End school delay with a decision

To say this summer has been an unsettled and unsettling one for many students, parents, teachers and administrators around the suburbs is an understatement.

Some of the teachers and staff pink slipped have been called back, while others wait and hope they might be employed with news of some federal funding help from Congress Tuesday.

Several districts were left in limbo when construction workers struck for three weeks in July.

Perhaps no school is as unsettled as Algonquin Middle School in Des Plaines. More than half the school looks more than gutted as a renovation project continues. And the school and district leaders need to settle things and provide some stability now.

We are having a hard time understanding why things remain unsettled. The strike started in early July and officials could have been working on contingencies then. They also quickly had good offers of help from within the community to temporarily house students at the Prairie Lakes Community Center, Maryville Academy and Oakton Community College. The officials at those institutions are to be commended for their neighborly offers.

None of the alternative sites are ideal. Prairie Lakes can accommodate only 500 of the 700 students, Oakton can handle only about 300. Maryville could take them all, but would require the biggest upending of a bus schedule on what now will be very short notice.

And that explains precisely why Superintendent Jane Westerhold and Principal John Swanson need to swallow hard and make a decision.

Teachers, staff, students and parents need to know where they will be, when, and for how long. All of these people may need to make alternative arrangements for transportation and after-school care for working parents.

Instead, Des Plaines Elementary District 62 officials have promised a decision twice this week and both times they have postponed a decision. Wednesday, at school registration day, they delayed a decision again and told parents and students there would be no announcement until perhaps as late as Aug. 18, a full week's extra delay and just three weekdays before classes are supposed to begin. Ostensibly, that extra week's delay is to allow an inspection by the regional superintendent. Why wait?

Some parents have been understanding, but this situation strikes us as unreasonable and untenable. It seems clear many students need to go somewhere else for at least part of the three weeks that was the length of the strike.

It's past time Westerhold, Swanson and other district leaders commit to a plan and get it announced and communicated quickly to all parents, staff and students so that everyone can begin making needed arrangements to start learning somewhere on time.