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Truth Seeker's avatar

We’ll see. Sadly, it’s all about clear as mud.

Re school closures, I do think it’s likely that 2-3 schools will be on the chopping block —and given this Board and Administration who knows if the ones chosen will make any logical sense. In fact, given past track records, that seems unlikely.

Austere times are coming —for sure. Where is the $200M+ coming from to repair existing schools, for example?! There is no way you can justify this many schools with the declining d65 student population. And I think we’re past the point of claiming that the families/kids that left will come back. Why should they?

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Tom Hayden's avatar

They need to have a referendum on the 2025 ballot and should've had one on the 2023 ballot! Even if it fails miserably, they need to at least get the ask out there. The 2017 referendum was specifically designed only to last until 2024. I don't understand why they're not talking about this. Even if they fired everyone at 1500 McDaniel, they'd still be in rough shape. They need to at least lift up the per-pupil funding so it levels out with ETHS and the only way that will happen is via a 5% referendum.

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Bloodbuzz's avatar

At the listen and learn in April, someone asked Dr. Turner if they were planning on trying to get enrollment numbers up. The comms person spoke up and said they are not targeting families that left as they assume it's unlikely they'll come back at this point. Their goal was targeting new Kindergarten families...Seems like most new Kindergarten families would like some clarity on if their school is going to get shut down if they are on the fence of sending their kid to D65, but that's just me.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

There's no real technical upside to increasing enrollment - like it doesn't really bring in any additional revenue but it increases the costs. We have such a broken system here in IL!

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Frustrated's avatar

Sergio JIUST said in a recent board meeting that they are reaching out to families who left to find out why. Ha! Another lie. I am one of those families and have many friends who left and no one has been contacted because he made it up.

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