Crews building classroom additions in Glen Ellyn District 41

Crews are working this summer on the start of a two-year, $15 million project to add classrooms to all four elementary schools in Glen Ellyn District 41.

When the work is complete, Churchill, Franklin, Lincoln and Forest Glen schools each will have four new classrooms. Churchill also will get an additional art room and two bathrooms.

The additions will help the district reduce its use of aging portable classrooms. They will bring the students under one roof and increase security, Assistant Superintendent Bob Ciserella said.

Ciserella said the district has more than 600 students housed in portable classrooms. Those facilities are getting older, he said, and likely would need to be replaced in the next few years.

The portables also are unpopular among many community and school board members who would prefer to have all students under a single roof.

"They don't like the idea of kids having to go from the main building off to a portable classroom," he said. "They do not have hot and cold running water, nor do they have restroom facilities, and it presents certain security issues for us."

Ciserella said crews have broken ground for the projects at Franklin and Lincoln.

Crews are "in the ground, working with footings and foundations" at both sites, Ciserella said. He said the district expects students to be able to use the new additions when they come back from Christmas break.

At Forest Glen and Churchill, Ciserella said workers are putting in stormwater systems and creating the building pads or "outline" of the additions. Work on those classrooms probably will start next year.

"If we start next spring, they'll be completed for the beginning of winter semester of 2016," Ciserella said.

Classrooms: Projects have broken ground at two schools