Winnetka District 36 examines lower enrollment

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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:13AM

School District 36 officials have begun to assess the enrollment decline of which they’ve been aware the past several years.

“We’re starting to do some benchmarking of staffing to student enrollment,” said District Superintendent Thomas Hagerman.

Enrollment districtwide has decreased each of the past four years, from 2,030 in the 2007-08 school year to 1,783 this school year.

“If this is due to the current economic climate, good; maybe we’ll see a rebounding,” Hagerman said. “If not, if it’s something more substantial, we’ll have to look for a long-term solution.”

By slowing home sales, the recession may have caused fewer new families with young children to move into Winnetka. Thus, the eighth-grade graduating classes have been replaced by smaller kindergarten and first-grade classes. While 215 eighth-graders are expected to graduate from Washburne School this June, the first-grade students across the district’s three elementary schools this year total only 180.

“People have had a sort of,’ let’s watch and see’ mentality,” about enrollment, Hagerman said.

District officials have monitored the number of students and the number of faculty, but the numbers “weren’t intermeshed,” previously, said Board member Beth Moritz Filip.

Hagerman and some School Board members recognize, eventually, the number of teachers and staff will have to go down in conjunction with fewer students.

“At some point we are going to have to act on this,” School Board member Tom Shannon said. “We can’t . . . just be on autopilot.”

While enrollment has dropped by about 247 children in the past four years, the number of certified teachers has decreased by less than the equivalence of four full-time teachers, according to statistics prepared by District 36’s Director of Human Resources Maureen Cheever. When special education aids, resource teachers and other associates are included, the staff actually increased over the past four years from about 292 (full-time equivalents) to 297.

Cheever said her theory is, “over the years, curriculum needs seem to intensify, as do the kids’ needs.”

Federal legislation dictates many of the services that must be provided to children in special education programs. But, “the community has a high demand (for) support and services” for all students, Cheever said.

Correlating the number of teachers to the number of students is difficult because the changes in enrollment do not occur in one grade or at just one school.

“Down 100 students doesn’t equal x number of teachers,” Cheever said. “It’s never tidy.”

But School Board member William Meuer warned, “If our (enrollment) has dropped another 100, we would find it difficult to justify the increased staffing that we presently have.”

With the district planning to expand both its foreign language instruction and Suzuki music lessons, “it is conceivable we will need to hire additional staff,” Meuer said. “It’s important in the eyes of the community that were prudent in this.”

Staffing will be discussed next month as the district prepares its budget for the next school year. The School Board also asked Cheever to prepare a more specific report about the jobs each staff member does and whether they are responsible for special education services, which are subject to regulation.

School Board President Dana Crumley expects some resistance from parents, however, if reducing the teaching staff leads to larger class sizes.

“Even if it’s feasible, even if you are going from 18 (students in a class) to 21, the people that are in the group” will object to their child being in a larger class than others, Crumley said.

“It shouldn’t stop us from making these decisions,” Crumley said. “But historically, it plays a role when we put these things on the table. . . . It’s been something that people have questioned.”