Tag Archives: Peoria Public Schools

Peoria Public Schools

Always winter but never Christmas at District 150

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[Note to the humor-impaired: This post is all tongue-in-cheek.]

We just got the official District 150 school calendar. Now I know we haven’t had “Christmas Vacation” for a long time now. I understand the religious sensitivities that led to changing it to “Winter Vacation.”

Nevertheless, the calendar has nearly every conceivable religious and non-religious observance listed on it. There’s “Islamic Ramadan” (Aug. 11), “Jewish Rosh Hashanah” (Sept. 9), “Patriot Day” (Sept. 11), “Leif Erickson Day” (Oct. 9), “All Saints’ Day” (Nov. 1), “Groundhog Day” (Feb. 2), “Chinese New Year” (Feb. 3), and even “Dr. Suess Birthday” (Mar. 2). “Palm Sunday” and “Easter” (Apr. 17 & 24) are listed, as well as “Jewish Pesach” (Apr. 19-25).

But what holiday is printed on December 25? “National Children’s Day.”

National Children’s Day?

What’s even more strange is that this particular holiday is printed twice on the calendar — once on Dec. 25, and once on Oct. 8. Any holiday that’s celebrated twice a year must be something special. So I Googled “National Children’s Day” to find out more about it. It has its own official site, naturally: http://www.nationalchildrensday.us/. It even has an official song (“I Love Being a Kid” by a guy who calls himself “Mr. Nicky”). However, the site says it’s celebrated on the second Sunday in June. (I checked the school calendar to see if perhaps “Christmas” got printed on June 12. Nope.) So, District 150 put this holiday on their calendar twice and were wrong both times?

I had to investigate further, so I checked out Wikipedia. (I know Wikipedia is reliable because I looked up “Reliability of Wikipedia” on Wikipedia, and it said it was reliable.) The Children’s Day entry explained that this holiday “is celebrated on various days in many places around the world, in particular to honor children.” I’m glad they added that last part, because I was wondering who, in particular, was being honored on Children’s Day. It appears the holiday was aptly named. “Major global variants include an International Children’s Day on June 1 as adopted in the former Communist bloc, and a Universal Children’s Day on November 20, by United Nations recommendation.” (This was established during the height of the Cold War, so the adjectival escalation should come as no shock; I’m surprised Khrushchev didn’t counter with a Multiversal Children’s Day.) So far, still no Oct. 8 or Dec. 25. But wait: “Many nations declare days for children on other dates.”

Next, all the countries are listed with their various dates for celebrating Children’s Day. Searching through them, I did discover that Children’s Day is celebrated on Oct. 8 in one country: Iran. Well, the U.S. did celebrate Children’s Day on Oct. 8 one year. “Children’s Day was proclaimed by President Bill Clinton to be held on October 8, 2000.” However the next year, in a show of partisan eye-poking, newly-elected President Bush officially moved it to the first Sunday in June. My guess is he thought the kids would have more fun if the could celebrate their day at the beginning of summer vacation. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, ever the non-conformist, “issued a proclamation proclaiming the second Sunday in June as Children’s Day…” [emphasis added]. Well, that will show the federal government they can’t push our state around! We’ll just have our Children’s Day on the second Sunday of June and see if Obama tries to stop us.

Getting back to Christmas, there are some countries that celebrate Children’s Day on December 25, according to Wikipedia. They’re all in central Africa: “In Congo, Congo DR, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad, Central African Republic, São Tomé and Príncipe Children’s Day is celebrated on December 25 to honour all the children there.” But how many countries celebrate Christmas on December 25? Just about all of them. Even Orthodox churches that celebrate Christmas in January by the Gregorian calendar are actually celebrating on December 25 on the Julian calendar.

Finally, I decided to get an authoritative answer instead of all this Wikipedia stuff. I asked District 150 board member Laura Petelle why District 150 didn’t print Christmas on their calendar. Her answer: “I am forced to assume typo.”

Oh, sure, give the obvious answer! 🙂

City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Entitlement mentality fostering discontent with the city

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There was a meeting Wednesday at Friendship House where residents could talk with City and School District officials about their concerns. I was dumbfounded by this one:

Another [attendee] said she was worried for two of her younger children because of a lack of youth activities.

“After 5:30 (p.m.), there’s just nothing for them to do . . . when are you going to give them something to do to keep them off the streets, out of the gangs . . . and be part of the community,” the woman said.

First of all, I can’t believe someone actually said that. There are a lot of ellipses — perhaps she was misquoted or taken out of context. But if that’s an accurate representation of the question, God have mercy on our nation. Think about the philosophy described here: she believes the reason her kids are on the streets and joining gangs is because the government hasn’t provided sufficient youth activities. And “when are you going to give them something” exhibits a textbook definition of “entitlement mentality.” I wonder what she thinks her responsibility is, if anything, as the parent of her children.

That said, there are, in fact, plenty of free entertainment options. We just expanded the libraries in Peoria, so there is more opportunity to borrow and read good books. The libraries even have organized summer reading programs that include prizes. District 150 has just built two new schools with huge outdoor playground areas where kids can play basketball or baseball. The park system has baseball diamonds, tennis courts, frisbee golf courses, and other amenities. Lots of churches have youth activities. The Christian Center has bowling, pool, ping-pong, and other games at low prices. There is no shortage of opportunities for young people to entertain themselves in this city.

I wish someone would have pointed out to her that it’s not the City’s or the School District’s job to entertain her children. The City and School District don’t have the resources or responsibility to raise the children of Peoria — that’s the parents’ responsibility. We can and do provide a number of resources, but parents and children need to take some initiative to avail themselves of those resources.

Here’s the answer she got:

Riggenbach said with dwindling money that it could be difficult to fund such activities.

“I think it’s time the churches stand up and join all the forces, the park district and schools and hit this head-on,” Riggenbach said. “I don’t have an easy answer tonight but I do hear you.”

In essence, Riggenbach reinforced her entitlement mentality. He didn’t dispute it. He just said there wasn’t enough money or church involvement to provide those entitlements. Ironically, he’s a Republican.

Peoria Public Schools

Sayonara, Schau

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From the Journal Star: “In a surprise move Monday, the Peoria District 150 School Board terminated its contract with treasurer/controller Pam Schau, an at-will employee, effective immediately.”

The district isn’t saying why they fired Schau — they can’t discuss personnel issues. But Schau herself told the newspaper that Superintendent Lathan called her after the meeting and told her “the board felt I was not providing sufficient leadership in the area of accounting.”

Schau’s contract allows her to be fired without cause, according to the paper. She’s been employed by District 150 just over a year.

Peoria Public Schools

D150 comes clean: Ending live broadcasts had nothing to do with cost

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Back in April when the District 150 Board of Education decided to discontinue live broadcasts of the board meetings, they presented it as a cost-saving measure. I had this to say:

In other words, this move has little to do with cost savings. It’s simply a further manifestation of the district’s desire to minimize, if not eliminate, public input and public access to the school board meetings.

Last night, board members admitted that was indeed the case. From Peoria Story:

Board members acknowledged that the reason they stopped the broadcasts was not, as was initially reported, to save money, but because they objected to negative comments from the public during the public comment portion of the meeting. “It (the money) was never my reason,” Jim Stowell said. “Nor mine,” board president Debbie Wolfmeyer said.

And the Journal Star adds these quotes:

“. . . The board has tried, but I think the board has the responsibility to try to shape the message they want to convey to the public. . . . I’ve heard the same four people at 70 percent of those meetings. . . . and I doubt that very few of them, if any, have any children in the district.” . . .

“I was in favor of taking the broadcast off until we could do something about how to answer people or how to tell our own story – we don’t answer people or questions or rebut anything, so all the public really hear is what other people are saying,” board member Martha Ross said, wanting to revisit the idea because community members have asked her to do so. “It’s their only connection to what’s going on at the school district.”

I would submit that these board members don’t quite understand the concept of petitioning the government for redress of grievances. They think they should get to take our money and feed us back a message they “shape” and “want to convey to the public.” All dissenting opinions should be censored or effectively hidden from the public.

Peoria Public Schools

Residency requirement for District 150 employees?

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District 150 Board of Education member Rachael Parker wants to see a residency requirement enacted for district employees who will start to receive their payment with an instant paystub generator. In other words, she wants everyone who works for District 150 to live in District 150. There’s one little problem with that idea, though: it’s currently prohibited by law to require teachers to reside in the district.

The Illinois School Code states in 105 ILCS 5/24-4.1, “Residency within any school district shall not be considered in determining the employment or the compensation of a teacher or whether to retain, promote, assign or transfer that teacher.” There are different rules for cities with a population over 500,000 (meaning Chicago). Currently, Chicago teachers are required to live in the city. But Senate Bill 3522, which passed the Illinois Senate in March of this year and is under consideration now in the House, would end residency requirements for teachers in Chicago as well. The Chicago teachers’ union supports the bill.

But state law is not written in stone. If there’s political support for an idea, state law can be changed relatively easily, in fact. For instance, it was against state law for school districts to access the Public Building Commission, but thanks to Aaron Schock and George Shadid, District 150 was given five years to rack up millions of dollars in bonded debt for new school facilities via the PBC. Perhaps Dave Koehler and Jehan Gordon can get legislation passed allowing District 150 to require residency for teachers.

In the meantime, the law appears to only protect teachers from residency requirements, not all district employees. It looks like the district could require all employees except teachers to live within district boundaries without having to get any state legislation passed. It would require bargaining with other unions, however.

I support residency requirements for school district employees. It would ensure that teachers and other district employees are personally invested in District 150 and its success. When they bargain for salary and benefit raises, they would be personally invested in contributing to those increases through their own property taxes. They would live in the same community as the students they serve. It would improve the tax base of the city overall and help stem the hollowing out of the middle class from the city — and that in itself will help the educational climate in District 150.

As to whether that could mean losing out on some candidates, Parker said: “I don’t believe that, that you’re not going to be able to recruit a teacher just because you want them to live within the school district boundary.”

This is the biggest argument given against residency requirements: the idea that you will get fewer or inferior teacher candidates if you require residency. I don’t buy it. Large urban school districts like they have in Chicago have these kinds of challenges because housing in the city is so expensive and/or unsafe. That’s not the case in Peoria, where housing within district borders is safe and cheaper than surrounding school districts such as Dunlap, Morton, or Germantown Hills. Given the salaries that teachers (and especially administrators) receive in proportion to housing prices, I think you’ll still have a healthy pool of qualified candidates who would be happy to live within district boundaries.

Some would say that teachers don’t want to live within District 150 boundaries because they don’t want their children going to District 150 schools. I can’t see that argument as anything less than self-indicting. That’s like a chef saying, “Oh, I’d never let my kids eat at my restaurant! The food here stinks!” It also kind of defeats the argument that the teaching is better when you don’t have a residency requirement.

In short, I haven’t heard a coherent argument against residency requirements for district employees, and there do appear to be numerous benefits.

Peoria Public Schools

Davis gets to keep her salary unless she’s convicted…and maybe even then

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Since Mary Davis was fired from District 150, I’ve been wondering if the taxpayers would be getting their money back from all those months she was on paid administrative leave. Today I got the answer from the district’s spokesperson Stacey Shangraw: Only if she’s convicted:

Mary [Davis] will be required to pay back the salary she received while she was on administrative leave if she is convicted of a crime. The pay back requirement does not come into play when a person is indicted or charged. Her trial for the criminal charges has been set to begin August 16.

So we will not know if she is required to pay back the salary she received while on leave until the criminal proceedings are finished. It is outlined in the Illinois State Statute, the state officials and employees ethics act, under 5 ILCS 430/5-60 that she will be required to pay the salary back, however it is not part of the criminal code.

If convicted, we will ask the State’s Attorney to include a request to include payments as part of her sentencing, but the Judge is not required to include that in the sentence or order. If the Judge does not include this payment requirement in the criminal sentencing order then the district would have to seek payment by first demanding it pursuant to the statute.

Here’s what 5 ILCS 430/5-60(b) says:

As a matter of law and without the necessity of the adoption of an ordinance or resolution under Section 70?5, if any officer or government employee of a governmental entity is placed on administrative leave, either voluntarily or involuntarily, pending the outcome of a criminal investigation or prosecution and that officer or government employee is removed from office or employment due to his or her resultant criminal conviction, then the officer or government employee is indebted to the governmental entity for all compensation and the value of all benefits received during the administrative leave and must forthwith pay the full amount to the governmental entity.

Sounds complicated. It also sounds like District 150 won’t be getting that money back. Read the wording of that statute again, especially the part that says, “and that officer or government employee is removed from office or employment due to his or her resultant criminal conviction, then the officer or government employee is indebted….” They fired her before she was convicted of anything, not because of a criminal conviction. So, I’ll bet the statute is moot and the district doesn’t get that money back, unless they can get it included as part of her sentencing.

Any lawyers out there, feel free to correct me if I’m reading the statute incorrectly. I’d really like to be wrong about this.

Peoria Public Schools

Unedited video of D150 meetings available on WMBD-TV site

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The Peoria Public Schools Board of Education stopped broadcasting their meetings live in May of this year, opting to show the meeting a week delayed and with the public comments portion of the meeting excised. The first meeting in May was recorded (audio only) by blogger Elaine Hopkins and posted on her site. This week’s meeting was recorded by Diane Vespa (video and audio), and she and Hopkins, on behalf of the District 150 Watch group, have partnered with WMBD-TV to put the video on channel 31’s website. You can see this week’s meeting by clicking on this link: http://centralillinoisproud.com/district-150.

These videos are complete and unedited, and will be uploaded sooner than the replay on cable access channel 17. Plus, they will be available on demand to anyone with an internet connection. Kudos to District 150 Watch and WMBD-TV for providing this public service.

Peoria Public Schools

D150 public comments on the web for all to hear

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The Peoria School District 150 Board of Education decided last month to discontinue live broadcasts of the school board meetings on public access cable television starting in May. Instead, they are going to show the meeting a week delayed, and they’re going to excise the public comment portion of the meeting — that is, they are going to censor part of the official meeting because they don’t want the public to see it.

However, since the school board meetings are open meetings, recordings can be made by any member of the public. Former Journal Star employee Elaine Hopkins made an audio recording of the public comments and posted it on her blog, Peoria Story. Kudos to her for keeping the public informed while the school board tries to keep the public in the dark. There are still a few kinks to work out; for instance, she’s uploaded the file in WAV format, which is uncompressed and makes for a hefty download. Once she learns to compress it into a reasonably-sized mp3 file, we’ll really be in business.

It’s funny. These comments used to be available only to those who watched the meeting live on Comcast Cable in Peoria. Now they’re available on demand to anyone in the world who wants to hear them. The school board’s attempt to suppress the broadcast of these comments has resulted in even wider distribution! I love irony.

Peoria Public Schools

ISBE to Peoria: Psych!

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From the Journal Star:

Grenita Lathan has been granted that needed endorsement to take the helm as superintendent at Peoria School District 150 after all.

Despite state education officials saying Tuesday the process still was taking place and they had not received the supporting documentation needed to receive her certification, the endorsement was issued Tuesday afternoon.

Is it just me, or does it look like the right hand doesn’t know know what the left hand is doing at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)? In yesterday’s paper, spokeswoman for the ISBE Mary Fergus was quoted as saying, “To date, Grenita Lathan has not submitted the necessary paperwork proving she’s met all the Illinois requirements for a superintendent certificate,” and District 150 spokeswoman Stacey Shangraw told the paper “Lathan submitted application materials to the state twice because they ‘lost’ the first set.”

So, to recap, Lathan sent her paperwork, and the ISBE lost it. Then Lathan sent her paperwork again, and the ISBE said they never received it. But while their spokesperson was explaining to the press that they hadn’t received Lathan’s paperwork, someone else at the ISBE was busy issuing Lathan a superintendent certificate.

As if we don’t have enough drama in Peoria, now we have the ISBE messing with us.

Peoria Public Schools

No wonder D150 is trying to bury public comments

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Tonight was the last District 150 Board of Education meeting that will be televised live on Comcast’s education public access channel 17. From now on the meeting will be broadcast a week delayed — and with the public comment period excised. It’s increasingly easy to see why the district would not want this portion of the meeting on television. They want to be able to control the image of the district, the board, and the administration. But during the public comment time, a more unflattering image is often presented. And sometimes it exposes things the administration wants to keep hush-hush.

Like tonight.

Rumors of unapproved clerical raises were substantiated at tonight’s school board meeting, the Journal Star reports:

The union representing clerical workers at Peoria School District 150 is filing a grievance after learning 10 of its members in the central administration building were arbitrarily given raises in November now totaling more than an estimated $80,000, officials said Monday.

The raises were rescinded Monday, effective immediately.

Debbie Chavez, former president of Local 6099 Peoria Federation of Support Staff, which represents some 650 clerical, cafeteria and paraprofessional workers, told School Board members during public comments [emphasis added] on Monday that both the union and the School Board had been left in the dark about the raises approved by the administration, which she said boosted the pay of some by more than 50 percent.

Interim Superintendent Norm Durflinger defended the raises and said they didn’t violate the collective bargaining agreement … even though they were kept a secret from the union and the school board … even though he rescinded them effective immediately. He’s going to sit down and talk to the union about the raises … now that they know about them. Whoops.

I have to admit, I was skeptical about this scandal when the rumors first started flying on my blog. It sounded too ridiculous to be true. Imagine giving just a few clerical workers humongous raises — an $8/hour raise in one case — at the same time the district is pleading poverty, laying off teachers, closing schools, and cutting out live broadcast of the school board meetings. Nobody would be that stupid.

And yet….

If the school district were trying to destroy every last ounce of trust the public might have for them, I don’t know what more they could do than what they’re doing now.

My suggestion: Now that they’ve rescinded the raises, they should have enough money to broadcast the meetings live and in their entirety. After all, finances were the reason cited for going to a one-week-delayed, censored broadcast. Now that they can save $80,000 in five months, they should have plenty of money to restore the live feed and let the public see their representatives in action on Monday nights, right?