Glenview District 34 families will likely pay a bit more for books and extracurricular activities next year, but won’t have to shell out more for bus transportation, lunches or summer school.
District officials unveiled the proposed fee hikes on Monday. School board members are scheduled to vote on them at their Feb. 8 meeting.
District officials recommended:
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* Raising the book fee from $81 to $89 for grades 1-5 and from $89 to $98 for grades 6-8
* Raising the extracurricular activity fee from $38 to $41 for sixth grade and from $55 to $61 for grades 7 and 8
* Raising the instrumental music fee from $55 to $60 for grades 4 and 5, and from $85 to $94 for grades 6-8; and hiking the chorus music fee from $36 to $39
Officials also recommended raising the building use fee by about 10 percent.
But they recommended maintaining the $405 transportation fee for district bus service and a $50 late fee for bus rider applications received after July 1.
Those hikes are in the mid-range of hikes being considered or enacted by neighboring school districts, said Eric Miller, assistant superintendent for business services.
“Bottom line is, we come in somewhere in the middle. Not the highest, not the lowest, so I think it’s a reasonable charge to offset some of the costs,” Miller said.
Student fees were last adjusted in January 2014 for the 2014-15 school year. Historically, the board has sought to adjust fees every other year.
Last time, although administrators had proposed increasing the kindergarten book fee and lunch prices by 5 cents for the current school year, a miscommunication resulted in lunch prices staying at the rates previously approved for the 2014-15 school year.
This time, lunch rates are slated to stay at $2.60 to $2.85 for students and $3.75 for teachers and staff.
School board members on Monday also approved District 34’s application to the “Qualified School Construction Bond” program authorized by the federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 to help pay for construction or rehabilitation of public school facilities.
District 34 is seeking nearly $7 million from the program in low- or no-interest bonds to help pay for planned projects at Glen Grove, Hoffman, Lyon and Westbrook schools, and Attea Middle School. Whether it will get any or all of that depends on how many other districts apply for Illinois’ allocation, Miller said.
The Illinois State Board of Education announced on Dec. 1 that $495 million in bonding will be available to local school districts.
Jon Davis is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.