schools will get secure entrances which means that instead of just being able to walk into a school and check in at a desk you’ll have to go through the main office, there will be extra layers of security before you’re able to go into a school.”
The bulk of the money, however, will go toward large-scale changes and adaptations at the schools that will absorb more students due to the aforementioned closures, as well as building the district’s new school.
Schools like Beaumont, Chappel, and Doty.
Work, McCoy hopes, will begin ‘as soon as possible.’
“Especially with the new school, we hope to get at that as soon as possible because it’s a long process to build a large building like that, it’s complicated and will require a series of decisions. So as soon as we can get at that, the better,” McCoy said.
All that’s left for the board to do is decide on contractors and hope for mild weather, so work can get started in the coming months.
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