District 25 ready to welcome first full-day kindergarten students this month
As students prepare to head back to school this month, Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 will cut the ribbons on six building additions and usher in full-day kindergarten programming as authorized by voters in a 2022 referendum.
Construction crews are now putting the finishing touches on the school expansions — laying down carpeting, turning on heating and cooling systems, and planting trees and shrubs outside — ahead of the set Aug. 10 date of substantial completion, when the hard hat sites are officially turned over to District 25 staff.
Much of the furniture already has been moved into classrooms, waiting to be unpacked and put into place when teachers and support staff return later this month.
Officials are right on track their original timeline — established when the $75 million tax-increase ballot measure was narrowly approved two years ago — to open the new kindergarten classrooms for the start of the 2024-2025 school year.
The first day of school is Aug. 29.
“Overall, we’re in really good shape,” said Ryan Schulz, the district’s director of facilities management, who has overseen the massive building project.
It encompasses 25 new classrooms across six elementary schools. The district is also in the middle of a five-year capital improvements plan that includes new plumbing, roofing, paving, windows, lighting and flooring at buildings throughout the district.
The work ranges from two new classrooms at Greenbrier Elementary — where a larger building addition was completed in 2017 to handle burgeoning enrollment — to Westgate Elementary, which has 10 new classrooms and a new gymnasium, while the old gym is being repurposed into an art room and two other classrooms.
“For being our largest site, it’s in really good shape,” Schulz said of Westgate. “We’re in a really good position to have that one ready to go. That project really helps that building out with flow and other things it was lacking in the past.”
Schulz, who has weekly meetings with construction management firm Nicholas and Associates, said the project costs are “tracking very well” with what was budgeted.
The school additions for full-day kindergarten cost the district $44.6 million, while the first three years of districtwide capital projects cost $25.6 million. Another $8.2 million of capital projects are planned in the summers of 2025 and 2026, according to Stacey Mallek, the district’s assistant superintendent for business.
In total, the $78 million building project is being funded by $75 million in bond proceeds authorized by voters, about $3 million in interest earned on the bonds, a $100,000 Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity grant, and a $50,000 school maintenance grant.
Ribbon-cutting ceremonies at each school are planned the week of Aug. 19.