Oswego schools seeking input from residents on boundaries
By Jenette Sturges jsturges@stmedianetwork.com February 7, 2012 1:12PM
Students load onto school buses on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012 at Homestead Elementary School in Aurora. The Oswego Community Unit School District No. 308 is drawing up new boundries for it schools. | Steven Buyansky~Sun-Times Media
MAKING A
NEW MAP
Maps showing the proposed new Oswego school boundaries can be found at the district website, www.oswego308.org.
Article Extras
Related Stories
Updated: March 24, 2012 11:25PM
OSWEGO — John Petzke has a bumper sticker idea.
“Seventeen two in 21,” said the executive director technology for the Oswego School District. “I have 17,200 students and 21 schools to put them in.”
So now that about half of the School District’s elementary schools are facing potential overcrowding in the upcoming school year and with the opening of Murphy Junior High this fall, those figures represent a challenging puzzle, or perhaps even a game of dominoes — every time a group of students is moved from one school to another, other students are displaced.
On Wednesday, the Oswego School District will host a boundary forum open to all the residents of the district to weigh in on proposed boundary lines drawn up by committee over the past several months.
Last week, hundreds of parents gathered at Plank Middle School to support or contest the redrawn boundary lines. Nineteen spoke, many on behalf of entire homeowners’ associations which have been meeting on their own throughout the boundary process to figure out what they’d like for their neighborhoods.
“It’s been phenomenal. I’ve really enjoyed the process,” said Petzke. “It’s really been a community building exercise.”
Petzke said many parents and other concerned residents have more or less agreed on a few items -- for one, nobody wants the high school boundaries to change this year, even if it means a tight squeeze at Oswego East until additions are built.
Other specifics are a little more contentious, but the boundary committee will be bringing forth a plan that would likely move students at Hunt Club, Southbury, The Wheatlands and Churchill elementary schools.
At the junior high level, large parts of Bednarcik and Plank junior highs will go to the newly opened Murphy Junior High, but other boundaries will likely shift as well.
The other point around which the community is rallying, Petzke said, is the need to get the new boundaries approved sooner rather than later.
“March 1, that is our drop-dead date,” said Petzke. “I need to make all these boundary changes, we need to update our student information systems. We need to place all our special programs, we need to work out our transportation routes, we have a lot of calculating to do to prepare for these changes, and by March 1, people are starting to register and do course selection.
“If people don’t know what junior high they’re going to go to, we can’t make sections for courses.”
Following Wednesday’s forum, district staff and the boundary committee will meet one more time to tweak their proposal. The committee then will go before the School Board with their proposal on Feb. 13. The board will be asked to make a decision on the proposal Feb. 27.
“I look at (the suggestions) as puzzle pieces,” said Petzke. “The pieces that will make up our final solution are there. If the board starts to pick at those pieces, those will domino.”
The boundary committee’s public forum will be at 7 p.m. today Wednesday in the performing arts center of Oswego East High School, 1525 Harvey Road.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment