District 186 will bring administration heads under one roof

The District 186 board of education Monday voted to purchase a five-acre tract of land off 11th Street and Stevenson Drive, a move which will help the district to consolidate five administrative offices scattered around Springfield.

The former corporate office of the pharmaceutical company H.D. Smith and Co. is practically "move-in ready," said Superintendent Jennifer Gill.

The cost was $1.57 million and the land includes one of the ponds on the site.

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In December, the district had agreed to purchase a larger parcel of land, most of which is undeveloped and is on the eastern and southeastern end of the former Allis-Chalmers and Fiat-Allis property, for the construction of a school. That would have brought Hazel Dell, Laketown and Southern View elementary schools under one roof.

Gill said she didn't know exactly where the school now would be built, but that the district was committed to the south side of town.

"We'll find a space that's suitable," Gill said after the meeting.

The move brings the superintendent's cabinet to one spot, a luxury she hasn't had in her tenure.

The building adjacent to Grant Middle School currently houses Gill's office, human resources, school support services and teaching and learning services, but the building isn't ADA compliant, she pointed out.

The former Vachel Lindsay School on Chatham Road is home to library services and duplicating services, along with math and literacy offices. A Stanton Street location houses community-based programs and the district's technology services.

Graham Elementary School on West Edwards Street accommodates support services for students with special needs. On West Reynolds Street, by Douglas PREP, the district has its business office and transportation services. Operations and maintenance and food service will likely stay there, Gill said.

It will take two to three weeks to complete paperwork on the deal, but a move is expected sometime this summer, she added.

Part of the reason the district was thwarting a plan to build the school at the site was that it wasn't contiguous with the neighborhood, Gill said, a reason board president Micah Miller and other critics cited in listening sessions last summer.

Miller, who said in the past the property was treated as a dumping ground with "lots of petroleum, lots of solvents, lots of paints," voted against Monday's sale because he thought the purchase would be a smaller plot of land without the pond.

Gill insisted the property was safe and that the district had a "No Further Remediation" (NFR) letter from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency concerning the property.

The Springfield Learning Academy and Lawrence Education Center will both be making the move west to White Oaks Mall.

Under a seven-year deal agreed to by the board, it also becomes the first Simon Youth School program in Illinois. Simon Property Group operates the mall.

The district will pay $144,000 to lease the space for the 2023-24 school year. The lease price will go up 3% annually.

SLA and Lawrence will be in the former ITT Technical Institute space. The district has had a COVID-19 walk-in clinic there recently.

An entrance to the mall from the school will be locked, Gill said. The district will have an off-duty Springfield Police officer and a civilian security officer at the location.

SLA is an alternative high school for non-traditional and truant students from the district's three public high schools. Lawrence offers an adult diploma program.

Both are housed in a center at 101 E. Laurel St.

"It's a beautiful building and it has a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed library in the center of it," Gill pointed out. "We need to do the life, health, safety work and then see what programming might want to move into that space."

Susan Lawrence Dana commissioned the library for the West Room of the Lawrence School named for her father, Rheuna D. Lawrence, who had been Springfield mayor and school board president.

There will be about 120 students at the mall facility, said principal Reiko Hurd.

The move could provide students with job opportunities, internships or job shadowing, he said.

Simon Youth Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Simon Properties focused on leadership and scholarship and has had a past working relationship with the district.

While acknowledging the work the youth foundation has done, Springfield Education Association president Aaron Graves expressed concern on behalf of the union membership about the relationship between the district and Simon Properties, questioning if it was about filling "real estate vacancy."

Graves further pointed out that SLA currently is centrally located while "the mall is not.

"(When it comes to corporate partnerships), please consider always that we're making the right decisions that are truly best for our students and our staff," Graves added during public comments.

District 186 will be offering free breakfast and lunch to anyone under 18 years of age beginning this week at designated sites.

Meals will be required to be eaten in the school.

All schools will be closed June 19 for Juneteenth and July 4 for Independence Day.

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Here are District 186 sites along with dates and times. Starred dates means sites are open July 3:

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, [email protected], twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.