Efforts to tighten security at Emerson Middle School and three elementary schools will move forward after the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 board voted unanimously to ask firms to submit proposals for the work.
Secured-entry vestibules with main offices attached would be built at Emerson Middle School and Franklin, Carpenter and Field elementary schools, said Chief School Business Official Luann Kolstad.
Chicago-based architecture firm Studio GC estimates the cost of the work to be $2.6 million, according to a report prepared for the July 9 meeting of the board of education.
The increased security measures have already been installed at Washington Elementary School and Lincoln Middle School, with similar work underway at Roosevelt Elementary School.
The plans for Franklin include a proposed relocation of the school’s main office, Kolstad said.
District officials also plan to begin replacing approximately 500 classroom doors and locks at its eight schools. Most classrooms have locks that must be engaged from the outside, requiring a teacher or aide to open the door, step outside, lock the door and close it behind him or her, Kolstad said. That could prove challenging in an emergency, she added.
The board also approved a request for proposals to reconfigure Washington Elementary School’s music and art classrooms as well as its teachers lounge to create a new classroom to handle the school’s growing enrollment, which is projected at 660 students for the 2018-19 school year. The cost is projected at $300,000, according to the board report.
“Washington has seen tremendous growth,” Kolstad said. “Every year, we are crossing our fingers we are not going to run out of classrooms.”
The board also agreed to issue a request for proposals to renovate Washington Elementary School’s Learning Resource Center. That cost is pegged at $250,000, according to the estimates created by Studio GC for District 64.
In other action, the board agreed that its new committee charged with crafting a pilot school resource officer program that would assign officers to Lincoln and Emerson middle schools would have nine members.
The committee will be comprised of board members Tom Sotos and Rick Biagi, Emerson Principal James Morrison, Lincoln Principal Anthony Murray, Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning Lori Lopez, as well as a representative from the board’s newly formed special education board committee as well as two community members — one in favor of the school resource officer pilot program and one against, the board decided.
The board wants the committee to have an uneven number of members to avoid tie votes, and Sotos asked members of the public to send him suggestions about who should fill that the final position on the committee.
The board also voted to create a committee to advise the board on how to improve the district’s special education programs. The board will finalize that committee’s makeup at a yet-to-be scheduled special meeting in two or three weeks, Borrelli said.
Suggestions can be made to district officials via an online form, available on the district’s website, about which individuals and organizations could serve as a resource for both committees during their work.
District 64 will also invite members of the Illinois Association of School Boards to help create the structure of both committees.