Two Pathways Emerge as Board Reviews Community Feedback
Two pathways were chosen to include in a community survey as the Neenah Joint School District Board of Education reviewed feedback from recent community engagement sessions at its August 27 meeting.
Following a presentation of the community engagement sessions feedback by Matt Wolfert from Bray Architects, Board President Michelle Swardenski asked each Board member to provide their two preferred pathways. Every Board member supported exploring pathway #5 and eight of the nine members listed pathway #2 as one of their preferences.
Pathway #5 would build a new high school on the west side, convert the current high school into a building to serve grades 5-8, convert Horace Mann Middle School into an elementary school and consolidate Washington School into a location for all four-year-old kindergarten classes.
Pathway #2 would renovate Neenah High School, build a new school for grades 7-8 in place of Shattuck Middle School, build a new school for grades 5-6, convert Horace Mann into an elementary school and consolidate Washington School into a location for all four-year-old kindergarten classes.
The pathways are not single referendum questions, but rather long-term plans affecting all grade levels that could be done in different phases over an extended period of time in one or more referendums. The Board will meet again on September 10 with Bill Foster from School Perceptions to begin developing a survey to gauge the community’s interest in each of the pathways.
In Wolfert’s presentation, he stated that the feedback was not intended to provide data, but rather a sense of the community reaction to each pathway. He said items were listed from each feedback session in order of the number of times they were mentioned, but cautioned Board members from getting caught up in the number of mentions since the demographics did not provide a true sample of the community and there is no indication of the number of people at each table who supported or did not support the concept.
Some Board members wondered if research showed that one grade configuration was better for student achievement than others and Wolfert responded that there are examples of high-achieving districts across the state with every different kind of configuration. He also noted that Neenah has been high-achieving and is the only district in Wisconsin with its current grade configuration.
The next meeting to discuss the survey development will be held on September 10 at 6 p.m. at the Administration Building.
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