The new paroxysm in our school district: now the administration plans to turn Yankee Ridge (OK, there is a contender, Thomas Paine) elementary school into the Spanish Dual Language one. This would reduce the total number of regular, “neighborhood” elementary schools in the district from 6 to 4, over just two years. To say this […]
Two items on the December 5’th agenda of the USD116 Board caught my attention. Item One: The IGW Architecture presents their Concept-Plan of turning Wiley into the Sixth Grade Center. Here are the basic numbers: They plan to spend essentially all of the $25 million Dr. Ivory-Tatum is borrowing (on our behalf, to be returned
This year’s Illinois School Board of Education report cards for the schools in Urbana School District are released, and the results are even worse than last year. But at least this year we are sort of paying attention, – although it still remains to be seen, if our Board of Education does. It should be
During the couple of years that I followed the happenings in the Urbana School District, I kept marveling at the success rate of the administration. With one notable exception, they invariably got what they wanted. Want to hire a bozo principal? sure, why not. Fire him, not two years in, for encroaching on the boss’
This post is a quick summary of what the USD116 “Facilities Committee” achieved up to now, and what its actions would mean for the district in the future. TL;DR: it will affect all of us, and not in a good way. The administration and staff on the committee want the Wiley building for a 6th
what Wiley closure would mean to the rest of the district Read More »
The newly convened Urbana School District Facilities Committee, presented as the ultimate decision-making body in the casus Wiley, – an egregious attempt to disband a successful majority-minority elementary school, – had its second meeting on May 9th. A few patterns came into focus, all familiar. One is the administration’s reliance on raw power: the voting
agendas and manipulations Read More »
This post is a popularization of a (pretty well known) theorem by Richard McKelvey on agenda manipulation. This is a work of fiction, a fable, having nothing to do, whatsoever, with the real people or real events, whether in USD116 or outside of it. In a quiet Midwestern town, a school district looks for a
McKelvey’s theorem and facility choice Read More »
This happened on November 11 last year. A friend’s kid attending Yankee Ridge Elementary was pulled out of a classroom activity dedicated to Veterans Day and sent to the office to do some unrelated work instead. Why? The voicemail left on the parent’s phone explained that they think the parents don’t want the kid celebrating
antisemitism, inclusive edition Read More »
On February 17, families of the Urbana High School kids were hit by the email: The inability to say in plain text what this all is about brings on sweet memories of Pravda accounts on Politbureau reshuffles. Let’s do a bit of Kremlinology, and try to decipher what is going on here. It is pretty
bizarre case of fresh principal Nance Read More »
Note: I contacted the Board and the Superintendent asking for comments or objections to this post. They did not provide any. So, now Wiley. Two months after the district managed to avoid turning Leal school into a dual language castillo, the administration is at it again, with all the attendant drama. I will bracket out