Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The Springfield Public School District may soon do something it’s looked at for years now:  turn three south side elementary schools into one, with the help of the University of Illinois Springfield.  

District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill says nothing is even close to being finalized, but the idea would be to build a new school on unused land on the UIS campus.

“UIS is not interested in selling that land,” Gill said Monday night.  “They don’t want to sell it.  They would like to lease the land to us in a long-term lease, which would probably be somewhere around 100 years.  But, that would be worked out.”

But, there are some problems.  For one, some of the area is in the Chatham Glenwood School District.

“This request would require the Ball-Chatham School Board to think about detaching approximately 29 acres from their currently unused UIS-owned land into the Springfield Public School District 186 boundaries,” said Gill.

Talks with UIS Chancellor Janet Gooch, and Chatham Glenwood, have begun.  Gill and Gooch recently spoke to the Ball-Chatham School Board, and the reaction to the proposal was said to be mostly negative for now.  Gill says the hope is that Ball-Chatham warms up to the idea eventually.

Gill says sales tax money would pay for any construction if it gets to that, and it could end up being a good thing for UIS students looking for teaching opportunities.

“We would hope that (UIS) would bolster their student teaching program,” said Gill.  “Perhaps bring more students into their program, make sure they have opportunities to learn and grow, and able to walk to the school, rather than have a barrier.  For example, if a student doesn’t have a car and can’t drive to one of the elementary schools in Chatham or in Springfield, that they would have that place where they could go, and potentially have growth in their student training programs.”

Again, the discussions are said to be very preliminary in nature, and no final decisions have been made.  It’s not yet clear how long this process would take.