Recently in School District 204 Category

If you're a glass-half-full person, you can view the construction bidding process for Metea Valley High School with optimism and say that Indian Prairie School District 204 is on track to build the school for $4 million less than the $101.7 million estimate.

But if you're a glass-half-empty person, you'll be concerned to hear that the lowest bid for the electrical work came in $4 million -- or 50 percent -- more than expected.

Among the complications and concerns cited by potential and actual bidders: obtaining bonding; the massive size of the project and the relatively short amount of time they'd have to complete it; and subcontractors struggling to work around each other and complete their respective projects in the same areas of the building at the same time, a story in today's Sun reports.

These sound like predictable problems given the timetable to open by August '09.

One hopes all stays on track and the building comes in on time and under budget. (Mind you, change orders tend to alter the actual costs quite a bit by the time all is said and done. Sometimes change orders reduce costs. Usually not.)

What do you think: How likely is it that Metea will open on time and within budget?

Sure, of course you do. That stuff you read/hear about would never happen to you, because you monitor what your children do online. That's why there's no need for you to go to tonight's Internet safety meeting in Naperville for parents, right?

Let's do a quick poll: How many of your kids have MySpace or Facebook accounts? Ever had to order your kid to remove a photo from one of those sites? Ever consider they might be creating additional accounts and hiding them from you?

Do you let your child have a computer in his/her bedroom, with a web cam? That's just asking for trouble.

How about cameras on cell phones? It's becoming quite common for kids to take nude pictures of themselves or their friends and send them electronically to each other, as pranks, or sometimes to spite someone. Have you ever asked to look at the pictures stored in your kid's cell phone?

Just a few thoughts. Creepy predators using the Internet to lure kids is so 2004. Nowadays, it's more about how kids are using technology to embarrass themselves and their families.

Monday's Sun features a report about the Illinois Teachers Retirement System. It's $22 billion underfunded. That's money the state owes it, but hasn't yet paid, because Illinois has a tendency to balance its budget the only way it knows how--by deferring mandated payments to retirement systems (the state also drags its feet reimbursing health care providers). Overall, the state's running a $42 billion deficit in pension funding.

TRS and teachers' unions say their pensions are not excessively generous, that only a few administrators get the golden-parachute deals we hear about. And that recent laws have curtailed excessive end-of-career raises that bump up retirement benefits. The average annual benefit TRS pays out is about $40,000 a year, or $3,344 a month.

What do you think? Is this entirely a state problem? Are teachers' pensions too low, too high or just right? What other laws should be enacted to curb abuses of the pension system?

(Editor's note: an earlier version of this entry incorrectly reported the amount of the state's TRS deficit.)

Voters agreed to spend the money to build it. Figuring out where to build it caused much debate and several legal battles. But with Tuesday's ceremonial groundbreaking, Indian Prairie School District 204's third high school finally and irrevocably took on a tangible quality. It's here, or at least they tell us it will be by fall 2009.

How fitting that Metea Valley High School's formal groundbreaking should occur on the day that Barack Obama clinches the Democratic nomination for president. How ironic that two drawn out, take-no-prisoners battles should conclude (in Metea's case, symbolically at least) on the same day.

Seeing architectural renderings for the first time, hearing the congratulatory words from Aurora officials, it all seems so real now. Metea is going to happen. It'll be a great school, folks, we're sure. Yes, there's still the unresolved lawsuits with the Brach and Brodie trusts over the abandoned site where district officials promised to build the school, and we've no idea how much those will end up costing the district and taxpayers. But nothing now is going to change the fact that Metea is moving forward. It's inevitable. Game over.

What now? Well, there's an awful lot of healing to be done, if it can be. The battle over Metea divided the community and caused a lot of hurt feelings. Just as Hillary Clinton must concede the nomination and support her party's candidate, isn't it time for those who fought Metea to come around and accept it? Or are we way off? Will some Mettea opponents carry on the fight, like some of Clinton's die hard supporters? What will they have to gain?

One last thought. Even if you don't support the school board and/or administration, why not embrace the school at this point? It's going to be a very nice school, assuming all goes as planned. Are you willing to accept it, now that construction has started?

A DuPage County judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed by parents who sought to have Metea Valley High School built on the Brach-Brodie property.

This removes a legal hurdle to proceeding with construction of Indian Prairie School District's third high school at the Eola Road property.

The judge's ruling reads like a slam dunk for the school district. Every argument by Neighborhood Schools For Our Children was dismissed. Legal standing? None. Technical deficiencies in complaint? Plenty. Can the court do what the suit asks even if it wanted to? No. Referendum language? No location specified. Open Meetings Act violation? None.

It would appear NSFOC cast as wide a legal net as it could think of and came up empty.

Is this how you see it? Can NSFOC salvage any semblance of victory from this ruling, or for filing the suit in the first place, for that matter? What do you think NSFOC should do next?

What about the other lawsuits--the REAL lawsuits the district faces from the Brach and Brodie trusts, which seek damages because the district sued to try to get the land only to abandon the effort when the price tag came back too high? Let's not forget those. How much do you think those suits will end up costing the district?

Parents suing Indian Prairie School District 204 and hoping to force construction of Metea Valley High School on the Brach-Brodie property have to wait another week to learn a judge's ruling in the case. A ruling was expected Friday, but the judge says he'll announce his decision May 30, instead.

What do you expect to happen? The school district is confident construction will continue at the Eola Road site, because the referendum didn't specify a location. Will anything come of the NSFOC suit? Will there be any adjustments in high school boundaries or any other changes as a result?

Newsweek is out with a new list of the nation's top 1,300 high schools, and Waubonsie Valley High School is the only one of the four public high schools serving Naperville on this list. In 2007, Neuqua Valley High School -- Indian Prairie School District's other high school -- was No. 607 on this list, but is absent from the initial 2008 rankings.

Congratulations to Waubonsie!! All public education facilities in Naperville are outstanding, and this is further proof.

How important is the ranking to you? Is it just another list? Do Naperville residents place too much emphasis on lists? Why is it that Neuqua, Naperville Central and Naperville North are not on this list?

UPDATE: On Friday, both districts put out e-mails saying they contacted Newsweek and were told that Neuqua Valley, Naperville Central and Naperville North high schools all were omitted from the list by mistake and will be included when an updated list is posted next week.

UPDATE NO. 2: The updated list shows Neuqua Valley ranked No. 910, Naperville North No. 927, Naperville Central No. 1,011 and Waubonsie Valley No. 1,107.

A couple stories in Wednesday's Sun update Indian Prairie School District 204's legal troubles surrounding Metea Valley High School. In one case, the district is being sued by the Brach and Brodie trusts, owners of the land near 75th Street that the district wanted, but abandoned after deciding the court-determined value was too high. Now the Brach trust says the district owes it $2.2 million plus damages for its portion of the property the district abandoned for a third high school, which would be in addition to the $12 million being sought by the Brodie trust.

Also Tuesday, representatives of the district and a group of parents who are suing the district and hoping to block construction of Metea on the Eola Road property met for a scheduled mediation conference that apparently proved fruitless. "I can only say that the mediation has concluded, there was no resolution, and there are no plans to meet again," said Shawn Collins, attorney for Neighborhood Schools for Our Children.

Both court cases continue in coming weeks. What's your reaction to the latest developments? What do you expect to happen next?

Representatives of Indian Prairie School District 204 and the group Neighborhood Schools for Our Children will sit down at the bargaining table May 13 in an attempt to mediate a lawsuit that NSFOC filed against the district. The group seeks to block the district from moving forward with construction of Metea Valley High School on the Eola Road site, saying the district has an obligation to buy the Brach-Brodie land and build there.

Will mediation work, or will this suit end up being litigated in court? What would be an equitable solution to the situation? Will the NSFOC suit end up being dismissed and will the district proceed with construction in hopes of opening Metea in August 2009? What about the other lawsuit the district faces for backing out of efforts to buy Brach-Brodie? How much in damages and legal fees will the district end up paying because of its court battles with the Brach and Brodie trusts? When all is said and done, will it end up costing the district more to build on Eola than if it had paid the court-determined price for the Brach-Brodie land?

For this post we feature an entry sent to us by Andrew Kriz, an alumnus of Naperville's Neuqua Valley High School and a law student at the University of Iowa. Andrew writes about a friend who was planning to go to Neuqua's prom tonight (5.2), but was denied the chance because he missed the deadline to buy a ticket. Are school administrators being too harsh? Or is this one of life's important lessons?

Andrew's post continues below.