Five students who attended Riverside-Brookfield High School last year will not be back this year after the school board determined that they did not reside within district boundaries.
On Aug. 17 the District 208 school board held a special meeting and unanimously voted to remove the students after determining that they did not live in the district last year and seeks to recover more than $80,000 from the students’ families. The district is owed $16,061 for each student, according to the school board.
The likelihood of recovering tuition money from the students’ families is uncertain at best. District 208 Interim Superintendent David Bonnette said that letters have been sent to the students’ families demanding the tuition money. If the four families involved do not pay, District 208 could go to court to force the tuition payment.
According to Bonnette, one of the families lived within Proviso Township High School District 209, two families lived within Morton High School District 201 and one family was from Bolingbrook.
None of the families went to a hearing to determine residency and have accepted RB’s ruling, Bonnette said.
“None of these kids have attempted to register for this year,” Bonnette said.
Last year three other students voluntarily left RB during the school year after investigations revealed that they did not live in the district.
“We are going to pursue tuition for those individuals as well,” Bonnette said.
The investigations were performed by both RB personnel and the firm National Investigations, whose contract with RB was not renewed. The school board also voted unanimously last week to expel a female student who was a freshman at RB last year. The girl brought a knife to school in the last two weeks of the school year, Bonnette said.
“The student was suspended for the last eight or nine days of the school year,” Bonnette said.
The girl was expelled from RB for one year and will attend Harbor Academy Regional High School in Oak Park, an alternative school operated by the West 40 consortium of school districts, of which RB is a member.
