School Transfer Policy Frustrates District 21 Parents

As Wheeling Township Elementary School District 21 begins the second year of a boundary modification that shifted students west in a domino effect to prevent crowding, the district is again hearing from parents dissatisfied with its policies.

To avoid having their children swap schools, many parents opted to seek transfers for their children back to the school they would have had to leave.

But since district policy allows for transfers only where space is available, all transfers are re-evaluated each school year. Thus there are no guarantees that a child allowed to go to a non- neighborhood school can remain there.

That policy has led to concerns by parents who only recently learned their children would have to change schools.

One such parent, Debra Vilchis, a mother of three, last year had two girls attending Whitman Elementary School on the continuous learning calendar. Three weeks ago, just before the start of the Whitman Continuous Learning Calendar school year, she learned she would either have to move both children to Twain Elementary School, where there is no CLC schedule, or split them up.

Vilchis opted to split them up so that her oldest daughter, a fifth-grader, could remain at the school she had been at her entire academic career, but not in the CLC.

“Life goes on, but I still don’t think it had to be so hard on the kids and parents. A grandfather rule should’ve been instituted,” Vilchis said.

Katie Hyde, in a situation similar to Vilchis, had two children in Whitman’s CLC and was given the option of keeping one child at Whitman and moving the other to Twain, or moving both to Twain. She opted to move both.

“I was horrified to learn I would have to move my kids. I have a son with (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and, historically, change for them is not good. I just feel that we’ve had to fight with the district the whole time,” Hyde said.

Superintendent Gary Mical says a lot of parents have cases with merit, but his hands are tied by district policy.

“It’s not an easy situation, but when those transfer requests were granted (last year), we let parents know up front that there was a chance they would have to go back to their neighborhood school if there was overcrowding,” he said.

“We can’t create artificial sections to accommodate everyone; that wouldn’t be financially feasible,” Mical said.

Mical added that any policy change would have to come from the school board.

School board President Ellen Clark said that as a parent who had her children go through Whitman, she understands that many parents are upset with having to leave the school.

“If I would’ve been in a similar situation, I’m sure I would’ve been unhappy with it. But parents have to understand we are doing what is best for the district,” Clark said.

Of the 96 transfer requests received by the district this year, 31 of those were for students to remain at Whitman. Only nine of those 31 requests were granted, and only for fifth-graders.