District 25 OKs roof repair

The Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 school board on Thursday approved spending about $173,000 to repair a portion of Ivy Hill Elementary School's roof.

Work will start in early August and take about 10 days, said Stacey Mallek, assistant superintendent of business.

"It's an old roof, built in 1987 with a 15-year life expectancy," she said.

About 30 percent of the roof on the school's west side will be repaired, Mallek said.

Roof repairs were also made at Thomas and Miner schools this summer. The driveway entrance to Windsor Elementary School will also be repaired later this month, Mallek said.

The most expensive project this summer was installing air conditioning at Thomas, South, Olive-Mary Stitt and Greenbrier schools. The project cost $5.7 million.

Back in December, the school board voted 5-2 to spend $12.6 million to air-condition all nine schools. The plan included air conditioning at South, Thomas, Greenbrier and Olive-Mary Stitt this summer. The project is expected to be complete by the beginning of the school year, Mallek said.

Work on Dryden, Ivy Hill, Patton, Westgate and Windsor will take place next summer.

The new system will cool the schools with an automated temperature system. All classrooms will also have lights on motion sensors, Mallek said.

In December, all board members agreed air conditioning was needed. The two dissenting votes were from board members who didn't agree with the financing plan. The plan will fund the project with a combination of a loan and cash reserves. It will have the owner of a $500,000 home paying an additional $671 in taxes over several years.

Board members Diana Chrissis, Denise Glasgow, David Page, Susan Pressing and Charles Williams voted in favor of the plan. Ken Nielsen and Dan Petro voted against the plan.

Both Petro and Nielsen wanted to use only cash reserves to pay for the project.