Quality Education Issue #3-Does Central need renovation? Yes. Has the Board looked at any other alternatives (boundaries, enrollment predictions) to help with the solution/cost of renovating Central and adding on to Mill? I know that in my area we are down to three, if not two kindergartens.
The candidates respond:
Terry Fielden
The District facilities are beginning to age and the major components of the building will need replacement in the coming years. The District has completed a facilities study plan that identifies the areas for major maintenance as well as finish upgrades. This should be taken as a proactive position by the Board. The majority of districts work towards maintaining the status quo for so many years that the expense becomes very hard to manage and the need becomes dire.
It is important to realize that all buildings will require maintenance as they age just as a home does. The major difference is that the expenses are generally very costly and can be a difficult issue for the District to promote. In the coming years, this issue will take on more significance and need.
The focus on this issue should be ramped up and explored at each facility with the same effort that was given to Naperville Central HS and Mill Street school. Mill Street, with its, high student population needs a strong focus and attention to ensure the safety and education of the students. Central is the place from where our children enter college. They deserve a facility that will give them the optimal chance. Families buying houses and entering a community will look at the overall quality of the facilities and the community effort in maintaining those facilities.
Mill Street is an old style education facility that really under serves the needs of the students. The population has exceeded the teaching capacity of the building. This school should be a priority. Relocating the children to another facility will not solve the underlying problems with the building configurations and lack of space. Redistricting will only prolong the need for renovation but it will not be eliminated. Both sides of the solution need consideration coupled with renovations completed at Mill Street.
There is little question that the population in the southern half of the District has begun to decline while the northern half continues to see growth. (According to the Kasarda study distributed by the District) The study indicated that this will continue through the year 2011 for a net loss of 350 students across the District at the elementary level. The District reports that there are roughly 18,600 students enrolled. So the loss is roughly 2% of the student population. Two thirds of the loss will occur at Central. These changes are projected to occur over the next four years. However, it is just a projection and may not come to pass. The District can provide you a copy of the study.
Waiting another four years to see what happens with the population will only allow the cost of renovations to increase at the expense of required upgrades. The need for larger or more classrooms at Mill Street and improving the electrical and science labs at Central will not go away with a decrease in population. Redistricting will not eliminate the need for renovations. Renovations need to be considered because it is the appropriate time in the life of the buildings. The focus needs to be on the right prioritization of the renovations that will have the most impact on the curriculum.
Mike Jaensch
I have consistently said that while Central needs a lot of work, I don’t think any of the options out there are as cost effective as they could be in terms of educational return on the dollar. We need a sound, long-range plan that addresses all the infrastructure and educational needs without going into wish lists and “things that would be nice.”
I have also stated several times that I believe the administration was remiss in not looking at redistricting sooner. I have always been a proponent for brainstorming and looking at all options, but I also believe that we need to finish up the planning stage and move on to implementation. We’ve been “studying” facility needs for years now, and it’s time to stop studying and start solving.
Suzyn Price
The Naperville BOE started a facilities planning process in 2004 with an independent committee of volunteers that included specialists in finance, business and construction. They put together a plan for moving forward that we have followed. Last summer, we gathered a group of volunteers--self-submitted volunteers to look at our facilities issues as charged by the BOE to address our two most compelling problems, the Mill St and Central High schools, and then to look at safety, security, transportation issues and athletic space at all of our schools--and using the very thorough facilities review conducted by our architects.
Neither the administration nor the Board had any pre-conceived plan and many of us were surprised by some of the recommendations, construction of an early childhood center, for example. During the committee's deliberations, the District contracted a demographer to conduct a ten-year study. His conclusions were that the district would experience an overall decline of 10.4% and then stabilize at that number. After the committee submitted and reviewed their plan with us, the BOE began its discussion with the goal to have a ten-year facilities plan that includes all 21 schools in place by this summer.
Central's needed renovation is not entirely a function of either age or overcrowding. There are plenty of high quality aged school buildings in the country. But they were well built and with additions that fully complemented the buildings. Central has 12 additions built on since the original building was constructed in 1948. Each one addressed a current problem and was limited by the restricted land space. Even with a projected 500 fewer students in 2018, there is still going to be inadequate cafeteria facilities, less space for athletics, sub-par science labs, HVAC issues and wiring problems. Do we continue to patch, with escalating costs as the buildings age, or do we do something that gives us a 50 year solution and decreased maintenance costs?
We began discussion redistricting around the Mill Street school problem, which is primarily about overcrowding. We could move 200 students to other schools, and then Mill Street's building issues get mixed in with other elementary school building issues and they are prioritized with the other schools. This is perhaps a cheaper temporary solution, but what happens if the developers who own the land north of Mill Street do build single family homes? The one area, at Mayneland Farm, would have sent very few children if it remained townhomes, as planned by the developer. But as single family homes, we will get 20 or more students. Land further to the north, across Bauer, is owned by a consortium of private interests. A developer is working with them to create a plan for single family homes that could send us 100 or more kids, if they max out their space. Suddenly, Mill Street's population is maxed out again and we haven't done anything to address that problem--and Mill Street already has a projected increase of 22 students as calculated by our demographer. (You mentioned that population is dropping at your schools--at Beebe and Mill, the population is projected to increase.)
There are so many possibilities in any ten-year plan, and even in a five year plan. I have to think about the Naperville North HS pool. It was built in the 70s and is now unusable for competition. The IHSA changed their requirements and we must come up with a solution to address it. This was an action not of the District's choosing. When it was built, all the swimming powers-that-be said that the US would move to Metric measurements, so the pool was built to accommodate that coming revolution—that never happened. So the BOE that built it could be derided for making that decision, but they made a decision with the best information available at the time. What if they decided to use English system of measurement and the swimming establishment HAD changed to metric?
Every school district is subject to state and federal regulations and programs that are frequently unfunded. What's going to happen to the Universal Pre-School program Governor Blagojevich wants? Where will we put all of the students that we will have to offer pre-school to? What happens if all-day Kindergarten is required? We do not have the space for all day Kindergartens, but we'd have to find it quickly. What happens if interest rates drop and tear downs speed up--houses that are occupied by families with children? Our demographer gave us this as a possibility and it's not pretty. What happens if home values plummet? The Board of Education is charged to consider all of these possibilities, but we can only use the best information we have at the time.
What I am concerned about, with any governing official, is what their decision making is predicated on. Is it that investment in infrastructure has a return on investment or that it's unnecessary? Would I rather save a few tax dollars or have my roads driveable? The reality is I'm going to pay anyway--with bad roads I'm going to need new tires and maybe a new transmission much faster than if I had good roads. I believe that quality school districts pay for themselves with excellent educational opportunities, increasing home values, business success, and attraction of engaged, education-minded residents.
think that our taxes, among the lowest in DuPage County (a $350,000 home in D203 pays $6475, in D204 $8691, in Bloomingdale $6525, in Glyn Ellen $7,042, in Wayne $6786 and in Wheaton $6984 according to the Illinois State Report Card), give us excellent return on investment. I know that my home has more than doubled in value since we purchased it in 1998. I don't have any other investment that offers that kind of return, and my kids are getting a great education.