School Board

We have an important vote coming up here by our school board that is going to affect where Alison will be going to school. We had a referendum a couple of years ago for the purpose of, as we were told, building a new elementary school to alleviate the crowding of one of the schools. Right now we have (4) elementary schools. The enrollment at (3) of the (4) is in the neighborhood of 350 students, with the 4th having an enrollment in the neighborhood of 750-800, which is much more than the school can handle. At the time the referendum was voted down (rightfully so in my opinion). So after paying some consulting company a load of money they were apparently told that they could move some of the existing schools around and redistrict, and this was after the village voted for a different referendum that funded repairs to the existing schools.

So now after remodeling Riverside and installing A/C the school board is proposing to close Riverside (Sarah & Ali’s current school) along with another one and consolidating them into one bigger school that will have an enrollment of about 700 students with larger classes, oh and for the price of $2.5 million. So we will go from (4) elementary schools to (3) with enrollments of 500, 700 and 300 (roughly). While the new school is only about 4 blocks away, it is the idea that Alison will be going from a small class to a larger one, and a school that is twice the size of her current one. The girls had dance Monday so I took care of shuttling them back and forth while Kris went to the meeting to try and voice our input as to our desire to keep Riverside open. Maybe I need to try and become more active with the school board. I realize the (the board) need to represent all taxpayers, not just those with children in the public schools, but it sure seems as if there is absolutely no plan for the school system.

Two and a Half Hours Out Of My Life

Well that was two and a half hours out of my life that I'll never get back. We had to get to the Spring concert 45 minutes early and even then our seats were terrible. The lucky thing was that we sat on the aisle so we had a pretty good view of Alison, but the parents for all the little kids going nuts was unbelievable. The only bad thing is that the parents at the little kids' concert are much worse. Actually, the gym for the 3rd through 5th graders was only 3/4 full while the K-2 grade show was packed. Plus, after sitting around for 45 minutes before Ali's concert we had to wait for a half an hour for Sarah's to start. Thank god we don't need to do double concerts anymore!

Fun Fair

Saturday was the annual Riverside Elementary Fun Fair. Sarah was very excited because this year she got to volunteer to work some of the games. Alison also got a job. She along with her friend Olivia, worked the sucker booth. Luckily Kris and I had volunteered to help with some of the activities and were right next to where Alison was. From time to time we covered for her so that she could go and play games and have her hair done. She’ll have to learn that when you have a real job, you can’t just go take off when you feel like it.

The turnout this year was great. Last year we had a snowstorm which hampered the attendance, but this year the sun was out and the temp was around 50. In the end the girls had a good time and the PTA was able to raise a lot of money.