Why I voted for the OPRF facilities plan

My grandparents moved to Oak Park in the 1940s and my parents followed in the mid-1950s just before I was born. They, like many before and many after them, chose Oak Park for the stable neighborhood, proximity to their congregation and excellence in education.

Growing up in both villages and residing here most of my adult life, I have experienced all of the change brought to the villages over six decades. Despite the changes, the one constant that remains is that the high school has been, and continues to be, the heart of our community.

The generations that came before us had the foresight to provide facilities that would serve not only their generation but the generations to come. Now it is incumbent on our community to provide for future generations.

Last December, the community asked the school board to develop a revised plan for investment in our facilities. The request was: to keep parking on campus, provide more value for the dollars spent, and to obtain taxpayer approval. We listened. We held five well-attended and fruitful community meetings. Countless hours have been spent analyzing, reviewing and revising various solutions. At those meetings we heard a strong preference to integrate the pressing need to address our failing pools with our ongoing long-term facilities plan. As a result of this difficult work, we adopted a wide-reaching facilities improvement plan that will cost an estimated $44.5 million.

The plan is much more than just a pool. The plan is an unprecedented opportunity to improve our most valuable public asset and ensure that it meets the needs of future generations. In addition to better classroom space, the plan provides for continued growth in activities and athletics, which correlates with improved student outcomes over a wide range of students.

The plan provides expanded space for our growing performance arts programming. The plan reconfigures outdated classrooms to create modernized, flexible spaces for 21^st-century collaborative learning. The plan eliminates the archaic gender-separating floor plan of the 1920s and provides more equitable access to facilities. The plan will address student health concerns by providing modern ventilation systems in both aquatic areas and locker rooms. It addresses disability access issues in order to make our facilities available to all. And it creates an asset that will be shared with the greater community.

The many other options under consideration did not offer the same long-term improvements to benefit our school at an appropriate cost. And while this plan’s total investment is significant, the cost to current taxpayers is in line with the 2013 financial plan set in motion by the board to responsibly reduce the fund balance by realizing a $72 million tax savings over 10 years.

I believe this plan is a historic opportunity to shape our educational campus for the future and funding via the referendum on the November ballot is the right thing to do for our students, our staff, our community and our future. 

That is why I voted for this plan.

Fred Arkin is a longtime resident of Oak Park and River Forest and currently serves on the District 200 Board of Education.