The school board fawned all over District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton at Monday’s board meeting. Take a listen:
[audio:http://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Audio/Hinton050707.mp3]Or, if you can’t quite stomach listening, here’s the agenda item as it appeared in the school board’s packet:
Proposed Action by the Board of Education:
That the Board of Education express its intent to ask Superintendent Hinton to continue on as Superintendent of the School District beyond the end of his current employment contract, which terminates on June 30, 2008, and grant him an additional new two (2) year employment contract at that time.
Background Information:
Superintendent Hinton’s current three (3) year employment contract will end on June 30, 2008. After Superintendent Hinton came out of retirement and became Deputy School Superintendent, he was asked to complete his study to obtain his Illinois Superintendent Certification and become Superintendent of the School District for a period of three (3) years. The Board of Education believes that the Superintendent has made great progress toward the goal of improved student achievement in the District and is bringing the District back to a sound financial footing. He is regaining the confidence of the Community and staff in our School District. The Board is asking Ken Hinton to continue on as Superintendent for an additional two (2) years beyond the end of his current contract and is publicly stating its intent to offer him a new contract at that time.
If the school board believes Hinton has made “great progress toward the goal of improved student achievement,” then they have pretty low expectations. While modest gains were made in Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) scores overall (although the percentage of students who “exceed expectations” actually went down), the performance of students on the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE) fell this year.
As for financial stability, the deficit has gone down over the past couple of years, largely due to highly-paid teachers who retired, more state funding, and increases in taxes. I don’t think Hinton had very much to do with it, unless someone can show me otherwise. On the contrary, all I’ve seen Hinton do is prematurely spend $877,500 for properties on the basis of a non-binding letter of intent. He let the residents strip the homes before they left, leaving them unlivable and unsaleable, making these over-market-value purchases a total loss. Now the district is having to raze the houses at an additional expense. Administrative staffing levels have increased under Hinton, and they’ve just recently gotten big raises while at the same time teachers were taking heavy concessions. If this is what the board means by getting the district on “sound financial footing,” then again, I’d say the board has very low expectations of their superintendent.
The most laughable statement of all, however, is that Hinton is “regaining the confidence of the Community and staff….” Ironically, the same night that this statement was made, here was the scene outside of the administration building:
A real vote of confidence, wouldn’t you say? In reality, Hinton’s relationship with the staff and teachers is strained due to his questionable budgetary decisions. His relationship with the city is strained at best, thanks again to his botched handling of the Glen Oak Park/School issue. People are still moving out of Peoria. The district is still failing to meet AYP and is in danger of being taken over by the state. People are showing their confidence with their home sales.
But the school board is confident, and they voted unanimously to extend Hinton’s contract another two years, even though his contract doesn’t end until 2008 and there’s another round of tests before the contract comes up for renewal. What with the school board do if test results go down, or if the financial situation worsens? I’m beginning to see a trend here of premature action….
CJ, thank you – I think – for including the audio portion.
Technically, the BOE voted on the intent to extend Hinton’s contract – they didn’t actually vote to extend it. Since that is all a part of the evaluation process, there must be some goals or objectives Hinton has not yet completed. If and when he meets the goals, look for another vote to extend his contract.
“He is bringing the district back to a sound financial footing.” In addition to the $877,500 expenditure for properties that have no intrinsic value to the district, there have been multi-million dollar borrowings from future year’s tax revenues to meet payroll and other current expenses. The interest expense on these borrowings has to be included in the total deficit. At this point, we don’t know whether the $4M figure quoted includes the interest expense or not. Then there is arbitration the district lost over Hinton’s & Cahill’s violating the collective bargaining agreement and disbanding the insurance committee. It seems as though the award by the IELRB to the union was around $1M. Monday evening, the BOE, acting upon Hinton’s recommendation, voted to extend Edison’s contract for what – another $2M (approximately)? And then there were the very generous administrative pay raises. And all the new administrative positions Hinton created – remember the two new positions he created for his Edison buddies Grzanich and Arcaute (their combined salaries came in just under $200K) – and there were others.
“He is regaining the confidence of the Community and staff in our School District.” Whose confidence is he regaining? Not the city council’s – he damaged the district’s relationship with the City Council during the GOP/GOS controversy. Not the Heart of Peoria Plan Commission – Hinton effectively blew them off with his dreams for the district’s new schools. As CJ pointed, the BOE meeting was picketed by staff members Monday evening – is that a good indicator that he has regained their confidence? Then there were the very contentions negotiations with the teachers union – not a lot of confidence building evident there. Recently, all district staff members completed a survey instrument from the Pacific Institute. Some of the questions addressed fear of retaliation if staff disagreed with the administration, credibility of the administration, the quality of the workplace environment, etc. It will be interesting to see the results of that survey – if the BOE will even release them to the public.
Mary Spangler did make one comment that should be better explained. She mentioned the tuition reimbursement district employee’s receive and that not all district’s have that benefit. That is absolutely true. But she left out something very important. District #150 is one of the only districts in the State of Illinois that allows teachers to receive tuition reimbursement for up to 12 semester hours per year (at the ISU tuition rate) and then compensate those teachers – again – for the same hours when they change salary lanes because of the additional earned hours (generally, each additional 15 earned hours entitles teachers to move across one salary lane, i.e. from Masters, to Masters + 15 hours and receive a corresponding increase in compensation). Many districts allow teachers to either receive tuition reimbursement or to use the hours to change salary lanes – not both. If the district did away with the double payment practice, it would save around $500,000 per school year (caveat – that would have to be negotiated with the PFT).
“The Board of Education believes that the Superintendent has made great progress toward the goal of improved student achievement in the District . . .” How many schools are in restructuring, have been closed, or are on state warning/watch lists? Is that great progress? The better question is, how many of these schools were added to the watch/warning lists or failed to come off the watch/warning lists under Hinton’s leadership and progressed to restructuring? The restructuring plans, as given to CJ earlier this year, didn’t even comply with the ISBE/NCLB guidelines. How do we have confidence that the restructuring will be successful if the plans don’t even comply with those guidelines? What about the achievement gap that has been represented as remaining constant at approximately 25%? If it is remaining constant or increasing, how can Hinton have made great strides in improving student achievement?
“After Superintendent Hinton came out of retirement and became Deputy School Superintendent, he was asked to complete his study to obtain his Illinois Superintendent Certification and become Superintendent of the School District for a period of three (3) years.” Yes he was and he did receive the appropriate certification to be employed as the superintendent of schools – in the summer of 2006. Let us not forget that during the ’04-’05 school term the BOE was compensating three superintendents at the same time – Hinton, Dr. Royster and Dr. Fabish. After Dr. Fabish left, they hired Hannah and Fischer as co-superintendents and then they were compensating 4 superintendents through the summer of 2006 at the same time. Is there any evidence of financial responsibility or stability in that mess?
Correction to previous post, last paragraph, next to last sentence should read: After Dr. Fabish left, they hired Hannah and Fischer as co-superintendents and then they were compensating 4 superintendents through 06/30/05 at the same time. July 1, 2005 through the summer of 2006 they were still compensating 3 superintendents – Fischer, Hannah and Hinton.
C.J.
Thanks for making that sound bite available for people, though I heard most of it live that night and fought my gag reflexes. Between Gorenz, Spangler and Mathison and then Hinton’s acceptance speech I thought it was going to turn into a “4 way cluster – †right there in public! How can any of those board members believe what they said, let alone look themselves in a mirror? I wonder if those with young children can look their kids in the eye and say “it’s OK to lie – see Mommy/Daddy just did it to the parents and taxpayersâ€? Their comments sounded like a tribute to a person with years of stupendous successes, not the person who is only in his second year of a three year contract. They applauded him for a deficit reduction – though only for one year; they applauded him for improved scores – though only for one year; they talked of great leadership – give it a break!!! If squandering public money the way Hinton has done from land purchases to hiring a top heavy administration which can not meet deadlines says to that BOE that they have a leader then again I pity them, but I pity more the district 150 children and taxpayers! Hinton hasn’t finished year number 2 and they want to lock up that loser in to a 5 year run! Talk about stupidity! ^oo^~
By the time someone reaches adulthood they should have dropped the term of “na na na I told you so”. Therefore may I present you with the following?!
http://peoriastory.typepad.com/peoriastory/
As you will read in Elaine’s scoop the man that 150 BOE seeks to lock in to a 5 year contract is responsible for another $1,000,000 lawsuit found against Hinton and Cahill. Seeing this is just now coming to light you can bet your biffy that it is in addition to the $4+ million deficit estimate for this year. Makes me wonder if the BOE already knew of this outcome and wanted to ramrod Hinton’s contract extension before it came to light! Why anybody trusts Hinton, Cahill or any of the BOE rascals who try to dupe the public every time they open their mouths makes me wonder! ^oo^~