The Hinsdale High School District 86 Board will consider adjusting school attendance areas, after a telephone poll showed community support for the idea.
The board also will focus on security and safety upgrades, accessibility improvements and offering more science and technology courses at Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South as it crafts a bond referendum, based on the results of the phone poll done in May.
That poll showed only about 30 percent of people thought replacing the Central and South pools to bring them up to safety codes for swimming, diving and other water sports was very or extremely important.
Public Opinion Strategies conducted the phone poll to gauge community support for a referendum to fund $185 million in school improvements, recommended by a community task force. The firm’s researchers called randomly selected registered voters until they completed surveys with 300 people who represented the proportional mix of demographics.
Thirty-eight percent of the people polled said they definitely would not support a $185 million referendum, and another 13 percent said they probably would not support it, totaling 51 percent against. In comparison, 23 percent said they definitely would vote yes, and another 21 percent said they probably would vote yes, a combined 44 percent in favor. About 6 percent were undecided.
Jim Hobart, a partner in Public Opinion Strategies and the principal researcher for the poll, said people who are undecided before a referendum almost always end up voting against it.
The phone poll results were more lopsided when analyzed by age groups. Only 35 percent of men and women age 55 or older said they would support a $185 million referendum, compared with 55 percent of men in the 18 to 54 age group and 60 percent of women age 18 to 54.
Older people are much more likely to go to the polls in an off-year election, such as November 2018, Hobart said.
But even among parents of children 18 and younger, the support was lukewarm, with 50 percent saying they were in favor of the referendum, Hobart said.
Respondents were told that Hinsdale Central is overcrowded and South has extra classrooms. They were then asked if they thought the district should build additional classrooms at Central or change school attendance boundaries, so all students would attend the school closer to where they live. Seventy-five percent said they favored changing school boundaries.
When the results were broken down by whether the response was from a parent or someone without children, a majority still supported boundary changes. Seventy percent of respondents with children in middle school or high school favored changing school boundaries over adding more classrooms to Hinsdale Central.
Board President Bill Carpenter said settling the boundary controversy could generate support for a referendum to fund school improvements. A $76 million referendum failed in April 2017.
But people, such as Andrew Sikula, who was among about 75 people attending a special board meeting Tuesday, think the question about boundary changes was poorly worded.
Had the question asked residents if they are willing to be moved to a different school in order to balance enrollment between Central and South, the results might have been different, Sikula said.
In the fall, community meetings were held to discuss ways to relieve overcrowding at Central and increase enrollment at South. After many residents passionately argued that they did not want to attend a different school, the board took changing school boundaries off the table.
At an April board meeting discussion again arose about an area known as the buffer zone, where residents have a choice of attending either high school. It is bounded by 63rd Street on the north, Cass Avenue on the west, Garfield Street on the east, and Plainfield Road and 67th Street on the south.
The board appeared poised to incorporate the buffer zone officially into Hinsdale Central’s boundaries.
Then, when preparing the questions for the phone poll, a board member suggested the district also get resident input on the possibility of changing school attendance areas.
Instead of asking about the buffer zone, however, the phone poll asked voters if they supported changing school boundaries.
“The board’s decision to slip this change into the phone poll at the last minute is very concerning,” said Sikula, who lives in the unincorporated Golfview Hills neighborhood on Madison Street. If the board is considering changing boundaries, it should first assign the buffer zone to Hinsdale South, Sikula said.
Carpenter said, however, assigning schools based on the proximity of the students’ homes is just common sense.
Board member Kathleen Hirsman said it’s important the community understand that it’s not either one or the other, when considering a referendum and changing school boundaries.
If students are assigned based on their proximity to a school, Central still would have more students than South and more than its ideal enrollment, because Central is closer to the geographic center of the district.
Superintendent Bruce Law planned to designate the line on a map which separates which areas are closer to Central and which are closer to South, and also report the number of students who do not attend the school closest to where they live.
Board member Jennifer Planson pointed out the schools’ fields and facilities need changes to comply with the American with Disabilities Act. A state-mandated life and safety audit identified repairs and renovations that are required. The library/learning center at Hinsdale South needs a renovation.
“These projects still need to move forward,” Planson said.
The board agreed to review the cost of specific projects, which at least 40 percent of people in the phone survey said were very important.
They include improving security features at both schools, improving accessibility for students, teachers, relatives and other community members attending school events, enlarging the area for special education and student services, and renovating both schools’ cafeteria and kitchen to improve sanitation and safety.
District officials had calculated that if the referendum to issue $185 million in bonds passed, the owner of a home with a market value of about $500,000 would pay an estimated additional $419 in property taxes per year for 20 years. Sixty percent of people polled said that was too expensive.
