Princeton School District residents will vote on two referendum questions in November. Specifically, we are being asked to consider allowing the district to exceed its state revenue limit by $575,000 for the 2027-2028 school year and by $1.2 million per year for three years, from 2028-2029 through 2030-2031, for operational costs, and to consider authorizing the district to issue general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed $14 million for facilities improvements.
With that in mind, here’s a look back on how school boards and voters addressed similar needs from 1960, when the new school opened at Old Green Lake Road and state Highway 23-73, through the remainder of the 20th century.
When the Princeton School District opened its new school on the eastern edge of the city for the 1960-1961 school year, enrollment climbed to 287, including 133 students in grades 9-12.
When the bell rang for the 1969-1970 school year, 417 students enrolled in the Princeton Public School, including 198 in high school. The freshman class of 61 was the largest in school history.
The school board had already addressed costly plumbing and kitchen repair projects in the 1960s and, with consolidation talks with Green Lake ongoing, no one was interested in asking taxpayers to build an addition onto the 10-year-old school to accommodate the population surge.
Instead, board members opted to purchase two mobile classrooms, estimated to cost about $20,000, paid for from the capital outlay fund over three years, prior to the 1970-1971 school year.
Each classroom, which would house junior high students, contained 754 square feet. They could be sold and moved when no longer needed, board members said.
An enclosed walkway was built between the main building and the mobile classrooms. The board hired Duane Kuglin for $4,050 in 1972 to complete the hallway with a floor covering and to finish the walls to make the walkway warmer and to conserve heat. Carpeting was installed in the mobile units.
The board had decided a year earlier to remove the wooden overhang on the south side of the school.
“Since there are draperies on the windows, there is no need for the overhang, which has become an eyesore and dangerous,” the Princeton Times-Republic reported.
(The district had problems controlling the climate of the classrooms with south-side windows for the next several years.)
Administrator Roger Moore in 1979 proposed a budget that included $71,000 for building repairs. The school board, however, did not think that would be enough. The voters at the annual meeting approved a budget of $1,064,230 and gave the board authority to borrow up to $125,000 for building issues.
“The school is paid off and the building now belongs to you,” Moore told the voters.
The most serious problems at the school were a leaky roof, water seeping into the boiler room and shower rooms, ongoing boiler issues, heat problems caused by the southern exposure windows (where the overhang had been removed), and deterioration of the gym floor.
Wet conditions contributed to the deterioration of the boiler room, officials said. They called for soil borings around the building to pinpoint the problem.
The boiler, installed when the school was built, was put in place before the room was enclosed, Moore told the board. It would have to be cut up and removed before a new boiler could be installed.
Rather than a single, large boiler, the board approved the bid of $49,500 from a Beaver Dam company for two smaller boilers. It would be easier to control temperatures in different parts of the building with two boilers, and only one would be needed in spring and fall, they said.
When workers examined the boiler room they found two layers of concrete with “soupy” clay underneath.
The district applied for a $125,000 loan from the State Trust Fund for school maintenance needs in December 1979. The first installment of $75,000 arrived in January 1980 and the second of $50,000 in July.
Wisconsin school districts generally preferred to finance major construction projects through referendum-approved bonds rather than borrowing from the State Trust Fund. Bonds had longer repayment options, lowering the effect on the tax levy, and payments were exempt from state revenue limits.
Vote No. 1
The board invited representatives of a Waupaca consulting firm to walk through the school and record their observations in August 1980. They produced a 10-page list of areas needing attention.
“If you don’t start a program this school will come down around your ears,” one of the representatives told the school board.
The board hired Bray Associates Architects of Sheboygan in 1981 to prepare plans to expand the school. They presented plans for three additions, estimated to cost $550,750, in July.
One of the additions, about 4,224 square feet, would add four classrooms to the elementary wing to replace the mobile classrooms as well as provide room for special education classes, which were being held in a former storage room taken from the music department. The addition would cost about $158,440.
“Two mobile classrooms, which were to be used temporarily but have been in use for almost 10 years, are deteriorating,” the newspaper reported. “The roofs leak, floors are patched, and walls are in bad condition. They have been serving the fifth and sixth grades.”
The plan included 7,332 square feet for the shop-ag-art area, estimated to cost $286,120. It included a new metal shop, new ag shop, office and storage space.
“The thrust for ag-related subjects follows the request of local agri-people who have expressed concern that the curriculum provides no preparation for farming, which is the main occupation in this area,” the newspaper explained.
A 2,520-square-foot addition, estimated to cost $106,200, would include an expanded library to serve elementary and high school students, storage space especially for audio-visual equipment, and an administration area.
The board decided the roof was its top priority and could not wait. It awarded a $89,000 contract to a Fond du Lac firm in October.
Board members dropped the library and office addition from its plan and reduced the size of the ag-shop addition by about 800 feet, lowering the estimated cost to $325,000 before presenting their final plan to the voters at a special meeting in December.
Voting by ballot from 8 to 10 p.m. December 16, district residents rejected the plan 363-84.
Vote No. 2
The board dropped the ag-art-shop addition from the proposal and presented a plan for a four-classroom addition estimated to cost $158,444 to the voters at a special meeting in March 1982. They again rejected the plan, 401-79.
With parents complaining that the mobile classrooms were unsafe and unhealthy, the school board decided it could not wait any longer. They voted in June to build two classrooms to replace the mobile classrooms and to pay for the project by using the building fund and trimming items from the proposed 1982-1983 budget such as a new bus and lockers.
Vote No. 3
The board again asked voters for permission to borrow up to $160,000 for a four-classroom addition and related equipment in August 1988. The answer? Another loss, 459-232.
A Department of Public Instruction consultant visited the school in October 1988. He offered this assessment: “I stress the need to continue all programs offered at Princeton School. However, the building is too crowded. You must make the public understand the need (for expansion).”
Administrator Marvin Groskreutz presented three options to the board, which was still involved in discussions about consolidation with Green Lake School District, in April 1989.
Elementary Addition A, estimated to cost $193,600, included two elementary classrooms, special education room and reading lab. Elementary Addition B, estimated to cost $285,465, included one elementary classroom, special education room, art lab and speech lab on the east end of the building and a middle school classroom on the north side. A Computer Lab Addition, estimated to cost from $87,495 to $93,494 (with air conditioning), included a computer lab adjacent to the school library.
Groskreutz also priced leasing a modular unit consisting of two small classrooms, 24 by 40 feet, with two bathrooms each: $40,264 plus utility hookups for one year.
Board members crafted their own plan, which included adding one classroom onto the 1982 addition and one onto the east end of the building. Each classroom would be about 1,300 square feet. The district would utilize up to $115,000 from its cash balance fund to avoid a referendum and not affect the tax levy.
“The basic options the board had to choose from were to build and borrow the money, build and not borrow, or lease modular units,” the newspaper said. “The board chose to build and not borrow.”
The school board opted for a larger project as the Princeton Public School building approached its 30th birthday.
“We need more space,” Groskreutz told the board in December 1989. “We have 437 students this year; 170 of them eat in 30-minute shifts in the lunchroom. The science labs have not been remodeled since 1959.”
The board unanimously instructed the administrators to “conduct an exhaustive and thorough investigation into the building needs of the district.”
Groskreutz presented a $1.3 million building plan to the board in February 1990. It included more space for the cafeteria and library, two more classrooms, a science lab and an auxiliary gymnasium. The high school gym, administrators said, was busy from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. most days.
“Two years ago, the people of Princeton turned down school expansion,” stated an article accompanyhing a sketch of the building in July. “This year, they will find out just how much that will cost them.”
The board selected Westra Construction of Waupun as the general contractor. Adjustments lowered the projected cost to $962,000.
Groskreutz pointed out that the board could borrow up to $2,500 per student for school renovation through the State Trust Fund without a referendum. By the time ground was broken for the project in October, the cost had dropped to $904,855.
The school district borrowed $995,000, which included $67,000 for legal counsel and $24,000 for fees and bonds. After borrowing the funds, they invested in Certificates of Deposit and used the interest money to purchase projection screens, equipment, and furniture as well as complete blacktopping and landscaping projects.
The expansion was completed for the 1991-1992 school year.
Vote No. 4
Even with the improvements, Groskreutz and the board turned to the voters again in September 1994, asking them to approve $569,000 for two more additions, one 71 by 57 feet and the other 96 by 25 feet.
“If we procrastinate then we won’t be providing the proper education for the students,” Groskreutz said.
Voters were still not convinced. The referendum failed, 305-191.
Vote No. 5
The board tried again in 1996. Procrastination, as well as federal mandates, helped raise the cost of the proposed project to $2.9 million!
“The needs are excessive, and the options are not desirable,” Principal Michael Garvey told the newspaper in August.
Without the referendum, the district would have to resort to four mobile classrooms, he said.
Even with the previous projects, the school remained overcrowded. The gymnasium, stage and storage areas were used as classrooms at times. Much of the building needed a new roof and electrical in some areas did not meet code. The music room, locker rooms and some restrooms were not in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed in 1990.
Enrollment at PHS had risen from 140 in 1993 to 200 in 1996 and was projected to reach 240 in 1999. Graduating classes had risen from 30 to 40 in the 1980s to 50s in 1990s with 70 projected for the Class of 1999.
Nevertheless, voters rejected the plan, 355-311, during the primary election in September.
District officials were disappointed by the low turnout.
“Not even all of the parents of the children voted,” Garvey noted.
“Even though the administration from the school had felt that the public was informed as to the need for the approval of the referendum, residents did not consider the vote important,” the newspaper surmised.
Vote No. 6
The school board did not blink, however, and posted the questions to voters again in the general election in November. This time the referendum passed, 820-752. Each of the district’s municipalities supported the measure.
The board in January 1997 passed the resolution authorizing the district to borrow $2.9 million for the project and to finalize the twenty-year financing plan
District officials broke ground for the addition in March. Workers completed construction in late fall.
Shortly after the school year began, Groskreutz resigned, effective October 1, to accept the position of administrator for the Randolph Public Schools.
“It was time for a change,” Groskreutz said. “I thought it was best to leave while everything is going great with the district.”
(Groskreutz had been the elementary school principal in Randolph for three years before coming to Princeton in 1978 as assistant administrator. He succeeded Roger Moore as administrator here in 1982.)
The school board in September hired Garvey as acting administrator and in December 1997 as administrator to help guide the district into the 21st century.
Groskreutz resigned from the Randolph job in 2000 due to health problems. He passed in 2015 at age 68.
Please let me know if you spot any errors.
Thank you for caring and reading about local history, and remember to vote on or before November 3.