Norridge students | Facebook / Norridge School District
Norridge students | Facebook / Norridge School District
At its Jan. 17 meeting, the Norridge School District 80 Board of Education discussed increasing the fees and tuition prices for the 2023-2024 school year.
The recommendation for the new tuition fee for both preschool and kindergarten was $2800, roughly an 8% increase. The district is also looking at a 15% increase in its curriculum fee from $150 to $170. All of these prices have been constant for the past three fiscal years. This 15% increase in fees follows up to higher grades, moving the grades 1-2 fee from $208 to $240 and in 3-4 from $213 to $245. The district will also be increasing the speech therapy services fee that its offers to 3- and 4-year olds who are not enrolled in the preschool program.
“I know that we don’t like to increase fees, but I think we're at a point when the increase of curriculum, the increase of paper that is costing [us], those classroom workbooks, electronic technology that we're using in the district, that we need to take this 15% increase,” Superintendent Michelle Guzik said.
The district chose to make a lot of fee cuts in the fiscal year of 2021, and it was able to sustain those lower fees up until now. However with inflation driving up costs everywhere and the lack of tuition increase in the past few years, the district was advised to take the fee increase to keep up with costs and supplies for students and classrooms. The district is also working on facilities upgrades and maintaining its fleet of ChromeBooks used by students in the classrooms.
When the district started its preschool and kindergarten tuition-based programs a few years ago, it set them both at $2600 for the full year. This extends the normal program to a full day as the first half of the day for these programs is free and available to everyone, with this tuition-based program as an add-on for the second half of the day for parents who choose it.
In other business, the board voted to purchase plumbing supplies from Morton Grove Plumbing.
Board Member Christopher Monson and Secretary Renzo Berardi were absent from the meeting.
The board will meet again at 7 p.m. on Feb. 21 at Leigh School’s gymnasium at 8151 West Lawrence Ave.
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