Residents of a Bartlett subdivision have watched a new elementary school rising within sight of their yards and assumed their children would soon be walking there every day.
But now officials in Elgin-based Unit District 46 are considering drawing an attendance area that would leave those children riding buses more than 4 miles to another school. And their parents are crying foul.
Prairieview Elementary School, one of two new schools scheduled to open in the district this fall, lies in the far southeast corner of the sprawling district.
Its proposed attendance area would include Bartlett and portions of Hanover Park and Carol Stream.
The school board and about 200 residents were presented Tuesday with two options that had been drawn up by the Enrollment and Facilities Committee of the Citizens` Advisory Council.
One proposal would include in the Prairieview attendance area the Fairfax subdivision, with 68 children, and a portion of Carol Stream that has 87 children, officials said Tuesday.
But the committee recommended a different option, under which those children would continue to be bused to Wayne Elementary School, more than 4 miles from the Fairfax subdivision.
Some residents in the Fairfax subdivision protested, saying they want their children to attend Prairieview. The area is within the standard 1.5 mile walking distance of the school, said Traci Jurkiewicz, president of the Fairfax Homeowners` Association.
She said Fairfax residents had been told by Lexington Development Corp., the builder of the subdivision, that their children would attend the new school.
Lexington donated the 5.5 acre school site and paid Bartlett ”hundreds of thousands of dollars” in impact fees with the understanding that children from the Lexington development would attend that school, said Lawrence Freedman, attorney for Lexington.
”Our legal position is our subdivisions have the right to use that school,” he said.
But school officials say it isn`t that simple. Fairfax may be within the 1.5 mile limit, but it is separated from Prairieview School by a Metra rail line. So children from the subdivision would need to be bused to the school anyway, for safety reasons, said area Supt. Lowell Antenen.
And the land and impact fees contributed by Lexington are covering just a small part of the school`s $6 million cost, district Supt. Richard Wiggall said. Most of the funding is coming from taxes collected from the whole district, he said.
The school board must make its decisions based on what is best for the education of all children in the district, said Faye Hartog-Rapp, attorney for District 46. The space in Prairieview is needed to balance enrollment among all of the rapidly growing area. ”They must consider more global needs,” she said.
While some concerned parents were attending the school board meeting, others were attending the Bartlett Village Board meeting. Village President John Stark took a strong stand on their side.
”People who pay taxes in our community have a right to send their kids to school in the community,” Stark said.
Bartlett collected school impact fees from the builder and passed them along to the school district. And the village could be subject to a legal challenge from Lexington if it collects the fees and then uses them to benefit residents not in Lexington developments, Bartlett attorney Ed Mraz said.
Village officials said they might consider trying to pressure the school district by withholding impact fees.
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The Village Board decided to contact the district and set up a meeting at the next board session, Feb. 4, at 7 p.m. in the Village Hall, to discuss the issue.
According to Hartog-Rapp, the whole issue is ”perhaps premature,”
because no final decision on boundaries has been made.
The school board is scheduled to vote on boundaries Feb. 8 at 9 a.m. at school headquarters, 355 E. Chicago St.