Joey needs to go. Why the heck is he taking about hopes and dreams and models of schooling? This is whack. We have an existing district basically destroyed by the very people who are going to “reimagine” it? Newsflash - you have aging buildings that are literally falling apart with not enough kids to fill schools. Because you don’t focus on actual education. Oh, and you have no money bc you wasted it and are recklessly building a new school at the wrong time and using more funds than you have. But let’s spend a lot of time on theory. Vote these people out!
Oh come on. You have to give the board members and the Executive Superintendent for Communications an A ++ for their ability to “obfuscate “ that is render everything unintelligible
Just keep on ordering those Panera Bread bowls. Nothing builds community quite like breaking bread on the taxpayer’s dime. And really when you are looking at closing at least 3 schools what’s another 130k?
Just make sure you keep the public out of it. You want their taxpayer dollars—-not their opinions.
That number over the last 10 years on food is probably around $1 million dollars. It predates Horton and goes back to Hardy Murphy days. No other local government does that, it's baffling to me.
Oh to be a fly on the wall in the board room. How difficult would it be to fund a maintenance worker to put a wee nannycam somewhere with a good view and in sound range, I wonder? We need to go Wikileaks on this Board. And more people need to share this information with the “mainstream” Evanston media, aka EN and RoundTable. Tom, you need a larger audience. This is important stuff. We need candidates. Even if you know someone with no education industry experience, we need people to run. I know there is financial backing and volunteers at the ready to help with campaigns. There is a lot of dissent here in these comments.
Thanks for staying on top of this, Mr. Hayden. This decline in reserves is worrisome. Difficult not to blame the board because of its lack of oversight on this and other large expenditures.
They’re all fraudsters. They act like they’re not beholden to anyone/anything —because they know our community is disengaged, zombie-like. I have little hope anything will change. They’ll destroy the school district, act all shocked along the way, refuse to be transparent, grift & hoard power…in the meantime, 100s of kids will be sent off to ETHS woefully underprepared and failed by this community. This is getting to the point of grotesque. And yet….no one seems to care. But —yeah…Yay, new school.
Broken record here, but the Board has hired two superintendents in a row with no experience running a district.
If I remember correctly financial management was one of the top traits the public asked for in one of their BS ‘public input sessions’ for the last hire.
Of course that was obviously ignored when they hired another inexperienced hand and leftover from the last inexperienced admin.
I thought it was interesting when Hailpern brought up the transparency issue/putting meetings on YouTube that he was met by complete silence from the remaining board members. Guess I have to give him props for even mentioning it
What can we do to push for a transparent, open and not predetermined outcome for SAP 3? This is ridiculous. They're playing with children's lives, they can at least have the decency and stomach to do it in the open with ALL options on the table.
Thank you for another informative update on our school district. It just gets more and more infuriating. I vote. I voted NO in the 2017 referendum because I knew (even before Horton came) that if you give the school district more money, it is going to get abused. More money, more problems, and here we are. I vote for alternative candidates in school board elections but they don’t win. At this point the only thing that’s going to stop the current administration and BOE powerhouse is a full blown, January 6th style insurrection where we the people storm into the JEH building and sit at their desks and take over their jobs. But if there’s anything I learned from January 6th, it’s that you can go to jail for that; so we wouldn’t really do it, and we are powerless it seems.
They get to take our money not only in the form of taxes, but student fees. In the email from D65 today, August 7th, they joyfully let us know that we don’t need to purchase any back to school supplies because supplies are included in annual school fees, which is $50 per student if you don’t get free or reduced lunch. They did this last year too and despite paying it, both my kids’ teachers still had supply requests that they asked parents for. I do not blame the teachers at all. This simply tells me that what the district gave them didn’t meet the needs of their classroom and students. So what does the district give teachers in terms of school supplies? Why did my older child complain she never had decent markers in her classroom and bring her own from home? Do they give teachers a say in what they want or need? Do they replenish supplies for them throughout the year? Markers wear out, glue sticks get used up and things continually need to be laminated. I would love to hear from D65 teachers on this as well as find out how every penny of these school supply fees are used. If they’re going to make us pay, they need to be transparent about where the money is going. I want to see their bulk school supply orders, and I want to know what was given to which classrooms and when.
Joey needs to go. Why the heck is he taking about hopes and dreams and models of schooling? This is whack. We have an existing district basically destroyed by the very people who are going to “reimagine” it? Newsflash - you have aging buildings that are literally falling apart with not enough kids to fill schools. Because you don’t focus on actual education. Oh, and you have no money bc you wasted it and are recklessly building a new school at the wrong time and using more funds than you have. But let’s spend a lot of time on theory. Vote these people out!
Oh come on. You have to give the board members and the Executive Superintendent for Communications an A ++ for their ability to “obfuscate “ that is render everything unintelligible
Just keep on ordering those Panera Bread bowls. Nothing builds community quite like breaking bread on the taxpayer’s dime. And really when you are looking at closing at least 3 schools what’s another 130k?
Just make sure you keep the public out of it. You want their taxpayer dollars—-not their opinions.
That number over the last 10 years on food is probably around $1 million dollars. It predates Horton and goes back to Hardy Murphy days. No other local government does that, it's baffling to me.
Oh to be a fly on the wall in the board room. How difficult would it be to fund a maintenance worker to put a wee nannycam somewhere with a good view and in sound range, I wonder? We need to go Wikileaks on this Board. And more people need to share this information with the “mainstream” Evanston media, aka EN and RoundTable. Tom, you need a larger audience. This is important stuff. We need candidates. Even if you know someone with no education industry experience, we need people to run. I know there is financial backing and volunteers at the ready to help with campaigns. There is a lot of dissent here in these comments.
Thanks for staying on top of this, Mr. Hayden. This decline in reserves is worrisome. Difficult not to blame the board because of its lack of oversight on this and other large expenditures.
Literally their #1 job is financial oversight - buck stops with them absolutely!!
I recall that some board members claimed they were lied to about the new school's costs. Too bad. It's still on them.
They hired the person who lied to them and then let him escape with no consequences.
Yup, not only no consequences, they gave him a $10,000 discount on his fees when he failed to make payments!
And then in the subsequent hire failed to prioritize experience and financial management by hiring the last guy’s protégée in secret!
It’s always like it’s the first time they are hearing the news.
They’re all fraudsters. They act like they’re not beholden to anyone/anything —because they know our community is disengaged, zombie-like. I have little hope anything will change. They’ll destroy the school district, act all shocked along the way, refuse to be transparent, grift & hoard power…in the meantime, 100s of kids will be sent off to ETHS woefully underprepared and failed by this community. This is getting to the point of grotesque. And yet….no one seems to care. But —yeah…Yay, new school.
Broken record here, but the Board has hired two superintendents in a row with no experience running a district.
If I remember correctly financial management was one of the top traits the public asked for in one of their BS ‘public input sessions’ for the last hire.
Of course that was obviously ignored when they hired another inexperienced hand and leftover from the last inexperienced admin.
I thought it was interesting when Hailpern brought up the transparency issue/putting meetings on YouTube that he was met by complete silence from the remaining board members. Guess I have to give him props for even mentioning it
Totally. I just dont understand why they are so opposed to it? These rules like OMA are designed to protect *the board*
What can we do to push for a transparent, open and not predetermined outcome for SAP 3? This is ridiculous. They're playing with children's lives, they can at least have the decency and stomach to do it in the open with ALL options on the table.
Write to the board to complain!
It’s so hard to come up with “a great budget” when you’re busy eating 100K worth of Panera.
Thank you for another informative update on our school district. It just gets more and more infuriating. I vote. I voted NO in the 2017 referendum because I knew (even before Horton came) that if you give the school district more money, it is going to get abused. More money, more problems, and here we are. I vote for alternative candidates in school board elections but they don’t win. At this point the only thing that’s going to stop the current administration and BOE powerhouse is a full blown, January 6th style insurrection where we the people storm into the JEH building and sit at their desks and take over their jobs. But if there’s anything I learned from January 6th, it’s that you can go to jail for that; so we wouldn’t really do it, and we are powerless it seems.
They get to take our money not only in the form of taxes, but student fees. In the email from D65 today, August 7th, they joyfully let us know that we don’t need to purchase any back to school supplies because supplies are included in annual school fees, which is $50 per student if you don’t get free or reduced lunch. They did this last year too and despite paying it, both my kids’ teachers still had supply requests that they asked parents for. I do not blame the teachers at all. This simply tells me that what the district gave them didn’t meet the needs of their classroom and students. So what does the district give teachers in terms of school supplies? Why did my older child complain she never had decent markers in her classroom and bring her own from home? Do they give teachers a say in what they want or need? Do they replenish supplies for them throughout the year? Markers wear out, glue sticks get used up and things continually need to be laminated. I would love to hear from D65 teachers on this as well as find out how every penny of these school supply fees are used. If they’re going to make us pay, they need to be transparent about where the money is going. I want to see their bulk school supply orders, and I want to know what was given to which classrooms and when.