Nature Ridge parents to broach boundary changes

In Elgin Area School District U-46, the mention of boundary changes is guaranteed to draw a few sharp breaths.

Upon learning that Nature Ridge Elementary in Bartlett is projected to be over capacity for the next several years, a group of frustrated parents plans to petition the school board do something - possibly even change attendance zones - to help their plight.

"I'm sure I'm going to be shot down because (the district is) in this other lawsuit because of boundaries," said Beverly Jaszczurowski, one of the Nature Ridge parents involved in the campaign. "But I just honestly don't see any other way to fix the problem."

The district's Citizen's Advisory Committee, of which Jaszczurowski is a member, recently finished a draft of an enrollment and facilities study.

That study, which examines attendance projections for the district's 53 schools, projects that Nature Ridge is expected to continue to be over capacity through 2014.

Capacity, according to the study, is broken down by the number of students in a classroom and the number of classrooms in a school.

Nature Ridge has 775 students this year, according to district data. That's 23 students more than its capacity, according to the district's current standards of 28 students per classroom. Approximately 120 of the school's students attend class in four mobile units.

Next year, the school is projected to see an influx of students - just as the district moves to a smaller class size model for early grades.

In February, Superintendent Jose Torres announced that U-46 would lower the target student-to-teacher ratio to 25:1 in general education kindergarten through third-grade classes and 28:1 in fourth- through sixth-grade classes. Current targets are set at 28:1 for kindergarten through second grade and 29:1 for third- through sixth-grade classes.

For elementary schools that don't have enough classroom space available to reduce class sizes, Torres intends to provide "floating" teachers to assist various classrooms as needed.

Nature Ridge is one of those schools that will receive a "floating" teacher next year, district spokesman Tony Sanders said. Floating teachers can team-teach classes that are larger than the targets, Sanders said.

"There will be no additional mobiles at Nature Ridge next year," he said.

However, Jaszczurowski pointed out, there very well could be more mobile classrooms added in the future.

According to the report, 815 students are expected in 2010-11. By 2014, Nature Ridge could have 828.

"When they set up that situation, it puts them at a safety risk, it puts them at an educational disadvantage," said Dana Weiby, a Nature Ridge parent and Citizens Advisory Committee member also involved in the campaign.

Last spring, at Jaszczurowski's urging, U-46 spent about $60,000 testing formaldehyde levels in the district's 64 trailers.

While the tests found the chemical levels inside the portable classrooms to be within a normal range, Weiby pointed out that several other problems exist.

During lockdown drills, students are forced to stay inside mobile classrooms as a safety precaution.

And, when there's voting going on at the school, Weiby said, "we have strangers coming into the building around the back entrance where kids walk from mobiles to go to the bathroom. Why open them up to this?"

Sanders said district decisions to locate special programs - bilingual and autism at certain school sites next year - "can generate additional capacity in buildings to free up space."

Depending on the results of a capital planning study, the district could consider examine redrawing boundaries in the future, Sanders said.

The study, the first for the district since 1998, is expected to be completed late spring or early summer. The study aims to develop a plan for establishing consistent teaching and learning environments and to reassess support and athletic facility needs. It also aims to eliminate the use of mobile classrooms.

The last boundary change took place in 2004.

The source of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit currently pending against the district, a group of Elgin families allege that by redrawing boundaries, U-46 violated the constitutional rights of black and Hispanic students by placing them in crowded, older schools; busing them farther and more often than white students; and providing them inferior educational opportunities.

Weiby and Jaszczurowski said that Nature Ridge parents plan to speak out at the April 27 school board meeting and the next conversation with the Superintendent Session May 7.