D203 parents continue to air concerns

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Naperville School District 203 Superintendent Mark Mitrovich discusses a map that illustrates potential boundary changes with Manju Joseph during a recent public forum at Lincoln Junior High School. The district is in the midst of holding a number of foru

Updated: March 6, 2012 8:12AM

The blue ribbons placed around trees along Naper Boulevard are a visual reminder that the boundary change issue in Naperville School District 203 is still a very emotional one.

The ribbons were placed there by some residents of the Huntington Estates subdivision, who are concerned that students from the neighborhood may be split up and sent to two different elementary schools.

The proposed boundary map for District 203 schools got its latest examination Thursday night during a public forum at Kennedy Junior High School.

And the proposed all-day kindergarten program is starting to get equally close scrutiny.

“I urge you to run a pilot program that is relevant to our district,” Highlands Elementary parent Miriam Qunell told district officials and 175 parents who filled the Kennedy gymnasium.

Qunell said there is little data on the effect of all-day kindergarten and that what did exist focused on lower-income districts.

Meadows Glen parent Scott Swanson gave the district credit for tackling the problem of boundary changes.

“I don’t get to pick my school based on the best fit,” he said.

But Swanson also wanted the district to tread carefully on boundary changes, saying, “keep our children together,” referring to Meadows Glen students.

Prime among the parents’ complaints at the forum were the all-day kindergarten concept and their concerns about the district meeting its own core criteria for the boundary changes: limiting disruption to students, keeping neighborhoods together and keeping walkers walking to school.

“This map does not represent a final product,” Dan Bridges, assistant superintendent of Secondary Education, said at the beginning of the forum. “It’s a point in our journey ... we need your feedback.”

District officials reviewed the process so far and presented what is a now-familiar story. The district began looking at boundary changes in the wake of capacity problems at Mill Street and Beebe elementary schools

“We knew we had a situation at Mill Street where we had to make some adjustments in attendance,” Superintendent Mark Mitrovich said.

As the process has unfolded, an emerging theme has been the need to adjust enrollments as well to accommodate future programming, especially all-day kindergarten.

District Business Manager Dave Zager explained that four elementary schools were scaled back from four sections to three, and some were earmarked for new construction to accommodate all-day kindergarten.

Zager pointed to Highlands Elementary, whose students now attend Kennedy Junior High, which would see at least 150 students move to Meadows Glen under the proposed changes.

Mitrovich spoke of all-day kindergarten as a foregone conclusion, saying it is needed because of new Common Core standards “mandated by the federal government.” He believes the district needs the extra class time to make sure kindergartners can meet the standards.

He also noted that all 14 of the district’s elementary school principals were in support of all-day kindergarten.

“You can’t do that in two and one half hours,” he said of the time needed to prepare students to meet the Common Core standards.