The idea of closing the 105-year-old LaCrosse school building and moving high school classes to Wanatah drew several concerns during a presentation on the proposal Thursday.
Dozens of students, former students, and other community members gathered to learn about the proposal. Some carried signs in support of the historic school.
Tony Kuykendall with design-build firm Performance Services noted that it has many positive features. “This building is really cool,” he said. “There’s a lot of great things about it, and there’s a lot of things about it that need to be fixed.”
One of the major concerns Tri-Township School Superintendent Kelly Shepherd pointed out during a tour of the building was a furnace believed to date back to at least the 1950s. “This is a giant forced-air furnace we’ve got here, just like in our homes, but on a massive scale,” he explained. “Performance Services tells me, if this thing breaks, to replace it would be $250,000, but they wouldn’t replace it.”
To bring the system up to modern codes for air quality, it would have to be replaced with a boiler system with the necessary pipes throughout the building, which could cost about half a million dollars. Another big concern is the school’s aging electrical system, according to Performance Services, due to the difficulty of finding replacement parts.
Shepherd also showed the visitors a former classroom that school officials largely tore apart while trying to find the source of a smell and water seepage issue. “Just to do a drain outside the one wall, to try to mitigate it somewhat for this room: $4,500, but he wasn’t going to do the asbestos removal of the [flooring] tiles,” Shepherd said.
The superintendent pointed out a number of quirks with the old building, including uneven stairs, stairs that seem to lean to one side, and open fire escapes, including one that leads directly out of the principal’s office. On the outside, Performance Services said the building would need new windows, tuck pointing, sealing work, and roofing upgrades. Making the main entrance secure and ADA accessible may require adding onto the building, while many of the restrooms would need to be brought up to ADA standards, as well.
Performance Services estimates that renovating the high school would cost almost $6.6 million. As an alternative, Kuykendall said the school corporation can accommodate high school students by adding five classrooms to the Wanatah School building. “Still, here, on the south end of the building is where you have your elementary kids. On, basically, the north end of the building would be junior high and high school kids. So we still have some separation of spaces,” he explained. The addition is estimated to cost between $2.7 and $3.5 million, depending on options.
Many of those in attendance Thursday were not convinced that would work. They pointed out that the plan does not include any athletic facilities. School officials’ current idea is that LaCrosse High School’s 70-year-old gym would remain in use for basketball games and other events. There were also concerns that the existing cafeteria and kitchen wouldn’t be able to handle high school students, in addition to the kids already using it. People were also skeptical with the idea that the high school’s move would boost enrollment, noting that there are already plenty of schools near Wanatah to choose from.
Superintendent Shepherd stressed that no formal decisions have been made by the school board. He said he’s willing to talk individually with community members to answer questions about the proposal. A list of frequently asked questions will continue to be updated on the Tri-Township Schools website.
You can hear more from Thursday’s presentation Sunday at noon on Kankakee Valley Viewpoints on K99.3.
