Shouldn't we use this extra money to help educate the children of district 211 like bringing in more teachers or focusing the funds on programs to help increase the eduction and learning (tutoring, after school study halls, new books, more after school programs, ect...) instead of giving administrative fat cats more money! At least 2 on the school board spoke out against it good for you Bill Robertson and Anna Klimkowicz!

Take a clue from the mandate in the last District 15 bond vote: Overwhelmingly, the people of that district (nearly all of which are in 211 as well) voted AGAINST more borrowing/spending. The message was again communicated by the community in the Dist. 15 school board vote: The old guard 'spenders' Chapman, Eckberg, (Siefert) were ousted in favor of those promoting fiscal constraint. Most recently, the Superintendent at Dist. 15, Scott Thompson just graciously contracted for his OWN PAY FREEZE.

Folks at Dist. 211 either think they're immune, or they just didn't listen to the message. Good going Robertson and Klimkowicz! Thank you for representing the community. As for the other 5 board members, maybe you need to go door-t0-door again an listen to your constituency.

As for the excuse that increased pay will now be tied to performance, who exactly will be evaluating this performance, the fox or the hens?

Jenny - thanks for saying exactly what was on my mind ! When will the education community start living in the REAL World ! ? ! I don't know anyone or have I heard of anyone getting raises - anywhere . . . except for the administrative echelon - education or corporate. If we are in such a dire situation, and they are the "leaders", aren't they responsible for getting us here ? Where exactly does the "buck" stop ? Thanks for letting me vent some of my frustration Patch !

While I agree that the pay raises are inappropriate at an economic point such as this, in the big scheme of things, 60 people is not a lot. Personally, I think that a lot of the pay raise idea is to give the admins an incentive to do their job better. However, evaluations are inherently inaccurate to a certain degree, and I will be very interested to see if the students of these schools (the level headed, fair-judgement brand; yes, we exist) are given any say in the "grading" off the admins.

The 5 Board members who voted in favor of these increases need to be voted out. Pay attention D-211 stakeholders! These people have obviously shown they do not talk to their stakeholders, do not have any common sense, and feel they can do whatever they want with YOUR tax dollars. Arrogant people who have no respect for the community need to be voted out and replaced with people who know what the real job is of a BOE member. It is not to be a rubber stamp! The Board of Ed is the ONLY place the community has a say. We are the owners of these schools. We pay for them. The system was set up this way. The system does not work when BOE members don't understand what their job is. There was a problem in D15 of a broken BOE who did not understand the way the system was meant to work. The community had NO voice. That changed this past election. The same thing needs to happen in D211.

Be careful when judging so harshly, yet do not know all the details. I'm not saying that what you all say is wrong, necessarily (it may very well be deserved), but that's a lot of hate for something that not many details are given.
~KG

It's not hate. Not at all. It is frustration with people not doing the jobs they were elected to do and squeezing out the voice of the community. It is frustration with the lack of accountability in our school system. It is frustration with the apathy in the community whereas they don't even realize what is going on. It is frustration that our public school system is focused on the adults and not the children.

Instead of a pay raise, we need to implement a reduction in pay to reflect current economic conditions. How is the district going to pay for these raises with the increased number of foreclosures and tax defaults?

Again - I ask, Why are the people responsible (where the buck is supposed to stop) for our financial issues getting rewarded for doing an inadequate job ? Why do we assume that more money, ie. incentives, will provide better results ? How about paying for performance . . . below standard performance should NOT be evaluated as needing monetary incentive ! To me that just sounds like a common sense thing ! What about finding management courses for our administrators - the kinds of courses that corporate business management people have to attend to learn how to turn things around, or they lose their jobs ! Our school system is one huge business - let's get smart and start treating it and all of our administrators and staff like the corporate world works. It couldn't be much worse than our current scenario - the kids will still get at least as much as they have now - maybe more. And just a point of reference Kevin G., do we know what the dollar amount will be for those "not a lot" 60 raises ? What will that equate to in actual services our school children could receive ? Will they receive any more music equipment, or other cultural "accessories", or just more "fear mongering" that these kinds of things will be cut from the program because there isn't any money ? I agree with Vicki - I have a lot of frustration over a multitude of aspects of our school system, both D-15, and D-211.

Vicki - completely understandable; as a kid in the system, I see the effects as much as you do, and they are indeed frustrating.
Norma - You're right, we really have no idea what the dollar amount will be. As for cultural accessories (music and other fine arts), no money will find its way there. The last two years at Fremd High School, there has a been a blanket ban in the music department on "large" purchases (I think $2,500 or above, don't hold me to that stat though) using district funds. However, their is little to no fear that programs like band will be cut, because they do enough fundraising to keep them well afloat (at Fremd anyways, I'm not sure about other D211 schools)