4 Batavia Schools Potential Candidates To Be Torn Down, Rebuilt: Mayor

BATAVIA, IL — Four schools in Batavia are "potentially going to be candidates" to be torn down and rebuilt "probably almost on their exact same location," Mayor Jeffery Schielke announced in his weekly video update April 14.

The discussion first came up when the District 101 Board of Education and Batavia Committee of the Whole held a joint meeting April 12, Schielke said.

The mayor listed J.B. Nelson School, Alice Gustafson School, Louise White Elementary School and H.C. Storm School as rebuild candidates. The schools, each several decades old, first opened in 1955, 1958, 1978 and 1978, respectively.

Not all the older schools have sprinkler systems, for example, while newer ones are updated to be safer, be Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant and have sprinklers, the mayor said. Schielke also mentioned classroom dynamics have shifted due to technology usage.

"You start to sometimes lose that perspective of how old things are," Schielke said in the YouTube video. "As the times have changed during these last 60 years, a lot of things have changed in the classroom."

The four schools are spread out across town, almost in four corners. Two are located east of the Fox River, on Prairie Street and William Wood Lane, while the other two are west of the river, on Van Nortwick Avenue and Carlisle Road.

"Those will be the schools that I think we'll be, as a community, hearing a lot of discussions about," the mayor said. "I'd encourage the community to kind of perk your ears up and listen to the conversation because the school district does have some very compelling reasons as to why they kind of take on this idea of rebuilding the schools."

Although the mayor didn't give any definitive timeline, he said the discussion will likely be sent to a referendum, giving people the chance to vote on the topic.

"That's not anything to do with me; that's not our call at the city," Schielke said. "The school district will make that determination when they're ready to do whatever it is they're going to do. The conversation is going on, and they're trying very hard to involve members of the community in that conversation."