MUKWONAGO, Wis. — The Mukwonago Area School District is making another appeal to voters to fund improvements to its middle school.

This is the second time the Mukwonago Area School District is turning to a referendum for help this calendar year. Back in April, voters rejected a $102.3 million facilities referendum to build a completely new middle school.

April’s referendum would also have created space for 4-year-old kindergarten programs and reconfigured one of its school’s parking lots.

Superintendent Joe Koch said after this failed, school leaders took feedback from the community to heart.

“We were told that the project was too expensive, there was too much of a tax impact and that we should pay off our high school debt first,” Koch said. “Several of our communities went through a reassessment of the property value and some people were concerned about the impact of that reassessment.”

There have been several changes to the current proposal compared to the one that did not pass in April.

Instead of building a brand-new middle school, the district will renovate parts of the current campus and add a 210,000 square foot building next to it.

Koch said the scaled-back, $89.1 million facilities referendum is cheaper for taxpayers while still supporting the district's needs.

“What we are proposing is bringing the 6th graders to the middle school,” Koch said. “We have a 6th, 7th and 8th grade building and then that would free up space at our [elementary schools]. That would have a domino effect across our district by giving our [elementary schools] two to three more vacant classrooms that can accommodate growth.”

Park View Middle School opened in the 1950s. Classrooms on the older side of campus have water pipes that run through them and have HVAC systems that stick out.

Principal Luke Spielman said as the student population grows, this creates a problem.

“We expect our students to be able to collaborate, get up and move around, work in groups. And right now, with our current classroom set-up, that can become very difficult, because there is not a lot of space between desks for students to be able to move or the teacher to be able to move around the classroom,” Spielman said.

Outdated infrastructure also impacts STEM classes and electives such as band.

“The noise just reflects off of the ceiling and off of the walls,” Spielman said. “In a newer space — if you were to visit other schools — what you would find is that higher ceilings, a floor that would absorb some of that noise, you would find sound panels on the walls just to dampen the noise in a classroom.”

Spielman said it’s important to offer more courses like one in robotics, but the current building provides challenges to making that happen.

“A new facility in this classroom to allow students to build on a daily basis, but also to store what they built so that they continue to build on it, day in and day out,” Spielman said.

For Spielman, it’s about letting students explore their interests and learn while they are young and still exploring what their futures could hold.

He believes this referendum can help accomplish that.

For more on the Mukwonago Area School District referendum, click here.

According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, there are 120 school districts across the state that are pursuing referendums in November. Researchers said this is the largest number of school districts going this route in recent history.

“These are the two biggest factors: Inflation and the lack of stimulus that we think are motivating districts,” said Ari Brown, a Wisconsin Policy Forum research associate. “Part of that is motivated by a major election year.”

Wisconsin Policy Forum said more than 50% of these referendums pass every year.