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Could Closing a School be in LW's Future?

If it happens, here we go again. More tax payer money wasted. New schools built and within 10 years one closes. There is NO way these people would be so short-sighted with their own money. This is outrageous.
 
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If it happens, here we go again. More tax payer money wasted. New schools built and within 10 years one closes. There is NO way these people would be so short-sighted with their own money. This is outrageous.

They have the plans and space for six high schools. They didn't plan for the Crash of 07-08
 
If it happens, here we go again. More tax payer money wasted. New schools built and within 10 years one closes. There is NO way these people would be so short-sighted with their own money. This is outrageous.
How are the administrators supposed to know the economy was going to crash? Very easy to sit back and throw stones, not so easy to actually pull the trigger and make key decisions.
 
How are the administrators supposed to know the economy was going to crash? Very easy to sit back and throw stones, not so easy to actually pull the trigger and make key decisions.
Economy? Bullsh*t. That's the excuse you guys always use when this happens. It was silly to think growth was going to continue at the rate it was in the 1990s and early 2000s. There was one class coming up that was higher than the rest and then it was levelling off way before 2007-08.

And for your information I said this was a bad idea at the time. Don't make assumptions when you don't know facts.

If these "administrators" had to make decisions with their own money they would have been more cautious. It's easy to spend other peoples' money and then say "Oops" later. These people have no clue when it comes to the real world.
 
They have the plans and space for six high schools. They didn't plan for the Crash of 07-08
Who is talking about plans and space? I am talking about wasting money and that is what these people are very good at.
 
According to the IHSA web site there are 7094 kids attending high school in the 210 district. 1,285 at West, 1889 at Central, 2154 at East and 1766 at North. They have four buildings. If they had three it would come out to roughly 2364 students per building. That is very reasonable. There could be a pinch if you reached 2800+ but there were never anywhere near 11,200 kids in that district. To assume it would reach that level or near it was silly. There were warnings about a possible housing collapse as early as 2003 and those were heightened in 2005. If the "administrators" were paying attention to that maybe they could have made a more educated calculation and gone slower. But no. It was one of those, "we better get it now while we can" things. They knew the economy was changing and they pressed ahead anyway.
 
According to the IHSA web site there are 7094 kids attending high school in the 210 district. 1,285 at West, 1889 at Central, 2154 at East and 1766 at North. They have four buildings. If they had three it would come out to roughly 2364 students per building. That is very reasonable. There could be a pinch if you reached 2800+ but there were never anywhere near 11,200 kids in that district. To assume it would reach that level or near it was silly. There were warnings about a possible housing collapse as early as 2003 and those were heightened in 2005. If the "administrators" were paying attention to that maybe they could have made a more educated calculation and gone slower. But no. It was one of those, "we better get it now while we can" things. They knew the economy was changing and they pressed ahead anyway.

If the plan is to have 3 New and fairly new high schools, you have to say job well done. It is much easier to get a new high school than it is to renovate an older one. This could have been the end game from the beginning.
 
The article opens with years of deficit spending and then they whine about closing a school. Ive seen this crap many times and it always works When a public school is in debt they ALWAYS go right to the newspapers and cry like babies and promise cuts ot indoor sports and music and art classes.

the kids cry and the vote turns up in the nearest election.
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When Warren had one campus, it burned down, and the kids bused down to LF's west campus in 2 shifts. Then they grew and built a second campus for juniors and seniors. Currently their enrollment is around 4,500.
Waukegan, of course does things differently. (From IL HS Glory Days): in 1974 WWHS building was for all Freshman and Sophomores. 1975 it was for all Frosh/Soph, and the Juniors for that district. In 1976 the two schools split to 4 years each in their respective districts. This was the first year there were 2 high schools. The homecoming football game for each school was played against one another in 1976 with East winning 20-0."

Waukegan High School was renamed Waukegan East High School. The second high school was aptly named Waukegan West High School. Waukegan West High School served the families of Waukegan for 15 years. It was further decided in 1990 that Waukegan would revert to the one high school system. This decision effectively closed Waukegan West High School.

Today, the Waukegan West High School building is home to 10th, 11th, and 12th graders of the Waukegan school district, while ninth graders attend classes in the Waukegan East building.

Lake Forest built their West Campus and used it from '71 to '83 to house the frosh/soph. Then renovated their pool only to realize it was a bit short, so they then added two Olympic-sized pools, then after moving everyone back east, renovated the west campus. The annual Taxpayers Money Bonfire is a big hit up there.

New Trier opened "West" to frosh/soph in '65, and the two became New Trier East and West in '67. Rahm Emanuel graduated from West in '77. This led to everyone demanding to attend East. Parents, fearful that their progeny would become a-hole ballerinas, lost interest in their romantic lives which led to further population decreases and the two became one again, with freshman attending West for a few years.

Niles East finished their absolutely forgettable run in '80.

After a $15M bond issue and plans to house 3,500 students, Maine North opened in '70. Ten years later, after officials realized they'd made serious calculation errors in enrollment forecasts, the school was closed.
 
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If the plan is to have 3 New and fairly new high schools, you have to say job well done. It is much easier to get a new high school than it is to renovate an older one. This could have been the end game from the beginning.
Are you serious with this post or are you kidding? I hope you're kidding. Job well done? Really? If the idea was to build two new schools bringing the total to four with the idea of ending up with three, that's more sinister than what they did knowing how the economy was shifting.

Do you know that area very well? In a search I did I looked at some of the neighboring schools. Let's look at your "theory." LWC is the oldest building in that district. Is the LWC building older than Providence? Is it older than Lockport East or Central. Certainly not older than Central. Is it older than Joliet West or Central? Nope. Is it older than JCA? All of the buildings I named are in operation and all of them are older than LWC. Some are much older. Wasn't a big renovation project done at LWC in the not so distant past?

Much easier to get a new school than to renovate the other? Certainly not easier on the tax payers pocket books.

Face it, the voters were duped by that old BS line of "support your community and vote for 'education'...OR ELSE!" What a crock. This was very poor planning and I remember a lot of people out there bragging about the new school bulidings that were built. Well, how does that idea look now? You as taxpayers just ate one.
 
Are you serious with this post or are you kidding? I hope you're kidding. Job well done? Really? If the idea was to build two new schools bringing the total to four with the idea of ending up with three, that's more sinister than what they did knowing how the economy was shifting.

Do you know that area very well? In a search I did I looked at some of the neighboring schools. Let's look at your "theory." LWC is the oldest building in that district. Is the LWC building older than Providence? Is it older than Lockport East or Central. Certainly not older than Central. Is it older than Joliet West or Central? Nope. Is it older than JCA? All of the buildings I named are in operation and all of them are older than LWC. Some are much older. Wasn't a big renovation project done at LWC in the not so distant past?

Much easier to get a new school than to renovate the other? Certainly not easier on the tax payers pocket books.

Face it, the voters were duped by that old BS line of "support your community and vote for 'education'...OR ELSE!" What a crock. This was very poor planning and I remember a lot of people out there bragging about the new school bulidings that were built. Well, how does that idea look now? You as taxpayers just ate one.


Yes I was very serious and I will explain why. 1. All the schools you named would love to have a new school if they find a way. Unfortunately for those schools mentioned, there isn't a growth factor they can use to get people to pony up. If they could, they would. 2. You mentioned me knowing the area, yes I know the area in terms of geography but I do not know what each home owner pay in taxes. I am guessing regardless of the new schools that tax dollars are pretty close between the "Lincoln Ways" versus the other schools you named.
My overall point is you keep saying poor planning and I think the plan all along may have been to get two new schools. If that indeed was the plan, whether it's trickery or not, the plan was executed. I am willing to bet they could have stopped at the first school and waited up to five year for the next one just to see if the projected growth would pan out. Jumping the gun and building two so quickly lead me to believe that the district will now have LWE as the oldest school building understanding the difficulty in getting new schools built in state of Illinois. If there is an opportunity, you have to take it or you may never get one built.
 
Economy? Bullsh*t. That's the excuse you guys always use when this happens. It was silly to think growth was going to continue at the rate it was in the 1990s and early 2000s. There was one class coming up that was higher than the rest and then it was levelling off way before 2007-08.

And for your information I said this was a bad idea at the time. Don't make assumptions when you don't know facts.

If these "administrators" had to make decisions with their own money they would have been more cautious. It's easy to spend other peoples' money and then say "Oops" later. These people have no clue when it comes to the real world.
You should run for the school board so you can implement all of your ideas.
 
Yes I was very serious and I will explain why. 1. All the schools you named would love to have a new school if they find a way. Unfortunately for those schools mentioned, there isn't a growth factor they can use to get people to pony up. If they could, they would. 2. You mentioned me knowing the area, yes I know the area in terms of geography but I do not know what each home owner pay in taxes. I am guessing regardless of the new schools that tax dollars are pretty close between the "Lincoln Ways" versus the other schools you named.
My overall point is you keep saying poor planning and I think the plan all along may have been to get two new schools. If that indeed was the plan, whether it's trickery or not, the plan was executed. I am willing to bet they could have stopped at the first school and waited up to five year for the next one just to see if the projected growth would pan out. Jumping the gun and building two so quickly lead me to believe that the district will now have LWE as the oldest school building understanding the difficulty in getting new schools built in state of Illinois. If there is an opportunity, you have to take it or you may never get one built.
So, trickery or not, it's OK to lie to voters and go ahead with something that may very well not pan out with the economic situation changing as it was and KNOWING it was changing? Sure it is for these people because they won't be held accountable. Suppose a corporation spent money foolishly. What would happen? That foolishness would come right back to negatively affect the company. Suppose people in the corporation purposely lied to stockholders and those supporting the corp. as to the financial situation of the corporation and future. Suppose they purposely misused and mishandled other peoples' money they were trusted with? What would happen? Those people would be looking at prison time.

I am not against building new school buildings when they're needed. But over planning and over building is indeed a flawed plan.

The wasteful spending and how they went about it is what's wrong. Suppose they would have been honest and said. "With your help (voters) we would like to construct two new buildings in the district to meet the need we see from a possibility of growth within the township. That will bring the total to four buildings. However, if we are wrong in our calculation or the housing market continues on a downturn, we may have to close one of the four buildings in the near future." How many voters who voted for that referendum would have done so knowing this ahead of time or the possibility? Then these "administrators" wonder why they aren't trusted. Good luck getting another referendum passed in the future. Voters, if they are paying attention, don't forget this kind of stuff.

I just don't like the wasteful spending and the blatent dishonesty. If that makes me wrong then so be it.
 
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By 2025 a highschool in district 204 will close as well. Not enough kids or tax dollars to support three highschools of their size
 
I am saying something here for two reasons. Before I do I have no dog in this hunt. I am from Lockport.

Lockport was mentioned here so that is the first reason. We had a referendum on the ballot to build a new building in Homer Glen. It failed six times. The last time was around four years ago. There was one main reason that referendum failed. Trust, or lack of.

The numbers we were presented with were supportive of something being done. I had been there during school and those halls were very crowded. My idea was to build onto the existing building at the East campus. There is plenty of room to the south and my understanding is that the current building is constructed so it can be built upward as well. Obviously that idea was far less expensive than constructing a new building.

But, I was also in support of that for geographical reasons. You have the towns of Homer Glen and Crest Hill on both ends of the township and Lockport is in the middle. That seemed most sensible to me since a building was there already.

I went to a few school board meetings about it. When the tax plan was presented and we saw what the costs would be I didn't think it was nearly as bad as I had thought it might be. But I still wanted to see an addition. So, why didn't it pass? That's the second part of my thoughts.

The voters simply didn't trust the school board and administrators to do what they said they would do. I know this because I asked several voters why they weren't voting for it and that was the overwhelming response I got. That lack of trust came from what the school board did to the voters more than four decades earlier when Lockport West was built and then broke off to become Romeoville. The money was returned to the school district but instead of giving it back to the voters they kept it. The voters I talked to feared this happening again.

The plans had changed a few times after it failed time and again and the price tag was lowered but it didn't matter. Then the school board President questioned the intelligence of the voters in an article in the local paper after it had failed a third time. Not very smart at all. I think that was the final nail although they got a little closer to passage.

I am not on either side with this topic and don't agree with everything said here. But one thing the Doctor is right about is, if one of those schools closes in Lincoln Way, it is going to damage the trust the district had with the voters. It doesn't matter what the reason is, or if the district negotiated in good faith or not. I understand why they negotiated the way they did. Ask for more and then go to where you really want to be. People will still see this as a failure no matter what they are told. If another referendum comes up in the future you can bet this episode will be brought up again. It will be very hard to get anything passed.

These buildings were built on trust. Not just money. If that trust is lost it could be decades before it is gained again. I have lived that here in Lockport.
 
I am saying something here for two reasons. Before I do I have no dog in this hunt. I am from Lockport.

Lockport was mentioned here so that is the first reason. We had a referendum on the ballot to build a new building in Homer Glen. It failed six times. The last time was around four years ago. There was one main reason that referendum failed. Trust, or lack of.

The numbers we were presented with were supportive of something being done. I had been there during school and those halls were very crowded. My idea was to build onto the existing building at the East campus. There is plenty of room to the south and my understanding is that the current building is constructed so it can be built upward as well. Obviously that idea was far less expensive than constructing a new building.

But, I was also in support of that for geographical reasons. You have the towns of Homer Glen and Crest Hill on both ends of the township and Lockport is in the middle. That seemed most sensible to me since a building was there already.

I went to a few school board meetings about it. When the tax plan was presented and we saw what the costs would be I didn't think it was nearly as bad as I had thought it might be. But I still wanted to see an addition. So, why didn't it pass? That's the second part of my thoughts.

The voters simply didn't trust the school board and administrators to do what they said they would do. I know this because I asked several voters why they weren't voting for it and that was the overwhelming response I got. That lack of trust came from what the school board did to the voters more than four decades earlier when Lockport West was built and then broke off to become Romeoville. The money was returned to the school district but instead of giving it back to the voters they kept it. The voters I talked to feared this happening again.

The plans had changed a few times after it failed time and again and the price tag was lowered but it didn't matter. Then the school board President questioned the intelligence of the voters in an article in the local paper after it had failed a third time. Not very smart at all. I think that was the final nail although they got a little closer to passage.

I am not on either side with this topic and don't agree with everything said here. But one thing the Doctor is right about is, if one of those schools closes in Lincoln Way, it is going to damage the trust the district had with the voters. It doesn't matter what the reason is, or if the district negotiated in good faith or not. I understand why they negotiated the way they did. Ask for more and then go to where you really want to be. People will still see this as a failure no matter what they are told. If another referendum comes up in the future you can bet this episode will be brought up again. It will be very hard to get anything passed.

These buildings were built on trust. Not just money. If that trust is lost it could be decades before it is gained again. I have lived that here in Lockport.


I for one don't disagree with you are Mirakle on the possible damage. However I do disagree with you on it being negative based on some of the things you have listed. In you scenario you mentioned the inability to get something passed based on two very strong reasons. No matter the reason the outcome was consistently no. This may last decades as mentioned but, the question is how many decades. In 40 years, those schools will be 40 years old and the individuals voting now will not be the people voting then. That will be the perfect time to start something new.
 
What school?
Metea (2638) Waubonsie (2559) Neuqua (3834) (tot: 9031) have
7577 in the pipeline now source for classes '24--'27.

Of course the whole damn state is bankrupt and no one's getting what they were promised, so what's one more log on the fire?
 
Waubonsie is now 33 years old and a prime location for commercial building. In district 204 HS is approx 13.6 to 14 million to run. Metea will never approach the numbers the public was told. 73% of populous of students in district 204 live south of 75th street. Metea could not be farther if they tried again. 142 million dollars sold to the public on bad numbers and an original location of route 59 and 75th street intersection.

Waubonsie is a 7a size school and dropping. Metea is not far behind. Neuqua is down 300 kids from not long ago.

Sorry for typos from cell phone
 
When Warren had one campus, it burned down, and the kids bused down to LF's west campus in 2 shifts. Then they grew and built a second campus for juniors and seniors. Currently their enrollment is around 4,500.
Waukegan, of course does things differently. (From IL HS Glory Days): in 1974 WWHS building was for all Freshman and Sophomores. 1975 it was for all Frosh/Soph, and the Juniors for that district. In 1976 the two schools split to 4 years each in their respective districts. This was the first year there were 2 high schools. The homecoming football game for each school was played against one another in 1976 with East winning 20-0."

Waukegan High School was renamed Waukegan East High School. The second high school was aptly named Waukegan West High School. Waukegan West High School served the families of Waukegan for 15 years. It was further decided in 1990 that Waukegan would revert to the one high school system. This decision effectively closed Waukegan West High School.

Today, the Waukegan West High School building is home to 10th, 11th, and 12th graders of the Waukegan school district, while ninth graders attend classes in the Waukegan East building.

Lake Forest built their West Campus and used it from '71 to '83 to house the frosh/soph. Then renovated their pool only to realize it was a bit short, so they then added two Olympic-sized pools, then after moving everyone back east, renovated the west campus. The annual Taxpayers Money Bonfire is a big hit up there.

New Trier opened "West" to frosh/soph in '65, and the two became New Trier East and West in '67. Rahm Emanuel graduated from West in '77. This led to everyone demanding to attend East. Parents, fearful that their progeny would become a-hole ballerinas, lost interest in their romantic lives which led to further population decreases and the two became one again, with freshman attending West for a few years.

Niles East finished their absolutely forgettable run in '80.

After a $15M bond issue and plans to house 3,500 students, Maine North opened in '70. Ten years later, after officials realized they'd made serious calculation errors in enrollment forecasts, the school was closed.

Not only did the school burn down but they burned a big 'W' into the LF football field...this led to the infamous "You burned your school, you burned our grass, now we're gonna kick your ass" chant.
 
Metea (2638) Waubonsie (2559) Neuqua (3834) (tot: 9031) have
7577 in the pipeline now source for classes '24--'27.

Of course the whole damn state is bankrupt and no one's getting what they were promised, so what's one more log on the fire?

Interesting I didn't know that, you do bring up a good point. I would think that D204 would try to keep dropping down the enrollments for all three schools combined (especially Neuqua) and try to keep all three schools going. Could Metea house 3500-4000 students if they did close WVHS?

A school at 59 and 75th would be much more conveniently located than where Metea currently is.
 
If it happens, here we go again. More tax payer money wasted. New schools built and within 10 years one closes. There is NO way these people would be so short-sighted with their own money. This is outrageous.
I agree... the economy is a BS excuse. My house is worth less than it was nine (9) years ago, and my property taxes have almost doubled during that span. Most of those taxes go to the school district. They still are getting their money from the homeowners so I don't understand the $ crisis. Sounds like they built too many schools too quickly, and that is Dr. Mirakle's point. Teacher pension liability issues?
 
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I agree... the economy is a BS excuse. My house is worth less than it was nine (9) years ago, and my property taxes have almost doubled during that span. Most of those taxes go to the school district. They still are getting their money from the homeowners so I don't understand the $ crisis. Sounds like they built too many schools too quickly, and that is Dr. Mirakle's point. Teacher pension liability issues?

Pension issues for schools, city, library, fire, police, I think would all cause your taxes to go up. Municipalities will increase property taxes to make up for increased costs and pensions. Also need to factor in that all forms of local government and the schools I believe have seen less money come from the state as well due to the state's issues.
 
I agree... the economy is a BS excuse. My house is worth less than it was nine (9) years ago, and my property taxes have almost doubled during that span. Most of those taxes go to the school district. They still are getting their money from the homeowners so I don't understand the $ crisis. Sounds like they built too many schools too quickly, and that is Dr. Mirakle's point. Teacher pension liability issues?

What school in Naperville was built in the last 9 year?
 
Metea was opened in '09. While it is in Aurora, it serves Naperville.
20.-Metea-Valley-High-School-G%C3%87%C3%B4-Illinois-USA.jpg

But taxpayers will be comforted knowing that it is one of the "The 30 Most Amazing High School Campuses In The World."
 
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