Marissa DeWeese
didn’t really mind the congestion at Springfield High School. A
member of the marching band, DeWeese thought it was pretty cool once when
the band and freshman football team practiced on the same field while a
group of law-enforcement agency trainees ran laps around the track.
Nevertheless, a committee made up of community
members from across the district, assembled to examine the building needs
of Springfield’s public schools, found the conditions appalling.
In their report, submitted to members of the District
186 Board of Education in November, the committee members note that during
football season the varsity, JV, and freshman squads must all practice on
the same field, which is also used for freshman and junior-varsity home
games.
They also point out that the Senators’ athletic
field can’t accommodate varsity sports and that the New Street
facility has no permanent bleachers, lights, or restroom facilities.
Because the band also uses the field for practice, the field is almost
useless for playing football or teaching physical education.
The committee also details structural problems inside
the school. Classrooms, they say, are too small (less than 600 square feet,
compared with 850 square feet in many of the newer schools around the
district). Nor is there is seating in the gymnasium, which isn’t
equipped for setting up volleyball courts.
Springfield High’s restrooms and two classrooms
on the fourth floor are not accessible to people who have disabilities, and
two narrow stairwells fail to meet building-code requirements. Perhaps most
shocking: “The cafeteria is not in acceptable proximity to the
commons. Students have to go through the lunch line and carry their food
over 100 feet down a corridor. This creates a high potential for food
spillage.”
As a means of remedying the problems with the
92-year-old structure, the facilities committee has suggested building a
new 1,600-student-capacity high school and athletic complex on Koke Mill
Road “to accommodate west side population growth.”
The recommendations have drawn fire from Springfield
High’s neighbors, who would rather see the district expand the
current campus, whose rich history, diverse 1,400-student body, and central
location, they say, could touch off revitalization of the core of the city.
But more and more Springfield families are choosing
the western suburbs over the inner city, a trend that’s unlikely to
slow down anytime soon. So why not start planning for the future?
Well, because a lot of people really, really love
that school.
DeWeese, a 2008 graduate, asks what seems to be on
the minds of many residents of central city: “Is it really necessary
to build a new high school?”
“The high schools of my parents no longer
exist. When I get old, I’d like my high school to exist,” she
says.
Among the staunchest
opponents of plans to relocate Springfield High are members of the
near-west-side Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association, which encompasses the
school.
Bill Castor, the group’s president, says his
association supports the district’s capital campaign but thinks
Springfield High School should stay put.
“Moving it would be costlier in terms of
transportation at time when were concerned about rising fuel prices. It
would also make participation of students and parents in clubs and teacher
conferences most difficult for those who can least afford transportation
out to the far west side,” says Castor, whose three children all
attended Springfield High.
Castor also stresses the importance of preserving the
historic connection of Springfield High to the neighborhood. He views the
school as a possible economic engine for the area.
“With all the investments that have been made ,
downtown has pretty much come back to life in the past 20 years. If we
continue to let the neighborhood surrounding that beautiful downtown area
deteriorate — and I think this would result in that —
it’s going to be a short-lived improvement if it’s surrounded
by a sea of parking lots and Section 8 rental properties.”
He adds: “I don’t think the west side of
town is the magical place where you’re going to get a good
education.”
Springfield’s west side may not be the land of
enchantment, but many people certainly find it alluring.
Between 1990 and 2000, most of Springfield’s
population growth took place west of Chatham Road and the population in
areas to the east of Chatham Road saw a decline, according to the
district’s facilities planning committee, which cites U.S. Census
data.
In addition, the committee says, most developable
land lies on the far west side of Springfield. Enrollment at Lindsay
Elementary School, the only public elementary school in the area, has
swelled past capacity to more than 500 students, which suggests that
building a west-side high school is more about demographic projections than
present-day needs.
Other recommendations include the construction of
gymnasiums at each of Springfield’s middle schools and Southeast
High, improving parking lots, adding restrooms at Memorial Field, making
heating and air-conditioning upgrades, and replacing Lanphier High School.
Of the $261.3 million in suggested improvements, none
has generated as much controversy as the idea of moving a high school away
from the heart of the city and raising $57 million to build a brand-new
school and athletic field on the west side.
At a recent school-board meeting, Ken Page, president
of the Springfield branch of the NAACP, chided the school board, asking,
“At what point will there be a true public hearing?”
Springfield schools remain under a 1974 consent decree to desegregate its
schools. School-board officials say that even under the relocation plan the
district would continue to comply with the order.
School-board president Erin Conley responded to Page
by saying that board members are gathering as much input from the public as
possible, noting that a public work session devoted to the construction
plan has already taken place and that another is scheduled for 9 a.m.
Saturday, Aug. 23.
“The Springfield High School/west-side high
school is kind of our elephant in the living room right now. As a board I
don’t know that we’ve come to a place of general agreement on
that,” Conley says.
Dr. Walter Milton Jr., superintendent of District
186, does have a preference.
Recognizing “a major concern that we
don’t vacate the existing building,” Milton recommends moving
forward with the construction of the new high school on the west side on
property the district already owns. In doing so, Lincoln Magnet School
— currently at 300 S. 11th St. — would move to the current
Springfield High site.
“These are very difficult decisions, and
we’re trying our best to have a win-win across the board,” he
says. “We have a long waiting list of people wanting to become part
of the Lincoln family. I think we have something good there.”
Alternative-education programs would then be housed
in the Lincoln building — a move that would save taxpayers the cost
of building a new gym there, around $3 million in Milton’s
estimation.
“We don’t have the luxury to build three
high schools, although that might be the thing to do if we were a really
wealthy community, but that’s not our reality,” he says.
Before any construction can be started, the district
will have to ask taxpayers to approve a referendum, such as a 1-cent
sales-tax levy. Conley says she does believe that the board agrees on the
need for a referendum to pay for the middle-school gyms, which are required
to comply with new state mandates on physical-education programs.
For Springfield
High’s neighbors, alumni, and current students, the issue is more
than dollars and cents and new football stadiums. Their devotion to the
Senators — previously they were called the Solons, after a Greek
statesman — has as much to do with the building’s remarkable
story as knee-jerk nostalgia.
Erected in 1916, the school stands at the site of a
former cemetery. Sometime in the 1980s workers in an elevator shaft
discovered a tombstone bearing the inscription “CUT DOWN BUT NOT
DESTROYED.” The school is also rumored to be haunted by a petite
blond poltergeist named Rachel. (The origin of the ghost’s name are
unclear.)
Specters aside, school spirit is also derived from
the unusual mosaics on the north and south ends of the building’s
exterior. Mosaics that adorn the walls above water fountains, walls filled
with student art from over the years, and the two-story art classroom in
the center of the building where generations of students have scrawled
their names are other points of pride.
“Our building has a lot of character,”
says Katie Ward, another 2008 graduate. “As much as people complain
that we don’t have a big new school like Glenwood [High School], at
least we’re connected to the community.”
Besides, her classmate DeWeese says: “New
schools all look the same.”
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
