DE PERE — With the City of De Pere continuing to grow and the Pandemic changing how many people learn, the Unified School District of De Pere will unveil a new 10 year plan that will chart the path for growth for the school district.
District Superintendent Christopher Thompson says that they're currently at the beginning of the plan and recently sent out a survey to community members for feedback on a variety of topics.
"What are the communities beliefs, both on the facilities we have, the instructional opportunities that are taking place within the school district, how this community feels about the education that the children are being provided so that we can then better respond," said Thompson.
Thompson says the district has done a large scale plan before, but it's been a while since they've developed a master plan. He says with changes in learning and the city's population, now is a good time to prepare for the future.
"Looking at people moving in, looking at the past trends for the past 10 years, so we're looking at things in terms of how do we plan forward, knowing what's happened before, and also knowing that the south bridge is going to be coming," said Thompson.
At the recent state of De Pere event, Mayor James Boyd said the hope is for the southern bridge to be complete by the end of the decade.
City officials said they expect more housing and commercial development in that area as the bridge reduces commute times to nearby cities and highways.
Thompson says he wants community members to be heavily involved with the planning process.
"What we're trying to figure out is what does the community want in terms of programming? What is it that they believe will make students successful 10 years from now," said Thompson.
Parents and residents can also attend three community conversation events at Foxview Intermediate School on February 16th and 17th 5-9 p.m. and February 18th 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Thompson says the goal is to find what those in the district believe should be the top priorities for the plan.
"Settle it down to maybe five to ten things that they would like us to work towards," said Thompson.
