Board weighs "looping" student-services model after site visits to Lyons, Lake Park

At the March 4 Committee of the Whole meeting for Warren Township High School District 121, counselors and district staff summarized visits to Lyons Township High School and Lake Park High School and discussed a proposal to change how student-services staff are assigned so they follow a cohort of students for multiple years, a practice often called "looping."

The proposal under consideration would assign counselors, social workers and deans to a graduating class so those staff travel with the same group of students from freshman through senior year. Daniel Heifel, one of the district counselors who participated in the visits, told the board that Lyons places heavy emphasis on the staffing and execution of that model. "They put an enormous amount of investment into this looping model," Heifel said, recounting what the team observed. Heifel said the district's investigation team includes about 14 staff who joined the visits; roughly half were certified staff and half administrative staff. The team visited Lyons Township two to three weeks before the March 4 meeting and Lake Park the previous Thursday; each visit lasted roughly 90–120 minutes, Heifel said.

Supporters said looping could improve continuity for students and families and reduce the administrative friction that comes from the district's split-campus arrangement. Matt Zarnsdorf, a counselor and parent, said the current two-campus structure fragments peer relationships: "We are every year, we are splitting kids from their friends," Zarnsdorf said, arguing that sustained relationships could help student connection and outcomes.

Board members and staff discussed trade-offs. The Lyons model includes more staff and year-round administrative positions: Heifel noted Lyons assigns some assistant principals on a 12-month basis and that the district observed differences in clerical, paraeducator and college-and-career staffing. The visitors reported Lyons' general per-pupil spending nearer $24,000 compared with roughly $19,600 in the comparison; Heifel cautioned that the figures are districtwide spending snapshots and not a calculated cost for implementing looping in Warren. "That is not the cost of looping," Heifel said; the district has not yet produced a line-by-line estimate of the additional staff or total cost if Warren adopted a similar model.

Speakers repeatedly told the board the model's effectiveness depends heavily on staffing levels and fidelity of implementation. Several board members and staff said a looping model could be feasible at Warren only if the district defines a staffing plan that fits Warren's size and budget rather than copying another district wholesale. The group agreed the next steps are to debrief, quantify staffing and cost implications and prepare a concrete proposal for the board. Heifel said the team will return with a more detailed design and cost estimates after internal debrief and further conversations with the staff who took part in the visits.

The discussion also included concerns about how any model would be staffed within existing contracts and whether the district could cover additional positions without outside funding; one commenter asked for more social workers in the near term. The board did not take a formal vote on a new staffing model at the March 4 meeting and directed the team to continue investigation and bring back a proposal.