District 15 Moves Programs, Students for Upcoming School Year

Two programs offered by District 15 will be moved to different schools this year, which will cause roughly 120 students to change schools as well.

The bi-lingual program that was offered last school year at Jane Addams is one of those program moves, and will be held at Winston Elementary School in the upcoming school year. 

“We were going to be two classrooms short at Jane Addams, and there was space to move the program to Winston,” said Jim Garwood, deputy superintendent for District 15.

Garwood said overall enrollment is actually down right now compared to last year. He added that certain parts of town - namingly northeast Palatine which has a number of multi-family dwellings - has caused higher enrollment at schools within the boundary area, such as Jane Addams. 

“Children kindergarten through 6th grade who would have normally attended Jane Addams will now go to Winston for the bilingual program; siblings who may have finished that program will still change schools so that family members will go to the same school,” Garwood said.

And while Winston Elementary will have an influx of roughly 90 new children, it will lose 30 other students from the AIME program.

“Whiteley Elementary School will take in the AIME special education program; parents were initially concerned, but those concerns were eased when they learned all of the AIME teachers will be moving to Whiteley as well,” Garwood said.

Garwood said the change in location for the AIME program is less concerning for most parents, because the program serves children from everywhere in the school district.

“Boundaries have not been moved, rather programs that certain children attend have moved to different schools,” Garwood said. “Gifted programs also are defined by program boundaries.”

A portable classroom also will be used on a full-time basis at Lincoln Elementary, which Garwood said provides just as much space for students – around 24 in a class – and has all the materials and resources needed for optimal learning.

Garwood said enrollment as of August 8 is 11,979-which is actually down 104 students from the same time last year.

“Some schools end up enrolling more students than others, which creates a need for the moves we will be making this coming school year,” Garwood said.

Schools boundaries that have a large, single-family home base have had steady or gradually declining enrollments, Garwood said. He pointed to homes not selling, empty nesters keeping their homes longer, and families having fewer children than in days past.

Schools that have a large number of apartments feeding into them [like Jane Addams] are directly impacted by the rental market; people have lost their homes, and there is a high demand for apartments and less vacancies, which means more children coming into the schools from specific areas, he said.