Lockport Central students likely to stay at Lincoln-Way North until summer

Lockport — Lockport Township High School District 205 officials confirmed at the latest board meeting that freshmen students are unlikely to return to Central Campus by the end of the school year.

During the special board meeting Thursday, which was called primarily to approve physical education and drivers’ education waiver criteria before the state deadline, Superintendent Dr. Robert McBride gave a short update on the progress of Central’s construction.

Stating that a plan for the demolition of the remaining at-risk ceilings was ready to go to bid, McBride added, “it looks more and more like students won’t return to Central this year.”

This is because once a contractor is approved and completes the demolition work, the district does not plan on immediately rebuilding the ceilings, instead the board is planning to have an architectural engineering firm come in to further examine the structures in the ceilings and determine if additional work needs to be done. The demolition and inspection process could take six weeks in total.

“Since we’ll have those ceilings removed, it’s an ideal time to look up into those ceilings,” McBride said. “They’ll write a report and from that we can make a reconstruction plan.”

The reconstruction plan will also take into consideration results of a currently ongoing report by DLA Architects which will determine how much money the district may save on the larger planned renovation of Central if it opts to keep Central students at Lincoln-Way North next school year while major construction is done at the freshman building.

Originally, the $85 million construction plan – which is pending approval by a voter referendum on the March 19 primary ballot – was set to be a three-to-five-year multi-phase renovation of the 115-year-old building, which would involve work being done while students were in session and potentially shifting class locations around within the building while rooms were remodeled.

However, following board member questions during the December board meeting about potential cost savings of doing the construction all at once in conjunction with the ceiling work – which would have to be built, removed, and rebuilt if the multi-phase plan is enacted – McBride directed DLA to formulate an alternate timeline for consideration.

McBride noted that a recent project at Milne-Kelvin Grove School District 91 ended up being bid at $8 million more than anticipated after the district received approval from a referendum and needs to be reconfigured due to inflation, which is something District 205 would like to avoid at Central.

“We’re looking into this plan to see if we can outrun the inflation by keeping the students at Lincoln-Way a little longer,” McBride said. “We will not do it if we cannot gain a lot of ground in cost savings.”

Operations for the freshmen at Lincoln-Way North continue to be refined two months after the Lockport students first arrived. Starting the second semester, the bell schedule has been altered at Lincoln-Way North to give students more time in the classroom.

The day now starts with a 26-minute Compass period and subsequent periods last for 39 minutes from 8:15 a.m. to 1:55 p.m. McBride noted this could be changed again as the school year progresses.

This is also part of the reason a transition back to Central would be difficult this year.

“We moved in on Nov. 15, but really we’ve been gradually moving in for two months,” McBride said. “We’re still bringing more things over and if we tried to move back in spring, it might not be as graceful.”

Whether operations at Central resume in fall 2024 or 2025, the district’s top priority now is to pass the referendum which will allow the building to be repaired and brought up to code.

McBride reiterated during the meeting that rumors on social media stating new construction would be less costly than a renovation are unsubstantiated.

“A number of people who have done internet ‘research’ are talking online about how it would be cheaper to build a new building than to renovate, but there are no examples in the Chicagoland area where that has been the case,” McBride said.

McBride noted that the district’s property in Homer Township would need massive water and sewer work done to have it ready to support the capacity needs of a full-sized high school and explained that significant additional grading work would need to be done on the property behind East campus if a new building were to be constructed to prevent flooding into the adjacent neighborhoods.

“It would be quite a bit of work either way as both sites have real feasibility issues,” McBride said. “The most timely and cost-effective strategy is renovation.”