The Tallgrass/Vote NO recap

[wvhsparent]

204t. So what happened to change your mind? I respect your decision either way.

FYI I was a no last time and was a no this time until, like you I spent much time talking to SB and attending meetings, and I have switched to a yes. Mine is not boundary based either.

[204taxpayer]

fence said:

204taxpayer said:

I was a yes for the last referendum. I was a yes for this referendum. I was a complacent yes. Being a good dutiful housewife and mother I was a yes "for the kids". I sat down with all the current boundaries for each level of schools in the district and began my search for how all this could work. I spent several hours on phone calls with board members, attended boundary meetings etc.

Weeks before the final boundaries decision was made was when I realized I just could not vote yes to THIS referendum. I do not begrudge anyone (yes or no) the reasoning behind their vote, we all have that choice to make. My decision in not based on boundary issues.

So what changed your mind, after being a YES vote for an entire year?

I had mentioned in my earlier post that I was a complacent yes previously. I would say a "lemming" vote. Seeing the finances of this for me was troubling. I now feel after my discussions and personal research that more was needing to happen before this could be put to the people again.

Capacity numbers have been all over the board (on all sides). There are what feels like 12 different sorts of capacity numbers and no one can back up the information with data from consulting firms who are impartial to this referendum. $125 Million is a lot of dough. I know buildings cost money to build, but this is alot of money. I also feel we are doing this to accommodate less than 800 more students over time at the high school level.

If you take the percentages the SB uses for determining new HS students coming from undeveloped land, they take the number of empty lots that will have 4 BR homes on them, multiply by .40 and that's the magical number for new students. When you use the number the City of Naperville uses to determine this sort of thing (for zoning purposes) it is.242 (slightly less than half the number the SB is using). This is important to me. When you take the current # of homes in the district that fit this model (approx 40,000) and the number of students that falls somewhere in the middle for enrollment (too many different numbers out there, using 9,200 - seems to be where all sides are pointing now) and divide the two you get a % of HS students of .23. Notice this number is ever so slightly smaller than both the numbers above. (and these are actual physical bodies to actual physical houses)

When I sat down and tried to figure out boundary options myself to tried and understand exactly what the board was faced with in making these decisions, I found things to be troubling for me. Elementary school boundaries are terribly screwy. There are already children getting put on busses to be driven past schools closer to them to other schools. Shouldn't we clean up this situation from the bottom up and better utilize the existing space we already have before adding additional space? I understand different grade levels have different needs and retrofitting might be necessary in some cases.

location location location. In the previous ref I hadn't really paid much attention at all to the location they were putting this high school in. This time around I paid attention. I understand the portion they are going after is zoned residential currently. I also drive by that corner and see nothing but commercial and a very busy traffic situation for young inexperienced drivers. Living right down the street from NV I will not drive east bound on 95th street during the school year in the later afternoon as there are accidents on a consistent basis from the high school crowd of drivers. I also feel it foolish to put the 3 high schools for the district in primarily a central triangle of each other within the district. I feel it should be going where the student populous is coming from or at least much closer if solving the overcrowding with an additional school building.

I don't buy the argument that building another school keeps us from having mega schools. Regardless of the new school all will be huge high schools. Going to the NV website last night I saw that almost all of our students go on to at least some form of higher education, the bulk of them 4 year university. These higher numbers for building onto NV and housing more students there are still amazingly far less than what they will be competing against education wise in the year following their graduation.

Why is it that NV and WV who are in the same school district have two schools that are so much farther apart on the states lists of school rankings? Is this fair to WV students and families? Aren't we all in the same district? I would think our schools should be within a small percentage of one another as far as achievement goes.

I agree there are overcrowding issues. I see more of it at the middle school level, right in my own neighborhood. This fix that the SB is going after in this ref, albeit creative by bringing back another middle school into the equation, doesn't do so where the classroom space is needed.

Freshman centers were proposed to our community as a fix for overcrowding as well as a way to help our freshman students better transition from MS to HS. I had mentioned this yesterday and was questioned on it. I researched for a while last evening and was not able to find anything directly from Howie's lips on the web regarding that statement (although I know I have read this somewhere over the course of all this - I just can't find it again) but I did find an interesting blurb on the SRTpartners.net website about our freshman centers. (from their site)

Waubonsie and Neuqua Valley Freshman Centers, Gold Campuses
August 2003. STR expanded and converted two existing middle schools into freshman centers by the start of fall 2003. Teachers and administrators at Indian Prairie SD 204 embraced the concept of separate facilities that allow freshman students time to transition into a traditional high school environment. Waubonsie Valley Freshman Center is shown below.

Click to Enlarge
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STRpartners.net

By then putting the freshman back into the mix at WV instead of their own freshman center aren't we not offering them the same 204 experience that seems to be producing well for our students?

I know this has already gone on and on (my posting that is) and I apologize for the long read. I would love to sit here and write more right now, but really need to get my kids and myself up to the lifetime fitness to play in the pool (they are so freakin excited right now, LOL) I will try to finish addressing this later this evening or tomorrow.

[forthekids]

To 204Taxpayer,
I didn't want to post after your post so as not to have the whole post repeated again as it was very long. Very long but sounds like a lot of thought and research went into your thinking. However, there are a number of things to consider; regardless of how current capacity and future enrollment numbers are determined, we currently have more kids in ES than we can handle in the high schools, the SB and SD may use different numbers to determine future projections than the city of Naperville, but using the numbers they do, they have consistently underestimated the number of children coming into the system, you may think that the schools should be built in different places, but that is sometimes determined by the availability of open land. Having had one child go through high school with a freshman center and one without, I can honestly tell you it has made not one bit of difference (and the one who went to the freshman campus hated it). The SB is trying to work with the buildings at hand, we need another middle school and it makes sense since WVHS freshman campus is not that ideally located near the school, for that building to revert back to a middle school. Are all these "fixes" ideal? Of course not. This is not a perfect world where we all get to walk to the closest school and study in the exact same environment (after all, we don't all live in the exact same house, drive the exact same car, etc.). But I bellieve the SD and SB are trying their best with what they are given. Both my children have received a fabulous education in this district. If my community has to change school buildings, again, so be it. Life will go on and we will make the best of the situation. Numbers can be manipulated any way someone wants them to be; you can't please everyone, nothing in life is perfect. These are all truths we have to live with. The bottom line is that we have an overcrowding situation now and more students to come in the future. All the rest is just stuff that people throw into the mix to confuse others.

[wvhsparent]

204T
Very well thought out....I know it a hard decision to make, you are doing the best with what you have available. I respect you for your thought processes, and agree with much that you have said, But I also disagree with some too. Am I going to try and sway you? No.
thank you for sharing.

[momthreekids]

I voted no last time. Became a yes voter and now I am leaning back towards the no.

[proschool]

I agree there are overcrowding issues. I see more of it at the middle school level, right in my own neighborhood. This fix that the SB is going after in this ref, albeit creative by bringing back another middle school into the equation, doesn't do so where the classroom space is needed.

I appreciate the time that you out into your post. This statement caught my attention. It seems that right now we have no more capacity for students per grade level in middle school than we have in high school. If you believe that we are short middle school space doesn't it follow we will also be short high school space?

[cantretirehere]

The NO's aren't saying "Do Nothing" they are saying "3rd high school is not the option we want". We understand that there are currently many ES kids. Let's build on, have a magnet school, and yes, if necessary (and only temporarily) do split shifts for a few years (as a last resort). This is not going to last forever. Please see my graphs under ENROLLMENT and under the ENROLLMENT GRAPHS thread. These graphs show the dipping and leveling of the enrollment of the lower grades. There is no way to manipulate that data. These are merely graphs plotting out the enrollment numbers from the district's own website.

[forthekids]

cantretirehere said:

The NO's aren't saying "Do Nothing" they are saying "3rd high school is not the option we want". We understand that there are currently many ES kids. Let's build on, have a magnet school, and yes, if necessary (and only temporarily) do split shifts for a few years (as a last resort). This is not going to last forever. Please see my graphs under ENROLLMENT and under the ENROLLMENT GRAPHS thread. These graphs show the dipping and leveling of the enrollment of the lower grades. There is no way to manipulate that data. These are merely graphs plotting out the enrollment numbers from the district's own website.

Is it one of your kids that will be living through the "not going to last forever" years? Many of us don't believe that it won't last forever. The projections by the SB in the past have been TOO LOW. And what if you, and others who feel like you, are wrong. What if this is going to last forever. We will then have put hundreds (maybe thousands) of kids (not to mention teachers and administrators) through a very difficult educational process for nothing, a new school will eventually have to be built -- oh, wait, that school will probably be in another city, far west of here, because we won't have anymore available land to build on -- that will have been taken up by more houses (with kids in them)! Be prepared the scouts say. We need to prepare for a future that past history tells us is coming.

[cantretirehere]

Please see my graphs under ENROLLMENT and under the ENROLLMENT GRAPHS thread. These graphs show the dipping and leveling of the enrollment of the lower grades.

[momto4]

cantretirehere said:

The NO's aren't saying "Do Nothing" they are saying "3rd high school is not the option we want". We understand that there are currently many ES kids. Let's build on, have a magnet school, and yes, if necessary (and only temporarily) do split shifts for a few years (as a last resort). This is not going to last forever. Please see my graphs under ENROLLMENT and under the ENROLLMENT GRAPHS thread. These graphs show the dipping and leveling of the enrollment of the lower grades. There is no way to manipulate that data. These are merely graphs plotting out the enrollment numbers from the district's own website.

I respect both your opinion and the effort you've put into this, however the idea of a magnet school was explored quite a bit and does not seem to be a good solution. Why would a magnet school be a better solution than a third HS? Split shifts for even a few years would be an absolute nightmare for many thousands of students, parents, teachers, administrators, etc. Even if the ES numbers were to stay as they are now for the long term, we still need more space in MS and HS.

What is so awful about having a third HS? I don't understand the No POV of wanting to try any other possible thing other than the one that to me and many others makes the most sense.

[fence]

cantretirehere said:

Please see my graphs under ENROLLMENT and under the ENROLLMENT GRAPHS thread. These graphs show the dipping and leveling of the enrollment of the lower grades.

crh, the numbers don't show a decline in numbers, they show a continued increase in enrollment. Some grades went down for a few years in a row by a few students here and there, and then went right back up again. None of the "dips" you mention result in an overall number being lower than the year before, in fact quite the opposite. Each gr. 2-5 cluster is higher than the year before, and each gr. 9-12 is larger than the year before, and larger than they were at 2-5 gr. level.

The point is that it is really just a guess to make the projection that the numbers are going to go down, and especially difficult to make a projection as to when. We have not seen declining enrollment yet in this district. Even if the level of increase starts to stabilize, which I believe will happen, any increase will still impact us greatly due to the sheer volume of students and the fact that we're pretty much at capacity now. If that goes on for years, even small incremental increases, we are going to be in some serious trouble.

[JB]

Fence, I couldn't agree more.

A key problem with many of those graphs is that they take NATURAL population variations, then attempt to extrapolate into the future. Can't see the forest for the trees.

Contrast that to 204Parent's district-wide enrollment graph. THAT is the forest. And by the way, we can also see that if you maintain a quality school district, you will reach a nice equilibrium point in the future - see the 203 graph. Yes, there will be variations. But, if you look long term, you see a very steady trend.

[204parent]

The graph shows 204 is still increasing.

[warriorpride]

CRH: please stop saying that enrollment is dipping. The enrollment GROWTH is slowing - but it's still growing every year.

204T: I know that you've listed a number of considerations, but I think it's too bad that people aren't willing to trust the 204 administration as far as the capacity numbers go. I'm not talking just the SB - Do you really think that the principles and other administrators haven't tried to make the optimal use of the HSs, and know what the true realistic "optimal" capacity is, and what the effects of going above that capacity are? It's can't be just all about measurements of rooms mulitplied by some factor.

Similarly for the projected increase in enrollments that will come from the new housing to be built. Whether its multiplying bu .4 or .3 or .2, the fact is that more kids are coming to the district & nobody really knows how many. Naperville is touted as a great place to raise families - how do we know that this good press won't influence more young families to build in or move into the area? And then, once they're here, CRH's graphs doesn't show any drop-off in 203's enrollment as it peaked - why should we expect anything different in 204?

People keep wanting to wait for next year's enrollment numbers, and the more we wait, the less options will be available & the more expensive they will be.

[JB]

warriorpride said:

CRH: please stop saying that enrollment is dipping. The enrollment GROWTH is slowing - but it's still growing every year.

204T: I know that you've listed a number of considerations, but I think it's too bad that people aren't willing to trust the 204 administration as far as the capacity numbers go. I'm not talking just the SB - Do you really think that the principles and other administrators haven't tried to make the optimal use of the HSs, and know what the true realistic "optimal" capacity is, and what the effects of going above that capacity are? It's can't be just all about measurements of rooms mulitplied by some factor.

Similarly for the projected increase in enrollments that will come from the new housing to be built. Whether its multiplying bu .4 or .3 or .2, the fact is that more kids are coming to the district & nobody really knows how many. Naperville is touted as a great place to raise families - how do we know that this good press won't influence more young families to build in or move into the area? And then, once they're here, CRH's graphs doesn't show any drop-off in 203's enrollment as it peaked - why should we expect anything different in 204?

People keep wanting to wait for next year's enrollment numbers, and the more we wait, the less options will be available & the more expensive they will be.

I'd also like to point out that another year, or even two years worth of data would not likely effect the trend. All trends exhibit natural variation, and for anyone to cherry-pick select data points and extrapolate into the future is simply wrong.