Monday night, school board members will vote to close a high school. Two possibilities are on the agenda:
13. CLOSING OF WOODRUFF HIGH SCHOOL – Hinton
Proposed Action: That the Board of Education approve the closure of Woodruff High School effective at the end of the 2009 – 2010 school year.14. CLOSING OF PEORIA HIGH SCHOOL –
Proposed Action: That the Board of Education approve the closure of Peoria High School effective at the end of the 2009 – 2010 school year.
There’s no telling what will ultimately be decided. Closing Woodruff is the administration’s recommendation, and the one that has been on the table the longest. It lacks an implementation plan. Closing Peoria High is an idea that was formally suggested for the first time last Monday night by board member Jim Stowell. It also lacks an implementation plan.
Adding more intrigue is the fact that the two closings are listed separately on the agenda, meaning that, theoretically, both schools or neither school could end up being closed. The odds of both schools being closed is practically zero, but there is a real possibility that neither school could get the necessary four votes in favor of closing. That outcome would leave everyone in limbo, since there is no Plan B for plugging the budget deficit.
For those who are placing bets, everyone tells me that the most likely outcome is that Woodruff will be closed.
But the best outcome will be to leave both schools open until there is a plan with some teeth to it. I have heard that both schools are super sensitive today and the teachers ans students are extremely fidgety and can’t keep focused. Imagine that!
To be fair to Jim, he has said it should be Central for months. The following comes from the July 20 board minutes:
“Mr. Stowell feels Peoria High should be closed and that there should be an analysis of the closing Peoria High School”
Obviously, the first vote is crucial. You need four to oppose it for it to fail. I think Ross would vote against either school. Stowell and probably Parker would vote against WHS closing. Petelle will clearly vote in favor of WHS closing. That means you only need one of Gorenz, Wolfmeyer or Butler to vote against WHS closing.
If that happens, you would initially think PHS would also fail to get the necessary votes, but if the WHS closing fails, I could see one of those who favored closing WHS now voting for PHS – because they believe a high school must be closed period.
The key is Gorenz, Wolfmeyer and Butler – and I think Gorenz could surprise.
Imagine what it will be like tomorrow in the schools if they are already restless and unfocused.
“no Plan B for plugging the deficit”???
What else could they possible cut? Closing a high school is the ONLY way to cut costs. Merge PHS and WHS on either campus and you fix all your problems. From a financial standpoint, you get another Richwoods. I mean, it’s got the size (1400 students) and the building is fully utilized, so obviously you would think it would be the model of efficiency.
Oh wait…it’s average class size is 14.1, compared to the state average of 19.6. Schools in similar sized cities and demographics, like Springfield and Rockford have average class sizes similar to 19.6.
Hey, we all want lower class sizes, but 70% of the average when you’re running deficits? And let’s not talk about an administration that has increased 17% since 2000 when the student population has decreased 10%. (Yes, it’s all due to complexity – complexity that other districts apparently have figured out without increasing administration)
I have heard from some parents that they will not send their kids to school tomorrow if it is their school that is voted to close. The potential for either school to have an increase in violence is going to be staggering.
I understand that something needs to be done in regards to the budget, but, for the life of me, I don’t see a detailed plan for any proposed option. All I keep hearing is how they can save $2.7 mm from closing a school, but, in reality, the only way to ACTUALLY save that money is to have a potential buyer lined up already. They aren’t talking about selling a school, they are talking about spending more money to renovate/refurbish one. How is that cost efficient? I would think the PBC would not look favorably at that either, because we (150) haven’t been finanically responsible. If I were the PBC, I would think they were trying to pull the wool over my eyes by saying we are closing a school, so give us the bond money, when they aren’t closing it just remodeling.
From what I have read and understand, I doubt that closing either school solves the budget problems at Dist 150. The budget problems run much deeper than just facilities and were caused by years of bad management, failure to recognize trends in population, poorly negotiated contracts, etc.
I am a product of Dist 150 schools and graduated from Central. I think that both schools should be closed and that the students should be distributed to Richwoods and Manual. You could use either the facilities at Central or Woodruff to supplement the transportation facility on the Richwoods campus to help control transportation costs. Both have ample land to construct a simple building to support the need.
Peoria does not need 6 high schools (4 public and 2 private). The population does not support or warrant it.
My opinion counts for nothing, but I still hold to it. Manual should be closed for many reasons. 1 – It has the lowest enrollment; 2 – It has the most non-tenured teachers who will probably be pink-slipped any way 3 – It has the lowest AYP scores for NCLB 4 – It is becoming a very expensive school because of the Johns Hopkins component (another Edison-like expense for buying a program) 5 – I believe that Manual alumni would not push that hard to keep Manual open. Face it–most Manual grads move out of the area when they graduate and many of them have or had children attending the other three high schools (which they now would not want closed). My prediction is that the board will close Woodruff tonight and that within the next two or three years Manual will also be closed because of low enrollment and because the current program at Manual will do nothing to raise the NCLB AYP. Manual would be the perfect site for an alternative and/or vocational school.
Sharon – good points but with the continued increases in AYP (77% this year I believe) how long will it be before any of the schools do not meet/exceed? And how many schools will not meet AYP in 2014 when it is all/100% students meet/exceed (or however you define “all”). My guess in Illinois is that only a few HS will hit that standard.
anp–it is predicted that only 2-3% of schools in the nation will attain this expectation.
Anp & Bam: Given the absolute truth of what both of you have said, isn’t it amazing how all these schools keep jumping through all kinds of educational hoops (magic cures) trying to meet AYP. It can’t be done. I sent the BOE members the same comments that I just wrote here–about closing Manual. This is David Gorenz’s response: “The issue is more than closing a building. Manual, Central and Woodruff are all doing very poorly in student achievement. In addition to closing a building we educate differently. We have invested in a new model of instruction at Manual and my opinion is we need to give it more time to assess its effectiveness.” Or ineffectiveness–my opinion. Has anyone around the horseshoe said that closing a high school was about something other than cutting expenses? Why does David suddenly add “educating differently” and “poor student achievement” to the reason for closing a high school? My main problem with David’s answer is that the BOE members talk only to Manual’s administration (and probably a few teachers hand-picked by the administration) to find out how things are really going at Manual. My point to him, also, was that the 7th and 8th grade academy is proving to be a failure. I think only half of last year’s enrollment are presently enrolled this year and there was almost a complete turnover of teachers. When the 7th-8th grade academy folds, there is no way that Manual’s enrollment of between 500-600 should justify keeping the school open.
Jon: Why do you insist on sticking with this way of reporting class size? “Oh wait…it’s average class size is 14.1, compared to the state average of 19.6. Schools in similar sized cities and demographics, like Springfield and Rockford have average class sizes similar to 19.6.” At the beginning of the year, I believe 2 or 3 social studies classes at Richwoods had 34 students. That’s just the case I heard about.
Sharon: it’s the size reported in the school report cards. I met with Pam Schau and Laura Petelle last week about the budget questions I had. (It was very nice of them to meet with me.) Though the focus was budgets, I brought up the class size issue towards the very end of our conversation (not the one about Richwoods specifically, but the 12.1 overall for D150 high schools). They believe the numbers to be correct – that it’s a function of all of the various class offerings (IB classes, French3, etc.) as well as the special ed classes.
If those are the numbers the administration and Board are going to stick with, those are the numbers I’m going to reference when stating I believe there is far more that can be done financially to save money besides jumping to closing a school.
Maybe Steve Ptacek will give his opinion as to whether or not the number is correct?
The BOE keeps saying they need to save money to help the district. They keep picking schools and throwing out dollar amounts as what will be saved. No where have I seen any concrete proof of the savings from the closings thus far. Sharon is spot on about the savings of Manual as far as staffing is concerned. Any teacher who is tenured in the district must be placed somewhere else in the district. As I have stated in other places, the board closed Kingman and yet every single employee from there except a temp secretary and a part-time teacher have been placed in the district. How does that give them any savings for staffing? The plan in place for the Kingman and Tyng kids wasn’t even there in April when Mr. Hinton came to Kingman. It changed in the coming months until the end of school. Our students as well as some teacher didn’t know where they were going at the end of the school year. Now, the majority of Kingman kids were sent to Irving and Glen Oak–both schools which are closing at the end of this school year and our students (K-4) will be going to yet another school for the 2010-2011 school year. This is an example of a BOE plan and how well they think things out. When did the students become the very last thing which enters the mind of Mr. Hinton and the BOE when making decisions and plans? It’s just so sad, frustrating, and mind-boggling.
OK! I just got off the phone with someone at the admin building. In regards to not having a plan in place, they don’t see the need to create 2 plans if only one is going to be used. They are more focused on the MST Charter school than the displaced academies and students at either WHS or PHS.
Yeah, they have their priorities straight, dontcha think?
Sharon – I graduated from Central in mid 80’s and received an undergrad degree from a big 10 school and an MBA from Bradley. My educational experience was based on teachers teaching us about things, not how to score well on a test. I enjoyed school and learning.
I have two children in school (6th and 2nd grade), I look at how they are taught and it scares me. The teachers they have had have all been wonderful but everything is focused on the passing of state tests. Our 6th grader has been fortunate enough to be in accelerated programs since 4th grade where the teacher(s) taught more than that just how to fill in bubbles but I believe that is not the case for his classmates. My daughter is just starting the formal educational process but already it seems her experience is focused on state tests and not general learning. I think that teaching for tests is a very limiting educational experience.
All of Manual’s problems” you listed were admin ones Sharon. The building is still the best building in the district. The closing of a building should be because of the BUILDING not the administration of it. You can get new administrators and policies really easily.
Enrollment will go up if it is one of only two schools.
Non Tenured teachers are cheaper and (screw the union) probably better teachers.
Buildings don’t take tests… students do
Get rid of the John Hopkins component
You cares about alumni from one school or another. Why should they have any say in it? Some of the best students in my class will have nothing to do with the school now… reunions, or anything else.
Jon–I taught in 150 long enough to know that my class sizes were generally larger than the average. Laura said last night that PHS’s class sizes were small enough to accommodate the displaced Woodruff students. I hope that she doesn’t believe that the average tells the whole story. There may be 12 students or fewer in special ed and/or enriched classes, but that doesn’t mean that an English class of 34 will be able to accommodate 10 more students. I know that the student that I know at Richwoods said that there are 34 students in her social studies class this year. When the district is planning to stuff from 300 to 800 displaced students into one school next year, they better realize that the “average” doesn’t give them an accurate idea of how many empty desks there on in each classroom–they’d better look at a list to see how many students are actually in each classroom.
anp – You are so right. The education that students are getting today is inferior to the education students received before NCLB. Teachers are under so much pressure from administrators to teach to the test. My personal belief is that if teachers would keep teaching the way they always taught (and didn’t think about the test at all) that the AYP would be the same. Besides at the high school level, it is impossible to teach to the test. The skills required are accumulative and complex–one skill to teach can’t be isolated. Kcdad, I know Manual is the best building. I was a non-tenured teach once–I would say I was a better teacher after teaching a few years. Manual was always a school that welcomed new, younger teachers–I think the young and the old worked well together. Now there are mostly new teachers–and the administration has abused them considerably because there are so few veteran teachers to stick up for them, etc.
Average class size is figured by total students divided by total teachers….
The model is one of elementary school when there was one teacher per classroom.
“The education that students are getting today is inferior to the education students received before” _________. Fill in the blank
1) WWII
2) Tenure
3) Teacher’s Unions
4) Department of Education was established
5) “the good ole days”
My class sizes are as follows:
1st – 29
2nd – 15
3rd – 28
5th – 29
6th – 28
My classes average 25.8 and that is because of my one elective class. The required classes at Richwoods usually have an average of 28. I know the other teacher who teaches what I do has a class average of 29.
9:33pm — According to pjstar.com they voted to close Woodruff.
Jon…
You will find that average class size as reported on the school report card is not an accurate measure of how many kids are in the vast majority of classes. This year our core course have numbers similar to what RHSteacher posts.
We have some specialized special education programs and some IB and AP programs that have very small classes that skew the average.
For example, our Hearing Impaired program (a WONDERFUL program with FANTASTIC teachers) has extremely low class sizes… as it should. Most schools in the state do not have this type of program. Other districts send their students to RHS.
We have PE classes over 50 students.
Yes sometimes with scheduling an oddity comes up. During my talks to the Freshman English classes I spoke to a class of 15 students but the same teacher had almost 30 in the other classes.
If you take out our specialized programs our average class size is much higher.
Anybody else feel like putting out a vote of no confidence in the school board and in Hinton? I’d be willing to sign a petition if it would get them to LISTEN to the freaking community for once.
Steve, you nailed it on the head for me:
“If you take out our specialized programs…” That’s the story I get for the low average class sizes at PHS, WHS and MHS. That’s the D150 story. Why is that not the story anywhere else in the state? Why is that not the story at similar sized districts with similar demographics like Springfield and Rockford?
Each of those specialized small classes has considerable cost to it – presumably each requires at least a teacher. Do we really think that there are more special ed students in Peoria than are in Springfield or Rockford or Bloomington (the inner city district, not Unit 5)?
Closing WHS isn’t going to fix the core problems of financial inefficiency.
Let’s play with those numbers some more. Let’s assume “most” classes are 29. What would it take to get an average class size of 14? Well, one way is for every class of 29, you have three classes of 9. That’s four classes with 56 students, or a 14 average. Think about that again – for every class of 29, you would have to have THREE classes of 9 for a 14 average. Don’t we stop and wonder, why do we have so many specialized programs? Why do similar school districts like Rockford and Springfield not have this problem?
Steve: Thank you for clarifying the class size issue for Jon. I certainly hope the BOE members don’t believe that the average represents the actual class size of most of the core classes at Peoria High. If so, they might be surprised when there isn’t enough room for all Woodruff students at PHS. Manual’s classrooms are large, so administrators could get away with putting 35-40 kids in some rooms. I believe PHS’s classrooms are relatively small–there is room for just so many desks and no more. Carey, you are so right.
Jon I don’t know about PHS and WHS.
But I do know that our hearing impaired program and the course requirements we have to offer for our IB diploma program are not offered at the schools you mentioned.
I am at home, but I am guessing that we offer 10 class rooms with 6 or less students that they (Springfield and others) don’t have. This skews the numbers greatly at RHS.
OK, Steve, let’s just take out those 10 classes. I quoted the 2008 School Report Card, in which the average class size at RHS was 14.1 and there were 1373 total students. Doesn’t that means there were 97 classes (1373/14.1 – I rounded to 97) at RHS during that time period? If we take out those 10, that leaves 87 classes for 1373 students. The result? 15.8 average class size – still way below the state average of 19.6.
So Steve, in such economically challenging times does it not make more sense that students taking AP classes elsewhere in the District be combined with those students at Richwoods in order to have fuller classes? I am hopefully this will come to pass with the revamping of the NOW 3 high schools.
For a more taboo subject — I am not familiar with special education laws, and I understand that classes must be smaller, BUT, that much smaller? There seems to be a fine line between those students in special ed. and others in the District that are barely making the grade but placed in classes of 29 or 30. Just as many blog about the AYP being unreasonable, so too are some of the spec. ed. laws in view of the limited funding available to Illinois public schools.
Jon: Don’t you believe the figures that RHSteacher gave you? So how are you conjuring up the 15.0 for Richwoods. The fact is that there are probably a significant number of classes in the range of the contractual class size of 25 and some that are up to 30+. There are probably some that range from 15-20. The larger classes will probably be in the required courses such as English because every student has to take English. Social studies would be another.
Frustrated: I don’t know about WHS and PHS, but Manual stopped offering AP classes several years ago–perhaps because the only teacher who had taken the qualifying courses to teach AP English retired.
Jon… total number of students divided by total number of teacher. Forget about the classrooms, forget about the classes. Look at how many teachers are in the break room.
Jon… come to RHS and check it out.
You are also looking at last years numbers. We have lost 3 teachers since last year. I don’t know what to tell you other than the numbers that RHSTeacher qouted you are accurate for the vast majority of our classrooms.
If I include other rooms that other schools outsource (our autistic room) the numbers would change again…
But it seems you are bent to state that even at RHS we have this wonderful classroom size… come and see
Also… special education is aimed at under 15 per class and we do not outsource our students
Another also (I am in a rush to get my kid on the bus)….
We don’t have 97 teachers teaching at one time. Last year we had around 90 staff members and at any one time nearly one/sixth of them are on prep.
Therefore the report card is SKEWED. I think it is counting other staff members that are not actually teaching when calculating those figures. Try this simple correction… 75 teachers and take out 8 for the low classes … you will see the numbers of students in seats changes dramatically.
Manual has a few AP-trained teachers currently on staff; the district paid for them to be trained a couple of summers ago. AP English literature and history are the ones that I know of for sure. However, some other teachers who were AP trained didn’t return this year.
Sharon – you are missing the point entirely. This is the data provided in the school report card. The issue isn’t the class that has 25+ students. The issue is all the number of classes that have 10 or fewer students. That is the only way to get to an average of 14 claimed on the state report card. Notice that Steve didn’t dispute that number of 14. (I see that Steve responded while I was typing – now he does seem to believe the numbers are wrong. Interesting.) You don’t really expect me to take the data provided for ONE teacher and deduce that the data provided on the school report cards for the ENTIRE SCHOOL as a whole is therefore wrong, do you?
kcdad – the data for average class sizes on the school report cards takes a sampling of class sizes at a school at a particular time (2nd and 5th class periods on a particular class day in May).
Steve – what I am saying is that if even though we have all of these core classes with 25 plus students (which I totally believe) then mathematically, it takes a huge number of 10 or less to get to an average of 14. That 14 average, as I pointed out to kcdad, has nothing to do with teachers on prep period. The school report card explains how it is supposed to be calculated – for all schools, so that schools can be compared with schools in other districts. I am bent on analyzing quality data. (Steve said “But it seems you are bent to state that even at RHS we have this wonderful classroom size” I am not stating it. Your own school report cards states it)
Jon: If you are bent on analyzing quality data, then you probably shouldn’t be looking at the Illinois school report card data. It stated that attendance at Manual was at 91%–so I FOIA’d Manual’s attendance for 2nd semester and found that over 200 students out of 516 were absent more than two weeks–some way over. Before the ACT test was used as part of the NCLB test–when only a select few students took the ACT test, the Illinois Report Card generally reported that 90 to 100% of Manual students passed the ACT test–it failed to mention that probably only 30 students took the test. When you say to Steve, “Your own school report card states it,” are you implying that Richwoods provided the average figure? That’s all done on Wisconsin Avenue where figures might not lie but liars can figure. District 150 “needs” those average figures when bargaining with its teachers about class size. Jon, just explain your point a little further. Whom are you attacking with your arguments–the state, District 150, or people like Steve who must deal with the reality when his teachers complain to him that they have class sizes of 30+?
Sharon, I am questioning the data and the decisions made from that data. It does no good to simply say the data is bad, or that it’s all due to special ed – end of story. If there is a flaw in the way D150 tabulates that data for the school report card, that needs to be fixed so that informed decisions can be made and justified. If the data is correct, then closing a high school would seem to have been an unnecessary, drastic measure. Steve is right in the middle of all this and I welcome his take on it.
Jon… thanks for the comment!
I get data from the state on student PSAE performance that will show two different students with the same scores on both testing days and one meets and the other doesn’t. Their method of reporting data is not consistent.
They use a format from reporting that is extremely reliant on how we report. They don’t check every school. We send in an electronic report and it gets placed into the program for generating the report card.
Your own analysis showed that me that the numbers that they used do not equal what is in the school. We did not have 97 teachers. There exists the possibility that many of our cooperating teachers in special education classes are being reported as seperate teachers. Last year we had other people paid on the teacher scale that did not teach any classes. (Athletic director, Deans, etc) There are many reasons that the numbers could be skewed.
Our IB classes last year did skew the numbers. We had an some IB classes with under 5 students. This is the reason that I am working on adjusting the program to increase our numbers.
I am someone that has been an administrator in 3 districts so I feel that I am in a good position to state whether RHS has a low student/teacher ratio. In our core classes it is no lower than anywhere else that I have worked.
Steve, I’ve talked about classes sizes at different times and on different blogs. Here is one example posted from a teacher that would totally screw up the numbers:
“SpEd teachers, at least at PHS, regularly teach multiple classes in the same room at the same time. For example, 4 freshmen in work-related skills, 5 sophomores in consumer ed and 5 seniors in work skills. That’s 3 preps for one hour and counts as 3 classes, but there is one teacher in the room, with a para if she’s lucky.”
Those 3 classes (of 4, 5 and 5 students) held at the same time with one teacher are not three classes at all, but rather 1 class of 14.
If that is how the data is reported, it makes the data worthless, as it is not a true representation of class sizes, and would not only support the notion that Richwoods does NOT have a 14.1 average class size, but that D150 high schools also do not have a 12.1 average class size.
Wasn’t that one of the key data (low class sizes) supporting the need to close a high school and get 80% of that savings from staff cuts? Could a “mistake” have recently been realized to cause Hinton to revise his estimated savings from $1.5MM to $2.7MM instead of the original $2.7MM? What are the other “mistakes” in the plan? Oh, that’s right, there wasn’t a plan…There was a decision to close a school (really, any high school would do) NOW because the PBC and S&P said so or you don’t get the $30MM in funds that do not require public approval.