2007-06-06 I Love Aurora - my first published column

I love Aurora. I’ve lived in or near Aurora my entire life, as have most of my and my husband’s relatives. Our families boast dozens of East and West Aurora graduates spanning several decades.

I grew up in a historic brick house on the near east side within walking distance of the schools I attended – Bardwell, Waldo, and East. I could walk or bike to the doctor, orthodontist, church, library, Buy Rite neighborhood grocery store, parks, downtown, and to visit my friends and relatives.

My children are growing up in a very different time and place mere miles from there. They take buses to Brooks, Granger, and Waubonsie Gold and Green campuses. There are no activities in walking distance, even church is ten miles away. The places they need to go are further from home than the places of my childhood, and there is usually a lot of traffic to deal with.

My husband and I moved from an apartment on North Avenue to a small house in Warrenville to be closer to work, then to a bigger house in western Naperville as our family grew. Soon our tiny five-year-old was on a bus to Indian Plains School, more than five miles away. We had never been to school on a bus. The first days were disastrous and scary and we’ve since come to expect bus issues at the beginning of each school year.

When we learned that the school site across the street might not really be built anytime in the foreseeable future, I worked long and hard to change that. Our site was chosen and Cowlishaw opened in 1997. It was wonderful to have our children walking to school.

When we outgrew the Naperville house we moved into northeastern Aurora in the spring of 2000. It was good to be back home but we found that we are in an odd part of town where much of Aurora to the west of the Kane-DuPage County line doesn’t really seem to claim us as part of their city (and vice versa). While we share a school district and county with the western part of Naperville, we aren’t part of their city either.

Indian Prairie School District has grown by leaps and bounds since 1993 when we contracted for our first house in the district. Then there were fewer than 10,000 students in 15 schools and now we have almost 29,000 students in 31 schools. There has been near constant new construction and frequent boundary changes over the years. As we reach build-out we still have one really big event on the horizon – the third high school.

In 2005 I worked on passing the referendum for a third high school. The failure of this referendum has cost us millions of dollars and an extra year or more of severe overcrowding in some of our schools. I wondered if there was more I could have done to help get the word out about how necessary the passage of this referendum was. I felt a personal responsibility to make a positive impact if possible.

In 2006 when it was time to put forth a similar referendum, I joined the committee immediately and became the point of contact for my grade school attendance area. I spent hours stuffing bags, putting out door hangers and signs, attending meetings, e-mailing and discussing the issues with people all over the district. The election night party was an incredible place to be and we were thrilled when the referendum passed.

This spring we had a school board election. I didn’t know much about the people running and went into this season with an open mind. I attended candidate forums and found that the three incumbents were my clear choices for a variety of reasons. I got heavily involved in their campaigns and was happy and relieved when these three won the open seats.

There continue to be challenges and exciting changes in store for our district as we welcome a new superintendent this summer and work to open a new high school in 2009.