Elgin School District U46 completed almost $16 million worth of repair and expansion work affecting more than half of the schools before the current school year.
Christopher Allen, the director of plant operations for U46, reported this week that 23 projects were finished over the spring and summer, some of them involving multiple schools.
In two of the most wide-ranging projects, new electronic access controls and surveillance systems were installed in 29 schools to improve their security, at a cost of $1.6 million. In addition to that, new secured doors operated by employee key fobs were installed inside the Education Services Center, helping separate the administrative offices and the Gifford Street High School areas from the outside and from each other, at a cost of $252,000.
As the district continually upgrades its digital technology, 22 more of the 50-plus school buildings received “wireless cabling” — an apparent oxymoron that often inspires some jokes when the subject is discussed by administrators and school board members. At a cost of $1.76 million, these make Wi-Fi systems available in more buildings.
One of the most expensive projects came at Abbott Middle School on Elgin’s southwest side. The red brick building was expanded in the 1990s but its main section hadn’t received a major outdoor wall renovation since Abbott was built in 1932 as a junior high school.
This summer the district spent $995,000 tuckpointing Abbott’s cracked and loose bricks, which Allen said have been letting water into the walls. The contractor also replaced the crumbling brick in the top two feet of each wall.
“Great pains were taken to not change the appearance of this historic building,” the report says.
Abbott’s West Side Elgin companion, Kimball Middle School, received a new roof costing $601,000.
Some even more expensive, though less visible, projects involved heating and cooling systems. Willard Elementary School in South Elgin got new boilers, a new chiller and unit ventilators at a cost of $1.37 million. Sunnydale Elementary in Streamwood got a new boiler and unit ventilators for $966,000. And Horizon Elementary in Hanover Park got a new boiler and chiller for $1.85 million.
The district also spent $650,000 for a new backup boiler at Bartlett High School.
Elgin High School got improvements to its culinary arts kitchen for $603,000.
Parking lot paving or expansions were done for the southwest lot at Larkin High School in Elgin ($298,000); for Eastview Middle School in Bartlett ($433,000), where a gravel lot was paved with asphalt and equipped with LED lighting; for the district’s plant operations and warehousing department on Elgin’s far East Side ($800,000), where the parking lot was expanded; and at the school bus base along Shales Parkway, where paving plus new gasoline pumps totaled $777,000.
An emergency shelter was built at a cost of $488,000 inside the plant operations building, which is a weak steel-frame structure that District U46 administrators fear could collapse if hit by a tornado or a stiff wind storm. The new shelter is designed to protect both the people who work there and some key communications and control equipment whose loss could virtually paralyze the school district.
The operations building had to fill in as the district’s central office for several days this fall when the Education Services Center was closed by a bacteria scare.
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New windows were installed at Harriet Gifford Elementary in Elgin ($319,000) and Clinton Elementary in South Elgin ($189,000).
At Streamwood High $194,000 was spent to replace some ventilating gear.
At Coleman Elementary in Elgin, $308,000 was spent to repair a problem with drainage and moisture infiltration. At Heritage Elementary in Streamwood $29,000 went to remodel restrooms that were built without complete walls between toilets and didn’t meet modern standards for accessibility.
Liberty Elementary in Bartlett got $197,000 in roof repairs while $1.08 million was spent to replace corroding water pipes at Eastview Middle.
Eastview also got $139,000 worth of new bleachers.