The Winnetka Public Schools District 36 is comprised of five schools. Three elementary buildings house grades kindergarten through 4th grade: Crow Island, Greeley, and Hubbard Woods. The Skokie School is a lower Middle School housing grades 5 and 6. Carleton Washburne is an upper Middle School housing grades 7 and 8.

The District is addressing an imbalance in the elementary school attendance patterns at the three K-4 schools, forecasting enrollment trends, and identifying anticipated future space needs for all schools in the District.

In June 2016, temporary classrooms were installed at Crow Island School, the District’s largest elementary school at ~385 students, to provide immediate space relief. This is in addition to actions taken in 2015 to modify space at Crow Island School and to transfer two District programs to other sites.

While the District annually monitors enrollment trends and data (and has been monitoring this particular trend for the past five years), the need for more sophisticated long-term forecasting became apparent as the District considered the implementation of an extended-day kindergarten program. Even without the implementation of an extended kindergarten day, there is an imbalance in the enrollments at the elementary level that requires resolution.

In June 2016, the District began working with demographers and geographers from McKibben Demographic Research, LLC, and Cropper GIS to develop enrollment forecasts by school, by grade. An initial demographic and capacity report was presented at the August 16, 2016, School Board meeting. Updates were shared at Board Meetings. A Board Advisory Committee, comprised of a variety of stakeholders, was engaged in a series of meetings to determine a recommendation for the Board on the best course of action to correct the imbalanced enrollment. At the January 24, 2017, Board Meeting the Board voted to approve the Advisory Committee recomendation that all Crow Island Kindergarten students attend another District school. 

This dedicated web page includes an archive of all reports, presentations, meeting agendas, and minutes regarding this project. 

Community members were invited to participate in a survey to determine Guiding Principles regarding this project. The Guiding Principles were used to assist in the evaluation of enrollment options, as well as evaluate the options prior to presenting a recommendation to the Board. A Board appointed Advisory Committee was charged with the responsibility to develop a final recommendation for Board consideration prior to action being taken. Once options were evaluated by the Advisory Committee, community engagement sessions were offered. Every Board Meeting included the opportunity for public comment. The EBP webpage also provided a link for community members to comment upon the project.

Community and staff members were invited to apply for a position on the committee in early September. The Committee was comprised of a cross-section of community members who currently have children in District 36 schools, taxpayers without children in the schools, staff members, and administration.

A review of solutions adopted by other school districts that have addressed similar situations includes

• waiting for enrollment to self-correct
• reconfiguring grades housed at school buildings
• amending school boundaries to shift enrollment
• school construction to expand space at one or more schools

The District will explore a variety of options and may adopt one or a combination of solutions to most effectively house students and programs.

In an effort to be as thorough as possible, the Committee analyized a range of models that school districts typically consider during an enrollment balancing process. Each model was objectively presented to the Committee by our demographic consultant. Initial models presented a range of options that included shifting attendance boundaries, decreasing the number of schools, reconfiguring grade levels at schools, adding additional space at a school, and remaining status quo. 

Neither concept received meaningful consideration as adopting either model would provide an undesirable resolution to the imbalance in enrollment. 

Guiding Principles were determined based on staff and community input via a survey administered in September 2016. The Guiding Principles were adopted by the School Board at the October 18, 2016, meeting. The Board Advisory Committee was charged with using these Guiding Principles as a filter for decision-making.

Prior to agreeing upon a final recommendation, the community was invited to respond to Committee-recommended models at input sessions that were held in December and early January 2017. These input sessions allowed for participants to learn about the models, ask questions, and provide feedback to the committee members before a recommendation was made to the School Board.

The School Board voted on the committee's recommendation (All Crow Island Kindergarten students attend another district school) on January 24, 2017. 

Phase II of long-term planning will begin in spring/summer 2017 and involve additional participation and input from our community.

The community was able to:

Email feedback to the Advisory Committee.

Participate in December and January input sessions.

Make use of public comment sessions that were included on the agendas for both the Advisory Committee meetings and the regular School Board meetings.