Skokie voters will be asked in November to approve a bond issuance totaling more than $47 million to cover the cost of constructing a new school on the site of the current East Prairie Elementary School.
The East Prairie School District 73 Board of Education voted unanimously at its Aug. 16 meeting to put the bond question on the ballot after a community group comprised of parents and district officials recommended the board pursue building a new school.
The process began a year and a half ago, District 73 Superintendent Theresa Madl said. In March 2015, she said the one-school district conducted a facilities assessment and “came up with some concerns that needed to be addressed.” This past January, she said, the district conducted a programs assessment and discovered that the school building did not adequately serve all the district’s educational and programming needs.
The entire building covers 92,000 square feet and, according to the district’s programs assessment, the school would need to be 124,000 square feet in size to adequately address students’ needs, she said. The school serves about 580 students in grades pre-kindergarten through eight, Madl said.
Flooding continues to be a problem for the school, located at the corner of Crawford Avenue and Howard Street, and the excess water has taken a toll on the facility, District 73 board President Rich Evonitz said. The current building was constructed in eight different sections, which range in age from 25 to 40 years old, Madl said.
“There certainly are a lot of cracks. It’s structurally sound, but if we don’t take action to do something we’ll have an issue sometime in the near future,” Evonitz said.
Madl said the community engagement team discussed five possible scenarios, including minor and major renovations to the existing building, building a new school on the same site and building on a different site.
“The people who participated in the (community engagement) meetings voted, and the vote was overwhelmingly to build a new school on the same site,” she said.
She said a consultant determined what it would cost to build a new facility based on the optimal square-footage figure noted in the program assessment.
If voters approve the $47.3 million bond issuance, the money will be paid back over the course of a quarter-century, Madl said. Homeowners with property valued at $255,000 will need to pay slightly more than $800 in additional property taxes per year as a result of the bond issuance, she said.
“We have maintained the building and have done a good job, but we are getting to the point where we need to seriously look at the concerns in the building, and we’re asking taxpayers how they would like to address them by putting it forth in that bond question,” Madl said.
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If voters approve the bond referendum, she said, the district will begin the design phase for a new building. Construction will be completed in phases to mitigate the impact the work would have on the classroom, she said.
“I would encourage my colleagues in the community to really invest some time in learning about the issue of what’s going on with the building, assess how much it will cost each person individually and vote,” Evonitz said. “My feeling is people who really see what’s going on with this facility will realize we need to do this.”
Illinois law prohibits districts from using taxpayer money to advocate in favor of a referendum. Evonitz said a community group is forming that will advocate for the passage of the bond issuance.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. Jennifer Johnson contributed to this report.