As they approach a final decision about changing elementary-school attendance boundaries, adding onto three schools and offering all-day kindergarten, Elgin School District U46 leaders now know where the big controversies lie.
Three townhall-style forums were held over the past two weeks to discuss the proposed changes in each region of the sprawling district. Now the issues must be voted upon and possibly amended by the U46 Citizens Advisory Council Enrollment and Facilities Committee on Oct. 13 and Oct. 20; by the advisory council’s executive committee Oct. 22; by the full advisory council in November; and finally by the elected board of education, probably at one of its meetings in December or January. The changes would go into effect when classes resume in August 2016.
“By the time we go to winter break, we have to have made these decisions” so that district leaders can begin figuring out what staff to hire for the coming school year and hiring contractors to build proposed additions onto Coleman, Highland and Laurel Hill elementary schools, Chief Operating Officer Jeff King told people at the last of the town hall meetings, held at Elgin High School Tuesday night.
As it sits, the proposed plan calls for boundary shifts that would move about 900 elementary students from one school’s area to another; offering free all-day kindergarten to all families, in most cases at the neighborhood school; and building additions to create enough room to offer a kindergarten program and eliminate many of the district’s mobile classrooms.
Schools that would be losing attendance areas include Channing, Harriet Gifford, Otter Creek, Hillcrest, Lincoln and Nature Ridge. English as a Second Language students now at Liberty School would be moved to Prairieview School.
Schools receiving additional attendance areas include Coleman, Highland, Liberty, Lords Park, McKinley, Harriet Gifford, O’Neal, Garfield and Huff.
The plan was drafted by district administrators working with a demographer and the enrollment and facilities committee after more than a year of study.
It would be the first set of boundary changes in District U46 since today’s high school seniors were in kindergarten. The district’s policy is to adjust attendance boundaries as needed every few years. But a change planned for 2009 was canceled because of a lawsuit then pending that accused District U46 of racial discrimination.
No boundary changes for middle schools or high schools have yet been proposed, and no recommendation has been made to close any underused schools or convert one to a magnet charter school as District CEO Tony Sanders has proposed. Enrollment and Facilities Committee Co-Chair Roger Wallace said the main goals as set by Sanders were to eliminate crowding at several schools, such as those on Elgin’s northwest side and at Lincoln School in Hoffman Estates, as well as to start universal free all-day kindergarten as all adjoining school districts now do.
Judging by the townhall audiences, the most controversial plans are those that would affect the Bartlett area — especially a proposal to move 107 students in Herons Landing subdivision from nearby Nature Ridge School to the farther-away but less crowded Liberty School in Bartlett. Wallace and Board of Education Member Phil Costello said the forum to discuss that area’s changes held Oct. 1 at South Elgin High drew about 200 parents and almost who spoke opposed the Nature Ridge shift. In fact, Wallace said his committee now will consider possibly recommending that the Herons Landing shift not be done.
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When the forum to discuss changes on Elgin’s West Side was held at Larkin High School on Sept. 29, about 40 people attended. The most negative comments came from parents whose children attend two schools whose boundaries have not been targeted for change — Century Oaks and Otter Creek. Those people worried that their schools would remain or become overcrowded as the new Highland School space was reserved for students transferred from Hillcrest School, and for all-day kindergartners.
Tuesday’s forum to discuss the changes on Elgin’s East Side was held at Elgin High School and also drew about 40 people. Several parents whose children would be moved from Lincoln School in Hoffman Estates to Coleman, McKinley and Lords Park schools in Elgin complained that the new schools don’t have test scores as good as Lincoln and have a higher percentage of children who don’t speak English as a first language. They also said their children would be separated from friends they have made at Lincoln.
“If 70 percent of the students are just learning English, what percent of the resources will be directed to students who already speak English?” asked Greg Mills, whose two children would be shifted from Lincoln to Coleman.
A mother asked whether children could be “grandfathered in” and allowed to keep attending their original schools. Wallace and King said that in past boundary shifts, sixth-graders were not forced to change schools for their final year of elementary school, but the committee has not yet decided whether to recommend any kind of grandfathering this time.
A Lincoln School mother said that “just because I live on the other side of the street” her child will have to move to another school while the child’s friend who lives across the street can continue going to Lincoln, and “that’s dumb.”
“We had to draw a line somewhere,” Wallace said.
One parent whose child would be moved from the Channing School area to Huff School complained about him having to walk across busy National Street. King said administrators are looking into that problem.
Other parents asked why an addition couldn’t be built onto Channing’s and Lincoln’s buildings rather than Coleman’s, if they are the overcrowded places. King said the Channing and Lincoln campuses don’t have enough room.
The next meeting to address these issues will be held by the advisory council’s enrollment and facilities committee at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, at the District U46 Education Services Center, 355 E. Chicago St., Elgin. Wallace said that committee is expected to take its final vote a week later, with committee members casting one joint vote for each school’s delegation, no matter how many individuals are in that delegation.
Wallace said non-committee members are invited to those meetings but will not be allowed to vote.