Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Several other area school districts have also denied the proposal
On Monday, District 300 school board members voted down Virtual Learning Solutions' proposal to form an online charter school, according to the Northwest Herald. Virtual Learning Solutions is a nonprofit group that had formed to create the charter school, but which intend to contract with K12 to educate the students. K12 is the nation’s largest virtual school company, operating 48 full-time virtual schools as of July 2012. The district stood to lose between about $535,000 and $907,000 annually in tax dollars if it moved forward with the online charter school while other board members said K12 Inc.'s "spotty track record" when it came to student performance was their reason for voting down the proposal. K12 has drawn criticism for its for…
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Virtual Learning Service will present its proposal tonight at the District 300 Board of Education meeting.
The District 300 School Board will hear tonight from a company that specializes in virtual learning schools on a proposal to offer online charter school services to underserved students in 18 area school districts, including District 300, according to the Northwest Herald. Illinois Virtual Learning Solutions is proposing the charter school and is an offshoot of K12 Inc., which is based in Virginia and manages online learning schools in 27 states, according to the Northwest Herald. The company has drawn criticism for its for-profit status while seeing low student achievement and high turnover rates of its teachers, according to the New York Times. During a public hearing in Elgin's U-46 Monday, Elgin Teachers Association, Northern Illinois …
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
LEAD 300, District 300's teacher's union, recently declared an impasse.
Hundreds of teachers, students and parents crowded a District 300 school board meeting Monday night to demand smaller classroom sizes and a better work environment for teachers, according to the Daily Herald. LEAD 300, District 300's teacher's union, declared an impasse earlier this month. after the union approved a strike vote in October. Contract negotiations had been ongoing between LEAD 300 and District 300 as both parties tried to find a middle ground on such issues as class size and teacher's compensation. The district submitted its final offers to LEAD 300 on Wednesday, which included details on reducing pension benefit contributions, lowering grade school class sizes and continuing salary raises. Under state law, LEAD 300 was …
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
District 300 administrators and school board submitted its final offers to LEAD 300 Wednesday morning. The proposal comes after weeks of contract negotiation talks following the union's decision to approve a strike vote.
Today at 11:00 a.m., the Board forwarded its final offer to LEAD 300. The elements below are part of a package proposal to the union. Major components addressed in this package proposal include salary, insurance, retirement, and extra pay; elementary class size; high school schedule and teacher load; issues related to education services (special education); teacher plan time; teacher arrival and departure time; and other issues related to working conditions. This synopsis is not inclusive of the full Board proposal, but attempts to highlight the major issues discussed during negotiations and recent mediation sessions. Elementary Class Size Proposal: The Board agrees with the teachers union that reducing class size at the elementary level…
Thursday, October 11, 2012
District 300 School Board member Anne Miller read a prepared statement during the Wednesday Board of Education meeting, which touched on the many issues D300 is facing and ongoing contract negotiations.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The District 300 Board of Education met Monday.
Jacobs High School will get a bigger track following a vote by the District 300 school board Monday night, according to the Northwest Herald. The school board OK'd adding two running lanes to the school's existing track, according to a Northwest Herald article. The school board went back and forth on approving the addition, arguing over whether the upgrade showed favoritism by administration to Jacobs over Dundee-Crown High School. The upgrade would come at no cost to the district, according to the NW Herald. The Jacobs Booster Club would pay $37,862 to fund a construction change order. The board ended up unanimously approving the changed order, according to the article.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The Daily Herald examines why an incumbent might be voted out in a local election.
- GOVERNMENT
-
Thursday, April 7, 2011
A Northern Illinois University professor told the Daily Herald the reason why incumbent Monica Clark lost her District 300 board seat was a direct result of Clark swearing at a recent board meeting. Scot Schraufnagel, a political science professor at NIU, told the Daily Herald the only reason why incumbents lose board seats in low-turnout local elections is “through a scandal" and referred to the ousting as "textbook." During a meeting March 23, Monica Clark, who had served one term on the board before Tuesday’s election, swore, using a defamatory word, after one student asked her to look at him while speaking. The heated meeting ended with the board voting 4-3 in favor of cutting 363 teachers. Clark voted in favor of the cuts. The …
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Candidates for Lake in the Hills Board of Trustee, District 158 and District 300 school boards and Algonquin-LITH Fire Protection District are up for election.
UPDATED: 11:00 p.m. Here are the preliminary results for area races as of 11 p.m.: Lake in the Hills Board of Trustees 27 of 27 precincts reporting; three open seats Community Unit School District 300 25 of 25 precincts reporting in McHenry County; 43 of 43 precincts reporting in Kane County; four open seats. Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Fire Protection District 33 of 33 precincts reporting; two open seats Algonquin Library – six-year term 34 of 34 precincts reporting in McHenry, 2 of 2 precincts in Kane County; two open seats District 155 Board of Education 80 of 80 precincts reporting in McHenry; three open seats According to the McHenry County Clerk, these results are unofficial. UPDATED: 8:04 p.m. Election results are slowly …
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Dundee-Crown High School students in Algonquin walked out of school Tuesday to protest cuts and changes to curriculum.
- SCHOOLS
-
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The District 300 School Board met last night to discuss ways to re-organize middle schools and high schools to help balance its budget. Administration proposed three options during the meeting. The first includes re-organization of both middle schools and high schools and would include releasing 363 teachers, according to the District 300 website. The option, according to the Tuesday presentation, is the only one that would balance the district's budget. Another proposed option includes re-organization solely of middle schools, which would include releasing 76 teachers. And the last option is to make no changes at the middle or high schools. Administration proposed the options as a way to bridge a budget gap of at least $5 million, in the…
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The District 158 School Board on Thursday night voted to lay-off 11 teachers and one nurse.
Emotions ran high at a District 158 meeting Thursday night as school board members OK'd for the first time in recent years lay-offs and other cuts. In total, the board voted to lay-off 11 teachers and one nurse. “Most of us on this board have kids in this district,” school board member Paul Troy said. “I feel pain tonight, not sadness, pain. I’m not proud of this decision. I know it’s asking our people to do more with less. I hear the comments, I understand the sentiments. This is not an easy decision, and I do not take it lightly.” The school board cut the positions and voted also to forgo other investments, such as buying updated textbooks, improvements to Academic Drive and other building projects. The cuts, which will result in $1 …
Dan Arenov
12:07 pm on Tuesday, March 19, 2013
The biggest challenge facing D300 (from the recent teacher's strike) is overcrowding in the classrooms. This is a result of unchecked illegal immigration, which the school planners could not account for. What about using the online charter concept for those students who cannot speak English? We would still be doing our part by offering these children of illegals the free education that everyone … more ›