Oshkosh board hears phase 2 referendum update; West Side school closures and boundary plan laid out

Oshkosh Area School District administrators on June 11 told the Board of Education that phase 2 of the district’s referendum projects is advancing and that families on the city’s West Side will begin receiving placement letters next year as a multi-year boundary plan unfolds.

The update, presented by district administrator Katie Conrad Peters, said Traeger Elementary is moving toward a September 2025 bid for construction and that the district has retained MSA Professionals to redesign HVAC systems at several schools rather than installing window units. Conrad Peters said the district has posted monthly progress reports and an infographic on the district website with tiles linking to project pages for the new middle school, elementary expansions, a pre-kindergarten center, the North High School auditorium and air-conditioning projects.

Conrad Peters told the board that a West Side boundary timeline on the website lays out the calendar for closures and openings between 2026 and 2029. The timeline says Shapiro will close at the end of the 2025–26 school year, with personal placement letters sent to Shapiro families in mid‑March 2026. Roosevelt is planned to close in June 2027 and will be used temporarily to host some 4K classrooms while other remodel work continues. South Park and Perry (Tipler) are scheduled to close in June 2028, with a new Westside Middle School opening in fall 2028. The pre‑K center and recreation department facility are scheduled to open in fall 2029.

Why it matters: the timeline will change which buildings students attend and affects transportation, classroom space and where 4K programs and temporary classrooms will be located during construction and consolidation. Board members asked for easily downloadable PDFs and clearer public access to the materials; Conrad Peters said the infographic is printable as a PDF from the district site and that articles and monthly reports would be posted there.

Board members pressed for clarity about where 4K classrooms currently housed at Shapiro will be placed. Conrad Peters said most 4K classes will move to the Traeger addition; for 1 year a majority of those 4K students will be at Roosevelt as a temporary “landing spot” before full consolidation. She also said principals and staff will meet over the summer and that the district is collecting staff feedback as it refines plans for Franklin and Oakwood renovations and for students who will move from Roosevelt and Shapiro into expanded schools.

District officials discussed contingency planning for inflation, tariffs and supply‑chain risk. Conrad Peters told the board the district had built contingencies into estimates and that, as of June, vendor signals suggested the air‑conditioning projects were not experiencing the worst-case supply issues. A board member asked whether the district had built an explicit contingency percentage into budgeting; a district official said they were tracking closely and had roughly a 5% contingency reflected in projections.

The board and staff agreed to continue publishing monthly updates and to make boundary and project documents easier for families to access. Administrators said more specific boundary plans will come to the board for review beginning in January 2026 and that families would receive personalized placement notices in mid‑March of the relevant years.

Ending: The district will post the phase 2 project pages and boundary timeline on its website; staff said they will return with more detailed planning documents and boundary proposals for board consideration in the winter and spring of 2026.