For a second time, voters in Batavia School District 101 will decide whether to approve a $140 million bond issue to replace H.C. Storm Elementary and Louise White Elementary with new school buildings plus make other district-wide improvements to schools.
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District officials have said if voters approve the referendum question on the April 4 ballot, the Board of Education would be able to issue school building bonds that would coincide with the retirement of existing debt and generate funding for the projects without increasing the current bond and interest property tax levy.
The district’s existing bond debt will expire in two years, district officials said.
The previous referendum question on the $140 million bond issue failed by a slim margin in the Nov. 8, 2022, general election. The final tally on the measure was 7,060 voting against the bond issue (50.09%) and 7,036 (49.91%) voting in favor.
While it is the same referendum question on the ballot, district officials said they are trying to communicate their message on the measure differently this time.
After speaking to community and staff members, the district developed a referendum web page at https://www.bps101.net/referendum with details about the projects for each school building, officials said.
The district also collected input from more than 1,700 surveys concerning the issue, Batavia School District 101 Superintendent Lisa Hichens said in a phone interview with The Beacon-News.
“We wanted to explain to people why the referendum matters to everyone in the community,” the superintendent said.
H.C. Storm Elementary and Louise White Elementary were built in 1978. Renovating H.C. Storm and Louise White school buildings would not be cost-effective, officials said. There are mounting structural and functional issues at the facilities that have been determined to be more costly to tackle than to replace the buildings.
The two grade schools have issues concerning their main entrances, roofs, windows, flooring, ceilings and mechanical systems, according to officials.
The buildings lack classrooms for science and hands-on-learning as well as suitable spaces to serve students with special needs, district officials said.
The proposal is for full demolition of the schools and to rebuild them at an estimated cost of $30 million each.
“It would actually be more expensive to repair, modernize and bring the two schools up to code than it would be to rebuild them,” Hichens said.
The two facilities are not the district’s oldest schools but they were built in the 1970s with a different construction philosophy, specifically wall systems that are now obsolete which compromise security and prevent electrical upgrades, according to officials.
If the referendum question is approved, there would also be upgrades made at J.B. Nelson Elementary, which was built in 1955, and Alice Gustafson Elementary, which was constructed in 1957, officials said.
The schools have main entrance issues and lack classrooms for science and suitable spaces to serve students with special needs, district officials said. The proposal is to spend $5 million at each building for improvements.
The plan is to also spend $5 million at both Grace McWayne Elementary and Hoover-Wood Elementary for upgrades including new special education programs if voters approve the bond issue.
In addition, the plan is for $25 million in upgrades at Batavia High School, which was built in 1966, and Rotolo Middle School, built in 1992, if the bond issue is passed.
Part of the work proposed at each school would focus on special education spaces for students with special needs.
The district previously placed some special education students in programs outside of the district, she said.
“We do have special education programs that were brought back into our district which is the right thing to do but they have needs that are not the traditional classroom,” Hichens said.
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Also at the schools, science labs would be added and libraries modernized to accommodate new technologies and resources if the bond issue is approved, officials said.
The last referendum question in the district that received voter approval was in 2007 to build classrooms, a theater and a field house at Batavia High School as well as an Early Childhood Center at Alice Gustafson Elementary, plus renovations at other schools.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.