Leadership Team To Meet With Dist. 113 Board

For the past year, study groups comprising Highland Park and Deerfield residents have analyzed the needs of both high schools in District 113.

At Monday night's school board meeting, held at 7:30 p.m. in Highland Park High School's auditorium, the leadership team will present its recommendations.

"Monday's presentation will look at that larger picture,"  writes . "It will not be a plan, but rather a grouping of priorities that the professional team can use as they engage the public in the actual planning of the facilities."

The data used by the leadership team to come up with Monday's presentation includes information from survey the district sent out to residents about the needs of and . Though the district has released its results from the survey, it has not released the raw data. 

“A majority of the members on both the market research team and the leadership team decided that the raw data you requested should not be released,” after a request for the raw data was denied.

, who is part of the Education First group that opposed last April's District 113 referendum that would have fixed many of the needs these study groups are now addressing, left the leadership committee because the board voted not to release the survey's raw data.

“I felt we got away from transparency," Shapiro told Patch earlier this month.

Patch columnist Ed Brill agrees . He plans to attend Monday's meeting, though the district's refusal to share its raw data from the survey has rendered him skeptical of the district's process.

"I head to Monday's meeting suspicious, rather than bought in to the findings and ready to support," Brill writes  

Though a Patch poll found , some residents prefer the district keep the raw data under wraps. Patch reader Harry Steindler believes releasing the information will make it easier for residents to misconstrue facts in order to support their own perspectives. 

"If we all had access to the raw data we could each take that information and misinterpret it to support whatever our beliefs are," Steindler writes. 

Hainsfurther called the survey just one tool in the lengthy process of detailing the district's needs. He believes more weight should be placed on the work the study groups have been doing, indicating the importance of Monday's presentation to the board.

"The process has worked," he writes, "but we're not even at halftime. I'm looking forward to seeing what the professional team and the community put together.

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