10 thoughts on ““How can we stop this stupid idea?””

1. How much did District 150 waste on the houses on Prospect? Do they really plan to rehire Cindy Fischer as a consultant after she retires? How many superintendents will that make at what salaries? How much do Hinton & Cahill really get compensated? How many District 150 vehicles park at employee homes at night and why? Does the District employ a degreed, licensed engineer or architect to supervise construction of new buildings and operation of existing buildings? They can save money all right, if they want to.

2. I thought Thom Simpson retired? Is he on the Hinton/150 consultant monwy train? They don’t want to save money.

3. I didn’t watch the entire school board meeting – the Rolling Acres production of the Wizard of Oz didn’t hold my interest. There was some bait and switch going on. It appeared that the original plan was to cut athletic director positions and all the effected parties were there to speak against that plan and they were preemptively told that the athletic director cuts were off the table – if you’ve come to talk about that we don’t ned to hear it -“something else to save money” would be proposed much later in the meeting. Much much much later because of the Wizard of Oz production. And then VOILA – lets cut the elementary school day. I would think that if the parents show up at the board meeting and make a stink they’ll back down. Was the school board at the meeting last night or just the administration?

4. There were 2 board members at the Kellar meeting last night.. Jim Stowell and one other. I asked Mr. Stowell why there weren’t more board members present and he said to have more than 2 board members there could be considered a violation of the open meetings act.

   It concerns me that those that were not present were unable to see how high the level of opposition is among both parents and teachers.

5. Simpson was in that proverbial good ol’ boy revolving door when he “retired” and swung right back in the inner sanctum with the same pay. King Hinton likes people like Simpson for obvious reason if you know him. Smart, quiet and capable of staying out of the way so unknowing taxpayers like you won’t know he’s at the public hog trough.

   BTW Fischer is also rumored to be coming back at $450 per diem which equates to $117,000 on a contract basis.

   ^oo^~

6. Why do we let politicians (yes, school board members are politicians) twist the law for their own purposes. I’m talking about the nonsense that only two board members could be present without violating the Open Meeting Law. Rubbish. Yes, if more than two board members would have been present the Open Meeting Act would have applied. But that just means that they would have had to comply with the special meeting notice requirements of the law, which primarily involved posting a notice and agenda at District HQ at least 48 hours before the meeting and sending a copy of the notice to the media. What was so hard about that. The irony of this is that a law meant to give the public more access to the process is being used all the time by politicians as a curtain to hide from the public.

   Check out the Illinois Attorney General’s guide to the Open Meeting Act at http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/government/open_meetings.html

7. Yes, Simpson was rehired from retirement as was Ken Hinton, Aurthur Perkins and Sandy Farkash (who has subsequently retired again). In addition, this year two more retirees are supposedly returning at their current per diem rate (and that may be more than $450 per day) – Cindy Fischer and Mary Ann Randle. It just goes on and on – friends of Ken feeding at the public trough.

   One of the posters above mentioned there were plenty of additional cost reductions that could be made. That person is correct, but neglected to mention all those “new” administrative positions Hinton created. Somehow the district managed to function and the kids learned without these suspect “new” positions for many years. Why the sudden, urgent need for these administrative positions carrying very generous salaries that were, in part, staffed with former Edison colleagues of Hinton? Why not cut some of those?

8. Spangler is up for re-election in 2009.

9. Here’s an open letter:
   Dear School Board and District 250 administration:

   Are you kidding? Improve education by doing less of the pitiful amount you already do? How stupid do you think those of us who came through District 150 really are?

   The horse is dead.

10. Sorry… in my anger I mistyped…

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