District 15 enrollment up, but staffing levels lag

Enrollment is up in Palatine Township Elementary District 15, but district officials say it is still lagging behind in filling staff positions.

Associate Superintendent Shari Lazor said the district’s kindergarten through eighth grade enrollment was at 10,739 as of this month, an increase of 143 students from last year at this time.

A key factor driving the increase is the rollout of full-day kindergarten, she told the school board Wednesday.

“Our hypothesis is that we will continue to see more students starting with us in kindergarten now that we have full-day,” she said.

She also attributed enrollment growth to an influx of “newcomer” students, with the number rising from 222 last year to 359 this year.

Students are coming from a variety of countries, including Ukraine, Mexico, Japan, India, Honduras and Kyrgyzstan. To meet the demand, new bilingual programs have been added for Hindi, Ukrainian and Spanish.

Potential housing developments promise to boost the student population, she said. The Motorola and Kinsch redevelopments and the potential Loeber Farms and Arlington Park redevelopments would also affect the district.

But while enrollment is climbing, so is the need for additional staff. However, the district is facing some struggles filling the demand for psychologists, social workers, speech and language pathologists and occupational and physical therapists.

Lazor said there has been an increase of 68.75 certified staff positions, with 10.1 unfilled, while 40 are filled by contract agencies.

The increasing reliance on contract agencies is a concern, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Lisa Nuss said.

“Twenty percent of our staff has been filled by contract agencies,” she told the board. “That is exorbitantly more than we have ever had in the past.”

In six years, she said, the amount paid to contract agencies for positions the district is unable to fill has grown from $510,000 in 2018-19 to $2.6 million in 2023-24.

The use of contract agencies is related to issues of recruitment and retention.

Nuss said indications from exit interviews with departing staff show that people are leaving for salary most of the time.

“Our starting salary is way below market,” Superintendent Laurie Heinz said.

According to the current labor agreement, an annual salary can be as low as approximately $41,000.

“Our teachers here are happy,” Nuss said. “But being able to pay your mortgage is probably going to be their first priority.”