School Closings

My hometown is mulling school closings. It seems enrollment is flat and state money is drying up.

See here. And here.

What a strange turn of events. I remember bond issues for school expansion a school generation ago or so. Are families just not having kids any more? I find it hard to believe that Shorewood's population is falling that much.

I suspect that one reason this is happening is that the Village has become dependent on State aid money. With that aid going down, it is suddenly "impossible" to go back to how it was before, with schools paid for with property taxes.

As for the possible solution, it seems to me that closing the Intermediate school is the best option. That was the way it was before the Intermediate school was built some time in the early 70s, I think. The high school might be crowded for a few years, but if the school enrollment is going down anyway, that problem will correct itself.

Ann says: Enrollment seems to be declining. The SHS has 637 students, or 155 per grade level. SIS has 287 students, 143 per grade level, and Lake Bluff and Atwater combined, with their kindergartens included, have 975, or 121 per level.

Of course, I'm pretty sure my SHS graduating class had between 120 and 130 students.

I'd be interested to see how many non-teaching staff the district has compared to back in the day. My guess is, like at the university level, the number of extraneous staff has grown over the years. When we were in high school, there was the janitorial staff, the VP and Principal, two or three office staff, a librarian or two, three counselors--and maybe a nurse. I'd be surprised if there weren't a lot more than that now.