U-46 outlines revised attendance-boundary plan, schedules April vote and expedited residency-exception process

District administrators presented a revised attendance-boundary proposal to the School District U-46 Board of Education on March 24 and said the board will consider final approval at its April 14 meeting.

Brian Lindholm, chief of staff, and Mark Moore, assistant superintendent of human resources, reviewed adjustments to maps first shown in December and described a transition plan for sixth graders driven by construction timing for a new Elgin middle school.

Lindholm said the district is proceeding with a plan that retires several older elementary schools after the 2025–26 school year—Washington, Lowry and Hanover Countryside—and retires or repurposes other sites as part of the Unite U-46 facilities initiative. McKinley Elementary will be retired when a new elementary at the former David C. Cook site is ready. Illinois Park will be converted from an early-childhood center back to a K–5 elementary in 2026–27, and additions and renovations are planned at Glenbrook and Century Oaks elementaries.

Because the new Elgin middle school construction is delayed and will not be ready for occupancy as originally planned, the district proposed and staff recommended “option C” for the transition: keep Abbott and Ellis middle schools open for one additional year to house students assigned to the new middle school in the first year, then move them to the new building the following year when it is ready. Under that scenario the district expects to use Abbott and Ellis in 2026–27 as staging sites so the new school can open with grades 6–8 the next year.

Mark Moore reviewed a series of relatively small map adjustments intended to maintain feeder-pattern continuity where possible; the revised proposal creates four new elementary-to-middle split feeders but eliminates other existing splits, leaving a net change from eight split feeders to nine. Lindholm emphasized community guidance that feeder continuity is a priority and said interactive maps and address-lookup tools are posted on the UniteU46 website.

To address family concerns about travel and continuity, the district proposed a modified residency-exception request process for families affected by the boundary changes. The existing residency committee—composed of deputy and assistant superintendents, the chief legal officer and executive directors—will review expedited requests tied to the board-approved plan. Lindholm said the Illinois High School Association has agreed to honor approved residency exceptions so long as they are part of a board-approved boundary plan. The district emphasized that approvals will be contingent on available space and staffing at the requested site and that families will be responsible for transportation if exceptions are granted.

Lindholm said the board will vote on the final boundaries at the next regularly scheduled meeting on April 14; most larger boundary changes would take effect in the 2026–27 school year. The only attendance-boundary change that goes into effect for the 2025–26 year is for Hawk Hollow Middle School in Bartlett, which the board approved last year and which will shift some Eastview and Canyon Woods boundaries.

Board members asked multiple follow-up questions about small pockets of students that would move to different middle and high school feeders and about capacity calculations; district staff said they used a current room-by-room capacity count rather than older DLR counts taken during the COVID period. Several board members asked staff to reconsider small boundary adjustments where only a handful of students would be affected and asked administration to return with additional capacity and travel-time analysis before the April vote.

No formal boundary vote occurred on March 24; administration asked the board to take action April 14.