Daily Archives: August 8, 2006

Peoria Public Schools

District 150 slowly coming back to reality

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Despite some ridiculous quotes in this story about last night’s school board meeting, I actually found it somewhat encouraging. The school district is at least acknowledging that there is a limit to the amount of money it can realistically spend, even if it is for the worthy goal of children’s education.

New board president David Gorentz is quoted as saying, “My concern is that we might spend more money in a few schools and really have that be the ideal design, but is that really the best for 15,000 students in District 150?” Good question. I would say, no.

If these buildings are really as inadequate as we’ve been told by the school board, and are really hampering the children’s education, then it would be irresponsible to put all the construction money into one or two schools while the other four or so are left in a state of disrepair. I think the school board is slowly coming to the realization that they can dream up what they believe is the perfect learning environment, but in the end, it takes money — money they don’t have — to accomplish it. Compromise will have to be made.

But compromise is always talked about in the gravest of terms. To wit (emphasis mine):

Education consultant Judy Helm said the schools could be reduced to a square footage similar to original estimates but at a significant cost to kids’ education.

That sounds ominous. We don’t want to jeopardize the kids’ education…. But, what specifically would have to be cut?

The district would have to forgo the concept of a community library and a health clinic, eliminate teacher planning areas, eliminate “integrated learning areas” for kids, reduce the size of classrooms, reduce the lunch room size and eliminate all classrooms for community/parent education, Helm said. These cuts would reduce the square footage to about 93,000.

Read over that list again. Do these items really represent a “significant cost to kids’ education”? Since when is a community health clinic or the size of the lunch room vital to a child’s education, for instance? Some of those things are easy to eliminate. (I’m not sure what “teacher planning areas” are in a grade school where teachers have their own rooms; do they need a separate “planning area”? I’m open to correction on that one.)

The biggest problem is the transformation of these facilities from replacement elementary schools to “community schools.” Most of the items Helm lists are a direct result of this shift. Since “community schools” are not part of the documented Master Facilities Plan, the district should either follow the plan or revise it — if they choose the latter, they should re-crunch the numbers to see if they can afford such an aggressive plan. I bet they can’t, and it looks like the school board is coming to that same conclusion, albeit slowly.

City of Peoria, Museum Block, Peoria Journal Star

Luciano is right about museum

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In a move sure to make his bosses unhappy, Phil Luciano wrote a scathing column criticizing the city’s plans for a new downtown museum. He doesn’t think it will be much of a draw:

Think of it this way: Peoria is about the same size as Allentown, Pa.; Evansville, Ind.; and Waterbury, Conn. Would you pack up the kids, gas up the van and head to any of those places to drink in their rich history?

I think Phil makes a good point. But I don’t think having a downtown museum is the problem per se — it’s the scale of the project. Why is the whole Sears block going to be devoted to the museum? Isn’t that putting all our eggs in one basket? What happens if the city’s tourism projections don’t pan out? Aren’t we left with a multi-million dollar millstone?

This is why, as I’ve argued before, it would be better to make the museum square more densely developed, as all our handsomely-paid consultants have been telling the city for years. Add retail, restaurants, and especially a residential component. By including private development on that block, the city collects property and sales tax revenues to offset the costs of maintaining and managing a museum on part of that parcel.

Plus, if people are living, shopping, and eating down there, the block will be buzzing around the clock throughout the week and weekends. Without those components, the block after 5:00 and on weekends will look exactly as it does now before a single brick has been laid: a black hole.

In short, I think there is enough interest in Peoria and its history to support a museum, but not a “museum square.” Scale it back and allow private development.