Batavia school district officials reflect on the twice failed $140 million referendum

Voters rejected the Batavia school district’s $140 million facilities referendum for the second time in the April 4 election, which means the district will have to start looking at alternatives to replacing aging buildings.

The massive referendum, which included the demolition and replacement of the aging Louise White and H.C. Storm elementary schools and renovations to Batavia High School, was first voted down last November.

The referendum lost by a total of 4,113 “no” votes to 3,495 “yes” votes last month, according to the Kane County Clerk’s website.

“We had everyone’s attention the second time, and it didn’t pass,” said Superintendent Lisa Hichens. “That is a signal that it wasn’t the right plan, or that people didn’t feel that they had enough voice in building the plan. So, there were some lessons learned there.

“We did reach everybody, from what I can tell. There weren’t people [who] were surprised by the referendum question the second time around,” Hichens said.

Communications Manager Holly Deitchman said the district received 1,700 survey responses prior to the April election, asking for more emphasis on how individual schools and taxpayers would be impacted.

“The loudest ‘no’ voice that we heard was from those saying they did not want their taxes to go up,” she said.

If the referendum had passed, H.C. Storm and Louise White schools, both several decades old, would be torn down and replaced with modernized classrooms and work environments designed to meet current education standards.

Concerns were also voiced about declining district enrollment rates and the preference of repairing the H.C. Storm and Louise White buildings, instead of replacing them.

“People along the way did tell us that they wouldn’t tear down their house, so they couldn’t understand why we would tear down our buildings,” Deitchman said.

Deitchman said that the district did look at the costs of rebuilding versus renovating, but decided rebuilding would be a better option for the two aging schools.

“Looking to replace the vestibule one year might mean that you’re adding a new section of roofing to that vestibule, but then a year later you’d have to replace the whole roof. What we were trying to avoid is some of those sunk costs,” she said.

The district is now looking at other options in light of the referendum failure.

“I don’t know what we would cut from [the referendum], so we would really go back to the drawing board,” Hichens said.

Hichens explained that the referendum had been in the works since 2017.

In 2018, the school board hired architectural firm DLR Group to assist in developing the plan. In the subsequent years leading up to the vote, the district held community-focused workshops, presentations and other engagement events hosted by DLR and the school board.

According to the district’s website, the plan would’ve utilized bonds issues in batches every five years, with repayment not exceeding the current bond and interest levy of $9.1 million. School operation costs would continue to rise on its current trajectory, but the bond and interest levy would remain consistent.

“The first round, the feedback was pretty loud and clear,” Hichens said. “People wanted us to put the question back on the ballot, the majority of people wanted that. Also, they said they didn’t understand it, and it wasn’t specific enough to them and the impact on them as a homeowner, and them as a parent.”

Deitchman said that after the referendum failed in November, the district refocused communication efforts toward community impact.

“We were trying to share, instead of the impact to the entire district, that this was a $140 million referendum, but more specifically what it meant to each school and the neighborhood surrounding that school,” she said. “People got wrapped up in the overall district-wide impact, and that’s what we thought people would want to hear initially the first time around.”

Part of the district’s second outreach efforts included the release of three “Inside the Building” videos, where district staff discussed specific building needs addressed in the plan.

“I look through my classroom door and it’s full of steam,” said Batavia High School social studies teacher Megan Karim in one video, in which she described how her classroom was damaged by a broken radiator. “I opened the door and it’s like walking into a sauna. I looked around the room, on the walls, on the floor. Everything was soaking wet, covered in a layer of water.”

Karim’s classroom has since been repaired, but she said that the rest of her semester was disrupted due to her classes being relocated.

“It really shows that we can do better, and we can have better facilities for our teachers and for our staff,” Karim said.