Pending Jericho Circle Demolition Won't Affect Teacher Staffing at Nicholson Next Year

Jericho Circle still could be demolished sometime in 2011. But that process will not affect next year’s staffing levels at West Aurora School District schools, including Nicholson Elementary School in Montgomery, district officials said Wednesday.

Jericho Circle is a public housing complex on the west side of Aurora, owned by the Aurora Housing Authority. It houses 93 families, and all of its school-age children—roughly 200—attend West Aurora schools. One hundred of them go to Nicholson, according to district spokesman Mike Chapin.

This means West Aurora officials are very interested in what happens with the complex, which has been slated for demolition since late 2008. And they have been following (and sometimes contributing to) the recent war of words between the city and the Aurora Housing Authority over whether the AHA is required to rebuild affordable housing on that site once Jericho is gone.

Wednesday afternoon, Supt. James Rydland and Chapin joined Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner, Alderman Rick Lawrence, residents of Jericho Circle and officials from the AHA to meet with Steven Meiss, the U.S, Department of Housing and Urban Development's director of public housing for Illinois, and other HUD officials.

Rydland said Meiss set the record straight.

“[Meiss] said they don’t have to rebuild there,” Rydland said. “They can dispose of the property anyway they want, they can sell it to a school district or the Fox Valley Park District … and even HUD said the site is too remote and isolated (to be ideal for affordable housing).”

HUD officials did stress that the city and AHA have a responsibility to provide affordable housing, but Rydland said they left the specifics up to the local officials.

Weisner and Lawrence have been vocal in opposing a new housing complex on the Jericho site. But AHA officials have said that their demolition approval was contingent on new affordable housing being constructed on that site, and the AHA even hired a firm, CG Partners, to design a new project.

All of this back-and-forth has left the residents of Jericho Circle uncertain of their fate. The AHA conducted two studies in 2007 and 2008 that found severe structural weaknesses in Jericho’s buildings, and residents have been told for two years that they will be relocated soon.

In fact, West Aurora officials were told that Jericho Circle would be demolished before the 2009-2010 school year, and the district cut staff in anticipation. Officials found themselves scrambling to rehire those teachers once they learned that Jericho would remain standing through 2009 and beyond.

The first step in the relocation process is for HUD to distribute housing choice vouchers to the 93 Jericho families, and Rydland said the ball is currently in Congress’ court. HUD hopes to have all the vouchers out by the end of the year, Rydland said, but nothing is set in stone.

“It’s dependent on federal funding,” he said. “They are still waiting for appropriations. So we are going to staff the district with the understanding that the Jericho Circle kids will be here.”

Should the vouchers appear toward the end of 2011, Jericho Circle students may be relocated during the 2011-2012 school year. Although some may stay in the West Aurora School District, the vouchers will allow residents to move anywhere in the country, AHA officials said.

But Chapin and Rydland said the district would work with the AHA, HUD and the city to make sure that students from Jericho have “a continuum of education,” and will experience as few disruptions as possible.

Although half of Jericho’s school-age children attend Nicholson, the remaining students go to Washington Middle School and West Aurora High School in Aurora. The timeline of Jericho Circle’s demolition affects not only staff decisions, but the amount of space and resources that can go toward programs like the recently announced full-day kindergarten classes, Chapin said.

Rydland said he was pleased to see all the affected parties in one room for the first time Wednesday. Though he admitted he has had issues with communication between those parties in the past, he said he left the meeting encouraged.

“We do better work when we communicate with each other, when we understand that we don’t work in isolation,” he said. “We make better decisions the more we work together.”