The Kildeer Elementary School District 96 board has created a citizens advisory committee to study space shortages caused by growing enrollment.
The board created the committee in response to a report last week from Thomas Glass, a DeKalb consultant who analyzed the district’s space needs.
Glass recommended that the committee explore ways to relieve overcrowding in the 3,600-pupil district, evaluate whether a new school is needed and monitor enrollment trends.
Glass said the district can expect more children to move into the district because a relatively large proportion of households in the district–60 percent–have no children, suggesting that more children will move in as the houses change owners.
Glass said his top recommendation was to build a two-building facility that would hold 1,300 students in kindergarten through 8th grade. The schools would be connected and share a kitchen, offices, social services personnel, a learning center and gyms.
The new facility should be able to accommodate enrollment growth, Glass said. In addition, it would be cost-effective, he said, to use a single site, a single cafeteria, and shared administrators and transportation personnel.
The audit presented to the board Tuesday confirmed what parents responding to a recent survey called the most common districtwide problem: lack of space.
