Starting as early as 2028, some students in Yorkville School District 115 may be taking classes in brand-new buildings.
In the upcoming March 17 primary election, voters in Yorkville School District 115 will be asked whether they approve of the district issuing $275 million in bonds to pay for two new school buildings and a significant addition to the district’s high school building, among other renovations.
The district got here after years of rising student enrollment and a growing overcrowding problem, explained District 115 Superintendent Matt Zediker on Friday.
“That’s what really drove the process,” Zediker said of the overcrowding issues.
Zediker took over as the district’s leader in 2024, but Yorkville 115’s student population was on the uptick for years prior, he said.
The Yorkville area has added almost 10,000 new residents since 2010, according to the most recent available figures from the United States Census Bureau. And surrounding Kendall County is the fastest growing county in the state.
That growth has extended to District 115, where enrollment has been steadily ticking upwards in recent years, according to figures from the Illinois State Board of Education, all while overall statewide public school enrollment continues to shrink. The district currently serves just over 7,000 students — who come from Yorkville, and from nearby Bristol, Montgomery, Oswego, Plano and Newark.
According to Zediker, the last building the district constructed was in 2009. But Yorkville District 115 grew from around 5,000 students in 2010 to roughly 6,000 around a decade ago and currently sits at around 7,000.
So the district is making a pitch to voters, asking them to approve of the district selling $275 million in bonds so it can build a new elementary school and a new middle school and make significant additions to the high school in hopes of accommodating the growing student body.
The district was initially considering iterations of the project that were smaller in scope — for example, making an addition to an existing elementary school rather than constructing an entirely new building and doing fewer renovations at the high school building — but settled on this version of the project following a survey of the community this fall.
“I think we have come up with a community-driven plan that addresses our overcrowding … while not putting the district in the same position we’re in now, which is (that) our backs are against the wall,” Zediker told the Yorkville City Council at its meeting on Jan. 27.
Zediker recently made a pitch for the referendum question to Yorkville’s City Council, at which he touted the district’s almost 97% graduation rate — which is over the state average — and the district’s high student-to-administrator ratio.
“We are not a top-heavy administrative organization,” Zediker said at the meeting. “We do not take taxes for a bunch of additional administrative costs.”
He also pointed to the district’s “healthy fund balance” and relatively low per-student spending, but also cited concerns, like the district’s state funding levels.
“We’re at the point where this is unsustainable,” Zediker told the council at its meeting in late January. “Every building is overcrowded, with even more growth projected.”
In an interview with The Beacon-News on Friday, Zediker said a top priority the district heard from the community was reducing the number of times students move between school buildings throughout the school day, thereby reducing safety concerns, particularly when it comes to high school students walking back and forth across Game Farm Road throughout the day.
The proposed additions to the high school, for example, would mean all high school students are brought into a single building, Zediker said.
The additions to the high school would include an auditorium, a fieldhouse and a new academic wing, per the district.
Because of the proposed new elementary and middle schools, all grade schools would serve kindergarten through fifth grade, and all district middle schools would serve grades six through eight.
The district would also turn Circle Center Grade School into an early childhood center. The plans also include tearing down Yorkville Grade School — which Zediker said is currently one of the smaller district schools — to use for green space and parking. And Bristol Grade School may be sold or repurposed, he noted.
That would mean a net decrease of one school building, but Zediker noted that the renovations would still result in an increase in the number of students the district’s facilities would be able to serve.
Zediker said the district is expecting about 800 new students over the next five years, and that the district believes the additions would house growing student numbers for the next 12 to 15 years.
“Part of the challenge is, we want to build enough to accommodate current overcrowding, but also future overcrowding, but we don’t want to overbuild,” Zediker told The Beacon-News. “Because that wouldn’t be a good use of taxpayer dollars.”
In addition to the $275 million the district is seeking to obtain via bond issuances, it is also planning to use $20 million in reserves to fund the renovations. The referendum dollars can only go toward capital improvements, not operational expenses.
The district has said the property tax impact would be around $577 annually for the average district household. Residents can calculate the estimated property tax impact of the ballot question on their home at this link: https://ssccust1.spreadsheethosting.com/1/08/b1686179bb92c40f/Yorkville%20115%20Referendum%20Bond%20Tax%20Calculator%20122325/Yorkville%20115%20Referendum%20Bond%20Tax%20Calculator%20122325.htm.
Should the referendum question be approved, Zediker said the district is aiming for construction to start in the coming fall, with the goal of students starting classes at the new elementary and middle schools in the fall of 2028.
But, if it’s not approved, the district would likely revisit the matter — namely, by putting a modified referendum question on the ballot in November.
Zediker said it would be important for the district to “figure out what it was that … didn’t resonate with the community” if the March referendum question fails, and to use that information to devise a new question for the November election.
“This is all about the community,” Zediker said on Friday. “I want to hear what they have to say. And if they say that this isn’t the plan that they want to vote for, then we’ve got to listen, and we’ve got to figure out what they do want to vote for.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
