Now that AASD has committed to going down the referendum path I thought it would be a good time to go back and review the factors that are driving that decision.
During the 09/30/2021 Board of Education work session, Chief Financial Officer Greg Hartjes reviewed the areas in the district that were viewed as future needs.
The district had been in the process of exploring a referendum prior to the pandemic.
The projects they had been hoping to fund through a referendum were…
- Build a new elementary school to relieve overcrowding on the northeast side Appleton specifically in the Huntley area.
- To add middle school capacity and update STEM areas. They want to add middle school capacity so that they can move 6th graders to the middle school level.
- Remodel vacated space at the elementary schools. Moving the 6th graders out would create space in those buildings that they wanted to then remodel. [It wasn’t clear to me why they would need to remodel empty classrooms]
- Build additions at our three high schools [Those additions were mostly composed of just athletic facility improvements.]
All together, they were looking at $98 million for a referendum/bond question.
They were also looking at an operational question that would help them staff, operate, clean, and heat the newly built spaces. That would be an ongoing annual cost of $1.6 million per year.
In the spring of 2020, before the pandemic, the next step had been to survey the community to gauge their support for the projects and the referendum. That, however, had been put on hold once Covid hit. They had been working with a company called School Perceptions to do that. He said a lot of districts use them to gather community input.
There were 3 reasons why AASD’s leadership was exploring a referendum.
1. Concerns about enrollment growth on the north side of the district led them to hire Hoffman Planning, Design and Construction to perform a capacity study.
This was completed in 2016, and, at the time, concluded that 11 of 16 elementary schools, 2 of 4 middle schools, and all 3 high schools were overcrowded.
2. Capital project requests from schools often cannot be funded through the yearly budget ($2,500,000).
AASD budgets $2.5 million every year for capital projects, and that tends to go to basic maintenance like roofs, boilers, windows, parking lots, and lighting, and sometimes a playground, but not toward educational needs per se. Per Greg, North High School needs a new fitness center; “Absolutely they do.” East High School “wants” to add on to their fitness center. “Those are spaces that are used every day all day long into the evening, weekends, summers. So those type of spaces. We could never afford that out of our capital projects budget.” He stated that North needs a new tennis court and that the middle school principals desire to have STEM be what it should be in 2021 and not where it’s at in many of their buildings due to being outdated. He also explained that after the 2014 referendum, most of the schools had been able to move their offices to the front of the building for safety and security reasons, but they hadn’t been able to do that at Houdini or Ferber yet. Houdini was the next on the list but it would cost over $1 million to make those changes, and they need referendum money to do that. Per Greg, “None of those projects could ever be funded in our yearly budget.”
3. Need for updated learning spaces to support current and future programming for students.
Greg stated, “We have some specific needs around students where we’re working in one-to-one settings with a staff member, maybe small group.” Between 2014 and 2019 they added 200 staff members and with ESSER funds they added an additional 30 over the last year. The majority of those staff members work with students in small groups or one-on-one as interventionists, social workers, youth advocates, and deans of students. They’ve added those staff members, but they either don’t have space for them or their spaces are outdated.
With those needs in mind, in the summer of 2019, they assembled the Future Needs Advisory Committee which had 75 members and included 1 parent from each school, 1 staff member from each school, students from all three high schools, and community members.
They committee met eight times between September 10th and December 17th of 2019. These were all 2 hours long and were structured to build background knowledge for the committee members. Members of the administration presented information, the committee engaged in discussions and table activities, and the administration responded to questions and suggestions throughout the process.
The committee provided direction and brought forward (a) concerns about equity and (b) the idea to move sixth grade students to the middle level.
Greg stated that right away “the committee absolutely wanted equity. They did not want to build a new school in an area of our town that’s most affluent and maybe add onto North High School and Einstein and forget about everybody else. The committee in the first meeting already said ‘this needs to positively affect every student in our district if we’re going to go out to referendum’.”
They also came up with the idea to move 6th graders to the middle school level as a response to the overcrowding in the elementary schools and a way to avoid having to add on to all of the elementary schools. Greg said that the district had wanted to do going all the way back to 1995 when the 9th graders were moved from the junior high level to the high school level. The 6th graders had been intended to move up to the middle school level at that time, but there wasn’t enough space so it didn’t happen except for in a couple limited instances such as Kaleidoscope and Magellan.
He presented what were considered to be the committee’s accomplishments.
- Unanimous support for recommending a referendum to address identified needs
- Majority support to build a new school(s)
- Majority support for high school projects
- Strong support for creating *equitable* programming and facilities to the greatest degree possible
He noted the agenda, minutes, handouts, and presentations at all of the Future Needs Advisory Committee meetings are available on the AASD website.
The Leadership Team then took all of that information from the committee and brought it to the Board of Education to make sure that the Board members understood the work of the committee. In February of 2020, the Board decided to move forward with surveying the community, but then in March the pandemic hit and everything was put on hold.
Greg then reviewed each of the proposed projects in more detail.
PROJECT 1: Build a new elementary school on the northeast side of the district to relieve overcrowding
This would be built on land AASD already owns and would have a capacity of 600. The cost of the building was projected to be $30.2 million with an annual operating cost of $900,000.
This school would address not only the overcrowding at Huntley Elementary but also the potential enrollment growth in that area of the city. There is not only significant potential growth in that area, but significant growth that is already happening at this time.
The school would be located near the corner of Edgewood Drive and Lightning Drive. [It would actually be right next to where Lundgaard Park will be located.]
A concept drawing of the school was included in the presentation, but it was not accurate and, rather than building a K-8 school as they had considered and as was shown in the concept drawing, they decided they want to build just an elementary school with the plan of building a middle school 10 or 20 years down the road when it is needed. [So, this obviously isn’t going to be the last referendum we will be asked to vote on.]
PROJECT 2: Add middle school capacity and update STEM areas
It would cost $30.1 million to move 6th grade to the middle school level. He said that they did consider options other than adding on to all four of the middle schools, such as building a 5th middle school or converting an elementary school to a 5th middle school. But ultimately the leadership team and the Board of Education decided the best option was to add onto the existing 4 middle schools.
PROJECT 3: Remodel vacated spaces at elementary schools
This would cost $11.1 million. He was pressed for time and had mentioned some of these needs already, so he didn’t go into this project in detail.
PROJECT 4: Build additions at the three high schools
These projects in total would cost $24 million.
Greg said that through feedback from staff and families they were pushed in the direction of doing something with the fitness center at East and the fitness center and tennis court of North. He said there was also a need at all three high schools not for more traditional classrooms but for flexible spaces that could be more collaborative in terms of how the students were learning. [Honestly, given the declining grades AASD has been experiencing, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to go back to traditional teaching methods instead of trying to be more “collaborative”.]
He said, “we don’t want traditional classrooms; we want more flexible space.” As special education needs have increased, they have taken classrooms that used to be traditional classrooms and used them to work with special ed and English learner students. Now they want to build back some classrooms for regular education.
All combined the total cost of the new construction, additions, and remodeling had originally been estimated to be $98 million with an additional $1.6 million needed annually in operating cost. However, per Greg, over the last 6 months, the estimated costs had gone up 13%, due to construction cost increases, so that $98 million would no longer get them what it would have if they had gone to referendum in 2020.
He then went on to discuss the estimated cost to the taxpayer. [And I’m not sure any of this is accurate at this point since, it was based on figures from 2020 and, subsequent to this meeting, the possibility was mentioned of asking for more than $98 million. At any rate…]
If they had gone to referendum in the fall of 2020, it would have added $25 onto the taxes of a property valued at $100,000. Per Greg, “Now, that’s a very reasonable amount. There’s a lot of referendums that have passed in the state recently that are over a dollar…on the mil rate, $100 on $100,000 of property. So that’s a very reasonable number.” [He didn’t mention if any of those referendums passed after it became very clear to the public that our country is experiencing a lot of inflation and increased costs of basic consumer goods.]
He then opened things up for question.
Board member Jim Bowman wanted some clarity on the staff positions that were added with ESSER funds and the space needs those staff members had.
Greg answered that they added 30 positions with ESSER dollars. Those positions were primarily interventionists who are working with some of the districts “diverse communities”. They don’t have the space to work one-on-one with students. They were already challenged for space before the pandemic and the pandemic just heightened that. [I’m curious Superintendent Baseman, the leadership team, and the Board of Education had opted to stay in person instead of going all virtual, which caused so many students to struggle and fall behind, would they now need as many interventionists to work one-on-one with students?]
Board member Jim Bowman wanted to know what would happen if the need for interventionist space diminished and the district emerged from this mess in a year or so. He said he was a little uncomfortable putting capital money into something that might be temporary.
Greg responded, “I think the key is we already had this need going into the pandemic. In our buildings that was the number one concern of our elementary principals.” Right now, they often have literacy specialists working with students in the hallway or guidance counselors meeting with students in the back of a classroom. “So, we had those needs before the pandemic; they’ve just—they’ve gotten more heightened.” He also noted those needs were primarily at the elementary level and didn’t address the middle and high school needs at all. However, he finished up bey saying, “But I think it’s a valid point. We’ll have to make sure that we fully understand where those positions are going to go after the pandemic and after the ESSER funding has gone away.”
Board member Ed Ruffolo said that Houdini families had long been concerned that their kids go to Einstein for middle school but then they’re the only group at Einstein that doesn’t move on to North. Instead, they move on to West which causes problems with connections, friendships, and programs. He wondered if that would be something that was addressed by the projects. [As a note, it is possible to open enroll your child into a school that is not their neighborhood school.]
Greg said they spent a lot of time looking at middle schools trying to figure out how they could get Houdini students to move to a middle school with other clusters of students who would move on to West, but they couldn’t figure it out.
Ed said he would encourage them to continue to explore that because he thought they were going to get a lot of push-back from Houdini families if they spend $98 million and don’t address that concern.
Greg acknowledged that statement with what I took to be a non-committal “uh huh.”
Board member James Bacon wanted more details about the flexible classrooms they wanted to build. When they used the term “flexible space” was there any particular kind of flexible space they were thinking about, and what were they trying to address? Would this space be intended for interventionists or for teachers that support special groups of students like special education students or English Language Learners?
Greg said he thought it was for all of those needs, but it would look differently at different levels. He mentioned a high school in another district that he had recently visited. That school had traditional classrooms but each of those classrooms has the capability to move kids into group work, so it had more flexible seating. Additionally, out in the hallways, they have open areas and seating aimed at facilitating group work. Currently, at AASD when students go out in the hallway to work, they sit on the floor. He thought the biggest change was going to be fewer desks in a room and more flexible furniture that would allow different types of instruction and learning to happen.
[I’m curious if AASD could provide examples of schools that built these new flexible spaces and then experienced a measurable improvement in student academic performance as a result. I also don’t really see the need for spending $25 million on improvements at the high school level that are mostly aimed at athletics. We’re coming up on 2 years of a pandemic response that has resulted in a shocking decline in student academic performance and competence. We’ve also experienced a lot of economic upheaval and are now facing rapidly increasing inflation that is negatively affecting the purchasing power of families that may already be struggling financially. Asking residents to spend millions of dollars on athletic fields and a tennis court seems pretty tone deaf.]
View meeting video here: https://youtu.be/XW1wjFFAVSw
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