With food trucks and fanfare, District U-46 officials celebrated the completion Thursday of a 47,000-square-foot, $35 million addition to Kenyon Woods Middle School in South Elgin.
“This is an amazing day for the Kenyon Woods and South Elgin communities,” Superintendent Suzanne Johnson told a packed house prior to a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the building.
Johnson thanked voters who in April 2023 approved a $179 million school bond referendum that funded not only the improvements at Kenyon Woods but at various other campuses throughout the district, including construction of several new schools. She noted that many of the projects have been under consideration for more than 40 years and are finally becoming a reality.
Kenyon Woods is one of nine schools in the district being converted from a junior high for seventh- and eighth-grade students to a middle school housing sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, Johnson said.
“This will help students thrive academically,” she said.
School Board President Melissa Owens said the addition to Kenyon Woods, which opened in October 2004, will allow for newer ways of teaching and enable teams of students to work together.
South Elgin Trustee Jim Breunlin, a retired educator, complimented the district for the work it’s undertaken to convert its schools to the middle school model and for what that means for the village.
“When schools succeed, communities succeed,” Breunlin said.
With the addition of more space, the school this year is undertaking a new dual-language program for more than 300 multilingual students, according to Kenyon Woods’ new Principal Jennifer Reyes, who previously helmed Abbott Middle School in Elgin.
More than two-thirds of Kenyon Woods students and nearly 40 of the 97-member faculty starting classes Aug. 27 will be new to the school, Reyes also noted. The school will accommodate about 1,200 students this year, she said.
Among the building’s new amenities, according to Ann Williams, the district’s deputy superintendent for operations and chief school business official, is the space where most of the Thursday gathering took place. The area is known informally as the “chill zone” and set up for students to work together on projects in small groups or to relax between classes, she said.
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On a tour of the addition, Reyes also pointed out the science lab, a room for teachers in which there are windows looking out at green space and “ombré walls,” painted in various shades of one color.
Desks in new classrooms are designed so they can be rearranged for team learning, she said. Hall nooks have video screens so small student groups can work with teachers on projects.
The new space also features two unisex restrooms with open doorways in which the sinks can be seen from the hallway. Stalls have doors that extend from floor-to-ceiling to allow for privacy. All other restrooms in the school are single-sex or for staff only. Reyes said the setup is to ensure that students feel safe.
Veteran Kenyon Woods music teacher Christine Zimmerman said she was excited for the coming school year, in part because the middle school model will give her the opportunity to work with students for an additional year.
“I also love the blue-and-green color scheme for the addition and how it is wide open space-wise,” Zimmerman added.
Parents Litzy and Juan Rosas, of Elgin, said they were happy their 11-year-old daughter, Leilany, would be among the first sixth-graders to attend the new version of Kenyon Woods.
Leilany, who is hearing-impaired, concurred, saying she was looking forward to the special program available for students like her, the chance to make new friends and the ability to go to school with older students.
“This also means Leilany will be going to the same school where my sisters and brothers went. It becomes a generational thing,” her father said.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The (Elgin) Courier-News.