Change marches on in District 300

Community Unit District 300 has been no stranger to change in recent years.

During the past two years, the district has opened two new elementary schools and a charter school, redrawn attendance boundaries across the district and grappled with crowding on the district's east side.

This year, which starts Thursday for students, will be no less dramatic for families and staff in the district.

Although overall enrollment growth has slowed, change will be visible across the district - from the schools students attend to the way they connect to the Internet.

"It's an exciting time," Superintendent Ken Arndt said this week. "We have so much going on."

The biggest change - literally - will be the New Hampshire High School at Big Timber and Ketchum roads.

District officials have called the $75 million facility the largest undertaking in the district's history.

High-schoolers who formerly attended Hampshire Middle and High School - as well as some former Jacobs and Dundee-Crown high school students - will go to class in the 392,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art building.

District officials say the larger building and bigger student body will allow them to offer a greater variety of classes and compete with the course offerings at Jacobs and Dundee-Crown high schools.

"The thing that probably excites us the most is the new educational opportunities for all of the students," Hampshire High School Principal Chuck Bumbales said. "We're able to offer classes that we never had before."

The most obvious change for families throughout the district will be new attendance boundaries at the district's middle and high schools.

The changes, which come on top of elementary boundary changes that took effect last year, affects about 500 students across the district.

The full impact of the changes will not be visible for a couple years, however, because many students who had the option chose to remain at their current school.

Despite the boundary changes, some schools on the district's east side are overcrowded - an issue that was near the top of the district's agenda last year.

Students at Carpentersville's Perry and Golfview elementary schools - the hardest hit by the east-side enrollment crunch - won't see much relief this year, as several classes will attend school in mobile classrooms.

But a $5.3 million construction project will add six classrooms to each school this year, with the additions slated to open next year.

Middle-schoolers will start school in buildings that are still undergoing renovations to expand capacity and modernize facilities.

The most extensive renovations are changing the former Hampshire Middle and High School into a building solely for middle-school use.

Less visible will be the changes that affect classroom instruction.

The district is taking steps to close the achievement gap between its high-performing elementary schools and its high schools by hiring department heads and launching freshman academies at the high schools.

"At the high schools, student success has been lagging, and we really need to pump that up, and I'm confident we'll have significant progress," Arndt said.

Bumbales said he was hopeful the new programs would help his high school improve student achievement.

"The (division heads) are going to be a huge help, especially in forming instruction in the classroom and guiding young staff," Bumbales said.

All of these changes - across all grade levels and all parts of the district - guarantee the 2008-09 school year will be another interesting one in District 300.