Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board members tried to tackle overcrowding at Dewey Elementary School and Willard Elementary School at a board meeting Monday night. The district does not have enough spots for all kindergartners registering for the next school year and may relocate some to other schools in the district.
With approximately 96 percent of all D65 students registered for the 2010-11 school year so far, the district will have to transfer eight kindergartners at Dewey and 14 at Willard to other schools unless another resolution arises.
Though the board made no decisions, school administrators proposed decreasing the number of third-grade teachers in each school by one and adding a kindergarten teacher, said Lora Taira, assistant director of information services.
This would reduce the number of kindergartners in a classroom from 25 to about 19 at Dewey and about 22 at Willard. Third graders would see class size grow from 18 or 19 students to 27 or 28.
With the change in staffing, the district would not have to transfer any students, allowing all kindergartners to attend their neighborhood school, board member Kim Weaver said.
“I am a big believer in the community school,” Weaver said, adding she would approve of the switch even if she had a third-grade child affected by the change. “I’d be willing to have my child in a larger classroom if it means keeping our community together, as long as they’d have the proper support.”
However, other board members were concerned the cap-and-transfer proposal would strike an unfair imbalance between bilingual class sizes and general education sizes. They also worried larger third-grade class sizes would adversely affect students’ scores on standardized tests, which they take in third grade.
Board member Tracy Quattrocki said she worried the district is nearing the regulated limit for third-grade class size.
“We need to push for a long-term solution this spring,” Quattrocki said.
She asked Taira and Chief Information Officer Paul Brinson to analyze how much it would cost to find the space for a new classroom in both schools as another possible answer to the overcrowding problem.
Brinson and Taira stressed the impending deadline for the decision, saying they intend to tell parents which schools their students will be attending later this month.
“We’re coming to the table here with a very challenging problem,” Brinson said. “It is something that we have to make some decisions on. We can’t keep people in limbo.”Three parents, including Dewey parent Lisa Deacon, spoke against capping kindergarten classes and transferring students to other schools.
“We are like many other families in that we made an intentional choice as to where we wanted to send our kids to school,” Deacon said. “We are here tonight because we believe there are other solutions to consider.”
The next school board meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on May 17 at the Joseph E. Hill Education Center, 1500 McDaniel Ave.[email protected]
