McHenry County Blog

It started with the 22-month long contract negotiations between the Prairie Grove Elementary School Board and the Illinois Education Association affiliate called the Prairie Grove Teachers Association.

Word is that there were harsh words during the negotiations until at the end they were brought into the sunlight, so to speak, and the public was allowed to watch what was going on.

Then, a minor disagreement resulted in a strike.

That it was minor is evidenced by strike’s being only one-day.

It was over before I got a chance to go out and take a photo.

Then the IEA Prairie Grove Teachers Association decided to run a slate against the four incumbents.

The candidates backed by the teachers’ union,

• Laura Barker
• John Bowman
• Margaret Ponga
• Rick Salvo

beat the highest vote getter among the incumbents, Laura Domoto, by 38 votes.  All four were elected.

Take a look at the door-to-door campaign piece of the IEA Four:

Sorry for the fuzziness of the copy.  (If anyone sends me a clearer copy, I shall substitute the images.)

19th Century military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of Politik by other means.”

The over six-hour meeting Tuesday night (ending shortly after one AM) certainly demonstrates that if one replaced the word “war” with “meetings” in von Clausewitz’ axiom, not much has changed since the 1800′s.

At the first meeting, the new ruling coalition voted themselves into all of the offices, which were vacated when the incumbents lost.

Elected Board President was Margaret Ponga.

She ran Tuesday night’s marathon meeting.

(Background to the meeting from the now-outsiders’ viewpoint can be found here.)

Read the agenda and you can see why it took over six hours.

Two of the agenda items demonstrate how the teachers’ union exercised its new power in District 46:

7. Approval of the termination of all business with Ottosen Britz Kelly Cooper Gilbert & DiNolfo, Ltd effective May 14, 2013.

8. Appoint Robbins Schwartz as interim counsel to conduct all legal business until such time new legal representation has been decided by the board of education.

But, ironically, the law firm that handled the teacher negotiations fired the Board before the new Board could terminate it.

Nevertheless, the new Board majority insisted on passing a motion to terminate the Ottosen law firm.

Another irony is that the old law firm charged $195 per hour, while the new, interim one charges $235 per hour.

There will be a search for new permanent legal representation.

= = = = =
More tomorrow.

An email from former and just defeated Prairie Grove School District 46 Board  member Laura Domoto about the Tuesday, May 14th, Board meeting.

Dear Friends,

Your child’s education and programming at Prairie Grove Schools are being threatened.

The newly elected board wants to revisit many items that were studied and voted on previously by your board of education.

Things are definitely in jeopardy. If you want to save our school we need your HELP NOW.

Please show up and address the board on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 7pm. [See below for restrictive instructions.]

You cannot sit back and watch our school district spiral down in failure. It is time for you to take action now.

We know what has happened out our neighboring school in Cary and we cannot let that happen here at Prairie Grove.

Attached you will find the agenda for Tuesday, May 14, 2013 Board of Education Meeting.

PLEASE come. You have 3 minutes to speak, and no one can be denied the opportunity to do so. Please speak for the 3 minutes and say what you think. This is a very important day.

PLEASE forward to you friends and if you have questions please feel free to contact me or other current or past board members.

I am going to be frank and not beat around the bush, this agenda is ludicrous.

The newly elected board members have put on the agenda the following items which should be of concern for you:

Visitors in the Lunchroom

We all know that what has happened in our country and Sandy Hook. It is the schools priority to provide a safe place for the students and staff.

Yes, we would love to spend time with our kids at lunch, but the safety of our children is of utmost importance.

Last year the district worked with area police departments to make sure our students were safe while we had two lock downs.

There also were other incidents where administrators had to step in to insure children’s safety.

The administration and past BOE eliminated visitors at lunch to protect our students, but now the new board wants to throw away that decision and make the school an unsafe place for our children.

Their recommendation does include limiting where visitors go, but in order to do so, the district would need to hire additional staff to monitor these visitors. Is this what we should be paying for?

Master Schedule

This new JRHS master schedule has taken the administrative team a year of careful and meticulous research to make sure that the needs of our students are met as we change to ‘common core standards’ and while our enrollments are decreasing.

Many man hours were put into a well planned schedule for our students, and the administration has worked with teachers to set the staffing for next year.

A parent advisory group provided input, and there was a Board meeting that all district parents were invited to where the changes were discussed.

Teachers are working on next years plans, and in some cases have modified the topics they are covering this year to address the upcoming changes.

And now the newly elected board members are the education experts?

They feel that and a different approach should be taken, and that a new committee needs to be formed to address and evaluate this.

I guess if it isn’t the newly elected board members vision, it must be wrong.

I must also say that none of the new board members are certified teachers, or have PhD, or Master’s degrees in education.

New Lawyer

One of the new Board members has been very vocal about her unhappiness with the District’s legal council during the teacher’s contract negotiations.

The lawyer was present, however, to protect the assets of the taxpayers.

The past board feels that there several occasions during negotiations where the law firm saved the district considerable money with their recommendations.

This board member stated that the money spent on legal fees should have instead been given to the teachers.

This board member has now decided that the firm that we had PRIOR to our current law firm, should be hired for a new ‘temporary’ appointment.

This is NOT in the best interest of our district, taxpayers, employees, or students.

We have a contract with the current law firm; they were chosen during a formal bid process.

With this firm our costs have been considerable lower FOR EACH OF THE PAST 4 YEARS than they were with that previous law firm (the one they are suggesting re-hiring!).

The proposal is to hire this law firm without going through a bidding process?

Have rates been determined?

AT WHAT COST TO THE TAXPAYERS?

Who negotiated those rates?

That SHOULD be the job of the Superintendent and Finance Director.

Superintendent

The agenda has a full page of directives for the Superintendent that have not been discussed in public with all the board members.

It is my belief that the new board members are trying to set up the Superintendent for failure, have no understanding that she has a job to do with the school, and are piling up numerous items at once, to make her fail.

The Superintendent has a contract that specifically lists her deliverables for the upcoming school year, so if she spends all her time on these new items, she will not be able to fulfill her contract.

Committee meetings

Several years ago the Board changed committee meetings to be open Committee of the Whole events in the evening where anyone with an interest could voice an opinion.

The Board now wishes to go back to ‘closed committee’ meetings, where the members are appointed by the board and attendance is limited to ‘a chosen few’ attendees.

Finally, at the meeting it will be interesting to notice whether or not the 4 new members come to the meeting already having made decisions related to all of these new items.

If so, how was that done?

Board discussions of district issues need to take place in an open meetings setting; if not, it is a violation of the OPEN MEETINGS ACT.

These board members have not even been on the new board for 1 week and they are making substantial changes that would negatively impact our district and students.

They have not taken any training or learned about our policy and procedures.

They don’t have the slightest understanding of governance or the role of a board member, and they do not understand how a board is supposed to work collaboratively with the administration.

Over the past 10 years while I was on the board, our school’s financial status improved WHOLE our test scores and the quality of our education also increased.

These are all decisions and actions that the new board will try to take on Tuesday that will detrimentally affect our students and our taxpayers.

Please attend the meeting to voice your concerns so that the new board doesn’t start tearing away at all of the decisions that have generated these successes.

Sincerely,

Laura Domoto
District 46 Board of Education Member 2003-2013

= = = = =
The Board must want to discourage people from speaking in public comment, because it has the following rule listed at the bottom of its agenda:

“Any District resident may request time to speak to this Board by notifying Mary Sutfin, Recording Secretary of the Board of Education, prior to 4:00 P.M. on the Monday immediately preceding a regularly scheduled Board meeting or be heard by this Board at this time. The Board asks that comments are held to under 3 minutes and that no personnel names are mentioned and/or individuals by job title.”

= = = = =
Here’s an article about the 2007 elections. Domnoto was Board President when she ran that year.

A teacher about to lose his job spoke to the new school board.

In 2009, the old Board renewed the Superintendent’s contract before the new Board was sworn in. Election results are shown.

Those who attended the contentious Prairie Grove District 46 School Board meeting Tuesday were privileged to hear a heartfelt plea from the junior high school’s technology teacher-coordinator, Tom Bieschke.

After three years of teaching at Prairie Grove he had been sacked after three years at the school and could not understand why.

His performance evaluations had not indicated any “remediation,” that is, specific improvements in his performance, was needed.

All of a sudden, he was just let go.

Mr. Bieschke seemed to me of an age when he might have had entered teaching as a second profession.

For me, this capsulated his dedication to his students:

He talked of Club PGN. I think I have figured out that this is the student newspaper.

He said the club went from 2 to 80 students.

“Last year there were 4 newspapers,” he said.

There were over 20 this year, he revealed.

That sounds like a labor of love to me.

Using a quite understated manner, he introduced himself to the board during the public speaking time.

“I’ve been kind of taken back in the news that the administration does not want to rehire me,” he explained.

“I don’t understand why.”

He explained that his “evaluation in December seemed very good. No problems.”

He went on to say that when he had received what I think was a subsequent evaluation, “…there were some things in there I had no idea about.

“Evaluations should be tools of growth,” he continued.

“This past year I took 15 hours of classes.

“Each year I’ve taught here I’ve redesigned the curriculum to keep up with the new technology.”

Then he told about the student participation growth for the student newspaper.

Apparently, Bieschke’s job includes helping other teachers cope with computers.

“In any instance when a teacher needs assistance, I immediate give it,” he explained.

“When it’s abruptly thrown upon me I ask (unfortunately, I did not get the rest of his sentence).

“Please provide me with another year of teaching,” he concluded humbly.

One member of the audience, Pat Greenwald, spoke after the tech teacher.

“I come from a family of teachers. I know exactly what this man has gone through,” she said.

Although I did not catch her exact words of disapproval, they ended with “without giving him a chance.”

“We, as taxpayers also haven’t been given a fair chance,” she continued.

“I now know what the teachers go through.

“Pontius Pilot did that and that’s not cool.”

I thought, “Whoa”, that’s a heavy charge.

“He will find a much better place…unfortunately, it won’t be with our kids.

“We’re fighting for our children for the best.

“He’s begging you for his job.

“That sucks!

“You better look in the mirror.

“You have learned how this man has mastered the attention of (the students).

“Maybe you guys should be seeking another job, not this gentleman.”

No one on the board made any comment.

= = = = =
You can enlarge any picture by clicking on it. Board members shown in the group shot are left to right, Stephen Todd, Dale Burnidge, Karen Bowman and Charlotte Kremer. Bea Greenwald is the woman under the group shot. Head shots show Laura Domoto on the left and Heidi Jessup on the right. None were taken while Bieschke was addressing the board.

Those who attended the contentious Prairie Grove District 46 School Board meeting Tuesday were privileged to hear a heartfelt plea from the junior high school’s technology teacher-coordinator, Tom Bieschke.

After three years of teaching at Prairie Grove he had been sacked after three years at the school and could not understand why.

His performance evaluations had not indicated any “remediation,” that is, specific improvements in his performance, was needed.

All of a sudden, he was just let go.

Mr. Bieschke seemed to me of an age when he might have had entered teaching as a second profession.

For me, this capsulated his dedication to his students:

He talked of Club PGN. I think I have figured out that this is the student newspaper.

He said the club went from 2 to 80 students.

“Last year there were 4 newspapers,” he said.

There were over 20 this year, he revealed.

That sounds like a labor of love to me.

Using a quite understated manner, he introduced himself to the board during the public speaking time.

“I’ve been kind of taken back in the news that the administration does not want to rehire me,” he explained.

“I don’t understand why.”

He explained that his “evaluation in December seemed very good. No problems.”

He went on to say that when he had received what I think was a subsequent evaluation, “…there were some things in there I had no idea about.

“Evaluations should be tools of growth,” he continued.

“This past year I took 15 hours of classes.

“Each year I’ve taught here I’ve redesigned the curriculum to keep up with the new technology.”

Then he told about the student participation growth for the student newspaper.

Apparently, Bieschke’s job includes helping other teachers cope with computers.

“In any instance when a teacher needs assistance, I immediate give it,” he explained.

“When it’s abruptly thrown upon me I ask (unfortunately, I did not get the rest of his sentence).

“Please provide me with another year of teaching,” he concluded humbly.

One member of the audience, Pat Greenwald, spoke after the tech teacher.

“I come from a family of teachers. I know exactly what this man has gone through,” she said.

Although I did not catch her exact words of disapproval, they ended with “without giving him a chance.”

“We, as taxpayers also haven’t been given a fair chance,” she continued.

“I now know what the teachers go through.

“Pontius Pilot did that and that’s not cool.”

I thought, “Whoa”, that’s a heavy charge.

“He will find a much better place…unfortunately, it won’t be with our kids.

“We’re fighting for our children for the best.

“He’s begging you for his job.

“That sucks!

“You better look in the mirror.

“You have learned how this man has mastered the attention of (the students).

“Maybe you guys should be seeking another job, not this gentleman.”

No one on the board made any comment.

= = = = =
You can enlarge any picture by clicking on it. Board members shown in the group shot are left to right, Stephen Todd, Dale Burnidge, Karen Bowman and Charlotte Kremer. Bea Greenwald is the woman under the group shot. Head shots show Laura Domoto on the left and Heidi Jessup on the right. None were taken while Bieschke was addressing the board.

There was tension in the Prairie Grove School District 46 library Tuesday as audience members and a lone board member fought awarding of a multi-year contract prior the swearing in of new board members.

And, audience interest was piqued when Superintendent Mary Fasbender announced that the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office has filed a Freedom of Information request.

But come to find out, the timing of the contract renewal didn’t make any difference. That’s because three in the ruling six-member clique won re-election.

Running handily ahead in the small school district were Board President Laura Domoto and her running mates Karen Bowman and Linda Rokosik.

Two of their challengers—Sharon Rogowski and David Etling—were in the audience.

Both incumbents and challengers were awaiting the election returns when I left.

Here’s what the final returns looked like when they came in:

Karen Bowman – 613
Linda Rokosik – 610
Laura Domoto – 599
Sharon Rogowski – 467
David Etling – 446
Tara Rand – 367

It was an exciting meeting.

More on that after I get some sleep, including how the board members instructed a principal to call the Prairie Grove Police because I was supposedly “heckling” the board members while they were behind closed doors.

Laughing in the hall outside the secret session as one board member was completely losing her cool, yes.

Even laughing loudly.

Taking pictures through the windows, yes.

Heckling, no.

You won’t believe what happened after the public was excluded from the meeting.

You won’t believe the brow beating that lone minority member Charlotte Kremer took. If she wasn’t physically cringing, I’d be surprised.

Or what 12-year board member Karen Bowman shouted so loud it could be heard in the hall.

These folks make every other public meeting I have ever attended look civil.

Well, maybe it wasn’t as bad as the closing night of Illinois House of Representatives when State Representative Doug Kane tore up his rulebook. Then, Democrat Kane threw the remains at not-yet-Speaker Mike Madigan, who was in the chair for Speaker Bill Redmond. That was right before the very hefty State Representatives Jimmy Taylor and Taylor Pouncey each grabbed one of Madigan’s arms and physically carried him off the podium to the protection of a back room. That was after Madigan gaveling the adjournment of the spring session through without a vote.

Maybe that was worse than what I and other saw Tuesday night.

But, considering the level of decibels coming out of Bowman’s throat and her gestures, I assure you she was not being ladylike.

Not exactly the image she portrays to her constituents, I would imagine.

Here is what Northwest Herald reporter Telma Guzman wrote about the meeting.

OK. I’ll relent.

Here’s a picture of the not-so-gentlewoman Karen Bowman right before she began shouting at the top of her lungs at minority board member Charlotte Kremer.

I wish I had had had a video camera.

Bowman’s completely out-of-control performance would have been at least a local hit on You Tube and could be shown at school board association meetings as how not to act at a public or even a secret meeting.

= = = = =
Top right is Prairie Grove School Superintendent Mary Fasbender, who got the three-year extension on her contract, worth $450,000, according to the NW Herald. Top right is a picture of Karen Bowman in the open meeting. To her left, below Fasbender is a picture of board President Laura Domoto. The board member who is reading a letter from Prairie Grove Village President Michael Breseman complaining about a fact-challenged, last-minute campaign written by Domoto is Charlotte Kremer.

And, at the bottom, is one of the pictures I took of Karen Bowman right before she started shouting loud enough to be heard on the other side of the hall outside the library.

There was tension in the Prairie Grove School District 46 library Tuesday as audience members and a lone board member fought awarding of a multi-year contract prior the swearing in of new board members.

And, audience interest was piqued when Superintendent Mary Fasbender announced that the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office has filed a Freedom of Information request.

But come to find out, the timing of the contract renewal didn’t make any difference. That’s because three in the ruling six-member clique won re-election.

Running handily ahead in the small school district were Board President Laura Domoto and her running mates Karen Bowman and Linda Rokosik.

Two of their challengers—Sharon Rogowski and David Etling—were in the audience.

Both incumbents and challengers were awaiting the election returns when I left.

Here’s what the final returns looked like when they came in:

Karen Bowman – 613
Linda Rokosik – 610
Laura Domoto – 599
Sharon Rogowski – 467
David Etling – 446
Tara Rand – 367

It was an exciting meeting.

More on that after I get some sleep, including how the board members instructed a principal to call the Prairie Grove Police because I was supposedly “heckling” the board members while they were behind closed doors.

Laughing in the hall outside the secret session as one board member was completely losing her cool, yes.

Even laughing loudly.

Taking pictures through the windows, yes.

Heckling, no.

You won’t believe what happened after the public was excluded from the meeting.

You won’t believe the brow beating that lone minority member Charlotte Kremer took. If she wasn’t physically cringing, I’d be surprised.

Or what 12-year board member Karen Bowman shouted so loud it could be heard in the hall.

These folks make every other public meeting I have ever attended look civil.

Well, maybe it wasn’t as bad as the closing night of Illinois House of Representatives when State Representative Doug Kane tore up his rulebook. Then, Democrat Kane threw the remains at not-yet-Speaker Mike Madigan, who was in the chair for Speaker Bill Redmond. That was right before the very hefty State Representatives Jimmy Taylor and Taylor Pouncey each grabbed one of Madigan’s arms and physically carried him off the podium to the protection of a back room. That was after Madigan gaveling the adjournment of the spring session through without a vote.

Maybe that was worse than what I and other saw Tuesday night.

But, considering the level of decibels coming out of Bowman’s throat and her gestures, I assure you she was not being ladylike.

Not exactly the image she portrays to her constituents, I would imagine.

Here is what Northwest Herald reporter Telma Guzman wrote about the meeting.

OK. I’ll relent.

Here’s a picture of the not-so-gentlewoman Karen Bowman right before she began shouting at the top of her lungs at minority board member Charlotte Kremer.

I wish I had had had a video camera.

Bowman’s completely out-of-control performance would have been at least a local hit on You Tube and could be shown at school board association meetings as how not to act at a public or even a secret meeting.

= = = = =
Top right is Prairie Grove School Superintendent Mary Fasbender, who got the three-year extension on her contract, worth $450,000, according to the NW Herald. Top right is a picture of Karen Bowman in the open meeting. To her left, below Fasbender is a picture of board President Laura Domoto. The board member who is reading a letter from Prairie Grove Village President Michael Breseman complaining about a fact-challenged, last-minute campaign written by Domoto is Charlotte Kremer.

And, at the bottom, is one of the pictures I took of Karen Bowman right before she started shouting loud enough to be heard on the other side of the hall outside the library.