Wilmette Resident: Budget Cuts Will Prove Detrimental to The System

The following is a letter from Wilmette-resident Nancy Fendley and is a licensed real estate broker with a B.A. in finance from University of Illinois and an M.B.A. in real estate, as well as finance from J.L. Kellogg GSM-Northwestern University.

I am a new resident to Wilmette, having moved with my husband and four young children from Chicago. Like most, we chose Wilmette for its quality public schools, stable housing, lakefront, park district and community. Wilmette has surpassed our expectations in the year that we’ve resided here, especially the schools.

Most residents have now read the statistics and changes which will transpire with a failing referendum. One of the greatest components of the system in place is having teachers focused on teaching to students in tailored groups. With both gifted and intervention programs, core subjects like math or reading can effectively be taught to an already large class size of 24; 6 gifted students by one instructor; 4 "intervention" students by another, and the classroom teacher focused on teaching "to the middle" 14 students. It’s effective and test scores provide evidence of such.  The issue at stake is that with a failed referendum, a single classroom teacher would be left to teach not only specials like music and art, but core subjects to the middle of 27 students with very diverse learning needs, instead of a manageable 14. That's not teaching; it's crowd control. Even with District 39's extraordinary teaching staff, these cuts will prove detrimental to the system.

As a licensed real estate broker, I am also alarmed at the potential for falling property values, and the corresponding recovery period. Supply-demand principles make the drop in housing prices easy to understand. With a failed referendum, demand immediately plummets. Supply remains the same. Prices drop. Immediately. While this is painful for all of Wilmette's taxpayers, I find the corresponding recovery even more treacherous. Price increases take years, even decades, to restore themselves. It’s a long, painful process to bring housing prices back to stabilized levels. The need for families to make changes (sell houses) will continue to be dynamic, but the ability to sell will be stuck for a much longer period. Prices will stay low long after recovery begins. It's a long painful road back up the curve to stabilization and one which can be avoided.

We can't afford for this referendum to fail. Unlike many communities where its residents don't have financial ability to avert such failures, Wilmette possesses the ability to do so by voting YES.