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Editorials
Schools' enrollment challenge looming : Editorials : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisSchools' enrollment challenge looming
| 12/17/2009
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Considering the Oswego School District's need for a third high school, we're reminded of the 1995 movie "Apollo 13." In the film, three astronauts are hurtling back toward Earth in their damaged space capsule without a clear-cut plan for re-entry. As the movie progresses, the astronauts periodically look out the window of their space capsule and see the Earth growing ever larger. At one point, actor Tom Hanks, portraying Commander Jim Lovell, urges the folks back at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to get a re-entry plan to him and his crew as soon as possible. In a sense, school district officials are in a similar situation with the district's growing high school enrollment. Like that image of Earth looming in the astronauts window, school district officials are facing a surge in high school enrollment in another three to four years as students now in the district's lower grades reach high school age and still more students move into the district.
No one is disputing that the district will need significantly expanded facilities to accommodate its high school students by the start of the 2013-14 school year.
Some school district residents may question why, amidst the current recession, district administrators are pushing forward with their call for a third high school. The fact is, if the district is going to build that new high school, time is of the essence. It will take a couple of years to build a new high school. The site of the high school needs to be determined, funding sources secured and building plans prepared and finalized.
The district also needs to continue to involve the public-the people who will pay for it all-in the entire process.
For the board and district administrators, it will be a daunting challenge.
As we reported last week, a board advisory committee reached a consensus to utilize the now vacant Murphy Junior High School in the Plainfield portion of the district as a satellite facility for high school students on an interim basis until a third high school can be built. We like the idea of utilizing the junior high for this purpose. But it should only be a temporary use until a third high school can be built.
We are also pleased the district is looking for a different site than the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere parcel it previously purchased off Ill. Route 126 south of Oswego. For a host of reasons, from safety to financial, high school students in the district's southern region would be better served by a school further east, towards or actually within incorporated Plainfield or even Joliet.
In voting to approve the $450 million referendum in November 2006 that granted the district's bonding authority to construct new schools, district officials pledged to hold the line on its tax rate at $5.06 for every $100 of equalized assessed valuation. The district has lived up to that promise so far, but officials acknowledged last week that a tax rate hike will be needed to finance the operational cost of a third high school. But convincing the district's voters to approve a referendum to provide those operational revenues may prove the most difficult challenge ahead.
In the film and in real life, the Apollo 13 had a happy ending with the astronauts getting their re-entry plan in place and returning safely to earth. Here's hoping the school district's quest to expand its facilities to accommodate its high school students has a similar favorable outcome.
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