District 204 parents have been duped

Ladies and gentlemen of Indian Prairie School District 204, you've been duped. In 2005, District 204 presented to voters a referendum to build a third high school. It was soundly defeated.

Undeterred, the district, along with vendors that did business with the district, mounted a fear campaign to convince voters that a third high school was desperately needed or "students would be sitting on each other's laps."

"Nonsense," said mathematicians and groups like Citizens for Options, which studied the numbers. The district was strongly encouraged to hire a professional demographer to do a proper study of the matter before asking for another $125 million from taxpayers (the actual cost of the high school now exceeds $150 million due to mismanagement on the part of the district).

Instead, the district hired a consulting firm which specialized in "data manipulation" and the district produced, out of thin air, its own model. This "model" claimed that by 2009 enrollment at the high school level would skyrocket from the current 8,965 to 9,365. With cries of "stop overcrowding," the referendum passed in 2006.

To help secure the "yes" vote for the referendum, the district even promised certain school boundaries and a school site, both of which the district changed after securing the vote. The district was later sued over this bait and switch.

Flash forward to 2009. District 204 is finally opening its third high school, and it has just finished counting the number of high school students for the 2009/2010 school year. And what was the actual number of high students on the 2nd day enrollment count: 8,464. That is almost 1,000 students less than the district's so called "model" produced. Oops.

At this point, I guess it wouldn't do any good to say "we told you so."

Paul White

volunteer, Citizens for Options

Naperville