26 thoughts on “Public hearings for D150 school designs”

1. You won’t hear a word on Harrison’s design and you won’t see a neighborhood group oppose it. They want a new school.

2. Yes, Emtronics-

   According to you, anything, as long as it is “new” will do in Peoria.

   I agree there won’t be much reaction from the “Southside” residents. Why would they speak up? They most likely don’t really know what is going on and they are rarely listened to anyway. Southsiders also suffer from having miserable representation. But, why should they receive less- because they are ignorant? Because the live on the Southside? Because something or anything new is better than what is there?

   Ignorance and weak representation do not justify accepting whatever the district has proposes for the new school.

   Do yourself a favor and please refrain from complaining as your property values continue to fall, crime rises, and your taxes increase. You will have a “new” school, but it will not improve the Southside’s future as currently proposed. Why? Because District 150 does not know how to design a school that will enhance the community it serves. If you disagree then offer an example to prove me wrong. Look at Lincoln Middle school and read what was said about it when it was proposed. Today- review the results. That school has been a failure. New schools do not produce better results.

   The main benefit of building a new school goes beyond housing students and teachers. It should be a beacon of authority, respect, and community dignity. Harrison’s design is anything but that.

   There is absolutely no evidence to prove that building new schools, in and of themselves, improves academic results. Academic results get better when instruction from the teachers and leadership from the principals is strengthened. How can I say that? Because there are schools that are doing it- and they are doing so without new schools. Whenever you hear about highly achieving schools you do not hear about the new school. You hear about the instructional methods and the level of expectations set.

   I know Ken Hinton and the architects will say that increased day lighting will improve performance, which is true, so let’s save the district money and start by removing the boarded and bricked up windows, tell the unions they are on alert that if their teachers do not produce they will lose their jobs, and give the principals authority to make decisions for their schools. That would cost relatively little and be a very good beginning.

3. It figures that I’ll be at work, (Friday) August 22nd, and unable to attend the Harrison School’s lone Public hearing.

4. Emtronics- Just in case you are interested- this is what was said about the proposed new school- Lincoln Middle School- does this sound familar?

   Journal Star (Peoria, IL) – May 27, 1993
   Author: CLARE HOWARD

   Ground breaking Wednesday for Peoria’s new $7.3 million middle school was shadowed by the possibility it could be the last school

   project funded by the Public Building Commission.

   Legislation to eliminate PBC funding for public schools and community colleges has passed both houses of the state Legislature and is sitting on the governor’s desk. If the bill becomes law, only Chicago would be exempt from the restrictions.

   “I have served on the PBC since 1984, and this could be the largest ground breaking and may well be the last for schools thanks to the wisdom or lack of in the state Legislature,” said Nat LeDoux, a PBC board member and Peoria city councilman, at the ground- breaking ceremony. “It seems that others in the state think they know what’s best for Peoria.”

   LeDoux said the new school will make the North Side a more attractive neighborhood.

   Superintendent John Strand told about 40 educators and community leaders that construction of the school is the culmination of the district’s three-phase building and renovation program.

   Phase I involved renovations of nine schools at a cost of $13 million. Phase II was the construction of the $7 million Valeska Hinton Early Childhood Center on Fifth Street and Sheridan Road.

   “This state-of-the-art school will be the finest middle school in the district and the region, second to none in terms of programs,” Strand said. “The merger of two small schools will increase the educational opportunities for students.”

   Operating one modern, efficient building compared with two older schools will save the district $200,000 a year, Strand said.

   Hundreds of Longfellow Middle School students turned out to watch the ground breaking. Construction of the new Lincoln Middle School is expected to be completed in August 1994. Students from Longfellow and the shuttered Greeley Middle School will attend Lincoln.

   The 62,000-square-foot building was designed by Phillips Swager Associates and is bordered by Perry and Glendale avenues and Hayward and Mary streets.

5. Yeah, that area is a real boom town now. The new school really made it more attractive… except for the occasional shooting next door at Woodruff.

6. Oh, and “PEORIA”, you’re not alone. They put these public hearings during the middle of the day when most people are at work — a sure way to suppress turnout.

7. FYI: As I recall, the last “occasional shooting next door at Woodruff” happened four years ago.

8. Billy: Was that before or after the new Lincoln school ushered in a new Eden on the north side?

9. George (TONJ): You are on target!, again! 🙂 At a BOE meeting during the build the school in Glen Oak Park saga, Ernestine Jackson made a comment along the lines that if new buildings increase school performance we would have seen it at Lincoln and it did not happen. New buildings are sometimes built as a way to start over to get a school off the watch list — an expensive way to start over with millions of taxpayer dollars. Same old same old.

   Building designs to make D150 look like VH across the city is incorrect. Again, limited vision for what could be and just to build new. The time around we will have millions from the PBC and the end result will probably be more of the same.

   Although Lincoln did not make the Northend a boom town — the neighborhood is better in pockets — just have to live here to notice the subtle changes for better.

10. C.J.: Pardon for me being sensitive. I’m trying to figure out how a 4-year-old incident qualifies as “occasional.”

    The new Lincoln school was standing at the time some knucklehead fired a gun inside Woodruff.

    The vast majority of Woodruff students (and students at Peoria’s other schools) just want a safe place to learn. Woodruff is an excellent school. I hate to see Woodruff or any other school written off casually as a place where gunfire is a relatively common event.

    I agree with your point that new buildings don’t create educational eden. But in making your point, you maligned my high school.

11. Billy, I’m sorry you’re offended, as that was certainly not my intent. But I stand by my statement.

    I didn’t say that Woodruff was a bad school, nor did I say that it was “a place where gunfire is a relatively common event.” I said “except for the occasional shooting next door at Woodruff.”

    “Occasional,” by definition, means infrequent. From dictionary.reference.com: “occurring or appearing at irregular or infrequent intervals.” And from Wiktionary: “limited to certain occasions, oft. used in the sense of ‘not very often.'”

    And it’s not a single, four-year-old incident. On 12/15/2005, Robert Foster shot at Quintin Stanley in the Woodruff parking lot. The shooting inside the school by Dion Alexander was 1/26/2005. That’s two shootings in the last three and a half years, and they’re still fresh in people’s minds.

    Furthermore, gun possession is still a problem in the area. In April of this year, a gun and ammo was found in a student’s locker. In November of 2006, a gun was found in a car in the parking lot of Woodruff. Fortunately, the weapons were found before a potential shooting occurred.

    So, no offense to your alma mater. My dad also graduated from Woodruff, as did my mother-in-law. I know at least one teacher from there, too. It is, as you say, an excellent school. But the facts are what they are. In the past few years, they have had the occasional shooting. I don’t know how long it takes for that stigma to fade, but the gun possession incidents don’t help.

12. C.J., there is nothing wrong with kids carrying guns in school as long as they don’t shoot them. Come on, it is in Constitution. ;^D

13. Plans for the new Harrison school
    The PJS article stated that “Harrison will feature four education “villages,” or groups of classrooms and related facilities for students from pre-kindergarten through grades 6-8. Each classroom will have its own doors to the school’s park-like surroundings, while the facility also will surround a central courtyard.”
    My questions:
    How would you like to teach in one of these classrooms with doors and windows facing the “great” outdoors at the future Harrison School site? Parents, would you call this a safe environment for your children?
    Do you think there’s any chance that irate parents or non-custodial parents might drop by and knock on your door while you’re teaching–sure saves time instead of going to the main office to get permission?
    Of course, there might be other more unwelcome visitors knocking on doors or seeking entrance in less conventional ways? Should there be a gunman in the area (of course, that never happens) would you and your students feel secure? Parents, how do you feel about your children’s security in this “open” environment?
    Do you think any of the children (through 8th grade) might find a way to escape through these classroom doors to the outside?
    Do you think any of the students, especially the older ones, might open the door to allow visitors to enter—remember doors can’t be locked from the inside (against fire code rules)?
    Do you believe that teachers–who are expected to move around the room and to be engaged in helping students, etc.–could be distracted so that students could leave and/or open the door for others to enter.
    What about night-time burglars—they can gain excess from any one of these outside doors and have access to the whole school via the inside classroom door.
    In most buildings few teachers have keys to the whole building. Will each teacher in the new Harrison have a key to his/her own classroom from the outside–doesn’t that give access to the whole building?
    Oh, my, what will they do about all the lost keys (as happens regularly)–change locks every time?
    Maybe I missed the part of the plan that shows the tall wall and moat surrounding the building.
    I know that Hinton and administrators will argue that Valeska has classroom doors that open to the outside. However, the new Harrison School will have older students—and older students will be more “creative” in finding ways to get in or out of this classroom with doors to the outside. And maybe Valeska has just been lucky so far—but why take chances with the safety of students?

14. They could eliminate the locks and lost keys by using fingerprint entrance locks. If your not cleared for the fingerprint access you don’t get in during off hours. I realize the problems you are thinking of in regards to security, but do we need to bring our children up being afraid to go to school? Or expecting to go to school in a locked compound?

15. Hey George! You’re wrong about me. It does matter and because it is “new” isn’t all i am looking for. I was being snide. Sorry, maybe you judge everything else and sometimes you are on the money, but your opinions are just that. Too bad your not running things in Peoria.

16. Emtronics-
    Please accept my sincerest apologies if I misunderstood your position. I based my response after reading your recent post on Peoria Chronicle and your blog. You seem to get quite annoyed when anyone other than a “Southsider” shows any interest toward, and subsequent criticism of, projects on the Southside and in particular- the Harrison School project.

    What happens in the city is really the responsibility of every citizen. We should not relinquish these decisions and give sole purview to the sitting city council person, District 150 school board member, neighborhood groups or commissions. This applies to all projects throughout the city. Over the years, we have witnessed mistake after mistake and who should we blame? Just look in the mirror. We are all accountable.

    Understandably, your work schedule prevents you from attending meetings when these decisions get made. I too have a difficult time attending public meetings. Getting the information after the fact is just not good enough and usually too late to take action. Public meetings scheduled convenient for staff and elected officials result in inconvenience for the public. No wonder very few people get involved- Peoria’s decision making could be more transparent and the results would be better.

    When the public is kept at bay there is less upfront collaboration, which on the surface appears to be less messy for the parties involved. But in reality, these projects would turn out better if there was more citizen involvement at the beginning and we would discover the process less time consuming over all. Ask yourself what good does it do to get public input after the plans have been basically finalized? Are the project developers really open to changes at the 11th hour? Of course not. The so called “public hearings” are for show and tell only. They want the public’s blessing not criticism.

    Peoria could do a better job of planning and developing this city in every aspect. Good design needs to be a priority because buildings are more than just warehouses for people and stuff. When buildings are designed well and as part of a whole they create synergy and community. By the way, good design costs less in the long run – a definite plus.

17. George, your right. I am appalled at the lack of any interest most southsiders(hate that word)take interest in when issues come up about the south end. Yes, they are a few people who take charge and try to make a difference, Mrs. Ricca comes to mind. I am touchy when it comes to outsiders opinions about the south end because I blame the current condition on outsiders mainly ignoring the problems of the south side of Peoria for years. It has been Peoria’s dumping ground for years and the mindset has been whether anyone admits it or not, the heck with those people, they are just welfare and poor people. There are many many hard working people that make their homes on the southern end of Peoria and most take care of their homes and have pride in them. Unfortunately, this area of town has the bad rap for crime. (Although crime happens all over Peoria, the south end seems to be remembered the most)
    Most projects this end of town gets are half assed projects like the Griswold extension which to this day has never been finished. In fact, when our councilman offered up at a meeting to have it done, other council members wanted the funds for their districts and they won out….again. I didn’t really like the new grocery store that went in and just knew that it would fail as this city put way more strings attached to the owner than they would have any other business located elsewhere. It was done half assed also and now it is boarded up….again.

    You stated the problem exactly. Everyone, citizen and council should have all of Peoria in mind and yet it seems, at least with some on this council, that it is my district or the highway. I would like to change that but have few options, one of which is running for the 1st seat. Can I do it? Yes. Can I make a difference? I don’t know but I do know something has to change as this town is rotting from the inside out.

18. Emtronics: I hope no one ever interprets my comments about problems in the south side to be those of an outsider or a critic of people on the south side. The young people of this area were my primary focus for all 43 years of my teaching career. I guess those of us at Manual did our jobs too well–preparing young people to raise their standard of living, etc.–unfortunately that often meant moving out of Peoria’s south side–thus many Manual graduates from the 60s, 70s, and 80s no longer live in the Manual area (Manual teachers aren’t getting much credit for that these day–especially from the “new” administrators at Manual who know nothing of all the success stories that came out of that building). In a recent letter to the editor I wrote to the PJS I stated that if all Manual graduates from those eras had remained in the area, Manual would not be on any NCLB watch/warning lists. However, it is true, as has been stated here, that—for whatever reason—people in the south side do not involve themselves in the decisions made by the city of Peoria and District #150—they seem to have a fatalistic attitude of “whatever will be will be.” That was evident during the recent conflict over the loss of time at the primary school level. Some Whittier parents but none that I know of from the south end raised their voices to fight against this loss of time—and the south end kids had the most to lose. I don’t for a minute think that parents didn’t care about this issue—just didn’t see any point in fighting what they probably considered a lost cause—or a done deal. So the rest of us need to raise our voices against decisions that are detrimental to these young people—personally I believe the “new” Manual plan is full of empty promises that will not change the things that really need to be changed for the betterment of south side kids. Unfortunately, they probably can string us along for quite a while before the results of that experiment are in.

19. Sharon, I know of the successes at Manual all too well. I raised two success stories that did very well at Manual and have gone on to do very very well in their lives. One is even a high school teacher.
    Manual has many success stories but they don’t make good reading news in print. Like CJ and Billy going back and forth over shootings at Woodruff, it is the bad things that people seem to remember the most. When was the last time someone fired a gun at Manual? Ask that and someone will say “It must have been done.” But I can’t recall one time during my 8 years there yet the Manual perception survives as a bad school .
    I volunteered in the schools in the south end for over 12 years from Garfield to Trewyn to Manual as a parent with my wife in support of my kids. I can tell you first hand that every parent that took the time to show up at their kid’s school and involve themselves with their children, their kids did well in school. That is the problem. Most parents at our public schools feel no involvement is needed just drop off the kid and go. That is why private schools seem to work so much better because parents are paying a heavy bill to send their kids there and that is why small town schools seem to work, because the high school is the community. We have lost that community feeling with our 4 big high schools here in Peoria and also because nobody is holding the parent(s) responsible for their children’s education. If the kid fails, then it’s the fault of the schools and that is wrong.
    That is why I think the shorten school day rubbed some people wrong, not so much worried about the education of the kids, especially the poorer children in the south end, but because of finding ways to adjust schedules so parents can work and pick up their kids. Yep, baby sitting services. There, I said it.

20. PS. Ms Crews, you was an excellent teacher by the way.

21. Emtronics: I know that you care about Manual and were a concerned parent. I agree with everything you just stated–all but one misconception and that is about the shortened day conflict. Many of us who were behind the effort against the shortened day are retired and have no children in school. We truly were concerned about the loss of time for the primary kids. Even the parents who are in the District Watch group weren’t looking for baby sitters, etc.–they are all people who are truly concerned about the bad educational decisions made by District #150 lately. Most of the parents in the group will probably have no problem finding a way to pick up their children, etc.–they were just concerned about the children whose parents either aren’t as concerned or really will have problems making arrangements to have their children picked up. Frankly, I think the District Watch group (if we can all sustain our interest) will be working in the future to let the public know when the district is not working in the best interests of its students. At least, I haven’t known of any group that has functioned in this manner (without vested interests on a single issue, etc.)–so it’s worth a try. Blogs such as this one are a new avenue of keeping people up on issues and an opportunity to have honest discussions on these issues. I just received a flyer about an issue concerning West Peoria residents that quoted Margaret Mead–a quote that is appropros to our discussion, also–“Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” I doubt that Margaret had this in mind–but you just need to read the New Testament to read about a group of twelve (maybe eleven) that changed the world.

22. Your compliment showed up after I said that I agreed with everything you stated–the timing might make me appear more than a bit arrogant. Thanks for the kind words.

23. “Ms Crews, you was an excellent teacher by the way”

    OMG I hope she wasn’t your grammar teacher! Lol!

    Sharon, no worries… we will stay interested and we will stay involved.

24. That comment was my fault and NO she wasn’t my teacher. Thanks for jumping in Diane.

25. Emtronics: It’s the thought that counts–not the grammar. On occasion I used to tell my students that grades were an assessment of their work–not a grade on their character. I’ve been embarrassed lately by a few of my own errors–hurriedly responding to blogs breeds careless writing.

26. Well that is what happened and after I read it I knew it but you can’t “edit” your comments here. I don’t worry too much because Diane’s bestest buddy makes grammar errors all the time. It’s all in the rub. 🙂

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