Unit 4 Bond Referendum

Voters in the Unit 4 School District will vote March 21 on a $66 million bond referendum.

The Cynical View:

Let's see, Unit 4 high schools are over-capacity, and elementary schools have empty seats, especially in that all-important "north of Universtity Avenue" area of Champaign.

Solution? Build 2 new elementary schools north of University Avenue, and 1 in Savoy. Throw in a little something for everybody, and you try to get the votes on March 21. (By the way, Unit 4 didn't choose to have the date of the referendum fall during the week many voters will be ot of town for spring break; that's just the date of the March 21 primary election in Illinois.)

I’m not the first to note that Unit 4 hired consultants who conducted surveys to find out what might garner some votes, e.g., air conditioning, and it troubles me that the whole thing looks like a bill in Congress: put in some pork for every district to get the bill passed.

I also wonder about estimates of growth which seem to be based, in part, on the fact that lots of new homes have been constructed on the fringes of town. (E.g., Unit 4 Board Board member Dave Tomlinson: "We're going to see rapid growth, especially in the Curtis Road interchange area, and I want to attract those new students to our schools." (News-Gazette, January 22, 2006). News flash: lots of those people are not new to the school district, they are just “moving up,” as the expression goes.

The News-Gazette noted today (February 19, 2006) that private and suburban schools have enjoyed recent growth, at the expense of Unit 4. (http://www.news-gazette.com/news/). Superintendent Culver has expressed the hope that parents who send their children to private schools “will take another look at the facilities Champaign will offer.” (News-Gazette, January 22, 2006). Forgive me if I don’t share his optimism, as I suspect most private school patrons are quite happy where they are. “Honey, look, they have AIR CONDITIONING! Now it’s OK for our little Johnny to go there!”

Finally, the whole consent decree thing is a mess that just isn’t going away. Ironically, by having Judge Joe Billy McDade and his band of merry social engineers insist that Unit 4 locate schools where there aren’t students, residents may be more reluctant to approve the bond issuance than if schools were going to be built where the kids are. Rather than have more resources to assist students, the referendum will tank and the new schools won’t happen.

If the bonds do issue, I can’t help but wonder: what will Judge McDade think when a hard-working family from north Champaign works and saves to buy a house in the Utopian suburbs of Savoy, only to learn, after they move in, that their kids will ride a bus every morning -- to a school north of Interstate 74?

The Good Citizen View:

Everyone wants modern, comfortable school buildings with good, caring teachers, books, computers, gymnasiums, and playgrounds. Quality schools are one of the hallmarks of a good community, and the costs of public education are easily outweighed by the benefits. Rehabbing and modernizing aging schools is a good use of taxpayer money, and there is that pesky consent decree and the Honorable Joe Billy McDade to keep in mind.

It will happen . . . sometime

There is no doubt: there WILL be lots of taxpayer $$ spent on school facilities in the coming years. A new high school is almost a certainty. As taxpayers, we should demand that the school district adopt a long-term, rational plan to use its existing facilities wisely, to locate schools where they make sense for the future, and to be completely candid throughout the process.