The School District of Beloit and its consultants are taking in feedback about their proposed grade reconfiguration from the district’s revitalization task force.
The current proposal would makes the elementary schools 4K through sixth grade and consolidate all seventh and eighth grade students into one junior high school at Aldrich.
The reconfiguration includes new neighborhood school boundaries and would convert Fruzen and McNeel into elementary schools.
The district is considering closing McNeel because the new boundaries leave the school with just 97 students in its area, and the building has upward of $5.9 million of needed repairs.
The administration was originally exploring adding a magnet school for the arts, but the task force raised concerns about the separate school creating an elite program for only a small number of students, and the district is abandoning the idea.
Some community members are also uneasy about consolidating more than 900 junior high school students into one building, but Executive Director of School Leadership and Equity Peggy Muehlenkamp said trying to do two sixth-through-eighth grade middle schools would create inequity between school buildings with different capabilities.
Superintendent Stanley Munro said the reorganization will not cause any layoffs or reduction in staff.
