A citizens steering committee supporting a referendum proposal to finance expanding Lincoln-Way High School has mapped out a grass-roots campaign.
The campaign, now in the planning stages, will begin in earnest after the holiday season and operate until the March 17 referendum, when voters will be asked to approve a $60 million bond issue.
The funds would be used to expand the freshman-sophomore East Campus in Frankfort and the junior-senior Central Campus in New Lenox into two separate four-year high schools. The goal is to prevent overcrowding and preserve academic achievement. If current enrollment trends continue, school officials said, the student population will exceed the two existing buildings’ combined 5,000-student capacity by the year 2001.
Phone surveys, campaign literature, signs and speakers will all be used to get out the word, according to Prudee Topielec, Kathy Guinea and Tom Bartkus, executive co-chairpersons of the 15-member steering committee.
Jobs to be filled include precinct captains, who will organize phone surveys and hand out literature and signs. The volunteers also will arrange neighborhood coffees where supporters can make the case for the plan to enlarge the school district facilities, which serve students from Mokena, Manhattan, Frankfort, New Lenox, Frankfort Square and part of Tinley Park.