LW Parent Group Insists School Closing Decision be in Court's Hands

It’s not up the Lincoln-Way District 210 Board of Education whether one of the district’s schools should close, an attorney representing infuriated parents argued in court Thursday.

Lincoln-Way Area Taxpayers Unite previously filed a lawsuit asking the court to intervene to stop the closing of Lincoln-Way North High School. The district fired back with a request for dismissal, but the parent group isn’t backing down.

On Thursday, the group’s lawyer spat back that the school board does not have “unfettered discretion,” and therefore the final decision rests in the hands of the court.

The group maintains its position that the board’s August 2015 decision to close the eight-year school was “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”

“By claiming the decision is ‘not reviewable’ ... (the) defendants attempt to raise their stature to that of some type of deity,” attorney Stephen Eberhardt wrote in response to the district’s motion to dismiss.

“Our response reminds the board that it is the people of Illinois who possess all power, according to our state Constitution,” said Todd Velky, a LWATU member and one of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit . “The court can overturn any decision that interferes with the public interest.”

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