Several school districts in northern Illinois had major referendums on the ballot last week, including La Moille — a small district in Bureau County — where voters chose to deactivate and shut down their high school.
If there’s one thing superintendent Tom Jeppson is grateful for, it’s that the vote was overwhelming. Turnout was high and 71% of the community voted in favor of the deactivation.
“I think a very close 50-50 (vote) would have been very difficult to wrestle with," he said. "This has been emotionally challenging for me. You know, I wanted to make sure I'm doing the right thing for this community that I serve.”
Next year, their high schoolers will attend one of three neighboring schools: Amboy, Mendota, or Hall High School in Spring Valley.
But why exactly is this happening? Well, it’s a familiar story for rural communities across the country. Enrollment has been steadily falling for a long time. Only 43 students are going to La Moille high school this year.
Jeppson says that means they just can’t offer their students the educational opportunities some of their neighboring, larger districts can. For example, La Moille can only offer one section of Algebra 1. So, regardless of their math proficiency level, everyone has to be in the same class.
“If we go to Mendota High School to the east of us, where they have approximately 500 high school students, they not only offer those courses but they offer them at different levels," said the superintendent. "They're able to have advanced courses or honors courses, your regular algebra class, and then even one that's going to have a little bit more support.”
Rural districts already work together a lot to try to provide students as many opportunities as possible. Most commonly, you see this with sports and extracurriculars.
La Moille has been co-opting with Amboy for years for sports. Starting this year, their students can also play for Mendota in sports like soccer and tennis that Amboy doesn’t have. So, some students are already pretty familiar with the schools they might go to next year.
You might think that’s decided by geography; that the district would draw lines and students who live closer to Amboy will go to Amboy next year, Mendota to Mendota, and so on. But Jeppson says that’s not how they’re doing it.
“Students will have their own choice to enroll in any of the three schools," he said. "If they live within our boundaries, they can pick any of the three and, hypothetically, you could have siblings attend different high schools if that's what they wanted.”
There are still big parts of the deactivation plan that need to be sorted out before next year. The high school is getting deactivated, but their junior high and high school share a building. Will 7th and 8th graders stay in that building on their own or be moved to La Moille’s elementary school?
That building, Allen Grade School, is the oldest continuously operating school in Illinois. It was built in 1887 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“The Board of Education is looking to form a community committee that would include a few board members, some staff members of the district, village board members, community members, and parents, and get some input for what would the community like to see happen with the buildings," said Jeppson.
Several elementary schools have closed over the past few years, but high school deactivations are pretty rare in Illinois. The last school to deactivate was Paw Paw High School in 2019.
Jeppson says La Moille’s school board has been seriously considering deactivation for a year and a half or so.
“This board of education definitely has not taken this lightly. A good number of them are alumni, born and raised," he said.
They first brought it to voters in the spring with an advisory referendum that also passed easily.
Jeppson says the high school means a lot to the community. Many have had family walking the halls for generations. The fact that this will be La Moille High School’s last graduating class is hard. It’s emotional.
Jeppson says it’s tough to separate your own memories from the needs of the moment. But, in the end, he says voters knew offering more opportunities for their students was more important than holding on to the building.
