Dist. 220's master plan tour to begin Thursday night

The Barrington community will learn about and get its first chance to be a part of the new master plan for the educational buildings in Barrington Area Unit School District 220 on Thursday night, starting with a presentation at Roslyn Road Elementary School.

The presentation at 7 p.m. will kick off a four-week, 12-building tour of the district about the master plan called Blueprint220. At each stop, the district will share work done by DLR group, an international architecture company with an office in Chicago, about the status of each existing building.

District spokeswoman Morgan Delack said DLR studied the physical condition of each building as well as taking a closer look at how they are used for education. Delack said DLR got a sense of the “Day In The Life” of each building by following students through their day and taking note of how much time in classroom and other rooms they spent and what they did there.

“Were they working independently at a desk or were they working in groups?” Delack said. “They take that info and then could craft a space that fits the already existing schedules of students to better facilitate learning.”

Other information that DLR will share during the presentations includes temperature variations at the buildings, what flexible environments existing buildings have for students and staff and how each building stacks up against the other buildings in the district and other schools in the state.

Assistant Superintendent Becky Gill said the community will be asked for their feedback several times during the presentation, including whether there is a space in their building that they would like DLR and the district to review. At the end, the audience will be asked to contribute three big ideas about their school and community.

“We have no preconceived notions of where we want to go,” Gill said. “This is our initial stage for asking the public where they'd like to go.”

Gill said there will be more chances for community feedback over the coming months.

According to the timeline for the master plan, the soonest the board of education would adopt the plan and approve any spending would be in December.