PEORIA -- Abuse of the Freedom of Information Act by Peoria School District 150 dominated the comments at the Nov. 14 School Board meeting.
The district has stonewalled retired teacher and District Watchgroup member Sharon Crews on something as seemingly noncontroversial as textbook purchases. It wrongly labeled her a "recurrent requester" of information, which allows it to take longer to fulfill a request. Then it recently responded without the complete information she asked for, in August.
What's going on? Could it be that Crews has unearthed an interesting conflict of interest that the district hopes to keep secret?
She discovered that a Dr. Owen Roberts did a free "audit" of the district, which then was used to justify purchasing textbooks from the publisher that he's a consultant for, Houghton Mifflin. When she asked for his 65 page report, the district withheld it, and amazingly the Illinois Attorney General's office has agreed.
"The details of the relationship between the very large book order from Houghton Mifflin and the free audit done for District 150, also, remains your secret," she wrote.
So much for the Illinois Attorney General's propaganda about the Freedom of Information Act. (It did determine that Crews is not a 'recurrent requester." )
What tha??? This cries out for an impartial court review! Any lawyers out there interested in doing the taxpayers of Peoria a favor by finding out the truth about $1 million in textbooks purchases? Apparently without competitive bidding?
Read the report Crews presented to the school board below.
Watchgroup member Terry Knapp, a retired teacher and former teacher union president, pointed out that not so long ago, teachers sat on the committee that determined which textbooks to buy. The process lasted almost a year, and involved checking the textbooks for many aspects, including whether they met Illinois state standards. Now, the administrators buy the books, apparently without bidding for them, and apparently without ever having taught science, in the instance of science books, he said.
Knapp challenged the board and administration to provide information on other textbook bids. Supt. Grenita Lathan did not respond to his challenge, during her remarks following the public comments.It appears there were no other bids
Knapp also blamed the district's out of town lawyers for harassing Crews, and said the district should not pay them when they deliver results in error. "If they give you bad information, they should be fired," he said.
Teacher union president Bob Darling departed from his usual praise of the administration to warn the board that teachers are stressed and already burned out from many new 'initiatives' from the Lathan administration, and that teacher turnover is already occurring.
Lathan's response: the district's curriculum director has taught science, and teachers are working under "a high level of expections" this year. "Things have changed so we are asking people to give their all," she said.
Here's the audio of the public comments:
-- Elaine Hopkins
Here is the information from Crews:
On August 8, I sent my first FOIA, asking for data about all new texts and instructional materials. Twenty-three business days later, I received information about Thinking Maps for Peoria High and primary schools. However, I received no data about Thinking Maps for Manual, Richwoods, and all middle schools and no data about the Houghton Mifflin order. Yet, I have since learned, that all of these texts were shipped by July 20—well before the September 2 response to my August 8 FOIA. By the way, I had agreed to the extension.
The data in response to my September 28 FOIA brings the Thinking Map total to about $94,000 for the notebooks, $5,730 for shipping, and almost $17,000 for the seminar speakers from North Carolina—for a grand total of $116,143. All that money but no student texts in the order. Eight very dull-looking Thinking Map posters occupied too much valuable wall space in all 3 classrooms I visited today at Whittier. It’s overpriced overkill.
In my September 28 FOIA I also requested information about materials purchased from Scientific Resource Associates because I had read on the District website that the District was “implementing Scientific Resource Associates and you don’t send those materials until the students are assessed.” Was I wrong to infer that materials had been purchased from such a company? Anyway, the FOIA response said there is no information about such purchases. What materials are being implemented and what is their cost?
From the beginning, I have wanted information about the texts purchased from Houghton Mifflin. Asking for information about all textbook purchases was evidently not specific enough, so in the second FOIA I asked for information about the Houghton Mifflin social studies books.
The October 5 FOIA response did give me the titles and quantities of these books and even the same information about Houghton Mifflin science texts. The FOIA response stated that all the requested information had been sent, but the requested cost, order dates, and shipping dates were not provided.
Tired of getting the runaround, I turned the matter over to the Attorney General’s office. Thanks to Matthew Rogina from that office, I received the missing data within about two hours after his phone call to me and his subsequent phone calls to District 150.
I have finally learned that the Houghton Mifflin high school social studies texts cost $236,815.50 plus almost $13,000 more for social studies books from Pearson. Over 1,700 books purchased from Superior Text weren’t ordered until September 23—that must account for some of the problems teachers experienced this year. The total for about 5,900 textbooks and instructional materials is $448,312.00.
However, information about the cost of over 2100 Houghton Mifflin science texts and the order for ScienceFusion Houghton Mifflin texts is pending from a FOIA whose response is being delayed because of my alleged recurrent requester status.
Mr. Rogina from the Attorney General’s office to whom I spoke is, also, in charge of resolving the issue of my recurrent requester status. He had already rendered a decision and told me that I should never have been so considered and that he would verbally relay that information to the District 150 lawyer immediately. I trust that has occurred. However, he did say that I was free to call him if that matter hasn’t been resolved.
Harassing me as an individual isn’t all that important, but District 150’s seeming desire to thwart the FOIA law is more serious.
The Attorney General has closed the books on the matter of Dr. Owen Roberts and his relationship to the Houghton Mifflin orders. District 150 did not have to reveal the contents of any of the 65 pages of preliminary written discussion about the audit done by Dr. Roberts.
I understand that decision, but I certainly hope that all of you board members were allowed to read those 65 pages. The details of the relationship between the very large book order from Houghton Mifflin and the free audit done for District 150, also, remains your secret.
Was it wise to purchase almost a million dollars worth of instructional materials at this time? I guess you thought so.
-- Sharon Crews
Here's an online file of the textbook information, so far.
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