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St. Charles school closures forum leaves some questions unanswered

In the first chance for public comment on looming school closures in St. Charles Unit District 303, a lot of time was spent dealing with the unknown.

District officials kicked off a tour of all the district's schools Wednesday night that will allow the community to weigh in on the best ways to address three potential major blows to the district's finances: changes in the school funding formula, teacher pension reform and a pending two-year property tax freeze.

If all three of the current proposals on those issues come to pass, the district would have an $18 million budget hole to address. At the same time, projections indicate enrollment will decline throughout the district for the foreseeable future.

The decline is enough to open the door to three cost-saving scenarios. But all of those involve closing schools and adjusting attendance boundaries.

Local parents and taxpayers packed a lunchroom at Haines Middle School wanting answers about how boundary changes might affect them, how putting sixth-graders in the elementary schools might affect their kids, and how state lawmakers might resolve Illinois' budget in regard to school funding.

Attendees seeking those answers left unsatisfied.

Superintendent Don Schlomann said every school in the district will be affected by boundary changes. But those boundary changes won't be made until after school board members decide which schools to close.

"My philosophy with boundary changes are that if a kid can walk, they should walk," Schlomann said. "And we shouldn't bus kids by (school) buildings to get to another (school) building if we can help it. That's the fundamentals that we want."

Schlomann did say there are scenarios that could split up siblings at different grade levels. There will also generally be a push of students from the center of downtown St. Charles to the outer boundaries of the city. That's because most of the new students coming into the district are centered downtown.

Schlomann said the boundary changes will also see more of shift of students to St. Charles North High School. Enrollment is down there compared to St. Charles East, where the building is basically beyond it's capacity now, Schlomann said.

Parents also had several questions about what sixth-graders would lose by staying at the elementary schools for one more year, as is envisioned in some of the school closure scenarios. Schlomann and district staff members said that academically, there would be no difference. The curriculum would not change; there would just be less variety in the teachers performing the instruction.

There would, however, be a big difference in the extracurricular opportunities. Officials said the community must make a philosophical decision about what sixth-grade education should include as part of the school closures debate.

"The studies show, in the core academic areas, there's no difference in regard to student performance," Schlomann said. "If you know what a fifth-grade experience looks like, that's what a sixth-grade experience is going to look like if we keep them in the elementary schools."

The next community forum on the pending school closures will start at 7 p.m. today at Thompson Middle School.

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