DeLacey has new role in D300 proposal

An unpopular proposal that would have removed at-risk preschoolers from deLacey Family Education Center and filled the facility with kindergartners is off the table, Community Unit District 300 Superintendent Ken Arndt said Saturday.

"That has been removed from consideration," Arndt said at a school board work session on east-side middle and high schools. The plan would have shifted kindergartners from the crowded Perry Elementary School to deLacey.

Instead, the board tentatively backed another proposal that would leave the preschoolers and add classrooms to schools, including deLacey.

Some board members asked the East Side Study Committee, a group of administrators and east-side principals, to consider the addition to the deLacey center.

The overall proposal could shift eight elementary classrooms from high-poverty Carpentersville schools to more northern schools and expand at least two elementary schools.

The proposal calls for $3.3 million in construction -- $1.4 million to add four classrooms to Golfview Elementary School and $1.9 million to add six classrooms for full-day kindergarten.

While backing the proposal, board President Joe Stevens again expressed interest in building a new elementary school on the district's east side.

"Is this the best option for a long-term solution, or is this a Band-Aid?" Stevens said. "Would we be better off if we could magically have another building on the east side?"

Stevens' idea is controversial because the district told taxpayers it would build four new schools with bonds approved in a 2006 referendum request -- on the west side.

The East Side Study Committee is charged with returning to the board with a more fleshed-out version of the proposal the board endorsed Saturday.

The board took no formal vote Saturday because it was not an action meeting.