PSD 150 Board meeting drones on and on

PEORIA -- The Peoria District 150 School Board must be made up of slow learners. 

Despite pleas from many, including the League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria, to

• expand their agenda to include some real information for citizens;
• end the so-called committee of the whole meetings, which are no different from regular meetings but take place at different schools, some not really set up for such a meeting, and occur at a different time from the regular meeting;
  
• move the public comments back to the first of the meeting, as well as web streaming the comments;
  

nothing changes.

The March 25 meeting continued all of the above sins. Plus there was a 2-hour presentation from special education administrators and teachers, and even a few students, something that could have been cut to a few minutes with a page of statistics for each program. 

Some of that material was interesting: homeless students now number at least 635, up from 422 last year, likely from better reporting and hard times.

And special ed students now make up 20 percent of the student population, an astounding number when you think about it.  One-sixth of the staff is now involved with special education, though it was not made clear whether that included administrators.

That's it.  Afterwards board members praised the presentations, but while they were taking place, board members were web surfing on their tablet computers (when did they agree to buy those for themselves?). 

The agenda items, on the consent agenda, included raises for non-union employees, with the raises not specified, and contracts for principals, assistant principals and office staff, also no figures given. So anyone who wants to know will have to file a Freedom of Information Act request to find out.

That's transparency for you. (Not!)

By 8:30 p.m. when the public comment time arrived, only Terry Knapp remained. He questioned the book inventory, which has been a mess, as detailed by a Peoria Journal Star story. Stacks of books were hidden by the stage curtain in the room, he noted.

Activist Sharon Crews questioned this expensive bar coding inventory a month ago.  In response Supt. Grenita Lathan said more books were discovered than anticipated, which is why the inventory and bar coding is needed.The schedule has been revised, she said.

Knapp also questioned why the DLC room at the administration building has been turned into a storeroom, and why the houses on Prospect, purchased years ago, are still sitting there vacant, off the tax rolls. Lathan responded that the houses are being maintained and a decision will be made later on what to do with them.

Here is an audio recording of Knapp's comments and the responses.

Dist 150 3.25.13

  -- Elaine Hopkins

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