Some Thoughts About Prospect Hill School
A recent NOW newspaper headline states Prospect Hill Elementary may be razed. The reason cited: fixing the deteriorating building was just too costly, according to officials. “Leaks in the roof, the need to get asbestos out of the building and other issues have put rehabilitation in the five-to-six figure range, Superintendent Paul Kreutzer said."
That Jan. 28 news article also reports that on Monday (January 25), School Board members directed Dr. Kreutzer to seek bids for the demolition of the Prospect Hill Elementary building. Also, on Monday, the School Board terminated the District’s lease agreement with Living Word Church as of April 30. That church had been renting space in the building for years—even before the building’s closure as a public school. Dr. Kreutzer indicated that because of the leaks and abatement issues, the building should not be occupied at this time.
Prospect Hill Elementary was once a district asset but has been allowed to deteriorate to the extent that it is now unfit for human occupancy? The school’s roof has had a problem with leakage for many years, including while NBPS students were attending the school. The district has been trying to sell Prospect Hill since it closed, without success. And now the building is in such a sorry state that leasing it to raise revenue, no longer appears to be a district option?
Sheesh.
Do you remember that in 2000, New Berlin School Board members John Burke, Matt Thomas and candidate Michael Gratz helped torpedo the $39 million referendum the school district had on the ballot that was meant to address the facility needs of all its schools? That trio publicly declared the referendum was unnecessary because they had a “plan” to take care of the district’s facility needs within the budget and through creation of an educational foundation.
What a joke.
About a year later, after being unable to come up with sufficient funds, the School Board approved a referendum to build the new Elmwood School. The educational foundation was created and helps fund stuff like smart boards for classrooms-- not expensive facility repair and renovation.
The District took on mega-millions in long-term debt to pour money into New Berlin West’s renovation (including building a spiffy field house) and to build the mammoth Reagan Elementary School. New Berlin Center Elementary was razed and land adjacent to it was purchased by the school district for the Reagan School. NBPS sold off some of its assets. It sold the old Elmwood property to a developer. Calhoun Elementary was sold to World Harvest Church.
At a 2007 School Board meeting, Superintendent Kreutzer presented a list of “dire” facility needs requiring immediate attention, including unsafe conditions at Orchard Lane that had not been budgeted for.
Dr. Kreutzer has also spoken of Eisenhower School needing over $40 million in upgrades.
We learned a few months ago that Eisenhower had been limping along with 40- year old boilers described as an "acute" need, the boilers cost too much to keep fixing and needed replacing now.
NBPS is finally doing something about New Berlin West’s failing treatment plant. NOW reported that the district was under pressure. It had been operating with an expired pollution discharge permit. The District superintendent has actively pursued getting West hooked up to City sewer as a lower cost alternative to building/maintaining a treatment plant. Of course, District officials knew many, many years ago the treatment plant wouldn’t last forever and something would need to be done about it.
What kind of landlord was NBPS that it leased Prospect Hill Elementary, a school it opted to close and one with a leaky roof, asbestos abatement issues and other costly repair needs, to a church all these years?
And don’t forget the Wisconsin Air Academy debacle. Jeff Starke reportedly tried to buy Prospect Hill Elementary for a private military school that he planned to run as a co-ed boarding school. According to Journal Sentinel news reports, his efforts to buy the school were unsuccessful and he entered into a lease agreement. The school opened for a few months, then closed. Evidently, Wisconsin Air Academy couldn’t afford the upgrades necessary to pass the city’s fire code/obtain the required occupancy permit. There have been additional related news articles.