With only 550 pupils in its two buildings in Ingleside, Big Hollow School District 38 is one of the few districts in Lake County that can claim to have some extra space.
But eight proposed housing developments that could quadruple enrollment within 10 years are forcing district officials and residents to think big now or face overcrowding in the future.
If built as planned, the new developments will add nearly 3,200 homes to the district by 2008, potentially bringing more than 1,500 new pupils to its two schools: Big Hollow Elementary School and Taveirne Middle School.
Located next to each other on a 13-acre site at the southeast corner of U.S. Highway 12 and Illinois Highway 134, the two schools have a combined maximum capacity of 625 pupils and nowhere near enough space to make room for 2,100, district officials said.
And the current residents aren’t pleased.
Decrying how suburban sprawl has finally reared its head in their still-rural hamlets, residents who spoke at a public meeting urged approaches ranging from requiring extra-large lots for new homes to promoting the district as troubled and unable to handle a large influx of new residents.
“We’ve had the luxury of being rural for a very long time and now it has caught up with us,” said Chris Newman, a member of the District 38 Board of Education. Now, Newman said, officials must plan for the inevitable.
Part of any plan to accommodate the anticipated growth and new pupils will entail the purchase of land and constructing as many as three new schools, district officials said. The 10-year schedule gives planners a little wiggle room, but not much, they said.
The district also includes Volo, Lakemoor, parts of Fox Lake and Round Lake, and reaches west into unincorporated McHenry County. The district should be able to drum up the funds to buy the land without resorting to the difficult and time-consuming task of trying to pass a referendum proposition, Pazanin said.
The district is currently negotiating with a private owner to buy a vacant 61-acre parcel at Wilson and Nippersink Roads in Ingleside, an unincorporated community south of Fox Lake.
The land is expected to cost a little less than $2 million and would allow the district to keep all of its schools on one campus, said Ronald Pazanin, District 38 superintendent.
But how to pay for building the new schools is still being weighed. A small part of it would come from impact fees from the developers, but the remainder would probably have to be raised from bond issues that would need to be approved by voters.
Time is of the essence, Pazanin said, because the parcel is the only suitable one in the district and if the district doesn’t buy it, another developer might.
