With classrooms ‘bursting’, Yorkville 115 busing K-6 students to other schools

With the community rapidly growing, Yorkville School District 115’s elementary classrooms are tight on space. To help alleviate the capacity issues, the board is implementing a policy to cap the number of students enrolled in each grade in each building and transferring students to other district schools with available space.

District superintendent Matt Zediker said the district does not have any current estimates on the number of students who will be impacted.

“The parents, by and large, understand why we had to do the policy. Everyone realizes the overcrowding we’ve had,” Zediker said. “Yorkville is growing, but every neighborhood is not growing at the same rate. We want to provide equity in the number of students in buildings and classrooms. As were developing a long-term facility master plan, we put some short-term solutions in-play to keep class sizes manageable.”

With enrollment currently underway, available space at preferred schools is on a first-come basis. Once capacity is reached, any new students will be assigned to the nearest building that has capacity.

According to the approved board policy, the district will provide transportation to all kids who are transferred. A student’s parent or guardian may request a transfer to a district school other than the one assigned, but the request must be granted. If it is, the parent or guardian is responsible for transportation.

According to the policy, students assigned to a school outside their attendance area will be placed on a waitlist for their desired school. Preference will be provided to students who have a sibling in K-6 already attending the school within their school attendance area.

All other students on the waitlist will be eligible to transfer to their preferred school based on the order in which they are placed on the waitlist.

“The policy change is strictly to make sure we have enough space to provide a quality educational experience for all our kids,” Zediker said. “If there’s a situation where we have students that want to go to a certain school but are unable to because it’s full, it’s important that we’re communicating with that family in the right manner. We need to explain the process and all of the options that those families have.”

The district is currently developing a Facility Master Plan upgrade that incudes building new classroom spaces for all the district’s schools. The plan will likely head towards a referendum to request greater funding from the public for the project. District officials have previously said the capacity issues are so bad the classrooms are “bursting at the seams.”

To abate capacity issues, the district recently spent $2 million for a 100-acre property. The district also is constructing for $3 million temporary polebarn classrooms outside of three existing elementary schools to house overflow students.