The Appleton Area School District Board of Education met 02/27/2023. During that meeting they received an update on some of the building projects associated with the referendum that was approved in November of 2022.
They reviewed the preliminary diagrams for the additions to the middle schools and also received an update on the planning going into the new elementary school.
I had hoped to be able to share pictures of the actual diagrams but those were not included with the agenda materials and were not shared via screenshare during the meeting. I did submit a request for copies of those picture but am still waiting to hear back from AASD. I will update this post when I receive copies of those pictures, but until then a written overview will have to suffice. [Update: AASD does not currently have any pictures that can be shared with the public outside of in-person viewings.]
A transcript of the full discussion is available for your downloading pleasure:
One thing that Superintendent Greg Hartjes noted was that the softball diamonds at the middle schools would be impacted by the expansion projects and he raised the possibility of replacing softball with soccer at some point. “Our softball programs are very small and getting smaller. We want to think about replacing softball at some point with soccer. Soccer is a much more popular sport, especially with our student populations. And so, we needed the space for the softball diamonds. […] But we want to look at what are we going to do for sixth grade around athletics? Are we going to have sixth grade athletic teams? Or do we, you know, create a real robust intramural program at the sixth-grade level, to give more options in different sports. But we really, we have to get soccer into our middle schools, just as popular as it is of a sport. And so, probably—you know, we may be two years out maybe three years out, before we can start looking at what we’re going to do around co curriculars in athletics.”
AASD’s Facilities and Operations Director Mark Hansel reviewed the additions to the middle schools.
MADISON MIDDLE SCHOOL – will have two additions to the building. A single-story addition to the north will contain common areas used by the students such as a fitness center, art room, and music area. A two-story addition to the east will primarily contain the new classrooms that will be necessary to house the 6th grade students that will be moving from the elementary level to the middle level.
They also planned to make changes to the parking lot. They hoped to move the parking lot entrance away from the intersection of Carpenter and Calumet streets and further east toward the football field. They were also going to expand the parking lot to the south where the softball diamond was currently located to make room for the additional staff that would come with bringing 6th grade into the middle school.
WILSON MIDDLE SCHOOL – will get an additional gymnasium as well as a two-story addition to provide room for the additional classrooms they would need.
The parking lot would also be updated in an effort to alleviate some of the pressure on the streets around Wilson.
KALEIDOSCOPE MIDDLE SCHOOL – will also be receiving a new gymnasium to help with the scheduling of physical education classes. It would also get a single-story addition to the north toward Erb Park.
Kaleidoscope does not have a lot of land available to work with or room to expand, so as part of its addition the center of the building would be remodeled, including the main office and front entrance.
They did also have space to construct a parking lot on the north side of the building. They hoped this would reduce the number of cars parked throughout the neighborhood by staff throughout the school day. They were still trying to figure out how they should have the traffic flow through the parking lot and were working with the City of Appleton to make sure they did not negatively impact the neighborhood with their traffic flow at the beginning and end of the school day.
EINSTEIN MIDDLE SCHOOL – will be receiving an additional cafeteria. They already received a multipurpose room/gymnasium in the 2014 referendum, so they already had two physical education spaces. An additional cafeteria would free up those existing gym spaces so that they did not need to be used as lunch spaces.
They would also receive a two-story addition on the south of the building to make room for the incoming 6th grade students.
Einstein’s parking lot was already sufficient to handle incoming staff and did not need to be expanded.
NEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – Matt Zimmerman, the Assistant Superintendent At The Elementary Level, briefly updated the Board on the planning process for the new elementary school that will be built on the north side of the city. They had convened a team of people from a number of different departments and had toured two different elementary schools, Friendship Learning Center in Fond Du Lac and Barrett Elementary in Green Bay. One of the things they had liked about both of those schools was that they had a cluster of classrooms around and open space which allowed students to be in those classrooms as well as in the open space while the teachers could have clear sight lines across all of it.
The team had created an idealized version of what they wanted in an elementary school and were working on paring that down to a realistic version that fit within the budget. They had hired Nick Salmon from Collaborative Learning Network to help them figure out ways to meet the needs they had identified while making the most efficient use of the space available to them. Mr. Zimmerman believed that after two more meetings with Mr. Salmon the team would have what they needed in order to move forward with an actual plan.
View meeting video here: https://www.youtube.com/live/OXRuAmIagew
View meeting details here: http://go.boarddocs.com/wi/aasd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=CM4RDW6D0F31
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