Category Archives: Peoria Public Schools

Education, Nation/World, Peoria Public Schools

Michelle Rhee: Blueprint for urban schools?

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I heard a story on NPR the other day about the chancellor of the Washington (D.C.) public schools, Michelle Rhee. She has a plan for improving the struggling urban school district:

She has proposed a new contract for the union that would undermine tenure, the teachers union holy of holies. The carrot is money. By tapping Mayor Fenty and private philanthropists, she is hoping to make D.C. teachers the best-paid in the country. Current teachers would actually have a choice. If they are willing to go on “probation” for a year—giving up their job security—and can successfully prove their talent, they can earn more than $100,000 a year and as much as $130,000, a huge salary for a teacher, after five years. If not, they still get a generous 28 percent raise over five years and keep their tenure. (All new teachers must sign up for the first option and go on probation for four years.) Rhee predicts that about half the teachers will choose to take their chances on accountability for higher pay, and that within five years the rest will follow, giving up tenure for the shot at merit pay hikes.

Of course, the goal of this is not only to reward successful teachers, but to get rid of “incompetent teachers,” as Rhee puts it elsewhere. The teachers union says, “You can’t fire your way into a successful school system.” Rhee counters that tenure does nothing to improve student achievement and only makes it harder to terminate poor teachers, which is bad for the children. The union questions Rhee’s ability to judge who is or is not a good or competent teacher. And back and forth it goes.

Rhee has a bargaining chip: charter schools.

About a third of D.C. parents now opt to send their kids to charter schools, which are public schools—but where the teachers are non-union. The union has lost more than a thousand of its more than 5,000 teaching slots during the past decade. Rhee, it appears to many, is not interested in protecting turf. If she can open more charter schools that are better than the regular city schools, she seems willing to let the old system wither away.

In either event, if Rhee gets her way, many are saying that it will have a ripple effect through the nation, with many other urban school districts trying to follow in Rhee’s footsteps.

District 150 is starting to look into charter schools, and on an unrelated note they’re looking for creative ways to save money. For the new math and science academy, they’re even looking to partner with Bradley University; such an arrangement “could help the university develop and train better teachers, as well as provide a better educational opportunity within District 150.” No word yet on what relationship charter school teachers would have to the union.

So, should District 150 follow Rhee’s plan for improving urban schools? Or, to put it another way, should Peoria’s public schools make tenure-busting and/or union-busting part of their strategy?

Peoria Public Schools

Schifeling being challenged for PFT president’s spot

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Jeff Adkins-Dutro, a Peoria High School Teacher, and Hedy Elliott, a Garfield primary school teacher and daughter of popular radio personality Royce Elliott have recently launched a campaign for President and Vice-President respectively of the Peoria Federation of Teachers (PFT) Union. Dutro and Elliott are challenging current PFT President Scott Schifeling.

See the full story on Peoria Pundit.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Noteworthy news links

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Here are some news items from the Journal Star that caught my interest:

City of Peoria, Peoria Park District, Peoria Public Library, Peoria Public Schools

School board member suggests some “horse trading of civic assets”

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Jim StowellPeoria School Board member Jim Stowell believes the new northern branch of the library is misplaced, and would be better located by Expo Gardens and Richwoods High School. He doesn’t think it’s too late to change locations, either, since no construction has begun yet. A little over a week ago, he sent this letter to Peoria Public Library Director Ed Szynaka, Peoria Park District Director Bonnie Noble, Peoria Public Schools Superintendent Ken Hinton, and City of Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis:

Congratulations to the Peoria Public Library for the much deserved recognition from the Alliance Library Systems for their work in, as PJS described 10/30 “nudging a plan through a laborious process” that ended with 72% supporting a $35 million referendum to upgrade the present system. Full disclosure, I did not support the referendum.

Since the passage of that advisory referendum, however, much has changed economically. While some might think the $1 million spent for 6 acres behind Menards is a worthy investment, I’d suggest that with the pace of growth slowing and no shovel of dirt yet turned on this project, that the leadership of the Library would be prudent stewards of community assets if they re-assessed where to allocate precious resources. Much as city leaders have started to address issues within the heart of our city through Impact Zones, I believe we need to construct a new library where it can serve the greatest good for our community. Councilman Spears offered an idea that was not given adequate evaluation. With ICC, Mid-State College, St. Vincent’s and several public schools within walking distance, a facility near Expo could serve as a catalyst for a north-end transformation that might head off diminished real estate values likely to occur.

While I write only as an individual and not on behalf of the school board, what would be the possibility if the Library could acquire land near Richwoods free? Add the possibility that the school district would consider titling the properties acquired on Prospect to the Park District. The ultimate end would be for the Park District to acquire, over time, other parcels and square off Glen Oak Park from McClure down to Frye. This would open up green space and eyes to what many don’t realize is there.

A caveat to the agreement would need to provide for housing the District 150 Chinese teachers. Given the financial challenges facing municipal entities, it would likely take many years for the Park District to acquire the entire frontage along Prospect and our Chinese teachers could remain good neighbors of the Park.

In exchange for those assets, the School District could take possession of the Lakeview Branch, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU for up to 30 years) that, through collaboration, the Public Library would remain open and a reading lab for students might also be established. Mentors for the reading lab could be sought from patrons. Usage could be monitored and a new “model collaborative library” might even develop.

In the end, the Library retains land where growth might occur in the next 30 years, and a “new” facility is more centrally located to serve multiple age groups and demographics. The siting could set off positive revitalization efforts throughout Exposition Gardens, with walking trails, etc. Lakeview would be enhanced and the District would have built-in mentor magnet.

In working together, the cost for the horse trading of civic assets – zero. The knowledge that the Library Board led other government entities and acted for the greater good: priceless.

Jim Stowell

Peoria Public Schools

Math, Science and Technology Academy Update

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I received this communication today from our neighborhood association about the planned Math, Science and Technology Academy. The note at the beginning is from Second District Council Member Barbara Van Auken:

Attached is an update on the Math Science and Technology Academy project. Mike Dugard, Rod Lorenz, Michael Keck and I (along with a number of other academic, business, medical, research and civic representatives) serve on the Advisory Committee to District 150 for this wonderful venture.

Best regards,
Barbara

— Attachment follows–

Coming to Peoria: a Math, Science and Technology (MSTA) Academy

Providing educational choice and meeting forecasted workforce demands, Peoria Public Schools leads the development of a Math, Science and Technology Academy, with a hopeful opening in 2010. Projected voids of skilled workers in health care, engineering, manufacturing and construction, all requiring beyond 12th grade skills in math, science and technology, has directed the MSTA focus. The Board of Education has designated a site located in the heart of technology development, Renaissance Park, and has earmarked funding for renovations to the facility.

Working together as a team, representatives from health care, higher education, parents, manufacturing and technology companies, city government, neighborhood associations, educators, and city leaders, have come together to research and gather input from the community. The team is committed to opening a world class Math, Science and Technology Academy to serve as a model educational program as well as contribute to the economic growth of our community. Members from the Advisory Team have visited schools as far away as California and as close as Chicago, Indianapolis and St. Louis, with more visits planned soon.

What might the MSTA look like?

  • Students throughout the city in grades 4th – 12th grade interested in math, science and technology could apply with 450 students being selected using a lottery process
  • Cutting edge best practices in teaching and learning with the infusion of technology and project based learning will drive the development of the model
  • The cultural environment will foster collaborative learning to encourage student inquiry, problem solving, accountability, and the development of ethical leaders
  • The environment will energize students and teachers to rise to higher levels of achievement
  • Student learning would go beyond the classroom and extend to world-class mentorship and internship experiences with scientists, scholars, entrepreneurs at laboratories, universities, hospitals, and companies throughout the Peoria area
  • Longer school day , school year and opportunities for Saturday instruction will allow for differentiated instruction to build skill development both for remediation and acceleration
  • The school could serve as a professional development center for other schools to bring outstanding practices in math, science and technology

Why look at the MSTA being a Charter School?

  • Components of charter schools directly align with components identified by the Advisory Committee for the components of the MSTA
  • Charter Schools bring choice to parents, provide autonomy and flexibility at the school level to support innovation, support partnerships with parents and the community, and operate on a multi-tiered accountability system
  • The ultimate goal of charter schools is to lead public education to unprecedented levels of high academic achievement for all students

Stay tuned for more information on the development of this incredible opportunity for our students … for our community!

Xcoins has diligently offered their help with your investments in our children’s future. The site they describe as “located in the heart of technology development, Renaissance Park,” is the Adult Education Center on the corner of Moss and Garfield avenues (fka Washington School):

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Circumvention of voters nearly complete

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One of the final steps toward issuing bonds through the Public Building Commission (PBC) for new public school construction will take place Monday night as the Council approves the siting of the new schools. District 150’s ability to access PBC funds was made possible by the efforts of local state representatives George Shadid (now retired) and Aaron Schock. And the reason it was made possible was blatantly to circumvent the voters.

The school board could have put a binding referendum on the ballot asking voters to approve funding for their building plans. Ask anyone at the district or your state representatives why they didn’t do that, and they’ll tell you that they believe a school bond referendum would never pass. Hence, the “need” to go around the voters and get the money through the PBC.

I have a fundamental problem with that process. You have to ask yourself why they think a referendum wouldn’t pass. Consider, for instance, that voters in communities near Peoria have recently approved similar referenda, and voters in Peoria recently approved by a large margin capital funding for library improvements. So you can’t honestly argue that a referendum would never pass.

If a referendum were to fail, it would not be because voters don’t want to make needed upgrades to schools, but because they don’t like the district’s method of “upgrading” them. In other words, voters would use the power of the purse to approve or disapprove of the district’s building plans. For instance, consolidating Irving and Kingman schools into a new primary school building next to Lincoln Middle School and Woodruff High School probably wouldn’t have garnered enough votes because the residents didn’t want to see those neighborhood schools close. Attempts to build a new Glen Oak School at Glen Oak Park would certainly not have gained enough votes because residents very loudly and clearly stated they didn’t want the school sited there.

By circumventing the voters, it not only took away the residents’ decision regarding funding, but also its influence in the design and siting of the new buildings. So when the council communication on the agenda for Monday night says, “The concerns of neighbors have been addressed in the siting process,” that’s really not true. There were public meetings, after which the school board did exactly what they said they were going to do in the first place (with the notable exception of changing the site for Glen Oak School due to a lawsuit that effectively blocked an intergovernmental agreement between the park district and school district). There were public hearings about the design of the schools after all the decisions had been made and there was no intention of changing them.

Public input was a sham because the school board didn’t have to listen to the public or win their approval. They had their construction money regardless, thanks to their being granted access to PBC funding. So they did what they wanted regardless of public opinion. And that’s why you don’t see many people attending D150 public hearings or board meetings these days. Doing so is like a broken pencil: pointless.

Peoria Public Schools

Thomas Jefferson school damaged by fire

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As one of my alert readers mentioned in a comment to another post, Thomas Jefferson School was damaged by fire today. Fortunately, there’s a fire station literally across the street — Fire Station 11. Nevertheless, about $250,000 worth of damage was done according to the Journal Star. Classes will be canceled tomorrow and relocated to Loucks after that. Here’s more info from a District 150 press release:

Sunday Fire Causes School Cancellation for Students At Thomas Jefferson Primary

Students at Thomas Jefferson Primary School will not have school Monday, November 3 due to a Sunday morning fire at the school building. As to not disrupt the learning process and to help our many working families who are inconvenienced by school cancellations, District crews will be working non-stop to prepare the vacant Loucks-Edison building for the Thomas Jefferson students to return to classes on Tuesday, November 4. Classes will continue there until further notice.

Some of our special education students will be relocated to Jamieson and the Developmental Center. Contact with these families will be made on Monday to provide more details.

Starting Tuesday morning, a shuttle bus will be available for students who normally walk to Thomas Jefferson. These students need to be at the front of Thomas Jefferson School until 8:30 a.m. Students will be dropped off at the same location at the end of school, approximately 3:30 p.m. There will be supervision at the bus stop in the morning and afternoon. Parents who normally drop off and pick up are asked to take their student(s) to the Loucks building if possible. All regular bus riders will follow their normal schedules.

Thomas Jefferson staff will need to report to the Loucks-Edison library at 8:30 a.m. on Monday. Staff need to dress casual. Following an informational meeting, they will be setting up classrooms and preparing for the students’ return on Tuesday.

The District notified parents of Monday’s cancellation via the emergency phone system. On Monday, the District Administration will establish a hotline for parent questions and will make frequent updates to the District website, www.psd150.org.

There are currently 470 students enrolled at Thomas Jefferson, including 55 who are part of the special education programs.

Peoria Public Schools

D150: Where does all the money go?

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This is the first year we’ve put our kids in District 150. Before this year, my oldest daughter had attended a private school. Private schools, of course, don’t get any public money. Here’s how much public money goes to District 150, shown both in aggregate and per pupil:

Instructional Expenditure Per Pupil*: $6,297
Operating Expenditure Per Pupil*: $11,521
Local Property Tax Revenue*: $65,921,368
Other Local/State/Federal Revenue*: $84,928,611

One would think with that much revenue and per-pupil expenditures, all the schools’ needs would be more than met. Not so. First, we had to pay an additional fee for book rental. For our two school-age children, that came to $100. Then there have been the fundraisers — lots of fundraisers — more fundraisers than we ever had at a private school with no public funding and considerably less per-pupil (tuition) costs:

School fundraising requests received
within first two months of school year:		 4†
PTO fundraising requests received
within first two months of school year:		 3‡
Charitable fundraising requests received
within first two months of school year:		 2
TOTAL: 9

Note that this is just the fundraising requests received in the first two months of the school year. Who knows how many more are on their way. I don’t begrudge the charitable fundraisers, but include them in the chart merely to show the totality of how many requests for funds bombard parents of District 150 students — parents who, like all taxpayers in District 150, are already spending an enormous amount of money in property taxes, state taxes, and federal taxes to support public education.

Lest you think I’m being petty here, take a look at those numbers again. Totaling the per pupil instructional and operating expenditures per pupil, that comes to $17,818… per pupil. High school tuition at Peoria Christian School is only $4,932 per year. According to Peoria Notre Dame’s website, their “projected cost for educating a student for 2008 – 2009 is over $7,000.” That $7,000+ is paid for by a combination of tuition, subsidies, fundraisers, and some miscellaneous revenue sources.

Meanwhile, at District 150, they receive nearly $18,000 per student in public money. So why the need for additional private funds in the form of so many fundraisers? My question is basically this: Where does all the money go?

__________

*Source: Interactive Illinois Report Card, 2005-06 Fiscal Year

†Magazine subscriptions for computers; General Mills Boxtops for cash; recycling of aluminum cans for cash; Usborne Books’ “Reach for the Stars” for school & classroom library books.

‡Spirit Wear for cash; Bergner’s Community Day for cash; Butter Braids frozen pastry/cookie dough for cash. Cash used for Accelerated Reader program, subscription to Time Magazine for Kids, and other programs.

Peoria Public Schools

District 150 explains $6.3 million transfer

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In a previous post, I questioned how District 150 was able to transfer $6.3 million from a debt service fund to operations and maintenance. I posed this question directly to the district and received this answer today:

The applicable section of the School Code is: 105 ILCS 5/10-22.44 (Transfer of Interest) which states in pertinent part: “To transfer the interest earned from any moneys of the district in the respective fund of the district that is most in need of such interest income, as determined by the board. This section does not apply to any interest earned which has been earmarked or restricted… This Section does not apply to any interest earned on any funds for purposes of [Retirement], [Tort Immunity], [Fire Prevention], and [Capital Improvements]. Interest earned on these exempted funds shall be used only for the purposes authorized for the respective exempted funds from which the interest earnings were derived.”

I also asked how the district is earning interest on money that is supposed to be repaying the district’s debt. “In other words,” I asked, “I’m assuming the only way interest could be earned is because there is excess money sitting in the debt service fund – and apparently a lot of it to earn $6.3 million in interest! Why is there so much excess in that account? And why isn’t it and any interest it has earned going to pay off bonds instead of being transferred to operations and maintenance?” They responded:

Taxes levied to repay debt, generally, are received during the months of June through December of a given year with bond (and interest) payments being made in December (of the then current year) and the following June (of the year in which the taxes were collected). The nearly six month lag in time between the receipt of taxes and the disbursement of the same (for bond principal and interest payments) yields income it having been invested. It is this “investment income”, accumulated and compounded over a period of many years, that was transferred; in other words, the interest was not earned in one year on “…excess money sitting in the debt service fund – and apparently a lot of it to earn $6.3 million in interest!” The last recorded transfer, and then only partial transfer, of interest income occurred in 1997. The interest income was not earmarked or restricted for the purposes of paying bonded indebtedness.

This has been quite (ahem) educational for me. I never knew the district only paid bond debt twice a year while receiving tax income continuously. Nor did I know that they could invest that money in the meantime and rack up millions of dollars in interest income over the years. Nor did I know that said interest income could be used for anything.

Nor did I know that 105 ILCS 5/10-22.44 superseded this other part of the school code (105 ILCS 5/1E-80):

All moneys on deposit in the debt service fund shall be held in trust in the debt service fund for the benefit of the holders of the Bonds, shall be applied solely for the payment of the principal of and sinking fund installment, redemption premium, if any, and interest on the Bonds, and shall not be used for any other purpose.

See, this is why I’m not a lawyer. When I, a mere layman, read a statement like, “All moneys on deposit in the debt service fund…,” I think that means all moneys on deposit in the debt service fund. If I were a lawyer, though, I would know that it doesn’t really mean all moneys on deposit in the debt service fund. It means all moneys except interest earned on deposit in the debt service fund. I also thought that when two provisions of a code were inconsistent with each other that the more restrictive one applied. But that’s apparently not the case here.

The question I didn’t ask, but should have, was why they needed an extra $6.3 million in their operations and maintenance fund in the first place.

Peoria Public Schools

D150 transfer raises questions

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I was reading the Journal Star’s article on the school board meeting last night and ran across this statement:

Also on Monday, the School Board […] Approved the one-time transfer of approximately $6.3 million from a debt services fund to the operations and maintenance fund.

Huh? If you’ve ever questioned school budgets before, you probably have encountered an official telling you about how each fund must be kept separate. For instance, if you mention that the school district should have access to plenty of money for operations by simply selling the houses along Prospect Road that they purchased prematurely, someone will tell you that you’re mixing up capital funds with operational funds. You can’t use capital funds to pay for operational expenses.

Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the debt service go to pay off bonds — bonds that are sold for capital expenditures? And how does the school board get around this provision in the Illinois School Code?

All moneys on deposit in the debt service fund shall be held in trust in the debt service fund for the benefit of the holders of the Bonds, shall be applied solely for the payment of the principal of and sinking fund installment, redemption premium, if any, and interest on the Bonds, and shall not be used for any other purpose. [105 ILCS 5/1E-80, emphasis mine]

How can the school board just, all of a sudden, transfer $6.3 million from the debt services fund to the operations and maintenance fund? Apparently these funds not quite as airtight as we’ve been led to believe.