PEORIA, IL -- Activist Sharon Crews presented an interesting and well researched report to the Peoria School District 150 board at its January 23 meeting.
The written copy is attached below.
Activist Terry Knapp commented on the charter school Quest, and began with a comment on a Peoria Journal Star story regarding schedule changes. Knapp said he called the Rock Island school district mentioned in the newspaper story only to find the district had nine weeks off in the summer, a schedule negotiated with the teachers union. The newspaper said that district had only six weeks off, and Quest is considering that schedule.
The entire schedule was negotiated, Knapp said, and not imposed from the administration.
He also said that Quest receives $5.2 million from District 150, and asked whether that makes it a District 150 school. At a recent meeting he noticed its administrator did not stand up when District 150 staff members were asked to stand and be recognized.
Finally Knapp questioned the results of an FBI raid on the school a few years ago. "No one ever told the public what that was all about," he said.
(It likely involved visa violations by the Quest staff when it was a Gulen-run school. Some of the staff members were from Turkey.That connection was dropped a couple of years ago.)
During a public hearing on a bond issue from a small sales tax adopted by referendum in November, Knapp asked why the district is paying a consultant to sell bonds. He suggested the district spend the funds as they arrive instead of going into debt.
He also noted that the facility plans to use the funds do not include money for Peoria Stadium. "It's crazy to let a facility with your name on it go into disrepair," he said,
Here is a recording of the comments:
-- Elaine Hopkins
Here are the comments from Sharon Crews:
I take no pleasure in presenting this data tonight. For the first 57 days of this school year, 1,583 referrals were written at Manual. Either there were two referrals for every student or there were many repeat offenders. Please take an honest look at this data to recognize the problems that exist in varying degrees at all schools, not just at Manual. The consequences meted out in September did not encourage better behavior.
Four hundred and ten referrals for the 19 days of September increased to 658 referrals for the 19 days of October. The increase of 248 indicates that what was done in September did little to lead students to change their behaviors. For example, in September there were 86 offenses related to misuse of cell phones, etc. That number doubled to 173 in October. Referrals for other classroom disruptions went from 90 to 146. Please don’t be tempted to mitigate the increase or blame teachers for writing too many referrals. The least reported and hardest to detect offenses are bullying, gang activity, and drug use or selling, which probably take place in hallways or outside.
My conservative estimate is that every classroom disruption takes away, at least, fifteen minutes of teaching time—the time the student is disrupting the class and the time for the teacher to try to resolve the problem or to write the referral. There were 1,398 referrals written for classroom disruptions. That amounts to, at least, 349 hours or 70 5-hour days of lost teaching time that can never be recovered.
There was no consequence indicated for 100 offenses, 50 of which were classroom disruptions. That is either poor record keeping or poor policy. Five hundred and seventy consequences for classroom disruptions were listed as office/referral rewrite. I was told that this designation indicates a referral for a student that has had more than one offense in a day, so the referral is rewritten to encompass all offenses and a consequence is assigned to cover all the offenses.
I will risk saying that detentions and in-school suspensions are not effective consequences. Three hundred and sixty-six students were assigned detentions, and 178 served in-school suspensions. I believe the 89 students whose consequence was out of school suspension might well view it as a vacation day. Because offenders are allowed to make-up their work, time out of class is not a consequence that will change behaviors. I believe the data will prove that. In fact, these offenders get extra time to complete assignments.
The 89 out of school consequences were issued to only 12 students for classroom behaviors; 15 were from gym, and 62 for behaviors in hallways, the cafeteria, or outside.
The most baffling consequence is that 158 students were subjected to a consequence listed as a “conference with the student.” Hopefully, all students sent to the office with a referral are subjected to a conference with an administrator, so how is this a consequence?
A conference with a parent was a consequence for only 36 offenders. This least used consequence might be the most meaningful of all.
A consequence listed as “parent contact” applied to only fifteen offenders, ten of whom were out of special ed classes. Twenty-nine lost privileges—what privileges? It appears that the others lost nothing except learning the reality they will face in the real world—that actions have consequences. The real losers are the students who come to school ready to learn but are cheated of learning time by those who receive no meaningful consequences. Of course, offenders, also, lose learning time. Please do all you can to turn things around to make Manual the school I remember. - 30 -
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