Dist. 7 OK's grade centers
Several hundred Wood Dale students will be changing schools, meeting new classmates and turning in homework to new teachers come August as the result of a controversial District 7 board vote Wednesday evening to convert the district's two primary schools into grade-level centers.
In a unanimous decision, the six board members present out of the seven approved a plan that will send all kindergarten through second-grade students to Oakbrook Elementary, while third- through fifth-graders will all go to Westview School. In addition, the district will tap its nearly $13 million in reserves to build an approximately $2 million gymnasium at Westview.
Board President Debra Morgan was unable to attend the meeting, but Vice President Christine Caliendo read a letter from Morgan expressing her support of the plan.
The vote, while anticipated since mid-October, angered several parents in attendance, many leaving after hearing board members' thoughts but before the final vote was cast. One parent, Dave Harden, stayed to hear the vote, but barely. Immediately after the final vote was cast, he pointed his finger at board members, letting them know he disapproved of the plan that will have each of his three children attending a different district school next year.
"As one of the 12,000 people that gets five minutes to speak, I want to tell ya that the first day my kid's standing on the corner because you shoved him on the bus, and he's standing on the corner crying, I'm suing the whole school district," Harden warned before storming out of the board room. "That's (ridiculous) that I get five minutes to speak and you 10 people decide what's happening. 190 South Central, you can send the cops there. I'll see you in 2009 for the election."
Parent Michele Kahn said she wished at least one of the board members would have seen things her way and voted against the change.
"Not one of their voices was ours," she said as she left the meeting room visibly disappointed.
The approved model will also enable the district to offer physical education to kindergartners and to move the bilingual, special education and early intervention programs out of the library and into divided areas of one large existing classroom. Several trustees said they believe the curriculum also would become more consistent if every teacher for each grade were located in the same building.
Those changes make sense to parent Gina Lombardi, the only person to speak in support of the decision Wednesday.
"I've been to all the meetings and tried to see it from both sides, but this just makes sense to me," she said. "It just makes the most sense."
A similar plan was quashed by parents in 1997 and again by teachers in 2002. This time, however, longtime board member Merilyn Daniels said she believes the district had adequate research and facts to guide their decisions.
"This time, we're doing it for the students," she said. "If I didn't feel there was a definite advantage to grade-level centers, I could never support it, but I know that there is and I'm confident this is the right way to go."
Superintendent John Corbett was directed to resurrect the controversial topic earlier this year because the district is again facing the problem of uneven enrollment patterns across the district.
"Kids are placed in schools based on enrollment schedules, not geography," he said previously while researching the plan. "So, we literally have kids on the same block attending different schools, and we're needlessly busing kids all over the city."
Corbett's report, including an alternative scenario rejected by the board and the plan approved Wednesday, is still posted on the district's Web site, www.wd7.org.