Families will pay tuition if they choose to enroll their children in full-day kindergarten next fall in Park Ridge-Niles School District 64, while school officials grapple with construction costs that are running at $38.8 million — $13 million higher than originally estimated.
The District 64 Board of Education on Feb. 3 voted 4-3 to set full-day kindergarten tuition at $18 per day, or $3,240 for the school year.
Proceeds from the tuition will mainly cover the costs of additional teacher salaries and benefits required for expanding kindergarten from half-day to full-day, which is projected at $1.2 million annually, said District 64 Chief School Business Official Adam Parisi.
Parents will still have the option of enrolling their children in half-day kindergarten, which does not have a tuition cost, the district has said.
Voting for the $18 per day tuition were board members Rebecca Little, Phyllis Lubinski, Denise Pearl and Tom Sotos. Voting against were board members Gareth Kennedy, Carol Sales and Nicole Woitowich.
The board struggled to approve a tuition amount, with a majority of members rejecting motions to charge $21 per day and $24 per day.
“I cannot vote for any model that has tuition,” Woitowich said, adding that public education “should be accessible to everyone.” She suggested that the board look at increasing student fees across the district instead.
Tom Sotos, who stated last month that he could not support a tuition-less full-day kindergarten program that would put expenses on all taxpayers in the district, appeared to change his stance on Feb. 3. He stated that he was afraid the district would be asked to charge tuition “for a really long time,” voted against two of the tuition motions before the board, hesitated before casting his “yes” vote for the $18 per day fee and then apologized for the vote.
“I can’t vote to charge tuition to kindergarten parents when a lot of the money we are spending doesn’t have anything to do with kindergarten,” Sotos said earlier in the meeting.
Sotos, who has said the the district moved too quickly on implementing a full-day kindergarten program and voted against a motion to borrow money for construction, was referring to the cost of extensively renovating Jefferson School, which houses preschool and special education programs and will gain administrative offices and meeting space when work is complete.
The cost of renovating Jefferson, which Parisi called a “completely gut-rehab renovation,” is approximately $14 million of the total $38.8 million construction expense, he said.
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Other board members like Little, Lubinski, Pearl and Sales each noted that they did not favor a tuition model for full-day kindergarten, but felt it is needed at this time.
“While I don’t want to charge tuition, I don’t want to see our district in debt for the foreseeable future,” Lubinski said.
Board members asked that tuition waivers and reduced rates be offered to families who cannot afford the full tuition.
Three parents who spoke during the Feb. 3 meeting objected to charging tuition for full-day kindergarten.
“This truly sounds like we are creating another situation for families with privilege to have better,” said parent Ellen Anderson. “There are other families in the community who will get the bare minimum …. Full-day kindergarten should not be a privilege.”
“The idea of a public school charging tuition has all kinds of negative effects, where your income determines whether you have as good an education as someone else,” said resident Vince Mahler.
District 64 parents currently pay a fee of $24 per day for an optional extended day program for kindergarten students.
The school board on Aug. 12, 2021 formally voted to implement a full-day kindergarten program at each of the district’s five elementary schools. The following month, the board voted to borrow $25.9 million to cover construction costs to add additions at the elementary schools, renovate Jefferson School and perform some other school building improvements.
On Feb. 3, Parisi revealed that construction bids now actually total $38.8 million, which is nearly $13 million more than the $25.9 million the board was initially told the expense would be.
In all, costs associated with full-day kindergarten and construction projects, including temporary mobile classrooms at Jefferson and staffing expenses, top $43.3 million.
Parisi explained that the increase in construction cost is due to rising prices for materials, supply chain issues and some additional projects that were added since the $25.9 million figure was discussed last year.
The additional projects include preparing a portion of Field School for a possible second floor addition in the future; adding an IT warehouse and maintenance garage at Jefferson; adding a special education classroom at Washington School; and replacing the fire alarm system at Franklin School, Parisi said. Also, Jefferson School was found to need more extensive work that initially anticipated, he added.
District 64 will cover the added $13 million in expenses by using fund balance revenues in the budget, Parisi said.
“Instead of borrowing more money and increasing taxes on individuals, the decision was made to borrow $25.9 million and have the additional money come from fund balance, which is essentially a large savings account for the district,” he explained.
On top of the $38.8 million, the district must also pay $2.5 million in interest on the $25.9 million in bonds that were issued, an estimated $750,000 in furniture and technology costs related to the project, and $176,700 for temporary mobile classrooms at Jefferson this spring.
Sotos on Feb. 3 motioned for the board to direct administration to find $10 million in cuts to the construction project without impacting full-day kindergarten, but the motion failed with only Sotos voting in favor. The board was told that making cuts at this stage would delay the project and could also mean higher expenses in the future for work that might be postponed. Contracts for $6.4 million in work at Jefferson School were already approved by the board last year and work has started, Parisi said.
Registration for full-day kindergarten is scheduled to begin this month.
The school district expects the buildings to be ready to accommodate students in August, though Rick Petricek of Studio GC, the architectural firm hired by District 64, acknowledged that not all engineering plans have been approved yet by Niles, Park Ridge or the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.
District 64 Superintendent Eric Olson said the district will consider “contingency plans” if there is construction delay, and conversations have begun regarding alternate locations for students at the start of the year.
“We’re all very excited about this project because full-day kindergarten is going to be a great thing instructionally and emotionally for the kids,” Parisi added. “We’re going to be able to build facilities that are going to be more modernized and the instruction that is going to take place in the kindergarten classes in these spaces is going to be great.”