Unit 4 board to look at Washington, Garden Hills plans
CHAMPAIGN – The Champaign school board will review design plans for rebuilding Washington Elementary School and expanding Garden Hills Elementary School at a study session tonight, with the goal of approving designs for the two schools at its Nov. 9 meeting.
The board meets at 7 p.m. at the Mellon Administrative Center, 703 S. New St., C.
The district plans to tear down the existing Washington school building and rebuild a new building on the same site. It will expand Garden Hills, and both schools will become magnet schools when the work is finished, meaning they will have curricula that focuses on a specific theme for each school.
Washington's magnet theme will be science, technology, engineering and math, and Garden Hills will have an international education theme with a strong fine-arts focus.
The architects for the two building projects – OWP/P of Chicago for Washington and BLDD Architects of Champaign for Garden Hills – will present their designs Monday to get feedback from the school board.
The Garden Hills expansion will provide a large gym and a dining space adjacent to one another that can together be used for musical and theatrical performances, said Mark Ritz, an architect with BLDD.
The current multipurpose room, used as both a lunchroom and gym, would be converted to a media center, Ritz said. A few other spaces in the current building would also be converted to provide larger art and music rooms, because of the fine-arts emphasis that is part of Garden Hills' magnet theme.
Architects are also working on providing a space that would be available to the community in some way, Ritz said.
There are still a few unresolved issues concerning the site and the cost of the expansion project. Ritz said his firm is working with the construction manager on cost issues, and there are options to adjust the plans to control costs.
When OWP/P architects talked to community members about Washington school in late August, their plans called for building a two-story school that would accommodate 425 students. The school currently has two classrooms at each grade level, and the rebuilt school would provide three classrooms at each grade level.
The Washington school plans also included space that could be used by community members or organizations outside of school hours.
Also tonight:
Budget plans. Chief Financial Officer Gene Logas will talk about budget planning for the 2010-11 school year. He'll present several scenarios of what the district might expect regarding revenue, and options for responding to the poor economy and decreasing state funding.
Logas has recommended the district make $2 million in cuts next year. He'll talk to the board about budget cuts, as well as the option of issuing working-cash bonds and spending down its fund balances further.
Logas said cuts are not inevitable, but they are probable.
"If we wanted to be optimistic that things are going to improve in the next year, and if we wanted to issue more working-cash bonds and pull fund balances down, perhaps (cuts) could be avoided. I'm not sure that is the best idea," he said. "Unfortunately, we probably have to take a look at some cuts."
Logas said he'll ask the board for guidance in how to respond to the need for cuts. He said the board will meet in the next month or so to look at the district's strategic plan and talk about what areas are priorities and in what areas it might make cuts.
Boundary lines. The board will review options for redrawing its high school boundary lines.
Jerome McKibben, a demographer hired to develop options for redistricting, presented the top two options at a forum Oct. 12. Board members asked McKibben to modify the option he identified as the one best meeting the district's goals.
That option has the Central High School district wrapping around the city to the south. Board members asked it be modified so students in the area northeast of Interstate 74 would go to Central, and students living south of Windsor Road and west of I-57 would go to Centennial.
Also on this date
- Trick-or-treat hours for area communities
- Police clear accident on Prospect at I-74
- Candidates begin filing for February primary
- 'Extreme Makeover' episode evokes cheers, tears
- Danville man arrested in fatal weekend shooting
- Trial for second suspect in 2006 killings to start today
- Convicted robber gets 15 years for separate burglary
- Soldier killed in Afghanistan back home in Rantoul
- Family of girl found in landfill once called Paxton home
- Obituaries