Around this time next school year, Glen Ellyn Elementary District 41 will welcome students into a new full-day kindergarten center.

School board members, Superintendent Jeffrey McHugh, Glen Ellyn Village President Mark Senak and other district officials donned hard hats earlier this week for a groundbreaking ceremony at the construction site to celebrate a project years in the making.

The 12-classroom addition to Churchill Elementary will allow the district to offer an all-day kindergarten program. The center is set to open in the fall of 2025 on the north side of the Churchill campus in Glen Ellyn.

“We had some preschoolers there who are going to be in kindergarten a year from now … Those are the students that we're going to be supporting moving forward,” McHugh told the school board.

Legislation signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker last August requires Illinois school districts to provide full-day kindergarten by the 2027-28 school year.

“Developmentally appropriate, high-quality, play-based kindergarten lays the foundation for a child to grow academically and develop essential social-emotional skills,” State Superintendent Tony Sanders said in a statement at the time. “Universal access to full-day kindergarten brings us closer to ensuring all Illinois students receive the early learning opportunities they need to thrive.”

Long before the law took effect, District 41 studied how to accommodate a full-day program and how to pay for it. District leaders ultimately decided to have all full-day kindergarten students in one location. The district is paying for the estimated $28 million project out of existing reserves.

Architects designed an entry plaza, a two-story addition with six classrooms on each level and a reading garden. The center will also house a multipurpose room for indoor play, an upper-level dining commons and flex space.

District 41 families will still have the option of a half-day experience.