D-303 board members discuss what to do with Haines Middle School

ST. CHARLES – St. Charles District 303 school board members continue to discuss what to do with Haines Middle School once it closes its doors at the end of the school year.

In 2016, the board approved a plan to upgrade Wredling Middle School, renovate Thompson Middle School and close Haines Middle School by fall 2019. Officials said the district would save $2.4 million a year in operational costs by closing Haines and taxpayers would see a significant reduction in the district’s portion of their property taxes because of the payoff of bonds in 2018.

It would cost an estimated $1.5 million to raze the buildings on the Haines Middle School campus, St. Charles School Superintendent Jason Pearson told board members at the school board’s Feb. 21 business services committee meeting. He described the Haines campus as “a hodgepodge of buildings built between 1958 and 2003.”

That includes three mobiles with eight classrooms each, Pearson said.

The total size of the campus is 13.39 acres.

In discussing what to do with the campus, the majority of board members at the meeting were leaning in favor of a option to spend an estimated $3.9 million on the campus so it could be reused to meet a number of the district’s programming needs.

Those needs include finding space for the district’s college and career center (including accommodating the district's NorthEast Academy and its transition students), professional learning, parent and community education, district board room, and creating a unified department of instruction office.

In addition, the St. Charles Park District continues to voice interest in using a portion of the campus for its programs, such as the school’s gym.

“They continue to contact us on a regular basis,” Pearson said. “I think their primary interest is in the gym space. All along we have said that was a space that we found to be high value.”

School board member Carolyn Waibel said she would like more discussion about the district’s needs.

“What’s our immediate need?” she asked. “One of the things we talked about that might be an immediate need is space for the transition students. How quickly do we need that space?”

Waibel also said there should be more discussions with the park district about its needs.

“I’m not excited about this board and this district jumping into a larger construction project right away,” she said. “I’d like to take some time with it.”

School Board Vice President Nick Manheim, who is an architect and has his own firm, cautioned against “dragging” out the project.

“When you drag out a project and do it in chunks or piecemeal, it costs more money,” he said. “It’s just not cost-effective and it’s not a good use of tax dollars. The longer the building sits, the more maintenance it’s going to cost and it’s going to cost us more money. The longer that building sits vacant, the more it is going to cost us. While we don’t need to rush into anything, we do need to keep this moving along and give the administration guidance.”

Manheim was part of a majority of board members leaning toward the $3.9 million option for the campus. Board member Heidi Fairgrieve, however, shared some of the same concerns as Waibel.

“I’m not convinced that there’s not other things from an educational programming standpoint where that money might be better served,” she said.

Board President Kathleen Hewell said the board needs to view the Haines campus as a “community asset.”

“I’d really like to be very clear about how valuable it is to a lot of people,” she said.

While Hewell said she was leaning toward the $3.9 million option, she would like to see other options for the campus.

District resident Danielle Penman told board members she would like to hear more information about if it would be beneficial to the district to sell the property for commercial or residential use or to possibly lease it as open space.

“Would the park district be interested in green space?” she asked. “There are a lot of options that have not been looked at.”