This petition concerns the Orland School District’s plans to move the early childhood education (EC) programs to Century Junior High starting during the 2023-24 school year.  Without it being clearly listed on agenda, at the Finance and Operations Board Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting on June 8th, the Director of Facilities, Operations and Maintenance reintroduced the idea of moving the EC program to Century.  The proposal appears to be the same as the one proposed at the February 28th special Committee of the Whole (COW) Meeting, except it would involve taking over space currently occupied by the 7th grade classrooms (lower level) of Century instead of the 6th grade classrooms (main floor) and adding additional exits to the building so students could egress from the lower level.

The district administration is once again proposing spending $600,000 of taxpayer money to move the EC programs to Century Junior High.  Oddly enough, the estimate of this cost did not change even though it appears to include the same building changes as the February 28th plan plus require some excavation to add the exits discussed as the lower level of Century sits partially below ground level.  This cost estimate involves using the existing SD 135 maintenance staff (in addition to their current job duties to keep this estimate low) to conduct this building butchery including ripping out a third of the lockers at Century Junior High and converting the bathrooms in the lower level to be functional for younger children.  These changes would be difficult and costly to reverse in the future.

These expenses will not add one square foot of space for students!  We, as taxpayers, will undertake this expense and not effectively meet the needs of any group.  This conversion will eliminate one-third of the space at Century for the main classrooms including one-third of its bathrooms and lockers.  It will mean cannibalizing the existing space currently used by junior high students.  There will be more crowded classrooms and more crowded hallways. You will have a larger number of junior high kids going up and down stairs to get between classes, since at least one grade will be split between the two remaining floors.  Will we need to lengthen passing periods and reduce instructional time because the hallways and stairwells are too crowded?  This will result in a massive increase in overcrowding and our EC students will be in a facility that is not designed for their specific needs.

If the district administration is going to claim Century has so much space, they should show the board and the public what that would really mean in practice for our students.  There is no magical pool of empty rooms sitting around all day long at Century.  With the complexity of the junior high schedule, we would be forcing all the teachers to work off of carts because none of them will be able to have their own classroom home to foster a learning environment for our students.  Has anyone in the district office administration thought of what conducting the 7th grade science frog dissection from a cart for a teacher would really be like?  An added complexity is that the three lunch periods (4th, 5th and 6th period) for the respective grades run a shorter amount of time than the other periods, so you can’t have students from different grade levels sharing classrooms during the time when the 3 lunch periods are occurring.  No junior high school that I know of operates at anywhere near 100% capacity with all classrooms occupied at all times because of the complexities of the junior high schedule.

This plan is still badly flawed and is being brought to the Board of Education during the COW meeting on Monday, June 13th just at the start of summer break.  It represents a poor use of district resources and taxpayer funds.  Taking space away is not a long term solution and will reduce the quality of education for our students in District 135.

It is obvious that the EC Program needs additional space.  Additional space has been needed ever since the district instituted full-day kindergarten and expanded the EC programs.  We need to create this space, not cannibalize it from other students.  Another more reasonable proposal being presented to the board at the COW includes the offer by the Village to sell the Orland Park Cultural Center to the district for $1.  This building has plenty of room for the EC program, giving us an unprecedented opportunity to massively reduce overcrowding at the primary buildings without harming the students at Century.  It’s in a quiet neighborhood near an existing park.  It will be a great centrally located location for the EC kids.  It may require a higher estimated cost to renovate the Orland Park Cultural Center to utilize it for the EC Program, but that cost is an investment in much needed space.  We could solve a major piece of the district’s overcrowding concerns in one fell swoop, without the need for the large expense of building a new building.

Another proposal that has been discussed at the Finance and Operations BAC was to consider an addition to Centennial school to house the EC Program.  This is also a valid idea and would put the EC Program near students of similar age at a primary building level rather than having 3 and 4 year-olds in a school building with 12 to 14 year-olds.  It would help to create the space that our students desperately need; however, without much reason it was removed as an option to be presented to the Board of Education COW meeting on June 13th.

Please let your voice be heard and demand that the board of education consider creating space for the EC Program by considering accepting the Village of Orland Park offer of the Cultural Center building, an addition to Centennial School to house the EC Program, or another consideration that would add much needed square feet of space rather than cannibalizing space at Century Junior High by signing this petition.  This is the only reasonable action to both serve the students of District 135, follow the district’s vision of a shared commitment to the continuous pursuit of excellence for all, and to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.