A gaggle of 1,250 freshmen and sophomores will walk into their new digs at Metea Valley High School in Aurora when its doors open Thursday.
With a sprawling campus of 462,000 square feet and a projected $124 million in construction costs, Metea is expected to quickly join its sister schools, Waubonsie Valley High, which opened in the fall of 1975 in Aurora, and Neuqua Valley High, which opened in 1997 in Naperville, as examples of academic prowess and suburban educational fortune.
Indian Prairie School District 204 is the third largest school district in Illinois, and once it’s completed the 3,000-capacity Metea Valley will be equipped with 2,300 student desks, about 950 desktop computers, two baseball fields, two softball fields, two soccer fields, two football fields, 12 tennis courts, a pool with eight lanes and a stadium that can seat 4,000 people.
Principal Jim Schmid said the building on Eola Road in Aurora has a contemporary feel, designed to bring in lots of natural light. A towering glass wall pours light into the commons area, and courtyards separating the commons area and library, and the library and art area, help bring students closer to the outdoors, he said.
Students also will be introduced quite early to the school’s new culture, which focuses on teaching them good behavior and rewarding them for following through. It’s a concept many schools practice at the lower grade levels, not necessarily in high school.
“Other high schools don’t have it,” Schmid said. “It’s a positive approach to discipline.”
The need for a new high school grew out of more families moving into the district and schools rapidly becoming crowded. But early attempts for a new school kept getting derailed.
Efforts to locate Metea Valley High School at 75th Street and Commons Drive in Aurora ended when a condemnation jury set the price of the land at $31 million — $17 million more than the district had expected. A new site selected off Eola Road south of Interstate Highway 88 in Aurora prompted a lawsuit from a parents group. The suit since has been dismissed.
The district’s new school boundaries have not set well with some parents either.
In October, school officials ruled that only juniors and seniors in redistricted areas would be able to remain in their original schools. Parents complained about the new policy, but district officials stuck by it, reporting in June that only five families were allowed to keep siblings together for medical or “hardship” reasons.
For now, students will be able to use the freshman and sophomore areas of the new building, the cafeteria, main gym, library and computers. An auxiliary gym, wrestling room, the junior and senior areas and an auditorium that seats 880 people won’t be ready until January.
As students revel in their new surroundings, one thing that will take some getting used to is the spelling of the school’s name: A box of 200 practice football jerseys had to be returned when they arrived saying “MATEA.” To get around the problem, the district has taken to pronouncing the school’s name “Me-TEE-a” rather than “Ma-TAY-a.”
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nahmed@tribune.com
