As Elgin School District U46 prepares public meetings to explain proposed new boundaries for nearly half of its 40 elementary schools, unanswered questions remain over class sizes, test scores and where 82 students from Otter Creek School will end up, among other issues.
At a meeting this week, about 20 members of the enrollment and facilities committee of the District U46 Citizens Advisory Council agreed by informal votes — almost all unanimous — to endorse boundary changes that would affect at least 845 children attending 19 elementary schools.
Among the plan’s most dramatic proposed changes is a plan to convert Illinois Park Early Learning Center into an elementary school, relieving overcrowding at other schools on Elgin’s northwest side.
The plan also calls for 82 students who live an area northwest of Bowes Road and McLean Boulevard to be transferred away from Otter Creek School.
Those kids were originally slotted to move to Fox Meadow School, Chief Operating Officer Jeff King said, but could end up at Willard School instead. Special-education leaders have proposed moving two behavioral disability classes from Willard to Fox Meadow, as Willard lacks staff and other support to deal with those students. If that happens, Fox Meadow won’t have room for the additional 82 students.
Several Otter Creek parents expressed concerns from the audience.
Parent Lisa Hopp said that when Otter Creek parents first heard their neighborhood would be reassigned to Fox Meadow, they welcomed that news because Fox Meadow is closer to many of their homes than Otter Creek. However, she said, they were less enthused to hear their children might ride buses to Willard, which is just west of downtown South Elgin.
“Are there any other places in the district whose general-education kids are being moved two schools away?” Hopp asked.
Still, Hopp added, “our ultimate priority is to deal with the overcrowding at Otter Creek.”
Otter Creek parent Faye Engelke said transferring 82 students will do little to correct the problem of overcrowded classrooms at Otter Creek. Most of the crowding is in dual-language classes that draw students from several areas, she said, and would not be affected by the boundary changes.
“It’s a magnet school for dual language,” Engelke said. “Teachers have 32 kids. That’s way too many when they’re trying to teach a separate language.”
In fact, other committee members noted, just reducing the overall number of students in any school doesn’t guarantee that each classroom in that building will have fewer students. That would depend on how the student body is divided by age group and how many teachers the U46 administration assigns to each class.
A plan to shift seven to nine classrooms of English as a Second Language (ESL) students from overcrowded Liberty School to underused Prairieview School, both in Bartlett, also raised questions about its impact on a school’s reputation.
Committee Co-Chair Roger Wallace, who represents Prairieview, said a Prairieview parent expressed concern that if Prairieview’s high-performing students are mixed with large numbers of ESL students, the school’s average standardized test scores will drop.
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Prairieview has some of the highest scores in the district, Wallace said. If those scores fall, the parent’s concern was that housing values would fall, too, and make it harder to sell homes in the neighborhood.
Wallace said he did not share those views.
“My own attitude is that this will not affect my kids at Prairieview,” Wallace said. “It won’t affect how they learn…They’ll have more friends.”
King said children going into sixth grade in fall 2016 probably will be allowed to attend their original school for that final year even if they live in an area assigned to a different school.
Committee members and King said they will explain the proposed changes at five or six public information meetings in late August and early September. The dates have not been finalized.
Each meeting will deal with the proposals for one related set of schools, officials said. For example, residents from all the schools involved in the Illinois Park reopening will be urged to attend the same public meeting.
After public comment, the plan must be formally approved by the enrollment and facilities committee; the citizens advisory council officers; the full citizens advisory council membership; U46 administrators; and the board of education. All approvals must be granted no later than next January.