At Decatur Classical School on the Northwest side, 235 gifted students in grades kindergarten through 6 are crammed into a building originally designed for just three grades.

The magnet school has no gym space or lunchroom. Children eat in their classrooms.

There is no staff lounge. Teachers make confidential calls to parents on their personal cell phones inside their cars, school principal Susan Kukielka says.

Last night, Kukielka, local school council members and Decatur parents pleaded their case for a school expansion at a Chicago Public Schools capital expenditure hearing. The hearing was one of six scheduled citywide through May 22.

Heather Obora, chief purchasing officer for CPS, says there is no set figure for capital expenditures next year. The district budgeted $400 million for the 2007-08 school year, says Obora, who presided over the hearing.

Decatur staff and parents desire a piece of that money in 2009.

All of Decatur's students met or exceeded math standards on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test during each of the last three years. In all subjects, 99 percent met or exceeded state standards in the 2007 test, according to the state report card.

The student body is 38 percent white, 24 percent Asian and 20 percent African-American. Decatur Classical's focus is an accelerated academic program for children who take classes one or two levels above their grade.

Hundreds of students applied for just 28 available kindergarten spots last fall. Jill Martinsen, of the Decatur local school council, says the school has received as many as 2,000 applications in one year.

And now school administrators would like to expand its program to grades 7 and 8.

"We believe it is time for the Board of Education to recognize the number one school in the city and the state," Kukielka says.

Kukielka says she is requesting the addition of a wing to handle that expansion, as well as other improvements around the building.

Martinsen says the school was scheduled in 2005 for a $10 million building improvement, but the plan fell through.

"The school does not have the proper space for children with disabilities," Kukielka says.