"Envisioning the Future of GIPS" - Mr. Fisher Shares State of the City Address

"What will our schools look like 10, 20, even 50 years from now?"

Matt Fisher, GIPS Superintendent, addresses that question to a room full of community leaders at the 10th Annual Grand Island State of the City event.  The State of the City was held on Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 and hosted by the Grand Island Area Economic Development Corporation and Chamber of Commerce and the Grand Island Young Professionals group. 

Highlights from Mr. Fisher's message cover:
 

• Future Elementary School needs.
• Middle School capacity and the Westridge expansion.
• Is Grand Island ready for a second high school?
   

Catch Mr. Fisher's full message at the video and transcript linked below. 

#WeAreGIPS 

TRANSCRIPT: 

Matt Fisher  00:00

It's always exciting, as Jack mentioned, to see young people coming back. And Angelica happened to be one of those students that I had when I was at Northwest and I see several other students that had the chance to work with over over time that are now young people in our community that are making a difference. So we we're certainly excited to see that happen.

 

Matt Fisher  00:19

So we've had a lot of discussion about time traveling and and things that have happened and things that are happening, and how that's going to impact our community. And certainly, one of the things that in the school business, we have to be doing is thinking about how is that going to impact education in the community, and so our board actually has been doing a lot of work around what does the future of schools in Grand Island look like, and really have been trying to seek public input about where are we going and what are we going to be doing is as all of those exciting things are happening in Grand Island, one of the things that is also going to happen in conjunction with all of those exciting things is population growth. That's something that the city and the economic development corporation did a study, and this is what that study says growth in Grand Island could look like over the course of the next 25 years.

 

Matt Fisher  01:33

You look down the left hand side, that's 1940 and you work your way up to where the two lines split, that's today, about 53,000 people in Grand Island. And then you look at the line continuing on the blue line, that's that's what the low side of growth would look like. And that's about 7000 people in the next 25 years. And then you look at that green line, that's what possible growth could be. And when you start thinking about the good life district, and what's going on with Prairie Commons and all of those other things that are happening in our community that draw people, it's, you know, it's not inconceivable that that growth of 20,000 which is the green line, could happen. The reality is, it's probably going to end up somewhere between that, between the 7000 growth and 20,000 growth in the next 25 years. Well, what does that mean for us as a school district, and that's really something our board has really been trying to dig into and think about, is, what does that mean.

 

Matt Fisher  02:40

So when we break it down and we look at it and we think about it in terms of our different parts of our schools, we think about, what is that going to mean for our preschools? And that's what this this chart shows is, is you look across there, that left hand side, that's that's where we're at right now, that next column over is that's what 7000 population growth in Grand Island would do for each of our different school levels. And then you look at the next column, and that's 20,000 growth in Grand Island, and what does that mean for our different schools? And then finally, that last column is just if we ended up somewhere in between, what does that look like? And so as you look at those numbers, you know, you're going to see that there's some places that there's, there's quite a few new students coming into our district.

 

Matt Fisher  03:34

If you take a look at the you know, just the 7000 growth column there, and you look at the elementary schools, and we have a growth of over 500 students in our elementary buildings, well, our largest elementaries are about 400 students, so we stop and think about that. If we have a growth of 500 plus students, we're going to be able to absorb some of those. We aren't at capacity in our elementary buildings right now, so we're going to be able to handle some of those. We're definitely not going to be able to handle over 500 students. So the reality is, is somewhere along the line, even with the low side of growth, we're going to be adding an elementary building, and so that's something that we need to be planning for right now. It's not going to happen, you know, in the next year, or the next five years, probably, but maybe within the next 10 years, we're going to have to add an additional elementary building.

 

Matt Fisher  04:26

So those are plans that we need to be making now. And really that's that's what our school board and our administrators are are really spending a lot of time digging into right now. And that's, again, where we're really seeking input from our community about what is the right decisions for us to be making around our schools. You look at that middle school level, and you look over there at the 20,000 growth, and middle school grows by over 800 students. Well, our middle school. Right now are 800 students, so that's an additional Middle School. So again, you know, will we need to add an additional Middle School? Don't know, but that's something that we need to be planning for. And, and, and again, we are. And then I think the, the biggest question mark that there is, you know, obviously, if, if we see growth in one part of the community, and we know that that growth is happening, and now all of a sudden we need to add an elementary building. That's that's pretty simple to figure that one out. You know, if we have enough growth at that middle school level, which is where we are at our highest capacity right now, we have the least room to grow in our middle schools right now, we know we're going to have to do something about that.

 

Matt Fisher  05:42

The biggest question, I think there is, and this is really where we would most like to have public input. What should we be doing with the high school? Are we ready to be a two high school community, or do we keep expanding the existing high school? I think that's a question, when you look at the 1000 additional students that could come if we have that 20,000 growth, you know, we're 2700 students at the high school right now, do we become a 3700 student high school, or do we look at having a second High School in the community that's part of the Grand Island Public Schools district? Those are things that we're thinking about in terms of how they look as an overall picture.

 

Matt Fisher  06:25

Well, now, if you stop and think about that elementary picture, and one of the really important things for us to be thinking about is we're thinking 50 years down the road. And 50 years seems like a really long time. You know, when we talked about the growth, we talked about five years and 10 years, and what's happened in those years. And now, if we start thinking 50 years down the road, that seems like a really long time, but if you think about the bond process, getting our community on board to say, yes, let's do that right now, we're in the middle of a bond cycle that happened 10 years ago, we had a significant bond that was passed that allowed us to renovate a number of buildings, to build some new elementary buildings. We still have 15 years to pay on that bond. So when you think about 50 years and what does that mean? The reality is, is that's probably really only two, maybe three opportunities to pass a bond. And when you start looking at some of the needs that are going to exist over the next 50 years, it's really important that the school district get that right when it comes time to say, okay, community, this is what we're going to do.

 

Matt Fisher  07:43

This is how we're going to move the community ahead with education. It's important to understand, if we build a new elementary building, let's say, you know, the growth down around the prairie commons area forces us to build a new elementary Well, what's that going to cost? Well, here's a cost breakdown for us right now, if we're building an elementary, about $32 million not going to do that right away. So probably the reality is, by the time we get to that point where we need an elementary, you know, we're probably 35 to $40 million so let's say we've got that elementary and then the good life district. Certainly there's not a lot going on right there, but with the plan that the city has approved, there's going to be things happening in that area fairly rapidly. So there, if we get into that situation, and we already have the land there, that's part of that plan, but we don't have the funding for that school, so there's another 35 to 40 million that we're probably talking about. So we keep moving that forward Middle School, we could end up needing to build a whole new middle school at some point in time.

 

Matt Fisher  08:56

But the reality is, is we need space in our middle school right now, and so what we're looking at right now is Westridge was built to be expanded. When is going to be the right time to expand Westridge? And we know that's coming. And you know, so we've done some some pricing around that to do the expansion that we need. There a little over 20 million if we were doing that right now. And then. That brings us to that high school. What is the right answer? We've got plans on paper that would allow us to continue to expand the existing Senior High. But here's one of the other things to keep in mind, the existing Senior High is 70 years old.

 

Matt Fisher  09:39

What is the life expectancy of a building, probably somewhere around 100 years. So again, we think about 50 years down the road, you know, we're going to have elementary buildings that we're going to have to do something with. We're going to have a high school. We've got to figure out what, what parts of this high school that we have now are still functional and. And what parts need to be replaced. We have the Islander annex. This is one we get lots of questions about, you know, what are we doing with the Islander annex? Well, we're serving, you know, 100 plus students on a daily basis there. Now, we've got a number of different programs going on there, but we're certainly not fully utilizing that building by any means. And the reason that we're not fully utilizing that building, I think, if you take a look at that price tag, is investing $40 million in that building to make it function. The way we would truly want it to function is that the right move for us to be making. And if we do that, how long is that building going to last? Because it's not a new building by any means.

 

Matt Fisher  10:43

So again, that's that's part of that challenge that exists, is figuring out where is the right place to to invest the public's dollars. We have the career pathways. That's an area that could be expanded. So, you know, there's, there's plans for some expansion there. If you look at that left hand picture, that's the whole campus there, there's a lot of room there. We could build the career pathways Institute out to be a full technical high school. Is that the right move for us, or do we need to bite the bullet and think about new high school. And when you think about new high school, and you look the price tag on that, the good thing is the good life districts going to take care of that swimming pool thing. We don't have to do the swimming pool. So that saves us 30 million there. But there's still $100 million is about the price of a new high school. So when you think about that, and you put all those things together, you can see that there's a pretty significant price tag that's out there that we're going to have to deal with in the next 50 years.

 

Matt Fisher  11:51

And so I think it's really important for our public to get engaged in the discussion around what is the right direction for us to go. We need to be making some decisions, you know, right now, that are going to set the stage for the future. And so with that, you know, just certainly would encourage all of you to, you know, look for opportunities to give us input. The board's going to meet again on February 3 and discuss this further. They'll probably start putting some plans together, and that will probably help get public input. Because if we come out and say we're building a second High School in 10 years, I'll bet we'll get some input. That probably is not what we're going to do, but we are going to start putting some plans together, and hopefully we will get some public input, because that's really what we're seeking at this point in time, you know, the administration that's here right now, the board that's here right now, you know, are probably not going to be the ones that make these ultimate decisions, but we really would like to put the district in a good place for those future decisions.

 

Matt Fisher  12:54

So with that, I'm just going to say one other thing, and going to tie on to what Ron did at the end of his you know, he's walking away from his position. I would remind you all that we have an open board position right now in Ward A, so if any of you have the interest in serving, like Ron, encouraged you to please consider applying for that position. If you live in Ward A, we are also in election year, and we may have some other seats that open up, and would certainly encourage all of you to think about service as board member. So with that, my time is up. Thank you.

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