PEORIA -- Another evening, another Peoria District 150 School Board meeting, this time, on Oct. 25, at the new Glen Oak School.
I drove to the school and was shocked to see that the century-old former Glen Oak School, a historic building, is half way demolished. Here is a photo of the school before demolition, and a photo taken Oct. 26, 2010.
Glen Oak School in August 22, 2010.
Glen Oak School on Oct. 26, 2010.
It's amazing to realize that Peoria's pioneers built schools to last a century, out of quality materials, brick and wood. Glen Oak could have been updated and renovated. Instead it's been replaced with a huge, slick, expensive new school -- all vinyl tile and glass. I'll bet it doesn't last half a century.
The board meeting took place in the huge gynmasium, where the accoustics are poor, naturally.
Since the board still censors out the public comments from its videotape of the meeting, which airs a week late on cable TV, here they are:
D150 Oct 25
Mr. Sierra noted the bad accoustics, and questioned an agenda item mentioning a name change for Manual High School. He complained that the board wastes money.
Sharon Crews noted the lack of a district-wide tardy policy. She also said the censoring the public comments means that the superintendent's response to the comments, which is videotaped, confuses the public and is unfair to those who comment if they are misquoted.
Terry Knapp asked several questions, first about the "mentor" that the new superintendent, Grenita Lathan, was supposed to have for $10,000. She later responded that she's going instead to a free job coaching session from the Illinois State Board of Education.
Knapp noted that Peoria Central HIgh School has been changed drastically with the arrival of students from the now closed Woodruff High School and construction to accommodate them. "Woodruff was destroyed, now Central?" he said.
He said he plans to take at-large Peoria city council candidate Chuck Grayeb to Pekin High School to view the school's vocational programs. Not every student is destined for college, he said, adding that he knows local millionaires who never went to college.
He also noted that the law requires all weapons brought to schools by students and seized must be reported, but none have been reported yet. He's heard of an instance with a BB gun.
Lathan responded that the district is evaluating vocational programs, it has reported the weapons incidents, and that it is evaluating Edison Schools and other programs.
A man who is education chair for the local NAACP chapter thanked the board for the two new schools. "They will inspire our children," he said. (If so, it will be a first, as new schools have not raised test scores elsewhere.) He also called for laptops for children with an emphasis on technology.
A mother of five thanked the district for finding her lost son last week, no age given, but complained that she had offered to help teachers but been brushed off. "I'm hurt," she said. "I had a run-in with a couple of teachers," she added. Then she said she's moving out of the district.
A teacher thanked Glen Oak staff for allowing him to use the building last weekend for a chess tournament.
Lathan and board members said the Manual HS name change will go through a process of committees, and the new name will retain the name 'Manual' in it. The school now has 7th and 8th graders along with high school students, Lathan said.
-- Elaine Hopkins
Here are the comments of Sharon Crews:
My “rumor or fact” comment at the last meeting about a tardy policy certainly did get more attention than I usually receive for my comments. First of all, my comment resulted in two very pleasant conversations with Dr. Lathan, initiated by Dr. Lathan. After our first conversation, I believe both of us went in search of the tardy policy and learned that there is no longer a district tardy policy. It turns out that my complaints were five years late. Since most of you were not on the board in 2005, I wonder how many of you knew that there is no longer a board tardy policy.
I believe that I can accurately state that there are veteran teachers in the district that did not know about this change in policy and that how tardiness is handled varies from one school to the next.
I think some of the confusion might be due to the fact that a greater number of teachers have moved from one school to another this year. As you can see by my handout, the way tardiness is handled from school to school seems to vary considerably.
This week I did seek out information from the websites of each District 150 school.
First of all, the information I retrieved Thursday is now gone or replaced because the district has revamped all its websites.
At least eight primary or middle schools and all three high schools have not previously or now posted a student handbook online—or any information about tardiness.
Only four schools with online information mentioned the term “unexcused tardy.” Three of those references were on the old websites but have not yet appeared on the new websites. A couple mentioned detentions for tardiness.
I suspect that having site-based practices instead of a district tardy policy might be confusing to those parents who have children in more than one district school. Certainly, this year you all decided that having site-based dress codes was not a good idea. My handout regarding the almost 1200 tardies accumulated by 106 of Manual’s 2010 seniors should give you an idea of what happens when there is no penalty for individual tardies and when there is no penalty for accumulated tardies—again no end game just as is the case with the dress code policy. Please consider how disruptive it is to the classroom when students regularly come tardy to class.
My final comment relates to public comments, in general. I am asking that you give some consideration to the problem that arises from not televising the public comments. When Dr. Lathan responds to our comments and when, board members, sometimes at the end of the meeting react or even criticize comments made from the podium, you are being very unfair to us and to those in the TV audience, who do not have the benefit of hearing our original comments. Sometimes what speakers have said gets lost in translation.
Along those lines, several meetings ago, Martha, you said that you objected to hearing speakers comparing students to wild animals. This week on a blog, Laura, you stated, “I've heard people at the podium compare our students to wild animals.”
The blogger Emerge told me she believes she heard it—no one else that I know remembers hearing it. I think I would have remembered cringing. Are both of you sure that you heard the words “wild animals” from the podium? The problem, of course, is that, since our comments aren’t televised, those listening or reading your accusations might speculate as to which of us made such a comment. That is unfair to us. I hope that you can clear up the “wild animal” comment. Thank you.
-- Sharon Crews
10/30/10: Ed Dentino sent a comment via email:
It is interesting to see the vocational educational hype. It is the wheel being reinvented. The people who destroyed that a long time ago were the proponents of 'basics'. That was a theme that did not resonate with students. Unless they perceived academics as their goal for well being, most needed a more direct approach to their goal of finishing school with a job skill, or at least training they perceived as useful.
When I finished high school, in 1962, there were few options. Working at gas stations, restaurants, were starter jobs. Options were education at college, a couple of technical training schools, going into a military branch with no promise of training useful for civilian work. Some, starting at Caterpillar, were able to get in house technical training that was very vocational and provided a few with chances to achieve pretty good jobs.
During the 70's, I saw the company rungs to the ladders diminish and realized that the push was toward college based academics. That opened the doors to more business and accounting types to run the company and control the purse. The doors shut to the engineering and manufacturing people who were less interested in the global pursuit of cheaper labor as a means to increase profit and grow the product market. -30-