Saturday, July 11, 2015

Dr. White's Silence to the General Public -- Parents and Taxpayers -- Continues Regarding His Plans to Reorganize the Central Office Administrative Staff

Board Docs for Monday's "Special Board Meeting" are now available online, including the agenda and related documents.  Click to open Meeting Agenda.  As of 1:00 p.m. Monday afternoon, there is absolutely nothing on the agenda that reflects the information Dr. White sent to the D181 staff last Thursday regarding his plans to split the Assistant Superintendent of Learning position Dr. Schneider currently holds into two positions, moving Schneider into 1/2 of the role with the new title of Assistant Superintendent of Learning (PPS) and beginning the search for a new Assistant Superintendent of Learning (Curriculum and Instruction).  (Be sure to read our last two posts:  Click to open July 9, 2015 Post and click to open July 10, 2015 Post.)

No Superintendent's report.

No Department of Human Resources report informing the community what steps will be taken and what timeline will be followed to hire a new Assistant Superintendent of Learning (Curriculum and Instruction).

No Job Description for the Assistant Superintendent of Learning (Curriculum and Instruction).

Nothing + Nada + Zippo = ZERO TRANSPARENCY.

Again.

Parents and all Taxpayers have a right to know what will be discussed at board meetings. Creation of a new administrative position (reasons why it is necessary, what it will cost taxpayers, etc) are not matters that can be discussed only by the BOE in executive session. These matters are all open meeting agenda items. If the BOE is only discussing them behind closed doors, they are violating the Open Meetingts Act. Parents and all Taxpayers WHO PAY ALL ADMINISTRATIVE SALARIES have a right to know when yet another round of Central Office Administrator reorganization is about to take place. Parents and all Taxpayers have a right to know why suddenly someone who is losing 1/2 of their job responsibilities just got another RAISE, rather than a pay cut.

All this information requires a superintendent who is transparent. At this point in time, it looks like D181 no longer has one of those.

What a disappointment.





2 comments:

Elm Parent said...

Bloggers: I just listened to the podcast of tonight's meeting. Hope you write about it tomorrow. The meeting was only 24 minutes long and proved that transparency is dead in D181. Sure, White gave a 30 second blurb about his plans to reorganize the central office -- again -- but no discussion of the timeline for hiring a new Asst. Sup. of Learning (Curriculum and Instruction). No discussion about why Schneider got a raise a month ago and now is getting to keep his high salary while his job responsibilities are being cut in half. No public mention of the Lane Principal, even though shortly after the meeting the personnel consent agenda was posted and the Director of Communications sent out emails with a press release. What wasn't said in the meeting was "spun" in the press release and what wasn't said during the meeting was buried in the personnel consent agenda. White got a raise. Yup, not kidding. A new fifth grade teacher for Elm was hired. Wonder if it it was the person that a parent made a public comment about at the beginning of the meeting. You definitely need to listen to that public comment. And the Lane Principal was hired.

Bloggers, please try and post all info available about the new Lane principal, the assessment director (who was also mentioned in the press release). While the meeting was held at lightning speed (so the board could get home before the "storm") the new board needs to realize that lack of discussion or public acknowledgment about what they vote on in the personnel consent agenda is not appreciated. They all know (or should) that the majority of people at most will listen to the podcast and not read the board docs to really dig into what they are voting on. Surprising that they didn't publicly announce during the meeting anything about the new Lane principal, just like they didn't publicly discuss the assessment director who was hired last month. What are they afraid of?

Anonymous said...

Looks like the latest administrative hire may have had an edge over other candidates. Was the principal search legitimate or just a "show" to allow White to hire yet another person with a connection to his old district. Granted, the candidate didn't work in Troy 30C with White, but her current boss did and is the person who suggested she apply for both the assessment director and principal position. Hmmmhhh????

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/hinsdale/news/ct-dch-d181-lane-principal-tl-0716-20150714-story.html