Special meeting set for Feb. 12
By Angie Landsverk
Two topics will be on the agenda when the Weyauwega-Fremont School Board holds a special meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 12, in the middle school library.
One topic will be the district’s plan to move its Early Childhood and 4K programs from Fremont Elementary to Weyauwega Elementary, beginning with the 2018-19 school year.
The other will be its plan to create a new entry at Fremont Elementary by remodeling the school’s kindergarten classroom instead of building an addition along James Street.
The topics are related.
Moving the Early Childhood and 4K programs to Weyauwega Elementary would open up two Fremont Elementary classrooms.
Under the latest plan, kindergarten would move into one of the Fremont classrooms and music into the other one.
A $339,432 project at Fremont’s school was part of the referendum voters in the district approved in November 2016.
They voted to spend up to $21 million on a building and improvement program in the district.
A $20.6 million project at the high school was also part of the referendum.
That project, currently underway, includes additions and remodeling.
The project at Fremont Elementary is scheduled to take place this summer.
District Administrator Scott Bleck shared what the Fremont project will now look like during the school board’s Jan. 29 Committee of the Whole meeting.
Fremont project
“The desire during the referendum was to create a safe, secure entry for Fremont Elementary,” he said.
Some say the new plan does not look like what was communicated during the referendum process, he said.
Bleck says the latest plan includes all the elements of the original one.
In addition to a new entry, the plan includes a reception area, principal’s office, nurse’s office, conference room and work space.
The school’s office area is currently in the middle of the building.
Bleck said that area could then be used for small work spaces for staff and students, as well as for storage and IT space.
In 2016, the district held public information meetings about the proposed improvements at the high school and Fremont Elementary.
Moving Early Childhood and 4K from Fremont to Weyauwega was not part of that discussion.
Bleck said some are trying to make a correlation between what was asked in the referendum question and the plan to now move those programs.
He said there is not one.
What was noted during presentations about the referendum, prior to the vote, was the plan to relocate vocal music from the middle school to space in the high school, near the band room and new auditorium.
The plan to move Early Childhood and 4K to Weyauwega is a result of the relocation of that classroom.
“Because of reidentifying space within the district after the referendum, we’re able to accommodate Early Childhood and 4K on the Weyauwega campus,” Bleck said.
Bleck and Elementary Principal Doug Nowak presented that plan to the board last November.
After the vocal music room for middle and high school students moves to the high school, Weyauwega Elementary’s music room will move into that space in the middle school.
That move would open up Weyauwega Elementary’s music room.
In November, Nowak said a second-grade classroom in the elementary school’s A-wing would move into that music room.
Moving the second-grade classroom would open up space there for Early Childhood and 4K.
However, the current discussion is to move Early Childhood and 4K to the primary classroom area.
After last week’s committee meeting, Nowak provided a tour of Weyauwega Elementary for those in attendance.
About 12 residents from the Fremont area attended the meeting.
Nowak said the kindergarten teachers have now offered to move their rooms elsewhere in the primary area so Early Childhood and 4K may be in that same area in Weyauwega.
Special meeting
District residents will have the opportunity to learn more about the planned move and change to project in Fremont during the special Feb. 12 board meeting.
“Community members are welcome to come. We can listen. We can respond. We can give our thoughts,” Board President Doug Ehrenberg said.
His comments were in regard to the plan to move 4K and Early Childhood from Fremont to Weyauwega.
Ehrenberg said that will be an action item when the board holds its regular monthly meeting later this month.
That meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 26, at Fremont Elementary.
It will likely take place in the school’s gym.
Each February, the school board holds its meeting in Fremont.