Southside Elementary School - Referendum 2020

With the passing of the November 2020 referenda, MMSD purchased the land and middle school/neighborhood center building located at 501 East Badger Road. This site currently houses the Badger Rock Neighborhood Center (operated by Rooted) and Badger Rock Middle School (BRMS), and offers programs through Rooted, the new name adopted when Community GroundWorks and the Center for Resilient Cities merged in January 2020. The new elementary school will be attached to the current building. The current BRMS and neighborhood center will remain on the site as well.

BRMS, the Badger Rock Neighborhood Center, and Rooted programs, including the school gardens and community gardens on site, will all remain at that location and the new elementary school will be attached to the current building. See Exhibit B for an example site map.

This site, one of very few parcels of land in the attendance area that can accommodate a school, offers many advantages. It will benefit from and build on the strong community presence of the current Badger Rock Neighborhood Center and BRMS -- maintaining unique property elements such as community and school gardens, an onsite farmer, community dinners, and other programming. Additionally, this site is in the center of the community, providing one of the best walking school options available. Further, this site is located next to a current City of Madison park. MMSD hopes to partner with Madison Parks in the future on this site to bring further value to the overall community. MMSD has worked with a team of architects and the City of Madison to ensure site feasibility and suitability.

The new school as designed at this time will have the same attendance area that exists today for Allis Elementary School. Students who primarily reside in the Rimrock area will have neighborhood attendance area access to the new neighborhood school. We are extremely excited to be working with the Rimrock area community to conceptualize the educational model and other features of the new school. We cannot wait to welcome Rimrock area students to their new neighborhood school!

Yes! Nuestro Mundo Community School is an MMSD charter school that families in the Allis attendance area have access to and it remains an option for families.

MMSD has a school transfer process within the District that is available to all families. All schools that are not at capacity are eligible to receive internal transfers. The district posts those schools and the deadlines for those applications on our website here.

The plan is to build an elementary school to serve between 400 and 450 students in the Rimrock area, a diverse neighborhood currently underserved without a local neighborhood school. See Exhibit B for an example site map.

We are extremely excited to be working with the Rimrock area community to conceptualize the educational model and other features of the new school. Students and families will experience a neighborhood school that can be the center of their community as most will walk to school, participate in school and community events, and can apply to BRMS as a public charter school middle school option for their children if they opt to stay in their neighborhood through 8th grade.

In January 2020, a group of community and school members formed to work together to dialogue on the assets, desires, and needs of the community and how they can best be reflected and addressed by the new elementary school. This process will be fueled by feedback from parents, students, and community members of and in the neighborhood. There will be multiple opportunities for input and dreaming with us! If you can’t make a feedback session, please consider giving us your thoughts here: Take the survey

We anticipate this full process will begin in January 2021 and be completed by June 2021.

The anticipated start date for attendance in a new building would be a few years out. We are in the planning phase of the work. Architectural designs will be finalized based on the feedback from students, parents and community members. Then, the school in the Rimrock area will need to be built before any students move. We anticipate that the Rimrock area school would open in the fall of 2023. The opening date will depend on the outcome of our planning and could further be affected by construction timelines. There will be active communication with the school community throughout the process to keep families informed.

Both MMSD and Rooted are very excited about this new school, and have worked together very closely to ensure continuation of shared building and space use that will allow both organizations to carry out their missions. The community will gather at Badger Rock Neighborhood Center to celebrate this exciting development when COVID-19 restrictions allow for a community gathering.

The afterschool program is funded, in part, on a three to five year cycle through a Nita M. Lowney 21st Century Community Learning Center grant through the 2021/22 school year. Therefore, it is too soon to ensure that the funding will continue beyond that date depending on the grant landscape. However, assuming that funding continues, it is expected that the new elementary school will have an afterschool program similar to Allis Elementary’s current after school program.

MMSD has six other campuses where two schools share a building. Our schools that share buildings have realized several positive aspects such as older students mentoring younger students, staff members learning together, smooth transitions between grade levels when the students migrate to the other school, and resource sharing. In this case, the available space for a school in the neighborhood was very limited and this was the clear best option. In addition, having the neighborhood center within the schools is truly an exciting aspect for both of the schools and the community.

The purchase cost of the land and building on Badger Road was $6.4M. The estimate to build a new elementary school on this site, attached to BRMS, is approximately $25M and will be paid for with referendum funds.

The District’s current lease with Monona Grove runs until June 2023. It is anticipated that Nuestro Mundo Community School will move out of their current location in the Monona Grove School District at that time, with students starting the 2023/24 school year in the building at 4201 Buckeye Road that currently houses Allis Elementary School.

Because this plan includes moving Nuestro Mundo from a leased space in Monona Grove into Allis School within MMSD boundaries once Allis is vacated, MMSD will no longer need to lease space for Nuestro Mundo in the Monona Grove School District. Ending this lease will free up over $177,000 in the annual operating budget to fund the ongoing operations of the new building. There will be no new costs for staff as the entire staff from Allis Elementary will be moving to the new building with their students.