The Naperville area’s newest high school will open its doors in the fall of 2001 if the dreams of those planning a Lutheran, college-preparatory academy are brought to fruition.
Organizers of Christ Lutheran Academy said the proposed school, to be opened less than 3 miles south of Naperville’s new Neuqua Valley High School, could one day serve 600 students from as far away as Joliet and Burr Ridge.
Tim Kurth, leader of the Lutheran High School Development Corp. and president of the school’s board of directors, said a new building is planned for property at Illinois Highway 59 and 127th Street.
School planners originally had considered converting a 72-year-old Western Electric communications center on the property into a school building, but that idea has been abandoned.
The aging facility will be demolished, Kurth said, and a new school built in its place. Kurth said 60,000 to 80,000 square feet is needed for the new school, and the existing building offers only 8,000 square feet.
“We think we can build a state-of-the-art facility from the ground up for under $10 million,” he said.
Planners so far have raised just a small fraction of that amount, Kurth said, but the campaign to push for funds is not scheduled to start until next year. A seven-figure gift is expected in December to get the effort rolling, he said.
A facility with a gymnasium, administrative offices, an auditorium and a chapel is envisioned, but Kurth said a scaled-down school with adequate classroom space could be erected first for a cost of $4 million to $5 million.
Christ Lutheran Academy will be co-ed. Planners said it should draw students from 26 Lutheran-Missouri Synod churches in the DuPage area and eight Lutheran grade schools.
The proposed location in unincorporated Plainfield could mean rapid expansion as the area’s population grows, Kurth said. Area municipal planners have told school organizers that more than 7,000 homes have been platted for the property around the school location, he said.
“Our site is in the middle of an area that’s about the fastest-growing–as far as residences–in the country,” he said.
The school recently hired its first principal, Richard Block. Kurth said Christ Lutheran’s leadership was pleasantly surprised when Block accepted the job Oct. 14.
“He’s well-respected in the Missouri Synod across the country as perhaps the top administrator in Lutheran high schools,” he said. “In our pursuit of excellence, we felt we had to ask for the best in the country.”
Block has 32 years of experience as an administrator, including long stints at Lutheran high schools in Detroit and Indianapolis. Getting Christ Lutheran Academy off the ground will be a challenge to which the 55-year-old Block said he was led.
“People are wondering why I wouldn’t sit back and let retirement wait for me,” Block said. “But I began to see that the people planning this school had a real vision. It was certainly something that I could identify with.”
Block, who will turn his attention to the academy on a full-time basis after this school year, said he would like to see the new high school become recognized around the Chicago area as a top educational institution.
“It should be a model school of Christian education,” he said. “One that you can be proud of from the word `go.’ “
Though the school is not scheduled to open until the fall of 2001, Kurth said some area parents have notified him of their intention to organize a freshman class of students next year.
He said dozens of families interested in the academy may see if their 9th graders can come together and use one room of a local Lutheran grade school.
“We’re starting to see an interesting groundswell of people,” he said.
Organizers of the school said they would like to bring together 12 charter churches for the school, and eventually see the Lutheran High School Development Corp., a holding company, dissolved and replaced by an association of up to 26 churches.
