Some Downers Grove residents trying to put little Puffer-Hefty Elementary School District 69 out of business now are waging their battle on two fronts.
Last year, the parents filed a petition under a seldom-invoked state law to dissolve the school district, which has just one school and 400 children. They want to see the school folded into a larger district.
They thought it was a done deal until Puffer-Hefty’s attorney countered by fighting what he said was a legal technicality with his own technicality.
The petition was thrown out by the DuPage Regional Board of School Trustees, but the Downers Grove group vowed to come back to fight another day.
Now they have.
Dushan Budimir, one of the parents, said Puffer Elementary School does not provide adequate educational programs and extracurricular activities, such as those that would be available if children were able to attend a junior high school in adjoining Downers Grove Grade School District 58.
He has spearheaded a move to end Puffer-Hefty as a school district, which would then switch its area to another school district, perhaps District 58. Though Puffer Elementary School might remain as a school for kindergarten through 6th graders, Budimir hopes that 7th and 8th graders now at the school would be reassigned to a larger junior high in District 58.
When Budimir and nine other Puffer-Hefty District 69 residents filed their petition last year, critics contended that putting the school district out of business was Budimir’s way of trying to win a personality clash with Supt. Cynthia Boudreau. Had the petition been granted, she would have been out of a job.
But last month, Boudreau left Puffer-Hefty to become an elementary school principal in La Grange.
Budimir said the petition had nothing to do with Boudreau. Then, as now, he said, “This is about education.”
State law says that a school district with fewer than 5,000 residents will immediately be legally dissolved if more than half of registered voters signed petitions. No hearing would need to be held to determine whether the move would be in the best interests of children.
The Budimir group submitted 1,153 signatures on petitions 10 months ago. That apparently was more than half of the approximately 2,100 registered voters, though attorneys for the two camps disputed what that actual number was.
But David Leibowitz, a District 69 attorney, tried to find a way to shoot down the petition. He argued at a hearing last December that it was flawed because one of the petitioners had failed to sign it.
The law says a committee of 10 people must submit the petition and, though one of the 10 spent hours going from house to house seeking signatures, he did not sign it himself.
Therefore, the petitioners were only a committee of nine and did not meet state law requirements, Leibowitz argued. The Regional Board of School Trustees agreed and threw the petition out.
Now Budimir and others have submitted the petition again, this time with 1,170 signatures. And this time, he said, they made certain not to get caught in the same trap again.
The regional school board will consider the new petition at an Oct. 3 meeting. Meanwhile, the committee of 10 has put together a slate of four candidates for the Nov. 4 school board election. In addition to Budimir, it includes Deanne Mark, Betty Rigsby and Donald Wade. Other hopefuls are Michael Hanes, an incumbent, Jeffrey Mond and Clayton Shoup.
“We intend to fight for such vital issues as cost-effective school government as well as more enriching programs and extra-curricular opportunities for our children,” the committee of 10 slate said in a news release.
But if the four sweep all the seats, they will become a majority on the seven-member board. They likely would have the votes to ax Puffer-Hefty as a school district from the inside, even if the outside maneuver with the petition fails a second time.
The position of the current school board is that Puffer-Hefty should continue as a district, said John Mink, the school’s new superintendent.
Should the district be abolished one way or another, Mink would be out of a job. He conceded that some people told him he “was not too astute” to accept the position in the light of the continuing fight.
