From today's News-Gazette:
The biggest challenge for Champaign school Superintendent Arthur Culver in the next year or so will be to see the district's consent decree come to a successful conclusion.
That was a priority for the Champaign school board when they evaluated Culver in closed session Monday night.
The board discussed with Culver both the things they felt were going well in the district and those areas where they want to see improvement.
"Making sure this last year of the consent decree, we really continue to ... satisfactorily meet the goals that were laid out ... We see that as a big issue in the next year and a half to complete that, and probably the biggest thing facing the district," said board President Dave Tomlinson.
Discuss.
That statement is a big reason why Unit 4 is never going to improve.
In other words, now that we've set ourselves back 20 paces, we'll cheer when we get 15 of those paces back. (Never mind how far we could have gone if we hadn't gone backward 20 paces; that's for someone else to worry about.)
This board is no better than previous groups. Based on yesterday's NG article, it's also going to drop the ball on needed improvements at Garden Hills.
If they ever remake Land of the Lost, Unit 4 should star in it.
Kindly tell us what needed improvements at Garden Hills aren't going to get done. Air conditioning is going to be added to this school, but there's been no announcement about new windows or insulation, so I have to wonder about overall energy effieciency of their plan.
A member of the school board announced that it had been decided that Garden Hills would serve as a test site for performance contracting. I'ld like to know what meeting the board jumped from ROQ (Request for Qualifications) to deciding we were going to do this and what schools it was going to occur at. I'm not aware this discussion was on any board agenda that I've looked at over the last 6 months. From where I sit, it seems that there has been some active skirting of the Open Meetings Act, if not an outright violation of it.
Perhaps Mr. Tomlinson or Mr. Novak would care to comment...
Greg Novak here
Second things first.
On Garden Hills several claifications need to be made
Kristine Chalifoux our board "point" person on facilities has been working with a number of local experts on energy savings to look at which buildings would be best suited to servng as testbeds prior to writing the ROQ (Request for Qualifications). At the moment Garden Hills and Centennial appear to be the front runners - Centennial as it has the worst possible system for heating and cooling - (Remember when IP told us electric power would be so cheap that they would have to pay us to use it). Many of our buildings need work, so its a question of deciding where to get the best results as we start up the process of doing Energy Audits and Performance Review
Kristine wants us to look at the use of heat pumps as well as installing new windows and better insulation at Garden Hills - so its not just a case of air conditioning the building - in fact the proposed air conditioning is a by product of addressing the energy issues so its not just a case of installing some window air conditioners. The use of heat pumps requires the school to have some land around - so there are a limited number of schools that can be used as test beds. I know the group considered other sites and Kristine was planning to bring a recomendation back to the Board next month for action this summer
What happened here is that we had two different groups operating on seperate issues - the joint city-park district-Unit 4 collaboration on the Garden Hills area - and the group operating under Kristine looking at energy savings. The people working on the Garden Hills project are not the same group what would be working ion infrastructur.
I am extremely happy to see Unit Four working with the City of Champaign and the Champaign Park District on addressing community issues - this is what the school district needs to do more of - the district is providing facilities and some staff - the Park District is providing program and staff - and the city will be providing some funding - instead of each of us doing their own thing. When I ran for office I expressed a public concern that the School District had divorced itself from the community and was out there on its own. This to me is a step in the right direction.
I need to go back to work - break is over up here at the ROE - will address part I hopefully over lunch
Have a great day
"(Remember when IP told us electric power would be so cheap that they would have to pay us to use it)."
Referring to Illinois Power, not IlliniPundit, of course.
Maybe I need new initials. ;-)
That whole post about Garden Hills illustrates the problem. Two different groups working -- OK, that can happen. But then the "solution" proposed, at least according to the NG, was "Well, maybe we won't go ahead with the improvements." That makes no sense. The post clarifies little, other than showing the board is way behind where it should be. It's still doing studies when it should be going ahead with a plan. It's almost March, and the whole thing sounds hopelessly up in the air. Probably doesn't matter to the board, though. After all, most of the cash is not their money, and they don't have to spend much time in the buildings.
What funding is the City providing? Is this something that comes from their Block Grant funds, or general revenue?
block grants. school district is kicking in some cash; majority is in-kind donation of use of building. I think the park district may be building this into their budget.