1971 Detachment History
Many residents have some concerns that, if the referendum passes, that a group can detach, form their own school district and use of the new high school as a building in the new school district. Many times, those who have this concern refer to the detachment of Lockport West High School in 1971 (in Romeoville) and fear that a similar event could happen today.
Fortunately, the procedure for detachment and formation of a new school district is far more complicated and takes much more time than the procedure that existed when Romeoville detached in 1971. The Illinois State Board of Education strongly encourages school districts to consolidate, not break apart. In fact, in the mid 1980’s Illinois had more than 1100 separate school districts. Due to a major state effort to promote consolidation and provide numerous financial incentives to merge, there are now 873 districts.
There is a misperception in the community that the Lockport West Campus was “stolen” from our District in 1971, but an examination of the documents from this transaction indicate that our school district was fairly and equitably compensated for this detachment. Please review the documents at the links on this page to learn more about this transaction. There are boxes and boxes of documents which explain the detachment in greater detail, but our Business Office has summarized them in the documents on this page. If you would like to review the boxes of documents, please feel free to contact LTHS Director of Business Services Rich Lesniak at (815) 588-8110 and he will work with you to arrange a time for a review of the documents.
As has been indicated, the process today is also far more complicated and time consuming than the process that existed in 1971. In 1971, only the seven members of the Regional Board of School Trustees had to approve a detachment petition. Today, the Regional Office of Education holds a public hearing; after weighing the evidence (including the testimony of the public), they will either approve or deny the detachment proposal, at which point the State Superintendent of Schools will have to either approve or deny the petition.
In addition, if the State Superintendent approves the petition for detachment, it becomes a Referendum question put before the registered voters in each school district that would be affected by a proposed detachment. The voters would have to approve or deny the proposal, and the passage requirements for said Referendum are very strict. If a detachment proposal is approved by the voters, the matter would still be subject to review by the courts, which could delay the initiative for several years.
It is clear that the process for detachment is much more complicated, time-consuming and expensive than it was 37 years ago. We are confident that our community will show unity as we move forward to provide classrooms for our students!