Category Archives: Peoria Public Schools

Peoria Public Schools

Bottom line: Hello Glen Oak Park School

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Peoria Public Schools logoSo, what do we make of Monday’s school board meeting?

The long and the short of it is that the school board is really not interested in working out a compromise with the city. This moratorium on property acquisition and meetings with Ray LaHood and the city has all been a farce and a waste of everyone’s time. They either want to locate next to an existing park or force the city to create a new park adjacent to an existing school site. Of course, they know very well the city isn’t going to pay over $5 million to give land to the school district even if they had it to spend. So, that means, thanks to their inflexibility on the arbitrary acreage standards, the new school will be built right where they wanted it all along: in Glen Oak Park.

In essense, they want to create a suburban school environment (one-level building in a sea of green space) in the heart of the city. And they believe, without any solid evidence, that this will improve the educational environment and give our children “the best” instead of “good enough.”

As for specific rebuttals to board members’ concerns:

  • There was a lot of rhetoric about “denying opportunities” to the children and “compromising educational objectives” if they received any less than 15 acres. However, at the very beginning of the meeting, Alicia Butler announced the times and locations of the next two “planning sessions” (i.e., community forums) that would help “determine the programming and space needs” for the new “birth through eighth” schools that will be built. If the programming and space needs haven’t been determined yet, how do they know they need 15 acres?
  • Hinton mentioned he wanted a baseball field and a soccer field… that adds up to about 5 acres. What are the other 10 for?
  • Do these children not have access to a park when school is not in session? To hear the school board members talk, you’d think these kids were prisoners in detention camps, never allowed outside except to attend school. Also, how dense do they think the East Bluff is? It’s not like these kids don’t have any yards at all. I lived on the East Bluff for 11 years and, while it is denser than suburbia, there’s a healthy bit of green space there, thank you very much.
  • I’ve already dealt extensively with the question of ISBE recommendations in a previous post.
  • As for accessibility, did they ever consider putting the children with special needs on the first floor, and the able-bodied children on the upper floor(s)? A sprawling, single-level school will look incongruous in the East Bluff.
  • From Gorenz and Allen, I’d like to know when school improvement and community revitalization became mutually exclusive activities. This is a false dichotomy, and further evidence that the school board isn’t interested in any real dialogue or compromise. The sad truth is, if the school board and city are working against each other, they will both lose.
  • Ken Hinton talked about the psychological effects green space has on children — that it “lifts a child’s spirit” and makes them want to learn! If so, how does he explain the dismal performance of Sterling school, which sits on 26 acres of spirit-lifting green space? Or that students in acreage-deprived Whittier are the fifth best in the district on standardized tests? Anomalies?

The most insulting part of this whole discussion is the clear implication that city leaders, parents, neighbors, and other concerned citizens are a bunch of malevolent obstructionists who get their jollies out of subjecting their own and others’ children to dilapidated educational facilities to satisfy their own selfish desires, and that the only kind-hearted, child-loving saints in the city are the seven members of the school board.

Yet their facilities “solution” is not based on any objective, evidence-based educational practices, but rather arbitrary standards and anecdotal evidence. I would recommend to the school board that they read a publication from the U. S. Department of Education called “Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported by Rigorous Evidence: A User Friendly Guide.” (PDF File)

I would especially like to draw their attention to page iii, which states:

As illustrative examples of the potential impact of evidence-based interventions on educational outcomes, the following have been found to be effective in randomized controlled trials – research’s “gold standard” for establishing what works:

  • One-on-one tutoring by qualified tutors for at-risk readers in grades 1-3 (the average tutored student reads more proficiently than approximately 75% of the untutored students in the control group).
  • Life-Skills Training for junior high students (low-cost, replicable program reduces smoking by 20% and serious levels of substance abuse by about 30% by the end of high school, compared to the control group).
  • Reducing class size in grades K-3 (the average student in small classes scores higher on the Stanford Achievement Test in reading/math than about 60% of students in regular-sized classes).
  • Instruction for early readers in phonemic awareness and phonics (the average student in these interventions reads more proficiently than approximately 70% of students in the control group).

It’s interesting to note that “provide students with 15 acres of spirit-lifting green space” isn’t listed. That’s not to say they aren’t focusing on the things that are listed, as I’m sure they are, but the difference between these items and the 15-acre minimum is that the listed items have been proven effective.

To establish a 15-acre standard that has proven ineffective in the district’s own experience, produce no rigorous evidence indicating it will be effective in the future, and then tell the public they are somehow denying their children a quality education if they don’t give them said 15 acres, is nothing more than a hollow emotional plea — a straw man set up for no other purpose than to “guilt” people into agreement.

Frankly, to say I’m disappointed with the school district would be an understatement. I’ll continue to send my children to private school. And if I didn’t love Peoria so much despite the school district, I’d move out just to deny them my tax money.

Peoria Public Schools

District 150 gives ultimatum to city

District 150 school board members made it very clear at Monday’s board meeting that they are not willing to accept less than 15 acres for a new school site. “15 acres is the minimum in terms of the school site for our children,” Superintendent Ken Hinton said at the meeting. All the other board members agreed.

Furthermore, they want the city to pay for the acquisition of all the land needed to create those 15 acres around the Glen Oak School site (estimated to be over $5 million) or they will pursue the Glen Oak Park site for the new school. Regardless of the final site chosen, the school board wants to continue acquiring property on the park site because “it’s not fair to keep them in limbo,” Superintendent Hinton said.

I’d like to credit board president Alicia Butler for at least asking the question I wanted asked. Here’s a transcription of her question and Hinton’s answer:

BUTLER: Mr. Hinton, can you delineate why you are coming up with the 15 acres?

HINTON: Sure I can. The 15 acres, in terms of the — and again, this is the vision on my part — in terms of as we go forward as a school district, we have an image and our children, I mean our, you know, our district has an image that I want to work on, and one of the things that is very important is that I want our families and our children to have the very best in the sense that they have a playground that has ball — baseball fields on it, the possibility that they want to go outside and do outdoor exploration, if we need to have soccer there, soccer’s available. Many of our children don’t have that particular environment. That is why the park site was such a choice site — is such a choice site, I should say — in terms of the opportunities it affords our students and our families and our staff.

The other part of that is that it is a minimal recommendation in terms of Illinois State Board of Education, and if you were to take that recommendation completely, it would actually be more than 15 acres. So the 15 acres is a minimum in terms of building the types of schools that we’re talking about doing as we go forward in terms of providing our children with state-of-the-art facilities to promote learning and see to it that we have optimal success with our children.

Mary Spangler added that based on national information, “we’re right there nationally” — which I assume means that we’re within the national average. (Yet, based on 2003 information from CEFPI, 22 states don’t have any minimum acreage requirements; one would think that would bring down the average.) She also said we need room to expand parking in the future, and the school building needs to be all one level to make it accessible to kids with special needs who shouldn’t be going up and down in elevators “in case of emergencies; it’s a safety issue.”

Martha Ross was concerned that switching sites would have a significant impact on the district’s construction timeline, and she later expressed her support for the park site.

David Gorenz believes that the best decision is to go with the park site based on its suitability for the educational programs the district wants, affordability, transportation issues, safety concerns, and community revitalization. He made a big point that community revitalization was last on the list and that the district should not compromise educational programs for the sake of community revitalization.

Matheson prefers the park site and will only consider the Glen Oak School site if the city provides complete financing of a 15 acre site.

Garrie Allen, unable to resist the urge to play the race card, said that “children of former slaves are being denied their 15 acres and a mule.” He later added, “it’s not our job as a school district to clean up blighted areas . . . Our job is to make things better for children.”

Stephen Morris and Butler both back the park site as well, although Butler was more evenhanded in her comments.

That’s my report.  In my next post, I’ll analyze the meeting.

Peoria Public Schools

School board to discuss Glen Oak siting plan tonight?

It’s not on the agenda, but I’ve heard through the rumor mill that the school board will be talking about the Glen Oak School siting plan at their board meeting tonight. Word is they are going to say something to the effect that, unless the city helps acquire the property needed to give the school 15 acres surrounding the current Glen Oak School site, they will recommend putting the school on the Glen Oak Park site.

This should come as no surprise since their arbitrary 15-acre minimum policy appears specifically designed to torpedo any attempt at compromise. Regrettably, I can’t be at the meeting tonight, but if anyone else can make it, please ask them to provide the public any evidence that minimum acreage improves student performance, starting with their own schools.

The school board meets at the district headquarters, 3202 N. Wisconsin Ave., tonight at 6:30. The meeting is also broadcast live on Insight cable channel 17.

City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan, Peoria Public Schools

The 15-Acre Impasse

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It only took me until the second paragraph of Clare Jellick’s story in the Journal Star to start shaking my head in disbelief:

The [Peoria Public School] district [150] has agreed to partner with the City of Peoria to identify a site of about 15 acres that includes [Glen Oak] primary school, U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood announced Monday at a press conference following a meeting between local officials.

What is it with the school board and their obsession with getting 15 acres for an urban school? This arbitrary standard is the single most destructive policy the school board is following — it is the reason they wanted to build next to Glen Oak Park in the first place, and if it is not abandoned, it will damage every neighborhood where they want to build a new urban school.

Any compromise the city makes with the school district must include a decrease in their minimum acreage standards.

Why? There are five main reasons: (1) Minimum acreage requirements have been officially abandoned by educational experts as of 2004, (2) the State of Illinois does not require any minimum acreage for school siting, (3) there is no evidence that the amount of acreage has any effect on student achievement, (4) acreage requirements are counter to the Heart of Peoria Plan, which the council adopted “in principle,” and (5) minimum acreage requirements have a negative impact on student health and the environment.

Continue reading The 15-Acre Impasse →

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Park District, Peoria Public Schools, Ray LaHood

LaHood mediation meeting not inspiring confidence

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Nothing cures distrust like more secrecy.

Today’s Word on the Street column reports that the public won’t be allowed to witness Ray LaHood’s mediation skills when he tries to broker a compromise on the location of a new school in the city’s East Bluff. LaHood will be meeting behind closed doors at 9:30 a.m. this Wednesday, May 31, with officials from the city, school board and park board. They’ll have a press conference after the meeting.

It appears I’m not the only one who wonders why LaHood is getting involved in this issue. In a letter to the editor that was also published in today’s Journal Star, Donald R. Jackson says:

It is too bad LaHood didn’t make himself available to mediate the conflict between the School Board, Dr. Kay Royster and members of the community who supported her then and still do. LaHood was asked to intervene, but he declined stating that he had no control or influence over the board.

In one sense, these two situations are different: the Royster issue involved one public body that was internally divided — the school board; the school siting issue involves three public bodies — the school board, park board, and city — who are at odds with each other, but are not internally divided.

But in another sense, the situations aren’t different at all. In both cases, it’s a local government issue that doesn’t warrant the time of a U.S. Congressman to mediate. What’s next? Will he be mediating a compromise between the city council and the county board regarding jail fees and election commissions?

And if that weren’t enough, he’s also related to the park board director. Doesn’t that bother anyone? I’m not trying to impugn his integrity, but LaHood seems to have a real blind spot when it comes to the appearance of his actions. He should have enough judgement to see that his in-law relationship to Bonnie Noble gives at least the appearance of impropriety and bias when he’s trying to mediate a dispute that involves the park district.

Then to have the meeting behind closed doors is just the icing on the cake. As the WOTS column points out, decisions made in closed-door meetings are one of the biggest points of contention! And I loved this line:

Tim Butler, LaHood’s spokesman, defended the decision to have the meeting closed, saying there would not be any decisions or determinations and therefore still plenty of time for public input.

There won’t be any decisions? What exactly is the point of this meeting? How do you resolve a dispute without making any decisions? Is Ray just going to do one of those little team-building exercises — like having Councilman Manning fall backwards while Ken Hinton and Tim Cassidy catch him so they can all build up trust for each other?

Despite all my reservations, I nevertheless hope that something good comes out of this meeting. I hope LaHood proves wrong all my fears. But most of all, I hope Glen Oak School remains in the heart of the East Bluff, and that the school board will learn to be more transparent in the future so we don’t have to go through all this rigmarole.

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools, State Legislation, State of Illinois

Legal loopholes make a mockery of the Open Meetings Act

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I have had further correspondance with an attorney who spoke to me on condition of anonymity. Here’s a transcript of what we talked about regarding the school district’s actions and whether or not it violates the Open Meetings Act (OMA).

Real Lawyer:

C.J., I regret that there has been some misinterpretation by others about the OMA as it applies to the actions of Dist. 150. Just to clarify, the OMA and caselaw interpreting it do not (unfortunately in my view) prohibit ratification by the board after an action has been taken. What the OMA prohibits is the board taking official action on anything in closed session. Whether the board decides to approve something in advance or ratify it afterwards, it must take that action in open session.

Me:

Thanks for the follow-up. I am confused, however. If they can take final action in closed session, then approve it post facto in open session, doesn’t that make the prohibition against closed-session final action in the OMA meaningless?

Lawyer:

The board cannot take final action for the property purchases in closed session. I think Matheson may have made a remark at their last meeting stating they could do so; if he did say that, he was wrong. And “final action” doesn’t necessarily mean a formal vote; anything constituting approval can be a final action.

I don’t know what if any action the board took prior to the Prospect property purchases. But the fact that they ratified the purchases at their last meeting, in the open, was likely sufficient under current case law. This is what I think is unfortunate, but until the case law is overturned that’s what we have.

This is all sort of splitting hairs, but I wanted to try to clarify it.

Me:

Sorry I’m not grasping this. It sounds like you’re saying this (not you personally, but case law): If the school board approves in closed session the acquisition of property, it constitutes “final action” per the OMA, and is therefore illegal. But, that illegality is nullified if the board subsequently approves the purchase in open session. Am I understanding that right? They can perform an illegal act and then magically turn it into a legal act by approving it publically after the fact?

Lawyer:

In essence you are right; that’s the clear implication. And the way you phrased it helps, I think, to demonstrate why post-action ratification should not be permitted, at least in situations like the one we have with the property purchases. By allowing a board to “cure” a mistake via ratification afterwards, the courts have made it too easy to evade the intent of the OMA’s requirement for openness.

Is that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? What we have here is a legal loophole for the school board or any other public body to skirt around the Open Meetings Act and take secret action, away from public scrutiny, even though it involves spending (in this case) $877,500 of taxpayers’ money! All they have to do to make it “legal” is approve it after the fact in open session. Big deal. The money’s already gone! How could they not approve it? The contracts are already signed. Talk about violating the spirit of the law….

If the case law does indeed allow for this loophole, it should not be allowed to stand. Senator Shadid, who has expressed concern about the secrecy under which this action was taken, should work with his colleagues in Springfield to immediately propose an amendment to the Open Meetings Act that specifically prohibits such “post-action ratification” by a public body.

Peoria Park District, Peoria Public Schools, Ray LaHood

Property acquisition not illegal; just stupid

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UPDATE 5/24/06: A real lawyer has contacted me (no, it wasn’t Chase) and said that, since 1972, the Open Meetings Act has been amended several times. Apparently the prohibition against taking final action — 5 ILCS 120/2(e) — was added after the Collinsville v. Witte case. Thus, the school district’s action may have been illegal after all. The attorney added, “There is more recent Ill. case law holding that a board of education violated the OMA when it held an executive (closed) session to determine that the planned public sale date of school property should be rescheduled.”

At first blush, it certainly looks like a violation of the Open Meetings Act. School District 150 signs purchase agreements with property owners on Prospect Road based on a closed-session decision, then rubber stamps those purchases in open session and get help form a trustworthy firm. The Open Meetings Act says no final action can be taken in closed session, and what could be more final than purchasing property for over three-quarters of a million dollars? if legal help is needed we advise to read more

As I’ve said before, I’m no lawyer, so feel free to prove me wrong on this. But from what I can determine, the school board did not act illegally. In fact, their action has already been tested in court as far back as 1972 when the Illinois appellate court decided the case of Collinsville Community Unit School District No. 10 v. Benjamin and Lillian Witte. I found this information in an online version of Illinois Issues that was originally published in 1977. It says:

. . . the high court ruled that a “school board was not limited to considering only acquisition of property in executive session with formal action required to be taken at public meeting. Legal action concerning acquisition or sale of real property, including passage of motion to acquire property could be taken in closed session . . . .”

It goes on to say the ruling was never appealed and is now part of Illinois law. But just because it’s legal doesn’t make it wise. The idea behind allowing property negotiation in closed session is that it allows the public body to get a fair price on the property — if it were made public before purchase agreements were signed, the property values could be artificially inflated, making it needlessly more expensive to acquire. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t look like the district got any great deals by working in secret. They spent, on average, about one and a half times the value of each property.

While it may not have been wise, it is strategic. There are many who believe like PeoriaIllinoisan that all these public meetings are a ruse, and that the school district plans to build on the park site regardless. Considering the park district is in favor of it, and Ray LaHood is brokering a “compromise,” I fear the cynics may be right. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ray’s son Darin married to park district director Bonnie Noble’s daughter Kristen? And, if so, wouldn’t it be a bit of a conflict of interest for Ray to be brokering a “compromise” when he’s related to an interested party? Even if it’s all innocent, it has the look of impropriety.

On the other hand, the public is pretty united on this — everyone from residents to parents to state representatives to city councilmen to neighborhood activists are all against using parkland for the school. Even for political insiders, that kind of pressure is hard to push back against. I’m still going to hold out hope for now that the school board will see the error of its ways and rebuild Glen Oak School at its current site.

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

District pays top dollar for Prospect properties

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It’s just a formality, but the District 150 school board is slated to approve the purchase of eight properties on N. Prospect totalling $877,500 at Monday’s board meeting. The contracts are already signed, the money spent, but this action will just make it legal.

Here are the properties the district has purchased, along with their fair market value according to the Peoria County website (based on their assessed value):

Address Sales Price 2005 FMV Tax ID #
2102 N. Prospect $140,000 $114,360 1434378004
2126 N. Prospect $98,000 $60,150 1434332012
2138 N. Prospect $82,000 $54,780 1434332009
2142 N. Prospect $90,000 $56,280 1434332008
2144 N. Prospect $89,000 $63,750 1434332007
2206 N. Prospect $120,000 $86,850 1434332017
2208 N. Prospect $133,500 $89,190 1434332016
2212 N. Prospect $125,000 $84,180 1434332001
TOTAL $877,500 $609,540

And here’s where all those properties are in a satellite photo, courtesy of Peoria GIS and Photoshop:

The school district really jumped the gun on these purchases, and the near million dollars they’ve spent will make it harder for them to back out of their plans to put Glen Oak school on this property. Instead of merely putting down earnest money on these properties until after the school board approved them, they went ahead and signed purchase agreements.

It’s understandable that they would pay more than fair market value for the homes, since the district initiated the sale and the owners want to make enough to pay for relocation and get a comparable house somewhere else. But now if the district abandons its present course of action, they would end up having to resell the property — at a significant loss. The $267,960 over fair market value they’ve spent won’t be easily absorbed by a district that’s already running in the red.

However, as expensive a mistake as it was, it would be a bigger mistake to spend another $15 million to build a school on the corner of Glen Oak Park. The district should listen to the residents, parents, city leaders, et al., and either renovate or raze and rebuild Glen Oak School on its present site. If they would just give up their crazy delusion that they need 15 acres in the middle of a dense urban area to build a new school, they could actually renovate/rebuild Glen Oak for a lot cheaper than what they were going to spend to put it in Glen Oak Park, and that would mitigate the loss from the properties for which they paid top dollar.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Park District, Peoria Public Schools, Ray LaHood

WWRD: What Would Ray Do?

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U.S. Congressional Representative LaHood is taking time away from representing our interests in Washington to try to broker a compromise between several local units of government and concerned citizens, according to the Journal Star today.

LaHood said he attended a meeting Monday where Mayor Jim Ardis and state Sen. George Shadid asked him to organize a future meeting with District 150 officials. At issue is the specific location for the school.

“I’m going to convene a meeting of all the parties to see if we can resolve whatever problems exist with the proposed project,” LaHood said Wednesday from his office in Washington, D.C.

Why?  I remember going to a debate between LaHood and his Democratic challenger in Metamora several years ago.  At issue for Metamorans at that time was the widening of Route 116.  A local farmer got up and wanted to know which candidate was going to do something to stop them from widening the road and taking part of his farmland.  Both of the candidates, to their credit, said that was a local issue and not within the scope of the office for which they were running.

How is the Glen Oak School situation different?  What compelling reason is there for escalating this to a U.S. Representative? Have we exhausted all options locally?  Are we at such an impasse that we need to bring in an arbitrator?  At best, this course of action seems premature.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Police, Peoria Public Schools

City pushes school district to build on current site

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Several City of Peoria department heads — including the police chief — met with District 150 representatives to strongly request Glen Oak School stay put, according to today’s Journal Star. Whether they refurbish or rebuild, the school should be in the center of the neighborhood, not on the fringe. The two biggest concerns with the Glen Oak Park location the school district is considering are (1) traffic on Prospect — every walking student would have to cross this busy street and dangerous intersection, and (2) crime at this corner — the convenience store at Prospect and Abingdon/Frye is a hotbed of crime, according to Peoria Police.

I wonder if the school board is getting the message…. The residents, parents, police, Heart of Peoria Commission, etc., all want to see Glen Oak School stay at its current site. It looks like the only ones who want to see it move are the school board members.

One concern I have from the article, though was this:

[Third District Councilman Bob] Manning said officials told Hinton the city is willing to close off streets around Glen Oak Primary School if a new school goes there [corner of Frye and Wisconsin].

Does he mean permanently or just during school hours, like they do near Kellar Primary? Either way, there is no justification for closing streets at that site. At Kellar, they have a split campus and children are crossing the street all day (or so they tell me), but Glen Oak is a unified campus and children only cross the streets when they come to school in the morning and when they leave for the day — and I’m pretty sure they already block off Frye during those times. The speed limit is only 30 mph — 20 when children are present. The school sits at a 4-way stop, and there are crossing guards when children are arriving and leaving. It appears the traffic situation is in control at that site without taking any further action.

Manning also offered to implement a façade improvement plan for the businesses along Wisconsin. That’s a great idea. So far, the current façade improvement plans have been well-received — there are two requests for grants on the council’s agenda tonight.