Naperville School District 203 officials are pointing to projected enrollment increases, coupled with the creation of a program aimed at helping students who are struggling in a traditional classroom setting, as reasons to turn to mobile classrooms at one of its high schools this fall.
School board members were told Monday that they will vote next week on whether the district should acquire a new six-classroom mobile unit from Naperville-based Innovative Modular Solutions Inc. to house the newly created Academy Program at Naperville Central High School.
The unit would also house offices for the school’s foreign-language and special-education departments. Central is adding a foreign-language learning lab that will be housed in the existing offices of the two departments, according to Russ Bryan, assistant superintendent for secondary education.
Officials said they have found space at Naperville North for the Academy Program, set to start this fall at both high schools, by converting a large room used for metals shop work into three classrooms.
With significant enrollment surges projected at both high schools over the next several years, including about 25 more students at Central in the 2000-01 school year, Supt. Donald Weber said classroom space already was tight at the school.
“The Academy Program that’s coming on line this fall pushed it over the edge,” Weber said. “Space had to be dedicated to that purpose. At Central it just wasn’t possible to do that.”
Bryan on Tuesday acknowledged that officials had not expected to need temporary classrooms at the high schools until the 2002-03 school year. However, he said, administrators realized after creating the master class schedule for next year that there were some periods of the day when no classrooms would be available at Central.
“With the academy being added and the foreign-language lab being added, it created the need,” Bryan said.
Bryan said the Academy Program, which will offer a smaller student-teacher ratio and an integrated curriculum with a flexible schedule, would take up two classrooms in the mobile unit proposed for Naperville Central. He said the district plans to expand the program as needed.
Allen Albus, assistant superintendent for finance, on Tuesday said officials were still trying to determine whether the district should lease or purchase the mobile classrooms. Although he was still verifying the price of the unit, he said an outright purchase would likely cost $250,000 to $300,000.
The school board on Monday is expected to consider forgoing the formal bidding process by calling for an emergency condition in order to acquire the unit. He said officials in April started looking for used mobile classrooms that area school districts were taking out of use, but because of the size and age of the units and their lack of sewer and water service, that was not a viable option.
Officials then turned to dealers, looking for new or used units. Albus said officials found the proposal from Innovative Modular Solutions through an independent search. He said that because of high demand for temporary classrooms and slower production than in past years, a unit would likely need to be built to fit the district’s needs. A formal bidding process, he said, would leave the district with a strong chance that it would not have a unit in time for the start of the school year.
Officials anticipate that the temporary classrooms would be used at Central for the next six years. They said they would continue to monitor the enrollment situation at Naperville North and at Kennedy Junior High School, which are both expected to need more classroom space soon.
An option that had been proposed by administrators earlier this year to accommodate for increased enrollment was adding a period first thing in the morning. Officials at both high schools were asked to look into the feasibility of adding a “zero” period to the day. Under that scenario, students scheduled into a class at the zero period would start the school day earlier and end earlier.
But Bryan said officials have determined that such a scenario would not create enough flexibility.
