School officials in Arlington Heights District 25 are working on a compromise to keep pupils displaced by school renovation from pushing a preschool out of its home.
Dryden and Olive Elementary Schools are to undergo renovation and construction over the 1992-93 school year.
Months ago, administrators had recommended that during the construction pupils from both schools be bused to Berkeley Elementary, on the north side of Arlington Heights. Berkeley will be vacated after this year.
But many Dryden parents didn`t want their children bused across town to Berkeley and back each day. They recommended instead that Dryden students be relocated to the nearby Dunton school building.
The district closed Dunton because of declining enrollment several years ago and now leases the building to four private groups, including the Children`s Discovery Center preschool, on a yearly basis.
The board agreed to send Dryden students to Dunton, and voted to terminate the leases of three of Dunton`s tenants after June 30 to make room for them. Olive students will still go Berkeley.
But parents of Discovery Center pupils have asked the board to let them stay at Dunton.
”If I were to pull my boys out of there, it would be very hard for them,” parent Cindy Rauschenberg told the school board last week. ”It`s like a second home for them; the staff`s like a family.”
The board did terminate the Discovery Center`s lease as of June 30, but directed the district administration to renegotiate the lease and find a way to accommodate both Dryden and Discovery Center pupils for next year.
”It has to be a very cooperative effort,” board member Marty Kraybill said. ”We are not in the business of real estate.”
