District 65 Secretly Suspends Superintendent Residency Requirement
A week later, the contract for Dr. Angel Turner is available to the public and the residency requirement is dubiously waived
Update 7:10pm: I made a small change with the exact language from the contract regarding the residency requirement, including the typo in the language.
The Board voted on Dr. Angel Turner as the new Superintendent a week ago, and thanks to FOIA, I finally have a copy of the new Superintendent’s contract. This is unusual, almost every other school district I can find at makes these contracts available in the meeting agenda for public inspection. Consider when Oswego hired Dr. Khelghati from District 651 as their new Superintendent last summer, the District 308 board made the contract available to the public at the time of the vote.
Whether it was the meeting last Friday to terminate the sustainability position or the meeting to approve the Superintendent contract, the District 65 Board appears to pick and choose which documents to make available to the public before the meeting and which have to be FOIA’ed. In this case, as with Dr. Horton, they did not to share the contract with the public prior to their vote.
Anyway, here’s what the contract says;
Salary: $250,000 annual salary starting in the 2024-2025 contract year
TRS/THIS Contributions: The Board will pick up and pay the Superintendent's entire contribution to the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) and the Teachers' Health Insurance Security (THIS) fund (Section 6A).
Professional Memberships and Meetings: The Board will pay dues for Illinois Association of School Administrators, American Association of School Administrators, and costs to attend professional meetings (Section 6E).
Work Equipment and Stipend: A laptop, mobile phone service, and a $100 monthly stipend for business use of personal mobile phone (Section 6G).
The salary is inline with prior salaries paid to District 65 Superintendents and less than Dr. Horton and Dr. Goren were making in their final years as Superintendent.
Residency Requirement Waived
The board waived the residency requirement in the contract, instead of modifying the language in the Board Policy (3:40) which requires residency.
The language in Dr. Turner’s contract states;2
In lieu of residency in the District, which Board policy requirement the Board suspends pursuant to the Board's authority under Board policy 2:240, be a presence as a leader in the community. (This may mean the Superintendent and the Board prioritize the community engagements the Superintendent should be present for, and those where she can send a representative on her behalf.) The Board
The Board policy they mention (2:240) says the following;
The Board, by a majority vote of members present at any meeting, may temporarily suspend a Board policy not established by law or contract. The failure to suspend with a specific motion does not invalidate the Board action.
Presumably this means that the Board either
Had the vote in closed session or;3
Is considering the approval of the contract as a vote to temporarily suspend this policy.
In either case, I believe this is a violation of the Open Meetings Act. In the first case, the City of Evanston did something just the other week - they took final action in closed session and the IL Attorney General ruled they violated section 2(e).
(e) Final action. No final action may be taken at a closed meeting. Final action shall be preceded by a public recital of the nature of the matter being considered and other information that will inform the public of the business being conducted.
In the second case, if the Board is considering the approval of the contract as the same as approving a temporary change in the policy, that is is not what Policy 2:240 says, which is that they have to vote on the temporary suspension, which was not enumerated in the agenda for the meeting and there was no such public recital. In fact, as I’ve said, the copy of the contract wasn’t available to the public before or during the meeting - I had to FOIA a copy.
If you look at the agenda, it says Approval of Contract and does not enumerate that the board is also voting to suspend the board policy on residency.
If nothing else, this violates the spirit of the Open Meetings Act, especially considering the Board discussed this topic in public before. This is a topic that people really care about and the Board omitted all public discussion. J
Just as a practical manner, and this is my opinion - this is pretty shitty - people really care about this subject and the Board gave the community absolutely no chance to discuss. It’s hard not to feel like the School Board just absolutely disdains the very people who elected them. I asked the following to the District on 3/19;
Did the board change the policy 3:40 regarding whether the superintendent has to live in the District? Or is Dr. Turner relocating to Evanston? Hopefully the latter, Evanston is a lovely place to live.
They still haven’t responded to me.
Recall that Dr. Horton was compensated for this hire.
Note: it is actually cut off in the end with “The Board” in the actual contract, I have copied verbatim.
There is an exemption in the Open Meetings Act for “the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity.” but there is no exemption for voting to temporarily suspend board policy.
Interesting that D65 board continues to hold public at bay. Grateful for your sleuthing. There should be a running record of board missteps; maybe that will move voters to remove current board.
D65 board stopped caring about violating the OMA years ago. They have no idea what their job is and never seem to get in trouble when they don't follow the law so why stop violating it? Honestly, at this point, it's so egregious that Evanston voters should be to blame. Look at the recent pic of the board in Evanston Now article - Joey and Omar and wearing hoodies is as Biz with her normal baseball hat. I can't imagine attending a board meeting looking like I just left a high school baseball game. These people could care less about rules, decorum and responsibility. They think Evanston voters gave them carte blanche to do whatever they want, most of which they probably don't have authority to actually do. Nightmare!