Mobiles still sore spot in Dist. U-46

Elgin Area School District U-46 may spend more than $635,000 on a long-promised capital planning and facilities study.

A June 10 proposal by Chicago-based architecture, construction, engineering and environmental firm Wight and Company outlined several key goals to Executive Director of Operations Jeff King.

King presented that proposal to school board members last week.

The study aims to develop a plan for establishing consistent teaching and learning environments and to reassess support and athletic facility needs.

It also aims to eliminate the use of mobile classrooms - a long-standing thorn in the district's side.

This year, U-46 used 88 classrooms in 64 mobile units at Bartlett, Larkin and Streamwood high schools, Canton Middle school and 17 elementary schools.

At a March school board meeting, a Bartlett parent raised concerns about the health effects of mobile classrooms, citing a study released Feb. 14 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study found higher-than-typical indoor levels of formaldehyde in travel trailers and mobile homes provided to displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In late March, the district hired Park Ridge-based Environ International Corp., which tested the 64 trailers' formaldehyde levels for $60,000.

All chemical levels in U-46 mobiles were found to be within a normal range. Still, district officials said they hoped a capital planning study would minimize the use of mobile classrooms in the district.

Wight Vice President Bradley Paulsen told King the firm "understands the process, and results of the study will be used by the district for current legal initiatives."

Crowding in schools with large minority populations is a pillar of the racial discrimination lawsuit pending against the district.

Of those 17 elementary schools with mobile units, 15 are more than 50 percent Hispanic.

Twenty-one of the district's 40 elementary schools have a Hispanic majority, according to data from 2007 State Report Cards.

Only six of those 21 primarily Hispanic schools operate without mobile units.

A demographer from Massachusetts-based Gann-McKibben who helped U-46 redraw its attendance boundary map before the 2004-05 school year underestimated population growth in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods, King said in 2006.

"In areas where the demographic is more heavily Hispanic, that's where I've seen the demographer and the Citizens Advisory Council made some wrong assumptions," King said last year.

The district's last capital planning study was completed in 1998.

The capital planning study should take six to eight months, district spokesman Tony Sanders said.

The Wight proposal, Sanders said, is awaiting legal review.

If approved by district attorneys, the board will vote on the proposal at its July 21 meeting.

U-46: Proposal awaiting legal review