The Daily Herald is carrying a story about angst in Elgin, Illinois school district U-46. It seems the School Board has been presented with a proposal to redistrict. Thus a recent School Board meeting was packed to overflowing with parents protesting the move.
I lived in this school district for 13 years. My daughter attended grades K thru 6 at the local public school. Then I placed her in the local catholic school (much to her intense displeasure) because of well known gang problems in the Middle and High Schools. My son attended the public school in grades K thru 3. When he hit 3rd grade (the first year my daughter was in catholic school) the teachers went on strike for an entire month. The next year I started him in catholic school - end of strike problem. However, having had kids in the district and having lived there for so long. I found one of the statements in this article exceptionally amusing.
He called the boundary changes a "de facto form of segregation," as it will ship middle-class Elgin students east to Hoffman Estates and keep poor, mostly Latino students in east Elgin.
Why do I find this funny? Because any Hispanic child whose parents do not have English as a native language, end up in ESL classes. THEY ARE ALREADY SEGREGATED! We had a boy who lived in the house behind us who was Hispanic, my son played with him all the time. When school started, he was shipped off to another school instead of attending the local school - right across the street. Several YEARS later, he was still at that school, and still spoke English poorly. HA! talk about Segregation!
Only one person had a finger on what I considered to be the prime problem when we lived there (and one that has only increased since we left)
"Why will you not consider the possibility that this school district is failing by every important measure of success precisely because it is so unmanageably large?"
Yes, it is far too big for it's own good. U-46 is second only to Chicago in the size of it's district. Who knows, it may have surpassed Chicago by now.
I'm glad my kids grew up in such a diverse area. They aren't afraid of differences in people. I am glad there were education alternatives that we could afford, and I am very sorry to see that the school district continues to have large problems.
