Elgin school board confronts aging buildings and inequality during tour

Noisy classrooms that only have temporary walls as a buffer. Ceilings so low a person standing 5 feet 4 inches tall can touch them. Impassable stairways that hinder access for students in wheelchairs or using crutches.

Bad plumbing. No green space.

Those were some of the most visible challenges for the elementary schools in Elgin Area School District U-46 when school board members took a four-hour tour on a recent school day.

The purpose was to assess the limitations and inequities of the buildings as the board is poised to decide which classes to remodel, which schools to rebuild and which buildings to shutter.

Recommendations for the fate of eight schools will come next week.

District staff used the tour, and a presentation by U-46 Chief of Staff Brian Lindholm, to provide insight into the factors that will drive the plan.

Some elementary schools date to the late 1800s. Others suffer from outdated designs from the 1970s, forcing students to walk through supply rooms or disrupt other classes to reach other parts of the building.

Some schools targeted for rebuilding in earlier discussions, such as McKinley, Lowrie and Parkwood, face the logistical problem of sitting on a tight space or poor water drainage, complicating and potentially increasing the cost and disruption of reconstruction in their current locations.

Schools on much larger plots, such as Century Oaks and Glenbrook, have strong enrollments that make a case for ongoing use, in some form, compared to most of the district’s other elementary schools with declining populations.

School board members expressed concern about the number of stairs, narrow bathrooms and other accessibility challenges. That topic may have a strong influence on the board’s decisions on how to spend construction dollars as district staff agreed accessibility is a factor in their upcoming recommendations.