Within the next 10 years, District 99 is looking to make several noticeable changes within the DGS and DGN facilities. Potential changes in DGS include a study commons space, an increase in security, an expansion to the auditorium, bleacher renovations and a second turf field.

Principal Ed Schwartz discusses the process behind making these changes.

“Based on public opinion, it is up to the community if we will have a referendum or not… None of this is a vote yet, because you have to pose a referendum question on a ballot that the people will vote on, and that is still a way’s away,” Schwartz said.

Every year, the district is given a budget with which they can divide up and prioritize where they see needs for improvements. However, this upcoming budget is different because of the magnitude of the changes that DGS wants to make.

“The idea is, if the community thinks we should do this, we would go back to them, and they would have to let us pass a referendum to let us either keep the taxes the same or raise the taxes depending on how much they want to pay,” Schwartz said.

Because of this, it is mainly up to the community and students whether or not they want these changes to be made. Several students are also in favor with the new additions that will possibly be implemented within DGS. Senior Josh Hernandez explains his opinion on the commons area.

“Pretty much every school we’ve been to school for speech has a commons area, and it’s really nice. It’s really calming, and it’s multipurpose. You can use it for practicing and studying,” Hernandez.

However, other students do not see a need for all of the changes. Senior Jack Thompson explains why he is not in favor.

“I feel as though it won’t get used. No one really goes to the first floor A hallway unless they get called down to the office or to use the library,” Thompson said.  

Once the community votes on these changes, the district can decide how they want to divide up the money between each project, and then hire architects to begin planning. Since there are so many different possibilities when it comes to changing all these different parts of the school, the process will take time.

“I’m guessing [it will all be completed by] 2021, 2022… because if you think about it, they probably won’t do the referendum until a year from now, because the debt doesn’t come off until 2019, so presuming we get a referendum and it passes a year from now, it’s going to take the architects six months or more for the drawings, and you have to bid the job, but that’ll have to be phased in within a couple years,” Schwartz said.