Editor's note: This story was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.
Cahokia High School was built in 1951 with a boiler system from a World War II submarine. The building also lacks a modern heating, ventilation and air conditioning system and has about $40 million in needed repairs, District 187 officials say.
Now, with the help of an alternative financing mechanism that doesn’t require a bond referendum and with land the city has donated, Cahokia Community Unit School District 187 is forging ahead with a new high school.
“The approval of the construction of the new Cahokia High School and enhancements to our elementary and middle school buildings marks a significant milestone for our district,” Superintendent Curtis McCall Jr. said at a public meeting Tuesday evening in the current high school’s gym.
“We may be one of the last school districts in this Metro East area to construct a new high school,” he said. “I’m telling you today that it’s time.”
The new 180,000-square-foot school will be located at 815 Camp Jackson Road/Illinois 157, southeast of the former Parks Air College and current Cahokia Heights Fitness and Community Center.
The school will accommodate 1,100 students with the potential for future expansion to serve 1,500 students.
The City of Cahokia Heights has donated 48 acres to the school district for the building.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” Mayor Curtis McCall Sr. said. “This is a very, very proud moment in our city. This is a very, very overdue moment in the school district.”
Cahokia 187 has tapped veteran educator and longtime NCAA basketball referee Ed Hightower to help with the planning and construction of the new high school. Hightower, who has a doctorate in education administration from St. Louis University, is serving in a similar role for Venice 3, which recently broke ground on its new elementary school.
“I understand what it means to build a new high school,” he said, adding that he built a high school, middle school and several elementary schools during his 19-year tenure as superintendent in Edwardsville 7.
Goals, time and design
Hightower explained that the new high school is part of a larger revitalization plan for the district. The goals include:
- Addressing the physical safety vulnerabilities at the district’s elementary and middle schools.
- Constructing a high school that provides students access to the same amenities afforded to other students in the metro-east.
- Developing financial strategies to fund the infrastructural needs.
He also provided an overview of what the district has done in recent months to “fast-track” the construction of the high school, which will be complete by June 30, 2026, he said. Recent developments include working with:
- FGM Architects to design and construct the new high school as well as identify safety and enhancements at the elementary and middle schools.
- TWM Engineering to subdivide more than 80 acres into legal descriptions and transfer the deed for 48 acres to the school district.
- SCI Engineering to conduct an environmental study and cultural resource report on that acreage as well as preliminary borings on the 48 acres to ensure the property was suitable for a new school.
Officials have also proposed a five-lane road extending from Illinois 157 to Falling Springs Road to alleviate traffic congestion as well as an underground tunnel to divert traffic from Illinois 157, Hightower said. Local legislators are working to secure funding for that infrastructure.
The new building will have classrooms, administrative and student support offices, performing arts classrooms and a theater, career and technical education facilities, a library media center, a cafeteria and kitchen, competition and auxiliary gyms, athletic facilities like lockers rooms, weight rooms, wrestling rooms and coach offices, a storm shelter, emergency generator and parking for about 1,000 vehicles.
Athletic facilities around the building will include a football stadium, soccer field, all-weather track, baseball and softball fields, tennis courts and a shared building for ticket sales, concessions, restrooms, locker rooms, and storage and maintenance.
The design of the new building is inspired by both the Indigenous history of Cahokia and the more recent history of Alorton, Cahokia and Centreville coming together to form Cahokia Heights, Aaron Keistler of FGM Architects said. The floor plan will promote the interaction of various departments that were previously isolated, and the design goal is to create a sense of belonging for students, teachers and staff.
During Tuesday’s meeting, one member of the public asked about what will happen with the current high school. Hightower said that it will eventually be demolished, but the district will retain and improve the current athletic facilities for the other schools in Cahokia 187 to use.
Another community member asked about security at the new high school. Keistler said the first point of contact visitors will have with administration and the security guard will be in a secure vestibule with locked doors. At that point, the security guard will be able to do a first level threat assessment before granting access to the building.
If there is ever an active shooter situation, he added, administration will have access to technology allowing them to remotely close and lock the corridors throughout the school until first responders and police arrive. The security and camera systems will also be connected to the police department.
As for the construction timeline, the bid process will begin May 21 with a mandatory initial pre-bid meeting, Hightower said. On Oct. 2, the board of education will select the contractor.
The construction will then be completed by the end of June 2026. Furniture installation, testing and commission will then take place in July before the district moves in at the beginning of August.
Financing the new high school
Cahokia District 187 has a financial strategy for building the high school that shouldn’t require raising local property taxes, officials say.
Central to that strategy is a financing mechanism known as “general obligation lease certificates.” In March, the district issued $72.58 million in the certificates to pay for building and equipping the school after the board of education adopted the required resolution at its February board meeting.
Like bonds, lease certificates are a form of long-term debt that school districts can issue to finance capital projects.
One of the key differences between bonds and lease certificates is how they’re repaid.
School districts repay the principal plus interest of bonds over time from the debt service fund, one of the nine funds Illinois school district budgets can have. Districts then levy local property taxes for the debt service fund to pay back the bonds.
Lease certificates, however, can be paid back from a district’s operating funds.
District 187 will pay back the lease certificates with corporate personal property replacement tax funds it gets annually from the state and interest earnings for the first two years of repayment, Assistant Superintendent Arnett Harvey told the BND. Starting with the third year, the district will continue paying off the certificates annually with revenue it will get from two retiring tax increment financing districts within the school district’s boundaries.
In March, the district also issued $25 million in general obligation school bonds for its working cash fund and $24.905 million in taxable general obligation school bonds.
The working cash fund in school district budgets acts like a savings account. At its February meeting, the board of education abated the district’s working cash fund to its other operating funds. Those funds will be used to make up the difference between the $90 million initial estimate for the new high school and the $72.58 million the district has issued in lease certificates, Harvey said.
He said the district issued the $25 million in new bonds to re-establish the working cash fund for general operating needs that come up.
He said the $24.905 million in bonds are being used to restructure the district’s current debt — similar to refinancing a house — in such a way that there won’t be an increase in the tax levy until 2027, which will be after the two TIF agreements expire.
Illinois law allows cities to create TIF districts with special funds to encourage economic development, often in blighted or declining areas. As property values rise, all or a portion of additional tax revenue generated goes into the funds instead of schools and other local taxing districts until a TIF district expires.
According to 2023 county tax reports, over one-third of Cahokia District 187’s total equalized assessed value is unavailable to the district because of numerous TIF agreements.
The district’s tax extension with the total EAV is about $16 million, Harvey said, but the district only receives about $10 million of that and the other $6 million goes to the TIF districts. The two expiring districts have been around for decades and were extended twice, he said.
“Those TIF agreements have really … handcuffed us for a long time,” he said.
With two of the agreements set to expire in 2026, the district will be able use the resulting surge in revenue to pay off the lease certificates, therefore preventing an increase in the tax levy.
For the first two years of repayment of the certificates prior to the TIF expirations, District 187 will use its corporate personal property replacement tax funds that come from the state annually as well as interest earnings that come to the district, Harvey said.
The district receives an average of $4 million annually for the corporate personal property replacement tax, he said. The district previously was generating about $2 million annually in interest, but with interest rates rebounding recently and the issuance of the lease certificates and bonds, the district will generate between $5-6.5 million over the next two years of additional interest earnings.
While bonds and lease certificates are always “backed up by the potential of a tax levy,” the way the district has structured them means they shouldn’t affect residents’ tax bills at all, Harvey said.
“It’s one of the few times that I’ve been in Cahokia that all things have fallen in place and in favor positively for the school district,” he added, referencing the lease certificates, forthcoming TIF expirations and recent budget surpluses the district has accrued in large part because of the unprecedented funding schools got from the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cahokia 187 has been looking for funding to build a new high school and other facility improvements since he joined the district in 1994, Harvey said.
The district has been on the Illinois State Board of Education and Capital Development Board’s list of pending applications for school construction grants since 2004, he said. That grant would have given the district 75 cents on the dollar for a new high school, but it never came to fruition because of limited state funding for the program.
“Back then, we still would have had to have had a slight tax increase to the community” because the district didn’t have the budget surpluses and lease certificate option it has now and the TIF agreements had just been renewed, Harvey said.
“So those things all have fallen into place now at the right time.”
Kelly Smits is a reporter with the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
