Indian Prairie School District 204’s board on Monday approved more construction-related measures, as its multi-year facilities overhaul continues.
The items approved Monday by the board include contracts and bids for the district’s plan to construct secure entryways at 11 district schools, and a solar installation project at several schools. The items were approved by the district’s school board as part of the consent agenda at its meeting on Monday.
In 2024, voters approved a proposal from District 204 to sell up to $420 million in bonds to pay for facility improvements. Without the bonds, the district would have needed to cut the equivalent of 50 full-time positions to pay for some of these projects, officials said.
The bonds are to be paid for using a continuation of an existing 37-cent property tax per $100 of equalized assessed value that would otherwise have expired at the end of 2026, meaning the tax rate for residents in terms of their contribution to capital projects will effectively remain flat as a result of the referendum question’s passage.
Since then, the district has been preparing for and proceeding with work on major projects across district buildings that are set to extend through 2032. The projects include school-specific renovations at Waubonsie Valley High School, Neuqua Valley High School, Metea Valley High School, the Birkett Freshman Center and Gregory and Hill middle schools, along with district-wide safety and security upgrades, LED lighting installations and other infrastructure projects.
Indian Prairie recently was visited by Illinois State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders, who toured some school buildings to see the facility upgrades, the district noted in a press release on Monday.
One of the major bond referendum-funded projects that has been touted by Indian Prairie is the building of secure school entrances at a number of the district’s buildings.
The district has said that safety and security improvements were its highest priority in using the bond funds. District staff has previously explained that the “secure vestibules” are meant to ensure that every school has a single and secure entryway where visitors must first interact with the main office before they can get into the school. The projects are being completed in phases over several years, District 204 Chief School Business Official Matt Shipley has said.
Approved Monday were contracts with two construction managers for the secure entryway projects at a total of 11 district schools, along with bid packages for some of the schools’ renovations. The projects are slated to be done in 2026, according to documents included in Monday’s meeting agenda.
Pepper Construction Co., based in Barrington, will be managing the secure vestibule projects at Welch Elementary, White Eagle Elementary, Young Elementary, Kendall Elementary, Crone Middle and Scullen Middle schools, per a district memo. The company will also be handling stadium renovations at Waubonsie Valley.
Bids for the secure entryways at those six schools were also approved by the school board Monday, coming in at a little over $6.5 million, according to a district memo.
And Chicago-based construction manager Bulley and Andrews will be the construction manager for the secure entryways at Still Middle, Gregory Middle, Granger Middle, Fischer Middle and Metea Valley High School, per a memo from the district. The company will also be overseeing the stadium work at Metea Valley and Neuqua Valley high schools.
The construction budget for those five schools’ secure vestibules is around $10.6 million, according to a document included in Monday’s meeting agenda. The bids for the remaining five schools’ new entryways are set to come to the board for approval in January, according to a district memo.
The school board also OK’d bids for furniture installation for 10 of the 11 new secure entryways — all but Metea Valley, which is set to get built-in furniture under a different bid package — coming to a little under $400,000, per a district memo.
And, the board also approved a contract for solar installation at several district elementary schools — Brooks, Gombert, Steck, McCarty and Georgetown. In a memo, the district explained that the roofs have been recently replaced at these schools, which is why they’ve been selected for getting solar panels. The total for the project is over $4.3 million, but the district said that rebates from ComEd, state renewable energy credits and a federal incentive mean the final cost will be a little under $1 million.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
