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Illinois Governor Freezes UNO Charter School Construction Funding

CHICAGO — Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has vowed to withhold all further construction funding from the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), after a second financial scandal has engulfed the charter school operator. The organization, which has constructed 16 charter schools across Chicago, is currently being investigated for securities fraud by the Federal Security Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to the SEC letter received by UNO on Sept. 20, the investigation will “determine if violations of the federal securities law have occurred.” In response, Quinn has frozen a remaining $15 million from a nearly $100 million grant approved by Illinois lawmakers in 2009. Citing UNO’s need to “straighten out their affairs,” the governor has declared that none of the remaining funds will be released for UNO school construction. Quinn’s spokeswoman Sandra M. Jones added, “As a result of our own internal review conducted earlier this year, we have not approved any new projects, and have suspended future capital projects.”
Since the 1990’s, UNO has received generous financial support through both state grants and state-supported bond sales. The group had intended to construct two new schools with the remaining funds, as well as an additional $35 million lawmakers earmarked in 2012, before it received the SEC notification. The SEC is also requesting records related to 2011’s state-backed bond sales.
UNO previously came under scrutiny when two relatives of an UNO executive were awarded $8.5 million, state-funded construction contracts. Following this first financial scandal, Juan Rangel, resigned as UNO’s chairman of the board, but remains CEO. Rangel also acted as campaign co-chair for Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011.
The governor’s previous suspension of UNO funding briefly froze construction on the UNO Soccer Academy High School, a $25 million venture on the city’s southwest side, believed to be the country’s largest charter school subsidy. The freeze was eventually lifted, and the facility opened to students in September 2013. In defense of the financial reinstatement, Jones responded, “The funding was released because the work had already been completed, children needed to go to school and the contractors needed to be paid.” Despite Quinn’s confidence that the organization had corrected any wrongdoing, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has also received a letter from the SEC requesting UNO-related documents.
UNO began as a Hispanic community group in the 1980, and began constructing charter schools in the 1990’s. UNO schools now serve roughly 7,600 students across Chicago.

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Underground Water Storage Helps to Eliminate Flooding at Park Ridge School District

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — The parking lot at Franklin Elementary School in Park Ridge, Ill., may look like an average asphalt lot, but nearly 400,000 gallons of water lie underneath.

In an effort to fix water and drainage issues throughout its campuses, the Park Ridge School District is building an underground system to drain standing water from surface areas around the school.

Franklin Elementary School, the first school in the district to receive the renovations, underwent 10 weeks of construction that finished in August 2011. The second system is slated for construction at Carpenter Elementary School this June, said Scott Mackall, director of facility management for the district.

The city of Park Ridge suffers from water issues in part because it has an inadequate sized storm-sewer system, Mackall said. The several inches of standing water that often accumulate as a result make for dangerous road conditions and school environments.

“During a heavy rain everything just stays wet,” Mackall said. “There are playgrounds that will stay underwater for a good couple of days after a storm and parking lots will have several inches of standing water, so this underground water system will help dry our sites out.”

As a result of Franklin Elementary School’s $1.6 million project, completed by Waukegan, Ill.-based Boller Construction, children can now use the playground area and go to school on a safer site. Mackall believes those results will be the same at Carpenter, which expects to finish construction in the fall, in time for students returning from summer vacation.

The Carpenter project costs $1.2 million and will be built by Wood Dale, Ill.-based George Sollitt Construction. Its underground water detention system will hold 392,000 gallons of water.

“Without the underground water detention at Carpenter, we can’t get kids back on site to play until about three days after a heavy rain,” Mackall said. “It’s just horrible.”

Park Ridge has a high-water cable and a small storm-sewer system, so it takes a long time for sites to dry out, Mackall said. The underground water detention will also help drain standing water from nearby homes, as it will alleviate the pressure off the city’s stormwater system.

Another benefit of the underground water detention system is that it requires no additional maintenance after installation, Mackall said.

“It’s a 100 percent improvement,” he said.

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Early Education Center Uses Child-Centered Design

Photo credit: Paul Schlismann

NAPERVILLE, Ill. — Noting studies that show children in early education programs are more likely to score higher in reading and math, more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, and more likely to hold a job and earn more in that job, Congress reappropriated $300 million in July 2010 for President Barack Obama’s Early Learning Challenge Fund, a competitive grant geared toward providing services for children under age five.

While school districts are already mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to provide qualified preschool students with the specialized services they need to succeed in school, an increasing number of districts are expanding their services to include mainstream preschoolers.

The trend among these districts is to consolidate and centralize all early education curricula in an Early Childhood Center, which, according to Moss & Associates, should be “designed to emulate the principles of 21st century pedagogy: holistic, flexible, collaborative, contextual, and tailored to the individual’s specific needs.”

For children under age six, learning should not be a task but an adventure of discovery, which should be mirrored in the facility design, according to the firm.

As the first structured institutional setting that most preschoolers will encounter, early childhood centers should be warm, welcoming, and familiar the firm said.

In line with the idea of promoting “serious play,” spaces should be open and proportionally scaled, such as hallway windows that let children see into a room.

Accommodating diverse needs, such as language barriers or physical, mental, or emotional challenges, can be achieved by having more space allocated for each child, given the individualized instruction present in early childhood center curriculum, according to the firm.

The arrangement and configuration of instructional spaces must accommodate multiple activity options and support specific diagnostic and therapeutic services, firm officials said.

“Data from the National Clearing House for Educational Facilities indicates that more than 80 percent of all four-year-olds attend some kind of preschool program, with 39 percent enrolled in some kind of public program,” the firm reported. “In many districts, however, early intervention programs and related services are scattered among different schools.”

Some teachers and therapists travel to several schools each day for individualized learning sessions that often take place in cramped, makeshift spaces, officials said.

“Centralizing these services in an [early childhood center] enhances the effectiveness of teachers and other instructors and enables them to collaborate more easily with each other,” officials said. “Most importantly, it gives them more time to spend with students.”

The centers are also more efficient in their use of resources and tax dollars, according to the firm.

The Ann Reid Early Childhood Center in Naperville recently earned LEED Silver certification as the first newly constructed public school dedicated to early childhood education.

The school, which opened in the summer of 2010, was designed by Chicago and Darien, Ill.-based architecture, engineering, and construction firm Wight & Company as a “learning village” to accommodate the diverse educational needs of more than 300 children aged three to five.

Elgin, Ill.-based Lamp Inc. served as the general contractor on the $11 million project.

The 48,000-square-foot building’s exterior has a familiar residential appearance, with pitched roofs, siding, and windows intentionally placed to reflect the natural surroundings of its suburban neighborhood.

To make children feel at ease, the space was divided into a “learning village” of four educational neighborhoods that are connected to each other via communal areas and provide multiple opportunities for interaction. The corridors, or neighborhood “streets,” have various instructional wall surfaces and built-in manipulatives, e.g., letter blocks on skewers in hallways.

Design officials said the goal was to create visible opportunities to connect children with nature.

“The children at Ann Reid get a firsthand experience of the sustainable landscape design from windows that frame seating areas that are snuggled within the millwork and finished with cushions,” said Kevin Havens, director of design at Wight. “Just outside the windows rain is celebrated on stone pathways that follow sweeping curves to maximize the opportunity for infiltration before a last-stop catch basin.”

Sustainable features include perimeter landscaping with bioswales and rain gardens with indigenous plantings.

“The school district and Naperville community wanted to incorporate as many green elements into this project as the budget allowed, and we’re proud to have helped them achieve this goal,” said Mark Wight, chairman and chief executive officer.

The facility also includes windows along the lower wall in classrooms to allow light to enter and meet the district’s intent to encourage students to be more engaged with nature.

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Illinois School Renovation Focuses on Security

NAPERVILLE, Ill. — While construction at Naperville Central High School continues, two renovation projects at Prairie and Ranch View elementary schools are planned for the summer, focusing on better security at the main entrances.

Plans at Prairie Elementary, where the main office is tucked inside the center of the building, include building a small addition that will allow for increased visibility of everyone entering and exiting the building.

At Ranch View, rather than building an addition, officials deemed the best security option as relocating several kindergarten classrooms and a music room.

The changes will also allow for better natural light in the rooms and better views of the outside surroundings.

The facility improvements are funded by a referendum passed in Feb. 2008, approved by 59 percent of voters, with an initial allocation of $0.7 million for these two projects and modifications at Washington Junior High.

Concerns for increased safety stem from a 1988 incident in Winnetka, Ill. where 30-year-old Laurie Dann entered a school and killed one boy and injuring others before fleeing and committing suicide.

The projects will go out for bids early in the year and the work is expected to take place over the summer. Construction is expected to be completed when school opens in August.

The elementary school renovations are the last two of the $43 million of referendum projects.

Also in the district, students at Naperville Central High School will start the new year with some new facilities now that construction on their music department is complete.

Work continues on the school’s north addition, which is scheduled to be completed in the spring.

Renovations on the “flat wing” — located adjacent to the band area and to the west of the administration area — will be reconstructed over the summer. The heating and cooling system will also be renovated.

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