Meeting held to address repairing aging buildings in Wauwatosa School District

 

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- The last time the Wauwatosa School District built a new building was fifty years ago. Now, they're hoping to do something about those aging facilities.

A meeting was held on Tuesday at Wauwatosa West, the district's youngest facility which was built back in 1967. Since February, a group has been looking at all of the district's buildings to see what needs to be done. This meeting was the first time they opened up the process to the public. 

Lincoln Elementary School in Wauwatosa is the oldest building in the district.

"We have a lot of years left at Wauwatosa schools and we just want to be involved in the planning process," said Kelly Goldmann, a parent.

Goldmann has a kindergartener there and she came to the facilities advisory committee meeting with questions. "Very curious about where the money is going to come from and how that's going to look."

The committee has been studying the districts 14 buildings for 9 months, identifying issues, how to fix them, and which facilities are a priority.

"They have to do with deferred maintenance, heating, and cooling modern learning environments," said Ben la Macchia, Committee Co-Chair.

Each year, the district is using more and more of its emergency maintenance money to repair.

All but two of the schools are without A.C. and much of the district is not handicap accessible. 

It would cost around $350 million to have 14 completely renovated and/or new schools.

"When you look at schools, nobody owns them but the entire community and they have to make decisions on what they want for the next 10-20 years," said Phil Ertle, Superintendent, Wauwatosa School District.

The committee's goal is to give the Wauwatosa School Board a master plan by June of 2018 with a goal of carrying it out over the next 10-20 years.