The Examiner U-46 News Feed

Architectural pacts set for District U-46 board vote

By Seth Hancock
  The Board of Education in School District U-46 is set to vote on a series of architectural agreements along with $470,987 in additional spending items at its upcoming Monday, Oct. 7 meeting. They were presented on Sept. 23.
  The architectural agreements are part of the district’s ongoing capital projects which included two with Studio GC Architects for renovation and building addition projects at Century Oaks Elementary School and Glenbrook Elementary School. There were two with DLA Architects for converting Illinois Park Early Childhood Center into an elementary school and for construction of a new elementary school in Elgin.
  “The attached Memorandum of Understanding summarizes the role of the architect for this project as well as the architectural fee,” all four proposals stated. “Typically, architectural fees for school construction range between 6-10 [percent], with the higher percentages charged for challenging renovations and additions.”
  The GC architectural fees are 7 percent for both projects. The estimated project cost at Century Oaks is $25 million meaning a $1.8 million architectural fee and $30 million for Glenbrook for a $2.1 million fee.
  The district plans to move early childhood to elementary schools once the transition of sixth graders to middle school is complete. The Illinois Park conversion has a projected cost of $10 million for an estimated $750,000 architectural fee with DLA receiving 7.5 percent.
  The district plans to build a new elementary school to replace McKinley Elementary School, which is planned for retirement. DLA will receive a 6.25 percent fee, or $4.1 million, on the project estimated to cost $65 million.
  Included in the additional expenditure items is a contract with Amira Learning costing $270,840 to be paid through federal grant funds.
  “Amira Learning is an artificial intelligence reading assistant that provides personalized literacy tutoring (in English and Spanish) to students at school, after school, or at home,” the proposal states.
  The final two proposals are education fund items. Included is $143,447 with Music Sales Digital Services for the MusicFirst secondary music curriculum resource.
  “The MusicFirst Classroom suite of applications provides differentiated, leveled instructional tools to support the four creative processes included in the National Core Arts Standards and the U-46 Secondary Music curriculum,” the proposal states.
  Costing $56,700 is a contract with Transformative Educational Practices to provide “a job-embedded learning program for teachers using multimedia tools and platforms at Ontarioville Elementary School,” the proposal states.