North Cook News

Arlington Heights School District 25 has been working with the Village Board of Trustees for a number of weeks on the district’s many expansion projects.

Early in February, the district got approval and some permits for their expansion projects at Westgate and Dryden Elementary schools, which included several new classrooms, gym spaces and an outdoor sports area.

At the Feb. 21 board meeting, Ryan Schultz, director of Facilities and Operations for the school district, presented two more expansion plans to the board: Olive-Mary Stitt (OMS) and Patton Elementary schools. These projects were similarly needed because of the expansion of their full-day kindergarten programs and some smaller increases in enrollment. OMS proposed an addition to the west of their property, avoiding the east side as there are many substantial utility lines that run there despite having greater room on that side of the lot. The classroom expansion would allow for the incoming full-day kindergarten programs that will have more kids in the building throughout the day.

"Well that’s six for six, so congratulations," Arlington Heights Mayor Thomas Haynes said in the meeting. "I wish you the best of luck in the construction and also with the remainder of the school year. Thank you for all that you do in District 25 for our kids."

Other officials also had praise for the plans.

"We just reviewed Windsor a few years ago, and it was so nice to see that everything that we put our hope and faith in has come to reality," Trustee John Scaletta said. "So thank you, it gives me more promise to vote on this just because everything that we did in the past that you said we would do, you did. And it’s running the way it’s supposed to."

The school will be moving their existing playground over to be better situated and is asking for fencing and parking variations for the property. They will be putting in a crash-resistant fence along Arlington Heights Road. They have an ongoing agreement with the neighboring church to use their parking lot during the week—an extra 290 spots—and the church uses the school lot on the weekends for their services.

Patton Elementary requested landscape variations for the parking lot to be able to omit some of the landscape islands to free up a few more parking spaces. They will also be adding more trees and landscaping around the parking lot for supplementation. They are planning to put trees and hedges along the outside of the lot to add some separation between properties. They are additionally asking for a variation for a structure in the side yard instead of the rear. The new addition will sit between the original space that houses the gym and a previous classroom expansion and potentially next to the future gym expansion.

The council approved both of those plans.

At the March 6 board meeting, Schultz returned to talk about the district’s final two expansion plans at Greenbrier and Windsor Elementary schools. Greenbrier is looking to have a small, simple expansion on one side of the building that would add a corridor and two classrooms. Other than some minor setback variations and a parking lot variation requested because their staff count is not an accurate reflection of usage due to some staff doing only mornings or afternoons, there was not much in the request. Schultz showed images of the usage of the parking lot, proving that it is rarely used to capacity and does not need to be expanded as the City code requires for the addition.

Windsor’s expansion was very similar, adding on just two more classrooms, and no variations were needed for the project.

Schultz also discussed the parking and pickup process to show their efforts to minimize traffic impact and maintain a high level of safety for students. Both schools had good processes for pick up after school.

The council approved both projects as presented and were happy to support the school district’s new kindergarten program.