Gresham moving toward new high school

Eight years after breaking away from the Shawano School District, Gresham school officials are contemplating a $6 million building program to modernize the district’s facilities.

Voters could be asked in April to approve building a new high school and replacing the old high school with new administrative headquarters.

The estimated $6 million initiative also would pay for upgrading other school facilities, in what officials describe as a logical next step in the community’s move to separate from Shawano and give Gresham its own school district.

Officials calculate that the building program being discussed would cost the owner of a typical $100,000 home no more than about $65 a year in property taxes.

Holly Burr, the school district’s finance and operations director, said members of the community understood future modernization needs when they decided in 2007 to secede from Shawano and create a new district around a high school that is now 80 years old.

“We knew what we were getting into,” she said.

Burr is a member of an ad hoc committee that the Gresham School Board created to study facility needs and develop a proposal for future improvements.

By next month, the group plans to present school board members with a formal proposal to seek voter approval in April for borrowing about $6 million and breaking ground on a new high school by summer. The high school could be ready for its first students by fall 2017.

Jeff Hoffman, the board’s vice president and chairman of the ad hoc committee, said it would be “foolish” for the district to continue spending money on the existing high school, which was erected in 1935.

Hoffman, however, said he also understands the difficulty in persuading taxpayers to increase their investment in public facilities.

“We’re not going to convince everybody,” he said. “People are concerned about their taxes, and I can understand that.”

Just last month, voters in the Shawano School District agreed by nearly a 2-to-1 margin to borrow $9.25 million for upgrading that district’s 60-year-old middle school.

Gresham taxpayers were once part of what was called the Shawano-Gresham School District. But voters approved a referendum of secession in 2007 after district administrators talked about closing Gresham High School as a cost-cutting move.

With about 90 students, Gresham High School is located in the oldest portion of a building complex that has been expanded many times, most recently in 1996. The property at 501 Schabow St. also serves elementary and middle school students, with a total enrollment of about 320.

Consultants earlier this year issued a report examining the property’s renovation needs and recommended that officials instead consider building new.

The ad hoc committee created by board members has been meeting since September. In addition to Burr and Hoffman, the group includes five community representatives selected by the school board.

Dan Boucher, a business owner and former board member selected for the group, said committee members are united in their support for replacing the old high school. Boucher said he believes most people around town will agree, too, that the 80-year-old structure is antiquated.

“It is failing,” he said. “I guess that’s the best way to put it: It’s got a failing grade.”

The multi-faceted plan under consideration by the group includes building a new high school on school district land adjacent to 501 Schabow St.; demolishing the old high school while leaving other portions of the complex intact; replacing the old high school with new administrative offices; equipping older sections of the complex with new roofs and windows.

Unlike the current high school standing three stories tall, the group favors building a new high school and new administrative headquarters that are both just one story. The high school would be about 16,000 square feet and the administrative offices about 6,000 square feet.

Burr said board members in January will be asked to set the April referendum date and to select a team of architects and engineers to design the building plans.

The ad hoc committee meets again at 7 p.m. Thursday at the school to continue its deliberations.

Burr said the public is invited to attend and to offer input on other possible building preferences, such as whether to include a new gymnasium or multi-purpose room in the new high school.

Noting that the district has progressed far since its breakup with Shawano schools, Burr said the building program is a significant step in the community’s evolution.

“This is the second biggest decision we’ve made in 10 years,” she said. “It’s very exciting.”