District 118 Superintendent Dr. Alicia Geddis says many of the comments she received from the public following last week’s study session on facilities were from people who believed that the school board was going to turn Northeast Elementary Magnet School into a preschool center and then move the current magnet school to Liberty Elementary School. She says it has caused more problems in the last week on top of everything else the district is going through.
“What it did was send my staff into a panic,” she explains. “No one said that (a final decision has been made about Northeast). We examined the comments from parents, students and staff. No decisions were made.”
Still, staff members and parents of Northeast students filled the room inside the Dr. David Fields Administration Building Wednesday night, addressing the board about their concerns.
Jayme Attutis works at the school and spoke on behalf of her fellow teachers.
“We currently have needs,” she says. “We need staff. We need space. Those same needs would probably still be apparent at Liberty, we feel, especially since the sizes are so comparable.”
School board president Dr. Randal Ashton was one of the original parents of students who began attending Northeast once it became a magnet school in the 1990’s. He says that it is possible some people will not like the decision the board makes, but they are committed to the current school concept.
“We don’t want to destroy it, we don’t want to wreck it,” he says. “We want to nurture it and we want to make it better, because it only makes our district better, so we’ll do whatever we possibly can.”
The preschool center option was one of a number of things the board discussed last week. Another option would be to simply expand the current Northeast building to fit its current needs. Dr. Geddis says a referendum would be needed for a new preschool center but the district could do a “backdoor referendum” by first renting a church building on Voorhees Street.
