NEW LENOX — Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210 parents will find out Thursday which of the four academic buildings will be the one to close.
Board members plan to make their decision at 7 p.m. at the Lincoln-Way Central High School Fine Arts Center, 1801 E. Lincoln Highway, New Lenox.
District officials have spent the past summer considering how they would resolve their budget deficit – ranging from about $5 million to $7 million in the past several years – ever since they received the lowest possible financial rating from the Illinois State Board of Education. State officials have required them to submit a deficit reduction plan by September.
After settling on closing a school, they will now decide which one. Options include the older schools, Lincoln-Way Central and East, or the newer ones built in the last seven years, North and West.
“If we want to do what’s right with the students, the teachers union, the teachers and the parents, we will move forward,” Board of Education President Kevin Molloy said.
District officials said a combination of lower-than-projected enrollment, a poor housing market crippled by the 2008 recession and low state funding contributed to the financial predicament.
Thursday’s meeting will include 30 minutes of public comment, along with a report from Superintendent Scott Tingley.
Board members will then vote on two items.
The first will be whether to close a school based on keeping the middle schools that feed into each high school together or to redraw district boundary lines to split them apart.
Molloy said the second vote will be on which school should close. Board members will discuss each school, and if there are enough votes, one will be chosen for closure, he said.
Many parents hope the school their child attends will stay open.
Frankfort resident Elizabeth Burghard, whose daughter will attend North in the fall, said she thinks board members will choose North, but is hopeful that will not happen.
“I guess at this point I’m expecting the worse but hoping for the best,” she said.
Burghard said if North is selected, officials should be prepared for a fight, because “we have all the hard facts [and] hard numbers to back us up.”
New Lenox resident Debbie Pawluk, whose daughter attends West, hopes everything will be settled Thursday.
“I hope everybody behaves appropriately. There are really no winners in this school district because we are all going to lose a school,” she said.
She hopes the board will make a sound decision and will be prepared to accept it if West closes. She plans to not wear a West shirt, as every parent in the district is “in this together,” she said.
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If you go
What: Lincoln-Way Board of Education meeting
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Lincoln-Way Central High School Fine Arts Center, 1801 E. Lincoln Highway, New Lenox