Local voters on Tuesday appear to have rejected Yorkville School District 115’s proposal to issue $275 million in bonds to pay for two new school buildings and a significant addition to the district’s high school building, among other projects.
With all precincts in Kendall County reporting, unofficial primary election results from Tuesday night showed just 32.47% of Kendall County voters in favor of and 67.53% of voters against the bond issue as of around 11 p.m., according to data from the Kendall County Clerk’s Office. As of Tuesday night, 7,493 ballots had been cast in Kendall County weighing in on the referendum question.
A small portion of the school district is in Kane County. In Kane, with all precincts reporting, unofficial results showed just under 51% of voters in the county’s part of the district in favor of the measure as of around 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to data from the Kane County Clerk’s Office. However, with only two applicable precincts in Kane County, just 156 ballots were cast in Kane County on the measure.
Yorkville D115 opted to bring the $275 million bond question to voters after years of rising student enrollment and a growing overcrowding problem that prompted the district to consider how it will continue to accommodate its student body.
The Yorkville area has added almost 10,000 new residents since 2010. That growth has extended to District 115, where enrollment has been steadily ticking upwards in recent years. The district currently serves just over 7,000 students — who come from Yorkville, and from nearby Bristol, Montgomery, Oswego, Plano and Newark.
But, while its last new building was added in 2009, the district has grown from about 5,000 students in 2010 to around 7,000 recently, Superintendent Matt Zediker has said.
In addition to overcrowding, Zediker said a top priority the district heard from the community when it came to the proposed referendum question was reducing the number of times students move between school buildings throughout the school day in order to reduce safety concerns, particularly when it comes to high school students walking back and forth across Game Farm Road throughout the day.
The planned additions to the high school, for example, were meant to bring all high school students into a single building, officials have said. The proposed renovations to that building included an auditorium, a fieldhouse and a new academic wing.
The district had also planned for all grade schools to serve kindergarten through fifth grade, and all district middle schools to serve grades six through eight, as a result of the proposed new elementary and middle schools. They also planned to turn Circle Center Grade School into an early childhood center, tear down Yorkville Grade School — one of the smaller district schools — for green space and parking and sell or repurpose Bristol Grade School.
The referendum dollars could only go toward capital improvements, not to operational expenses. Zediker had said that the planned additions were meant to house growing student numbers for the next 12 to 15 years.
“What I think is great about this process,” Zediker said over the phone Tuesday night, “is the voters get to come tell us kind of what they want. And so, the plan that was put out there … for our community to vote on, they have said that that’s not the plan they want.”
The district had planned to start construction this fall, with the goal of students starting classes at the new elementary and middle schools in the fall of 2028.
But, now, the district’s plans remain uncertain.
On Tuesday night, Zediker emphasized that the district will take the results of the vote and follow up with the community “to figure out exactly why it didn’t pass.”
And he reiterated the district’s plan to revisit the matter with a modified referendum question to be put on the ballot in November.
“Our community certainly needs to do something,” Zediker said Tuesday night, “because of our overcrowdedness and the anticipation of more students coming.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
