PEORIA, IL -- The Peoria District 150 School Board on Sept. 25 took a great step to protect immigrants, both students and parents, regardless of their documented status, when it passed a resolution to protect them from deportation officials.
Read the details of the Save Haven Resolution here.
The public comments included an interesting report from Sharon Crews, below.
Here are recordings of the comments:
Download D150 Sept 25 comments (2)
Download D150 Sept 25 comments (1)
The comments were in two parts, one on the budget, the other the regular agenda item.
Activist Terry Knapp commented on the budget, and he repeated his point that the closing of Woodruff High School caused turmoil for the students who now have to be bused, an increased expense for the district.
In addition, Glen Oak and Harrison were supposed to be community schools with 650 students, but instead are overcrowded, he said.
Sevino Sierra complained about travel expenses and said the physical plant needs improvement.
The regular comment period featured Knapp who said block scheduling at Manual Academy has failed, and the high school bands at Manual and Peoria Central are "pathetic." The music programs apparently were allowed to wither away under the previous superintendents.
Knapp also said that under Grenita Lathan, teachers at Peoria Central were given bonuses from a grant when the money should have been spent on the school and its students. Meanwhile a field at Manual with a track is too short for football to be played there. (How did that happen?)
Crews report included the stunning figures of 76 openings for teachers, and 97 teacher resignations last year. "Why did they leave?" she asked. Are exit interviews done? "Keller is the only school that did not lose teachers," she said. Manual has a very high turnover rate, and that means no stability at the school, she said.
Zack Gittrich, the leader of the group NoBanNoWall, said Peoria has 9,000 immigrants and likely 3,000 are undocumented. He advocated for the Safe Haven Resolution, and said it will affect thousands of people, both students and their families, and help relieve their fears.
Sierra, who is a Mexican born in the USA, criticized President Trump and his policies on immigrants. "We should find a way to calm down the president or get rid of him. He's causing too much trouble," he said.
I noticed and commented on the atmosphere in the meeting, which was jammed with children of all ethnic backgrounds receiving reading awards. It's welcoming, and such a contrast with the previous superintendent who ruled by fear. Amazing. Democracy works at the local level in Peoria.
-- Elaine Hopkins
Here is the report from Sharon Crews:
Tonight I have given you my compilation of data from the Human Resource reports from February to September 11. I organized the data by school, listing the positions open because of resignations, retirements, and dismissals. The names of new hires are listed in the “Replacement” column.
As a bit of an aside, I recall a presenter mentioning that more advanced methods of teaching today ask students to answer “why” and “how” questions instead of the simple “who,” “what,” “when,” and “where” questions. I took exception to that criticism of older teaching methods because, of course, we did regularly include the harder questions. The Human Resource data on agendas answer only the simpler questions. Now I am going to ask the “why” and “how” questions.
I believe that this board is more interested in the “whys” and “hows” of educational decisions than were previous board members. I look forward to hearing more of those questions and the answers this year now that you are all more acclimated to the complexities of issues that appear on agendas.
My data on pages 1-4 lists, by school, the 120 positions that needed to be filled because of resignations, retirements, or dismissals. I matched the positions listed for new hires with the positions of the teachers who left. My pairings may not be accurate, but the data does account for all those who left the district and the new hires—except for tonight’s data.
There were no matches for 76 openings. I have given you a three-page spread sheet with the same information but put in order by subject matter. However, on pages 5-7, sixty-three new hires are listed for additional openings—those not created by resignations.
Now for the harder questions. Were exist interviews requested by the administration and provided by the 97 teachers who resigned? How many years did each of them teach in our schools? The most important question is “why” did each leave? If no attention is paid to the reasons we are losing teachers, history will continue to repeat itself. A new Manual band director resigned after one day. Rumor has it that she left because of discipline problems she observed and/or because she was surprised by the small size of the band.
I was sad to find that unfilled positions include two band, one chorus, one orchestra, and three music teachers. How was our exemplary music program destroyed in such a relatively short time?
Are the new hires listed on pages 5-7 filling positions that were not filled last year? Or are they new positions made necessary by a change in enrollment or for some other reason? The most obvious and urgent question is how will teachers be provided for the 76 positions for which teachers have not been hired?
Kellar is the only school that did not lose any teachers or require new teachers. I have given you one spread sheet that shows that some schools have considerably more turnover than other schools do. Manual is one of those schools. In 2003-2005, a significant number of us retired. A few years later the Johns Hopkins program demanded that 2/3 of the faculty be replaced. Since then, Manual has never had a stable faculty. The yearly turnover at several schools certainly is a probable cause for discipline problems and other educational inadequacies. Please ask for help from teachers and the community in seeking solutions to these problems. - 30 -
