Batavia invites residents to new center's open house

Anyone interested in what the Batavia School District's new Early Childhood Center will look like can find out at a public meeting this week.

The district hopes to break ground by Thanksgiving on the 15,000-square-foot, six-classroom building on the Alice Gustafson Elementary School campus. It is the first project from the district's successful $75 million referendum in April.

Members of the Batavia Plan Commission asked the district to work more with nearby neighbors to address any potential concerns before recommending approval to the city council.

District officials will bring building plans and answer questions at the meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at the school, 905 Carlisle Road.

"We want to hear any concerns about the impact to the neighborhood," said Steve Caliendo, district associate superintendent for operations.

The center will be built to the north of the school, and not easily visible to nearby residents, he said.

The center's classes won't start at the same time as Gustafson's classes to try to alleviate traffic problems, he added.

The current center at Grace McWayne Elementary School, which has three early childhood education classrooms, will be converted to regular classrooms. One of the reasons for moving the center is that it had no room to expand at McWayne.

The new center will allow the district to serve about 20 more developmentally disabled students, Caliendo said.

The district plans to have the center open by August. After that, the next piece of the referendum plan that will be built is a classroom wing at the high school, followed by an auxiliary gym at Rotolo Middle School.

District officials hope those projects will be finished by fall 2009.

The district is scheduled to go back before the plan commission for approval with information from the public meeting Oct. 25.