District 25 schools dealing with overcrowding

Several schools in Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 are overcrowded, said officials, who on Thursday presented the school board with a timeline and process to find solutions.

Jake Chung, assistant superintendent for personnel and planning, presented the district's 6th day enrollment numbers to the board at Thursday night's meeting, showing that District 25 now has an enrollment of 5,364, up more than 230 students from 2008.

While a few schools saw decreases, all schools are at capacity for classroom space, or over it, Chung said. .

For example, at Ivy Hill Elementary, a new first grade teacher had to be hired the week before school started due to the enrollment hike of 31 students from last year and an additional classroom had to be added in a former resource room near the library.

"This is a very serious issue which has been steadily increasing for last several years and has gotten to a point where it determines long term and short term solutions.," said Ivy Hill parent Suzanne Krause.

Olive-Mary Stitt has 33 more students than last year, Westgate has 12 more and Windsor school 17 additional students.

The enrollment jump is different from predictions that were presented to the board months ago that estimated enrollment would actually decrease.

"We know that enrollment projections can be hit or miss and are sometimes inaccurate," Chung said.

Superintendent Lori Bein presented a six-month timeline to discuss and decide on solutions for the overcrowding problem that includes staff and parent meetings over the next several months, discussing financial implications in early 2015 and the school board taking action on in March.

Bein said everything is on the table in terms of possible solutions, but she declined to get into specifics until there is more input from parents and staff on how to move forward.

Board member Rich Olejniczak said he was concerned that timeline was no fast enough.

"We've heart today that our schools are at capacity and over capacity, we really need a solution to that quick," he said, adding that a board decision in March may not allow enough time to institute a fix by the following school year. "We may need to speed that process up to make a change for next year."

Class sizes in the district are still in what officials said are acceptable ranges, but vary across the district. For example, one third grade class at Ivy Hill has 25 students, while one at Greenbrier has only 18, according to enrollment data.

The district will be posting information about enrollment and the solution process on its website starting today and will send information to parents about community input meetings on Monday.

"The concern about overcrowding has been building for many years," said Ivy Hill parent Julie Soderna. "A 'wait and see' approach is no longer justified."