Dist. 59 invites input on Frost overcrowding

Elk Grove Township Elementary District 59 will hold public forums on Tuesday and Thursday, Jan. 17 and 19, to gather community input on how to best handle the overcrowding at Robert Frost Elementary School in Mount Prospect.

The school has experienced a steady rise in enrollment over the past several years. Although the school district has made many modifications to the interior of the building, enrollment has now reached the point where something must be done to provide relief.

District 59 administration has developed several options to relieve the overcrowding. The options are:

Ÿ Move an entire grade level or levels to another elementary school.

Ÿ Move Frost students to other schools according to programs {ESL, Bilingual, etc.}

Ÿ Change the Frost attendance area boundaries.

Ÿ Establish a shared attendance area or areas: Under this approach, an entire area or neighborhood would be designated as “shared” by two or more schools. School administrators would annually evaluate class assignments to determine which school new students would attend.

Ÿ Build a permanent addition onto Frost.

Ÿ Install temporary modular classrooms at Frost.

Ÿ Establish grade level centers, which organize students by grade level, not neighborhood, so that all second-graders are at one school, all fourth-graders are at one school, etc.

Ÿ Free up classroom spaces by placing subjects and/or programs on carts, for example, fine arts, rolling computer labs, etc.

The forums will be at 6:30 p.m. both days in the Friendship Junior High School auditorium, 550 Elizabeth Lane, Des Plaines. The format for both meetings is the same, but are offered on different days to accommodate community members. Spanish and Polish translators will be provided.

A third forum, was to be held Jan. 12, but was canceled due to the snowstorm.