Students who live on Elgin’s east side will attend Elgin High School instead of crossing the Fox River to attend Larkin High School, the District U-46 School Board was told.
School boundary changes have been adjusted as the district prepares to move sixth-grade classes from elementary schools into middle schools in the 2026-27 school year.
“Right now there’s a section on the east side of Elgin around Kimball Street that goes to Kimball (Middle School) and Larkin (High School),” U-46 Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Mark Moore said. “Instead of that, they will go to Larsen (Middle) and Elgin, and all Larsen students will go to Elgin,”
Initial recommendations were presented to the board in December, but have since been tweaked based on feedback received at five community meetings held in December and January.
The proposed changes are necessary as the district enacts plans to close some aging and outdated schools, renovate and add on to others, and construct two new buildings — one an elementary school and the other a middle school.
The switch in enrollment for middle schools will take place this fall, and the new middle school being built on Rohrssen Road ready for students in the 2027-28 school year. Until it can be occupied, the students who are to go there will use Abbott and Ellis middle schools on a temporary basis and then those two schools will close.
Board members are to vote on the new boundaries at their April 14 meeting.
U-46 Chief of Staff Brian Lindholm reminded the board of the other projects in the works:
- Washington and Lowrie elementary schools in Elgin and Hanover Countryside in Streamwood will close after the 2025-26 school year.
- McKinley Elementary in Elgin will close once a new school on the former David C. Cook property is ready to occupy.
- Renovations are underway at Glenbrook Elementary in Streamwood and Century Oaks Elementary in Elgin and will be completed during the 2026-27 school year.
- Illinois Park in Elgin will be retired as an early education center following the 2025-26 school year and reopen as an elementary school the following school year.
Presentations and maps of the current and proposed boundaries are available on the district’s website, Lindholm said. Staff also is putting together an online page in which an address can be typed in and the current and future schools assigned to it provided.
Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Lela Majstorovic said the district will allow families to submit residency exception requests to ask if their child might attend a school that’s different from the one assigned.
“Approving a request will be contingent on available staff and space, based on the current staffing allocation at the requested site and that parents and guardians will be responsible to provide transportation,” Majstorovic said.
For more information on U-46 boundary recommendations, go to www.u-46.org/Page/15447.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
