The Champaign School's proposal to spend $66 million has concerned and frustrated. I'll admit, I am no longer a resident of Champaign, so my voice may be less valid than one from in district. However, I was a resident for the majority of my life, and my 2 school aged kids were pupils at Garden Hills for K-5 and K-2, respectively.

I have experience with the school district and the way it operates. There's a lot of talk about facilities, new schools and improvements. Air conditioning, remodeling, expansion, parking lots. What happened to books? Teacher's raises? Increases in salary or benefits for aides, enrichment specialists, support staff and the myriad other people that touch children's lives on a daily basis in a school setting- those are things I want money allocated for.

Give students the support they really need- strong teachers and well funded classrooms. Quit asking teachers to pay for their own supplies, copies and snacks. Basic needs- like books, teachers, aides and support staff are under funded. "Extras" like ESL, gifted, foreign language, art, music, band, choir and other exploratory learning classes are barely holding steady, or being slashed at an alarming rate. With the focus on No Child Left Behind, the approach to the whole child has drastically diminished.

Kids are no longer "Jane" and "Billy"- they are white, black, Hispanic, male or female. Kids have become statistics. Administrating teaching has become a numbers game. It's no longer about the well rounded student at the end- it's about how well a kid can spout certain piles of information at certain times when it comes to funding issues.

I have serious reservations about millions of dollars of spending on capital improvements after last year' extended contract negotiations with support staff last winter and with teachers this past fall as well.

There were repeated comments from the Champaign School Board concerning budgetary constrictions disallowing even modest cost of living adjustments for the most important assets the schools offer- personnel. It is seriously upsetting that the school board was willing to spend $25,000 per DAY for temporary staff to replace support staff members like bus drivers, lunch room servers and janitors, but not willing to spend $150,000 over 3 years to offer these critical personnel a raise. At $25,000 per day, the cost of temporary staff would overtake the $150,000 cost of raises in less than one week. 260 non salaried employees in the school district averaged $192 per year in raises with the negotiated contract. These employees are worth far more than $192 more a year.

There were many instances in negotiations when the management appeared to be callous, uncaring, and dismissive of the concerns and complaints of the people that directly serve our children. If the goal of educating our children is excellence, every single person involved in their lives need to be valued and treated with dignity. A culture of respect and success for the adults participating in teaching, feeding, transporting and cleaning after our kids can help strengthen and encourage everyone. At least twice I have seen reports that there are seats for an extra strand of children at Garden Hills. My question is quite seriously: Where? The janitor's closet has been transformed into an office for a part time principal/student services director. Three people share a small closet like room for social services.

Storage rooms have been transformed into settings for language therapists, remedial reading instructors and other enrichment staff. Many of the classrooms I saw last year had 25 kids or more. I'll admit that I noticed a very serious drop in the number of students in classrooms for the older grades. 5th grade classrooms were either very well managed or had far fewer students than lower levels. I seriously wonder what implications that has for the middle school Garden Hills is "pooled" to; especially when I heard anecdotal comments of overcrowding in the same grades at other schools that pool to different middle schools. Middle schools and their needs have been almost entirely overlooked in the proposal. How does that serve our kids?

The middle schools are currently overpopulated and overcrowded. There are repeated stories of violence- both among students and escalating against teachers. Several teachers left our middle schools rather than face the very real dangers of instructing at that level. For many children, the middle school years are the most critical in who they become as adults. This age group needs better services- not drastically reduced opportunities to learn new things. I understand "funding" is an issue. Yet again, I take offense at the proposal that teacher's aren't worth it. I appreciate the need for improved facilities. I seriously agree that smaller, older schools need a lot of well designed changes to accommodate today's students and staff.

Dr. Howard and Southside are both overcrowded and need updating. Central is a landlocked school, and there have been more students than room there for 15-20 years. I very much agree that Savoy needs its own grade school. Taking the Savoy demand out of the students vying for seats for South Champaign schools will increase spaces for Champaign children in those schools. Savoy parents have certainly made it clear they don't want busing (who does?) and want a school near them designated as a "priority". Savoy parents have (for the most part) convinced the school board that they have a right to a service that many other students do not get- a neighborhood school. A Savoy school does not serve Unit 4 best- it serves Savoy best. I don't think Champaign should pay for Savoy's needs. I believe that Savoy would be far better served to start its own school district- to assure that Savoy children attend Savoy schools, and to avoid the consent decree issues Champaign faces. Convincing Savoy of that issue may be a difficult thing- but to serve its residents, I believe Savoy needs to provide its own services.

The reservations I have stem mostly from the needs I see children in Unit 4 schools as having. Yes, they need updated schools and modern facilities. Yes, they deserve comfortable settings and equitable environments. Yes, they are entitled to better than they are currently getting. At the same time, these students deserve well funded staff. They deserve teachers, aides, support staff, office personnel, lunch room workers, bus drivers and other vital members of their school environment that are fairly paid and given strong backing by the administration. The parents of these students deserve the knowledge that Unit 4 administrators are being mindful of expenditures.

Parents deserve to know that fee increases for required services (like books and drivers' education) are a reflection of budgetary concerns, and that more spending is not always the answer. I sincerely support better services and facilities for students. I do not do so at the expense of teachers or staff. Unit 4 administrators have done a lot of legwork trying to convince parents that this referendum was put together with a consensus- but building sites have already been set with no local input (until after the fact) and much of this proposal is being treated as a done deal.

Unit 4 deserves more openness and more than just shiny buildings.

Posted by Hoov on March 16, 2006 at 2:58 PM Suggest Removal

By law, referendum money of this sort can only be spent on construction, not staffing. So while the staffing and fee issues you mention are important, solutions to those problems come through the school board and cannot be directly addressed by the referendum.

However, the referendum does indirectly address these issues in an important way. Currently, the Unit 4 district is required by the terms of the Consent Decree to spend between $1.5 million and $2 million per year to cover all legal and consulting fees

related to the decree. That's $2 million per year that isn't going to staffing and other important district priorities.

Until the Consent Decree is lifted, the district will have to continue diverting this money to legal fees instead of spending it on educating our children.

The Consent Decree cannot be lifted until 2 sets of new K-5th classrooms are built north of University Avenue. The referendum, if it passes, would do precisely this. If the referendum does not pass, the district will be forced to continue spending those millions on lawyer's fees.

The district has made substanial progress on all areas of the Consent Decree but one. Test scores are up, and the achievement gap is down. The main impediment that remains before the Decree can be lifted is the construction of new classroom space.

Please vote yes on the referendum this Tuesday. For more information, visit www.u4excellence.org

Posted by u4excellence on March 17, 2006 at 10:48 AM Suggest Removal