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November 23, 2008

School faces challenge to improvement plan

By Michelle Martin

ASSISTANT EDITOR

By all accounts, Children of Peace School is a success story.

The Catholic school, now a ministry of Notre Dame de Chicago Parish, was originally formed by the consolidation of schools at the now-closed Holy Trinity and St. Callistus parishes and Holy Family Parish.

It has gone from three campuses in 2000 to one campus today, but it has seen its enrollment grow from 218 students to 242 students in the past two years, and it has maintained its tradition of serving deaf and hearing-impaired students. It is the only Catholic school in the state of Illinois with such a program. This year, 32 of the 242 students are in the hearing- impaired program.

Planned improvements

Now the school wants to improve its campus by adding a “bridge” building between its two existing buildings. The new building would allow students to move between the two existing buildings without having to go outside. It also would allow space for a new lunchroom and five classrooms, which would free up space for a library, band room and other facilities.

The $3.6 million plan has the support of parents, the school’s board of specified jurisdiction, the archdiocese and local officials, including the local alderman, state representative and state senator.

But it has not yet won the backing of the Illinois Medical District Board of Commissioners, who have authority over land use decisions in the district, which stretches south from the Eisenhower Expressway between Western and Ashland avenues. It is home to Stroger Hospital, Rush University Medical Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago Health Sciences Campus, as well as a number of smaller institutions, organizations and businesses in the health and science field.

Health campus

Children of Peace, 1900 W. Taylor St., sits in the middle of the UIC health-sciences campus, which is home to the largest medical school in the United States and a block from the UIC’s trauma center.

The seven-member board of commissioners will not take up the issue until its Feb. 24 meeting, as commissioners did not receive transcripts from a Nov. 12 hearing until the day before the Nov. 18 meeting. The decision disappointed school officials, who must delay a planned capital campaign.

The medical-district board, whose members are appointed by the state, county and city, can legally force property owners to sell their property at fair market value to make way for projects the commission believes are in the interests of the medical district.

And the board does not seem convinced that a Catholic school, albeit one that serves a community of deaf and hearing impaired students, as well as a regular-education population that draws more than half of its students from among the children of people who work in the medical district, is the best use of property there.

“The commission has indicated a desire to acquire this parcel at some time in the future for other expansion needs,” said member John Partelow at the Nov. 12 meeting, after asking whether Children of Peace had looked into relocating the school to any of several closed Catholic schools.

The school does not want to move, said Father Patrick Pollard, pastor of Notre Dame de Chicago, because its location is one reason for its success.

“We know that moving schools kills them,” he said.

To serve the children better, the school will create a separate parking area and a new main entrance on Wolcott and a new play area on Taylor street, moving drop-off and pick-up traffic off of Taylor and onto Wolcott. That plan has already been approved.

Same program

The new building would not substantially change the program at Children of Peace, which would continue to offer pre-school through eighth-grade education for regular education students as well as those who are deaf or hearing impaired. It would allow the enrollment to increase incrementally, to 270, said Pollard.

Three years ago, the archdiocese brought plans to put a 900-student high school on the site at an earlier use-value hearing, Pruett said. That proposal came shortly after the archdiocese announced plans to close 23 elementary schools.

“Given the historic needs for expansion space within the confines of the IMD in support of post graduate educational and medical facilities, coupled with the high volume of school closings in surrounding areas, our commissioners questioned the logic for an expansion on the site in question,” Pruett explained in an e-mail.

Maureen Murphy, senior counsel for the archdiocese, questioned whether the commission would deny the school’s request for improvements to make it less expensive to buy the property later.

“I think to somehow squash the school to make it easier to acquire the property in the future is not a proper use of the commission’s authority,” she said. “We are still the owners of this property and we are operating a thriving school.”