WHEATON CONSIDERS PLAN FOR CLOSING HIGH SCHOOL: [DU PAGE SPORTS FINAL Edition]

Abstract

Wheaton Unit School District 200, nearly torn apart in a dispute over closing a high school six years ago, is now discussing the possibility of another closing.

Wheaton school board members agreed unofficially Monday night to renovate the Wheaton-Warrenville Middle School for eventual conversion into a high school, possibly replacing Wheaton Central.

In a similar decision in 1982, the school board voted to close Wheaton- Warrenville as the district's third high school, leaving Central and North open.

Wheaton Unit School District 200, nearly torn apart in a dispute over closing a high school six years ago, is now discussing the possibility of another closing.

This time, the school that could be in jeopardy is century-old Wheaton Central.

Wheaton school board members agreed unofficially Monday night to renovate the Wheaton-Warrenville Middle School for eventual conversion into a high school, possibly replacing Wheaton Central.

In a similar decision in 1982, the school board voted to close Wheaton- Warrenville as the district's third high school, leaving Central and North open.

The agreement was part of a three-part plan discussed at a workshop Monday to deal with the capacity of the district's buildings and proposed boundary changes planned for the next five years because of rising enrollments.

Money for the proposed projects, which also include building a new elementary school near the Summerlakes subdivision in Warrenville, and renovating Lowell Elementary School and the now-closed Washington and Monroe schools, was approved in a referendum last November. Voters approved $20 million in bonds for the project.

Jerry Mejdrich, assistant superintendent, said an enrollment increase is expected beginning in 1991 for the middle school grades. That increase will carry over into the high schools through 2000, he said.

Board members agreed that renovation and expansion at Wheaton-Warrenville Middle School, one of three middle schools, should begin in the fall of 1990 to absorb the increases, and that the school would be converted into a high school at a later, still unknown date.

At that time, the district's long-range but still tentative plans call for the possible closing of Wheaton Central.

Washington Elementary School, which has been closed since 1979 and now occupied by the Wheaton Park District, would be renovated and reopened by the fall of 1989 to handle overflow students from Pleasant Hill and possibly Sandburg Elementary Schools, the board agreed.

Washington also would be used as a swing school during renovation at the Lowell Elementary School. Summerlake school, scheduled to open in the fall of 1990, will replace Holmes School, which is old and no longer meets district requirements.

The board has yet to approve specific changes and the administration has authorized a computer study to begin assessing the effects of the changes and redistricting.