District 201 board meeting - November 12, 2008

[Ted]

  This is a summary of the District 201 board meeting that occurred on November 12, 2008. The meeting started at 8 PM and ended at 9 PM.  All board members were present except for Max Flores, who yet again was missing in action.

1. Old Cicero Town Hall is new District 201 headquarters - The board voted tonight to approve a lease with the Town of Cicero to lease Old Cicero Town Hall as the new headquarters for District 201.The district will move its headquarters from its current location, which is 32nd street and 55 avenue. Board President Jeff Pesek stated the district was moving its headquarters to gain more room for all the new administrative staff that the district has hired in the last few months (Curriculum Director, Curriculum Leads, Supports Services, Business Manager, etc.)


2. Building a Freshman Center in Berwyn ? - The board approved a feasibility and funding study to see if it is possible and necessary to build a new Freshman Center building to serve the Berwyn, Stickney and Lyons communities. Acting Superintendent Senters stated that the district would be applying to the state to be put on the state's school construction list.  The board president stated that Morton West has become over crowded and that alternatives need to be looked at. Alternatives that will be looked at is expanding just the cafeteria;  bringing in mobile units; sending some students to Morton East; and building a new building to act as a Freshman Center.  The acting superintendent stated that the Cicero Freshman Center cost $30 million dollars (a figure, I believe, is too low based on my looking at actuals spent on building the Freshman Center)


3. Teacher's contract - The board approved new contracts for the teachers, teacher assistants and clerical staff.  The new teachers contract calls for an increase in salary of 3.4% over the next three years. Teacher assistants will receive an increase of 3.5% over the next 4 years and clerical staff will get a salary increase of 4% over the next 3 years. The district lawyer claimed that Lyons Township just negotiated a teacher's contract that was an 8% increase in years 1 and 2; a 5% increase in year 3 and a cost of living increase in year 4. The lawyer stated that the District 201 contract compared favorably to the LT contract.

  In addition, the union agreed to increase health benefits deductables by $100 and co-payments by $250. That will save the district $350,000 per year.  The union also agreed to a professional attire clause that requires teachers to wear business casual (no jeans) Monday through Thursday with jeans allowed on Friday as long as the teacher also wears Morton spirit wear. Teachers will also now be required to attend Open House (apparently in the past attendance by teachers to Open House was optional).

  Finally, the union agreed to increase the length of the school day with the school day going from 8 AM to 2:35 PM.  There will not be an extra period.  However, each period will be increased by 5 minutes and announcements will be limited to home room time.  Split classes have been eliminated and home room time has been increased by 10 minutes. The lawyer stated that the total increase in instructional time would be 45 minutes and in other time by 25 minutes.  One mother who was sitting behind me said the numbers did not add up based on the start and end times.

  The union also agreed to require that teachers take more instructional workshops and increase orientation time to 3 days.


4. Financials - The board approved a property tax levy for the next fiscal year of $32.1 million dollars with the actual levy expected to be $31.9 million because of PTELL (a state law that limits the increase in property taxes to the cost of living).  The increase in the levy was under 5% so no public hearing was required.  Revenue has been coming in slowly because of the lateness of the property tax bills this year and because the state of Illinois has been slow in providing money. In the first quarter, revenue was $9.9 million dollars (11.3% of budget) and expenditures were $14.6 million dollars (16.6% of budget).  The  district has also been receiving less than expected revenue from the replacement tax (an income tax that is in lieu of property taxes for certain types of corporations). In the first quarters, the replacement tax was down by $400,000.  The budget is expecting the year's replacement tax to be $7 million dollars. 


5. Expulsions - There were 16 expulsions tonight, with 2 being permanent expulsions and 6 of the other 14 expulsions without service at the alternative school. The acting superintendent stated that one of the expulsions was due to a charge of drug possession on school property.  This is the highest number of expulsions that have occurred in quite some time and it is also the highest (8 out of 16) that I can remember where the student was expelled completely out of the district (i.e. not sent to the Alternative School).  Most of the audience attendees at the board meeting appeared to be parents whose kids were getting expelled.


6. Skyward Software - The board asked the principals how the take up was of the new Skyward software that allows parents to go online via the internet and see how their child is progressing. The Morton East principal claimed that 20% of the parents had logged in at least once. The Morton West principal claimed that 25% of the parents had logged in at least once and that 15% to 20% of the parents were regular users. The district also announced the replacement of its current Food Service software with the Skyward module for tracking food service, at an additional cost of $13,000. The Food Service software tracks food usage to get re-imbursements from the federal government.  The current software was crashing a lot so the district was losing information that would be used for submitting re-imbursement data to the federal government.


7. Morton West news - Morton West principal John Lucas stated that there had been an increase in parental attendance at the Parent/Teachers conference of 150 parents. A MW baseball player has received a baseball scholarship to the University of Missouri; another student was one of 30 students nationwide to participate in a program last weekend in Washington D.C.; the Morton West theatre department will be presenting Guys and Dolls on November 13th, 14th, 15th, 2oth, 21st and 22nd.

  Also, an MW parent told me that the group Iraq Veterans Against the War will be coming to Morton West on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (on November 25) at 2:30 to discuss their opposition to the war in Iraq. This group picked Morton West in particular because of the protest against the War in Iraq that occurred a year ago at Morton West.


8. Student presentation - The book club at the Freshman Center gave a presentation to the board about their activities (including going to see a new movie called Twighlight and getting donations from Borders book store in Oak Brook over the holidays to expand reading at the Freshman Center). The book club also spoke about bringing in a prominent Mexican author to speak to both the student book club and an associated parent book club. 

  Another group called TAG (Teens Achieving Goals) talked about their activities, including food drives and gift drives for the holidays for poor families; writing letter and doing other things to support the troops in Iraq and acting as "ambassadors" at school events such as the Open House.


9. Usual business - The usual business of paying the bills and payroll; personnel hiring, firing (one person), resignations and retirements; Staff travel (Illinois Board of Education conference in Chicago); Student travel (Operation Snowball retreat in Oregon Illinois, Theatre festival in Champaign Illinois); approval of contracts (one of which was a contract to adminster the 403b retirement funds program); facility requests; and sundry other matters.


10. Next Board meeting - The next board meeting will be on December 10 at 7 PM at the Alternative School in Cicero.

[Berwyn Patsy]

Thanks Ted.  Your report indicated to me, things are improving and moving forward
in the district!  That's great and what everyone has been striving for in the last few years.

What makes me think, CARES has had just a "little" hand in making things happen?  lol.
Any rate, I hope all keep moving on to improve our schools and community.

[Ted]

Thanks Ted.  Your report indicated to me, things are improving and moving forward
in the district!  That's great and what everyone has been striving for in the last few years.

What makes me think, CARES has had just a "little" hand in making things happen?  lol.
Any rate, I hope all keep moving on to improve our schools and community.

  I think CARES (and Shelley in particular) can take a little bit of credit for increasing the school day, although I think Shelley would have preferred to see an extra period added and require that students take an extra class per year.

  I have to say I don't like the idea of a Freshman Center for Berwyn/Stickney/Lyons.  I have never ilked the idea of Freshman centers.

  One of the things we were told during CARES meetings was that a school transition was a potential "breaking point" for students because it takes them out of their comfort zone and throws them into another environment. 

  Statistics indicate that students are most vunerable academically when transitioning from a elementary school to a middle school; from a middle school to a high school and then from high school to college.

  Adding a Freshman Center for one year puts the student into "transition" mode twice within a period of 12 months.  I also don't like the idea of segregating Freshmen.

  Rather than a Freshman Center, if a new building were to be built, I would prefer to see a magnet school or a prep academy (such as a Math and Science academy).  Another idea would be that, rather than building a Freshman Center, build a third high school to service the Stickney and Lyons area by potentiially using some forest preserve area as a site for a new high school (I think the area behind the Chevrolet auto dealership is ideal).

  But, I also worry about where the district is going to get the money to build a new school building.  The Freshman Center was budgeted at $45 million back in the 2002 to 2004 time frame.  Given the district has only $30 million dollars in the operating funds, given that the bonds funds is maxed out at 30% and given that the district has been spending at a deficit of $5 million per year, I don't see where the distirct is going to get the money to build a new building. Even if the state provided some money, the most the state would provide is 66%.

  If the district went before voters asking for an additional tax to build the new building, I don't think it would fare well in this economy.

But, like I said, if there are plans to build a new building, I think it should be either a magnet school or a prep school OR it should be a small high school to service Stickney and Lyons, not a Freshman Center.

  In fact, why not two prep academies - use one building as a Math and Science academy and use the existing Freshman Center as a liberal arts prep academy run in conjunction with a university. Maybe a discussion wth the University of Notre Dame Latino Studies group (which is located in Berwyn) could yield some type of arrangement with the University of Notre Dame to run a liberal arts prep academy.

  I think District 201 having a "University of Notre Dame Prep Academy" as one of the high schools in the district would attract new residents and would keep current residents from moving.

I think those are much better ideas than just another Freshman Center for Berwyn/Stickney and Lyons.

  Ted

[OakParkSpartan]

I'd try talking with UofC, Northwestern or UofI before I tried ND.  Go for the best.

[Mike Iniquez]

OPS.

           What's wrong with Notre Dame? Please tell us.

[OakParkSpartan]

OPS.

           What's wrong with Notre Dame? Please tell us.

Wrong? Nothing.  But Northwestern and Chicago are in a different league.

[ZORBA]

Not U of I, though.

[OakParkSpartan]

No, not U of I.  But you'd need to investigate their respective departments.

Studying Latinos and studying education doesn't necessarily correlate.

[Terri]

No, not U of I.  But you'd need to investigate their respective departments.

Studying Latinos and studying education doesn't necessarily correlate.

I'm sure Ted used Notre Dame because their Institute of Latino Studies used Berwyn/Cicero as their focus group, I believe they maintain an office space in the area.  Shelley or Ted would have more details. 

[Mike Iniquez]

OPS.

         I thought maybe it had to do with you being a spartan fan     I agree, Northwestern and Chicago are fine schools. But ND is NO slouch either. Basically it comes down to what's good for the students. If the students benefit, then everyone wins.

[OakParkSpartan]

No it isn't a slouch.  But I'd look local to Chicago/Illinois before heading a couple hours out of state.  I just think the proximity would lend it self to better results. 

[Mike Iniquez]

OPS.

         

No it isn't a slouch.  But I'd look local to Chicago/Illinois before heading a couple hours out of state.  I just think the proximity would lend it self to better results. 

I'd have to agree

[Shelley]

No, not U of I.  But you'd need to investigate their respective departments.

Studying Latinos and studying education doesn't necessarily correlate.

I'm sure Ted used Notre Dame because their Institute of Latino Studies used Berwyn/Cicero as their focus group, I believe they maintain an office space in the area.  Shelley or Ted would have more details. 

Yes, the Intitute for Latino Studies of Notre Dame has an office in Berwyn.  They have published many studies about Latino issues, including topics specific to education in Cicero and Berwyn.  Here is a publication funded by The MacNeal Foundation:

http://latinostudies.nd.edu/pubs/pubs/Cicero_Eng_Web.pdf

There is also this research about education:

http://latinostudies.nd.edu/equityindex/

I think the Institute for Latino Studies research is a great resource for District 201 to use when making decisions about education in our communities.  There are also great resources at Northeastern Illinois University, Depaul, and I'm sure many other Chicago Universities.  I would definitely like to see some of the most current research about education, successful high schools, the achievement gap and Latino culture be presented as evidence to support any decisions (especially $30 million + ones) made by the Board of Education.  Perhaps a task force made up of professionals (not paid employees of the district) and experts in these areas could be created to study the possibilities and make recommendations.   We should be taking advantage of our proximity to all of these resources and present our district as a great opportunity to create a model for the rest of the nation in terms of closing the achievement gap.   Something like that could really inspire people to vote yes on a referendum...it might also inspire private funding.  That's my opinion.