OT a little - Turmoil in Peoria District 150

[tornado]

short article this morning in the paper...
Peoria's District 150 presented their 2014-15 budget....a few things stand out...

-first, their budget operates at over $12 million deficit...what an incredibly irresponsible budget!!
They have $163.5 million in revenue but over $175 million in expenditures!
This is a terrible way to run any local district.

http://www.psd150.org/Page/20349

-most of the expenditures are for salaries & benefits ($124 mil) then supplies & purchased services ($28 mil) -

-they do list salaries for administrators, teachers, etc...but not for the current year - the most current data is for 2012-13 - kinda puzzling that the info for the past TWO years is absent.

http://www.psd150.org/Page/16864

-Most teachers are in the $40-70K range, but most administrators are well over $90-100K - pretty nice pay rivaling many other top professionals such as physicians, dentists, pharmacists, etc...a few salaries are in the $150-250 range

in all there are over 1200 employees just among "Administrators & teachers" and the salaries for all the other employees are not listed (janitorial, nurses, assistants, and others..)

Overall - (from data previously published)
13,488 students (2013 numbers)
almost 2000 or so employees overall, roughly 200 in Administration, 1,000 teachers
Median income of residents within school district $29,000

[tornado]

interesting take on "Queen Grenita" from Kirk Wessler...

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140913/SPORTS/140919594/11130/SPORTS?rssfeed=true&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

not only District 150 going down the drain as a result of the queen - but the Park District as well....
.....egos (& money) rule, kids come in last place...

[BU Bill]

interesting take on "Queen Grenita" from Kirk Wessler...

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140913/SPORTS/140919594/11130/SPORTS?rssfeed=true&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

not only District 150 going down the drain as a result of the queen - but the Park District as well....
.....egos (& money) rule, kids come in last place...

Now if only Kirk would open his eyes and write a similar in-depth, intelligent, and truthful analysis about another "Queen" in our city who's ego is ruining an honorable institution.

[bradleyfan124]

now if only kirk would open his eyes and write a similar in-depth, intelligent, and truthful analysis about another "queen" in our city who's ego is ruining an honorable institution.

amen!

[bigjimmy]

Now why would Kirk write something negative about such a nice lady.

[tornado]

District 150 $11 million deficit

http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/district-150-expecting-major-deficit

[tornado]

BREAKING Peoria District 150 news....

Now with the newly elected District 150 members in place they have the necessary votes to terminate their "beleaguered" Superintendant and have met with her - allowing her the option to resign.
Grenita Lathan resigned last night.

This is clearly a simple example of where the voters of District 150 have spoken. They were tired & fed up with the politics of unelected people (Lathan Bateman) ruining their school district and driving it into tremendous, record debt.
Thus they did the only thing possible, they elected new members to the board to make the necessary changes.
Thus Lathan quit rather than allow the Board to meet and fire her.
This is exactly how it should be and yet the PJStar makes no attempt to hide their sentiment in the four different columns on this subject over the past 24 hours, especially Phil Luciano and Pam Adams (who even interestingly invokes the name of Joanne Glasser).

[tornado]

wow - that was incredibly fast - in just a matter of days the old District 150 chief was run out and sent packing by the board (and by the voters who duly elected the board members to make this change)
and now they have a new chief in place...

http://www.1470wmbd.com/d150-acting-superintendent-theres-no-place-like-home-video/

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150714/NEWS/150719619/1994/NEWS

this is one of the two fastest and most incredible, sweeping housecleanings I have ever seen for the sake of saving a storied educational institution ..
it really seems to pain the PJS writer to cite that it was a UNANIMOUS vote by the District 150 Board to approve the new Superintendant Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, and that the new chief is and was an ardent opponent of the former Superintendant.

[tornado]

District 150 $11 million deficit
http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/di...-major-deficit

well just before she got run out of town, District 150 head Grenita Lathan had manage to balloon the District 150 DEFICIT to almost $14 million!!!

then in just ONE WEEK into her tenure as interim SUPERINTENDANT of District 150, having been handed a huge financial MESS...
how about this...the NEW head along with the new Board have found ways to cut the deficit to just $4.6 million

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150720/NEWS/150729915

http://www.1470wmbd.com/d150-board-examines-ways-to-increase-revenue/

Hmmm...amazing ....gotta give them credit if they can pull this off - be nice to see them balance the budget for the future

[tornado]

Article in today's paper....
really discouraging about District 150 academics...

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20151211/NEWS/151219877

"Test Scores Fall..."
..then goes on to detail how really terrible District 150 standardized test scores are.

"Only 16 percent of students (in District 150) met or exceeded standards..."
...on standardized testing to determine "Readiness for College and Career"

..and as an interesting 2nd part to this story...
"Peoria School District 150's testing and research expert, Diana Zaleski, quit Thursday.."

By comparison, the article points out that..
"Fifty-seven percent of Dunlap students met or exceeded" the same standards..

..eight District 150 grade schools fell in the single-digit range, Manual HS was at 5%, and Central was at 2%, Trewyn at 1%!! Seriously - that's 2% & 1% of their students met or exceeded the "standards" to be considered ready or on track for college or career. OMG.


Parents be warned...this is the legacy of the government telling you how to educate your kids and the legacy of Common Core.

[PhiAlphaBoy]

Parents be warned...this is the legacy of the government telling you how to educate your kids and the legacy of Common Core.

That's the key word in all of this - PARENTS. If there were stable family units in place for these kids then I'm guessing you'd be seeing statistics comparable to Dunlap. Divorce and out of marriage wedlock have been, and will continue to be, the downfall of America.

[tornado]

Certainly do agree- if a parent places their kids into a lousy school district to be taught by lousy teachers, then the majority of the blame still falls on the parents.
But the breakdown of the families, which is and was the inevitable result of the 1960's thru 1980's movement of me-first, whatever goes, if it feels good - do it, and the explosion of kids born out of wedlock or with no parental involvement & get all semblance of religion & morality out of the schools has resulted in a mass of people who depend on the government to take care of them and do the job of raising their kids for them. Lives ruined, more government dependency and then each successive generation gets even worse as government resources get ever thinner and more permissive.
If that's what people want then they cannot gripe when the government (the "Village" as HC calls it) does a horrendous job of it.

[Chico]

Who says its what the people want? The majority certainly doesn't want it. You say "lousy teachers" get part of the blame? I don't think so. The blame goes on mom and whoever the dad is. If you can't afford I kid, don't have 9. Oh that's right, someone else will pay for em. And the Urnal Star will have another story around this time of year of the poor 24 year old mother of 5, the youngest being 4 years old, who needs help.

[tornado]

....approve the new Superintendant Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, and that the new chief is and was an ardent opponent of the former Superintendant.

report suggests that the interim head Desmoulin-Kherat will be hired permanently

[sam hannam]

I would think that would be a very good hire.