Vote Expected Next Week on D303 Elementary School Merge

Residents could see a vote later this month on the proposal from District 303 officials to merge students from two elementary schools.

School board members Monday night decided to put the measure, which would take students from Davis and Richmond and combine them by grade levels into two new schools, on the agenda for discussion and possible call to question at a March 17 meeting.

But before a vote occurs, there will be more time for discussion at a March 14 meeting.

“Let’s have the discussion in mass. Let’s have it all out there,” said board President Scott Nowling Monday night after the latest session of public comment and board member discussion.

The board will have its regular meeting at 7 p.m. on Monday in the Richmond gym, according to information provided by the district.  A discussion of the "Future Education Plan" for Davis and Richmond schools is among the agenda items for that meeting.  The board also will conduct a special meeting at 7 p.m. on March 17 at the Davis gym, where it is expected that they will vote on the plan.

The district’s proposal would create a school for kindergarten through second grades at what is currently Davis, which would have the same core curriculum for those grade levels but with an extra emphasis on literacy. The older students, who would attend a new intermediate school at the current Richmond facility, would have 40 extra minutes of instruction a day in foreign language and science instruction through the use of technology.

Parents from both elementary schools and some from other St. Charles neighborhoods have grouped along particular lines—some favoring the proposal, many questioning the plan or wanting more details and other who want to push for a choice in the matter.

One group, led by Scott and Bridget Meyers have worked out a charter school alternative that residents on both sides of the issue have debated and scrutinized.

Scott Meyers said on Monday that their plan responded to the choice concerns that parents had expressed at previous meetings. He acknowledged that no solution will make everyone happy but that theirs makes the most sense for the children.

“We tried to put together a plan that responded to the concerns that we heard,” Meyers said.

Superintendent Donald Schlomann, who said he has experience with starting up several charter schools, addressed the problems that likely would arise for trying to turn one school into a magnate—specifically that a charter use teachers as efficiently as the district plan would. He explained that part of the district’s proposal would be to even out class sizes.

Right now, Richmond has in under capacity while Davis is over its limit. This resulted when parents were given the option to leave the school two years ago when it failed to improve a failing Academic Yearly Progress, or AYP, score.

Schlomann also said that an optional charter still would not make both schools look more like the “face of St. Charles.” Richmond currently has a poverty level of a little more than 60 percent. The district plan would see both schools with about 20 percent of low-income students.

The low-income student category has, through the years, been a susceptible subgroup to failing AYP, both in St. Charles and across the country.