Schools
District 112 Sued Over BDR3
Elm Place parent calls for ruling to stop school closures, teacher layoffs. She claims NSSD112 misrepresented financial state.
HIGHLAND PARK, IL - A parent is suing North Shore School District 112 over BDR3, the plan to close four schools and layoff several teachers at the conclusion of the 2016-17 school year.
Sarah Ludington’s lawsuit in Lake County Court seeks to postpone the district’s plan to reassign students and layoff approximately 75 teachers until after the school board election, according to a report in the Highland Park News.
Ludington is the parent of a special education student at Elm Place Middle School, which is one of the schools planned to close along with the Green Bay Early Childhood Center and Ravinia and Lincoln elementary schools.
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The lawsuit claims the district has misrepresented its current financial state and and that the district does not meet the state's definition of a district in "deficit reduction" status.
The BDR3 plan, the district’s third recent implementation of “budget reductions” was approved by the school board earlier this year as a backup measure voted down a $198 million referendum plan that would have closed six schools and created a middle school campus for all fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students enrolled in the district. When the referendum was defeated soundly, the BDR3 plan thus became the plan.
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The Citizens Actively Renewing Education group that opposed the referendum and now BDR3 made a statement that they are not involved with the lawsuit, although Ludington is listed as a supporter of the group on its website.
“We are not funding, nor involved with any pending lawsuit against District 112,” CARE wrote on Facebook Tuesday night. “This lawsuit was initiated by a parent of a D112 student absent our involvement.”
Officials have denied any intention of misrepresenting the district’s financial state at any time and have referred to the lawsuit as an unneeded "distraction."
But Ludington’s attorney, Steven Verr, claims 112 is “one of the best funded school districts in Illinois.”
“Yet they are going around scaring people and saying they are in deficit reduction," he said.
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