The Jan. 17 agenda for the Elementary School District 102 board meeting will be short to allow time for a discussion on what many believe is a pressing need for space in the district’s five schools.

The School Board will end its 7 p.m. meeting at 8 p.m. to open discussions on two options now being studied that would require either an addition to Park Junior High School or remodeling at the east building of Forest Road School.

The first option includes building an addition to Park Junior School to accommodate all sixth-grade students in the district to create a middle school.

In the second option, the east building at Forest Road School in La Grange Park would be remodeled as a district-wide kindergarten center.

“Part of that idea is to offer an all-day kindergarten option,” said David May, the board’s president. “Some families would like to have an all-day kindergarten and some children could benefit from an all-day kindergarten.” Both options are still in the exploratory phase, he said.

“We’re holding a number of meetings to explain the options to teachers and parents to try to get feedback,” he said. “We’re looking at architectural design options and various financing possibilities.”

To address the immediate need for more room, the current thought is to add two more classrooms in Ogden School and one additional classroom at Cossit School by remodeling the existing buildings this summer, according to May.

“But if we are going to build an addition at Park Junior High School and have kids in there a year from September, we need to make a decision this Spring,” the president said.

Meanwhile, the future may hold additional challenges in terms of space.

“We have a little room left at Congress Park School,” he said. “The last few years have seen considerable enrollment increases at Cossit and Ogden, and pretty much exhausted the capacity of those buildings to accept additional classrooms. This year we have reduced class size to try to improve educational performance. Between the two factors of higher enrollments and class sizes, and we have this crunch we’re dealing with now, and you never know in the future what the enrollment is going to do.”

Laurie Finnegan, vice president of the Forest Road School Parent Teachers Organization, said she was pleased the board was looking into the issue.

“Personally, moving the sixth-grade to Park Junior High would be my option,” she said. “Throughout the country, most districts have a middle school of at least three years."

She said she believed it was best for kindergarten children to stay at the school where they started.