In recent years, more and more students have been busing between East and North to attend classes offered at their schools throughout the day. The main reason for these circumstances is East’s shrinking student population. According to Principal Jim Richter, East has lost about 100 kids every year for the past 7 years. The decline represents a drop from approximately 2,500 students to 1,800. These statistics mean that not enough students will sign up for classes at both North and East, so a class will run at only one school.
“We knew that was going to happen eventually, by looking at variables such as how many people were moving in and out [of St. Charles],” Richter explained how you can look at the population of the middle schools and elementary schools in the district to understand the number of students that will come into the high schools. Although with the recent new housing developments on the East side, it is expected that East’s population will eventually rise again.
Having fewer students in high school leads to fewer people signing up for classes, which in turn means classes are only run at one school.
First, students traveling to the opposite school miss out on instructional time. To speak on that, we asked students who travel about their personal experiences, “We have less class time and less time to finish tests, which is unfair,” said East Junior Izzy DeCoudres. “I find that I miss a surprising amount of choir, I miss more in the last five minutes than you’d think.” In order to make the bus go to the other school, students must leave their last class early. DeCoudres went on to discuss how this impacts her cross-river class specifically, since she takes it in eighth period: “We don’t get to after-school activities on time.” Other students shared similar opinions, like East Junior Juan Estrada, who commented, “Busing between schools has been an OK experience for me. At first, it was challenging to adjust to traveling to another class, but I eventually got used to it. One flaw with busing to another school that stood out to me was losing class time.”
Second, the students who don’t change schools for a class are often subject to waiting until the others arrive for up to 10 minutes. On the other hand, if teachers begin tests before all students arrive, traveling students may receive less time. On average, classes with cross-river transportation lose about 13 minutes of instructional time. When discussing this with North Junior Sarah Raissouni, who is in a cross-river class that runs at North, she said, “It does cut time for tests sometimes, but we work around your arrival most of the time.” Raissouni said, “It’s usually a quick transition when you all arrive,” and “I think it’s more disruptive for the East kids [rather than North kids].”
Another thing to take into account when looking at where classes are scheduled is the fact that it’s not always the school with the highest enrollment that houses the course. This year, Melissa Oetke’s 8th Period French V was held at North only, not East, even though more East students had signed up. “A few years ago, they decided that they were going to be really strict with class sizes […] they decided that classes under 15 would not run,” said Oetke. As a result, many East kids dropped the class, and the class now has the same number of East students as North students. This is not the first time that something like this has occurred. According to East and North AP French Teacher Jennifer Goss, “A couple of years ago, I had an AP class at North, and I had only, like, three students from North that were in AP that year.”
While investigating what determines where a class is run, East Spanish Teacher and World Language Department Chair, Meghan Mitchell said, the location and sections of classes are determined using something called Full Time Equivalencies (FTEs), which is the number of sections of classes each school gets; the process has many variables to it, and it doesn’t always end up being at the school that showed more interest in the course. “Each school is given a certain number of FTEs, which is determined by administrators. After that, teachers get to put their input in what period to run classes, but ultimately, administrators give the final say.”
According to D303’s transportation Manager, Terry Westergaard, “Usually late in the summer, our department receives a spreadsheet from administrators at East and North High School listing the students taking classes at Fox Valley Career and participating in cross-river classes. Together, a shuttle schedule is created based on the needs of the students.” Westergaard explained that there are approximately 52 students who need cross-river transportation. When asked about using alternative bell changes, Westergaard said, “Although we do our very best to ensure that we meet the needs of the students’ schedules, any day that the schools are running on an altered schedule, the pieces might no longer fit together, and running the shuttles can be challenging even when both schools align their schedules.”
East Assistant Principal of Instructional Programs Matthew Jeffrey and North Assistant Principal of Instructional Programs Melinda Roberts were contacted for comment regarding cross-river busing. Jeffrey declined to comment.
Regarding how students who have a driver’s license and permit are not allowed to drive to school. Roberts stated, “Students who are enrolled in courses at East, North, Compass and Fox Valley Career Center have transportation provided by the school district. When transportation is provided by the district, students are not allowed to drive themselves.” Students who switch schools cannot drive themselves because it’s considered a liability issue; throughout the day, the district is responsible for them if anything goes wrong.
Students are still required to go on the bus to the other school when the teacher who teaches a cross-river class is absent. DeCoudres voiced her concern on this: “On days where our teacher isn’t there, we basically go all the way to North for nothing because all the work can be done online anyway.” Regarding why students must still bus to their class across the river, Melinda Roberts stated, “Lessons vary by teacher and by day. Assuming all lessons, for all students who travel cross-river, would be independent, wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Administrators also have to sync schedules between North and East to the best of their abilities, but that doesn’t always happen. On these days when the North and East schedules don’t sync up, students may have class cancelled and be told to work asynchronously, taking class time away not just from them but also from their counterparts at other schools, whose agendas have been changed to accommodate. In response to this, Roberts stated, “We did everything possible to ensure safe travel while also minimizing missed class time to the greatest extent possible.“
Cross-river classes are expected to continue in the foreseeable future.
