Kaneland's growth spurt keeps going

Even though there's been a housing slowdown, Kaneland is not feeling the relief.

The district has 244 new students this year, an almost 6 percent increase from the same time last year, according to sixth-day enrollment numbers sent to the state.

It appears people without children are selling homes to people with children, Superintendent Charles McCormick said.

"It's something we didn't expect," he said.

Two new kindergarten sections were added just before school started to deal with the extra students at McDole and Stewart elementaries. After school started, a seventh-grade teacher was added at the middle school.

The growth in the kindergarten class was more than 11 percent. First, third and seventh grades increased between 7 percent and 8 percent.

Although the sophomore class grew a little more than 3 percent, the other classes at the high school stayed the same or went down slightly.

Over the past five years, the district has gotten 1,300 new students, McCormick said.

As students from the higher enrollment elementary grades move up to the middle and high schools, there will be even more of a space crunch, school officials said. The third-grade class is approaching 400 students, while the grades in the high school now range from 242 to 299.

School officials have said that if a $65 million building referendum in February fails, they may have to have split shifts, add mobile classrooms or increase class sizes.

Although the school board had talked about moving the sixth-grade class into the elementary schools next year, they said last week that wasn't an option anymore.