An $85 million referendum to improve the schools in Mount Prospect School District 57 was passed on November 5 by a majority of 64.25%. The plan has been in the works for four years and includes some major changes to facilities such as, building a brand new Lincoln Middle School and expanding Westbrook School for Young Learners.

The plan was prepared by the superintendent of the district, Dr. Mary Gorr, along with others on the school board. She undertook a strategic planning initiative that identified the key areas for improvement in the district. 

The board then developed a comprehensive plan of exactly what was to be accomplished by the referendum, getting input from the community through surveys and town hall meetings.

 The final plan that was presented on the ballot included the following: full-day kindergarten at Westbrook, larger modern classrooms, dedicated spaces for specialized instruction, improvements to safety features, infrastructure improvements, dedicated art and music spaces for Westbrook, innovative learning spaces and labs, expanded athletics facilities, as well as expanded multipurpose spaces. All of these changes would be brought through the expansion and rebuilding of the schools.

They took a multi-layered approach when trying to get the news out about the referendum plan. A variety of methods were used such as social media, yard signs, newspaper ads, community events, and town hall meetings. These were intended to help garner more people’s attention and direct them to the district’s informational website about the plan. 

The district wasn’t allowed to promote a specific voting decision, but was allowed to promote the spread of their information, since their only worry about the referendum was that people wouldn’t know enough about the plan to make a decision on voting day, according to Gorr.

Gorr shares that it was relatively easy to reach community members who were teachers or had kids, but their goal was to reach out to typically older community members who didn’t have much investment and understanding in the current state of the schools.

“In that process there was a lot of research that went into, is this something that the community is going to want to do? Is this something that the community will support us with?” Kimberly Fay, District 57 School Board President said.

Eventually through a consulting firm’s actions, they were told it seemed like the referendum would be successful, and it was. Construction for both schools is set to be finished by the start of the academic year in 2027, which is when Westbrook will be required to implement full-day kindergarten because of the state mandate, according to illinois.gov.

Westbrook currently does not have the space to be able to accommodate full-day kindergarten and has extremely limited space for many things as it is right now. They are using mobile classrooms for art and music classes and have resorted to doing special instruction in hallways, stairwells, and even the teachers’ lounge. Even before t

he mandate, full-day kindergarten is something that the community has been asking for for years according to Fay.

“I’ve lived in the community for more than 10 years, and I wish that [my kids] had had full day kindergarten,” Fay said.

Fay recalls that the community has also had concerns about Lincoln for some time. It was built in 1950 and has an aging infrastructure that often requires costly repairs as well as having a multitude of other issues such as not being very easy to navigate for wheelchair users.

Gorr says many of the spaces inside Lincoln are overcrowded and aren’t designed for or reflective of the modern type of instruction that they want to be doing in the school. 

She also acknowledges how during the design process, they will be taking into consideration the ideas of current students on how to improve the building.

“We’re really excited, and we’ve said to our current students, we are going to invite them all back and bring them [to] have a big party for them when it opens,” Gorr said.

Both Gorr and Fay have hope that the new building will provide better, more creative spaces to learn, and as a result will increase student school pride and behavior.

“[The school is] this really amazing place, because the staff and the teaching already reflects that, right?… For the building to have the functionality that compares to that, I think will be very helpful,” Gorr said.