District 303 Loses Richmond-Davis Court Fight

A Kane County judge late Friday ruled in favor of the parents who sued St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 over the reoganization of the former Richmond and Davis elementary school, the Kane County Chronicle reported Sunday in a story by Brenda Schory.

Details of the ruling are sketchy, because a copy of it was not immediately available. But attorney Timothy Dwyer, representing the parents who sued over the reorganization, told the Chronicle that Judge David Akemann had issued his ruling in favor of the parents late Friday.

The ruling comes as a blow to the district, which reorganized the two schools for the 2011-12 school year after the original lawsuit, filed by parents who sought to stop the change, was dismissed. The changes made Davis, 1125 S. 7th St., a school for kindergartners through second-graders, and made Richmond, 300 S. 12th St., a third- through fifth-grade school.

The lawsuit, however, was reinstated by an appeals court almost a year ago, and the trial was held this summer for a lawsuit that now sought to restore Richmond and Davis as elementary schools.

Dwyer told the Chronicle that in issuing his 22-page decision, Akemann “maybe 95 percent” of an opinion and order Dwyer wrote. Akemann had requested attorneys for each side to submit its own opinion and order, a move that is not unusual in civil cases.

“The judge specifically found the administration not to be credible," Dwyer told the Chronicle.

District 303 spokesman Jim Blaney told St. Charles Patch early Sunday afternoon that the district was not aware the judge had made a ruling in the case. Rumors to that effect had begun swirling late Friday.

• For more details, read the full Kane County Chronicle story.