Neenah School District prepares for big moves to new schools with Packing Day

NEENAH (WLUK) -- As kids prepare for the summer, the Neenah Joint School District is preparing for big moves.

Friday was "packing day," as over half of the district's employees are getting ready to move into a new building for the 2023-24 school year.

Neenah school district teachers rolled up their sleeves and put their selves to work for "packing day."

It was all hands on deck on for art teacher Margaret Nelson.

"I graduated from Neenah High School in 2000 and ended up teaching here as my first job, left for a little while, and came back here this year," said Nelson.

"Here" meaning Shattuck Middle School.

Nelson also attended Shattuck as a middle school student.

After 95 years, the school will be closing on Wednesday.

"It's always going to be a little bit sad for the community. It's a really cool building when you kind of think about the original architecture that's here and traditions," said Nelson.

Of the district's 778 employees, about 428 employee positions (55%) will be working in a new building this fall.

Roosevelt and Wilson Elementary Schools will be combining into the existing Horace Mann Middle School building. Alliance Charter School will move into the existing Wilson Elementary building. Nelson and the rest of the middle school and fifth grade staff members will be moving to the new Neenah Middle School, the building that is currently Neenah High School.

Voters approved the changes in a $115 million referendum in 2020.

"As art teachers, it is a blank canvas. We get to go there and make it our own -- just blank slate, blank canvas, have at it when we get there," said Nelson.

And all high school staff there will move into a new high school that is opening in the fall.

"It's kind of a bittersweet day," said high school principal Brian Wunderlich. "There's a lot of people that have 20-, 25-plus year careers that have all been in this building, so it's almost like saying goodbye to an old friend."

But Wunderlich says everyone is over the moon about the new building.

"It's such an amazing gift from our community, and we're so excited to show it off to the community, and especially have our kids just go there and learn, and they're just going to have so many great opportunities in that building," said Wunderlich.

As for Nelson, she's happy she got to go down memory lane and teach at Shattuck for its final year, especially since she got to share it with her 13-year-old son.

"There's not a lot of things that moms can share with their kids, like experiences, so it's really neat to me that my son now gets to be a Rocket, and I get to watch him walk the halls at Shattuck and experience the same kind of traditional things that we did, the football games and track meets, all those types of things," said Nelson.

The public is invited to celebrate Shattuck Middle School for the final time with an open house from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on June 4.