An ongoing program started five years ago to bring North Shore School District 112’s middle and elementary schools into the 21st Century added $6 million in security enhancements to the latest installment of its plan before sending it to voters in Highland Park and Highwood Nov. 8.
The District 112 Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution Monday at the district’s Green Bay Road headquarters in Highland Park asking voters to approve a $114.4 million referendum to better secure all the buildings and renovate five aging middle schools.
While security is an important part of the work which will be done with funds from the proposed referendum, the request is part of a five-year plan District 112 Superintendent Mike Lubelfeld started shortly after he arrived in 2017.
After a $198 million referendum was overwhelmingly defeated in 2016, Lubelfeld said he began an effort the next year to show the community what a 21st Century middle school looked like using available funds. Then he would seek a tax hike to improve the outdated elementary schools.
A $37 million gut renovation of Northwood Middle School began in 2019 and was finished in winter of 2021. Then a similar project started at Edgewood Middle School with completion projected for this winter. Students used the former Elm Place Middle School in the interim.
“This is beyond historic,” Lubelfeld said. “We showed the community through proof of concept we could build middle schools that would last for decades and a century even. We did so without passing a dedicated tax increase which required fiscal responsibility and discipline.”
As plans were being formulated for the second phase of school modernization, Lubelfeld said in an interview Tuesday afternoon the school did a security upgrade in 2014 and another in 2018. Then things changed.
Though a security upgrade was planned for this year, after a gunman killed 17 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School May 24 in Uvalde, Texas, Lubelfeld said the district decided to accelerate the process. The Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park got things moving even faster and the further enhanced security became part of the referendum.
“Because of the tragic events of July 4th and our literally 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week attention to this since July 4, we are asking to add that $6 million cost (for the safety and security enhancements) to the referendum,” Lubelfeld said at the meeting.
Some of the enhancements include exterior outdoor lock sensors, interior locking repairs, short concrete posts to divert traffic, alert systems, panic buttons and strobe lights to get everyone’s attention in an emergency.
Window treatments are getting an overhaul for $1.6 million. There will be improvements to all schools dealing with interior locking access and control mechanisms, approximately half the cost. Lubelfeld did not want to give too many details.
“That’s all I will say about that,” he said referring to the window treatments. “We’ve added threat assessment for staff in real time for our elementary school staff, middle school staff and our social and psychological staff,” he added about training. “We have ongoing trainings planned.”
Security enhancements have started. Should the referendum fail, Lubelfeld said payment for the security improvements will come at the expense of non security or safety related capital expenditures.
Along with security enhancements, the remaining bond proceeds will be used for major renovations at five aging schools — Braeside, Indian Trail, Ravinia, Sherwood and Wayne Thomas elementary schools — completing Phase II of the plan.
Phase III, will include work at other buildings and comes after the second phase is complete. A referendum for a tax increase is not anticipated for that.
Lubelfeld said the owner of a $500,000 home will pay between $500 and $600 a year more than their current payment.