Category Archives: Peoria Public Schools

Peoria Public Schools

D150: That’s one way to improve scores

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Get ready for student achievement to improve this year — not because the kids are actually performing any better, but because District 150 has decided to lower the grading standards. For decades, the school has employed the traditional scale:

A = 93 – 100
B = 86 – 92
C = 77 – 85
D = 70 – 76
F = 0 – 69

Starting this fall, they switched to this scale:

A = 90 – 100
B = 80 – 89
C = 70 – 79
D = 60 – 69
F = 50* – 59

*Note: The student handbook says an “F” is 40-59, but a handout I recently received from the teachers said 50-59. Either way, it’s unclear to me why it wouldn’t be 0-59. What grade is it if the student earns something less than 40 or 50? Is it not still an “F”?

Obviously, this new scale makes it significantly easier to get higher letter grades, which are the only ones that go on the student’s permanent record and make up his or her grade-point average. It means that students who do work in the 60-69 range will now receive passing grades instead of failing grades. And it also means that District 150 scores will look inflated when compared to other area school districts. Here are elementary school grading scales for some surrounding communities (based on grading scales published on their school websites):

Grade Dunlap Morton G’town Hills
A 92-100 93-100 94-100
B 84-91 85-92 86-93
C 74-83 77-84 76-85
D 66-73 70-76 70-75
F 0-65 0-69 0-69

I’ve searched the school board minutes for some mention of this change to the grading scale and have yet to find it. I’m not the only one who was surprised. The teachers I talked to said they found out about it the first day of school via memo. Furthermore, the teachers I spoke with said they are not in favor of the easier grading scale, nor were they consulted.

So, the question is, when was this decision made, and why?

Peoria Public Schools

D150: Petelle demonstrates governmental transparency

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In stark contrast to another elected official, rookie school board member Laura Petelle demonstrates the kind of transparency and accessibility the public expects from their representatives in the 21st century. She invites dialog with her constituents, she shares pertinent information in a timely manner, and she explains her votes (proving that she has thought them through and is not making knee-jerk decisions). And she does it on the internet where the info is easily accessible to all.

That’s the way it ought to be. Even if you don’t agree with her vote, at least you understand her argument and appreciate the effort she’s gone through to make a good, conscientious decision she believes is in the best interests of her constituents and the district at large.

In today’s post, she’s talking about the closing of a high school. She’s probably going to vote to close Woodruff. Fellow board member Jim Stowell has indicated his desire to see Peoria High close instead. No doubt it will be a split vote, and who knows which way it will go? Billy Dennis is predicting Woodruff will be closed on a 4-3 vote. We’ll all find out on Monday, September 21.

In the meantime, hop over to Laura’s blog and read her reasoning. It’s a perfectly logical decision, and I applaud her for her transparency. However, I do have a couple of questions. (Don’t I always?)

  1. PBC Funds: Petelle states that one of the reasons they must close a high school is that “there are issues relating to the PBC bonds that will provide a further $25 to $30 million in bonding authority for our District.” Basically, if they don’t close a high school, they don’t get that additional funding. However, there’s another requirement in order to utilize those bonds: the supporting document Petelle provides states, “Final planning, however, is dependent upon the need for the District to identify the projects.” Yes, I too would like to know on what they plan to spend that additional funding, if they were to get it. First, I’d like to know why they need to spend it at all. If they need to cut the number of facilities, and if our building capacity exceeds our enrollment, and if the school district is in a structural deficit, I don’t see the justification for taking on more debt. Is it just so they can max out the PBC funding limit and keep our taxes high? If there is no clear project needing funds, then it looks like they’re just spending the money for the sake of spending it, and that doesn’t sound like it’s in the best interests of the taxpayers.
  2. Torts: One of Petelle’s commenters (“Jon” — who might be the same “Jon” who comments on the Chronicle) made a shocking observation. He looked at the 2009-2010 Tentative Budget that Petelle put up on her site and asked, “What is the TORT category? …It has an expected deficit of nearly $4.1MM compared to only $900k the prior year. Its expenditures increased from $6.1MM to $8.6MM while at the same time its revenue fell from $5.2MM to $4.5MM.” Laura responded that it is the “tort lawsuit fund.” I just happen to have received recently (courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act) a list of pending lawsuits against District 150. By my count, there are 83 total. I haven’t surveyed other school districts to see how this compares, but at first blush this number sounds very high to me. Given the impact this is having on the district’s bottom line, this issue really should be investigated. What is causing all these lawsuits? Is there a common thread? Can anything be done to reduce their occurrence?
Peoria Public Schools

Moss Ave. school no longer considered for MSTA

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Up until last night, the proposed Math, Science and Technology Academy (MSTA) charter school was to be housed at the former Washington School on Moss Avenue (currently being used for Adult Education). But it sounds like that building is no off the table, according to today’s paper:

District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton said the site of the former Washington School on the city’s West Bluff is not large enough to house a proposed math, science and technology academy. Instead, Hinton suggested Tuesday that such a school open at Loucks…

It’s always been established that the current building is “too small.” The original plan was to expand it. In June 2008, Hinton had this to say:

Physically, he [Hinton] envisions keeping the front facade in place, but everything else would be renovated and “look nothing like it does now.” In order to enlarge the school, he sees it expanding northward (the front of the school faces south, more or less), possibly extending to the corner of Garfield and St. James.

So, what happened to plans to enlarge the school? What’s the real reason this site was abandoned?

Peoria Public Schools

Why are teachers only required to work six and a half hours?

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The 2006-2009 teachers contract with District 150 specifies that teachers’ “hours of work” are “six (6) hours and thirty (30) minutes for primary and middle schools,” and six hours thirty-five minutes for high schools. By comparison, Pekin District 108 teachers’ work day includes the six and a half hours of the school day, plus thirty minutes before and twenty minutes after those hours, or about seven and a half hours. Dunlap schools have a similar requirement.

At Monday’s District 150 board meeting, union president Bob Darling spoke to the board during the “audience presentation” portion of the meeting, and among other things he defended the hours of work by saying, “I don’t know any teacher that only works six and a half hours.” The implication is that, even though they’re not contractually required to work longer, most teachers put in much more time than the minimum. I have no doubt that his assertion is true.

Nevertheless, because of the contractual limitation on hours, the school board only has six and a half hours to work with when scheduling the day. If they want to add teacher collaboration time to the day, they can’t tack it on before or after school, nor can they require teachers to use their prep periods (use of the prep period is also restricted in the contract). The board’s only options are not to add teacher collaboration time, or to take time away from the students. The latter is exactly what they did when they established so-called “wacky Wednesdays.”

I think critics have a point when they ask what other full-time job requires only six-and-a-half-hour days (32.5 hours per week), 180 days a year. I’ve never heard of it anywhere else. Full-time jobs usually require eight hours a day (40 hours per week). If teachers worked a standard full-time shift each day (or even seven and a half hours per day) with teacher collaboration time and a prep period(s) built in, then the district wouldn’t have to take time away from the students and the collaboration time would improve instructional quality, right? And since they’re already working those extra hours anyway, why would they object to making it part of their contractual work day, especially when it will greatly benefit the students and not obligate teachers to any more time than their peers in other districts?

Peoria Public Schools

Who’s running phone survey about District 150? (UPDATED)

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One of my readers has informed me that a phone survey is being conducted, and the questions are most intriguing. Here’s part of the e-mail describing the questions he was asked:

Some paraphrased questions I recall-

Do you approve or disapprove of the following people
Ken Hinton
Jim Ardis
Paul Vallas

Do you approve or disapprove of a take over of the district by the city
Do you approve or disapprove of a take over of the district by the state
Do you approve or disapprove of raising taxes to support a charter school coming into the district
Biggest issue for the district- crime, scores, money
A question on the teachers union- they are doing the best they can, they are in it just for them
Do you approve of the direction the city is heading
Do you approve of the direction the district is heading
What is your opinion of Dunlap 323

I would love to see the results of this survey. But even more than that, I would love to know who is conducting it. Anyone want to ‘fess up?

Even if you don’t know who’s conducting it, what do you think of the questions? How would you answer them?

UPDATE: I’ve gotten confirmation from District 150 and the City of Peoria that they are not conducting this survey. The Heartland Partnership has indicated that they’re aware of the survey, but they can’t get me any more details until Monday. I’ll pass along any new information I receive.

Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Public Schools

New embarrassment for District 150

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The Journal Star has discovered more financial anomalies at District 150:

More than $24,000 was paid last year to several teachers at nearly a dozen District 150 schools for extracurricular activities that were approved but went beyond what those individual schools were allotted to spend.

The worst offender: Washington Middle School, where an estimated $8,370 was spent beyond what is allowed through contractual obligations at middle schools. That is one of the findings of a Journal Star analysis of a list received through the Freedom of Information Act containing the more than $1.32 million spent in the 2008-09 school year on extracurricular activities.

“It’s not a situation where teachers were getting paid for doing nothing,” Mary Davis, an academic officer for the district, said of the errors at many District 150 schools. Rather, there is “no checks and balance system,” Davis said.

And there you have it, right from the District 150 administration: There is no checks and balance system. Mary Davis should be familiar with that problem. She’s being sued by a former principal for misappropriation of school activity funds. Whether she is ultimately convicted of these charges or not, the fact remains that there is insufficient checks and balances of the student activity funds.

Unfortunately, this is a pervasive problem at District 150. Year after year, District 150’s annual audit has included this criticism, as reported earlier this year by the Journal Star:

The internal financial review controls at District 150 are at the very least inadequate, resulting in errors, unsubstantiated account balances and generally leaves the district without an accurate day-to-day report of its cash flow, according to a letter from the district’s auditors.

That audit report was rumored to have been the reason Guy Cahill was fired by the school district. And that made me wonder, why is there no quote from the district’s new controller/treasurer Pam Schau? Why is an academic officer answering questions about these improprieties? And why an academic officer who is under suspicion herself?

Peoria Public Schools

Details on Peoria Charter School Initiative

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Up until now, we’ve just seen some general information on the proposed math and science academy charter school. But now the Peoria Charter School Initiative has released its “Design Framework” — a detailed, 41-page document that goes over everything from curriculum to cost:

PDF Link Peoria Charter School Initiative Design Framework

Take a look at it. What do you think? I haven’t had time to thoroughly read over it, but I did note that they’re planning on longer school days (8:00-3:20) and more school days per year (200). It seems whenever anyone wants to improve education, more time spent in school is part of the solution — everywhere except in District 150’s regular schools, that is.

Peoria Public Schools

And speaking of District 150 . . .

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District 150 has hired yet another consultant.

Jeanne Williamson, an assistant superintendent of school operations at District 150 before she left in 2002 to become superintendent of Dunlap School District 323, was hired as a consultant. She retired from District 323 at the end of June.

Williamson’s job will be to devise a plan to reconfigure the district’s high schools, board President Debbie Wolfmeyer said. […]

Williamson is to be paid $350 per day up to a maximum of 120 days.

Given the number of administrators and consultants already on District 150’s staff, is there honestly no one in house who can do this job? Like, for instance, Ken Hinton?

Hat tip: MiddleAgedWomanBlogging