Summit Hill District 161 Could Close One School, Reopen Another

A Frankfort-area school closed in 2012 for budget reasons could be reopened if a feasibility study by Summit Hill District 161 proves that doing so is a sound option.

A fact-finding committee is being formed to look into moving Frankfort Square School students, staff and administration from the current location on Frankfort Square Road to the District’s Rosewood Drive location, Mary Drew School.

The study will include data on finances, enrollment, transportation, phone systems and building conditions for review in mid-September. Focus group meetings with Frankfort Square parents and residents to discuss the potential relocation will then be scheduled. Earlier this week, Frankfort Square staff toured the Rosewood Drive location. The district also met with the Frankfort Square Park District to gauge interest in the Frankfort Square Road location. The feasibility study will be presented at the Board’s planning session in January 2016.

The Mary Drew building was completely renovated in 2008, with newer, more efficient technology and other systems. Its classrooms also outnumber Frankfort Square’s, with 27 at Mary Drew compared to 18 at Frankfort Square.

The idea is not one based on safety, District 161 Board President Richard Marron said at a recent meeting. Frankfort Square School is operating well at its current capacity of 219 students.

”If it wasn’t safe, we would not be having this discussion. We would have been moving students by now,” he said, as reported in the Daily Southtown. “I looked at the two buildings and thought why not use the newer building?”

It’s a question that might sound all-too-familiar to Frankfort Square residents, many of whom fought for Lincoln-Way District 210 to keep open the newer Lincoln-Way North in its deliberations to shutter a school as a way out of a $5.2 million budget shortfall. The board voted last month to close the 7-year-old school.

Those same parents spoke out against the closing of Mary Drew School in 2012, a move made in response to a similar decline in enrollment. District 161 sold $39 million in bonds for construction of its new Summit Hill Junior High, which opened in 2007. The old junior high was converted into an elementary school and district offices; classrooms were added at Hilda Walker School and Julian Rogus School. The district then later voted to close Mary Drew after enrollment did not grow as projected. Then-Superintendent Keith Pain abruptly announced his retirement in May 2011, months before a new board would confront a $2.5 million deficit. Mary Drew was closed, with intent to lease.

It has since been used by a church, the Frankfort Square Park District, and a Montessori school. The park district has said it would consider shifting its programs hosted at Drew to Frankfort Square School, and hopes to continue using both it and Lincoln-Way North, the Southtown reports.

“We want to do the right thing for the neighborhood. We do not want to have two empty schools in the same neighborhood,” Marron said.

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