Q: Why is Mundelein High School District 120 placing a funding proposal on the ballot?
A: District 120 seeks to address high-priority capital facility needs at the high school. The proposed improvements are focused on updating aging infrastructure, solving overcrowding issues, improving instructional spaces, and making health, safety, and security improvements.
Q: Is the District seeking funds exclusively for facility and site improvements?
A: The bond proceeds can only be used for capital facility needs. No funds would go toward operations.
Q: What are some of Mundelein High School’s most pressing facility and site needs?
A: Our aging high school faces many capital facility challenges, including:
- Aging infrastructure: Much of the building’s original infrastructure is still in use and has reached the end of its useful life. This increasingly leads to costly and disruptive emergency repairs.
- Capacity Issues: There are 2,200 students in a building designed for 1,500.
- Overcrowding: Common areas, including the hallways and the cafeteria/kitchen, are all original to the building and too small to accommodate the current enrollment.
- Career & Technical Education programming space limitations: The current CTE space is too small to house the equipment needed for skilled trades training and other CTE classes.
- Disjointed health and wellness spaces: The school’s expanded health and wellness offerings are scattered throughout the building and take up much-needed instructional space.
- Competition gym: The 63-year-old gym is not large enough to seat the entire student body, has ADA accessibility issues and is not air-conditioned.
- Cafeteria / kitchen: The cafeteria and kitchen spaces are original to the 1961 building and were designed to accommodate the needs of a much different era with a much smaller student population. One of the kitchen’s four server lines is inoperable due to infrastructure issues..
- Undersized band and music rooms: The current band room has a capacity for just 80 students, but more than three times that number are enrolled in the program. Classroom, practice and equipment storage space is also limited, forcing the district to pay for storage spaces outside of the school.
Q: How old is Mundelein High School?
A: Mundelein High School opened 63 years ago and much of its infrastructure was designed to last 50-75 years.
Q: Has the District properly maintained the high school?
A: Yes. The District continues to invest each year in the maintenance of the high school. However, there are repairs, renovations and additions that cannot be addressed without additional local funding.
Q: Once improved, will the District be able to properly maintain the high school to prevent the need for another bond referendum in the near term?
A: As in the past, a comprehensive preventative maintenance program will be in place. The mechanical, electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems that would be replaced are well past their life expectancy. These systems have only lasted as long as they have because of a well-run maintenance program over the years. What we currently cannot avoid is the age of the equipment. When these systems reach their end of life, they need to be replaced. We cannot wait for catastrophic failures that would force school closures and interrupt learning.
Q: Why not build a new high school?
A: The cost of constructing a new high school is significantly higher than making the proposed repairs, renovations and additions.
Q: With projected growth, at what point will Mundelein need a new high school building?
A: If the referendum is successful, we will not need a new high school for the foreseeable future. Our facilities plan accounts for future growth that includes upgrades and expansion of our common spaces in the school. It also adds classrooms to allow for current needs and future growth.
Q: Which improvements would the downsized proposal address?
A: District 120’s updated funding proposal includes the following repairs, renovations and additions:
- Repairing or replacing outdated, inefficient mechanical, electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems.
- Updating fire safety systems.
- Creating a properly sized space within the high school for Career & Technical Education (CTE) programming.
- Updating the health and wellness spaces and bringing them together into a centralized area to create continuity, free up classroom space and make access easier for students.
- Upgrading the kitchen and cafeteria servery to alleviate space, health and safety issues.
- Expanding hallways to address safety and overcrowding issues.
- Creating additional classrooms on the building’s west side.
- Creating a flexible-use multi-purpose center (fieldhouse) that would support multiple physical education classes and provide space for health and wellness programming, athletics, assemblies, competitions, community events, performances and practices.
- Building a new competition gymnasium to address the current limitations of the old gym and make room for a new media center / library.
- Expanding music classrooms and storage space to accommodate the number of students enrolled in those programs.
- Addressing infrastructure needs at the District-owned Village Green property to relocate tennis courts and certain athletic fields.
- Adding a ring road around the campus to improve traffic flow, decrease traffic congestions, increase safety and security and provide additional parking.
- Provide new space for the Transition Center program.
Q: How is the new proposal different from what voters turned down in April 2023?
A: The new proposal has been reduced from $175 million to $149.5 million. This has been accomplished by cutting more than 36,000 sq ft of new construction. The high-priority projects that were part of the original proposal are still being pursued, but many have been downsized.
Q: What specifically is District 120 proposing to be cut from the previous funding proposal?
A: Some of the proposed changes to the original proposal that voters turned down in April 2023 include:
- Reducing the number of multi-use spaces previously proposed
- Expanding the high school’s footprint, but with 36,000 sq ft less of new construction
- Eliminating the addition of a black box theater
- Creating a single-level versus multilevel media center renovation
- Converting the current main gym into a media center/student services space
- Phasing in the development of the District-owned Village Green property to relocate tennis courts and certain athletic fields for lacrosse, soccer, softball and baseball, as well as making required infrastructure improvements
- Eliminating the mezzanine level fitness space to reduce the scope of the north gym renovation
- Eliminating expansion of the auditorium stage and proscenium opening.
- Incorporating Career and Technical Education spaces into the current high school building rather than constructing a new facility.
Q: What are the anticipated benefits of the proposed improvements?
A: A plan for future improvements to Mundelein High School starts with the District 120 long-range facilities plan. This is not a blueprint for renovation, but a flexible plan shaped by the Board of Education and district administrators and based on school needs and priorities. These high-priority improvements will provide many benefits to the school. The anticipated benefits include:
- Extending the useful life of existing facilities
- Improving building performance, including energy efficiency
- Enhancing health, wellness and safety
- Reducing costly and disruptive emergency repairs
- Enhancing ADA accessibility for student, staff and visitors
- Addressing overcrowding issues and scheduling conflicts
- Strengthening hands-on learning and collaboration
- Expanding and enhancing Career & Technical Education programming
- Attracting and retaining quality teachers and staff
- Protecting property values
Q: What are the plans to expand Career and Technical Education (CTE) programming and what will the program mean for students?
A: We need more room for students. Currently, the woods lab is utilized in all eight class periods and the fabrication lab is used in five of eight periods. With about 25 students per period, we currently have approximately 325 students a semester accessing CTE programming. The four CTE spaces as described in the facilities improvement plan would provide about 25 students each period in an eight-period day for a total of about 800 students per semester able to access CTE programming.
MHS needs to expand the types of classes offered. In addition, improved facilities will provide the ability to teach more specific trades instruction in building trades and manufacturing. Additional space will provide the facilities for a needed program (metals lab) which currently does not exist. The additional space would make it possible for MHS to expand the graphic design pathway of classes with a graphic design lab. The graphic design pathway of classes integrates with other courses and programming (athletics, clubs, academic departments) to provide services needed for successful completion of other curricula.
MHS needs additional space to modernize the current woods lab, and have the necessary electrical service to run trades curricula such as construction and electrical. A new woods lab would allow for carpentry and electrical curricula along with 2D CAD Blueprint drawing and residential construction. Currently, MHS only offers a limited woods curriculum and less trades skills due to lack of space for the necessary building and storage of materials/projects.
The addition of a metals lab will provide space for a curriculum that does not exist currently at the high school but is very critical to the manufacturers in Mundelein and Lake County. A metals lab would allow for bending, shaping and machining (mills and lathes) which are all industry standards our students experience after graduation. MHS does not have a space for these types of courses at this time.
The addition of a graphic design lab provides the opportunity for students to learn skills useful in almost every other industry. MHS is only able to offer the entry level skills without the application of entry and advanced skills. Additional space would provide the instructional space for students to work with paper, cloth, vinyl, and plastic for applications that can be utilized for other courses, extracurricular programs, and whole school needs (i.e. designing and printing of school/district materials).
With new CTE spaces, the current engineering lab would have room to expand and add tools used in industry for fabrication. Currently engineering programming is not fully taught due to the lack of space for the necessary machines.
Q: How does the addition of a fieldhouse and gymnasium address programs other than athletics and sports?
A: There are various limitations with the 63-year-old competition gymnasium. It is not large enough to seat the entire student body, has ADA accessibility issues and is not air-conditioned. The plan is to rebuild it to make room for a new multi-media center / library. The addition of a fieldhouse would add a truly multi-purpose space needed for PE and wellness classes, band practices, school assemblies, tournaments (such as robotics and dance competitions), community events, clubs and activities and more. The current scheduling challenges of trying to house all of these events in the current gymnasium space impacts student schedules and limits the type of programming available to all students.
Q: What role does the District-owned Village Green Golf Course property play in addressing the District’s facility and site needs?
A: The District’s 40-acre high school site is woefully undersized to meet the District’s current needs and allow for future growth. Relocating certain athletic fields and tennis courts to District-owned Village Green would free up space on the high school property to build a multi-purpose center. The new proposal calls for a downsized, phased-in approach at the Village Green.
Q: Can the school district sell the Village Green property to pay for improvements?
A: The Board of Education is not looking to sell the property because it is an asset the district owns and it allows for future growth. If the school needed to expand in the future, the School District would not need to purchase the necessary land. The previous School Board did put the Village Green property up for bid/sale in 2018. At that time, developers were bidding on the western 50 acres or the entire 94 acres. The best competitive bid for the 50-acre section was $3.35 million and the best 94-acre bid was $6.1 million. The District purchased the property in 2004 for about $8.4 million.
Q: Would any non-referendum dollars be used to fund the proposed improvements?
A: Yes. District 120 remains committed to allocating $50 million of non-referendum dollars towards facility and site improvements. In order to make the most efficient use of these funds, they would be used in conjunction with the $149.5 million of voter-approved referendum dollars. The total cost of the improvements would be $199.5 million.
Q: What is the impact of Mundelein’s TIF Districts on Mundelein High School Financing?
A: The Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is a tool used by the Village of Mundelein to fund improvements within the TIF district. The money is made by freezing the taxable assessed value of the property in the TIF. As the value of the property increases, the tax revenue from the property’s increased value is set aside for the TIF. Taxing bodies such as schools, parks, fire, police and village government are limited to collecting taxes on the property’s value at the time it is frozen. The TIF freezes the tax value for 23 years. This means the school district loses out on new tax revenue as property values inside the TIF increase in value.
Q: How much does the school district receive annually in developer impact fees?
A: Developer impact fees are set by the Village of Mundelein to fund the impact housing developers have on local governments and services (schools, police, fire, etc). While District 120 has had opportunities to communicate its needs with the village officials, the Village of Mundelein determines the amount developers pay. Since 2016, School District 120 has received a total of $1.2 million in impact fees. Those monies are put in the District 120 general fund balance.
Q: Why does the burden for school facility improvements fall largely on local property owners?
A: Illinois is a local tax-based state. This means that the largest single source of revenue for Illinois public schools is the local property tax, residential as well as business and industry. In fact, local property taxes provide about two-thirds of overall funding, with state and federal funding comprising the rest.
Q: How does this plan make the most efficient use of our taxpayer dollars?
A: District 120 is fortunate to have a facilities director with a background in project management. By using our own project manager, we would save money by not hiring a consulting project manager. Our architectural and engineering consultants have a proven record of obtaining grants to supplement our investment in these projects.
Q: Has District 120 previously added classrooms and labs with non-referendum funds?
A: Yes. The District has previously added classrooms and labs to address instructional space needs. The most recent of these improvements were addressed in 2016 with the science wing using non-referendum dollars.
Q: What is the proposed construction timeline?
A: If voters approve a referendum in 2024, the overall construction timeline would begin in the spring of 2025 and last about three years. The District, architect, and construction management team will work together to develop a phasing plan that is least disruptive to school operations but still allows the work to pace out as efficiently as possible to be cost competitive.
Q: Will many of the improvements be addressed during the summer months to minimize the impact on day-to-day operations of the high school?
A: The intent is to perform a majority of the construction activities during the summer months. If there are opportunities to reduce the overall timeline of construction by performing construction during the school year with minimal impact to students and staff, they will be explored.
Q: How will students and staff be kept safe during construction?
A: Safety is our number-one priority. Much of the work will be done during the summer months when fewer students and staff are in the building. A project-specific safety plan will be developed for each stage of construction and will be updated as the project progresses. We will develop logistical plans that will identify hard barriers to isolate construction activities from other occupants in the building.
Q: Will there be opportunities to ask questions in person and to visit the high school?
A: Yes. Building tours and opportunities for the public to ask questions to members of the School Board and district staff will be scheduled.
Q: If the referendum is approved, what oversight would be put in place?
A: All spending from a voter-approved bond measure would be publicly disclosed on the District’s website at www.d120.org and through other community outreach. Construction schedules, updates and other information would also be communicated regularly.
Q: What happens if the bond issue is not approved by voters?
A: It will be up to the School Board to decide on next steps. Student programs and opportunities would continue to be limited by outdated and under-sized facilities. Schedules will remain impacted by current space constraints and limitations.
What if I have further questions?
For further questions about the proposal, please email: mhsbuildingplan@d120.org.