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Resident urges District 204 to address income segregation in school boundaries; cites Georgetown, Longwood and McCarty
Summary
During public comment at the Feb. 24 board meeting, Alicia Smith, a resident with prior ties to district schools, urged the board to address inequities she said result from boundary design that concentrated higher shares of students eligible for free or reduced‑price lunch in Georgetown, Longwood and McCarty elementary attendance areas.
Alicia Smith, a resident and former District 204 employee, used public comment time on Feb. 24 to urge the board to address what she described as systemic inequities in school boundaries that have concentrated high‑poverty student populations at Georgetown, Longwood and McCarty elementaries.
Smith said Georgetown’s low‑income population is about 63 percent and Longwood’s about 58 percent—figures she said more than triple the district average and are higher than the state average. She argued the concentration of low‑income students explains racial and achievement gaps and said neighboring Naperville Unit District 203 (which she cited for contrast) does not have any schools with low‑income populations that exceed the district average by the same magnitude.
“I taught at Georgetown and Kendall and my niece and nephews attended Gombert,” Smith said. “For a kindergartner at Georgetown, McCarty or Longwood, how many years of the same trend line? If the school board and administration are committed to equity, the segregation by income needs to be fixed.”
Smith pointed the board and public to the Illinois School Report Card website for school‑level data and said the time to act on corrective boundary work is now.
Ending: The board did not respond during public comment; administration said follow‑up would be provided by district staff as appropriate. The public comment period at the meeting allowed one speaker and is limited to three minutes per person.
