Elgin District U-46 unveils mobile classroom 'cut list'

Elgin Area School District U-46 has released a list of the mobile classrooms that will be boarded up next school year due to increased class sizes.

With the exception of Laurel Hill Elementary in Hanover Park, each of the 21 sites featuring trailers in the 2009-10 school year will see a reduction in their use next year.

Two-thirds of those sites won't be using mobile classrooms at all.

In mid-May, district officials informed Citizens Advisory Council members that budget cuts would push boundary changes - originally scheduled to be implemented during the fall of 2011 - back at least a year.

By increasing class sizes to 28 students in kindergarten through third grades and 33 students in fourth through sixth grades, building capacity will rise - at least temporarily - at the district's 53 schools.

This comes just a year after Superintendent Jose Torres decreased class sizes.

District spokesman Tony Sanders said May 11 that the total number of portable classrooms would decrease from 76 this year to 20 next year. That statement coincides with the list currently being reviewed by the school board. The district owns the trailers.

According to that list, Garfield, Harriett Gifford, Highland, Hillcrest, Lords Park, McKinley, Sheridan and Washington elementaries in Elgin; Nature Ridge Elementary in Bartlett; Heritage and Oakhill elementaries and Canton Middle School in Streamwood and Streamwood High School will not be using mobile classrooms next year.

Bartlett High School will use four or six mobile classrooms next year. Coleman Elementary in Hoffman Estates will use two of five. Lowrie Elementary in Elgin will use two of three mobile classrooms, and Ontarioville Elementary in Hanover Park will use two of six.

The class size changes are expected to save U-46, which expects to begin next year with at least a $41 million budget hole, $6.6 million.

On March 15, as part of $29.6 million in budget cuts, 732 teachers received pink slips. District officials said they intentionally fired more teachers than necessary to have more wiggle room with the state's uncertain budget. A total of 420 teachers have since received recall notices.

Boundaries have been a hot topic since late last summer, when a capital planning report completed by two outside firms found a dozen schools over capacity, according to last year's enrollment numbers.

The school deemed the most overcrowded was Hillcrest Elementary in Elgin, at 130 percent of capacity.

According to operations consultant Jim Feuerborn's 2009-10 enrollment report, topping the list now is Lincoln Elementary in Hoffman Estates, at 114.2 percent of capacity. Nature Ridge follows at 113.6 percent. Hillcrest now stands at 108.3 percent. Other schools, like Prairieview in Bartlett and Ridge Circle in Streamwood, are considered under capacity.

The last time the district redrew boundaries was in 2004. After U-46 made the decision to move to a "neighborhood schools model" - with a majority of students within walking distance of their assigned campus - a group of Elgin families filed a lawsuit claiming the new boundaries violated the constitutional rights of black and Hispanic students. That suit was granted class-action status in August 2008 and has cost the district more than $8.7 million in attorney fees so far.

Classroom sizes will only decrease - causing more mobile classrooms to be used once again - as U-46 has the ability to rehire more teachers.

The school district will vote on the mobile classrooms June 21.