During the upcoming 08/08/2022 Appleton Area School District Board of Education meeting, the Board will be voting on whether or not to approve the AASD capital and operating referendum questions for the November 2022 election.
During the 07/25/2022 Board meeting, Superintendent Greg Hartjes reviewed the process the District had been through to get to this point and presented the draft version of the questions to be placed on the November ballot. Those questions were still being reviewed and worked on by the law firm of Quarles & Brady and the final versions would be presented.
Superintendent Harjes reviewed the timeline of the planning and review process that ended up leading to the District’s leadership asking the Board of Education to approve the two referendum questions.
He then presented the two draft questions.
Draft Question #1: “Facilities, STEM, 6th grade Shall the Appleton Area School District, Outagamie, Calumet and Winnebago Counties, Wisconsin be authorized to issue pursuant to Chapter 67 of the Wisconsin Statutes, general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed $129,800,000 for the public purpose of paying the cost of adding STEM classrooms at elementary and middle schools; constructing additions at middle schools to create capacity for 6th grade students; constructing a new elementary school; updating science and general education classrooms, renovating spaces to improve safety and security, and constructing additional space to meet high school operational needs.”
If passed, this question would allow the District to issue a 20-year bond which would cover…
- Remodeling space made available by 6th grade move and add a STEM lab at elementary schools. ($13.0 million)
- Adding middle school capacity to accommodate 6th graders and update STEM areas. ($47.0 million)
- Building a new elementary school. ($36.0 million)
- Building additions at our three high schools. ($33.8 million)
He noted that the District had been wanting to move 6th graders to the middle school level for the past 27 years ever since North High School had been opened, but there had been challenges with the facilities. However, they knew that 6th graders functioned better academically, socially, and emotionally at the middle school level with 7th and 8th graders rather than with 4- and 5-year-olds.
The results of the community survey which the District had sent out regarding the referendum questions indicated solid support for all four of those items, with support ranging from 63% to 72% across the questions.
Draft Question #2: “Improving Student Outcomes Shall the Appleton Area School District, Outagamie, Calumet and Winnebago Counties, Wisconsin be authorized to exceed the revenue limit specified in section 121.91, Wisconsin Statutes, for the 2023-2024 school year and thereafter by $5,000,000 for recurring purposes: staffing to reduce class sizes in kindergarten, first grade and second grade; staffing of STEM classes at the elementary and middle level; and ongoing school building, maintenance, cleaning, and utility costs.”
IF approved, this referendum would allow the District to fund:
- Staffing to reduce K-2 class sizes ($2.2 million per year)
- Staffing of STEM Labs ($1.2 million per year)
- Staffing and operating new spaces ($1.6 million per year)
He said they would not need the full $5 million during the 2023-24 school year because they would not have added the new elementary school or other new spaces yet and would probably need more like $3 million. During the 2024-25 school year they would probably get closer to needing $5 million, but they may not need the full $5 million until the third year after that referendum. If the question passed, however, they would have the authority to have $5 million above the revenue limit.
As with the previous question, the community survey the District sent out indicated strong community support (70% – 73%) for each of the three items that would be covered by the annual revenue referendum. That survey had been sent out to the 44,000 households in the Appleton Area School District and they received approximately 5,500 responses which was a much higher response rate than they would need for the data to be statistically relevant.
He opened things up for questions.
Board President Kay Eggert confirmed with him that Quarles and Brady were providing legal guidance on how to word the questions.
In regards to question 2 (the annual revenue question) she wondered if the money had to be used for the purposes laid out in the question or if there was some flexibility in how they used it.
Superintendent Hartjes said that they came up with that $5 million figure based on the average cost of an educator which was $86,000 annually last year. Using the 13 STEM positions they would be adding as an example, he said that they may end up hiring 13 people who are lower on the District’s pay framework or they may end up being higher on the framework. Ultimately, however, they would average out. The same went for the teachers that would be hired to reduce class sizes.
They also had pretty solid numbers on the square footage the District would be adding and what they could expect for utility, maintenance, and cleaning costs. They would be impacted by inflation, but the District hoped to see revenue increases from the state which would allow them to afford any inflationary increases.
One of the things they were very careful about was, when a referendum was passed, that the District spent those dollars on the specific purpose laid out in the referendum. In 2014, for example, voters approved a referendum for $5 million, $3.5 million of which was to go to classroom technology and $1.5 million of which went to capital projects. “We are very, very particular about that. That’s what we asked our community for; that’s what we spend those dollars on.”
The value of those funds did change based on the price of things. When they went to referendum in 2014, they had expected to only be able to afford Chromebooks for highschoolers, but the cost of Chromebooks had come down considerably so they were able to provide them to 7th and 8th graders as well. So, there was some flexibility within the category of “Classroom Technology”, but they had to keep those funds within that category.
He mentioned that, across the District, there were a lot of people who wanted to get their hands on some of those dollars, but the District didn’t allow it. They had asked taxpayers for those funds for those specific reasons so that was what they spent those dollars on.
Likewise, the $1.5 million that the 2014 referendum had approved for capital project did not go as far now due to inflation, but that was for the District to manage.
Kay said the basis for her question was that the Future Needs Advisory Committee had wanted all students in the district to benefit from referendum dollars, so she wondered if there was a school with greater needs or with a larger population of students with needs would there be a way to direct more resources to those. But she concluded that it sounded as if they said the money would go to reducing class size to that was where it needed to go.
Superintendent Hartjes reiterated that they would be very particular about spending any 2022 referendum dollars on what they said they would be spent on. He added that, if the Board approved going to referendum, the District would spend the time up until the November election educating the community and making sure they were very clear on what the District was asking for and how those dollars would be spent. The District would then stick with that in perpetuity.
Board member Deb Truyman asked if the District could provide more information to the public so they understood that, even though they were asking for $5 million, the new elementary school was not even built yet. She wanted them to understand that the full $5 million wouldn’t be used until (a) the school was built and (b) all the STEM teachers were in place.
Superintendent Hartjes said they could absolutely include that in the presentations they would give. He went on to say that in their presentations they talked about the impact of the referendum essentially costing about $39 a year per $100,000 worth of property. The reality, however, was that as new construction added to the property value across the district, the cost per $100,000 of property would decrease. In their presentations, however, they were using the highest numbers.
Board member Jim Bowman was pleased that they would be able to take these two questions to the community and was looking forward to the conversation around them. He said that they knew they had an overcrowding problem on the northeast side of town. The answer to that was a new elementary school. They believed they could improve the learning environment and culture in the middle schools by moving 6th graders to that level. Society had moved heavily in the direction of technology so they were moving STEM education to earlier grades. They knew they needed to improve their learning in general, so they were reducing class sizes for kindergarten through 2nd grade which he said was based on solid evidence that if you learn to read better and understand math better at an earlier age it was going to help you throughout your entire career. He was looking forward to having a conversation with the community about this.
Board member Kristine Sauter asked if the District was still working with Quarles and Brady on the referendum questions.
Superintendent Hartjes said they were still working with them and there might still be some changes. The final version would come before the Board at the 08/08/2022 meeting in the form of a resolution that would be a very formal, legalized document.
View full meeting details here: http://go.boarddocs.com/wi/aasd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=CF6NCC5F42D7
View full meeting video here: https://youtu.be/DRzuitFdsPA
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