RACINE — A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in April 2022 allowed the Racine Unified School District to move forward with its 30-year, $1 billion referendum, which passed by five votes in April 2020.
The referendum is part of the school district’s long-term plans that will be enacted this decade.
Because of declining enrollment, RUSD officials plan to “right-size” the school district by turning five buildings into K-8 schools and closing five elementary schools over the next four years. District officials believe more K-8 schools will provide additional options for parents, decrease crowding at the middle school level and keep students in the district. By no longer having students change schools after they finish fifth grade, the school district hopes it will see fewer students transfer out of the district before they become teenagers.
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The original long-term plans involved demolishing nine schools and building five new ones, but they changed because of the two-year delay to the referendum caused by the legal challenge.
The updated long-term plans are “responsive to the money that we have and to the enrollment that we have,” Peter Reynolds, RUSD chief operating officer, said in November. “Racine is now facing a different set of enrollment and economic circumstances than we were in 2019-20.”
Changing circumstances include Foxconn not bringing nearly as many families to the area as initially promised, local birth rates declining and supply chain issues exacerbated by a worldwide pandemic.
Inflation has also impacted the school district’s plans. In November, officials from CG Schmidt, which reviewed enrollment and financial projections with RUSD, said construction costs have increased nearly 30% since April 2020.
Racine Unified’s enrollment fell from 20,809 students in 2011-12 to 16,383 in the 2022-23 school year, a 21.3% decrease. That trend is expected to continue. According to RUSD projections, in 2032-33, the school district will serve 12,483 students, a 23.8% decline from 2022-23.
To deal with declining enrollment, by 2026, RUSD plans to have nine K-8 schools, five elementary schools and no middle schools, according to its new long-term plans. The district currently has four K-8 schools, 13 elementary schools and one middle school.
All RUSD schools will be impacted to some degree by the long-term plans.
The schools that will expand to serve students in kindergarten through eighth grade are Goodland Montessori, Olympia Brown, Red Apple, Schulte and Starbuck. Four of those buildings are currently elementary schools, and Starbuck is a middle school.
Most of those expansions were in the original long-term plans, but expanding Olympia Brown and Red Apple is new. By expanding Olympia Brown and Schulte, which are respectively located on the northeast and southwest portions of the district’s boundaries, RUSD hopes to attract more students.
If the RUSD board approves the projects as planned, long-term work will be done in four groups over the next six years. Most projects are scheduled to be completed between August 2024 and August 2026.
Some projects are already moving forward. During its Dec. 19 meeting, the RUSD board approved financing for Olympia Brown, Red Apple and Schulte schools; hiring construction managers for Jerstad-Agerholm and Starbuck schools; and hiring architectural and engineering managers for Red Apple and Schulte schools.
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