PEORIA -- Peoria District 150 School Superintendent Grenita Lathan was the guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Peoria Area League of Women Voters on May 19.
Lathan's update on various new programs in the district included:
- Some early childhood classrooms are to be sacrificed to fund counselors at the middle schools.
- All eighth graders will be taking algebra, and some seventh graders will study it, with the program to be expanded to all seventh graders soon.
- Ninth graders will receive transitions programming to help them adjust to high school, with fifth graders receiving transition services to help them adjust to middle school.
- The district is applying to extend the IB program to middle schools.
- Woodruff High School will be used as a career and tech center and alternative school.
- A mobile family resource center will reach out to help families and students with immunizations, computer access and the like.
- A parent university at Harrison, Glen Oak and Richwoods High School will help parents learn how to help their children with reading, math and science projects.
- Graduation requirements will be extended.
During the question and answer session, Lathan said the district will seek volunteers for various programs. Asked about early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, she responded that 100 high school students are pregnant, with some having a second child. "We are open to discussing" moving beyond abstinence, she said. But her remarks on this subject were somewhat vague.
Asked about testing, she said students "need a well rounded curriculum. You can't just teach to the test. We will follow the Illinois learning standards."
Asked about teacher tenure, she said teachers who are laid off can be called back without regard to tenure. Instead they will be called back "based on performance," she said.
A longer school day "is still on the table," she said, but nothing has been decided. A new social studies curriculum for grades 6-12 will provide better information on voting and government, she said. The Edison model will not be replicated, she said, but all teachers will receive professional development opportunities.
I asked Lathan if she had any evidence that moving administrators and teachers around in the district, as had been done recently, would improve student learning. She responded that the goal is not to "create chaos." Instead, people wanted "different opportunities," she said.
My take on the meeting: Lathan made a good impression, but her answers were vague. She admitted that early childhood classes are being cut to pay for middle school counselors only after League member Jan Deissler pinned her down, politely, on the issue.
And of course, moving around teachers and administrators was not to give people new opportunites, and many resent being uprooted from communities they know and have built up to go into unfamiliar situations.
Here's an audio recording of her talk.
-- Elaine Hopkins
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