Regular commenter PrairieCelt has taken the time to transcribe Martha Ross’s comments at the end of Monday night’s school board meeting. I’ll let her words and the words and those who spoke after her speak for themselves.

Ross: I have a few words to say to the Board and the public – whatever public there might be, it really does not matter. I am going to name this It Is Time.

It is time to come together around what it going to take place and how we are going to move forward in educating our children in this district.

It is time that I came to terms with the fact that there is always going to be a divide based on black and white in this community. Nobody wants to talk about race but that is what it is about – it is about race. We know that because it was set up over 300 years ago.

And it is time also, that I realize that making all the Board meetings and making all my committee meetings over the last seven going on eight years, going to all the Board meetings and doing what I am supposed to do, is not going to make a difference in the way I get treated, and I feel I have been really slighted by some of my colleagues in giving me the opportunity to serve. It would not matter – it is not because I don’t have the education because I think I have more formal education than many of my colleagues and it is not because I don’t have the abilities to fulfill the presidency, particularly because I have served on local, state and national boards, sometimes in the presidency role or the chair of the committee role.

So I say it is time, in my opinion, for African Americans especially to realize that this plan to divide us has been put into place over 300 years ago. And we have to look at this and come to terms with this and see how we are going to address this.

A few of us have been provided privileges, meaning African Americans have been provided privileges, to get ahead, and what did it cost us to get there?

For my tenure on this board, I have expressed over and over why I don’t vote for expelling children, yet my colleagues choose to denigrate me in public because I voted the way that I voted.

And you have a Code of Conduct that talks about each persons vote should be respected – I would think that would include me.

During my tenure on the board, I have voted based on how I felt about the issues relating to the students in this district based on information I have received from the administration and research I have done myself.

During my tenure on this board, I have tried to ask questions at the board meetings that would inform the public. Some people say they are stupid questions or dumb questions or silly questions however you want to term that. But I have tried to ask questions so that it gave the public information about our business which is their business – the taxpayers.

I am unclear why members of the board find it necessary to attempt to degrade or deface my character to make themselves feel good about their own free-will decisions because whatever you decide to vote on is your free will.

I dont think you have to – and I brought this up last year – I don’t think you have to degrade another person to justify the decisions you make.

I am not happy with people doing that – you don’t have the right, it is not fair – again, you do not have the right to do that. That, to me, could be illegal or at least unethical.

But people who say that this is not about race – I cant think of it being any other way except that it is about race. We can cover it up, we can avoid it but when you tell people that these are the reasons why I am not going to vote for this person, I think you are degrading my character and I don’t appreciate it.

I am fully capable of being president and maybe you, Dr. Gorenz, don’t want to be in a team role – maybe the only way you can function is in a leadership role – I don’t know. I don’t know what the reasons that many people think that I am not capable of leading this board are, but I am capable and nothing anyone is going to say is going to make me feel that I am not capable.

There has always been a division and will always be a division and no matter how many hoops you jump through or how good you are, you will always going to have that divide.

But somehow – if we sign a Code of Conduct or an agreement – we should at least look at that agreement and say, okay, lets live by it – not just on paper.

So I don’t need to be in a presidents or a vice presidents role to do what I do or what I have been doing all these years, whether you think what I have been doing is valued or not, I think it is valued. I spend my time.

And, again, I just wanted to make that statement that I really don’t appreciate it and it is not fair and I will not accept it.

Gorenz: Any other comments? Mr. Stowell.

Stowell: Well I have to take exception because if she is saying her colleagues have done – I certainly don’t feel as I have done anything. I chose tonight the best leader who I thought was for this board. I meant no personal affront to it Mrs. Ross and I meant nothing, there is not a thing in me that made race an issue in this, and you smirk.

Ross: Yeah.

Stowell: There is no thing at all that I brought into this . . .

Hinton: Let me say this right now. Let me say this right now

Ross: Excuse me . . .

Hinton: Well wait. Let me finish, let me finish.

This is – I need to refocus us, everybody has their right to make their comments and say what is in their hearts and in their minds. But there is an outside entity that would love to see this board and this effort be fractionalized and I returned to this district to see to it that that did not take place because this is about the children. This is about the children.

I am so proud of this board in the sense that so much effort and focus has come about because this board being willing and more than able to stand up and make some changes and do what needs to be done for the children.

Now the only way, the only – where – this place where this conversation is going to go is a place where it becomes a controversy for the next 6 months, which is going to take us away from our focus and our direction.

We have overcome major obstacles. Tonight we heard about Skills U.S.A. Today or tonight Mrs. Spangler made the suggestion that is going to save some kids life that we talk about drug testing for athletes.

Tonight we’ve talked about starting a new program, a Math Science Technology Academy that will prepare many of our kids for the future.

Tonight we have talked about major entities like the Ag Lab and universities working with us and collaborating and going forward.

The comments have been made, the statements have been made, and if we need to say anything else then we need to say what is good for our kids, what is good for this district, what is good for this community.

Now it is time to go forward and we are going forward and this does not need to be, so I am very proud and very pleased that the strength and the courage that is in this board to stand up and do some great things.

Now I am just going to close by saying there are some very big highlights that I consider a part of my career and being able to serve kids, parents and teachers tonight is one of those nights in the sense that it does not seem like it is a big thing as far as providing time for teachers to get better at what they do, but I will tell you without a doubt you have improved the lives of thousands of kids and hundreds teachers. Thats what you guys do. That is what you do.

We don’t denigrate and we don’t become contentious, that is not what we are about. We are about doing what is right in this community and for this district.

So with that being said, I mean if there are other comments they can be held until a later date.

Gorenz: I would accept a motion to adjourn.

Stowell: Second

Gorenz: Thank you

Martha Ross has been on the school board for seven years (appointed 2001, first elected 2003) and is now starting her second five-year term after being reelected earlier this year. During that time, she ran for vice president of the board three times unsuccessfully. At that time, you had to serve as vice president before you could be considered for president.

Then the board decided in 2006 to change the rules — they took away the requirement that a candidate for president had to have previously served as vice president. That opened the door for David Gorenz (appointed to the board in 2004 to fill Vince Wieland’s seat after Wieland moved to Dunlap, first elected 2005) to run for president, but it also opened the door for four other board members, including Ross. So Ross challenged Gorenz for the presidency. Gorenz won, 5-2. Only Alicia Butler and Martha Ross voted for Ross for president. Then Butler nominated Ross for vice president. Ross won the vice presidency. In 2007, Gorenz and Ross were elected president and vice president, respectively, once again.

So this year, Ross and Gorenz are running for president of the school board for the third time. The election of officers is on the agenda for tonight’s board meeting. So the question is, who’s the better candidate?

My two cents: I’m not impressed with either candidate, frankly.

During Gorenz’s presidency, (a) $877,500 worth of property was purchased on Prospect Road that the district does not need and can ill afford; (b) well over a half million Title I dollars were spent on items disallowed under federal rules; (c) alarming internal control problems brought to light by independent audit reports have gone uncorrected for two years; and (d) in the face of schools not meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP), Gorenz has supported shortening the school day of primary school students. Not a good track record, in my opinion. Despite all these serious problems, Gorenz continues to support Superintendent Hinton and Treasurer Cahill.

Ross, however, is not much better. She votes against every expulsion. She voted in favor of shortening the school day, which will arguably hurt students in her voting district more than any other. She appears to have an entitlement mentality about being president; when she ran for president the first time, she was quoted in the paper as saying (emphasis mine), “I know I’m qualified to be president, and I would do a good job and just feel like, you know, it’s my turn.” She has exhibited a lack of maturity in dealing with conflict. I’ll cite a couple of examples of that last one: (1) When the board voted for Gorenz for president the first time and she was nominated for vice president, she abstained from voting for herself in protest of not being elected president; (2) When the board decided to hire William Salzman as principal of Manual High School in 2004, Ross walked out of the meeting in protest. This doesn’t instill me with much confidence in her ability to lead or manage conflict.

Despite all these shortcomings, and despite my lack of enthusiasm for either candidate, the bottom line is that Ross does have more experience on the board than Gorenz, she is qualified to be president, and Gorenz has not distinguished himself as any more capable to steer the ship than Martha. I think she should get the nod.

UPDATE: As Emtronics pointed out, the purchase of properties on Prospect happened just before Gorenz became president, around the second quarter of 2006. At that time, Alicia Butler was still president. I stand corrected. Even though it wasn’t on his watch as president, it’s worth noting that it was reported at the time that “Board members Dave Gorenz, Garrie Allen and Sean Matheson said they weren’t uncomfortable with the purchases.”

UPDATE 2: Gorenz was elected on a 4-3 vote. Spangler, Stowell, and Wolfmeyer voted for Gorenz. Butler and Parker voted for Ross. Debbie “It’s Not My Job To Meet With My Constituents” Wolfmeyer was unanimously elected vice president.

You may recall that the Regional Superintendent of Schools, Gerald Brookhart, stated recently that District 150’s plan to shorten Wednesdays by 90 minutes each week conforms to the State’s school code. Well, apparently the Illinois State Board of Education sees things differently.

The school code requires students to receive a minimum of five clock hours (300 minutes) of instructional time per school day. If 90 minutes are cut from Wednesdays, then students would receive less than five instructional hours those days. District 150 tried to say that was acceptable because the average number of instructional hours per day over the course of a week would still be more than five. They also tried to label Wednesdays “improvement days,” which are covered by other provisions of the school code. Education reporter Dave Haney reports that ISBE officials rejected those arguments:

[The ISBE] said improvement days are designed for all schools in a district, not just certain schools as the district has proposed, and the half-days are limited to specific school improvement topics listed in the local school improvement plan.

What’s more, the ISBE said the school code mandates a minimum of 300 minutes of instruction every day.

In response, District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton has floated the idea of only cutting 45 or 60 minutes from Wednesdays instead of 90. No matter what happens, Hinton is determined to cut at least some time from the school day. “‘The time to collaborate and look at the data, it has to happen – (teachers) just don’t have time to grow professionally,’ said Hinton, who added the district needs to implement change now if it wants to see drastic student improvement,” the Journal Star reported.

Hinton has never explained why the school day has to be cut in order to provide professional development time. The District 150 Watch group gave Hinton several suggestions for how that goal could be accomplished without cutting the school day. Why doesn’t he use one of those suggestions?

I thought the same thing as Billy Dennis when I first read the HOI News report of Regional Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gerald Brookhart’s take on District 150’s latest plan to shorten Wednesdays for most primary schools: “Brookhart approves of a plan he hasn’t seen yet.”

The Regional Superintendent of Schools says this plan does follow state code because the total number of hours the kids will be in school each week meets state requirements.

That’s at the beginning of the HOI story. And then the same story concludes:

The regional superintendent says they have not received an official plan from District 150 to shorten the school day, so until they have that nothing can happen.

So, when he says the plan “does follow state code,” he’s basing that on what, exactly? Normally, regulators withhold comment until they have an official request or plan in hand so they can give a definitive answer, rather than one based on speculation or preliminary plans that are subject to change.

Peoria Public Schools Superintendent Ken Hinton spoke to the West Bluff Council this past Thursday night to discuss his plans for a new math, science, and technology academy on the west bluff. Whereas original plans were to build that academy near Main Street in the Renaissance Park district, Hinton stated that the school district simply doesn’t have the money for that much site acquisition, in light of its other recent building projects.

So he’s looking at an existing site. He said he had considered the Loucks School site, but then they had to close that school to help balance the budget. So now his preference is to use a IGCSE chemistry tutor for Cambridge and the Adult Education Center on the corner of Moss and Garfield avenues.

Physically, he 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.

Enrollment is expected to be 400-450 students, and school would be in session year-round. He foresees the school serving grades 4-10, an expansion from the original 4-8 grade concept. Similar to Valeska-Hinton Early Learning Center’s schedule, Hinton said that students at all three new schools — Harrison, Glen Oak, and the Math/Science Academy — would attend for 45 days (9 weeks), then get 15 days (3 weeks) off year-round.

The administration and board are also exploring the possibility of the Math/Science Academy being a charter school. No charter organizations have been identified yet; he said the board is in the “information-gathering stage.” One advantage of a charter school is that the district could hire Bradley professors to teach advanced math classes part-time, since they would only be required to have a degree in their field, .e.g, Phd In Computer Science, not a teaching certificate.

Adult Education programs currently in the building (which used to be known as Washington School, not to be confused with Washington Gifted School), would be relocated to the Diagnostic Learning Center near the Administrative Offices on Wisconsin. The Alternative High School program, composed of roughly 100 students, would be moved to an as-yet undetermined location.

The new Math/Science Academy would be a choice school, so any children in the district would be allowed to attend, based on aptitude and availability. Also, unlike Washington Gifted School, students will be allowed to transfer in from parochial schools or other schools outside the district.

Hinton would like to see the academy open in the fall of 2010, the same time as Harrison and Glen Oak. That means the board would have to decide on the site this summer, develop plans, and secure bonding through the Public Building Commission by the end of the year.

Miscellaneous information

The evening was chock full of interesting miscellany:

• Hinton stated his plan is to retire (again) June 30, 2010, when his latest contract expires.
• Plans are to rehire Dr. Cindy Fischer on a part-time basis after she retires this year.
• The Board of Education is writing a policy for rehiring retired employees.
• Hinton discussed his vision of Woodruff expanding to 14th grade, in coordination with Illinois Central College, so that students graduating from Woodruff would receive an Associates degree.
• Plans are to remove the bricks from the bricked-up windows of existing school buildings to allow more natural light into classrooms.
• Plans are to renovate Richwoods High School and build additions to Northmoor, Lindbergh, and Kellar.

The Controller-Treasurer for Peoria Public School District 150 is Guy Cahill. His contract, which took effect in February 2005, expires June 30, 2008. Renewal of Cahill’s contract was on the agenda for the last school board meeting, but at the last minute was removed from the agenda, so no vote was taken. I have no idea why that happened, but since we have some extra time to consider Cahill’s performance, let’s look at the performance goals in his 2005-2008 contract.

[Section 1] d) This Contract shall be a performance-based contract. The Controller-Treasurer, Deputy Superintendent and School Board shall mutually agree to financial improvement goals to enhance student performance and academic improvement, the goals shall be attributable to the responsibilities and duties of the Controller-Treasurer. The goals shall be attached to and become a part of this Contract as Appendix A. One goal shall be the removal of the School District from the Illinois State Board of Education Financial Watch List by June 30, 2006 It is understood that the attainment of this goal is not solely within the power of the Controller and the attainment of this goal will be judged based upon the efforts of the Controller-Treasurer to attain this goal and not necessarily upon the actual removal of the School District from the Financial Watch List within the time period.

And here are the performance goals as listed in Appendix A:

1. Develop FY’06 Budget and present in a meaningful way for use by management as a decision-making tool; include, as necessary, “other sources” of funds to ameliorate expenditures exceeding revenues.
2. Streamline and organize general ledger to facilitate improved reporting to the Board.
3. Restructure depository and bank accounts to improve efficiencies and reconcilement.
4. Provide periodic reports to the Board including statements of position, budget to actual, and cash flows.
5. Develop long-range budget projections including revenue and expenditure estimates.
6. Facilitate Structural Budget Imbalance Task Force work.
7. Develop and implement necessary short-term financing strategy to address cash flow concerns and shore-up reserves.
8. Provide leadership in developing and negotiating wage and benefit components of collective bargaining agreements.
9. Develop a system and/or train staff individual to monitor compliance with state and federal grants and review the same for propriety.

I’m not going to go through each of these line by line, but I do want to point out some information that’s available through the Illinois State Board of Education’s website — that is, District 150’s audits. In the June 30, 2007, audit (large Excel file), there is a section called “Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs,” and it includes these statements:

In an ideal control setting, the District would have personnel possessing a thorough understanding of applicable generally accepted accounting principles staying abreast of recent accounting developments. Such personnel would perform a comprehensive review procedure to ensure that in the preparation of its annual financial statements that such statements, including disclosures, are complete and accurate. […] The District has not made it a practice to send District officials or other personnel to training classes to update them on the on-going changes and complexities of generally accepted accounting principles.

That’s pretty serious. But there’s more; this finding is listed as a “repeat from prior year,” meaning it was identified before but has not been resolved:

The overall internal controls over the District’s accounting system are not adequate to ensure that misstatements caused by error or fraud, in amounts that would be material to the financial statements, may occur and not be detected wtihin a timely period by employees in the normal course of performing their assigned functions. […] Reconciliation of many of the general ledger accounts to the underlying supporting documentation was not performed during the year (accounts receivable, payroll withholding liabilities, miscellaneous asset and liability accounts). […] Significant errors and/or omissions were not discovered by District employees and corrections were not made to the general ledger until the annual audit was performed at the end of the fiscal year. This resulted in inaccurate financial information being recorded in the general ledger for most of the year.

And, this was concerning as well, also a repeat from the prior year:

The District did not submit accurate [project] expenditure reports. Some expenditures claimed were either non-allowable, misclassified, reported inaccurately, or required additional documentation to trace to the underlying general ledger accounts. Total expenditures as reported on the project completion report were greater than total expenditures on the general ledger.

In the 2006 audit, there was a grant compliance problem. “The district claimed more administrative costs than were allowable on the Reading First grant.” Specifically, “The District claimed $20,577 of general administration expenditures,” but “allowable general administrative expenditures should have been $16,556” — a difference of $4,021.

This year, things have gotten worse regarding federal grant compliance. You may recall that District 150 spent $681,000 in Title I funds that the state said were not allowable. And District 150 is still very much on the financial watch list.

I think it’s worth asking how much of this is the responsibility of the Controller-Treasurer, and how much he should be held accountable for these (what I consider to be serious) problems which seem to be ongoing and increasing in severity. I trust the school board is doing just that, and perhaps that’s why the contract renewal was removed from the agenda.

I’m writing this open thread in advance of the school board meeting and scheduling it to appear after the meeting is over. What are your thoughts about how the meeting went?

Peoria Public Schools Superintendent Ken Hinton’s employment contract comes up for renewal at Monday night’s school board meeting. No doubt it will be approved. But how good of a job do you think he’s doing?

Hinton’s current (2007-2008) contract includes some specific performance goals for the 2007-2008 School Year. They are included in “Addendum B.”

ADDENDUM B
Superintendent’s Goals
2007-2008 School Year

1. STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
   1. Increase the percentage of students making AYP and decrease the number of schools not making AYP
   2. Complete and implement the Restructuring Plan for Manual High School
   3. Identify what the Achievement Gap is in District 150 and develop strategies to address the gap as it pertains to race and class
   4. During the year, put together a team to address the over-identification of minority students and delivery of service for special education
   5. Put a team together and implement strategies to improve the academic performance, programs and structures of the high schools
2. FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
   1. Meet budget projections to stay on target for balancing the budget
3. QUALITY STAFF
   1. Develop a performance based evaluation instrument for central and building administrators
4. SAFE, CARING ENVIRONMENTS
   1. Develop a plan for the Board and achieve community consensus for an alternative school
5. CULTURE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
   1. Develop for all staff a series of professional development opportunities on improving customer service
   2. Develop a communications plan to improve the District’s image in the community

Obviously, I would have no way of knowing if he’s met all of these goals since several of them deal with the internal workings of the district. Nevertheless, since he’s a public servant (and the highest paid one in Peoria, City Councilman Bill Spears reminded us recently), I think it’s fair for the public that pays his salary to assess him on the basis of what we do know.

So, starting at the top (1.1), has the percentage of students making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) increased in the 2007-2008 school year? Well, we don’t know yet, because school test results generally come out in the fall. However, those test results are public information once they are released, so we can look at past performance. From 2005 to 2007, the percentage of students meeting and exceeding standards has indeed increased a little each year:

Even though the overall scores are up, in order for the district to meet AYP, “they must achieve the goals in all eight of the sub groups – White, African-American, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American, LEP, Students with Disabilities and Economically disadvantaged,” according to District 150 Director of Research Bryan Chumbley at the Sept. 17, 2007, school board meeting.

Mr. Chumbley reported on the progress of the District, we did not make AYP for the fourth consecutive year. Five out of eight subgroups are making AYP in reading and 7 out of 8 subgroups are making AYP in mathematics. The district saw modest increases in five subgroups in reading and modest increases in seven subgroups in math.

What about the second part of that goal? Has the number of schools not making AYP decreased? Well, yes, but not because the schools started making AYP. Rather, it’s because the school board has simply been closing failing schools. This year, they closed Loucks (which hasn’t been meeting AYP), so voila! The number of schools not making AYP decreases by one. Quite an ingenious way of meeting that part of the goal.

Goal 1.2 has to do with the Manual High School restructuring plan. That’s been completed and implemented, so that goal is met.

If Hinton has done anything about goals 1.3 through 1.5, it must all be internal, since I’ve seen no information on those items being reported in the press, and I’ve heard of no call to the public to be involved on any of the teams he’s tasked with putting together.

Goal 2 regards fiscal responsibility. Because of a projected loss of $1.4 million in revenue, Hinton had to come up with a way to “meet budget projections.” He decided to do it by (1) closing Loucks Edison, (2) cutting the school day for primary students, and (3) delaying the purchase of new school buses.

Goal 3 is also internal.

Regarding goal 4, is anyone aware of any plan or “community consensus” for an alternative school? I can’t find anything using the terminology of “alternative school,” but perhaps this goal is being met by Hinton’s research into charter schools or a math/science academy for the Renaissance Park area. Still, even if there is some study or planning going on, there’s certainly no “community consensus.”

Ah, goal 5, a “culture of customer service.” One of the things that has gotten lumped under here over the past year is the Pacific Institute training. Freedom of Information Act requests also get reported under this heading at each school board meeting. But it’s clear that Hinton has created no communications plan at all, let alone one that “improve[s] the District’s image in the community.”

And that last point is Hinton’s biggest downfall. If there were better communication, if parents felt like their concerns were seriously being considered, and if a spirit of collaboration existed between the board, the administration, and the parents, I think most of any superintendent’s weak points could be looked upon with more grace. But when parents are treated like adversaries, they start acting like adversaries. No one wins in that scenario; and the ones who suffer the biggest loss are the children.

So, let’s see that communication plan, Mr. Hinton. And please give it to us directly — not through the press. Direct talks would be a really good first step.

I got a chance to talk with Diane Vespa regarding Ken Hinton’s announcement today. She had gone to the district’s offices at 10:30 to attend the press conference, and I wanted to hear what she thought of Ken Hinton’s latest plan. Imagine my surprise when she told me she wasn’t allowed into the press conference.

“You can’t go in,” she was told. “This is for press only.”

So Diane didn’t know any more about Hinton’s plan than I did — that is, she only knew what had been reported so far in the press. I suppose there’s nothing unusual, per se, about a press conference being restricted to press only. But here Diane was the only private citizen at the press conference, she’s the leader of the District 150 Watch group that has been trying to work with board members and administrators to find an alternative to the 45-minute school-day cut that was approved back on May 5, and she’s a parent of two District 150 primary school students. What purpose did denying her access to the press conference serve? Were they afraid she would be belligerent and disruptive or something? And why wouldn’t parents be welcomed by the school administrator when he’s announcing a new proposal that is supposed to be so beneficial to their children?

This episode illustrates all too well the school administration’s insulary nature. They don’t include the parents in making important educational decisions. They simply make decisions in isolation and then take a defensive posture toward anyone that would question them. It’s kind of ironic that they see the value of collaboration when it comes to teacher preparation, but they see no value in collaborating with parents on issues affecting their own children’s education.

One thing that concerns Diane is a comment she heard repeated by several members of the press. Evidently, Hinton made a point of saying he’s recommending this change because he recognizes “it’s been hard on people’s schedules” and on the schedules of “working parents.” Vespa wonders if Hinton is missing the point.

“When they [District 150] try to reduce it down to a babysitting issue, it shows a clear lack of understanding of the parents’ concerns,” Vespa said. “If they think parents are upset about this simply because it interferes with their work schedules, that’s offensive. We’re engaged in this because we care about the quality of education that our children are getting.”

Hinton apparently presented the new plan predominantly from a scheduling perspective, without addressing how this plan will help improve student achievement. Yet student achievement is the primary concern. Hinton can’t just write this protest off as being about child care and scheduling. He needs to show how cutting instructional time at schools that are already failing to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) is going to help those children achieve more. Or to put it another way, how will adding common prep time more than compensate for the corresponding loss of instructional time each week?

It’s easy to hide from parents by kicking them out of press conferences, but they can’t hide from the issues.

District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton is now proposing a new plan. Instead of cutting 45 minutes out of every school day, he’s proposing to cut 90 minutes out of Wednesdays. Under this new plan, children would be dismissed at 1:45 p.m. on Wednesdays, but teachers would stay and use that time for common prep.

Let’s compare apples to apples here. Per week, this means that instead of cutting 3.75 hours from the students’ school day, they would be cutting only 1.5 hours. Per day, this means that instead of cutting 45 minutes, they would be cutting an average of 18 minutes. I suppose this is Hinton’s way of trying to meet parents halfway — in fact, 60% of the way, since he’s restoring 2.25 hours of the 3.75 he was originally planning to cut.

Granted, 18 is better than 45. But it doesn’t resolve the issue. Under this plan, we would still have kids in failing schools attending less time each week. We’d still have fifth-graders in primary schools getting 18 minutes less per day (54 hours over the course of a 180-day school year) than fifth-graders in middle schools.

It looks like Mr. Hinton is on the right track — he just needs to go the other 40% of the way.