Naperville Central High School

NCHS is an amalgamation of a 60-year-old original building, with multiple later additions over that time (see the graphic below).  These additions have resulted in an unsustainable facility with practical and structural deficiencies that will saddle the district with continued, expensive long-term upkeep if a significant modernization does not occur.  The building is inefficient instructionally for today’s educational demands, which involve significant use of laboratory facilities and modern technology.  Further, it is operationally obsolete, as the building cannot support the infrastructure necessary for instructional modernization.  The need for modernization at Naperville Central can be shown in the following realities of the existing building.  Today’s Naperville Central has:

• Outdated and  tiny science labs
• Insufficient and depleted technological infrastructure necessary to support growing technology needs of a modern educational experience
• Many classrooms too small to support today’s class sizes
• Too few classrooms to support the needs of the school
• Safety and security problems, which involve efforts to reduce the 47 entry points, fully sprinkler the building, and bring the building up to compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act standards for the handicapped students
• Practice fields that will be lost when lease of cemetery property expires – synthetic turf is required for PE, athletics and band using the same field
• Repairs that will cost $18 million within next 10-12 years just to maintain the existing structure.
• An insufficient kitchen to provide hot meals for the elementary schools
• Outdated band and theater facilities that do not allow  for the best use of the existing Auditorium
• Insufficient facilities for special needs students that are educated at Central through young adulthood
• Multiple roof lines that create consistent and irreparable water issues – when one problem of leaking and runoff is fixed, another arises

Here is a letter from NCHS principal Jim Caudil explaining the ramifications of the renovations on the Central community.

Naperville Central High School additions from 1948 to 1992.

Proposed site plan for renovations for Naperville Central High School.