On the District 150 school board’s agenda for Monday night, September 12, is a resolution to adopt a new voting district map. Every ten years, elected bodies adjust their representative boundaries to ensure equal representation by population based on the U.S. Census numbers. For District 150, things are a little more complicated because they also have to comply with a 1987 Voting Rights lawsuit settlement agreement.
Before the lawsuit, District 150 board members were all elected at-large. Now the school district has been split into three voting districts. District 1 is deliberately drawn so that it has a “voting age population which will be composed of a majority of minority race voters,” and has one representative. Districts 2 and 3 split up the remaining population and have three representatives each. Here’s how it breaks out:
| District | # of Reps | Mean Voting Age Population |
Actual Proposed Voting Age Population |
Deviation | Black Pop. | Total Minority Pop. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 10,951 | 10,717 | -2.1% | 63.47% | 73.60% |
| 2 | 3 | 32,853 | 32,839 | -0.04% | 35.84% | 45.75% |
| 3 | 3 | 32,853 | 33,102 | +0.7579% | 14.18% | 22.83% |
As you can see, it really works out to 10,951 voters per representative (ideally), but rather than split the district into seven districts, they have a goal of one with 10,951 voters and one representative, and two with 32,853 (10,951 x 3) voters and three representatives each. They don’t have to meet the goal perfectly, but they have to be within a 5% deviation of the mean. This proposed map meets that standard.
The data provided by the school district also provides a picture of what we all know but rarely see quantified: the farther north you go, the fewer minorities there are. And remember, this isn’t the entire City of Peoria, just District 150.
Here’s the proposed map:
Hat tip: Emerge Peoria
Thanks for breaking it down.
Something seems “wrong” with splitting districts this way — one established with one representative and the remaining two having three representatives. I can understand the “need” to ensure representation –but somehow this doesn’t seem right (not I say right, not legal; since clearly the courts approved). At what point can we move past the discrimination of the past, to systems and processes that are fair to all? Why not just have seven districts, potentially two or three could have minority majorities and thus improve representation?
Awwwwww snaps. The boundaries extend into upper and lower Peoria Lake. That leaves room for the Swamp Thing to run.
what benefit is there to having school districts in the first place? they could just have a number of reps for one district and you call whom you want?
I don’t like the current arrangement at all. These semi-at-large representatives end up representing everyone but no one. The staggered terms result in people being elected when no one is paying attention. The positions are unpaid but increasingly demand a lot of time for someone to do right. We wonder why it is all so dysfunctional.
As I said on Emerge’s site, I would like to see the school districts representative districts aligned with the City Council districts (less Dunlap and other school districts). If the city moves to 10 districts, then the school board should draw lines that closely follow those. The city council and the school board representatives should have similar geographic interests.
It seems questionable to me that carving the districts that way guarantees or improves minority representation, but hey whatever. I don’t understand all the history of the voting rights lawsuit and what the city purportedly was doing at the time that caused the outcome.
At the end of the day, I don’t think the districts matter because we all know the BOE doesn’t listen to those who elect them. The BOE listens to the superintendent.
I need some info about the Thinking Map books purchased from a NC company and the professional development provided by NC educators. What do you think of these books and the PD?
I have received all the bills for these texts and I am astounded. Sets of from 20 to 50 books were sent to each school from NC.
Each book costs $125–which from what I hear is an outrageous price.
So 47 books to Thomas Jefferson cost $5,875 and the shipping was $352.50. Maybe it would have been cheaper to drive a U-Haul to NC to pick the books up. 🙂
The school board does not listen to their constituents, teachingrocks. Last nite, Phil Lenzini, attorney, was so adamant that the board just rubber stamp his drawings of the re-districting, that they all ignored Martha when she said she wanted the public to see the map, and she was hoping it would be at the Committee of the Whole meeting next Monday. She is civic minded, and just wanted the Peoria public to have a time to voice their opinion.
Mr. Lenzini forcefully said that all the public would be doing is deciding whether they want to change the law, not change the new map, due to Civil Rights laws of 1987. He said it would cost big bucks to change it, but he drew it directly the way the laws of ’87 mandated, so what’s the big deal?
Even Rick Cloyd was forceful when he agreed with the attorney and announced he would support this map.
For a moment, it appeared Laura was going to make an effort to get public input, even though nothing would be changed, but backed off and voted yes to support the map.
Another indication the school board is a rubber stamp. The public should have been invited to a meeting before Monday’s meeting. Yes, it all had to be approved in the near future, due to 2 vacancies and March’s elections. But, give the public a break!
Sharon,
I think the expense involved in the purchase of new science textbooks to replace 5 year old textbooks, as well as the rearranging of assignments for middle school Encore teachers (visual art, vocal music, and instrumental music) with school pairings that have some of the teachers traveling 6 or 7 miles between schools each day needs to be questioned. Travel expenses for the mileage and the lack of a daily prep period for some of the Encore teachers (with the promise that they will be paid for teaching during their prep period…. in this case, a daily occurance) is costing the district more money than ever.
It appears the administration is paying litle or no attention to “respect our finances”. If teachers are considered to be part of the district’s customers, there is little respect shown to them from administration in these two instances.
I would like to hear more about the Encore teachers–sounds outrageous. I am equally as concerned about the $85,000+ spent on Thinking Maps from a North Carolina company and 10 seminar leaders paid $1200 each to teach 150 teachers how to use thinking maps–what a waste of money! I have now seen a copy of this book that sold for $125 a binder with 317 loose leaf pages–district bought, at least, 552 books for primary and PHS teachers. District 150 teachers have been using graphic organizers for quite some time. These books provide nothing that teachers couldn’t have learned by just looking online. In fact, the Pearson Prentice Hall hisory series in use in 150 provides transparencies for graphic organizers. A high schooler I asked told me that she has been using graphic organizers since 5th grade at Washington Gifted.
As I understand it, the middle schools have been paired as follows: Calvin Coolidge/Lindbergh, Von Steuben/Lincoln, Mark Bills/Sterling, Washington/Rolling Acres. Trewyn is not paired with another school. Mark Bills and Sterling were paired because of the IB program. There is one exception in the pairings, due to the seniority of a teacher at Calvin Coolidge and a teacher at Lindbergh. Those teachers’ pairings are Calvin Coolidge/Von Steuben and Lindbergh/Lincoln. The principals in the paired schools decided between them which building would have Encore classes in the morning and which in the afternoon. Principals then set up the schedules in their own buildings for these teachers.
It is my understanding that the majority of the Encore teachers teach one grade level per period daily during 1st-4th periods, travel and eat during 5th period, and then teach one grade level per period during 5th through 9th hour.
Prior to these assignments being scheduled as they are, in some schools classrooms could be shared because teachers (specifically orchestra and band) were not scheduled to be in the building at the same time. With the new scheduling, principals suddenly needed to have four classrooms available for half the day in order to have art, vocal music, band, and orchestra classes at the same time.
My source told me that Encore teachers found out about this change in scheduling near the end of last school year. As I understand it, there was no warning, nor was there any request by the top administration for input from building administrators as to what effect this would have on their master scheduling or availability of rooms in their school building.
Fight in the foyer at Central cars heading over there now. Oh wait, some cars can’t go, they are on stand by for a fight at Manual.
No big deal. Boy punches girl in foyer and crowd jumps boy. Fight is broken up. Just misunderstood kids having fun.
Since they couldn’t get academic text books, they found some old Sports Illustrated magazines. The featured topic was boxing….it was just the kids finally doing some homework….
When will the board of education get that they are the boss of the superintendent?