Jasmina de la Torre and others in Wilmette and neighboring communities worked tirelessly to defeat a referendum on the March 19 election ballot put there by Avoca School District 37 asking voters to support an initiative to spend $90 million to build a new school and to renovate another school.
The group, dubbed Concerned Parents of Avoca 37, took to social media, launched a website and went door to door asking residents to vote against the referendum, which was soundly defeated.
Signs both for and against a referendum proposing to close one school and expand another in Avoca School District 37 line Sherwood Street north of Ferndale Road in Glenview. (Phil Rockrohr)
de la Torre said she believes residents voted against the referendum due to its high cost which the School District had said would be used to build a new school and renovate a second school.
“People were absolutely shocked with the $90 million price tag,” she said. “That’s what you saw in this huge no vote that we got. We broke records with voter turnout.”
She further said voters didn’t understand where that number came from.
“We’re a very small district and we’re very connected. There’s a lot of very involved families,” she added. “There’s nothing wrong with the current Avoca School location. There are upgrades that can be done at a much lower price tag.”
District 37, which draws students from parts of Wilmette, Glenview, Northfield and Winnetka, said it needed the $90 million to replace Avoca West Elementary School in the 200 block of Beech Drive in Glenview with a new $75 million building close to Marie Murphy Junior High School in the 2900 block of Illinois Road in Wilmette.
The Avoca School District 37 School Board is trying to determine how best to move forward after its bid to raise $90 million to build a new Avoca West Elementary School and to renovate the Marie Murphy Junior High School was rejected by voters in the March 19 election. (Brian L. Cox/Pioneer Press)
An additional $14 million would have been used to renovate and repair Marie Murphy Junior High, officials said. They said the initiative, if passed, would have increased property taxes and seen the two schools situated on a single campus.
Avoca School District 37 Superintendent Kaine Osburn said the school board is taking its plans back to the drawing board. The no vote can be viewed as a setback or constructive feedback from the community, Osburn said.
“Everything’s about learning what the community wants and is willing to invest in its schools,” he said.
He also said the district did extensive community outreach explaining the referendum, the need and costs for the new school over the past year.
“It was clear that the needs as they were identified through that process were not ones that the community was ready to invest in,” he said. “We need to reconnect with the community to find out more about what they can and are willing to support.”
He also said the school board will take up the issue again in coming weeks and will discuss how it can best move forward with community engagement in the wake of the no vote.
“It’s not so much about finding why people didn’t support something,” he said. “It’s about finding out what they can support. What they need to know in order to support something.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.
