Three board members of tiny Puffer-Hefty Elementary School District 69 in Downers Grove campaigned last November on a pledge to put it out of business if they won.
Although they won the election, they were stymied in their effort to keep their promise when the school board voted 4-3 Wednesday night against their proposal to start legal proceedings to dissolve Puffer-Hefty and annex to neighboring Downers Grove Grade School District 58.
“I’m not surprised,” said Dushan Budimir, a parent and leader of the dissolution movement.
The battle over Puffer-Hefty, with one kindergarten through 8th grade elementary school, 392 children and 31 teachers, has been raging for three years in a district formed decades ago to serve the then-rural area west of Downers Grove. The land long since has been developed with houses, apartments and businesses.
Board members Elizabeth Rigsby, Deanne Marek and Donald Wade said Puffer-Hefty does not provide enough educational opportunities and extracurricular programs for 7th and 8th graders because of its small size. They want the children in a larger junior high setting in neighboring District 58.
The other four on the board, Clayton Shoup, Robert Carter, Andrea Daugherty and Ramonchito Oloris, countered that Puffer-Hefty is doing fine and should be left alone.
All seven board members read prepared statements before the vote, and nobody budged from their entrenched positions.
The four opposing dissolution said Puffer-Hefty, in the last three years, has been in the best financial shape in its history.
“We have the added advantage of being able to evaluate each pupil,” Carter said in insisting that smaller is better.
“We know we have a fabulous district,” Daugherty said. “Why give up what we know is good?”
But Rigsby said annexation into the larger district “will provide a superior education for students at a lower cost to taxpayers.”
It also would bring to Downers Grove an added $1.4 million in state aid from a law providing financial incentives to school districts that merge.
Before the vote, two 7th graders appealed for dissolving Puffer-Hefty. Holly Marek, whose mother is a District 69 board member, transferred last August from Puffer-Hefty to Herrick Junior High School in Downers Grove. Holly told the board she has six teachers instead of two, makes more friends in the school of 518 7th and 8th graders, and sings in the choir and runs on the track team.
The Mareks pay $6,000 in out-of-district tuition because they believe their daughter is getting more opportunities at Herrick.
Dana Carney, a Puffer-Hefty 7th grader, said, “When we come from the little school (to a much larger high school), it makes a harder transition for us.”
Despite the vote, the fight over Puffer-Hefty continues in the courts.
Puffer-Hefty residents petitioned the DuPage County Regional School Board to dissolve District 69. The petition was dismissed on the technicality that one of 10 required proponents failed to sign the petition, and therefore it was invalid.
Residents came back with a second petition. That also was thrown out by the board, citing a law that the petition cannot be filed again within two years.
But parents challenged that in a DuPage County Circuit Court suit, and Judge Bonnie Wheaton ruled that a hearing must be held on the petition. District 69 and the regional school board can appeal to an Illinois Appellate Court. Or the regional board can schedule the hearing.
In their petition, residents cited a state law that provides that a school district with less than 5,000 population is automatically dissolved–no reason need be given–if at least half the registered voters want it. Parents say 1,100 of 1,900 registered voters have signed.
If Puffer-Hefty is terminated, its one school probably would be converted into a kindergarten through 6th grade building.
