Boundary lines to stay the same at District U-46

After months of speculation, there won't be boundary changes next year in Elgin Area School District U-46 after all.

Members of the district's Citizens Advisory Council Tuesday night heard an administrative recommendation to relieve overcrowding at Hillcrest Elementary in Elgin. The school was found to be at 130 percent capacity last year in a recently released study.

Instead of redrawing boundaries for the west Elgin school, numbers will be reduced by opening an English Language Learners program next year at neighboring Creekside Elementary.

Creekside will have more space available next year because its preschool program will be relocated to the Illinois Park school site near Wing Park in Elgin.

Previously, students learning English living within Creekside's boundaries were sent to Hillcrest.

The addition of an ELL program at Creekside is expected to move 83 students to their home school, bringing down Hillcrest's enrollment this year from 655 to 572, interim Director of Operations Jeff Feuerborn said.

The school's capacity is 576 students.

U-46 will be looking at districtwide boundary changes for the 2011-2012 school year.

Changes for just one school next year didn't sit well with some parents at the meeting.

"That's not good enough. I've been fighting the board two years already," Nature Ridge parent Beverly Jaszczurowski said.

Feuerborn called the move a "temporary fix."

The study, presented to the school board in July by Chicago-based architecture and engineering firm Wight & Co. and Texas-based facility assessment firm Magellan Consulting Inc., called for a review of U-46's boundaries based on enrollment numbers from last year.

A dozen schools, including Hillcrest, Nature Ridge Elementary in Bartlett; Oakhill Elementary in Streamwood; Laurel Hill Elementary in Hanover Park; and Highland, Fox Meadow, Lords Park and Lowrie Elementary in Elgin were found to be well over capacity.

School officials had strongly hinted at the possibility of new boundaries for some schools next year.

"The goal is to have the discussion early this year regarding possible boundary changes and when they will become effective," Superintendent Jose Torres said in a July news release. "We need to address the overutilization of some schools for the 2010-11 school year and then begin discussions - developing a long-term strategy regarding facility usage."

The district is fighting a multimillion-dollar racial bias lawsuit stemming out of 2004 boundary changes. The Elgin families who filed the suit charge that those boundaries violated the constitutional rights of black and Hispanic students.

Oct. 1, the families filed a motion asking a federal judge to bring the class-action suit to trial this spring.

New boundaries before a verdict, the families said, could cause a host of problems.

"The goal is to try to move students as little as possible," Citizens Advisory Council co-chairman Natalie Olsen said.

Boundaries: Changes possible for 2011-12