U-46 summer school changes leave some parents peeved

Four years after being adopted from a Russian orphanage, Joey and Will Zubinski are beginning to catch up to their peers academically.

The boys, who attend first and second grade at Nature Ridge Elementary in Bartlett, were diagnosed in the last year with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, making it hard for them to concentrate in class.

Joey also has a sensory processing disorder, causing him to be completely unafraid to attempt dangerous physical feats like hurtling off the kitchen cabinets, said his mother, Rita.

Teachers at the school have been wonderful, the family says. The boys now have Individualized Education Plans identifying special services they need. Their grades are improving, but they still need extra help, especially with reading.

"I read to my kids every night. Religiously," Rita Zubinski said. "But there's only so much a mom and dad can do."

In March, the Zubinskis began asking teachers at the school what the boys might need to do to qualify for summer school. Will, age 8, had attended summer school after both kindergarten and first grade and it helped tremendously, Rita Zubinski said.

But this year, the family learned, budget cuts have forced Elgin Area School District U-46 to rearrange its summer school offerings, limiting them to students who attend only 18 of the district's 40 elementary schools. The Zubinskis' school is not among them.

"Unfortunately, because of budget cuts, none of the students from Nature Ridge are eligible for summer school this year," Nature Ridge first grade teacher Barb Raupp wrote the Zubinskis in a March 29 e-mail. "Please continue having the boys do Kids College on the computer as well as read and write with them as often as possible."

Rita and her husband Tony couldn't understand the rationale behind the decisions, and approached U-46 officials for answers.

At the elementary level, only children from Channing, Coleman, Garfield, Highland, Huff, Lords Park, Lowrie, McKinley, Sheridan and Washington elementaries in Elgin; Lincoln Elementary in Hoffman Estates; Laurel Hill and Parkwood elementaries in Hanover Park; and Sunnyvale and Heritage Elementaries in Streamwood can attend summer school, the Zubinskis learned.

District Spokesman Tony Sander said those schools were chosen because they are the lowest-performing in U-46.

"In the past, we would target the lowest-performing students," he said.

But expecting to begin next year more than $40 million in the red, Sanders said, U-46 is "really trying to target resources this year."

The changes were made in part to reduce transportation costs. While the district receives state money for summer school, it funds transportation and facility costs. More than one third of the $21.4 million the state owes U-46 is in transportation bills, Sanders said.

"We're just lucky to be able to continue offering a summer program," he said. "It's not a requirement to offer."

Rita Zubinski calls the move reverse discrimination. "They're not looking at it by children or by characteristic, but geography," she said. "I understand budget cuts. If they had told me that (the district) is going to take 250 kids, the neediest of the needy, and they looked and said these 250 are eligible and your son was 300, well I can take that.

"But to be told I don't live in the right area, that just galls me," she said. "We're going to have to read ourselves and find some other programs. I don't know what else to do."