Prospect Heights parents rally against proposed school shifts

With the decision whether to turn Prospect Heights Elementary District 23 schools into grade level centers barely a month away, parent Donna Jenks is anxious about her soon-to-be kindergartner not having her older brother to guide her if Eisenhower Elementary School students are split up into different buildings next school year.

A small group of seven Eisenhower parents braved the bone-numbing cold Thursday to picket outside District 23's administrative offices protesting the possible reconfiguration of the district's four schools serving Prospect Heights, Arlington Heights and Wheeling.

Presently, students from Eisenhower, a kindergarten through fifth-grade school, and Betsy Ross and Anne Sullivan, both prekindergarten through fifth grade, finish up sixth through eighth grade at MacArthur Middle School. With grade centers, all students in the same grade attend the same school, instead of attending school based on geography.

District officials are considering converting the buildings into grade centers for kindergarten and first grade, second and third grades, fourth and fifth grades, and sixth through eighth grades.

“My daughter who is in kindergarten (next year) would have to attend four different schools by the time she reached eighth grade,” Jenks said. “Every two years she would be bounced to a different school. My son would be on one bus in the morning and my daughter would be in another.”

Many of the parents opposed to grade level centers are from Eisenhower, which is the district's only true “neighborhood” school. It is down the road from the three other schools, located on one campus at Schoenbeck and Willow roads.

Officials have discussed reconfiguring the district's three elementary schools for several years, but the idea gained traction during last year's “Cut a Million” initiative, a districtwide effort to reduce costs.

Converting to grade level centers would save the district $374,000, said District 23 Superintendent Greg Guarrine.

While that decision on grade level centers won't take place until the Jan. 12 school board meeting, some parents are fearful it's already a done deal based on the rhetoric of district administrators and board members at recent meetings.

Guarrine said administrators are trying to allay some of those fears. The school board will conduct another finance workshop Sunday morning to talk about the impact of grade level centers.

“They are trying to get as much information as they can to make a decision by the January meeting,” Guarrine said.

The school board also will determine in January whether to put an education fund tax rate increase referendum on the April ballot to bail the district out of its current financial deficit. It's unclear whether that would negate the option of grade level centers.

“Individual board members have made comments about that, but the board as a whole has not taken a position,” Guarrine said.

Several options are being discussed to cut the district's budget for next school year by $1.5 million, including cuts to the district's music program, which many parents oppose. District officials already cut $1.2 million out of this year's budget.

Some feel the change to grade level centers would not only be a logistical nightmare, but it would also divide loyalties, said Jenks, who is involved in the Eisenhower parent-teacher organization and is organizing that school's holiday party.

“How am I going to go to two schools for holiday parties?” Jenks asked. “I can't physically divide myself between two different schools. Where do I join? Where is the affinity? I just think it's a tragedy.”