HIGHLAND PARK – There wasn’t an empty seat in the house at the Oct. 4 North Shore School District 112 meeting where more than 30 residents voiced concerns about the proposed Budget Deficit Reduction (BDR 3) and boundary options.
“I would respectfully ask that you all not do anything until we have a chance to hopefully speak up,” said Brian Blitz. “By the attendance tonight, there’s a lot more people that are paying more attention now, so change the game and let us all get involved in it.”
Several residents expressed their dissatisfaction with the BDR 3 plan to close Lincoln and Ravinia Elementary Schools, Elm Place Middle School and the Green Bay Early Childhood Center to save an estimated $5 million a year. The new boundaries would go into effect at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year.
“Rather than sensibly waiting for the outcome of this process, the board is pushing ahead with BDR 3 effectively saying to the community we’re going to close and overcrowd your schools before you even have an opportunity to come up with a plan,” said Andrew Plasz. “This process must stop. No schools should close until the Reconfiguration 2.0 process is complete and a new school board is elected in April.”
Some Sunset Park families spoke out about the eventual closing of Elm Place Middle School, while parent Jill Kirshenbaum suggested a transition plan for the proposed C1 Boundary option:
- Military split between Wayne Thomas and Indian Trail
- Sunset Park area goes to Sherwood
- Braeside and Ravinia west of the river go to Sherwood
“In order to make C1 more tolerable, we would ask that a transition plan be in place, so that the Sunset Woods children who are currently there could be grandfathered in specifically above the kindergarten level,” she said. This would enable the children to “finish their tenure within that close-knit family of Indian Trail. The proposed changes seem to take out Sunset families, and there isn’t a building that’s being destroyed, leveled or changed. They’re just simply being asked to leave, which doesn’t feel right.”
Chief Technology Officer John Petzke presented variations on the proposed boundary options:
- C1 – Sunset Park and the Central area.
- C2 – The Lincoln area
- B1 – All military at Indian Trail
- B1.a – Separates the military again
He explained that in Draft A the Wayne Thomas Boundaries would stay the same resulting in 821 students attending Edgewood Middle School, while 497 would attend Northwood Junior High School.
Click here to review various boundary map proposals on the D-112 website.
Board Vice President Samantha Stolberg explained that Petzke was able to change Draft B1.a because of current enrollment, and he was able to bring Hiawatha, Nyoda and Winona back to Braeside.
“Draft A had the least amount of impact on the entire district (the crowd applauded),” she said. “In light of your numbers would there be a way to take Draft A? My children have gone to school with military children at Red Oak, which is probably one of the biggest benefits in their education. So if you were to put the military at Sherwood I would be thrilled. That’s the problem with keeping that half of the military at Sherwood. We’re trying to keep people as close to their home school as possible. If you did put it at Sherwood, would there be a way to put the Hiawatha/Nyoda/Winona area at Braeside and keep Lincoln at Indian Trail?” (The audience applauded.)
Petzke said based on the numbers today Braeside can be moved back without any negative impact. In Model A students have already been going to Sherwood.
Stolberg explained that the only downside is that these students are still going further from their homes, but they’ve been doing that for five years.
A third round of applause was had in favor of Stolberg’s suggestions.
The new variation of Draft A (Draft A1.a) would include putting the East Military area into the Indian Trail attendance area, as well as the Nyoda and Hiawatha area back into Braeside.
The vote on boundaries would occur at an upcoming board meeting for the start of the 2017-2018 school year.
After the meeting, Marc Lawrence and Rick Heineman shared their views with DailyNorthShore.com. Lawrence is the co-chair of the Reconfiguration 2.0 Finance Committee. He said: “In my opinion it is entirely doable financially for the district to postpone BDR3 for a year while the 2.0 Committee finishes its work. It might even be financially beneficial, to the extent that the added time and better community climate results in a greater likelihood of passing a referendum. There is something undemocratic about a defeated Board of Education making impactful one-in-50-year-type decisions while they are at the very tail end of their term. Furthermore, the actual deadline to formally reduce the teaching staff occurs after the election, which is April 4, 2017. The implication of this is that the planning can still be done, but the decision to affect the layoffs can and should be made by the duly elected new board.”
Heineman explained the effects of postponing BDR 3: “I try to add facts to the conversation rather than try to necessarily influence the decision,” he said. “For example, I think it’s important to note that the cost of delaying BDR 3 is six to seven million a year, and that’s not an insignificant amount of money. I also pointed out on Facebook that the Reconfiguration 2.0 Community Team absolutely needs to be given the flexibility to complete its task and what we want to do is have a referendum vote in March of 2018. Then the first construction would take place in the summer of 2019, so it probably would not be completed until 2021. You can’t delay BDR 3 for just a year, because it would be a total of five years at seven million a year, and we don’t have the money.”