ED, tonight's school board meeting [D209]

Comments on the meeting:

Libka was beat red for the open session. Later he said that he promised not to forward any more anonymous letters to the board. I suspect Flowers took Libka to task in closed session.

For the awards ceremonies the board and senior administrators upstage the awardees. With the audience looking at the awardees backs, it makes it seem the ceremony is to present the school board and administrators to the audience and the awardees are props.

BTW, why doesn't Proviso give student awards in front of students? Do other districts give their student awards at school board meetings?

Welch announced Gilchrist was going to meet with the leaders of the teachers union to discuss comments that offended some teachers. (Afterwards Gilchrist said it was the quote he took from a local minister that D209 has "'at risk' students being taught by 'at risk' teachers".)

Two representatives from the School-Based Health Center (SBHC) at Proviso East High School (other info) made a pitch for District 209 to spend $250,000 per year on the health center to replace money being eliminated by the federal government. Rep. Danny Davis's chief of staff was there also to help push shifting the tax burden from the federal income tax to the property tax.

Here are my concerns with D209 taking 50% of the responsibility for funding the health center.

1. It is a shift of tax burden from the federal income tax (which is going down) to the property tax (which is going up).
2. It may be good for schools to provide health services, but is it their responsibility? Do they have the expertise? Are we going to expect unpaid school board members to become knowledgeable about public health as well as education?
3. Who will do a better job hiring the appropriate health care providers? The federal gov't? Or the D209 board? If D209 pays 50% of the money you can expect the board majority will hire their cronies instead of the most qualified individuals. Do we want this?

Bob Libka put off discussing the test scores until next month, but he was fundraising for the Proviso East & West bands to go to the Liberty Bowl.

Libka admitted that faculty, other administrators and people in the community contact him to make suggestions about whom to hire. Theresa Kelly pressed him for names. He demured.

Part of the exchange went as follows:

Kelly: Is there rigging?
Libka: That's a good question.

Talking to Libka afterwards:

Libka had a correction for my column on the D209 press conference to announce the new teacher contract. Libka didn't graduate from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He attended for two-years and left. He finished at Concordia.

I asked Libka about the budget deficit and he did have some specifics for cutting expenses. He said the budget office has given him a list of 15 options. He's already cancelled buying a couple vans (saving about $70-80K) and he plans to cut a couple positions in maintenance.

Libka acknowledged forwarding an anonymous letter to board members that included allegations about board members Dr. Charles Flowers. He justified this by saying, "the last couple points had some relevancy to the board." I did not find any of the allegations relevant to Flowers' duties as a board member.

I got a little frustrated with Libka when I asked about hiring. I said it seemed likely that political organizations already have their people in the District 209 system and the insiders are getting jobs for others loyal to the right political team. I asked Libka, if this was the way the system was working was this OK with him. He refused to answer the question.