The big news from Peoria County:
Peoria County Administrator Patrick Urich announced today that he has decided to seek another challenge in the public sector, yet to be determined. Urich has been the Peoria County administrator for 10 years and has held the reins as the longest serving CEO in recent memory. […] Urich’s career in Peoria County began in January 2001 when he arrived from Lake County, IL at the age of 32, after serving as Assistant County Administrator. […] Peoria County board members will meet in Executive Session this week to discuss plans to begin a search for Urich’s replacement. The Board may decide to use an in-house approach or contract with a third party to assist in the identification of potential replacement candidates.
Reportedly, Urich has no other job lined up. He’s just quitting with no particular place to go. The Journal Star is already speculating that he could land at Peoria City Hall. I’m not sure the City could afford him if his salary continues to increase at the same rate it has over the past decade. Here’s a brief recap:
That’s about a 4-5% raise the first few years, followed by a 35% raise in 2006, then a 19% raise in 2008, and then back down to just 6% in 2009. He declined another $10,000 raise in 2010. Wow. The County Board really takes care of their administrator. Don’t expect increases like that from the City Council.
Well, unless you want to build a hotel attached to the Civic Center, of course….икони
“We are asked to believe your “I imagine that.”
OK, so please substantiate your own “Most of that tax (NCLB) money is going to private sector companies–not to teachers or schools.”
And if true, “Why not be upset about tax money going to private enterprises?”
Unless one of those companies is funneling money to Al-Qaeda or something like that, I generally could care less if the services I receive come from a public entity or private company. I’m more concerned with getting fair value, provided there is reasonable regulation when necessary.
But if your point is that we shouldn’t allow tax money for education to go to private enterprises, then you must agree that we should require schools to dispose of their own garbage, for example. I mean, school districts collect our taxes, and then they pay Peoria Disposal or Waste Management or someone to provide garbage disposal services – but they are private companies!! Can you imagine that? And it’s not just services, if the school wants to get new desks, for example, you must want the school to buy them from some public entity, and not some profit-hungry private enterprise.
I kinda like the circular arguments that is happening here. One person is saying that public employees are bad because we get our Unions to advocate for us and our employers end up raising your taxes because they can’t lay us off and you have NO choice in the matter. Another is saying that Private companies are MORE accountable and therfore we should not bother putting any blame for our taxes being raised on their recklessness in this economy. Meanwhile the underlying point of outsider now is that COMPANIES across America have broken promises and cut their retirees benefits and therefore we should also get ours cut and essentially be lied to as well.
Jon, of course, I was referring to educational services provided by private companies. Just look at the long list of programs that District 150 buys from companies that have cropped up to take advantage of the cash cow of NCLB. Dr. Lathan is currently doing a study of all District 150 programs. I hope she has had some good measuring sticks to discover how ineffective most are. My fear is that, instead of getting rid of the programs, she will just find others with which she was acquainted or tied to in North Carolina or California. That has already happened with the purchase of a couple of programs.
“instead of getting rid of the programs, she will just find others with which she was acquainted or tied to in North Carolina or California. That has already happened with the purchase of a couple of programs.”
What “couple of programs” Sharon?
The new website–which, so far, is very unsatisfactory. For instance, if I go to a school website and look under staff, all I see is a list of names. The old website used to list names, titles, and e-mail addresses. Now, for instance, if you want to find out the names of the 1st grade teachers at a particular school, you have to look through all the names, one at a time. Also, before there was one place to look for current board meeting agendas and minutes–now there are two or three but so far only one has the data–very confusing. I don’t know the difference in cost between the old system and the new. It does show promise of having good info–but so far after several months that isn’t the case.
The program that handles the scheduling of substitutes–probably took away a job.
Now I hear that the Tungston benchmark system will be replaced. Maybe cheaper–more than likely more expensive.
Sharon, your statements about what the website does not do are just plain wrong.
From the FAQ section of the district website:
“One of the features of our new website is a staff directory, where you are able to find contact information for every teacher in the District. The directory for all District staff can be accessed from any District or School website in the top right corner, by clicking on “Staff Directory.” Once you are at that page, you can search by First Name AND/OR Last Name AND/OR School. For example, if you do not enter a name, but select “Peoria High School” from the drop down menu, each staff member should appear with contact information, including email and a link to their website. There may be some staff members that are not included in the directory yet. We are still adding names, as needed. Please let the webmaster know if you can not find the staff member you are looking for. They may have been left out of the database by accident and we will work to add them as quickly as possible.”
I’ll add that you can further sort by “Position” either as the sole criteria, or with others, such as “Nurse” for “Richwoods”. I did that and found that it is Camille Lavin, along with her email address and phone number.
As for the board meeting agenda and minutes, they are simply categorized by school year. The current year is under “Board of Education” and then “Meeting Schedule”. Listed next to each meeting date is both the agenda and minutes – very convenient. If you want prior years you go under “Board of Education” and then “Archived Meetings” and the applicable year. Then you are provided with a list of meeting dates and the minutes for each meeting. Both of those locations – “meeting schedule” and “archived meetings” – have the information I just described.
When you receive the various data that you request from D150, do you sort or otherwise organize it (like the 3.3 IEP students per class, for example)? I mean, if you can’t figure out how to navigate the district website, I wonder if you make some errors with the data you receive and report on.
I will check again, but if Peoria High is the only one you checked, then you may be wrong because PHS (as of a couple of days ago) is still using its old site with all the “good” information.
Jon, I spent considerable time last week communicating with District 150 people–Shangraw, board secretary, Chumbley’s office–and there was confusion about why the agenda wasn’t on the link under Board of Education – scheduled meetings. They are now at that site because of my inquiries–at least, on Tuesday the board secretary told me the agenda and minutes were finally where they should be.
Jon, did you try Peoria High–did it take you to the old site or the new one?
Yes, you can eventually find the person or position for whom you are looking by either knowing a specific name (which many might not know) or finding all the people who hold a certain position and then sorting through to find the one you are looking for–very, very inconvenient.
Try Richwoods staff and tell me what you get. Is there anywhere on the site that does what the old PHS site does–lists all PHS personnel in one place with their titles and e-mail address?
Last week the agenda was only on the calendar link–I think they have fixed that now.
Jon, do you really believe your scarcasm is warranted? At least, when I e-mailed the people I mentioned at the board rooms, they were courteous (didn’t imply I was too stupid to navigate the website) and even thanked me for calling to their attention that the Nov. 22 minutes had not yet been posted as of Jan. 10.
Jon, if you give me your address, I will gladly send all the data about Whittier, Harrison, and Glen Oak and my compilation of the data–then you can check it for yourself.
Jon, I have investigated the website a bit more–still have the same impression about its inconvenience, depending on what type of info for which you are looking.
Maybe I’m missing something. If I want to know who the English teaches at Richwoods are, how would I found out? if I wanted to know who teaches first grade at any primary school, how would I found out?
I do understand why the AYP information isn’t available–it might be now, but as of last week it was all taken down in order to get last year’s data up.
From Dave Haney’s “School Daze” blog regarding the new D150 website:
“It appears there’s a lot more information on the site, which is good, though finding it may be a challenge. Of course, it’s always a pain to get used to something new.”
Jon, Why didn’t you answer my questions? Were my observations right or wrong? Haney didn’t have many examples to offer–actually, only one. When I first saw the site, I thought it was great (very attractive) until I started pushing buttons and coming up empty. Maybe when it is completed, it will be all that it promised to be. It is January–how long should it take? Maybe the old site should have been left up until this one was ready to go.
The other thing I noticed (haven’t tried in over a week) was that pushing the name of a particular teacher was a dead end because a significant number of teachers hadn’t activated their sites.
Dave mentioned only that information could be translated into different languages–what information, where? I haven’t pressed that button yet.
Gee, you asked so many questions….
“Jon, did you try Peoria High–did it take you to the old site or the new one?” – New, with a link to the old, since it is in process of transition.
“Try Richwoods staff and tell me what you get. Is there anywhere on the site that does what the old PHS site does–lists all PHS personnel in one place with their titles and e-mail address?” – Again, you SORT by “Home Building” and you get all Richwoods personnel with job function, email and phone (as well as website).
“Jon, do you really believe your scarcasm is warranted?” – Yes, it’s worth a shot…
“If I want to know who the English teachers at Richwoods are, how would I found out? if I wanted to know who teaches first grade at any primary school, how would I found out?” – You can not currently drill down further than “teacher” – but, again, you can sort by Home Building. A new feature is that you can Sort by job function (like the Nurse example) and get a list of all D150 nurses across all schools.
“Why didn’t you answer my questions?” – You have to do some of the work yourself.
“Were my observations right or wrong?” – All wrong, except the one not being able to sort by type of teacher.
“It is January–how long should it take?” – The classic IT answer: Two Weeks
“Dave mentioned only that information could be translated into different languages–what information, where?” – Why not ask Dave this time?
I can now officially say that the new District 150 website is not as convenient or as informative as the old one with regard to the employee directory. Yes, as Jon stated, you can finally get to a list of faculty members–one at a time without ever learning what each teacher teaches. The old website gave all the information on one screen. It wasn’t a hide-and-seek game.
Jon, do you really believe that this website will make it easier for parents to locate directory information?
From a parent’s perspective, let’s assume two possibilities first.
#1 – I know the names of my children’s teachers.
If I needed to use the directory on the website for contact information, I can easily find that teacher. I don’t need to go to the school’s own website and scroll down until I find the department of that teacher (Is it “English” or “Language Arts”?), as under the old system, but even if I did, that wouldn’t be a big deal.
Also, if I have kids at multiple schools, it’s nice to be able to search one system in one location, rather than having to go to each separate school website. Again, though, not a big deal (not enough to complain about one way or the other).
However, what’s better now is that once I find that teacher in the directory, I now also have a link to that teacher’s website. Try Betina Fleming, a teacher at Washington Gifted, and see all of the helpful information posted on her website. I believe some schools/teachers might have utilized this feature on the old system, but I don’t see any of that on the old PHS site, for example.
#2 – I don’t know the names of my kid’s teachers
Well, I guess then the old directory could be more helpful. But if I don’t even know the teacher’s name (and can’t or won’t ask my kid if I’m drawing a blank at the moment), what makes you think I’ll ever use the directory, let alone even want to contact the teacher?
So, in #1 there is a benefit to a parent, while in #2 there is no real difference.
However, I get that you don’t like the new website, Sharon. No surprise there.
Jon, too many ifs–. I still maintain there should be a page that lists teachers by grade and/or subject matter–just in case someone wants that info. I have checked out some of the other sites on the website–there is much information (and many advertisements and offers to buy stuff). I was looking at some of the suggested sites for parents to use to help students practice skills, etc. I think that is helpful–to the parents who have computers. I have collected many such sites on my own that I use with the kids–I may try some of the ones on the site.
The site has much potential–I just wonder how much use it will get (data hiding in all sorts of places). Jon, are you sure you aren’t getting paid for District PR? 🙂 Maybe you could help the district develop a guide for using the website.
Average teacher Im just saying you should belly up to the getting screwed table like the rest of us. I dont want to give you, or any other public employee, a raise or a perk until the rest of us start seeing a turn around. My answer is if you dont want to take a bit of the poison apple we all made then go on strike.. Im sure there are a couple people waiting on your job.