Walking through Rich Township High School District 227’s Richton Park campus, it appears virtually every square inch of the building is under construction.
Workers are painting in one area, overhauling classrooms and science labs in another area, and in the new field house are laying down the running track, with lanes in the school colors of black and red.
Given that students will walk in the doors Aug. 10 for the start of the school year, it doesn’t seem possible everything will be ready. But Johnnie Thomas, the district’s superintendent, says he’s been assured “that everything will be ready to go.”
Actually, the field house won’t be fully accessible to students until probably Aug. 15 because of the time involved in allowing a coating on the basketball courts to properly set, Thomas said during a tour of the building Tuesday.
Millions of dollars have been poured into the Richton Park campus, formerly Rich South and now the Fine Arts & Communications Campus, and the Olympia Fields campus. Previously Rich Central, that is now the now the STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics, campus.
“We believe the environment has a huge impact on student learning, student engagement,” Thomas said. “We believe that by having a 21st century learning environment for our students we can provide the state-of-the-art learning our students deserve.”
At the Richton Park campus, on Sauk Trail just west of Cicero Avenue, music programs will have new and expanded space, and a former manufacturing lab is being outfitted as a television and audio recording studio.
The Donald Trimble Gymnasium is being reconfigured to accommodate music, choir and dance programs, and there are new wood lockers for storing instruments as well as individual instruction rooms.
“Fine arts is on the rebound,” Thomas said. “It was diminished dramatically about 10 years ago and we are rebuilding the programs.”
As much as science, math or reading, “we believe that the fine arts help provide for well-rounded students,” Thomas said.
Adjacent to the fine arts room, finishing touches are underway inside the 90,000-square-foot field house, which boasts three basketball courts surrounded by a 200-meter track and 16 basketball hoops. Baseball batting cages are also being installed that will allow for practices when the weather makes use of fields impossible, Thomas said.
Thomas said the district is working with park districts in Matteson and Richton Park that could open up use of the field house to the wider community when it’s not needed for school events.
Just outside the space, two new concession stands are being built, as well as a food pantry and laundry facilities for students who might not have a permanent home, Thomas said.
At the Olympia Fields STEM campus, computer science and manufacturing production labs were completed during the past school year, and that freed up space at the Richton Park campus for the audiovisual labs, Thomas said.
Work to completely overhaul science labs at both campuses, a total of 120,000 square feet, began right after the last school year ended, Thomas said.
Supply chain issues that have bedeviled construction projects around the country have affected work at the Richton Park campus, he said.
“That put our schedule back just a little bit,” he said.
Thomas said the work is “still slightly under budget,” and that contractors are working two shifts to ensure the building is ready for students and staff.
District 227 sold $105 million in bonds to refinance existing debt and to pay for work at the two schools. A third high school, Rich East in Park Forest, was closed at the end of the 2019-2020 school year.
The closing of Rich East also brought an end to the distinct school names of the East Rockets, Central’s Olympians and South’s Stars, under the banner of the Raptors. That meant, for example, combining the football teams and other sports under the new name.
At the west end of the Richton Park field house, display cases are being built that will showcase memorabilia representing all three schools, Thomas said.
“We don’t want to lose that history,” he said.
mnolan@tribpub.com
