Community Unit School District 308 board members are considering a recommendation to shift the district’s early childhood and some special-needs programs to new locations.
A school board committee is recommending the moves if the board of the Oswego-based district decides to relocate kindergarten classes from their central location to each child’s home elementary school. School board President Matt Bauman said the board is looking at shifting boundary lines to ease building capacity issues. It makes sense to discuss moving kindergarten classes, which will affect the discussion on boundary lines, at the same time, he said.
Bauman, also co-chair of the facilities and planning committee that made the recommendation, said the proposed program moves are expected to cost the district $4.9 million in construction and other expenses. If approved, those moves and the kindergarten relocation would go into effect during the 2017-2018 school year.
Any shift in boundary lines would mostly affect elementary schools, he said.
“We’re at a point to where we’ll have to look at boundary lines in the next year,” he said. “We don’t want to take anybody by surprise with that issue.”
Most kindergarten classes are held at East View Kindergarten Center. If the school board votes to move those classes to students’ home elementary schools, the East View Kindergarten Center would be left mostly empty.
At that point, the committee recommended moving the district’s early childhood program, currently housed at both Brokaw Early Learning Center and Old Post Elementary, to East View. The district’s therapeutic day school, known as the Opportunity School, and another program could then leave the district’s 308 Center, or old Traughber Junior High School, and move into Brokaw.
Another special-needs program currently housed in the 308 Center, the district’s transition program for students ages 18 to 22, could move as well. The committee recommended purchasing a house in the community for that program, which is designed to teach life skills to help students live on their own.
The moves would allow the district to bring the early childhood program under one roof and add some additional sections, Bauman said. The district is also looking to move programs out of the 308 Center, which he said is in need of large-scale renovations.
During a discussion of the plan at a recent school board meeting, facilities committee co-chair Lauri Doyle called a tour of the 308 Center “eye-opening.”
“I think that we can do better as a district for these kids,” she said.
The committee’s recommendation does not specify future uses for the 308 Center. The board is discussing options for other district or community use of the building, Bauman said.
The projected $4.9 million price tag would include purchasing a house for the transition program, renovating the house for students’ use, and renovations to convert Brokaw and East View to their proposed new uses, Bauman said.
The board plans to discuss relocating kindergarten classes at an April meeting and could vote by May, Bauman said.
“We’re looking at having to make some adjustment to boundary lines anyway, so if we’re going to do that, this would be the time to make those kindergarten adjustments anyway,” he said.
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