GREEN BAY (NBC26) — The Green Bay Area Public School District has released renderings of what the newest elementary school to be built on the city's west side will look like.
- Take a look at the inside and outside of Green Bay's newest elementary school
- The new school will be built on the current John F. Kennedy elementary school property
- Green Bay Area Public School District officials say it will be ready to receive students by the 2026-2027 school year
- A name for the new school will be announced next month
- The school is planned to be one floor to be accessible for all students
- The district says this new school was made possible by the 2024 referendum
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
We've shown you what Green Bay's new elementary school might look like from the outside. I'm Pari Apostolakos and Tuesday night the district showed how some small decisions are being made to make this school sustainable and accessible. At MacArthur Elementary School Tuesday the Green Bay Area Public School District, along with Somerville Architects and Engineers showed community members their plans for the newest elementary school.
"[It's] a great snapshot of what this facility is going to look like, and get a feel [from] the exterior and the interior," Cale Pulczinski, Green Bay Area Public School District Chief Operating Officer said before Tuesday's meeting.
As we've previously reported, the new school will be built on the current John F. Kennedy Elementary School property and will combine student populations from Kennedy, Keller and MacArthur elementary schools.
With geo-thermal heating and cooling technology, literally using the earth's heat to regulate the building's temperature, and solar panels planned for the roof, the building design has sustainability in mind.
"[We're] looking at a terrazzo floor that is certainly going to last the life of the building, we also have walls that are lined to four feet with a burnished block, so a durable product, right," Melanie Parma, Somerville Architects & Engineers Senior Vice President & Education Studio Leader, said. "So, if kiddos are walking down the hall with their backpack, we're not scraping walls that need to be repainted."
The district says community input made them design a space with lots of natural light and an emphasis on safety, with the windows bringing in that natural light being made of laminated safety glass and the layout of the building making it easier to section off classrooms with security doors in case of an intruder situation.
"We're just making it more difficult to access the building, and access different spaces within the building. Giving staff and students opportunities to react to different scenarios and just creating a safest building as possible," Pulczinksi said.
At Tuesday's presentation the district said they are still looking for community input on things like playground equipment and furniture for the school.
