A Woodland School District 50 committee is expected to recommend that the district adopt a year-round attendance schedule and build a new school, both within the next three years.
The Growth Options Committee, assigned to examine enrollment growth in the future, is scheduled to deliver its report to the school board July 27.
A recently completed draft of the document suggests that the district consider year-round schooling, which would give students only one month off-July-instead of the usual summer vacation, said committee member Suzanne Gage.
Gage, who is also a District 50 school board member, said the committee’s research found that a schedule of shorter, more frequent breaks for students on a year-round basis allows children to retain more of what they learned before vacation.
Board President Margaret Breitzman cautioned that the report has not been seen by the School Board, so no decision on whether to implement its recommendations will be made for a while.
She said the issue of year-round schooling came before the board in the recent past, but was not recommended as an option for dealing with growth.
At this time, only three Illinois public schools have year-round classes, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. One school is in Rock Island, and two are in Chicago.
Other school district boards have discussed year-round schedules as an option, including Wauconda where school officials mentioned it as an alternative if a tax-rate increase referendum failed. That discussion ended when voters passed the referendum last November.
Breitzman said the District 50 board would make no decision on the committee recommendations until residents have had ample opportunity to comment. Without support from a majority of residents, she said, it’s unlikely the option would fly.
