Fewer school buildings favored by public in La Crosse school district survey

La Crosse residents, who answered a survey about future school needs, are endorsing building reductions at all levels, including scaling back to one public high school.

Results from the survey conducted earlier this fall have been posted on the school district website, and will be presented to the school board Monday night.

The surveys were mailed out to district residents in October, and 4,664 responses were received — about 16 percent of the possible total.

The most popular option in the survey is eliminating one of La Crosse’s middle schools. That’s approved by at least 70 percent of all groups represented in the poll.

There’s also strong support for reducing the number of elementary schools, and over half of the district residents surveyed support having just one high school.

The number against high school consolidation is around 25 percent.

The poll results show that backers of high school consolidation outnumber the opponents about 2-to-1, and about 20 percent of those surveyed aren’t sure.

District leaders say La Crosse has too many school buildings for its current enrollment, and the enrollment is trending downward for the future.

Of the options presented for consolidating high schools, nearly half of those surveyed favor having just one school but there is some support for keeping both Central and Logan as existing high schools, sharing the same building.