District voters faced with referendum authorizing South Park closing, new school construction

This April, Oshkosh voters will be faced with a ballot referendum to grant the area school district $197 million for various facility improvements and school consolidation projects. The referendum, which was approved by the school board in January, underwent last-minute revisions due to zoning restrictions affecting South Park Middle School. 

Under the original plan, South Park would have been expanded to accommodate students from Perry Tipler Middle School, which would be converted to house the Recreation Department and alternative programs. However, administrators were forced to pivot when they were made aware of a 2023 zoning policy prohibiting the expansion of South Park because of its location in an approach/departure zone around Wittman Regional Airport. 

The district chose to move the consolidated middle school to a new site instead of pushing for an amendment to the zoning regulations, according to Superintendent Dr. Bryan Davis. 

“Student safety is our number one priority, and to stay on that site knowing that it’s in this restricted zoning area, we didn’t think that was in the best interest of students and staff to be able to stay there,” he said.

Now, the district plans to close South Park, construct a new middle school on the site of Jacob Shapiro Elementary, which will be demolished, and move the Recreation Department and a new pre-K center—previously intended for location at Shapiro—to Tipler. 

While the Shapiro site was chosen because of its accessibility to students and families on Oshkosh’s south and east sides, Beth Wyman, president of the OASD Board of Education, observes that the new site offers other benefits.

“The good news is that the site for the school is larger than the South Park site. That allowed the district to pivot quickly to a new site option,” she said. “The Shapiro site also does not have the traffic concerns that South Park Avenue does.”

Months before the referendum revisions were made, the district was informed by a community member that the consolidation plan then under consideration could violate local zoning policy, but Dr. Davis reaffirms that the district overlooked the restriction because it exists only in county codes.

“We checked with the city developer related to what the codes were, and basically we heard that there weren't any code violations that would occur, and so we continued to move forward in September,” he said. “Then that community member reached out again, specifically around the airport coding zoning, and that’s when we got together with the county and said, ‘Hold on, there is an issue here.’”

The school consolidations proposed in the referendum come in response to declining enrollment across the district, Dr. Davis explained.

“We’re down about a thousand students across the district over the last five years, and our enrollment projections are to stay at about 9,000 students from the district standpoint,” he said. “So when you look at the number of buildings that we have compared to the number of students that we’re serving, we feel like it’s in our best interest to be able to be more efficient with resources.”

According to Davis, a substantial part of the funding will also be used to make renovations on existing buildings, which will include installing air conditioning at several schools and building an auditorium at North High School.

“I think modernizing the other consolidated schools is really going to provide some great opportunities for kids,” he said. 

Alayna Palubiak, a senior at West and a former South Park student, recalled struggling from the middle school’s lack of air conditioning.

“During the spring it would get really hot,” she said. “When I went there, there was this art area underneath and that was really hot whenever we went and did art there. It was just unbearable and hard.”

Although the proposed projects will require substantial funding, city residents will see no increases to their taxes if the referendum is approved. This is because the district prepaid for the projects when it borrowed for Phase 1 of its facilities consolidation in 2020. In addition, the district has saved money by issuing shorter-term notes to fund the projects, avoiding the more extensive interest payments it would need to make on traditional bonds, and it has qualified for additional state aid through its borrowing, which lessens its reliance on local taxes. Wyman believes fiscal responsibility is a priority for the district. 

“The last thing we want to do is put an unnecessary tax burden on our citizens,” she said. “Taxpayers will continue to pay for taxes related to past referendums but the levy will be held even.”

According to Davis, building a new middle school at the Shapiro site will make the consolidation more affordable than expanding South Park was projected to be.

“It’s down about $800,000 from what our previous plan was,” he said.

The district now plans to sell South Park and several lots it purchased to make a green space next to the school to help address Oshkosh’s housing shortage, though Wyman suggests that the exact fate of the site is uncertain.

“I’m not sure that the lots will be sold to real estate developers,” she said. “It is more likely they will be sold to individuals who would like to build a personal house. At this time, there are no plans to demolish South Park School.”

To prepare the community for the vote on the referendum, the district will be organizing various educational outreach measures. Davis notes that, in addition to presentations at schools and informal question and answer sessions at local businesses, the district will be creating a video series and taking feedback online to promote accessibility.

“If you couldn’t make it for example, then you’d be able to watch the video and see all the information that’s at the informational session,” he said. “Then we’re also going to put together some shorter videos, so probably about two minutes on each one of the topics that we cover.”

Palubiak believes that the district has done little so far to keep the community, and especially students, informed about its facilities consolidation plans. She said that she had a mixed reaction to learning about the district’s intention to close South Park.

“It made me shocked and sad, but also I was kind of expecting it because the school is so old and I know what the district is like and that they keep demolishing schools,” she said.

As the district prepares to make updates to its schools and plans for the next phases of its facilities consolidation, it is taking extra precautions to guarantee derailments like those resulting from the airport zoning limitations are avoided, Davis outlined.

“We put in some safeguards for us. One is we would have our zoning either give zoning letters or zoning postings in the paper that’s going to go to our operations team,” he said. “We’re also proactively going to make sure that our director of facilities reaches out twice a year to the county and the city to see if there’s any new zoning codes that were adapted.”

by Aria Boehler

Published February 3rd, 2025

Oshkosh West Index Volume 121 Issue IV