Looks Like Kurt Schneider's "On the Side" Symposium was attended by Six Administrators at D181 Taxpayers' Expense

Below is a Comment that we just published from "Outraged D181 Taxpayer."  It is also posted as a comment to "Series Part 2: A Critical Analysis of the "Doctors" at the helm of D181...The Assistant Superintendent of Learning (Student Services) -- Kurt Schneider."  We agree with the concerns raised by Outraged D181 Taxpayer and will listen tonight to the D181 Meeting live stream to see if this "expense" is discussed by the Board.  We will follow up later this week with any additional information we learn.  In the meantime, we did look at Board Docs ourselves and found the Board Questions referenced.  Click to open Board Questions.  We also found the Checks that the Board are being asked to approve.  Click to open Checks up for Board approval.

Comment from "Outraged D181 Taxpayer:"

Anonymous said...

Hi Bloggers: Hope you are going to listen to tonight's Board Meeting and will consider investigating and publishing a follow up post that addresses the following. Checked out Board Docs for tonight's meeting and happened upon "board member" questions, concerning the expense checks the board is supposed to approve at tonight's meeting. I couldn't believe what I saw. It appears there is some potentially shady stuff going on in this district. The board is being asked to approve a check to the University of Milwaukee in the amount of $2,760 for Administrative Professional Development. Looks like this expense caught the attention of Board Members Heneghan and Garg who asked what it was for and if there were any other related expenses. The answer was really disturbing. According to the "administration's" answer to their question, the following administrators all drove up for a week -- at the D181 taxpayers' expense-- to listen to "Dr." Schneider toot his own horn and present on his, Capper and Frattura's ideas about "social justice" and the ICS Model the bloggers have talked about in this post -- Series 2: Dawn Benaitis, Christine Igoe, Kevin Russell, Casey Godfrey, Eric Chisausky and Justin Horne. And more expenses -- for lodging and travel (and probably meals) -- are all still going to be submitted by these 6 administrators.

What's more, while Board Member Heneghan asked the administration to post or show him the materials the administrators received while attending the conference, the answer was that these materials are copyrighted and cannot be publicly posted!

I hope the bloggers -- Concerned Parents -- are as enraged as I was to see this. First, Isn't it an ethical violation

by Dr. Schneider to present at a conference that he is paid for by University of Milwaukee -- obviously with attendee "registration fees" -- and then require his colleagues to PAY TO LEARN what he is teaching? Why couldn't he, or didn't he, present this information to the entire D181 administrative staff FOR FREE???? Why is our D181 tax $ being spent on this kind of "Social Justice" Institute. The "answer" tries to suggest that the topics covered by the Institute are relevant to our administrators because the title of the Institute includes the words "High Achieving Schools" but if you've read up on Capper and Frattura's research, it is plain as day that they are concerned with demographically poor, underachieving districts.

As for not letting anyone in the community, let alone the Board Members, see the "materials" the administrators were given -- paid for by D181 taxpayers!! -- that is unbelievable. So what if the materials are copyrighted. Copyright law doesn't prevent the materials from being shared internally by other D181 staff. If so, then I guess only the principals who attended the Institute will be able to read this material and can't share it with the 6 other principals in D181. And if a board member wants to see materials essentially purchased with tax payer $, why can't they? In fact, why aren't these materials (since there are at least 7 sets in D181 -- the participants who attended and Dr. Schneider's) kept in the Hinsdale library or one of the D181 school libraries for community members to look at, should they choose to?

Lots of questions to ask and hopefully lots of answers to be given. Bloggers, have at it!

Outraged D181 Taxpayer