Some residents living near Stevenson High School recently questioned the scope and payment plan of a proposed $25 million building addition at the Lincolnshire-based school district during a community open house on the project.
To accommodate an anticipated 4,500 total students in the next decade, school officials have proposed adding on to their east building a three-story structure that would house 21 classrooms
For $25 million total, Stevenson officials would build three floors for science and technology classrooms, including laboratories designed to deliver “collegiate-level” science instruction, said Sean Carney, assistant superintendent for business.
But some residents, during an open house Jan. 19 between roughly a dozen district residents, Carney and Superintendent Eric Twadell, questioned the need for a building addition and the cost to do so.
Long Grove resident David Dowd said Stevenson educators should leave collegiate-level instruction to the universities and pursue a more affordable option to teach the larger number of students expected at Stevenson in the coming years.
“We can’t be as grand and opulent as we’d like,” he said.
Dowd said he opposed a building addition at Stevenson back in 1994, when the district secured a $25 million referendum to add its east building. Officials at the time said the renovation was needed to accommodate a student population of 4,500, Dowd said.
In the mid 1990s, classrooms were smaller at Stevenson and could handle more students, Twadell explained during the open house. As class sizes shrunk, the school underwent renovations to make individual classrooms larger and eliminated entire rooms in the process, he said.
With student population again on the rise, the school did not want to cram students into those shuffled rooms, Carney said after the open house.
“The teaching spaces we were using were ineffective,” he said.
If approved, the proposed building addition also would feature a greenhouse on the roof that would serve as an outdoor classroom and help efficiently regulate temperatures inside the new building, Stevenson officials have said.
The renovation also would include 100 new parking sports, replacing old, multi-use tennis courts near the east building.
To pay for the project, officials can use reserves and additional bonds without having to pursue a property-tax referendum to finance the addition, both Twadell and Carney told residents during the open house.
Remi Graniczny, whose house on adjacent Hotz Road stands near the east building at Stevenson, said Stevenson officials haven’t done enough to explain how they could avoid a referendum and cover the entire costs of the project.
“I’m just worried about what it will do to our taxes,” Graniczny said.
Stevenson currently has about $30 million in debt, Carney said. Bonds to cover the addition also would be paid off in a decade since district board members’ current policy is to eliminate a debt within 10 years, he said.
Going forward, Lincolnshire officials will begin meeting this week to review the proposed addition at Stevenson. If village trustees ultimately approve the project, district board members would take a final vote on the project in the spring, Stevenson officials have said.
If the project is approved, construction would begin in September with a timetable to complete the addition by the start of the 2019-20 school year.
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