I got a chance to talk with Diane Vespa regarding Ken Hinton’s announcement today. She had gone to the district’s offices at 10:30 to attend the press conference, and I wanted to hear what she thought of Ken Hinton’s latest plan. Imagine my surprise when she told me she wasn’t allowed into the press conference.

“You can’t go in,” she was told. “This is for press only.”

So Diane didn’t know any more about Hinton’s plan than I did — that is, she only knew what had been reported so far in the press. I suppose there’s nothing unusual, per se, about a press conference being restricted to press only. But here Diane was the only private citizen at the press conference, she’s the leader of the District 150 Watch group that has been trying to work with board members and administrators to find an alternative to the 45-minute school-day cut that was approved back on May 5, and she’s a parent of two District 150 primary school students. What purpose did denying her access to the press conference serve? Were they afraid she would be belligerent and disruptive or something? And why wouldn’t parents be welcomed by the school administrator when he’s announcing a new proposal that is supposed to be so beneficial to their children?

This episode illustrates all too well the school administration’s insulary nature. They don’t include the parents in making important educational decisions. They simply make decisions in isolation and then take a defensive posture toward anyone that would question them. It’s kind of ironic that they see the value of collaboration when it comes to teacher preparation, but they see no value in collaborating with parents on issues affecting their own children’s education.

One thing that concerns Diane is a comment she heard repeated by several members of the press. Evidently, Hinton made a point of saying he’s recommending this change because he recognizes “it’s been hard on people’s schedules” and on the schedules of “working parents.” Vespa wonders if Hinton is missing the point.

“When they [District 150] try to reduce it down to a babysitting issue, it shows a clear lack of understanding of the parents’ concerns,” Vespa said. “If they think parents are upset about this simply because it interferes with their work schedules, that’s offensive. We’re engaged in this because we care about the quality of education that our children are getting.”

Hinton apparently presented the new plan predominantly from a scheduling perspective, without addressing how this plan will help improve student achievement. Yet student achievement is the primary concern. Hinton can’t just write this protest off as being about child care and scheduling. He needs to show how cutting instructional time at schools that are already failing to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) is going to help those children achieve more. Or to put it another way, how will adding common prep time more than compensate for the corresponding loss of instructional time each week?

It’s easy to hide from parents by kicking them out of press conferences, but they can’t hide from the issues.

District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton is now proposing a new plan. Instead of cutting 45 minutes out of every school day, he’s proposing to cut 90 minutes out of Wednesdays. Under this new plan, children would be dismissed at 1:45 p.m. on Wednesdays, but teachers would stay and use that time for common prep.

Let’s compare apples to apples here. Per week, this means that instead of cutting 3.75 hours from the students’ school day, they would be cutting only 1.5 hours. Per day, this means that instead of cutting 45 minutes, they would be cutting an average of 18 minutes. I suppose this is Hinton’s way of trying to meet parents halfway — in fact, 60% of the way, since he’s restoring 2.25 hours of the 3.75 he was originally planning to cut.

Granted, 18 is better than 45. But it doesn’t resolve the issue. Under this plan, we would still have kids in failing schools attending less time each week. We’d still have fifth-graders in primary schools getting 18 minutes less per day (54 hours over the course of a 180-day school year) than fifth-graders in middle schools.

It looks like Mr. Hinton is on the right track — he just needs to go the other 40% of the way.

A press conference has been called for today at 10:30 a.m. at District 150 offices. Superintendent Ken Hinton will be addressing the 45-minute reduction in primary school schedules.

Editor’s note: This is a guest posting from my friend and fellow commissioner on the Heart of Peoria Commission, Beth Akeson. Please note that the comments you leave on this post will be forwarded to Beth.

Tuesday, I attended a District 150 Building Committee meeting. They reviewed the schematic design of the new Harrison Birth through Eighth Grade Community Learning Center.

It was noticed as a “public” meeting since more than two school board members would be in attendance. The meeting was scheduled to last two hours starting at noon and was located in the Superintendent’s conference room at the administration building. I was the only member of the public in attendance except for a couple of people from a local news station and they left early.

Attending the meeting were members of the building committee; Rachael Parker, Jim Stowell and Debbie Wolfmeyer. Ken Hinton, Guy Cahill, Dave Ryon were there representing the administration. David Walvoord, District 150’s attorney, and Julie Cramer, the school board secretary sat in as well. I have no idea why they were there. David Walvord made no comments and was asked no questions. I did not see Julie Cramer taking notes.

Each person at the table was either a paid administrator, outside paid advisor (attorney and architects) or an elected official. What is the purpose of having a public meeting if the public is not in attendance in significant numbers, unable to watch from home and not able to offer suggestions?

The plan for the new Harrison school is definitely suburban in concept. After the meeting I talked with the local LZT architect, David Henebry, and I asked why the suburban design? He said the area is not urban and never will be. Funny, that is not how it appears if you base urban versus suburban on whether there is a grid pattern of streets. Did they ask the PHA what they are planning or have they read the Heart of Peoria Plan? We need to be building for the future with less dependence on automobiles.

The proposed Harrison Birth through Eight Grade Learning Center is a one story building, set back from the street with on-site parking [see artist’s rendering at the top of this post]. The price of gas is now over $4.00 per gallon and it will climb higher. Childhood obesity and limited auto ownership are prevalent in poor neighborhoods and yet there was no discussion about creating a walkable environment; the plans are totally auto centric. There was no mention of sustainability and LEED certification.

District 150 is planning an unremarkable, factory type school building and the only guiding principle given to the architects seems to be building as inexpensively as possible. The building is suburban and uninspiring. As the presentation went on Ken Hinton asked the architect about a tower depicted in the rendering and the architect responded:

…it represents a feature to give some importance to the entrance, since this is a single story and economical building…

Could it be he was trying to say in a diplomatic way that the building’s envelope is just run of the mill?

After the schematic renderings were presented there were few questions. Jim Stowell asked about “water reclamation” which stumped the architect since reclamation is the “reuse” of the building’s water. Eventually, the architect realized Stowell was asking about storm water runoff management. The architect assured him they would be meeting the city’s requirements

Jim’s question made me think: If he is really concerned about conservation maybe he could investigate how District 150 determined it to be more desirable to build new buildings and not restore and modernize the existing buildings? There are many examples in other cities of older buildings restored with well designed new additions. I have attached a PDF for examples [see below]. The problem with Peoria is we have not had good experience with either.

If the building committee had consulted an architect familiar with school restoration or renovation, as I have, they would have been told that as much as twenty-five percent of the cost of building a new building lies in preparing the site, laying the building’s foundation, and installing utilities. Another twenty-five percent goes toward the building structure—its framing, walls, and roof. With an historic building, you already have those components in place. Wouldn’t that translate into cost savings and conservation?

The citizenry needs to weigh in on this design and the building’s siting. Commenting during the obligatory public hearing will be too late. District 150 officials hand picked people to give programming suggestions and they have not given the public any opportunity to discuss how the building meets the street. If they are worried about too much community push-back then maybe the design deserves the scrutiny. However, if the designs are truly impressive why wouldn’t they want to show the public the renderings at every step? I think the answers are obvious.

Additionally, I do not believe they have anyone in house with design expertise to give necessary guidance.

Harrison’s Budget

Next, they presented the building’s confirmed budget, but the cost estimate will not be determined until it is let out for bid. The architects suggested that the board make a list of what they would be willing to give up in the event of cost overruns.

The architects suggested they could eliminate the health clinic, room partitions, adult education space, and outdoor basketball courts if the bid is over budget.

The group made no decisions and someone suggested the school board’s committee of the whole would have to be included in this decision. There was no mention of asking the public for their opinion and since it will be discussed during a committee of the whole meeting it will not be televised and it will most likely be during the middle of the day.

The real kicker came when the board was told the budget would not provide for interior furniture, technology, phone system, community garden, water playground, and outdoor amphitheater. The budget only covers the hard costs of construction and soft costs of design.

For me, witnessing this meeting was frustrating. I ran for the school board, and since I lost, I do not want to appear as if I am being hypercritical of District 150. I do not want to give heartburn to our volunteer school board. Yet, after today’s meeting someone needs to start asking some questions and raise the level of expectation.

Our school board has to be informed in order to make the best decisions. When the architects opened the floor for discussion only a few basic questions were asked and no comments were made, except for the usual thank you. Guy Cahill ran the meeting and Ken Hinton continued to say over and over again something to the effect of “I will keep quiet,” “I will not talk.” I was puzzled why the superintendent would make such a comment and say it more than once.

No one questioned the design, the layout, or asked for comparables. Unfortunately, the public’s window of opportunity to weigh in is shrinking and decisions are being made by individuals with limited appreciation of the urban planning task at hand. They are missing a major opportunity and the city will suffer the consequences.

Yesterday, I attended the building committee meeting where the plans for Glen Oak School were presented. I am working on a post to summarize that meeting too. Let’s say for now I was equally unimpressed.

Resources for further reading:

Great Schools By Design (Akron Report)
Historic Neighborhood Schools Deliver 21st Century Education
New Schools for Older Neighborhoods
Planning Schools to Fight Obesity
The Case for Renovation
School Design Guidelines
School Siting Handbook

From a press release:

Parents, teachers and concerned citizens unhappy over the shortening of the school day for most District 150 primary schools have just secured their 1001th signature on a petition requesting the District 150 Board of Education rescind their vote of May 5th. That vote shortened the primary school Day for most District 150 Schools as well as cut specialty teachers in Art Music Science and PE.

The petition Drive continues and the group feels that given time they will easily secure thousands more.

Sharon Crews, a retired Manual teacher, and one of the many that worked on the petition drive had this to say about the experience:

“Our experience today proved one thing–this group’s efforts have definitely made an impact on the public. Almost everyone who signed the petitions today already knew about the 45 minute cut in time for primary schools. Certainly, they didn’t find out from any communications from District #150. The public was aware and very ready and willing to sign against the action. This should give us all encouragement for future efforts to make the district accountable to the public. So many thanked us for putting forth this effort to fight the shortened day.”

Chris Summers, A District 150 Parent, had this to say:

“I only spent about an hour on it, and I didn’t have any trouble getting people to sign. Most of them were already aware of what was going on in D150 and were not only willing, but eager to sign the petition. I heard a lot of positive comments for what we’re trying to do; it’s been a very encouraging experience. More signatures tomorrow!”

All of the signatures are hard copy, with actual signatures. Copies of the petition and signatures will be provided to the media upon request. The group plans to present the petition to the Board of Education at their next board meeting on June 16. The 45 minute issue is expected to be on their agenda as a discussion item.

The Petition is entitled “Petition to Rescind Shortened School Day” and reads “We the undersigned support a full rescission of the shortened school day/specialty teacher reduction plan that the Peoria Public Schools Board of Education approved May 5, 2008”