The members of the coordinating committee, whose goal is to help establish a DeKalb-NIU partnership school, were introduced Monday night at the DeKalb District 428 school board meeting.

The committee, led by superintendent Brian Ali and Anne Kaplan, vice president of administration and university outreach at NIU, is comprised of both NIU employees and staff throughout the school district.

The chairs of these subcommittees explained the basic concepts and tasks their committees are responsible for handling, as well as presented a timeline to the board.

Community members are able to track updates online by visiting the partnership school Web site at www.partnershipschool.niu.edu.

Even more daunting a task than planning a school to open in less than a year is determining who will attend the school.

Names of the redistricting committee members were presented to the board and Ali asked for parameters for the committee to consider. Because the redistricting is so intertwined with development of the former Malta school, board members debated the idea of redistricting while still allowing parents to opt to send their kids to the partnership school.

“I think we are opening a can of worms,” said school board vice president Suzanne Lambrecht.

She questioned whether opening up the partnership school to parental choice would force the district to have a district-wide choice of schools. This opened the discussion to the added cost of busing students to the selected schools.

The discussion was tabled until the Nov. 3 meeting by school board president Tom Teresinski.

The board will not meet again until Nov. 3, but a special joint session with the DeKalb City Council will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the council chambers at the DeKalb Municipal Building, 200 S. Fourth St. Board members also encouraged the public to attend a discussion on school funding at 7 p.m. today at Hopkins Park.