Like a shooting star, the finalist for Superintendent of Peoria Public Schools District 150 made a very brief public appearance Tuesday:
At a brief event billed as a “meet and greet” between Peoria School District 150’s finalist for school superintendent and members of the media, Grenita Lathan called on the community to get behind the city’s schools…. Lathan took no questions from the media Tuesday during the event, leaving after reading her minute-and-a-half speech.
That’s right. District 150 invited all the press down for a big “meet and greet,” and it consisted of the finalist coming in, reading a 90-second statement, then quickly leaving the room without taking any questions. No meeting. No greeting. Just reading and running.
*sigh*
You know, I really don’t go looking for negative things to say about District 150. In fact, I’ve been trying to be very positive about this whole superintendent search, and I’m still hopeful that Ms. Lathan will bring some stability and lots of improvement to the district.
But what exactly was the point of this falsely-advertised non-event? To tick off the press corp? To damage trust? To reinforce the culture of stonewalling and non-transparency they’ve worked so hard to establish? What? If all they wanted was to share a short statement and not take questions, why didn’t they just send out a press release and save everyone a bunch of time?
Also of note, citizen journalist Billy Dennis was denied entry to the press conference. From his description, it sounds like they spent more time arguing with him than the superintendent finalist spent reading her statement. I’m guessing this was just an attempt to make sure everyone went away disappointed.
I hope this is not indicative of district communication under a Lathan administration.
“They know they have been on shaky ground lately with regard to their carelessness in following the Open Meetings Act.”
sharon you had us after the word lately.
timeforethics: careless is not a synonym for stupid.
Wow, so many questions to answer – difficult to keep up.
Hardly, Sharon – however I do believe in supporting our school system, rather than beating it up over every minute detail. In the grand scheme of things, this is nothing.
Obviously, D150 sought clarification. They didn’t expect all those board members to show up. If they didn’t show up, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Wolfmeyer probably didn’t think answering a few obvious media questions was a problem. If she was alone and answered them, it wouldn’t have been a problem. She made a mistake. Let’s crucify her for it and claim we live somewhere else? No thanks.
No, I’m not Beth, but I know her.
Yes, based on what the PJStar now reports about WHAT was discussed, it was a violation. Like I said, if two board members were NOT there when Wolfmeyer said what she did, there would be no violation. I’m not excusing it – but what damage was done? The real damage here is everyone talking about how stupid our BOE is over a very minor infraction. Yea, now she knows.
All the Hinton crew is gone now – so let’s go after every board member (sorry for those of you who didn’t want Crawford to win).
Again, there is much that can be criticized about D150 – picking apart every little thing isn’t productive, IMO.
Jon-
I think part of the problem is D150 will not admit when they have made a mistake. If they would do this I would be more willing to give some slack.
The board has been a problem all along, not just since Hinton left.
Jon – thanks for “having at it”. I tire too. The states atty has had MANY months to provide direction on several allegations against the district. The longer he waits, the more the billable hours rack up against the district (and taxpayers). Who, actually, are advocates for the taxpayer? Depose me! We have to begin focusing on our youth!!!!
“picking apart every little thing isn’t productive, IMO”
jon, you are without a doubt the worst apologist for the district there is. what’s your real name, Laura? Martha? At least stowell has the cajones to come on here and explain his understanding of situations and you again and again claim every issue that comes up is nothing more than a ‘little thing’. shcau’s expertise in budgeting? a little thing. the board regard for public involvement? a little thing. full disclosure of the most important hire in many years, “feh” as the second worst apologist for the district would write. for the record, Haney’s the third…
do us all a favor and make a cogent argument for once, or shut up.
Jon, you could have stopped at “Wolfmeyer probably didn’t think.” So how carelessly was this event planned if Wolfmeyer didn’t even know how many board members would show up and why wouldn’t they show up to introduce and support their pick for superintendent? Originally, I thought Stacey had just misspokem when she stated that only 150’s media “partners” were invited. Now the Lyons’ article states this word “partners” was actually in writing. As Dennis asked, why would a governmental body have a media “partner”? Anon, I hesitate to answer you because I probably won’t explain the earlier violation properly. However, there is now a change in the agenda as to the opening of all board meetings. The OMA states something to the effect that board members must meet in public and then vote to go into executive session–and then return at the 6:30 time to continue the meeting with the public. They sort of skipped the first step until recently. I know that Jon states that these offenses are minor and should be overlooked. I hope I have that straight–I, too, don’t pay much attention to these minute details–I count on those who know the law to do that. The OMA is in place because so many governmental bodies were all too casual about how they conducted business.
Dangling — Jon is his real name, and he has as much right to his opinion as you have to yours.
All — Obviously, we are going to disagree on some issues, but let’s not get nasty about it, okay?
Thanks, CJ, but I can’t help respond myself – I’ll try and keep it “tame”.
Dangling Participle – here’s a cogent argument even you should be able to understand.
Questioning my real name means nothing coming from someone who doesn’t use theirs.
If you understood what I wrote about Schau (which I know how to spell), I made the distinction between a forecasting error and an accounting mistake. Neither the newspaper or her former employer claimed she made a $6.9MM accounting error. What did I say about “the board regard for public involvement” or “full disclosure of the most important hire in many years”? I said this particular OMA violation was trivial. I don’t understand how you infer something about the necessary amount of public involvement or full disclosure from that. Those are different issues.
I do love it when people tell me to “shut up”. Very classy. A cogent argument.
CJ – Thanks for moderating. As one who deserves scorne, yet gives grief, I appreciate what you provide. I hope we can all begin to focus on what is needed for our community to become the NATIONAL becon we know is possible. Elaine – sorry for being a smarta**s, but after asking for understanding, getting none in such a short timeframe raised my rancor. Please, ALL, go to Decatur Education Coalition. They are doing things we should embrace. We are accomplishing things they aspire too! Collectively, we should be able to address the challenges we face.
Jim, I know you’ve spoken about wanting to decentralize the district. If you haven’t already, please read the Ouchi article I posted earlier.
Something else we could learn from Decatur is the process and discussion they used in closing a high school (any school for that matter). Again, if you haven’t already seen it, please check out their powerpoint presentation here:
http://www.dps61.org/15441021015222610/site/default.asp
Thanks.
Jon -one of my former (as opposed to old) professors pointed me to Ouichi months ago. Thx agn.
Jim and Jon, I know you both think that we who are more critical do not want what is best for the district and its students and that our criticisms somehow keep 150 from succeeding. Shining a light on a problem does not create a problem. Letting it fester in the darkness causes it to grow–and that has been going on for 20+ years now, and what we see now is the result of a giant cover-up. We (including me) all err in judging one another’s motives. The problem as I see it is that we can’t seem to agree on what the problems are. Or even when we agree as to what the problems are, we can’t agree on the solutions. You all know what I see as the biggest problem–discipline. At least, until the discipline issue become the focus of the district, nothing else can be accomplished; nothing else has a prayer of turning the district around academically. In my 43 years of teaching, I can’t seem to recall a time when a teacher was physically attacked by a student. (There were probably some cases–none come to mind right now). There were incidents of teachers being caught in the crossfire of a fight between two or more students. Now there are numerous reports of such situations–certainly, not at all schools but at the same ones way too often. I do believe that some attention is being given to these situations–but that wouldn’t be happening if everything had been kept as quiet as administrators and some board members would prefer. I think that a good place to start would be for everyone (teachers, administrators, board members) to stop blaming themselves for these young people who, for whatever reason, cannot control their own behaviors. The educational system and educators simply are not to blame for the severe emotional problems exhibited by so many. Yes, they are societal problems and, in that sense, we all share the blame, but blaming ourselves or allowing others to blame us is not solving the problem. I don’t want to blame anyone, not even the parents. But we have to accept the problems for what they are. It is what it is. A new mindset simply must take over. Kids and their parents have to be told (with actions, not words) that there are some behaviors that cannot be tolerated in a regular school environment. Then there must be an alternative to the regular environment. It is no secret that the black young people of Peoria’s southside have always been my focus. I hate beating around the bush, so–the one thing that I do not understand is why members of the black community (and black and white leaders in District 150) can’t see that protecting the young people (and making excuses for them) who are so disruptive is doing untold harm to the academic opportunities of so many black young people (and allowing the disruptive kids to have so much power does not help them either). Yes, white kids are hurt, too–but more often than not their parents seem to find ways to remove them from the situation–West Peoria is a prime example of that. None of the wonderful programs (and expensive, too) can be effective in this environment. It’s the chicken and the egg argument. I know that the philosophy at Manual (now and before I left) was if teachers would just engage the students, they would behave and be excited about learning. Well, severe emotional disorders (and many young people suffer from them)are not resolved in that way. I don’t think some of you understand how really messed up some of these kids are. I have grieved for some of them myself–have known that they were powerless to control their own behaviors. But our compassion cannot be an excuse for allowing these young people to destroy the learning environment for the majority and we’d better start soon or the minority will become the majority–it is infectious. I hope you recognize this as more of a plea than a tirade.
Sharon, could you pleasse use paragraphs or line breaks, I find i difficult to read your posts. Maybe others do too.
Strong 1: big thumbs up!
strong1–Agreed, I didn’t mean to make it that long–and shouldn’t have.
Sharon if I knew how to insert a happy face I would have.
Our government is not broken; it’s been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and smack across the vast middle, more and more Americans doubt representative democracy can survive the corruption of money. Bill Moyers
The same can be said about our school District…. our society in general.
Someone wrote “The Hilton gang is gone”… that is neither true nor accurate.
Not true because there are still Hinton people around and not accurate because Hinton’s departure won’t change anything… he was simply carrying out the status quo policies of the bureaucracy. If we do not start all over and redo this thing, NOTHING will change. NOTHING.
Jim — yes I can read, and I thank teachers every day. In fact I have been a teacher — taught kindergarten for 2 years and college English for 5 years. My husband taught history at WIU for 35 years. We love teachers! We love public education. We are horrified at the mistakes D150 has made, and really can’t understand them. The Open Meetings Act violation is unbelievable!
As for you, I like snide comments. At least you had the good sense not to vote to close Woodruff.
Golly me – the IL AG determined that there was no Open Meetings Act violation after all by D150.
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x794472196/District-150-Board-cleared-of-meet-and-greet-violation
Peoria Parent – that beautiful validation thing in the form of Kevin Lyons just got trumped.
Golly you–there was a bit of warning in the message. Speaking of District 150–it took from October 25 until yesterday for the minutes of the October 25 board meeting to be posted. Also, the Human Resources report has been omitted. It’s good to see that the district is moving toward more transparency.
District Watch at Monical’s on Knoxville and Lake at 6 p.m. Sunday–anyone interested in District 150 is cordially invited–you, too, Jon.
The minutes aren’t posted, just another copy of the agenda!
Mama, that’s what I thought–maybe it’s a mistake. Terry did call to find out why they weren’t posted at all–and then they were posted ASAP–but I guess it’s just the agenda.