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Renovations on local school cause traffic concerns

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Title

Renovations on local school cause traffic concerns

Subject

Primary/secondary school education and discrimination, Champaign Unit 4 School District, Columbia, Columbia School Gymnasium, Gene Logas, M. Sharif Ullah, Principal Asia Fuller, transportation,
Washington, Champaign-Urbana,

Description

A dispute between Champaign Unit 4 and Champaign workers pertaining to the impediment of the flow of traffic.

Creator

Melissa Elegant

Publisher

Daily Illini

Date

26 April 2010

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The Champaign Unit 4 School District is holding a public meeting Tuesday to discuss traffic impact analysis due to construction on Booker T. Washington Elementary School. The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Columbia School Gymnasium, 1103 N. Neil St., Champaign.

Construction on the school, located at 606 E. Grove St., Champaign, will begin in early May, said Principal Asia Fuller.

Fuller said the school is being rebuilt as a science, technology, engineering and math magnet school.

“It’s very exciting and innovating,” Fuller said. “We’re hoping to attract at least 200 more students.”

M. Sharif Ullah, transportation engineer for the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission said the construction could potentially affect traffic in the area.

“We received a request from the city of Champaign planning department to conduct a traffic impact study for the Booker T. Washington school,” Ullah said. “They are extending the school’s capacity by over 100 persons, and it was a concern for them what would be the impact on the neighborhood streets.”

Gene Logas, chief financial officer for the Champaign Unit 4 School District, said the school is being rebuilt because it is “old, outdated and doesn’t meet the requirements for teaching in the 21st century.”

“Some of the classrooms only have one or two outlets,” Logas said.

“The electrical capacity of the school was not large enough to incorporate modern teaching methods with all of the smartboards and computers,” he added.

Logas said the new building will cost $18 million.

“We’re getting the money from the one percent increase in sales tax that was approved last spring,” Logas said. “With the school district’s portion, we issued $86 million in bonds. The money that we get annually from that one percent increase will be enough to make the payment on those bonds over the next 25 years.”

Logas said the school is one of at least four the district will be rebuilding with the funds. He added that if the district is awarded the Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant, funds will be allocated to staffing the new school.

“We’re certainly hopeful that we get that grant, but nevertheless, we’re moving ahead with construction,” Logas said.

He added that students were temporarily moved to the Columbia Center, a former elementary school, over winter break.

Logas said students will attend Columbia for the next year and a half until the new building is complete in the fall of 2011.

Fuller said students have adjusted well to the temporary site and the transition was smooth.

“It wasn’t something that happened overnight,” Fuller said. “They had a chance to say goodbye to their school.”

She added that an open house at Columbia was hosted after the move was complete.

Fuller said the bus routes and number of students taking the bus have not changed drastically since the move to Columbia.

“We’ve allowed more kids to take the bus here because we don’t want them crossing railroad tracks or busy streets,” she said.

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Citation

Melissa Elegant, "Renovations on local school cause traffic concerns," in eBlack Champaign-Urbana, Item #348, https://eblackcu.net/portal/items/show/348 (accessed March 29, 2024).

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