A community survey to gauge interest and determine priorities for a potential referendum was reviewed by the Neenah Joint School District Board of Education at its September 5 meeting.
The meeting was the eighth in a series of meetings since February to establish the future plan for the District’s facilities. Bill Foster from School Perceptions presented a draft of the survey and collected feedback from the Board. In the end, Board members felt comfortable with moving forward with the survey draft, including several suggested changes. The survey will be mailed to all District households in late September with an October 22 deadline for response.
The survey will ask basic demographic information and then measure interest in the Board’s priorities of safety improvements and replacement of Shattuck Middle School for a total of $89.3 million. The survey also will evaluate support of the construction of a new middle school for grades 5-6 to provide needed space at the elementary level and improve staff collaboration and resources for those grade levels. Cost of the project is estimated at $56 million.
The next portion of the survey will ask respondents to prioritize individual projects at the elementary and high school levels. The current draft of the survey does not include descriptions and prices for the projects as Foster wanted to make sure the Board approved the format of the survey before filling in the details. The final survey section will seek to determine voters’ tax tolerance. Seven potential ceilings were provided as options ranging from $90 million to $330 million. The Board revised the amounts in the middle, but decided to keep the minimum and maximum levels.
When the survey discussion was complete, Bray Architects President Matt Wolfert presented an update to the master plans that had been previously presented. Due to rising construction prices, many of the costs have risen since the original presentation in February. Wolfert cautioned that the prices will continue to rise about 4 percent each year. Three options were presented for Shattuck, ranging from a heavy renovation to new construction. An extensive demolition and addition that basically keeps the auditorium and adds a new building around it was also presented.
A future meeting date has not been set. The next meeting will likely be held after the survey results have been compiled.
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