Students, parents and community members joined school officials in Richton Park Wednesday night to unveil a new $48 million field house at Rich Township High School.
The project highlights healing, progress and positive improvements in District 227, Superintendent Johnnie Thomas said. Many taxpayers and activists have criticized the district since the school board voted three years ago to close Rich East High School in Park Forest.
“We are here to showcase what happens when we work together,” Thomas told the more than 100 people. “This is what’s possible when we come together as a community.”
The 95,000-square-foot facility features three wooden floor basketball courts, a 200-meter track, climbing wall, large video board and other amenities.
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After school officials cut a ceremonial ribbon, the school’s marching band performed to welcome guests and members of an ROTC program honored the U.S. flag during a performance of the national anthem.
“Every performance you saw here today is housed in this facility,” Thomas told the crowd.
Treasure Jude, a senior at the school, was among student ambassadors who took guests on guided tours.
“We absolutely love and appreciate this field house,” Jude said.
The improvements are part of a controversial capital improvement plan. A month after voting in October 2019 to close Rich East, the school board narrowly approved a plan to issue $105 million in bonds to refinance existing debt and pay for work at the two remaining schools.
At the time, dozens of residents protested the so-called “backdoor referendum” that denied property owners the opportunity to decide whether to pay more in taxes. School officials at the time told residents the bond issue would increase property taxes by $137 a year on homes valued at $300,000 or $86 a year on homes valued at $200,000.
District officials redrew attendance boundaries, renamed the former Rich South in Richton Park the Fine Arts and Communications Campus and re-christened the former Rich Central in Olympia Fields as the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM Campus.
The bond issues funded other improvements to support academic and athletic programs, including a commercial kitchen at the Richton Park campus for culinary arts.
A year ago, Thomas gave the Daily Southtown a tour of a new football field at the Richton Park campus that features artificial turf, sophisticated lighting and a digital scoreboard.
Workers renovated bathrooms, revamped ventilation systems and installed new roofs at both campuses. Computer science and manufacturing production labs were nearing completion at the Olympia Fields campus at the time.
Thomas said at the time the district was considering a proposal to house a vocational education program at the former Rich East building,
Wednesday night, though, was about celebrating improvements accomplished during the past three years.
“We expect all of our children to be the best,” Richton Park Mayor Rick Reinbold said. “But in order for them to be the best we need to give them the best. This is a perfect example of doing exactly that.”
Reinbold thanked school board members for making tough decisions.
“Without vision something like this never happens anywhere,” he said.
District 227’s decision to close Rich East could be viewed in the same context as the Archdiocese of Chicago’s painful but necessary process of consolidating parishes due to declining attendance and finance pressures confronting many churches.
Rich Township high schools, like many other suburban districts, built new facilities during the 1960s to serve rapidly increasing enrollments during the baby boom era. Those years are long gone. Schools, like highways and other infrastructure, can only last for so long without being replaced or significantly renovated.
Change can be difficult, and the District 227 community has endured more than its fair share of pain in recent years. The best many in the Southland can do is to look ahead with optimism and hope for a revival through progress and growth.
Wednesday night, Thomas welcomed superintendents of all the elementary districts that send students to high schools in District 227. He acknowledged Blondean Davis of Matteson Elementary District 162, who is also CEO of the Southland College Prep charter school in Richton Park.
Thomas also welcome Caletha White of Park Forest-Chicago Heights Elementary District 163; Tiffany Brunson of Elementary District 159 that serves parts of Matteson, Richton Park and Tinley Park; and Duane Meighan of Country Club Hills Elementary District 160.
“Because of all this work and all the people in this room we are able to do great things for our children,” Thomas said. “This is just the beginning.”
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Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.