Several accusations were made against District 150’s director of technology and library media services Mary Ward and many other employees in her department. Interim superintendent Norm Durflinger took them seriously and conducted an investigation. Today, he announced the results of that investigation:
Interim Superintendent Norm Durflinger said 35 people in all were interviewed about 14 separate accusations ranging from employees giving away district-owned computer equipment or selling it on the Internet to viewing pornography or smoking marijuana while at work.
“We investigated all the accusations and could find no basis for any of them,” Durflinger said Tuesday, noting attorneys trained in such questioning performed the internal inquiry, which acted on claims that were made by people in the community as well as employees….
“There is a view by some in the community there is no credibility when it comes so some people in Peoria School District 150,” he said. “In this case, we had to prove whether there was any truth to the accusations or not. . . . There was not.”
So all the employees have been exonerated. Durflinger is personally apologizing to each person who was suspected of wrongdoing. I don’t blame Durflinger for feeling bad about the situation, but I still think he did the right thing. He’s exactly right — District 150 has a serious credibility problem. Exculpating these employees I believe gives Peorians more confidence in the District and will help quell unfounded rumors (although it certainly won’t eliminate them).
Even though the employees were absolved of any guilt, the district is going to enact some new internal controls, including tracking equipment worth less than $500. That’s a positive outcome as well.
Jane, I’m not really sure exactly how the cost of Edison and Johns Hopkins is funded by the district (contrary to what some might think, I don’t work for the district) but I think Without Malice is right in that it comes out of the general Education Fund. JC Friberg is, I believe, a former teacher (currently home with the kids as compared to retired) and is much more knowledgeable about Edison in particular.
At the same time, as you probably know, there are often federal, state and charitable grants made available to the district for particular purposes. One that immediately comes to mind is the recent technology grant to be used for nearly 1,000 computers and smart boards costing over a million dollars – used at a time when we are forced to cut back on classroom teachers. Such is the nature of the current educational funding system.
So, it’s quite possible that summer school is also funded from the Educational Fund, but with specific annual grant monies for that specific purpose.
I think CAT did a tremendous job in handling this recession (though Owens got a nice bonus for doing so couple with his retirement). They made large cuts in many areas, though still needed to layoff many people (however, most were not CAT employees, but instead agency and outsourced workers, but that’s a different story). Such decisions will not be made by most public school employees for a long time, I believe (in large part due to the unionized nature wherein public employees are 5X as likely to be unionized as private sector employees – and while Hinton and other administrators are/were not unionized, that is precisely the environment they came from and work with). One of the arguments is that those employees generally don’t see the benefits of the boom times as much as the private sector employees, so they shouldn’t feel the hurt of the down times as much either. That argument had more merit 10 years ago, but, not so today with the larger increases in pay and benefits for public employees compared to private employees.
One can debate the merits of each system, but currently they are very different and act/react as such.
There is no question about it. Edison is funded through the education fund. Some summer school funds do come from Title I, I think, but I don’t think (but am not sure) if Title I is used for teachers’ salaries for summer school. I am inclined to believe that Title I monies have been used for primary and middle school summer school, not high school. If my memory of history serves me correctly (and it may not), there was a time when summer school was funded by the state. In those days, 150 had huge summer school enrollments. I often taught four classes in the summer as there were two sessions with morning and afternoon classes. Summer school lasted from a few days after school let out until a few days before school began again the next year. Then the state withdrew funding (I think sometime in the late 70s or early 80s–not sure). From then on students were charged from $100 to $125 per class. Urban League offered financial help to some students. In large part, summer school was self-funded. I know that a teacher wouldn’t be hired until there were enough students (usually 20) to pay for the teacher’s salary. Then sometime after 2002 the tuition was reduced to $30 for those entitled to free lunch–and the education fund had to cover the balance. For instance (from FOIAd info) in 2006 $22,235 was paid through tuition, but teachers’ salaries were $66,862. Of course, there are some additional costs assosciated with summer school (supplies, principal, secretary).
Exhonerated? Oh, is that what they call it now. I think D150 used to call it “sweeping it under the rug”……just sayin!
Did the Board vote to approve the contract with LeAnn Piano for training on “Handling Hard to Handle People”? How much is that going to cost? That could have been something they could have used when Hinton, Broderick and others were there. Its a little late.
Peaceman, yes, they voted for it, but no cost was mentioned.
“Handling Hard to Handle People”
People aren’t hard to handle at all… they are often difficult to CONTROL. But then again, who wants to be controlled?