St. Charles schools finalize new school boundaries

St. Charles School District 303 will implement its newly drawn enrollment zone boundaries beginning in the 2024-25 school year.

School board members voted to approve new enrollment zone boundaries for middle schools and high schools at their regular meeting Feb. 12 and approved elementary enrollment zones at a special meeting Feb. 13.

Last summer, the board began implementing major changes to the structure of district elementary schools to address overcrowding, including the repurposing of multiple facilities and changes to grade level configuration and curriculum.

Lincoln Elementary will be repurposed to house staff and transition programming, Fox Ridge will reopen as an elementary school, early childhood care will be moved to the Haines Center, Richmond and Davis will have new grade level configurations and the dual-language program will be transferred to Richmond.

With these changes comes a need to reevaluate the disbursement of students across the district and the board has been working for months to redraw the boundary lines of enrollment zones for all schools.

The board was presented with several concepts for each level by demographer RSP & Associates and has been choosing between concepts during the past several meetings.

Community members have voiced concerns and opinions – mainly surrounding the elementary school zones – on the proposed concepts during recent meetings.

Most comments came from parents concerned about which school their children would be attending next year, but many also expressed concerns regarding student safety and walkability, continuity of education and equitable disbursement of low-income households.

“My feeling has been, and continues to be, that we have not fulfilled what we intended to do. I’m concerned about some of the disparity between representation at the schools and the amount of movement of our community members.”

—  Matthew Kuschert, School District 303 board member

Under each concept, Richmond would see the highest concentration of free and reduced lunch students of all district elementary schools, which some alleged will only worsen the district’s academic performance issues and necessitate additional costs to support its students.

While the middle school and high school zones were approved unanimously at the Feb. 12 meeting, the concepts for elementary school zones, which had been discussed at length during the past several meetings, finally were approved in a 5-2 vote at the Feb. 13 special meeting. Board members Edward McNally and Matthew Kuschert voted no.

Before the vote, McNally told board members he was not happy with the unsustainably high percentage of low-income families that will be relocated to Richmond. He said he was not in favor of any of the concepts proposed because they do not provide an equitable disbursement of students, which was supposed to be the priority for the enrollment zone changes.

“I still have not heard any plans for how we’re going to address the programs we’re putting in there. None of the plans proposed have addressed the priorities we’ve set forth. We’re making space for potential people instead of real people here,” McNally said. “None of these plans are appropriate. None of these plans work. We’re being given Sophie’s choice tonight and I’m going to be voting no.”

Kuschert echoed McNally’s statement and said he had too many concerns about the final outcome of the changes to support the proposed concept.

“My feeling has been, and continues to be, that we have not fulfilled what we intended to do. I’m concerned about some of the disparity between representation at the schools and the amount of movement of our community members,” Kuschert said. “This creates more disruption than I personally feel is necessary.”

Four community members spoke before the vote, some pleading for their neighborhoods to be kept at the elementary school of their liking. One raised concerns about the concentration of low-income households at Richmond.

The high school enrollment zone concept is the only approved concept that will not change the current boundaries.

The approved changes will take effect in the 2024-25 school year.

According to a Feb. 13 news release from the district, interactive maps of the boundaries will be published to the district website. School principals will begin communicating with the families residing within the new boundaries this spring.

“On behalf of the District 303 School Board, we’d like to thank the community for its continued feedback throughout this process. The board did not come to its decision lightly as we recognize the impact that these changes will have on a number of families,” Board President Heidi Fairgrieve said in the release.

“The process of changing our district’s boundaries understandably brought passionate responses from our families. We are grateful for their feedback, which served as a valuable guide for concept revisions,” Superintendent Paul Gordon said in the release.