A parent who fought to keep Unit 5 from closing Carlock Elementary School said the district's recommendation to keep it open feels like victory.
“To be able to tell my children tonight that we did it, we were heard, they listened, might be the most important lesson I ever teach my kids, and that's a pretty powerful thing to be a part of, so, incredibly grateful, incredibly thankful," said Jillian Nelson with the Keep Carlock Open advocacy group.
But the proposal that Unit 5 Superintendent Kristen Weikle presented during a virtual meeting on Thursday does not provide the long-term security Carlock parents were hoping for when it comes to enrollment.
Carlock was initially proposed to close due to its enrollment that hovers around 100 students. The consulting firm Cropper GIS characterized that as “unsustainable.”
The previous proposal to save Carlock netted the grade school about 50 students with a new open attendance neighborhood. But because of public concerns that it would have a heavy impact on disadvantaged groups, all open attendance additions were cut from the proposal presented Thursday.
So, this gives Carlock only one way to remain sustainable in the future: grow.
“We have lots of buildings going up, but it takes time for residential buildings to get built and a few families to move in,” said Nelson. “But when your school is on the chopping block, I mean, I have a first grader and a sixth grader, and this is my second time going through this in no less than four years.”
And that uncertainty has made it harder to gain students using attendance exceptions.
Attendance exceptions are different from open attendance. Open attendance allows specific neighborhoods to have two possible schools to attend, rather than being in only one school’s district. Attendance exceptions allow a student to apply to attend a school in Unit 5 that is different from the one they are zoned for.
A number of students use this rule to attend Carlock, but it requires Unit 5 to approve an application each year.
“It's not very well advertised or leveraged by the district,” said Nelson. “And if you are a attendance exception family considering your schools, you're less likely to consider a school that potentially is threatened for closure frequently.”
Nelson added Carlock families will continue to seek communication with the Unit 5 administration while the school builds enrollment.
“We want to make sure that we partner together and we don't just do this, and then we all go about our business and, you know, back to our lives, and then in two years, we're having this exact same conversation,” she said.
“That's why we want to work with them and partner with them to avoid it, so that it's good for the district and it's good for the Carlock kids and the Carlock community as well.”
The Unit 5 school board will make a final decision on its school realignment plans on Wednesday night.
