Illinois districts disagree about transportation fees for children of horse track workers
Feb. 20, 2007
To stay in the same school when track venues change, students have a daily 60-mile round trip for part of the year.
For more than 150 children whose parents help groom, walk and care for horses at Chicago area race tracks, following the thoroughbred racing schedule means bouncing between Arlington Park in Arlington Heights and Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney, near Cicero. Most of the year, they live in apartments in the backstretch or stable area at Hawthorne. But when the season switches to Arlington, they'll move there and for eight weeks--five in the spring and three in the fall--and have to endure a long ride each day to school in Cicero. Now, the six-year busing arrangement between Palatine-based District 15 and Cicero District 99 may be in jeopardy.
