Many changes are coming to Granite City District 9 schools this school year.
Starting in fall 2025, the district’s elementary schools, at minimum, will serve grades kindergarten through six, with two schools serving pre-K students as well. This comes with shifting boundaries and, at some schools, new administration.
The reconfiguration is part of the district’s ongoing effort to create more educational consistency between its schools, Manager of District Communications and Transportation Chris Mitchell said.
“This restructuring allows for better use of space, resources and staffing, and ensures that students in every neighborhood have access to a full kindergarten through sixth (grade) experience in their home school,” Mitchell said.
The change also makes transportation more efficient, Mitchell said.
In general, Illinois students who live over 1.5 miles from their school must be provided free bus transportation. The district’s new elementary school structure is a “neighborhood school model,” meaning that most of the time an elementary student will attend the elementary school within their boundary. However, special circumstances may allow an elementary student to attend a school outside of their boundary.
So, the district is expecting fewer students to need bus transportation, Mitchell said. The routes will be shorter, too, he added.
The district did not need to hire additional teachers because of the restructuring, Mitchell said, but estimated other costs such as renovating schools to serve different-aged students, other maintenance, playgrounds and filling program needs totaled less than $500,000. Some of these expenditures, which were primarily paid for through local funds and a state preschool grant, were set to happen regardless of the restructuring, Mitchell said.
What grades does each Granite City school serve? When does school start?
Only the district’s elementary schools are changing the grades they house. Granite City High School, Coolidge Junior High and Lake Educational Support Services Center will continue hosting the same grades they did the previous school year.
Most schools’ start and end times have changed too, though Coolidge and Lake will have the same attendance hours as the previous school year.
Here’s a quick rundown of the grades that will attend each school this upcoming year, as well as the schools’ start and end times:
- Grigsby Elementary School (previously known as Grigsby Intermediate) will serve grades pre-K through six. Kindergarten through sixth grades will attend school from 8:20 a.m.-3:05 p.m.; morning pre-K students will attend school from 8:45-11:15 a.m; and afternoon pre-K students will attend from 12:30-3:15 p.m.
- Mitchell Elementary School will serve grades kindergarten through six from 8:20 a.m.-3:05 p.m.
- Frohardt Elementary School will serve grades kindergarten through six from 8:20 a.m.-3:05 p.m.
- Maryville Elementary School will serve grades kindergarten through six from 8:20 a.m.-3:05 p.m.
- Wilson Elementary School will serve grades kindergarten through six from 8:20 a.m.- 3:05 p.m.
- Prather Elementary School will serve grades pre-K through six. Grades kindergarten through six will attend school from 8:20 a.m.-3:05 p.m.; morning pre-K students will attend school from 8:45-11:15 a.m.; and afternoon pre-K students will attend school from 12:30-3:15 p.m.
- Lake Educational Support Services Center will continue to serve fifth through 12th grade students who have been placed there. School runs from 8 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
- Coolidge Junior High School will continue to serve seventh and eighth grade students. School runs from 7:30 a.m- 2:15 p.m.
- Granite City High School will continue to serve ninth through 12th grade students. School runs from 7:40 a.m.-2:25 p.m.
All schools, with the exception of Lake, are dismissed an hour early on Wednesdays, the district’s website states. Morning pre-K hours will not change on Wednesdays, but afternoon pre-K students will be dismissed at 2 p.m.
With all six elementary schools now serving kindergarten through sixth grade and Grigsby and Prather also serving pre-K students, Mitchell said he expects enrollment to be more evenly distributed.
Mitchell said all of the elementary schools, besides Grigsby, previously served kindergarten students at one point in their lifespans, so they did not need to undergo major changes to accommodate younger students per the new structure.
At one point, Prather was a junior high school, so it also will not need substantial upgrades to serve its new older student population, Mitchell said.
Grigsby’s new principal, Nikki Petrillo, said that currently parts of the school are under construction to make it compatible for the incoming smaller students. This includes installation of smaller toilets, different playground equipment and, in some areas, walls are being put in to create new spaces.
What are Granite City's schools' new boundaries?
The Granite City School District 9 overarching boundaries have not changed.
Since Granite City High School serves ninth through 12th grade students across the entire district and Coolidge Junior High serves seventh and eighth grade students across the entire district, their boundaries will remain the same. Lake Educational Support Services Center, the district’s alternative school, will also continue serving the 5th through 12th grade students placed there.
The boundaries for the six elementary schools have changed, though. They can be viewed online at bit.ly/GC9newmap. To view school assignments by street, visit bit.ly/GC9newstreetlist.
The district’s pre-K programming has been split across Grigsby and Prather Elementary Schools. Pre-K students who reside within the Grigsby, Maryville and Mitchell boundaries will attend pre-K at Grigsby. Those who reside within the Frohardt, Prather and Wilson boundaries will attend pre-K at Prather.
Many students will be switching schools under the new structure, Mitchell said. For Granite City School District 9 students who are placed at a site outside the district, they will still attend their outplaced schools, Mitchell said.
Will my kid's Granite City school have a new principal?
After 20 years at the high school, Petrillo said she was “looking for a new challenge.” Leading Grigsby as it went from an intermediate fifth and sixth grade school to an elementary school proved to be the right fit, she said.
“Personally and professionally, I feel like it’s an exciting time,” Petrillo said. “The cool thing about this is just having the opportunity to create the culture that we want to see in our building — a dynamic for excellence. Right now (being a pre-K through sixth school) is brand new, nothing is established from a previous year.”
Petrillo replaces Steven Mathes, who is Coolidge Junior High’s new principal. Mathes’ predecessor Patrick Curry is now employed at the board office as the executive director of K-12 curriculum/professional development.
Adding to the administrative shuffle, Eric Mitchell, who was an assistant principal at the junior high last year, is now an assistant principal at the high school. He is being replaced by Kristen Novacich-Koberna, who worked as the executive director of K-12 curriculum/professional development last school year.
Christie Moad and Chris Hutchings will return as assistant principals to the high school, just with new titles: Moad as the assistant principal of curriculum and Hutchings as assistant principal of the registrar.
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Madison Lammert is a reporter for the BND, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
