Decision to Open Murphy Junior High Delayed

The Superintendent’s Boundary Committee held its first meeting this week and already may be behind schedule.

Associate Superintendent Todd Colvin told the committee that a decision on whether to open Murphy Junior High, which had originally been planned for the School Board’s Dec. 12 meeting, has been put off until at least the first meeting in January.  The board asked administrators at its Nov. 21 meeting to present other options to ease junior high overcrowding, especially at Bednarcik Junior High.

Whether the Plainfield school is open next year or not will play a large role in determining the district’s school boundaries.

“The board has asked administration to come up with some other solutions,” Colvin told the committee’s 50 or so members Tuesday night. “The solutions are very ugly and ones we don’t think the community will react well to. But at certain times there are some who are more concerned with numbers and finance than they are about student achievement or social and emotional growth. I’m trying to be very politically correct here. ... If (Murphy doesn't open) we need to find a way to bring down (Bednarcik’s) enrollment down one way or another.”

Board President Bill Walsh said Wednesday the vote on opening Murphy was delayed because board members need to be certain they are making the right choice, given how much it will cost to open the school.

Early projections show opening Murphy next year will cost the district about $850,000 alone in operating expenses.

“It’s frustrating (that the vote) has been delayed, and I appreciate that,” Walsh said. “We’d love to make a decision and move on, but we’ve got to make sure we have all the data and make the best educated decision we can.”

Walsh said the board has also been hit recently for requests for more expenditures for additional special education teachers. It also discovered this week that aligning the district’s curriculum to the common core standards set out by the state could cost up to $5 million over the next few years.

One of the only solutions to ease overcrowding at Bednarcik, which could be about 300 students over its capacity next year, would be to move some of those students to Thompson Junior High, which has room for about 200 more students.

Colvin said the Boundary Committee must push on with its work because district registration begins in February. Committee members said perhaps it would be best to draw up two boundary scenarios—one with Murphy open and one without it.

The Boundary Committee meetings will continue Tuesday, Dec. 13, and will to be open to the public after Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis reaffirmed .

The committee will hear from Rob Schwarz of RSP and Associates in early January regarding district enrollment projects completed by his firm.