The city hears, not grills, District 150

PEORIA -- The unusual joint meeting between the Peoria City Council and the Peoria District 150 School Board on June 1 was mostly a snoozer -- until the end. 

That's when the new superintendent, Grenita Lathan, told the audience she was interested in education, "birth through adult." The board has just decided to cut out pre-K and adult education. 

Then she said "it bothers me to see overcrowded classrooms." That's after the board closed Woodruff High School to save money, and is spending millions to expand Peoria High School to squeeze in most of the Woodruff students. 

Then she added, "we will look at how to expand vocational education."  School activist Terry Knapp, now retired after years of teaching and leading the teachers union, has been begging publicly for vocational education for years, and has been ignored. Until now.

To top that off, Mayor Jim Ardis then denied that he wanted to take over the school district, after saying that mayors are held accountable for every organization in the city, and "there are advantages to appointed schools boards," including "expertise" and "better fiscal discipline."

He said "the quality of the schools determines the quality of life. I don't think we can live with the status quo. We've got to do better."

Then the bombshell:  "We should look at the Voting Rights order to determine how to deal with its shortcomings." 

The Peoria District 150 School Board is elected based on a federal court order from the late 1980s that cited the federal Voting Rights Act.  The board is elected from districts to allow for more minority participation, a reform from when all board members were elected at large. It took a federal Civil Rights lawsuit to get that reform.

But Ardis's comment came at the end of a long 2-hour meeting, and nobody picked up on it to ask what he meant. In fact councilwoman Barbara Van Auken was the only person to ask any questions about the schools.

Otherwise, the speakers droned on about the new schools, Peoria Promise, which provides scholarships for students to attend Illinois Central College, the "Race to the Top" grant proposal, etc.  While worthy topics, the presentations didn't provide any real news that has not already been in the press.

District 150 Watch member Diane Vespa filmed the meeting, and hopefully it will end up on the WMBD-TV website, under the category 'news' and "District 150."

For those of us who prefer -- or need -- an audio version of the evening, it is posted below in three segments.  Number one and two are reversed, so listen to 2 first, to hear them in order.

The three parts are because the recorder ran out of battery power briefly.  Then I cut the rest of the meeting in half because of the length. The comments from Lathan and Ardis are in the third part. 

CityD150 1

CityD150 2

City D150 3

-- Elaine Hopkins

UPDATE 6/3/10:  In an email on 6/2 10, District 150 spokeswoman STACEY SHANGRAW wrote:

" Elaine,  Please note that the Board of Education has NOT decided or voted on how to handle Pre-K and Adult Ed next year. Your story states they have."

I responded that Hedy Elliott Gardner of the Peoria Housing Authority GED program, an adult education program, has lost her job there and been reassigned, so what does that mean?  Stacey emailed back that I should call her. I emailed her asking for a written statement of clarification. I want to know why teachers in these programs are being reassigned or laid off.  Maybe the board does not have to vote to close programs if it lays off all the teachers in those programs. She has not yet responded.

My take:  Two board members in a recent regular Board of Education meeting said the primary emphasis of District 150 should be K-12 education. Teachers are being let go. What does this all mean?  Has the board decided in secret, or as they call it, "by consensus" or by default, not to fund these programs?  Or not?  The public deserves answers, not secrecy.

Comments

[Sharon Crews]

Thanks, Elaine, for a very accurate assessment of last night's meeting. I agree that all the presentations were of the "feel good" type--which is all we ever hear when public comments aren't allowed. I don't fault Randy Simmons, at all, for his presentation because he can't report on anything that hasn't been done. This is about the third time I've heard that same report. The report I'm awaiting is the one that tells us exactly how many students will be in each of the classrooms--just how overcrowded these rooms will be, especially since all those who won't be able to go to summer school will, also, have to be stuffed into the classrooms. Also, I want to know if PHS can actually add 900 students with only 20 new teaching positions. Also, I agree that Dr. Lathan's comments about overcrowded classrooms and the need for more offerings such as vocational courses encouraged me.