Anticipating an enrollment spike in the coming years, board members at Aptakisic-Tripp School District 102 are considering a referendum or using reserve funds as possibilities to pay for construction work.
With no plans for building a new structure, district board members are considering major renovations and additions to all four existing sites during the next few years. Although the board hasn’t made any final decisions, they’ve started gauging feedback from district residents about different possibilities for construction.
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“We’re building for our future and our future isn’t going to be complete in 2018,” she said.
District residents can share their thoughts about future construction needs at District 102 during a series of public meetings inside the district office at Aptakisic Junior High, 1231 Weiland Road, Buffalo Grove.
The first meeting is from 1 to 2 p.m. Tuesday, followed by a second one from 9 to 10 a.m. Wednesday. A final meeting is scheduled from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday.
During the sessions, Wilcox and others will outline their current building idea and gather feedback on how to handle student enrollment that is expected to rise quickly.
Currently, the district serves 2,273 students, breaking down to about 250 students in kindergarten through the eighth grade, said district spokeswoman Vickie Walter. Early childhood programs serve 63 students total.
The district expects that grade-level total to increase to 280 students in the coming years, along with the influx of 47 additional early-childhood students, Walter said.
The projected increases in enrollment are based on information from prospective developers addressing how many families they expect to attract, data from demographics firm Decision Insight and also from a formula that Naperville Community Unit School District 203 developed a few years ago to track student enrollment using birth rates, real estate information and more, Wilcox said.
So far, district board members have narrowed down the possibilities for addressing school building needs and increasing enrollment.
Both Pritchett and Tripp Elementary could serve early childhood up through the third grade, while Meridian Middle School could serve fourth through sixth grade with a major building addition, under one possible option, district officials have said.
Another idea would send fourth and fifth graders to Meridian, which also would become the site of the district office after building additions are made. Aptakisic Junior High would add an extra grade level to its building — sixth graders — while building renovations to Pritchett and Tripp would make room to serve early childhood through the third grade.
Another possibility, district officials said, would entail building renovations at Pritchett and Tripp to create the space to serve students in early childhood up through the fifth grade. With a major renovation, Aptakisic Junior High would become an elementary school, while Meridian Middle School would serve sixth, seventh and eighth graders after undergoing a major addition.
New District 102 students initially are expected to be coming from a subdivision under construction in Lincolnshire and also from 220 new single-family homes and town houses located on the north end of the Didier Farms property also in Lincolnshire, Wilcox said.
Stacey Bachar, assistant superintendent for business services, said the building changes could total between $19.4 million and $38 million, depending on what board members decide to do with the district’s buildings. Discussions on how to fund the construction work likely will happen in the coming months.
“The big difference between the high and the low is, ‘How expensive do you want to get?'” Bachar said.
District administrators also have involved teachers from the Aptakisic Education Association in the initial building planning, said Adam Rosenak, co-president of the teachers union. But the teachers haven’t yet formally decided what building options they would support.
“We’ll have an opportunity to get our group together and discuss it,” he said.
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