End of year cause for school to celebrate

With the school year winding down in Barrington Area Unit District 220, PTO, school and community leaders gathered to hear about everything accomplished over the past 12 months.

At a special luncheon this week to thank the PTO for its work, school board member Penny Kazmier gave a "state of the schools" address and said there's much to be proud of.

"We have a lot to celebrate," Kazmier said.

The district has worked hard over the past year, she said, to improve some of the its aging facilities.

In December, the high school broke ground on its new athletic stadium.

Despite the not-so-warm spring, Kazmier said work is progressing and the stadium is on target to open on time.

"We don't feel that will hinder us in being open for the first (football) game in the fall," she said.

The new stadium will include an eight-lane track and larger field surface for soccer and lacrosse. New bleachers will have 2,500 seats for home fans and 1,500 for visitors.

Kazmier said the school system also took a huge step in solving its need for a new early learning center.

She said District 220 was able to amass a comfortable reserve fund, allowing it to spend $12 million for a new early learning center.

"We did this through prudent budgeting over the past several years," Kazmier said.

The 37,000-square-foot facility, which will serve identifiably at-risk 3- to 5-year-olds, will replace the current early learning home at Woodland School in Carpentersville. The new center is under construction next to Barrington Middle School Prairie Campus.

The board considered tackling another facility need -- finding more middle school space -- but decided against it in the end.

Kazmier said the board talked about putting another referendum question on the November ballot for money for a third middle school.

"We just felt we had a lot of things going on, and we honestly weren't hearing from the community that this was a priority," she said.

Students and staff also gave the district reason to celebrate, Kazmier said.

Sunny Hill School teacher Nancy Kontney was one of just 10 educators to win a Golden Apple Award. And Sharon Kranz, a fourth-grade teacher at Roslyn Road School, was named a Teacher of Distinction by the Golden Apple Foundation.

"This is a big deal for both of these teachers," Kazmier said.

Jill Bauer, who runs the student volunteer program at Barrington High, said this year's seniors volunteered more than any other class.

She said 88 percent of seniors participated in the volunteer program and the students accumulated more than 36,000 volunteer hours.

"That set a new record and we are really proud of them for that," Bauer said.

The last day of school in District 220 is scheduled for June 5.