A DeKalb commission, tasked with advising the City Council on planning and zoning matters, has voted in support of a pair of measures to allow a special education day school in town.

The DeKalb Planning and Zoning Commission this week gave a preliminary nod to plans for High Road School to set up shop at 315 N. Sixth St. Chairman Max Maxwell was absent.

The City Council still needs to have the final say on the matter.

Attorney Lindsay Sanchez approached the panel this week to speak on behalf of Specialized Education of Illinois (SESI), the company behind High Road School.

SESI is in the process of working out a lease agreement for a therapeutic day school on a site that used to serve as home to Camelot, another special education day school program.

“Camelot was actually acquired by SESI’s parent organization a couple of years ago,” Sanchez said. “There is some continuity there, as well, which is very nice.”

A therapeutic day school is a private institution funded by partner school districts to provide students with spaces optimized for education and therapy.

The facility, as proposed, would aim to serve up to 100 students ages 3 to 21 and up to 64 staff members.

Full Bloom-SESI deputy superintendent and regional vice president Theresa Smith expressed excitement about plans for the site.

Smith has been working with SESI for the past 19 years.

“I’m familiar with the building, the space, the area,” Smith said. “We are excited with the potential opportunity to come back and bring our programming here.”

Other locations run and operated by SESI include those in Genoa, Garden Estates, Hoffman Estates, Naperville, Darien, and Arlington Heights, according to its website.

SESI intends to use the approximately 1.1-acre space in DeKalb to replace its Belvidere location.

No massive demolition of the building is anticipated.

Project leaders said they are looking to make significant interior modifications to the site, though the building was previously outfitted for a therapeutic day school.

The site requires rezoning and a special use permit and is currently vacant.

Vice Chairman Bill McMahon asked if the municipal code had been changed since Camelot vacated the site.

No special use permit was previously required of Camelot when it occupied the space.

“If Camelot was operating in this location and it’s light industrial now, did our code change?” McMahon said.

In response, City Planner Dan Olson said yes, it had.

“We didn’t find any ordinance or special use permit, so whoever was at the city at that time determined it was a lawful use,” Olson said.

SESI plans to move into the DeKalb facility in July 2026 and open a month later.

Sanchez noted that several different mechanisms are under consideration for inclusion with plans for the special education day school.

The proposed new campus is in proximity to a public parking lot that project leaders said they intend to form a lease agreement with the owner to permit access to the added space. A new curb cut has been established on the site to help ease traffic flow and safety concerns.

No one at the meeting this week expressed opposition.

Randy Bourdages of the Housing Authority of DeKalb County said he supports the plan.

“I want to thank the city of DeKalb for ensuring that our parking spaces on Sixth Street are secured because we do have limited parking,” Bourdages said.

The commission backed the therapeutic day school and its plans with a set of conditions.

Those include: the applicant obtain a lease to park vehicles on the lot at the southwest corner of Oak Street and North Sixth Street; employees of the day school are restricted to park in the area north of the existing building on the subject site or in the parking lot at the southwest corner of Oak Street and North Sixth Street; directional signage must be installed on site to guide buses and students; and the facility will serve a maximum of 100 students between ages 3 and 21.

Also at the meeting, city staff confirmed that Maria Pena-Graham is no longer on the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Pena-Graham made her final appearance as a commissioner at the panel’s Dec. 1 meeting, which saw a crowd on hand expressing views both for and against plans for a second massive data center on the city’s south side. That project has since received clearance from the City Council to proceed.

Olson said Pena-Graham’s term was up.

With Pena-Graham’s exit, there are two vacancies on the commission.