Antigo School Board President Danny Payette told the Building and Grounds Committee on Monday that several people are interested in serving on a task force that will look at all district buildings and how they fit in long-term district plans.
Payette had called for the creation of such a task force at the Dec. 21 school board meeting, and it has been discussed at the Jan. 8 and Feb. 6 Building and Grounds Committee meetings. On Monday, he had some positive updates on the formation of the panel.
The discussion began with buildings and grounds supervisor Jake Leiterman passing out a floor plan of West Elementary School with detailed information about how the available space in every room is utilized. Leiterman was asked about how easy would it be to remove walls to make spaces bigger.
Leiterman replied that due to not knowing which walls are load bearing, that conversation isn’t as simple as it sounds.
“It wouldn’t be easy to determine whether a wall is removable or not without spending a lot of money,” Leiterman said.
He said for the April meeting he will have the detailed floor plans for the other two elementary schools, although it has already been determined that expansion at North and East isn’t possible because they are landlocked.
Payette said although he has had some discussion with District Administrator Julie Sprague about how the task force would work, not too much has been set in stone yet.
“But what we have discussed is that we want our facilitator, who is going to be facilitating this for us, is that they understand that it is the school that is the lead of this aquatic center, Boys and Girls Club or YMCA, whatever we’re going to do,” Payette said.
He said the task force will look at the elementary schools first, because that is where the space crunch is the most severe.
“It appears, as we have heard in the past, is that the middle school is going to be around for a significant period of time,” Payette said.
He said that things like changing the current grade configurations would be something the task force could recommend.
As for potential members for the task force, Payette said some volunteers have already stepped forward.
“I’ve already had people call asking to be on this (task force), and I’m going to start contacting them and trying to get some meetings together,” Payette said, adding anyone still interested should contact the district office.
The hitch is finding a facilitator who would keep the district’s education concerns a priority.
“Do we want to go through WASB (Wisconsin Association of School Boards)? I suggested WASB from the education standpoint, the school side,” Payette said.
He said any cooperative project to bring a YMCA to Antigo as part of the district’s solution to the facilities study would have to be done with how it solves the districts needs first.
“It is a matter of what are our needs, what are the community’s needs for a facility such as that,” Payette said. “But from our standpoint, we have to look at what are the educational needs for our student achievement. Julie and I are on the same page in regards to that.”
He said with an unknown factor is how the opening of a private school in the former Mattoon Elementary building will affect the district’s enrollment. He said if the district has to go down to two elementary buildings, West would be one of those two.
Sprague asked Payette about the original time line he had passed out for the task force, asking if the dates listed for meetings were still good. He replied those dates will have to be adjusted now, that they were intended to spark discussion.
Sprague said the district is interested in seeing what the task force recommends, “because something has to be done.”
Payette said they must make sure the public is given the cost of bringing any of the buildings up to 2023 educational standards in an itemized form instead of total cost.
