La Grange Private School Approved By Village

LA GRANGE, IL – The La Grange Village Board this week approved a permit for a private school in a local church.

Tallgrass Sudbury School started in August at La Grange's First Congregational Church, 100 Sixth Ave., but failed to get a permit, the village said.

In an email Tuesday, the church's pastor, the Rev. Carly Stucklen Sather, criticized Patch's reporting on the permit.

"It is misleading to write that the 'school had failed to get a village permit,'" Stucklen Sather said. "The truth is that the church was already covered under the special use permit obtained in 2013 – before (La Grange School) District 105 leased the property."

Under new leadership, she asserted, the village decided the church's permit does not apply to the private school. So the school had to go through the zoning process to receive an exception and a business permit, she said.

"It was news to all of us that the school needed its own permit," the pastor said.

At the Village Board meeting, Trustee Beth Augustine said one of the church's neighbors informed officials the zoning process was going well.

"There's still some concern about parking and traffic flow," Augustine said. "This is a very busy area already with school crossings, and there are a good number of accidents and near misses from time to time."

Charity Jones, the village's community development director, said police recently found parking violations on Sixth Street, but not on the block where the church is. She said the church appears in compliance with rules.

The Village Board unanimously approved the school's permit.

The board's conditions include limiting the student body to 45, which is 11 more than the school reported in November. The board said the school could have no more than three students driving to the church.

The conditions were the result of concerns about traffic and parking.

In her email to Patch, Stucklen Sather said a Patch story on Friday that previewed the board's meeting was "highly misleading, and, in some areas, untrue."

She said the village did not find the situation about the permit.

"The school visited the Village Hall and announced themselves. Your wording brings to mind an undercover sting operation when in fact students reached out to the Village as a means of being friendly and inclusive," Stucklen Sather said.

The meeting minutes for the village's Plan Commission quoted the pastor as saying the church's membership declined from 1,200 at some point in the past to 400 currently, though the minutes did not include the period of that drop. In her email, Stucklen Sather said the church had 1,200 members "on paper" in 1990.

"Indeed, in 1990, every church in Cook County was strong and flourishing," she said. "In 1990, every school district refrained from holding events on Sunday mornings and often on Wednesday evenings because these were seen as 'church days.' Likewise, children and families were not offered 10-15 clubs, teams, lessons, and other activities because as a society, the religious life of families was more central."

But much has changed since then, she said.

"Your reporting makes the impression that the church has shrunk in size overnight and that we are in decline. Not true," the pastor said. "We are not a dying congregation. In the last 9.5 years, we have welcomed over 100 new families into our faith community."

Stucklen Sather also took exception to Patch's reporting from the Plan Commission minutes about the need for tenants.

"I did not say that (the church) could not exist without tenants," she said. "I said that we could not exist in our historic building. The church is not a building. The church is a community. We could exist outside of the building. We are a growing, inclusive and progressive community of faith. Without tenants, we could not exist in this space, but we would thrive without the burden of a building."