District 209 ad hoc committee meeting notes

Notes from meeting of District 209 grumblers, as compiled by Tawana Jones and sent out by Bill Kirchner.

Proviso Township High School District 209
Community Meeting Minutes
August 8, 2007

Attendees: This meeting was represented by several members of the community from educators, taxpayers, village officials and Press.

Summary:
The group is considering calling themselves the Proviso Township High School District 209 Watch Group. The goal of the watch group is to ensure our children are receiving the best education possible at the highest quality. The concerned citizens broke out into several work groups to collaborate on their concerns and recommendations. These ideas were prioritized within each individual work group and only the items that gained consensus within each group was present to the group at large.

The attendees expressed many reasons why they were present and the below list depicts the various reasons:
• Board is corrupt
• How to change reoccurring issues?
• Poorly ran
• Concerned and trying to gather facts
• Most poorly ran school system
• Cease unfair Hiring and Firing
• Dads Program
• Get parents involved
• Interest in improving schools
• Misappropriation of tax funds
• Paying three Supertindent’s for one Job
• Lack of patience to allow leadership to make effective changes
• Lack of information sharing by Board supporting their actions; secretive, i.e. budget
• Board failure to abide by the Boards Rules and Regulations, i.e. evaluations, Open Meeting Act
• Previously terminated Supertindent was placed back in charge


August 20, 2007 Board Meeting Objectives
• The concerned citizens objectives at the next board meeting is to have three representatives to address the Board on behalf of the citizens
• Develop three pungent questions and points to present at the Board meeting
• Address the Board agenda being community friendly, i.e. violation of open meetings act
• Ensure a huge presence. Each concerned citizen should bring 6 individuals with them to the Board meeting for support
• Invite neighbors, the Press, ministers and distribute flyers to recruit audience
• Obtain more information on the release of Stan Fields
• Be civil vs. strident
• Request a copy of the audit being performed
• Board lack of review of the Board Code of Conduct
• Recommend a Review process by which the Board self-evaluates annually and share the results with the public; Accountability
• Allow leadership the opportunity to make changes
• Get all 209 schools involved
• Bring all affect communities together
• Consider obtaining advice from legal consultant to achieve solution to issues
• Fund Raise
• Volunteers to organize and develop information gathering efforts
• Consider ways to get an effective Board