I know Mr Grossi sounds like a light shining in the darkness of bad financial news but his description of “ declining enrollment as a positive opportunity” because now the board has options i e closing more school buildings ( read here Willard, Orrington, Lincolnwood) is unreal
If you think enrollment has declined just wait till that happens.
I know Mr Grossi sounds like a light shining in the darkness of bad financial news but his description of “ declining enrollment as a positive opportunity” because now the board has options i e closing more school buildings ( read here Willard, Orrington, Lincolnwood) is unreal
If you think enrollment has declined just wait till that happens.
Is that potentially a part of our problem though too?
D65 clearly does NOT care about attracting and retaining families. As of this week that now includes my family that made the heart breaking decision to leave D65 this year. If revenue was more closely tied to enrollments, perhaps that would change the incentive structure?
I think this is actually one of the biggest problems - administration has no incentive to consider the community, broadly speaking as a stakeholder. Like, even Dr. Horton brought this up a few times - like, who cares if a kid leaves for private school? If anything, it makes their lives easier without seriously impacting funding.
Sorry to hear that about your family - is there anything specific that would bring you back in, knowing that it's already a big change/decision to leave in the first place?
Thanks Pablo. Assuming all goes well this year, we’ll be really hard pressed to make him move again.
We moved to Evanston for the schools. And then realized we needed more space right as we got near school age so we urgently bought an old home and then spent 3 LONG years rehabbing it… primarily with the goal of making a stable home and school for the family. So it truly was heartbreaking to give up on what we’d spent so long working to achieve.
Tom, you seem to have reached out to the board before...have you ever asked if there are any concrete plans to attempt to improve the % of D65 aged/eligible children that actually attend D65 schools?
As far as I know the private schools still have room. I think St. A's has a waiting list (don't quote me on that) but most of the other ones still have room.
Apologies, I was too vague...I wasn't wondering if there's room for a few kids at some area private schools, but rather if there was still capacity to accommodate the supposed mass exodus being implied as a reaction to school closures.
My understanding is they are at/near capacity. Especially as you get to the middle school ages. That is far from anything official though, and just based on brief comments from the schools we applied to, and hearsay from other parents.
If that is the case, I don't think it's as simple as "well, if they close our current school, we'll just go private". Our public school district's mess needs to be cleaned up regardless.
I know Mr Grossi sounds like a light shining in the darkness of bad financial news but his description of “ declining enrollment as a positive opportunity” because now the board has options i e closing more school buildings ( read here Willard, Orrington, Lincolnwood) is unreal
If you think enrollment has declined just wait till that happens.
Well, D65 is very very lucky that like 90% of funding is not tied to enrollment. This is very unusual nationally.
Is that potentially a part of our problem though too?
D65 clearly does NOT care about attracting and retaining families. As of this week that now includes my family that made the heart breaking decision to leave D65 this year. If revenue was more closely tied to enrollments, perhaps that would change the incentive structure?
I think this is actually one of the biggest problems - administration has no incentive to consider the community, broadly speaking as a stakeholder. Like, even Dr. Horton brought this up a few times - like, who cares if a kid leaves for private school? If anything, it makes their lives easier without seriously impacting funding.
Sorry to hear that about your family - is there anything specific that would bring you back in, knowing that it's already a big change/decision to leave in the first place?
Thanks Pablo. Assuming all goes well this year, we’ll be really hard pressed to make him move again.
We moved to Evanston for the schools. And then realized we needed more space right as we got near school age so we urgently bought an old home and then spent 3 LONG years rehabbing it… primarily with the goal of making a stable home and school for the family. So it truly was heartbreaking to give up on what we’d spent so long working to achieve.
How much more space do private schools have??
Tom, you seem to have reached out to the board before...have you ever asked if there are any concrete plans to attempt to improve the % of D65 aged/eligible children that actually attend D65 schools?
As far as I know the private schools still have room. I think St. A's has a waiting list (don't quote me on that) but most of the other ones still have room.
Apologies, I was too vague...I wasn't wondering if there's room for a few kids at some area private schools, but rather if there was still capacity to accommodate the supposed mass exodus being implied as a reaction to school closures.
My understanding is they are at/near capacity. Especially as you get to the middle school ages. That is far from anything official though, and just based on brief comments from the schools we applied to, and hearsay from other parents.
If that is the case, I don't think it's as simple as "well, if they close our current school, we'll just go private". Our public school district's mess needs to be cleaned up regardless.