Many parents in the Patterson Elementary School attendance area were furious two years ago when the Indian Prairie Board of Education decided to bus kindergartners to Builta Elementary School. At the time, Patterson had 985 pupils in a school with a capacity of 850.
Now administrators are considering returning five sections of kindergarten to Patterson since enrollment is projected to stabilize.
The District 204 school board on Monday debated whether the school could accommodate the return of 125 kindergartners in fall 2003 and still have enough room for art and music instruction.
“There’s not a lot of growth in the Patterson neighborhood right now,” said Assistant Supt. Donna Crawford. There would be some cost savings in eliminating the kindergarten buses, she added.
Patterson’s enrollment is currently at 817, but a large class of about 200 5th-grade pupils will enter middle school next year. Adding a sixth grade level this fall, the 125 kindergarten pupils, to the five grade levels already enrolled at the school would put the school’s enrollment at about 884, Crawford estimated. She expects to need 34 classrooms with about 24 pupils per class, which would allow an extra room to be used for primary art and music.
Board members decided that they want to get more definite projections before committing to returning the kindergarten pupils next fall.
“We made a promise that we’d bring the kids back to their home school as soon as feasible, but we don’t want to revert back to Builta again,” said Kathleen Baldwin, the board’s president.
A Patterson parent whose child attends Builta for kindergarten said that the busing plan is working fine. “The board had decided on this action for three to five years,” said Toni Layoun, who lives in the Ashbury subdivision. “With these kindergarten students coming back, the school will again be jammed.”
