Skokie

[cubssoxfan]

If you look at East Prairie District or Fairview District, these are composed mainly of single family homes. If you look at D69, although there are pockets of stable single family homes, there are also neighborhoods with many multi-unit apartments.
As far as living, if you have tenants that care about the place they live and act accordingly then there are no problems. if you have a landlord that prefers low rents instead of higher rents (and higher upkeep costs) then the chances of getting tenants that don't care about the place they live and act accordingly increases. If you live in the SFH two doors down this may be a problem.

[Tappan Zee]

Originally Posted by themag62

It would seem that the mobility rate would disavantage the mobile kids, not the kids who stay put. How many teachers really tailor the level of classroom curriculum to bring up to speed 2 kids who start late????? Now if 10 kids out of 20 started school late, the teacher would have no choice.

The Skokie Park District is fabulous. The range of programming/classes/camps for young kids and teens is 1st rate, as is the quality. My tween aged daughter just finished a summer theatre camp in Skokie and the counselors and camp directors were not just teen slacker warm body types, but had experience studying and teaching musical theatre. I've found the camp quality better than Evanston.

I agree If one were talking about half the class moving in and out of the school system like the "military brats" as they say, then yes, it would disrupt the classroom.
Skokie is a nice town. I have friends that live in the Dempster/Central neighborhood.

[linicx]

Most districts don't drop 10 kids in the same class, in the same school, on the same teachers - if there is any other choice. Luckily for Skokie there are choices. If the do, planning is not very well thought out.

[themag62]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Honestly the kids that are the active "movers" are far and away more disadvantaged than the kids that "stay put" but the disruption ABSOLUTELY does negatively impact the teacher(s) and the whole school, even the kids that never move. In addition to the shear time that it the kids that come late swallow up there impact on the relationships that are broken puts the whole school community at a disadvantage. Think about those folks that have been actively involved in helping a whole cohert of kids from an inner city that they once attended make it to college with active help and guaranteed scholarships -- a big part of the successs is that the kids "are in it together". The opposite happens when schools have high mobility rates, kids don't have the strong bonds to one other. It is the difference between a well train crew of rowers all pulling together vs a bunch of people all paddling seperately. One boat can just about fly through the water while a few dozen unsyncronized paddlers just churn up the water and don't make much progress...

AGAIN, were talking about maybe 2 kids out of 20. 10% is not a high mobility rate. AND You're drawing some big, robust conclusions about what will happen in the individual classroom from that statistic. There are other causal factors and variables. Numbers have to be put in context. You often post as if they represent the purest, most utter truth to be found. They are an indicator to be explored, not the last word.

[chet everett]

In the day-to-day world of 99% of real estate sales office it is lots easier to simply recommend the part of town that is most expensive. I happen to be in the small group that actually loves to dig into data. I can't tell you how any ways I have tried to slice up MLS data and tax rate data and commute time data and mandated school report card data to come up with a "picture" of the kind of stats that won't violate any federal laws and still give potential buyers better evidence that just saying "buy in the most expensive part of town for the best schools". The close association I have noted with schools having a higher mobility than about 10% and the students performing less well is backed up by both research from education professors and the experience of countless classroom teachers. This is not throw-away stuff. It is heartbreaking to any deccent teacher that realizes, often late in the year, that a big reason why the whole class did not do well is becuase of the "change of plans" / emotions caused by several children entering late / leaving early. There is no real good way for schools or teachers to "fix" that other problems that go along with these kinds of problems in areas with high numbers of low income kids. I mean this is NOT the rare "midyear transfer" of say a kid from the Hampton to our North Shore area. More likely this is some family barely making in some rough part of Chicago moving into a run down apartment complex is not-so-terrific suburb or a kid whose parents split up (maybe for economic reasons, maybe due to some other turmoil) and now he or she is gonna have to finish out the school year in a lot worse situation than they were used to. The better funded districts can afford to have enough school psychologists in the district so that every school has a nice caring staffer to look out for such kids and help as best they can but the districts with less funding have maybe one or two staff to handle hundreds of cases. Honestly this is not a simple thing to fix and that is the basic reason I do stick to the simple message of "move to the best part of town for the best schools".

When folks want to know WHY one district / attendance area is not doing as well as another that is when I point to the patterns that I and others have found help to at least shed some light on the gaps in performance. Sadly knowing the root of some of the problems does little to help kids overcome the challenges. That would take fundamental shifts in how schools are organized and how important the realities of disrupted lives are to law makers that are pretty much universally addicted to the campaign donations, much of which come from groups steadfastly opposed to change...

[middle-aged mom]

Originally Posted by linicx

Skokie has a roughly 65% Jewish and White population ......

According to the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, the Jewsih population in Skokie has declined to less than 25%.

[reppin_the_847]

That sounds about right. For Asians and Eastern Europeans in general though the area is quite diverse within these segments. The area has always been home to a large immigrant population and folks trying to upgrade from nearby city neighborhoods such as Rogers Park. The area is much more diverse than your typical town in America.

Originally Posted by middle-aged mom

According to the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, the Jewsih population in Skokie has declined to less than 25%.

[linicx]

I can't find anything in the Jewish Federation. But here is the 2010 Census. According to it 60.3% including persons reporting only one race and of this number 55.5% are white non-Hispanic. Perhaps the census is wrong.
Skokie (village) QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau

[dcisive]

I had cousins that moved from there quite a long time ago (early 80's) and even then there was a decided move towards Jewish folks moving even further North or retiring to either Miami or Phoenix. I was told my them that the neighborhoods were growing fast with people from India and Pakistan more so and quite a few Asians as well. I wouldn't doubt that indeed the Jewish population that once exceeded 80% there has declined to less than the 25% quoted. Skokie was once home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors of any place in the United States.

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by dcisive

I had cousins that moved from there quite a long time ago (early 80's) and even then there was a decided move towards Jewish folks moving even further North or retiring to either Miami or Phoenix. I was told my them that the neighborhoods were growing fast with people from India and Pakistan more so and quite a few Asians as well. I wouldn't doubt that indeed the Jewish population that once exceeded 80% there has declined to less than the 25% quoted. Skokie was once home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors of any place in the United States.

A lot of migration to Buffalo Grove and other communities served by Stevenson HS as well as moving farther north up the North Shore to Highland Park and Deerfield. As I tell my friends, when I went to school in Skokie in the 70's and early 80's I was a minority. When I moved back in the early 90's, everyone was a minority.