General News

Koehler, Gordon town meeting outside their districts

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From Peoria County GOP Chairman Rudy Lewis:

Koehler and Gordon so out of touch they don’t even know where their districts are located

Sen. Koehler leads Jehan Gordon off on the wrong foot as she begins her term

(PEORIA) State Representative Jehan Gordon may be getting off on the wrong foot by holding a town hall meeting with State Senator Dave Koehler outside of both of their districts.

“How can you accurately represent citizens if you invite people to a town hall meeting to voice their opinions but that location is outside of your district?” said Peoria County GOP chairman Rudy Lewis. “I wonder if Koehler and Gordon are just taking people on the South Side, the East Bluff, West Bluff and West Peoria for granted by holding their town hall outside their own districts. In any case spending tax dollars to invite people to a town hall meeting outside of their districts is a slap in the face of those they are paid to represent.”

“Imagine a U.S. Senator from Illinois holding a town hall meeting in Indiana or Missouri,” furthered Lewis. “It defies logic.”

“If these two public officials care not where they hold their town hall meeting, it calls into question their judgment when voting to spend billions of state tax dollars,” concluded Lewis.

Gordon and Koehler recently announced they would be holding a Town Hall Meeting on January 22nd at the Lakeview Branch Library (1137 W. Lake Ave., Peoria). However, the Lakeview Branch Library is not located in either Gordon or Koehler’s legislative districts. The Library is located in the 37th Senate District and the 73rd legislative districts, represented by Sen. Dale Risinger and Rep. David Leitch.

Chairman Lewis confirmed that the Lakeview Branch Library is located in the 73rd legislative district (37th Senate district) and not the 92nd legislative district (46th Senate District) with both the Illinois State Board of Elections and the City of Peoria Election Commission.

For their part, Risinger and Leitch hold a series of more than 10 town hall meetings each summer throughout the four counties in the 73rd District—but each one is inside the district they both represent.

2009 Campaign, Peoria Public Schools

News release: Petelle running for school board

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From a news release:

Petelle Announces for District 150 School Board

Peoria – Laura Petelle formally announced her candidacy for the District 3 seat on the District 150 School Board today.

“As a professor at Illinois Central College, I get District 150 students in my classroom all the time,” Petelle said. “We have great students. They deserve a great school district. District 150 should be a first choice, not a last resort.”

Laura Petelle, 30, works as an attorney in private practice in Peoria and as an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Illinois Central College, teaching classes including philosophy and ethics.

“The school board term is five years. My baby will start kindergarten in five years. I’m very motivated to improve the District in that time,” Petelle said.

Petelle graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (BA, 2000); she then went to Duke University in North Carolina where she earned a law degree (JD, 2004) and a Masters in Theological Studies (MTS, 2004). She is a member of the Junior League of Peoria, where she volunteers on the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum committee. Petelle serves on the community board of the University of Illinois Extension – Peoria County. She is married to Garth Madison, a litigator with Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP; they are expecting their first child in late May. Petelle and Madison are members of the Biltmore Heights Neighborhood Association and of St. Philomena’s.

The District 3 seat is currently held by Mary Spangler, who will not be running. District 3 encompasses most of the city of Peoria north of Forest Hill Avenue. The election will be April 7, 2009.

Petelle also writes a local blog under the name Eyebrows McGee.

Peoria Public Schools

D150: Fewer students, more administrators

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Peoria Board of Education member Jim Stowell has passed along a report he requested from staff on “Pupil-Teacher and Pupil-Administrator Ratios” from 1989 to 2008.

The report shows that, while enrollment has steadily declined over the past 20 years, the number of administrators has gone up. The pupil-administrator ratio in 1989 was 223.5:1. Last year it was 168.1:1.

Some questions remain. The report notes that deans used to be considered teachers by the Illinois State Board of Education, but are now considered administrators. That makes historical comparisons more difficult. However, the report doesn’t tell us how many deans there are in the district, or how big of a difference their change of status makes.

The report also does not define exactly who is and who is not considered an “administrator.” For instance, does this figure include the many consultants who retired, but were rehired on a per diem basis, like Cindy Fischer? Or does it only include full-time administrator positions?

Still, returning to the question of deans being changed from “teacher” to “administrator,” I don’t think this is enough to explain away the rise in administrators. In order for the district to have the same pupil-administrator ratio as 1989 (223.5:1) with 2008’s enrollment (13,642), they would have to have only 61 administrators. They have 81. No matter how you look at it, the administration is top-heavy.

Peoria Public Schools

Central or Woodruff campus? Pros and cons

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For all of you who wondered “why Woodruff?” here’s your answer. School board member Jim Stowell forwarded me the district’s “Merged High School Campus Selection Analysis.” It basically is a detailed pro and con list for each campus. I think it helps explain the administration’s recommendation that Peoria High be used for the new “merged” high school and Woodruff be used for grade school.

On a side note, did you know that “Woodruff [was] originally designed to be [a] junior high school”? I didn’t. I’d love to know the rest of the story on that. I wonder how it went from being a junior high school to another high school.

Peoria Public Schools

Budget not the only reason to merge Central, Woodruff

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I was able to obtain a copy of District 150’s draft “Educational Enhancement and Budget Alignment Plan.” I discovered something. I thought that the district was planning to close Woodruff and distribute its students to Central and Richwoods. That is practically what’s going to happen, but it’s not technically what will happen. Technically, the plan calls for Woodruff and Central both to be closed, and a new school created:

Close Irving and Kingman primary schools, Lincoln middle school, Woodruff and Peoria high schools … re-draw boundaries and re-allocate entering Woodruff-Peoria high sophomore through senior year students to a merged Woodruff-Peoria high school on the existing Peoria high campus.

So the question that immediately comes to my mind is, “Why?” Why state it that way? I believe the answer is that both Central and Woodruff have been in “academic watch status,” or AWS, for five years as of 2008. Do you know what happens if they are still in AWS after six years? They go into State Intervention and Federal Restructuring, and that means some really drastic action could be taken by the state:

The Regional Superintendent removes the local school board OR the State Superintendent appoints an independent authority to operate the school or district. The State Board may dissolve the entity OR the State Superintendent may reassign pupils and reassign or remove administrative staff. Title I schools must continue to offer school choice and supplemental services. Federal restructuring options include the following: classify the school as a charter school OR replace principal and staff OR select an outside management entity OR state takeover and management.

However, if both schools are closed, then the academic warning status is moot. The AWS disappears into history along with the schools’ independent identities. A new combined school will essentially reset the clock of state accountability. A cynic might say that a plan to close and merge schools ostensibly for budgetary reasons is really just an end-run around the state’s accountability standards — and their consequences.

So, despite the protests that will take place Tuesday night before the school board meeting, I’ll bet this plan is put into action anyway. It not only helps fix budgetary shortfalls, it also obviates state action against failing schools.

Peoria Park District

Park District levy still going up, just not as much

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“Peoria Park District cuts levy,” the Journal Star headline reads. The article starts, “Taxpayers will be glad to hear the Peoria Park District just adjusted this year’s levy – down – by $63,000.”

That sounds pretty exciting… until you realize that the levy is still over three-quarters of a million dollars more than last year. The Journal Star reported on November 20, 2008:

A $41.4 million budget for 2009 was cleared by Peoria Park District trustees in less than 17 minutes Wednesday. That budget includes a $14.5 million tax levy, which is $821,000 more than the amount in the 2008 budget.

So, it appears to me that instead of the levy going up $821,000, it’s now going up “only” $758,000, or $63,000 less than originally planned. It’s better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not quite as exciting as the paper makes it sound.

Museum Block

The Economist: Museums “unsafe bets for urban renewal”

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A special edition of The Economist magazine (“The World in 2009”) includes this article, which was alluded to in a previous comment. The article is titled, “The Museum-building binge.” Here’s something to consider when deciding how much money and land we want to dedicate to a new downtown museum complex:

Museums often enjoy cheeringly high visitor numbers in the first year or two, but then attendance tends to taper off.

“Sustainability is the new buzzword,” explains Javier Pes, editor of Museum Practice, a journal published by the Museums Association. Wealthy private donors have been happy enough to contribute large sums in exchange for a glamorous new wing named after them. But donations tend to ebb after the museum reopens, and directors need to find other ways to pull in tourists after the initial excitement wears off, such as pricey blockbuster shows. Operating costs go up.

In Denver, for example, where Daniel Libeskind designed a new $110m building for the art museum, an initial boom of visitors in 2006 has waned, and budget constraints have forced the museum to cut staff. The remarkable new structure—an explosion of angles and intersecting shapes—is the centrepiece of Denver’s nascent culture district. Yet some visitors complain of feeling disoriented inside. […]

Such investments are clearly unsafe bets for urban renewal.

What is the Museum Collaboration Group’s plan to sustain their optimistic attendance numbers over the next 20 years (i.e., the duration of the bonds used for construction) and beyond?

General News

Circuit City chain closing down

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If you have gift cards to Circuit City, use them now. The whole chain is liquidating their assets and going out of business. Over 30,000 employees will be losing their jobs. Not sure how many people work at the Peoria store in Westlake Shopping Center. A customer service rep I talked to guessed that they employed 80 people, which seems high to me.

Estimated closing date is March 31, but could be sooner if they sell all their merchandise.

Heartland Partnership

Infrastructure projects list released

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From a press release:

Peoria, IL – (January 15, 2009) The Heartland Partnership and the Tri County Regional Planning Commission have been gathering a list of regional infrastructure projects that could benefit from President-elect Obama’s proposed infrastructure stimulus recovery project. The goal is to have a list of potential projects ready when the new administration gives the go ahead for the stimulus package.

The Heartland Partnership President and CE Jim McConoughey said this group has been working to gather this list since early December. “This is an evolving project. As we compile our list, Washington DC is compiling the criteria. This list enables us to have the necessary information at our fingertips when it’s needed.”

The group released details on that list today at the Heartland Partnership Office. Over two hundred projects were submitted from 41 municipalities in eight counties including Peoria, Tazewell, Woodford, Mason, Logan, Fulton, Marshall and Stark. The list includes development, road, water, sewer, schools, and community projects.

McConoughey said the anticipated federal stimulus package is approximately $800 billion and as the President and Congress unfold the various components of the plan, it will be important for our communities to decide what we consider success. This stimulus package is about creating jobs in our communities and across the nation, McConoughey said. “So if any project on this list receives funding it will mean jobs in our community. And when people have jobs, they shop in local stores, they buy or rent homes, and they pay taxes and contribute to the overall welfare of the community in a variety of ways. So any project on this list that receives funding is a success for the larger community.”

The next step is to get this list to our lawmakers. McConoughey will be traveling to Washington DC and Springfield to deliver the list to the Illinois delegation in the coming weeks. He went on to say that the work is not over, “We will continue to monitor the rules and keep an eye on any changes that may affect projects in our region. If invited to submit more detailed information on this list, we will do so. And if local project leaders need assistance we will help them find it.”

Here’s the list in PDF format.

Some of these projects are real head-scratchers — for instance, the “Riverfront Village Stairway Replacement” project. Did some catastrophe happen to the stairs that I missed? Or were they just poorly constructed in the first place? I’m trying to figure out why they need to be replaced already when that development is only (roughly) 10 years old.

And then there’s this one: “Peoria Academy School 27,000 sq ft addition.” I thought these were supposed to be public projects. Peoria Academy is “an independent, private, non-profit school,” according to their own website. Are we now handing out public money to private schools? St. Mark’s is ready to build a new school — I’ll bet they would welcome some of that stimulus money, too.

One more thing: “Riverfront Museum Parking deck construction.” This isn’t significant in and of itself. What’s more significant is the “start date” listed: February 1, 2009. That’s almost three months before the sales tax referendum. They wouldn’t start construction before they knew if they had enough funds to finish the project, would they? That would be most unwise.

Peoria Public Schools

Protest planned against school closings

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Well over 100 people crowded into the banquet room at Godfather’s Pizza Thursday night in reaction to District 150’s proposal to balance the budget by closing and consolidating schools. Included in the crowd were teachers, students, coaches, staff members, parents, alumni, and other concerned citizens. The meeting started at 5 p.m. and lasted about an hour and a half. Terry Knapp was the moderator and several people spoke. Here’s a small sampling:

[flashvideo filename=https://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Video/WHS-Protest.flv /]

My thanks to Terry, Jeff Adkins-Dutro, and Hedy Elliot-Gardner for letting me publish their comments. Jeff and Hedy are running for union president and vice president, respectively.

In case you didn’t catch it, the plan is to hold a protest outside the District 150 offices on Wisconsin next Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., prior to the board meeting. School board meetings are normally on Mondays, but next Monday is the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. The goal is to have 300-400 people from demonstrating against closing Woodruff High and other schools slated for closure.

The concerns with closing schools are many:

  • Larger class sizes — When Manual was restructured, the district emphasized that it was important to establish/maintain “small learning communities.” Now they want to combine schools that will lead to large classes of 29+ students. To make matters worse, the district is also trying to take special education children out of their special classes and integrate them into regular classrooms. So now, in addition to having larger class sizes, teachers are going to have the added pressure of helping special ed kids keep up with the rest of the class.

  • Mixing rival gangs — I’m not up on Peoria’s gang situation, but several attendees who are aware of it expressed concern about putting a lot of kids from rival gangs in the same school building. It poses a number of security problems.

  • Combining of athletic teams — Kids who are able to make the cut for, say, basketball in their respective schools now will end up being cut from the team when players from both high schools are combined to make one team. For some of those kids, sports is what keeps them in school and keeps them connected; and being cut from the team will raise the likelihood of them dropping out.

  • Edison schools not on the chopping block — No one can understand why the district wouldn’t cut Edison schools’ contract before closing down schools. A lot of money could be saved by getting rid of that private, for-profit company’s contract.

  • Consultants/administrators not on the chopping block — At the same time the administration is talking about closing schools and cutting teachers, they are adding more administrative staff. Why wouldn’t they cut the fat in the administration before they start making cuts that impact students?

As I listened closely to the rally Thursday, I noticed that this was not just about schools closing. There are some deeper issues that are frustrating the teachers. Consider that the teachers and principals found out about the District’s proposal to close and consolidate schools from the press. The assistant principal of Woodruff first heard it on the 10:00 news Wednesday night. It’s bad enough that the administration doesn’t consult their teachers and staff for input on these matters; the least they can do is inform them of their plans before they tell the news media and general public.

There was also frustration that no union representatives were at the meeting Thursday. Many teachers were incensed that Peoria Federation of Teachers president Scott Schifeling wasn’t at the meeting Thursday night, nor was anyone from the union’s executive board. An attendee who had talked to several board members reported to the group that they weren’t attending the meeting because they “felt slighted that they weren’t invited.” Not exactly the way to inspire confidence among the teachers.

Expect a lot of protesters Tuesday night, and a lot of people lined up to speak to the school board during the public comment period of Tuesday’s meeting.