School district buys Wheeling properties for possible early learning center
Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 is buying a house and vacant land totaling nearly three acres along Hintz Road in Wheeling, where it may build a centralized district preschool.
The purchases — $890,000 from two different owners at 2836 E. Hintz Road and 2840-44 E. Hintz Road — are an initial step in what could become a new early childhood education center.
District officials have been contemplating a new building for the last three years as enrollment and a waiting list grows, and as its Hawthorne Early Childhood School and Tarkington and Whitman elementary schools — current home to district preschool programming — becomes cramped.
“When you’re able to host a program in the same location — particularly an early childhood preschool — that helps the quality of the program,” Superintendent Michael Connolly said Monday. “It’s a more effective and efficient model for student success.”
Early plans — which are now being designed by ARCON Associates — call for construction of a preschool with 25 to 28 classrooms, 13 or 14 student support spaces, 13 or 14 washroom/changing rooms, and a large motor skills room.
Cost estimates are in the $30 million to $40 million, though district officials caution construction pricing in the current market is in flux. And while the school board approved the property purchases earlier this month, the panel is set to make a final decision on whether to proceed with the project later this spring or early summer.
The district wouldn’t have to go to voters via referendum to approve construction of a new building, so long as it’s for prekindergarten or kindergarten classrooms, under a new state law that took effect in the summer.
District 21 currently has 450 children ages 3-5 enrolled in its preschools, which is a daily half-day program.
Students can only attend if they meet special education or at-risk eligibility factors following a screening; a state Preschool for All grant funds education for the latter group of students.
District 21 typically has preschool waiting lists of anywhere between 50 and 100, but officials anticipate being able to open up the new early learning center for general enrollment that would likely be tuition-based. The district covers portions of Wheeling, Buffalo Grove, Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, Prospect Heights and Northbrook.
The new building is being designed to fit as many as 800 students.
The properties on Hintz — a one-story house and two vacant parcels — are bordered by houses on one side and a KinderCare day care on the other side. Connolly said he and his staff have talked with Wheeling village officials about obtaining approvals for the preschool.
A preliminary timeline calls for construction to begin in March or April 2026 and be complete in June 2027.