3 ways to shuffle students in Dist. 220

Barrington Area Unit District 220 officials Tuesday offered possibilities on how the crowding problem in certain schools may be solved next year.

The school district's community-based enrollment monitoring committee held a public forum Tuesday designed to share several different proposals for elementary school boundary changes and the rationale behind each.

With some schools crowded, like Barbara Rose Elementary School, and others with room to spare, like Hough Street Elementary School, committee co-chairman Sandra Ficke-Bradford said the committee was charged with trying to find a better distribution of the district's more than 2,700 elementary students.

"We will continue to have an inequity across the district if we kept things the same way they are now," Ficke-Bradford said.

On Tuesday, the committee presented the three different boundary maps it is working with.

The first map had five different pockets of students moving schools, for a total of 197 students affected.

The largest shift of students would be a group of 90 moving from Rose to Grove Avenue Elementary School.

The second proposal had four pockets of students moving schools, for a total of 156 students affected.

"There is less movement in this map than any of the others," said Joe Ruffolo, a co-chairman of the committee.

The largest group of students moving in the second map was 58 from Grove Avenue to Hough Street.

The third proposal being considered had five areas and 192 students being moved. The largest group was 90, from Rose to Grove Avenue.

"They all make the distribution of students a little more equitable," Ruffolo said of the maps.

The 38-member, community-based panel was formed earlier this year to monitor attendance fluctuations and suggest possible boundary changes. The school board will make a final decision.

Following the presentation, committee members answered questions from parents about how and why certain decisions were made.

One frequent question was regarding whether any students would be allowed to stay at their current schools under some type of "grandfathering" clause.

Ruffolo said that is a decision not under consideration by the committee and instead is one that will need to be made by the school board.

Members of the committee stressed that the maps are still works in progress and that the community's reaction to the proposals will be taken into consideration when a final proposal is presented to the school board for its consideration, which is expected sometime after the first of the year.

The changes would go into effect at the start of the 2008-09 school year.

To view the maps or for more information on the committee, visit www.cusd220.org.