New Lenox schools adapt to declining kindergarten enrollment

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Updated: March 1, 2012 8:21AM

NEW LENOX — To the New Lenox School District, the decreasing kindergarten enrollment was like being given lemons. Instead of getting sour, the district decided to make lemonade.

All of the students at the Cherry Hill Kindergarten Center will be moved to Nelson Prairie School next year. Simultaneously, all the pre-kindergarten and early childhood grades will move to the Cherry Hill facility.

This is a result of declining enrollment at the kindergarten level over the past few years. It may drop even more next year.

“That would make (Cherry Hill) a very full and vibrant environment still,” Associate Superintendent Peggy Manville said. “We feel this is a very, very positive thing to have all of our kindergarteners under the same roof.”

Cherry Hill will be renamed the Cherry Hill Early Childhood Center.

Cherry Hill Principal Marianne Cucci will be reassigned to Nelson Prairie as principal, Manville said. That school’s current principal, Trisha Anderson, will be reassigned to a classroom.

Jacqueline Brown, the early childhood coordinator at Spencer Trail, will be the new principal at the Cherry Hill Early Childhood Center.

“Everyone is very excited,” Manville said. “It has been the staff’s dream to have an early childhood center.”

There will be some financial savings due to reducing a principal’s salary.

The reorganization is going to be the best delivery of services, Manville said.