Residents in the Fairbury area may be facing an important decision: which school their youngest children will attend.
The Prairie Central School District – Prairie Central CUSD 8, which serves the towns of Fairbury, Chenoa, Meadows, Fairbury, Forrest, Strawn, Wing and Chatsworth – is considering a referendum this fall that would allow the district to close its three elementary schools in Chatsworth, Chenoa and Fairbury and build a single, larger elementary school in Fairbury that all of the district’s students in preschool through fourth grade would attend.
The $70 million construction project would include the new elementary school as well as renovations to the existing elementary and middle schools in Forest and the high school in Fairbury.
The new Fairbury elementary school would replace Prairie Central Primary East in Chatsworth and Prairie Central Primary West in Chenoa – which currently serve the district’s preschool, kindergarten and first-graders – as well as Prairie Central Elementary in Fairbury, which currently serves second through fourth graders.
The text of the proposed referendum is expected to be approved at a school board meeting on August 15.
If the school board votes to proceed with the project, the issue of issuing $45 million in bonds will be put to a referendum in the Nov. 5 general election.
“We think we can raise about $25 million through taxes, fund contributions and things like that,” said Prairie Central Superintendent Paula Crane. “We think we can do that with no or very little tax increase, a very little tax increase.”
The idea to build a new school came about because Prairie Central Elementary needed renovations. The school accommodates 319 students and has a multipurpose room that doubles as a gymnasium and cafeteria.
“With the number of children, we simply cannot meet the state requirements,” Crane said. “What’s worse is that on days when the weather is bad, and there are many of those in Illinois during the winter, the children have to spend their activity time at a desk in their room because that’s the only space we have for them. We have no place for them to do physical activity.”
While the district was considering a $6 million expansion of the Prairie Central Elementary gymnasium, it had an architect review all of the district’s buildings and their needs, from bringing them into compliance with building codes to adding air conditioning.
According to John Wilken, chairman of the Prairie Central School Board, the analysis of this survey was the reason the district and school board began considering a new building.
“It came about quite organically, without anyone really thinking about centralization or new school buildings,” Wilken said. “It wasn’t as if there was a mission: ‘We should build new buildings.'”
BLDD Architects of Decatur was hired to assist with community engagement and several meetings were held with local residents. These “Planning A Course Together” (PACT) meetings were designed to gather input from the Prairie Central community.
“We held four community engagement meetings,” Crane said. “We engaged the community, gave them the initial information and presented some initial scenarios.”
The Prairie Central CUSD 8 School Board will meet on August 15 at 7:00 p.m. in the library of Prairie Central High School, 411 N. Seventh St., in Fairbury.
