City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Is District 150 tacitly abandoning East Bluff school?

6 Comments

Mentioned briefly at the end of the Journal Star’s article on the District 150 board meeting last night is this nugget:

The board agreed to begin negotiations with an architectural team to design a replacement school for Harrison Primary School.

The district will begin negotiations with local firm LZT Associates and Chicago-based firm Perkins+Will. The district intends to replace Harrison with a new school across the street. The planned site is a recently demolished section of Harrison Homes on Krause Avenue.

No mention of the East Bluff replacement school in that story. But there was a passing comment on WCBU this morning that the school district still hasn’t come to an agreement with the city on where to build a new school in the East Bluff; and they added, one may not be built at all.

Although a decision has not been officially made, it appears to me the district has made up their mind. They’ve already established in previous meetings that they don’t like the city’s site preference and the cost of building a “birth through eighth community center” type of school will cost millions of dollars more than they budgeted for construction. Several weeks ago, Superintendent Hinton and other board members stressed how urgent it was to make a decision soon so they could get the new school built in time before Glen Oak School is slated to close. Considering that we haven’t heard anything about the East Bluff replacement school for weeks now, and seeing how the district has shifted focus to the new Harrison replacement school, my intuition tells me there isn’t going to be a new school in the East Bluff anytime soon, and Glen Oak’s closing will likely be delayed.

I could be totally wrong in my prediction. But if I’m right, it raises another question. If they do officially decide not to build a new school in the East Bluff, will they reopen White School?

6 thoughts on “Is District 150 tacitly abandoning East Bluff school?”

  3. White School is closed down and will not be re-opened. they are running fine with out it. Abandon the “Glen Oak” issue ? might be true. Time will tell.
    If the Glen Oak school will not be built, what will become of the properties purchased? #150 a landlord? Sale/ swap to Park District ?

    It might be part of a larger plan the school district closes a high school (woodruff), make that the “birth -8 new school”.

  4. If they closed the Glen Oak school could another entity buy it and start up a competing school district? It’s seems like if everyone is fed up with 150 the way to go would be to start up your own school. Obviously I don’t know the pitfalls of doing such a thing or even how you would do it. But I thought I’d throw that idea out there.

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