St. Charles School District to hold public meetings on enrollment zone changes

St. Charles School District 303 will hold two meetings this week to review new attendance boundary scenarios and inform the public on Nov. 28 and 29.

Faced with urgent overcrowding concerns in the district’s elementary schools, D303 board members have been working on changes to address the concerns, and will be informing the public of the proposed changes at the meetings. Guests can attend either in-person or virtually.

The meetings will be held at 6 p.m. on Nov. 28 at the St. Charles North High School auditorium, and at 6 p.m. on Nov. 29 at the Norris Cultural Arts Center at St. Charles East High School.

After voting to repurpose elementary school facilities in the district at its July 26 meeting, the next step of the district’s master plan is to assess and adjust the school district’s enrollment zone boundaries.

Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, Lincoln Elementary school will close to house transition programming and staff offices and Fox Ridge Early Childhood Center will become an elementary school. Enrollment zone boundary changes are also expected to be implemented in the 2024-2025 school year.

School board members adopted new guiding principles and boundary criteria for the district’s enrollment zones in a unanimous vote without discussion at their Oct. 10 meeting.

The district employed demographer RSP & Associates to conduct a boundary analysis and to provide the board with possible scenarios, which will be presented at next week’s meetings.

School Board President Heidi Fairgrieve said RSP & Associates has not provided the board or administration with insight into their recommendations yet, so the boundary changes have the potential to impact all schools in the district.

Fairgrieve said the meetings will be important sources of information for parents. She said there will be multiple avenues for feedback and Q&A, both in the meetings and surveys, as well as during the following board meetings leading up to the vote in February.

“We want to get feedback from the community members, because they are an important stakeholder in this upcoming change,” Fairgrieve said. “I think they’ll find it very informative, and most importantly; they’ll have an opportunity to give their input.”

Both information sessions will cover the same material, with representatives from RSP & Associates giving a presentation of the data and a comprehensive overview of the steps leading to the proposed scenarios. D303 board members will vote to finalize the final boundary changes at their Feb. 12, 2024, meeting.

Meeting participants will be given access to a survey, which will be open from Nov. 28 to Dec. 10. Feedback about the boundary scenarios will only be gathered through the survey. Those attending virtually will also be able to view the boundary scenarios and receive a link to the survey.

For virtual meeting links or to learn more about the boundary process, including resources on key discussions, recommendations and actions, visit the district’s boundary updates website.

Spanish interpreters will be available to assist in-person attendees requiring support, and laptops will be available for guests to use to complete the survey.