Leaders from DeKalb School District 428 are moving forward with a revised plan to build a larger, standalone Early Learning Development Center (ELDC) to better serve preschool-age students.

Once it’s complete, the building is expected to begin welcoming students in the fall of 2028.

The measure, as approved, will help pave the way for the district’s plans for a 71,900-square-foot building with 24 classrooms for a cost of $50.55 million. An earlier plan projected 20 classrooms.

The school board initially voted in support of a roughly $38 million build spread out over 24 classrooms in the fall of 2025, school board documents show.

Officials have said concerns about staffing the building and ensuring it would meet the community’s needs were raised by the district’s administration. The district has, in the past few years, taken steps to accommodate a growing student population.

Board President Chris Boyes accepted the blame at a recent meeting for what he said was the district’s fault for making Mitchell Elementary School too small.

Mitchell Elementary opened in the fall of 2025 and is the latest addition to the district’s facilities. At about 70,000 square feet, the three-section elementary school is equipped for between 450 and 500 students in grades one through five, according to the district.

“I would rather that we do it right, to begin with, instead of kicking the can down the road to future boards to eat that cost,” Boyes said.

The district intends to use revenue from its reserve fund to pay for a new ELDC building. The district is also exploring ways to obtain assistance from the state through its Preschool For All and Preschool For All Expansion grants.

Armir Doka, the district’s director of business and finance, pointed to how the project could impact the taxpayers.

The school board decided to revise its property tax levy in April to lower the burden imposed on taxpayers.

“We actually took down about $3.5 million underlevy, which affects us continuously for the next few years, and in addition, we’re adding $10 million,” Doka said. “Our projections that we had previously are not the same.”

Doka said the board’s revised decision may leave the district with reserves in the amount of 39% of its operating budget, or $65.8 million by fiscal 2029.

He said action taken by the board could impact the timeline for the district to carry out Vision For28, though the current plan is for that to take effect in 2028. Vision For28 is a larger plan aimed at reducing middle school class sizes while ensuring buildings can accommodate the grade levels they serve.

Officials have said it can be a challenge to forecast the district’s needs.

But officials reiterated the importance of the preschool project, saying there’s a need for local preschool options in DeKalb.

The district said that a new ELDC will be larger than Mitchell Elementary and may serve more students in a standalone facility on DeKalb’s northwest side than it does at Huntley Middle School.

Board Vice President Jose Jaques questioned whether the community’s needs would be better supported by the revised proposal.

“Do you think the community is sufficiently supported with a 20-classroom building?” Jaques said.

Early Learning Development Center principal Shannon Armstrong said yes.

“I have no doubt that we could fill a 20-classroom building,” Armstrong said. “As far as what that looks like two years from now, it’s hard to say.”

It remains unclear how many of the classrooms would be full-day or half-day programs.

Armstrong said there is already a growing waitlist for children.

“Just looking at our waitlisted numbers as well as classrooms, I know there’s been a tremendous increase in our bilingual population in our classrooms,” Armstrong said. “I would love to incorporate more of that perspective, whether that’s full day, what that looks like, as well as multiple bilingual classrooms.”

Board member Nick Atwood, acknowledging there are a lot of working parents in the district, said he would like to see more full-day classrooms.

“We have a lot of folks in this community that don’t have good transportation,” Atwood said. “An all-day option makes that a whole lot easier.”

Boyes expressed support for a new 24-classroom ELDC building.

“The big thing for me on having those four extra classrooms is it enables our ability to do full-day [programs] more easily,” Boyes said. “With full-day [programming,] we can really get more of our students at the baseline for where our students should be by kindergarten.”