West Salem, WI (WXOW)-- The West Salem School District is working to plan ahead in anticipation of exceeding capacity at their elementary and middle schools.
A long range facilities committee, made up of community members and district residents, looked at the situation and came up with a proposal.
Right now, West Salem has one high school, one middle school and one elementary school. The suggestion of the committee is to build a fourth building on the property the district already owns.
The new building will be a middle school, and the current middle school will be used for 4th and 5th graders. Those students are currently at the elementary school.
The superintendent says the existing elementary school is set to be paid off in 2014, so the district will be able to finance the addition without increasing their debt payments.
"We would restructure to keep that the same. So in my vision of this, when we vote, we would be talking about whether or not you wanna build it and the tax impact won't be noticeable," said Superintendent Troy Gunderson.
Gunderson says they wanted to get a jump start on the project so they are not rushed to make a decision. He says it will be maybe two years before they finalize the plans. And of course any decision has to first be approved by the community on a ballot referendum.
The next step in this process, Gunderson says, is to put the committee's proposal on the school board agenda for approval.
