At the third of four District 150 forums last night, over two-thirds of those in attendance expressed their preference for smaller, neighborhood schools.

About 44 people attended, including all the school board members and two city councilmen (Bob Manning and George Jacob).

Thirteen people in the audience spoke to the issue. Ten of those people, including three Kingman teachers, a Kingman parent, and several neighborhood activists stated they believed the district should not be building one “mega-school,” but that the East Bluff and North Valley should each have their own school, and that they should be neighborhood schools to which children and parents could walk.

The Kingman teachers pointed to data that achievement and test scores are better in smaller neighborhood schools than large consolidated schools. They also said that parental involvement is a large factor in educational success, and that without a neighborhood school, parental involvement would decline.

Steve Katlack, who has presented at each of the forums so far, pointed out to the board that their own Master Facilities Plan recommends building two schools, and asked why that had changed. The school board declined to answer.

At the end of the meeting, school board member Linda Butler thanked everyone for their comments, but added, “let’s not be divisive,” and asked that “more community spirit” be exhibited. I found that rather insulting of the audience, who were all there precisely because of their “community spirit,” and were only “be[ing] divisive” if that phrase is defined as “disagreeing with the school board.”

A couple of other quick notes about the evening:

• One of our two newly-christened “Deputy” Superintendents, Cindy Fischer, was there to explain Ken Hinton’s vision at the beginning of the evening.
• I talked to District Treasurer Guy Cahill after the meeting and asked him what will happen to the Health Life Safety (HLS) money the district has decided not to use for Harrison School (they’re going to use Public Building Commission money instead). He said it was his understanding that the HLS bonding authority is not tied to that particular project, but is given to the district in aggregate. So, it can be used for other schools that will be replaced instead.
• Cahill also explained that the HLS money is to replace an equal amount of square footage. So, for instance, say the total square footage of the four schools to be replaced is 320,000 (I don’t know what it really is, this is just a hypothetical number). The school district could build one 320,000-square-foot replacement school with HLS money or thirty-two 10,000-square-foot buildings. Those are two extreme examples, but the point is that the school district has flexibility regarding how many schools they choose to build.
• Three people spoke in favor of the Woodruff/Lincoln site for the new school building. Two of them own land near the site. One was a Chillicothe resident who owns a house near the site he stated he would be willing to sell to the school district. The other was developer Tim Tobin who stated he has a $2 million investment next to Woodruff.

District 150 has four superintendents. There’s Ken Hinton, of course, who got his certification after he was hired as superintendent. Then there are the two “associate superintendents” — Herschel Hannah and Cindy Fischer — who were hired to act as superintendents while Hinton was getting his certification; they were later retained permanently. And finally, there’s the “assistant superintendent,” Cheryl Sanfilip.

Hinton had surgery and has been out for months, working from home we’ve been assured. Until yesterday:

Associate superintendents Herschel Hannah and Cindy Fischer have been named “deputy superintendents,” according to a news release sent out Wednesday. The announcement came hours after the Journal Star began inquiring about Hinton’s status.

What I think is funny is that the district felt the need to give them a new title: “deputy” superintendent. I mean, they’re already Associate Superintendents, and they were in charge before Hinton got his certification. What’s with the new title all of a sudden?

Fortunately for the district [/sarcasm], they have as many superintendents as a baseball team has relief pitchers, so they’re more than adequately covered in the event that one or three of their superintendents are incapacitated.

The key to figuring out what District 150 is doing is to look at the Master Facilities Plan from October 11, 2005. That’s their playbook. Not that they haven’t deviated from it, but it’s still their preferred scenario. If they could have everything they wanted, it would look like the Master Facilities Plan.

Sticking to the Plan

So far, they’ve stuck pretty close to it. The first thing was to replace Harrison school. They’re in the process of that right now. They were originally going to use Health/Life Safety (HLS) bonds to pay for it, but they recently decided to go through the Public Building Commission instead. Apparently they’re not worried about losing that HLS money.

The next thing was to close and not replace White and Blaine-Sumner schools. Done. Although, while they stopped using Blaine-Sumner for a school, they’ve done some remodeling and now use it for offices, which means they didn’t actually save any money in facility expenses with that move.

Next was their plan to add seventh and eighth grade classes to Manual High School. I don’t know if this was ever done. However, they did use Manual to house some troubled elementary school kids — a program they want to move to their newly-acquired Knoxville building (the one that used to be the Social Security administration office). So, while they were supposedly trying to reduce the number of facilities to save money, they’ve actually acquired another one instead.

Sticking it to the East Bluff

After that, the plan talks about phasing out Glen Oak School and either building a new school adjacent to Glen Oak Park or expanding the Von Steuben campus to K-8. The school board got shot down on the park plan, but strangely, there’s been no talk of expanding Von Steuben as an alternative. Instead, the district abandoned the East Bluff and started focusing more on Harrison and the north valley schools.

So, now we’re up to the part of the plan where they propose to combine Irving and Kingman school into one new school which they want to put on or adjacent to Morton Square.

First, it’s worth mentioning that Glen Oak School has been lumped into this replacement school now, whereas it wasn’t that way in the master plan. One wonders if this is some sort of revenge on the East Bluff for thwarting the board’s plans to put a school adjacent to Glen Oak Park. I sincerely hope that’s not the reason, as it only hurts the children.

Second, it was recently reported in the paper that Morton Square is in an historic district, so the school board has taken that potential site off the table. Many neighbors in that area were opposed to that site, although some spoke out in favor of it at the community forums.

The illusion of inclusion

So now the school board says it’s considering the current Glen Oak School site and the site adjacent to Lincoln Middle School as possible locations to put the replacement school for Glen Oak, Irving, and Kingman. I’ll bet you any amount of money that the site adjacent to Lincoln school wins. Why? Because of the narrowly-defined criteria for site selection.

The school board has divided their site requirements into two categories: “size” and “amenities.” For size, they require:

• The site should be large enough to accommodate the District’s 120,000 sq. ft. B – 8
• Including ample fitness and wellness spaces, parking, and loading/unloading zones for buses and parents
• Single story building minimum site size is 12 – 15 acres without adjacent, accessible open space
• Two story building minimum site size 6 – 8 acres with adjacent, accessible open space

For amenities, they list these requirements as “desirable”:

• adjacency to parks and programs, libraries, recreational centers, not-for-profit community organizations providing—as part of their mission—services to school-age youth, and/or other similar such service providers
• adjacency to police, fire, and/or other public service agencies
• adjacency to other schools, including institutions of higher education

Given these criteria, very few sites are even possible in the older part of the city. The criteria favor the Glen Oak Park and/or Morton Square site, which are both off the table now. Since the Lincoln site is next to a park, next to a school, and arguably has the least amount of land acquisition required, it’s practically pre-ordained to be the site for the new replacement school.

The crux of the matter is that many people fundamentally disagree with the criteria the school board has set. Many people believe that a central location that minimizes busing should be high on the list of criteria. Many people believe that being near another school is not necessarily “desirable.” There certainly is no justification for the inflated acreage requirements.

But the criteria are not up for discussion. The school board has stacked the deck. They’ve asked the public to play a fixed game. We’re being given only the illusion of inclusion. Ever heard the phrase, “the house always wins”? The school board is the house in this game.

Future plans

If they continue following their “full plan,” we can expect Tyng and Garfield to be closed, Garfield to be demolished, and a new school built on that site. They’ll call the new school Tyng. Then Woodrow Wilson and Loucks will be shuttered and a new building will be built somewhere near Peoria Central High. While not stated, my guess this will be the new Renaissance Park “technology” school they want to build. I have no idea what site they will find, but it will undoubtedly be controversial, wherever it is.

The many and various pieces of Keller School will be combined into one new or enlarged building on one side of the road — which is actually a good idea whose time has come. I never understood why they would split an elementary school campus across a busy street in the first place.

Finally, Lindberg Middle School will be enlarged. Trewyn and Calvin Coolidge will be remodeled. And Whittier will get a new building on the same site… according to the plan.