Oshkosh school board votes to place $197.8 million facilities referendum on April ballot after airport-zoning review

The Oshkosh Area School District board voted Jan. 8 to place a referendum asking voters to authorize up to $197,800,000 in general obligation bonds on the April ballot, after administrators last month identified county airport zoning that would limit building at the district's planned South Park middle‑school site.

Superintendent Doctor Davis told the board the discovery — a Winnebago County update to Whitman Regional Airport zoning adopted in 2023 — made the South Park site unsafe for a new school expansion under the county code and prompted a rapid redesign of the facilities plan. “We do not have a copy of that zoning letter, and that is on us,” Doctor Davis said, acknowledging a breakdown in the district’s internal notice procedures and outlining steps the district will take to avoid a repeat.

The revised plan keeps the overall scope of phase 2 consolidation and upgrades the board has promoted — including a new west‑side middle school, additional elementary capacity and a centralized 4K site — but moves the new middle school to the Shapiro campus, relocates the planned 4K center into Perry Tipler Middle School, and proposes selling the South Park campus and five adjacent lots for residential redevelopment. The board approved the initial bond resolution that will allow the question to appear on the April ballot; the board also discussed schedule risks and cost impacts of delaying the vote.

Why this matters: the recommended adjustments aim to preserve the district’s consolidation savings and the administration’s stated goal of no increase in the district’s tax levy for debt service, while responding to a county zoning restriction administrators say prevents placing a new school in the South Park approach/​departure zone. Davis told the board that waiting a year to pursue the original South Park plan would increase construction costs: the administration…