North Shore Real Estate Market?

[Anthera]

Which feeder school is "best" changes all the time. Winnetka has three different elementary schools that feed into the jr. high and within Winnetka there is considerable disagreement as to which better prepares the children for NT. Wilmette is a larger district and that gives the kids plus and minuses. (Wilmette also offers kindergarden enrichment at the CC. Buses are provided by the district, so Wilmette can be said to offer all day kindergarden as an add on option).

Glencoe is unique in the way their schools are structured in that all the kids go to school together all the time. (The kids change schools every 2 years). Northfield schools are considered to be one of the best kept secrets of the North Shore. Small but very good. You'd have to live in Northfield though, and deal with all the traffic. Sears? Some people love it, others don't. Its really the same as sending your kids to a small private school.

Chet - just because I object to the school board spending money like drunken sailors in a whorehouse doesn't make me a crank. The point of a democratic society is that people get to have opinions about how elected officials carry out their offices. If you are okay with just opening your checkbook - great. I am not. When enrollment goes down significantly (15% over 6 years) then the variable cost of operations should also go down. Fixed costs would remain the same. When variable costs increase far above inflation, then the budget is going to be scrutinized.

[chet everett]

Of the dozens of school district budgets I have reviewed in high performing districts the #1 cost is the salary of the staff. The way that contracts are structured is often out of touch with the reality of private sector wages but it is not because of "drunken sailors" it is because the outmoded organized labor models of compensation pay more every year simply because the staff grows older. It is almost impossible to change this as every individual district's union gets the school boards to "benchmark" against other towns that have similar characteristics.

It is similarly not the case that a decline of 15% of student population will allow the district staff to be reduced by 15%. The skills and certifications that each teacher has as well as their seniority has to be considered -- if the population of students with special needs stays the same / increases even as the overall student headcount decreases there is no way to adjust the number of staff. Even if the student population was uniform across special needs the fact is that there is often an imbalance of upper grade student vs primary grade students -- the research further shows that if one has to decide to increase classroom size the worst choice is to increase classroom size in the earlier grades. Even if 15% of the staff were cut it is a guarantee that the least senior people with highest salaries would be last to go...

Smaller districts have far less flexibility in reducing staff -- there is no support for combining classrooms across ages and the push back from parents prevents that from happening.

Similarly the demands of parents to incorporate a wide range of both technologies and things like foreign language into the experience of as many students as possible means that well funded schools will spend much more than schools that are hard pressed to deliver even the basics.

What about the "fixed costs"? Well take a look around your own home. What areas take the most "wear and tear"? Odds are things like your bathrooms need much more maintenance if they are used by more than one or two family members -- multiply that by the dozens / hundreds of staff & students that use the facilities at a school. Similarly look at your kitchen or laundry area -- the water and such that folks want their children to have access to in "hands-on" science labs and arts classes mean these spaces are much more costly than "regular" classrooms.

Maybe you are not a crank but unless you can say that you have been active in helping your local Board of Education examine the budgetary challenges they are facing I really cannot accept the charge that their spending is irresponsible.

To be sure there is no shortage of school districts in Illinois that do not get the kinds of results for the money that they spend because too much of their funds truly are directly toward connected firms that do not deliver value for their efforts but this sort of irresponsibility is not what those in the high performing districts face. I cannot think of any high performing school districts that even when "tax protester" types have won election to the BOE that have exposed any hidden wasteful spending. The Illinois Attorney General maintains staff to assist those that believe public bodies are in violations of Illinois' admittedly limited open meetings act --http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.g...t/openmeet.pdf

My harsh advice to those that do not appreciate the property taxes they send to support units of local governments is simple: Sell & move away.

Some cranks will reply "but the taxes are so high no one will buy it" and my retort is simple -- use this information to have your assessment lowered.

You won't find a whole lot of people that are gonna cry a river for folks that live in towns where median household income is well into the six figures -- https://www.city-data.com/#mapOSM[zl]=12&mapOSM[c1]=42.11630667923033&mapOSM[c2]=-87.77801513671875&mapOSM[s]=income3&mapOSM[fs]=false

Originally Posted by Anthera

Which feeder school is "best" changes all the time. Winnetka has three different elementary schools that feed into the jr. high and within Winnetka there is considerable disagreement as to which better prepares the children for NT. Wilmette is a larger district and that gives the kids plus and minuses. (Wilmette also offers kindergarden enrichment at the CC. Buses are provided by the district, so Wilmette can be said to offer all day kindergarden as an add on option).

Glencoe is unique in the way their schools are structured in that all the kids go to school together all the time. (The kids change schools every 2 years). Northfield schools are considered to be one of the best kept secrets of the North Shore. Small but very good. You'd have to live in Northfield though, and deal with all the traffic. Sears? Some people love it, others don't. Its really the same as sending your kids to a small private school.

Chet - just because I object to the school board spending money like drunken sailors in a whorehouse doesn't make me a crank. The point of a democratic society is that people get to have opinions about how elected officials carry out their offices. If you are okay with just opening your checkbook - great. I am not. When enrollment goes down significantly (15% over 6 years) then the variable cost of operations should also go down. Fixed costs would remain the same. When variable costs increase far above inflation, then the budget is going to be scrutinized.