A school board-appointed committee studying the prospect of Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 switching to year-round school is seeking the public’s opinion in the matter.
The 22-member panel has spent the last year looking at the pros and cons of adopting a year-round schedule in response to explosive population growth in the district. It has scheduled town hall meetings from 2 to 4 p.m. March 6 in the Plainfield Central High School auditorium; 7 to 9 p.m. March 9 in the Lakewood Falls Elementary School gym in Romeoville; and 7 to 9 p.m. March 11 in the Plainfield South High School auditorium in Joliet.
The panel could issue a final report to the school board in May or June, said board president and committee member Ronald Kazmar, but will not make any recommendations. “The process that we’ve used has been very comprehensive and very deliberative,” he said.
The board will have to decide if it wants to pursue or abandon the year-round option. If it moves forward, administrators would have to study how to implement the change, Kazmar said.
Administrators would need at least six months to study the issue before Supt. John Harper could make a recommendation, he added.
Other ways to address growth could include adopting an overlap schedule or using split shifts, officials noted.
Kazmar said some residents have expressed “vehement” opposition to a year-round schedule. District officials must carefully consider the issue because such a switch “would be a real sea change.”
The burgeoning 64-square-mile district, which includes Plainfield and parts of Joliet, educated 4,431 students in six buildings in 1993. This year 19,500 children attend classes in 19 buildings, 2,200 of them new last fall, district spokeswoman Carla Erdey said.
From 1995 to 2000, voters approved three tax hike measures, which provided $182 million to build 12 schools. Two years ago voters passed a $159 million bond issue to build seven schools through 2007, including a third high school. The first of those buildings, an elementary school, opened last fall. The district is to open a middle school this fall and two elementary schools in 2005. In 2006, the district plans to open an elementary school.
The district received $60 million in state construction grants to offset the cost of the 2002 building program, Erdey said.
