Total enrollment in Glenview District 34 schools reached a historic high of 4,923 students for the 2013-2014 school year, according to a December 2013 report on current and projected enrollment for the district by educational facility planning firm DeJong Richter.
The report said that this year’s total follows 10 years of continued growth in District 34, which includes students from Pre-K to eighth grade who attend Attea, Glen Grove, Henking, Hoffman, Lyon, Pleasant Ridge, Springman and Westbrook schools. Since 2004, District 34’s enrollment has grown by 19 percent for a total increase of 776 students, according to the report.
Shawn Eshoo, District 34 parent, said that the reputation of District 34’s schools influenced her family’s decision to move to Glenview in 2005.
“We knew that wherever we were going, [the schools] had to be something reputable,” Eshoo said.
Eighth graders from Attea and Springman middle schools make up the majority of incoming South freshmen, according to Dr. Lara Cummings, South’s assistant principal for student services. Attea and Springman are poised to funnel more than 600 of next year’s estimated 801 District 34 freshmen into South’s community, a larger amount than in the past.
Cummings said the increased sizes of Attea’s and Springman’s eighth grade classes complicate visits such as when the eighth graders come to South to tour the building and register for classes.
“I feel confident [the registration process] is going to look a little different this year,” Cummings said. “It will be a challenge as we go through February to make sure that, given the time frame and the time allotment that we allowed last year […] Will we be able to register even more students in that same time frame, and do we need to restructure that?”
To accommodate the past growth in student population, District 34 decided to increase class sizes for the 2012-2013 school year, according to Brett Clark, executive director of communications and strategic planning for District 34. The cap on class sizes for each grade level increased by one student. Clark said that although the measure raised concerns about teachers’ workloads and classroom management, it has worked for the district.
Eshoo said she had experienced much of the concern and debate over increasing her daughters’ class sizes, but trusted the district to make the right decision.
“It’s just alarming to hear, ‘Oh, the classes are bigger now,’ but are they really too big?” Eshoo said. “I leave those kinds of decisions to the educators, and figure they know better than I do. So that’s not something I raise an opinion on, unless my kids were telling me that they thought [class size] was causing a problem — but they seem to be getting a good education.”
Projections for District 34’s future enrollment seem to indicate a sustained large size, according to Clark.
“The trend from the report is that enrollment is going to level off and decline,” Clark said. “However, with knowing what we know about the community and the different projects that we have with relation to living space […]we want to continue to monitor it. We don’t see any sort of decrease on the horizon; in fact we see more of a flattening out.”
As District 34’s growth parallels South’s trajectory, Cummings said that accommodating further students at South will present more complex challenges than at a lower level school.
“I think once you get to the high school level, it’s a bit different in that you have teachers and services that are more specialized […] especially in terms of the electives […] so you’re really increasing in lots of different areas,” Cummings said.
Along with the challenges associated with adjusting to a greater student population, South Principal Dr. Brian Wegley believes in its positive indications of the community’s attraction.
“I think it’s also kind of an exciting thing; you know, being a believer in Glenview, I think there’s a reason our enrollment is going up,” Wegley said.
