Letter to the Editor: Wolf's Crossing Students Belong at Bednarcik

Dear Board Members:

As a member of the Wolf’s Crossing community, we were initially shocked that Wolf’s Crossing families were being considered to move anywhere other than Bednarcik for junior high.

We have always asked to leave all Aurora communities at Bednarcik next year.  The numbers show that it can hold those students quite comfortably.  The committee decided to send Morgan’s Crossing and Deerpath Creek back to Prairie Point because they were closer neighboring schools.  This will leave Hunt Club under capacity.  Why must we open Murphy at full capacity by shipping kids from the upper Northeast corner, when their closest junior high has room for them?

However, I do not hear this same logic from some families who say that Wolf’s Crossing should go to Murphy next year instead of to the school on the same campus, Bednarcik.

We ask for equity.  Please do not draw the school boundaries for Murphy to include Bednarcik Junior High and Wolf’s Crossing Elementary.  These schools are across the street from our homes.  There is no other building in this district that excludes children across the street from that building from attending it.  There is no other boundary drawn to put the building itself in a different attendance boundary. 

There are, however, other buildings which pass through one attendance boundary to reach another.  Look at Lakewood Creek in the far Northwest part of the district.  They attend Traughber, not Thompson which is geographically closer, so that neighboring Thompson families may attend Thompson.

The argument that we are closer to Murphy is insignificant.  Data from the transportation office shows that our travel time is only one minute shorter than Homestead’s.  We are not close to Murphy either.

Please make the difficult decision to open Murphy with just over 300 students and keep all of our students at Bednarcik, which has room for us all.  However, if one school must go, please consider Bednarcik’s boundaries to include its closest neighbors, Amber Fields and Lakewood Valley which can realistically walk to the school we see from our back doors.

Thank you for serving our community.

Kimberly Katzen, Aurora, Wolf’s Crossing