Dist. 220 to study population, boundaries
Barrington Unit District 220 board members Tuesday commissioned a population projection study to help decide whether there will be a need in the near future to even out the attendance boundaries between the two middle schools.
But they also decided to defer any decision about moving the attendance boundary between Prairie Middle School and Station Middle School until the 2012-13 school year, to take effect for the 2013-14 school year at the earliest.
The board hired consultant John Kasarda to do the study for an estimated $7,800, though board member Richard Burkhart had suggested putting such a study out for bid.
Board President Brian Battle cast the sole vote against the study because he said he felt current uncertainties in the economy might create only a limited value for the information in the study.
The district has periodically hired Kasarda or other consultants to do long-term population projections. But it's now been the longest in recent memory — three years — since the last study.
Kasarda will use the district's 30-day attendance figures, available at the end of September, as part of the study, which he expects to deliver on Nov. 30.
Board members mulled whether to commission the district's enrollment monitoring committee to then use the data to consider redistricting that would take effect as soon as August 2012.
But board member Penny Kazmier, who chairs that committee, said it would better wait until the start of the 2012-13 school year, because the committee's work would be a yearlong process.
“If the board wanted to do anything with the EMC next (school) year, we could start right away,” she told her fellow members.
The committee last recommended a redistricting among some of the district's elementary schools in 2009. Kazmier said the current disparity between the two middle schools might be a consequence of that action.
On the first day of classes last month, Prairie had 1,171 students and Station had 1,028.
Generally, attendance figures on the 30th day of the school year are considered more accurate, however.