Pulaski School District seeks $59.8M referendum

The Pulaski Community School District is asking for voters’ approval for a $59.8 million capital referendum four years after getting approval for a $69.8 million referendum that expanded and modernized schools.

Unlike the previous referendum, which had heavy emphasis on two elementary schools while providing some renovations at all of the schools, this referendum will specifically focus on Pulaski High School, Pulaski Community Middle School and Lannoye Elementary School. These are projects that were designated lower priority in 2021 when a needs assessment was done but are now becoming top priorities as the district continues to grow.

If the referendum gets approval, the district’s tax rate is expected to go up 18 cents per $1,000 of equalized valuation. For someone with property valued at $300,000, that would mean a $54 increase in school taxes.

Superintendent Allison Space said that, once the previous referendum work was completed in 2024, the district and school board spent 2025 looking at the projects that didn’t have top priority and see what needed to be done in the near future to keep the schools in good working order.

“This was not a new plan that came forth,” Space said. “It was a continuation of the projects that were not prioritized in 2021.”

After several listening sessions in 2025 and a community survey sent out this past spring, several projects rose to the top, according to Space. According the survey, 46% of the respondents were in favor of a referendum up to $60 million.

High school and middle school career and technical education programs are being focused on for the proposed referendum — specifically engineering, agriculture, business and information technology, as well as family and consumer sciences. The latter program focuses on culinary arts, health careers and child development.

“Those are the areas that are extremely needed in today’s age of education,” Space said.

The referendum would update equipment and technology, as well as create specific spaces for specific classes instead of lab areas doubling as classrooms. The schools would be able to rearrange spaces so some students don’t have to travel far between classrooms and labs.

The high school’s agriculture classes currently have 348 students enrolled with two full-time teachers handling the load, so building space for programs like small animal husbandry and veterinary services is needed, according to Lindsey Mathys, PHS principal. The school recently had to add a teacher for business and technology courses because of the high demand there, too.

“Something that we’re pretty proud of … 73% are taking advantage of (career and technical education) courses, compared with 37% for the state,” Mathys said. “This is something that kids really love and value, and we think it’s valuable for the community.”

Pat Fullerton, PCMS principal, said the enrollment in career and technical programs has doubled at his school since 2012, which had previously been the high school until a new one was built in 2000.

“With the facility we had in 1999, it was wonderful, because it was the high school,” Fullerton said. “Obviously times have changed.”

One big ticket item is a new pool setup to be constructed at PHS. The current pool at PCMS is more than 50 years old and near the end of its life. The proposal would construct two pools, one to serve the school specifically and be a competitive pool for swim teams, while the other pool would serve as a therapy pool to be utilized by the community.

The district had tried asking for a new pool in a 2014 referendum, which was defeated. However, according to Space, the survey put the pool as a top priority for staff at 88% and second in priority to the CTE programs by parents and the community at 75% and 53%, respectively.

“If the pool goes, we don’t when, but if it goes, it goes. There’s no repair on it,” Space said. “We did investigate that, and we thought that, ‘If our pool goes, and we had to work with school districts for our swim team, what would that look like?””

The PCMS pool is expected to be eliminated and turned into a multipurpose area for middle school athletic and physical education programs.

Lannoye, located near Green Bay, is experiencing what its sister elementary schools, Sunnyside and Hillcrest, did four years ago — a lack of space for classrooms as student enrollment exceeds what the school was originally built for.

To that end, an addition would be built onto the school with classrooms for 4-year-old and 5-year-old kindergarten, allowing the existing classrooms to serve first through fifth grades, with three classes for each grade instead of the current two. Daycare facilities are also slated for the site, as Space noted a nearby parochial school that had daycare and 4-year-old kindergarten discontinued those programs, so that fell to Lannoye to fill the void.

“The building is very well-loved, being clean and organized, but it is under stress in terms of space,” said Clint Selle, consultant with Bray Architects, which oversaw projects under the 2022 referendum. “The library space, for example, has been chopped up a little bit to create classroom space as growth has occurred.”

The survey put the Lannoye expansion at 79% favorability from staff, 67% from parents and 51% from the rest of the community.

There are also projects to improve PHS athletic facilities, including wrestling areas, weights and fitness area, locker rooms and a multipurpose area.

“We have a fitness center that’s on the second level of (PHS), which is complicated in terms of safety and is not the size it should be,” Space said. “Our wrestling areas also needed a relook at, because we do not have an area specifically for our girls. We’ve been using a space on the upstairs of the building, a learning space for our girls to do their wrestling practice, and we’re going to run into some Title IX issues around that.”

Design work has not yet been done on any of the projects and will only proceed if the referendum passes.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com