On Nov. 28, 2023, A meeting was held at St. Charles North High School to discuss the upcoming changes to District 303’s boundaries. Dr. Paul Gordon and Robert Schwarz, along with several board members, were present and D303 families were encouraged to listen and complete a survey about their opinions afterwards. The District uses an outside company, RSP & Associates, to manage its educational and planning goals. In the meeting, Gordon said, “The boundary process has been going on for months. It began in earnest last school year as the board charged me and my team to begin this process.” The reason for such a long process was the amount of data collected and the amount of information taken into account. The CEO of RSP & Associates, Schwarz, talked about some of the goals the District strives to achieve, “[D303] doesn’t want to change boundaries every ten or every three years, they want to have the ability to know [D303] has the right enrollments for the right capacity in each of the buildings.” To achieve this, the District’s criteria used to determine the new boundary options were explained. First, Schwarz explained the “Primary Boundary Criteria” and labeled them based on the order of priority:
1: Projected Enrollment and Building Utilization: Schwarz talked about creating boundaries that focus on balancing enrollment and using each school as much as possible while trying to make sure they would not overflow in capacity within the next few years.
2: Consideration of the demographics: Boundary criterion seeks to create boundaries that have balanced “socioeconomic indicators.”
3: Boundary Life: Boundaries that are being created will make sure to take future changes in the district’s enrollment into consideration in order to ensure new boundaries last as long as they can.
4: Considerations of Costs: The District wants to make sure that the changes do not increase the need for construction.
5: Neighborhoods: Schwarz explained that the District wants to keep neighborhoods together as much as possible.
Taking all into consideration, the following boundary concepts for the two high schools were created:
The first concept increases the boundaries for East further north into Campton Hills and North Avenue, while the second concept would keep boundaries the same. During the meeting, a survey was opened to gain insight into what the community prefers. The survey shows the different boundaries for all of the elementary, middle and high schools. It asks for concept preferences after viewing each of the boundaries and ends with a wrap-up asking what relation (community member/parent/staff) each participant had to the district, what schools the child attends (for parents) and the race of the person surveying. The survey closed on Dec. 10.
After the survey is completed and a few more meetings with board members and RSP & Associates are held, the final approval for the Boundary Recommendation will be sent to the Board of Education on Feb. 12, 2024.
