La Crosse school survey shows potential voters favoring new high school referendum

It looks like voters in the La Crosse School District are supporting the system’s plans to merge the two city high schools into one big building.

Results of a recent taxpayer survey on referendum plans will be presented to the La Crosse school board Monday night.

The report broke down the survey into three groups of voters — all leaning toward supporting a proposed $194 million bond issue to develop one large high school to replace Logan and Central, which would then become middle schools.

Those three groups are staff members, parents of current students, and other residents who are not parents or staff.

Fifty-six percent of the parents group said they would definitely or probably say ‘yes’ to the referendum plan, compared to 33 percent leaning toward voting ‘no.’ The difference between yes and no was the smallest among non-parents/non-staff.

Twenty percent of the district residents who were sent surveys actually filled them out, adding up to 5,859 responses. The survey was conducted in May.

The La Crosse district wants to merge Central and Logan high schools into one building, tentatively at the site of the Trane Company headquarters.

District leaders say enrollment has gone down so much that some buildings should be closed to save money. They also argue that La Crosse is the smallest city in Wisconsin to still operate two public high schools.