GIPS Invites Community to Collaborate on Facilities Plan for Near & Long-Term Future

What will the community of Grand Island look like 10, 25, or even 50 years from now?

That’s the question that has been top of mind for Grand Island Public Schools and its Board of Education.

One thing we do know:  Grand Island will continue growing.  As the community grows, we will see more children attending our schools. 

We’ve started the process of exploring what the long-term vision is for GIPS.  As part of that process, we want to invite our families, staff, students, and community to share with us your insights, ideas, and questions. 

We feel it’s best for our community and our future generations to start imagining what the future of GIPS looks like 25-50 years from now.  We invite you to join us along the way.

Below is a video message from GIPS Superintendent Matt Fisher.

Even though it’s over 25 minutes long, you’ll find the information, the opportunities for growth, and the projected dollars involved are all there to set the table for a meaningful conversation about facilities planning.

Also below is a brief summary of each video segment, a slide deck resource, and a full transcript of the video so you may read the message in your native language.

Explore the resources, review Mr. Fisher’s message, and reach out to your school Principal or our District Leadership Team at communications@gips.org to share your insights and ideas.

Let’s imagine the future of GIPS together!
 

 

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SLIDE DECK - GIPS Master Facilities Planning 

GRAND ISLAND PROJECTED GROWTH SUMMARY:

• Grand Island Economic Development group has done a study to show projected growth for the community in the next 25 years.

• Low estimate for community growth would be 7,000 people.  High estimate for growth would be 20,000.  This growth would certainly impact the growth of our schools.

• For this process, we’ve projected growth for Pre-School, Elementary, Middle School, & High School for our enrollment on the following population growth projections: a 13% increase, 25% increase, & 38% increase. 
   

PRE-SCHOOL FACILITIES SUMMARY:

• We have room to accommodate more students at the O’Connor Early Learning Center.

• Lincoln Elementary & Starr Elementary were designed with future plans for possible expansion to their buildings to accommodate more Pre-School space than they already have.

• When we built the new Jefferson Elementary, there were plans drawn to accommodate a free standing Pre-School space on the Jefferson property if needed in the future.

• At this time, Pre-School expansion is not an immediate need, but something we’re keeping our eye on. 
   

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FACILITIES SUMMARY:

• As the community continues to grow, especially West of 281, it may be time to start thinking about acquiring some land as an investment.  This land could be used for future building developments, like a new Elementary School.  Either way, pursuing land for future growth would make financial sense and be a worthwhile investment.

• The city has committed to GIPS space in the projected “Good Life District” for a new Elementary school should that need arise.
   
• Gates Elementary is our Elementary School with the biggest facility needs at this time.  We encourage discussion and ideas around whether to renovate the building or to build a new one entirely. 
   
• A new Elementary School in today’s dollars would cost approximately $32,500,000.
   
• If the population would increase by 13%, we would likely need to add one more Elementary School.  
   

MIDDLE SCHOOL FACILITIES SUMMARY: 

• Barr & Walnut have consistently come close to hitting their enrollment capacity the last few years.  But neither school has the space to expand for enough classrooms and hallways to boost enrollment even further.

• Westridge Middle School was built with the intention of eventually adding onto it.  Their enrollment is getting closer to capacity as well.

• Right now, accommodating Middle School enrollment growth is one of our most immediate needs.

• Expanding Westridge per the original building plans would cost approximately $22,800,000 in today’s dollars.

• If the population would increase by 13%, we would likely need to expand Westridge at minimum.  More growth beyond that would likely require another Middle School. 
   

HIGH SCHOOL FACILITIES SUMMARY: 

• Grand Island Senior High is currently one of the top three or four public high schools in Nebraska.  We currently serve our students through two facilities:  Senior High and Career Pathways Institute (CPI).

• We have plans drawn up for GISH to expand a little with extended commons areas, renovating some spaces, and adding updated furnishings.  The approximate cost for that would be $11,900,000 in today’s dollars.  One thing to keep in mind is the original portion of GISH was built in the 1950’s.
   
• If the population grows by 13%, we’d be approaching 3,000 students enrolled.  Anything beyond that, we may want to explore other options such as a second high school.
   
• The Islander Annex (old Principal building), while we acquired it for pennies on the dollar, would cost approximately $40,500,000 to renovate and make it appropriate for school use.
   
• CPI has potential to expand and grow.  One idea would be to expand the facility and program offerings and to utilize CPI as a full-time Career Technical Education (CTE) type of high school serving 500 or more students.  The approximate cost of a CPI expansion to a full technical high school in today’s dollars would be approximately $30,000,000. 
   

WHAT’S NEXT?:

• The GIPS Board of Education plans to have another facilities planning retreat in Spring of 2026.
   
• We welcome feedback, questions, insight, and ideas from our community, families, staff, and students on what the future of GIPS could look like 25-50 years from now.
   
• Reach out to your school Principals, to Mr. Fisher at mfisher@gips.org, or the District Leadership Team at communications@gips.org with your insights. 

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT (Matt Fisher, GIPS Superintendent):

One of the really important objectives that we've got going on across the district right now. Back on October 10, our Board of Education met in a retreat setting for about four hours and discussed the future of facilities for Grand Island Public Schools. And this is certainly something that we've been spending some time preparing for to have that discussion, and we really wanted to get the board involved, and now, you know, involve the staff and ultimately, our community in a discussion around what should Grand Island Public Schools have for facilities as we think about the next five to 10 years, as we think about the next 10 to 25 years, and then, you know, really, as we think, you know, 25 to 50 years and beyond, you know, what are our needs going to be. So I wanted to take a few minutes to walk through a presentation that we're going to be doing, you know, with public groups, and really fill our staff in on the information that we're going to be sharing, and really start developing ideas around and certainly, we want ideas to come forward from everyone. And so I think as as a staff, you know, as you think about the information that that gets shared here, and you have ideas, we would certainly encourage you to share those ideas with your, you know, your building administrators, we certainly would welcome any any input that you want to bring directly to the district leadership team. We're looking for answers. And I think as we go through the information, you're going to see that a lot of our questions swirling out there are around, what are we doing with the high school and where does that go? We are, you know, really working from no set plan at this point in time. We are looking for ideas, and our board has made a commitment to come back together in in March or April, and continue the discussion that they've started. And hopefully by that time, we'll have some input from staff, community and all of our stakeholder groups that will give us some ideas of, okay, here's, here's what that plan maybe should look like. 
 

So with that, I'm going to go ahead and present some information. And you know, again, we're open to questions, we're open to ideas, and we look forward to interacting with you around this information. 

 

So Grand Island, as a community and economic development group, had just completed a study looking at the population growth of Grand Island over the next 25 years. This chart illustrates what that growth could look like. As you look, you see from 1940 up to the current day what the growth looked like. The current 53,000 plus people that we have in Grand Island is then projected over the next 25 years to continue to grow. And if you look at the lines where they divide there, and you'll see that on the low side, we're projecting about a 7000 person growth in Grand Island the next 25 years. On the high side, that could be 20,000 plus. And so when we think about that and how that is going to impact our school district, we'll take a look at another chart here. And this chart really breaks down that population growth into the different categories that we would maybe think about that growth happening within the school district. Think about what, what would our current preschool enrollment look like? If we had a 7000 person growth in Grand Island or a 20,000 person growth, what would our elementary population look like, and what would our middle school and our high school populations look like? 

 

And that's really illustrated in this chart. And so if you look at at the first Dark column in the chart, that would be what our population in our different you know settings would be if Grand Island grew from that 53,000 up to that 60,000 mark, and then you can see in the preschool, we'd be looking at an additional 93 students. We certainly have the capacity to handle 93 students in our preschools that we'd have right now from an elementary side, you know, we're looking at over 500 additional students. Well, 500 students would be another elementary building. You know, if we filled our buildings at capacity now, you know, we could accommodate a good share of that 500 but we're probably not able to accommodate all of that 550 students. So we'd probably be looking. At an additional elementary building. So that's that's certainly one part of the future planning. Middle School. We have an additional 275 students. Middle school right now is where we are at our greatest capacity, or actually our least capacity. I should say that is where we're the tightest right now, is at the middle level. And so we certainly are looking at, what would that mean to us if our population in Grand Island continues to grow and we continue to have more and more middle school students, we're certainly going to have to do something in that area. And then if you look at the high school, 344, students, with the structure that we're in with students going different places, you know, we probably have the capacity to handle that right now. 

 

But then, if we look at the next column, where we're talking about population growth in the next 25 years, of 20,000 plus people in Grand Island, it certainly looks a little bit different. You know, the additional almost 300 preschool students. We're going to have to add some preschool spaces. We have the additional 1600 elementary that's four elementary buildings, the additional 800 middle school students, that's another Middle School right now, our capacity in our middle schools is right around 800 in each of the middle schools. So 800 more would mean a second or fourth middle school and then the high school. Certainly, if you have an additional 1000 students, you know we're over 2700 students. Now, 3700 students is probably bigger than we would ever want in a single high school. 

 

So again, we're going to have to make some decisions around what does the high school look like as we move forward. And then the final column there in this chart is simply, if we ended up somewhere between the high and the low with about a 25% increase, and again, up around that 66,000 people in Grand Island, then what would the numbers look like then? So again, you can kind of see part of the thought process that that goes around this, this long term planning is what, what is the population of Grand Island going to do? Certainly, we'd love to have a crystal ball and be able to say, well, it's going to do exactly this, and we can plan accordingly. We don't know that. So we have to be making plans for both the, you know, the low side of the growth and the high side of the growth, and that, that was a lot of the discussion that the board went through. 

 

So let's take a look at those different categories and those different categories, you know, let's, let's start with the preschool. You know, as we said, if we have that low side of the growth, we probably have the capacity in our preschools. Right now, we have the O'Connor Early Learning Center. We've got spaces available there where we could be moving some additional students in there. We do currently use a couple of the classrooms that are set up there. You know, we've got a contract with YWCA. They've got childcare going on in a couple of those classrooms. We might have to recapture those classrooms for preschool classes at some point in time. We also have preschool going on at Star. Star was built with the capacity to add on to it. So on one part of the star building, there was space that was designed, not built, but designed for additional preschool, and that preschool space could be added at any point in time. Obviously, when you start adding space, you're going to add costs and adding that preschool space at star right now, if we were to do that today, that's about a $5 million undertaking. So again, we have to start thinking about, Well, where do we need the space, and when do we need the space, and and how are we going to pay for that space? So start would be one option there. We also have preschool at Lincoln, and right now that preschool is housed in our modulars that are there. There is a long term design for Lincoln that would add permanent space that would house not only the preschool that's currently there, but some additional preschool space. Again, that addition, in today's dollars, would be about a $5 million undertaking another place that's planned for preschool but hasn't been developed at this point in time, also at the new Jefferson Building, one of the plans that was put in place at the time that building was built was the idea of a free standing preschool building there on that site. And again, that's that's something that that wasn't done, something that we don't need at this point in time. But there is space and a plan in in existence for developing that. And again, you know, another, another $5 million.
 

So you can see that that plans are already in place for preschool. And so I think we're in a good place there. It's just a matter of, when are we going to need space, and then again, how are we going to play pay for that space? So let's, let's talk a little bit about elementary. You know, with the bond that was passed in 2014 we really put ourselves in pretty good shape for elementary buildings at this point in time. We have good capacity for where we're at right now. 

 

But obviously, if we think about the next 25 years and having an additional 550 to 1600 students, we're certainly going to have to be thinking about adding elementary space. At some point in time we think about that. Part of what we have to be thinking about is, where would we add elementary space? Well, obviously the ideal would be to add elementaries, where we're adding houses and people are living one of the things that we've done is we've done some some looking at what land spaces might be available down in the southwest part of town, where the the new hospital has gone in, there's there's housing developments going up in a fairly rapid pace down in that part of the community. And so I think it's fairly logical for us to think that at some point in time we're probably going to need to add an elementary building in that area. And so we've, we've done some looking at what spaces might be available and appropriate for an elementary building down in that part of the community. Again, when we start thinking about middle school and high school, you know, we also have to be thinking about, you know, is that the same area that we should be thinking about for those type of buildings, and probably realistically, it is. 

 

So I think, as the board is doing long range planning, one of the things that may figure into that planning is the purchase of some land to position ourselves for later on building an elementary building, or building a middle school building, or building a high school at some point in time. So again, I think that's part of the board's discussion right now, is, should we be buying land? And again, I think when we think about land that is, you know, that's an investment. We buy the land now we cash rent the land, you know, until we're ready to use it, and then we have it available when we are ready to use it, or we never use it, and we make the decision that we're going to sell that land. And either way, it's an investment. So I think it's certainly something that our board does need to be thinking about. So if we were to build a new building down in that area, one of the things that, you know, people always want to know, well, what would it cost us to build a new elementary building? 

 

Well, in today's dollars, and again, the longer we wait, the more expensive it's going to become. But if we were to build a new elementary building today, it's going to cost roughly $30 million and so again, when you start thinking about, Well, okay, when's the right time to build, where's the right place to build, and how are we going to pay for it, those are all questions that that our board of education is going to have to have an answer for and so. 

 

So those are the kind of discussions that that took place during that retreat and will take place when we meet again. One of the other areas that we have to be considering right now is the good life district, that space that's located between highway two and 281 on the north end of town, where right now, the city is collecting part of the sales taxes in that good life district that would then be reinvested in putting together housing as well as, you know, sports fields, sports courts, some of the other things that are included in that good life plan. Well, certainly, if, if the number of houses that are planned to be developed are developed in that area, that's going to be another place where we're going to need an elementary building. Fortunately, the the city and part of their planning process has already designated land in that area that would be set aside for an elementary school, and so we kind of know that we have the land available. But again, that's another $30 million to build the building. So you know when is going to be the right time for that to happen? 

 

How soon will that good life development really take off and go so those are, again, part of that unknown that we're dealing with right now, but we know at some point in time could move fairly fast, because there is money there and so that. An area that could end up being developed fairly quickly, and we'll need to have a plan ready to go for for again, putting an elementary building potentially in that area. So those are a couple of considerations in terms of the elementary now, if we get that whole 20,000 person growth in Grand Island. We're probably realistically thinking of at least one more elementary building somewhere else other than those two that we just discussed. 

 

So those are, those are things that are on the horizon. There the one other area that we have with elementary that we need to be addressing in the the fairly near future our gates building, you know, our gates building really does not have all of the the operational capacity and and amenities that we would want to have in our elementary buildings. And so there are just some things. There have been some plans that were on the, you know, on the forefront several years ago, but the money did not become available to do some renovation at gates, and that gates building has some needs that we're going to have to figure out how we're going to meet. And so part of the consideration is, is, do we make a $10 million investment in gates to bring it up to speed with our other elementary buildings? Or is it one of those situations where we should be thinking about totally doing away with the gates building and rebuilding it? 

 

So that's, that's, again, that's another one of those considerations that's that's out there. Now, all of our buildings have different needs, and we have a regular project list that's ongoing, that we're we're working our way through to continually address needs that isn't going to change. We're going to continue to address those project needs across the district. This planning was really more about well, where do we need to do something significant with facilities? 

 

Now let's take a look at our middle schools and talk a little bit about what our needs in the middle school are. And again, for the most part, we've done what we have been able to do with our middle schools. We think about the walnut building, you know, it's our largest middle school right now, and it's at a size where we really would not want to make it bigger. So we're not really looking at expanding capacity at Walnut. The one thing that walnut really needs is a second gym. You know, we added a second gym at bar. We haven't been able to add a second gym at Walnut or at Westridge, and those are our needs that both of those buildings have. 

 

So really, when we think about Walnut, the only thing we really are thinking about there is maybe at some point in time we need to add a second gym. Second gym. There's another $5 million you know, it's just, you know, 5 million is just a popular thing for, you know, the cost of projects. So 5 million here, 5 million there, you know, after a while, those five millions do start adding up. So then if we look at Westridge, Westridge is the building that really when we think about expansion of the middle school without adding another Middle School building, West Ridge is where that expansion would happen. When it was built, it was designed to have several additions added on to the building. There's additional classroom spaces, there's additional gym space. There's additional space for fine arts programs that were all included as part of the original design, knowing that at some point in time, there would be a need to expand our middle schools. 

 

And so that's already built into the design of Westridge. And so when we think about, well, what's going to happen with middle school in order to deal with an expanding number of students? Well, the first thing that's going to happen is we're going to probably have to do a project at Westridge to address the immediate need. Now, if you go back to that 20,000 growth in Grand Island, and we have a whole nother 800 middle school students. We're probably thinking about, Okay, is there a need for a fourth Middle School? But initially the need is going to be addressed, probably through an expansion of Westridge. 

And if we look at that and what that would look like, it's not 5 million now we're up to 22 million for that expansion at Westridge. Again, that's a pretty significant project. When you're thinking, you know about 22 million and what that would mean, you know, that's not money that we're going to have just sitting around. We're probably looking at going to our taxpayers and asking them to vote. 

 

For a bond in order to do that kind of expansion. And so as we're thinking about things, and the board is planning, you know, they have to be thinking about, well, when would be the right time to go to the public for a bond to maybe do an expansion of Westridge and and an elementary building, or, you know, maybe it's an elementary building, and, you know, rework of gates or rebuild of gates, and the middle school. So where's the right time and what's the right amount to go to the public with, I think are our questions that the board is wrestling with right now and just going to continue to wrestle with. 

 

So the other middle school, obviously, is Barr. Barr is at capacity right now, and there really is no place to do additional adding on to bar. You know, again, bar is pretty much going to be what bar is is currently, and really don't see any expansion plans there. 

 

Well, that brings us to the high school. 

 

And the high school, obviously, is a big question mark, because we are big right now. 2700 students is, I think, the third largest high school in the state. We have been the largest high school at times. It just depends on what Lincoln and Omaha are doing with their their buildings at their particular time, as to whether we are the largest or not. So again, that question lingers, what is the right move for us to make with our high school? 

 

There are some opportunities to expand our existing building. You know, there are places where we can add space at the exist at the current high school, there are some plans in place for that. That might be one of the things that we do now, one of the things I think it's always important for us to remember is that the high school was initially built in 1955 it's currently 70 years old. 

 

Now, not all the parts are 70 years old, but there are parts that are 70 years old. And so you start thinking about that. And we're thinking about, you know, okay, what's the next 25 years look like? Well, 25 years from now, it's 95 years old. You know, 100 year building is, is a pretty long life expectancy for a building. 

 

So where, where do we go with the existing building, and do we add other buildings at some point in time? That's, that's a, you know, a question that's out there that we're going to have to come up with an answer for at some point in time. So obviously, we've got the high school building now, along with the high school building, we also have the Islander annex the old principal building. This is one of those things that we get lots of questions around, because people don't understand the programming that we have going on there. 

 

Now we actually have most of the lower floor of the principal building is currently being utilized by programs that we have. And you know, is it, is it in the the best utilization possible? Probably not, but it is space that we're using and and if we did not have that space, we'd have to be finding space for for a lot of different programming in other facilities. So it is being used and being used effectively right now. Now, when the principal building was purchased, it was certainly a bargain that the board saw opportunity and pursued, I think, with the intent that, you know, we were going to locate some of our academies there. Maybe it was going to be the Freshman Academy. Maybe it was, you know, some other academies that we could fit into that building. I think one of the things that happened, obviously, right around the time that that building was purchased, we had covid, and then as we came out of covid, everything was way more expensive. 

 

What they, I think initially had thought about was going to be maybe a $20 million renovation of that building is now 40 million plus. And so is that the right move to make, do we make that kind of investment to create additional high school space, or, you know, is there a better investment to be made out there? 

 

And so I think it again, that's that's one of those weighty questions that that our board is going to have to wade its way through. And that's an area where we're certainly looking for all of our stakeholders to weigh in on. You know, we need to hear from our community. We need to hear from our staff. 

 

What is the right direction for us to go with the high school? Because, obviously, other than the principal building, you know, we also have the career pathways, Institute building and. Is a building that did have additional space planned, that that could be added on to, and even beyond the plans that already exist.

 

There's space enough there that you could add enough space to potentially take Career Pathways Institute up to being a technical high school that you know would serve either in conjunction with Grand Island Senior High, or could be a standalone Technical High School. 

 

So again, that's that's a possibility. You know, do you, do you continue to have a couple of our academies, or do we expand another Academy and and use that as an academy structure? Or do we take it where we bring all of our different classes that will be offered in a traditional high school to that facility, and be able to to have it operate as a standalone High School, that would be another possibility. And then obviously, beyond that, there's there's the idea that at some point in time, do we just build a second high school? And you know, how big is that second high school is it a Class B High School with the ability to expand to a class A high school? You know right now, if you divided Grand Island Senior High in half, you probably could have two class a high schools, they both would be on the very small end of class A. 

 

And so what is the right structure for that there? And again, what's the right pricing? Because when you price out a high school, let's say it's 1000 student High School, that's what we said we were going to be adding. Was 1000 student. Well, 1000 student High School, a Class B sized High School, is going to be 100 million plus. So again, when is the right time to make that move, and what is the right move to make? And obviously, you know, how do we structure all of these different needs so that our public is able to finance what those needs are? 

 

That's, that's a quick overview of the different pieces that our board is currently wrestling with in terms of future facilities. 

 

Do we go buy some land to position ourselves for something later on? You know, when is the right time for us to start addressing, you know, elementary needs? What is the right path for us to take with high school? When are we going to do an expansion of Westridge? 

 

Those are all things that we we need to start putting a plan together for. We're probably not going to be doing anything in the next year or two years or three years, maybe. But again, when you start thinking about if we wanted to have something ready to go five years from now, then we probably need to be well along that planning process between two and three years from now. 

 

And so I think that's that's really where we're at right now, is we need to get a comprehensive plan built so that we can start putting the pieces of that comprehensive plan in place. So again, we would encourage any of you that have ideas, share them with your building leadership. Share them with the district leadership. 

 

Let's get all the ideas on the table, and we really want to be able to have good conversations around this. Hopefully this will spark an opportunity for you to visit with some of your colleagues, visit with people across the community. We need ideas to put together so that we can find the right answer with that, I will let you return to your day, and you have a great rest of your week.
 

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