With white plastic construction hats on their heads and shiny new shovels in their hands, Orland Park school officials, parents and students broke ground Tuesday on a new $15 million junior high school.
The school construction is being financed through the sale of construction bonds approved by voters in the April referendum.
“The schools contribute to the community, but without community support we can’t continue and go forward with our growth,” said Chuck Palaces, superintendent of Orland School District 135.
The new school will be built at the southwest corner of 108th Avenue and 159th Street on 15.3 acres of land.
The land was donated in an agreement reached with Gallagher & Henry Home Builders during the negotiations for the nearby Spring Creek housing development.
The 140,000-square-foot school will be able to hold 1,200 students. It will include more than 30 classrooms, a learning resource center, cafeteria, courtyard, two gyms, locker rooms and an orchestra and choir room.
The school, which will serve 5th through 8th graders, is scheduled to open in August 1996.
Construction on an intermediate school for 4th and 5th graders will also be financed through the referendum, Palaces said.
Once it opens in 1998, the 5th graders will attend that school.
Parents, many of them armed with video cameras, took movies the yellow tractors rolling over the soil.
They and school board officials, including Board President Dave Manchester, applauded a group of students from Centennial Elementary School who read a poem about the meaning of school.
“It’s really important for these kids to have a good start in life,” said Gayle Chura, 36, whose daughter, Jennifer, 9, will enter the 5th grade at the new school. “This is a priority worth paying for,” Chura said.