Everyone's Voice - What have you got to say?

Quote of the Day

2015-03-04T13:25:00.001-06:00

Truth sounds like hate to those that hate truth.

Hallelujah!

2015-03-03T13:01:00.002-06:00

News from around the state

2015-03-03T11:55:00.001-06:00

*lllinois* Educators Leery of New State Achievement Test
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150225/NEWS/150229494/11669/NEWS

How to Refuse PARCC in Illinois and Promote Opt-Out Legislation
http://us8.campaign-archive2.com/?u=16d71997b1c1711b098bb21c8&id=57bb2e24ae&e=5444f96919

Lies, Lies, Lies...Again

2014-10-15T16:46:00.000-05:00

We thought it fitting that we repost this. Even golden boys fall from grace.

Mr. Jim

2014-10-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

2013 Graduation Speech Honoring Mr. Jim

It seems like just yesterday you walked through the doors of the middle school as fifth graders and now you are graduating. It reminds me of my own 8th grade graduation just a few years ago. Well, actually it was a lot more than a few!

A long time ago, before Facebook, Instagram, Kik, Snap Chat, ask.fm, and even before the Internet, I sat here at my graduation from Pleasantdale, a little nervous about the future yet grateful to everyone that helped me along the way. So, before you set out on the next adventure of your educational journey, to a wonderful place called high school, I’d like to begin by taking a few minutes to thank some of the people that helped get you to this point.

First of all, thank you the boards of education, both past and present, and to the administration - Dr. Fredisdorf, Mr. Vandercar, Mrs. Pokorny and Mrs. Sherman for their vision when starting these students on the path to where they are today.

To the secretaries in the front office - thank you for enduring endless phone calls and questions, forgotten homework and lunches, late arrivals and early departures…nearly every single day.

Thank you to the PTA for providing special lunches, holiday treats, fortnightly, dances, field days and picnics.

Thank you to the entire staff and all the teachers along the way. Presented with a vision, our teachers, from Kindergarten all the way up to Eighth grade, made sure that these students learned the curriculum, achieved the outcomes and mastered their assessments. They taught not only school lessons, but also life lessons, such as organizational skills, timeliness, teamwork and responsibility.

Thank you to all the parents for getting your children up in the morning, packing them lunches, helping with projects and homework and cheering them on at their scholastic, musical and sporting events. Thank you for driving them to and from school, for typing papers, drying tears and mending hearts. Thank you for volunteering at school, for helping, caring and advice. Thank you for sometimes putting up with teenage attitudes, but mostly, thank you for encouraging and supporting these students, every step of the way.

Thanks also go out to these students here on this stage. Thank you for working so hard over the last nine years, for doing your very best, and never giving up. Thank you for raising money for various charities, collecting canned goods for food drives, filling our trophy case with trophies and sponsoring families during the holidays. Thank you for your participation in community service by working at animal shelters and the Ronald McDonald House. Thank you for your class gift and artwork that adorns our school hallways. Most importantly, thank you for making all of us proud!

One of the most inspiring philosophers was Mahatma Gandhi. He was a thinker and leader that travelled the world imparting words of wisdom which made people stop and think. I’d like to share some of his wisdom with this graduating class that they will be able to carry with them to high school and beyond.

Gandhi said BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE. Too many people complain about what is wrong with this or that and yet don’t take action. The only way improve something is to put the effort into changing it. Somebody has to make the first move to set things right, why can’t it be you?

Gandhi said WHAT YOU THINK, YOU BECOME. You are the product of your thoughts. Keep your thoughts positive. If you think you will be defeated, you have already given up the fight. Your ability to grow is only limited by your imagination. Set goals and stay the course. Good things will happen.

Gandhi said WHERE THERE IS LOVE THERE IS LIFE. In other words, having passion keeps you going. But the first thing that comes to my mind here is that I hope this works for Chicago Blackhawks. Will their passion for hockey and love of the game keep them alive in the playoffs? I sure would like to see Stanley back in Chicago soon!

Gandhi said LEARN AS IF YOU’LL LIVE FOREVER. Many of you have been counting the days until you graduated today, thinking you couldn’t wait till you were done. The thought of no more papers to write, projects to finish, or tests to study for was pretty darn exciting. But soon you will be learning new subjects, new sports, even how to use the newest smart phone. The world will become your classroom and you will be the students of life. And somewhere along the way, you will begin to appreciate that learning is an adventure and the ability to learn a gift that will keep you forever busy, entertained and alive.

Gandhi said YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR REAL WEALTH. So please take good care of yourselves, don’t be swayed by peers or poor decisions, don’t let anyone text and drive or drink and drive, and always, always wear your seatbelt.

Gandhi said HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR. Never take things so seriously that you can’t laugh at yourself. And don’t worry, everyone on Facebook and Instagram only seem like they have more fun and happier lives. They don't.

Gandhi said, ACTION EXPRESSES PRIORITIES. Your actions not only come from your priorities, but your actions also reveal your priorities. So remember, whatever you do, always give 100%...unless, of course, you’re donating blood!

Gandhi said FIND YOUR SELF IN THE SERVICE OF OTHERS. When you take the time to help others, to focus on something other than yourselves, you actually learn more about life, humanity, purpose and ultimately, your own lives. I think many of you have learned this lesson well here at Pleasantdale. There is no greater reward than that of helping others.

Gandhi said, YOUR LIFE IS YOUR MESSAGE. No one is going to remember your 8^th grade Explore score, your high school grade point average or a paper you wrote college. They are going to remember you by the way you treated them. You’re not going to gain the respect of others because of the profession you have, or the degrees you hold. You are going to be respected because of your character…what’s inside of you. Your integrity and your example are your message.

Before I close, there is one more person here that I would like to thank. It is not someone I forgot. I was just saving the best for last. The person that I am about to thank embodies many of Gandhi’s principals and their life is their message.

When I asked current and former students who made the biggest impact on them here at Pleasantdale, someone they will never forget, time and time again I got the same answer.

So I’d like to say thank you to Mr. Jim.

Thank you, Mr. Jim, for all you have done for these kids. Thank you for being a mentor, a counselor, a cheerleader and a friend. Thank you for believing in them. Thank you for your inspiration and your guidance. Thank you for attending not only every home game, but also every away game for every sport and every team.

Mr. Jim does so much more than clean and take care of our school. He leads book clubs and helps with homework. When students do not have money for lunch, he buys them lunch. He goes to kids’ concerts, plays, recitals and sporting events…even long after they graduate. He makes every student feel welcome here. He takes care of the duck families in the courtyard and makes sure they are fed.

He is the best cheerleader, not just here at Pleasantdale, but also in the entire LT feeder school system. He is known as Pleasantdale’s number one fan. He celebrates every student on their birthday by singing Happy Birthday to them at lunchtime. He knows all the students by name, and not just them, but also many their older and younger siblings as well.

When kids have a problem they know that they can always count on Mr. Jim for support. Mr. Jim is loved by everyone and students look forward to seeing him every day. There is even an acronym that reminds me of him. I’m sure you have seen it on t-shirts and in stores. So the next time you are faced with a challenge, indecision or you are at a crossroads; ask yourself, “What would Jim do?”

Let your life be your message, and your actions express your priorities, just as Mr. Jim does EVERY SINGLE DAY!

Finally, they say that one day your life will flash before your eyes, so make sure it’s worth watching. Memories aren’t created from the things you said you’d do. They’re built from the things you’ve done: the moments captured, the worlds discovered, a lifetime seized. You only live once, after all –YOLO! - so make it count!

Thank you.

Delivered by Gina Nelson

Congratulations!

2014-10-01T14:08:00.001-05:00

Congratulations to the following local schools for winning the prestigious National Blue Ribbon Award!!

Ogden Avenue Elementary School in La Grange

St. Cletus Elementary School in La Grange

Seventh Avenue Elementary School in La Grange
Spring Avenue Elementary School in La Grange
Oak Elementary School in Hinsdale
Brook Forest Elementary School in Oak Brook (Pleasantdale's former special education director is the principal!)

In its 32-year history, the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program has bestowed this coveted award on just under 7,900 of America's schools.

"These great schools are fulfilling the promise of American education—that all students, no matter their name or zip code, can flourish when schools provide safe, creative, and challenging learning environments," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "National Blue Ribbon Schools are models of consistent excellence and a resource for other schools and districts. We celebrate them for their tireless effort and boundless creativity in reaching and teaching every student."

Truth!

2014-09-18T15:47:00.000-05:00

My Countdown

Congratulations to the Class of 2014!

2014-06-02T17:04:00.002-05:00

Lessons for life...

2014-05-28T14:20:00.000-05:00

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the ways he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas lights.

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a "living" is not the same as making a "life."

I've learn that life sometimes give you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

~Maya Angelou

Thanks Neighbors!

2014-05-27T08:40:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the parents of D181 for recognizing our blog!

"Not only does it appear that D107's board of education has its share of problems, but they too are going to have a new superintendent soon, since their current one has just announced his impending retirement. We encourage you to read some of the posts on just how bad the administrative situation got in D107 before a detailed survey was finally commissioned and an outside auditor was hired to figure out if representations made by the superintendent regarding Common Core alignment were true. You will be shocked by what you read."

Transparency and accountability are also two of reasons we blog. Parent blogs are popping up all over as parents are no longer willing to take a back seat in regard to the education of their children.

This D181 blog post about the Pleasantdale blog can be found here. Click the image to make it larger.

Breaking News!!

2014-05-22T12:14:00.001-05:00

Mark Fredisdorf, who has been at the helm of Pleasantdale School District 107 for more than a decade, will retire after the next school year.

The School Board approved a retirement agreement with Fredisdorf May 20 after a closed session at the end of a contentious four-hour meeting. Fredisdorf has been chided by some board members for several months for not following their directives.

Read the entire story here!

http://westernsprings.suntimes.com/2014/05/22/pleasantdale-district-107-superintendent-retire-next-school-year/

Mission Accomplished?

2014-05-22T02:26:00.001-05:00

Not quite....because a lot of damage can be done between now and then.

Caution! Directional Shift Ahead!

2014-05-22T02:25:00.002-05:00

It has been in the making for about five months now but it became official last night... a new board majority has been born!

The new board majority consists of Doug Gilman, Mark Mirabile, Lisa Houk and Beth Tegtmeier.

Nearly every major vote at the May meeting went down 4 to 3.

It was truly politics at its finest.

Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf requested that board members who wanted officer positions submit a memo to him no later than Thursday, May 15. Up until the morning of May 21st, only two memos had been submitted for board officer positions - Kristin Violante and Gina Scaletta-Nelson.

Clearly this put Fredisdork into panic mode! So after phone calls, emails, or the ususal private meetings, a new alliance was solidified and by late morning, at the 11th hour, Doug Gilman and Mark Mirabile submitted memos for board officer roles.

Board officer selection is always the first thing on the agenda. BUT WAIT!!!

Beth Tegtmeier (who has either arrived late, left early or not even shown up at all for the last several montly meetings) would not be able to make it to the meeting in time for board officer elections. Apparently, according to Gilman, "Tegtmeier wanted to be present for board officer elections." Interesting. No one else got that memo. She didn't care about being there for the RtI or curriculum council updates, ELA or math audits, or any other vote or topic of substance. She wanted to be there to cast her usual token vote to support Fredisdorf in the officer elections. Seriously Beth? You are a disgrace to every single person that voted for you to represent their interests on the board of education. And you care about kids? Get real! The only person you care about is Fredisdorf.

So Gilman, in his ultimate power as president, decided that the board would not select new officers until she arrived. Interesting that those type of agreements used to be up to the full board. Not anymore... Tegtmeier waltzed in at 9:37 p.m., over three and a half hours late. At this point, why bother showing up?

Nominations for Board President went to Kim Barker (who works harder than anyone on the board and has literally put her heart and soul into the district supporting students, parents and staff alike - always looking out for everyone's best interest including taxpayers) and Doug Gilman.

Gilman was re-elected board president for a second term in a four to three vote by the new majority.

Nominations for Board Vice President went to Gina Scaletta-Nelson and Mark Mirabile. Scaletta-Nelson was ousted by Gilman's back door dealing and politically laced delay tactics.

The role of vice president is really insignificant. The VP does absolutely nothing unless the board president is absent from a meeting and then the VP will step in and run the meeting. In the last year three years it has happened once, however, Gilman did not want to chance Scaletta-Nelson taking the reigns should he have to miss meetings in the future. The role of VP is really not a big deal... it's just the way the entire election process was handled and the principle of the matter. It's something Crook County politicians do, not necessarily suburban school boards.

While we have to say that Gilman does a fair job of running the meetings and is usually calm and polite, (it was nice to hear him apologize to his fellow board members for last month's meeting); his team change was pretty much a slap in the face to his running mates and those that supported him and his promises during his election campaign.

The new board majority selected the STARR Assessment to replace the ITBS because as everyone knows, Fredisdorf is afraid to compare apples to apples. In other words, he does not want to compare D107 to the LT feeder schools. LT had hoped that D107 would join the entire feeder system by taking NWEA's MAP test, but the new majority gave a collective middle finger to the high school and those that want a side by side comparison to their neighboring districts by choosing something completely different.

If you recall, Gilman often spoke about wanting an assessment that would allow D107 to compare to the feeders during his election campaigns. Promise broken.

We could go on and on, but we will link the meeting when it's posted so you could see for yourself the new majority in action. Oh and when you do, pay close attention to Fredisdorf when he talks. It is more than obvious he talks in circles often confusing himself. You would think that he'd learned by now to keep his mouth shut, but he just likes to impress himself with his nonsense.

Sorry to those that dreamed of and banked on a new dawn for D107 and supported making the district better. It's just not going to happen anytime soon...at least not for another year or so according to Lisa Houk on the May 1st meeting tape ;)

2014-05-20T11:40:00.001-05:00

Cha-CHING!

2014-05-14T23:02:00.002-05:00

Over the past several year, through FOIAs, audits and investigations, the board of education has learned of the woeful state of affairs at Pleasantdale.

Rather than terminate Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf immediately, the board majority is trying to shore up his sinking ship by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on materials, administrators, consultants, educators, etc. to do the job Fredisdorf is paid $250,000 to do! Cha-CHING!

It recently came to light that Pleasantdale has no curriculum in place in language arts. When asked to provide a copy of the Language Arts curriculum, Fredisdorf handed board members a pile of worksheets, rubrics and assessments (see photo below.) None of which made any sense or was organized in any kind of way. With all the money we spend on our technology experts, about $200,000 a year, you would think this pile of crap would be digitized! Cha-CHING!

The last time a a reading series was purchased at the elementary school was in 1999. Typically, in a good school district, a new series is purchased every seven years. Who is to blame for that? District leader Mark Fredisdorf and building principal Matt Vandercar.

The board of education recently approved the purchase of HMH series called Journeys for $138,000. According to Fredisdorf, it is the largest expenditure on a series in district history! This K-6 series, that many experts in the education world said was a complete waste of money, is actually an old series retrofitted with the words "Common Core" slapped on top to generate sales.

Experts say now is not the time to purchase any new materials claiming to be Common Core aligned. They also say that this series does not have a writing component and should only be used as a supplement. So, that's $138,000 down the drain! Cha-CHING!

How did the district choose the Journeys series? Well, for one thing, Carol Jago, who is a district consultant and is listed as an author of the the series for HMH is related to our curriculum director Nannette Ochs. They are cousins. Supposedly, she did not receive any money from HMH to say it was Common Core aligned even though she is featured on their website as an author. Yeah, right. Sound unethical and improper? We think so.

A recent investigation into improper testing practices has netted the district a new testing series awaiting board approval in May.

You might be wondering why the district has chosen a testing series that once again no other feeder school is using and few people have heard of. It's because Fredisdorf is afraid to compare our students with neighboring schools that feed into Lyons Township High School. Department chairs from LT were contacted through email and via phone and indicated that they would like Pleasantdale to use the same test (NWEA MAP) that all the other feeder schools are using so they would have additional datas point for incoming freshman. Fredisdorf probably wouldn't be able to game the MAP assessment the way he games the ITBS test results, but that is a whole other story. $16,743...Cha-CHING!

The nightmare that resulted from a lack of Common Core alignment/implementation in math has and will cost the district over a hundred thousand dollars for just mathematics alone!! The recent audit cost over $20,000 just for the math portion. The ELA audit is currently around $4,000 and hasn't even begun. Cha-CHING!

Fredisdorf contracted with Claran Einfeldt, a math consultant for $1750 PER DAY to fix the problem he created. Is the district getting a good deal? The answer is NO. There are a lot of consultants that are a lot less expensive, but they probably cannot be manipulated by Fredisdorf. You have to pay a lot of money to get people to do what you want. This consultant was asked to provide a list of five public school districts that she is currently working with. While she did provide a list, not one school on the list is using her any longer. Hmmm....

So far the district will rack up over $17,500 in expenses for her through June 10. She would like to do approximately 40 days in our district. Are you doing the math? That is another $70,000 for ONLY 40 days of work! Cha-CHING!

You might be wondering what is going on with the RtI program in our district and so are we. All we know is that this has been an agenda item since last June...12 months and still nothing to show for it. It took the diligent work of a board member to shed light on the fact that there is no formal program in place. Two LADSE employees, Sheri Wernsing and Sue Gallagher, under the direction of Fredisdorf (he is on the executive board there) tried to say we had a program in place, but they were quickly discredited during the February board meeting. Result: The district must now hire a full time RtI coordinator and reading specialist for the middle school. More money being spend because Fredisdorf did not even know about RtI or the law requiring it. We're not sure what that is going to cost the district, but it is likely to be about $40K. Cha-CHING!

For the last two summers the district has spent over $111,000 on summer work. You might be wondering what that entailed. So are we. A large portion of it was used to align the math and LA curriculum to the common core, but we know that that never happened. This was evidenced but the teacher survey results here and the recent math audit. Tomorrow, the curriculum council is expected to approve summer hours yet again to re-do what has been re-done twice now. You know what that means don't you? CHA-CHING!

Pleasantdale School District 107 is now hiring an Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning because Fredisdorf has not done his job. What is this going to cost? Approximately $150,000. CHA-CHING!

Due to recent pension laws that are due to take effect in June, administrators all over the state are seeking to get salary increases with multi-year contracts; our district is no exception. What will that cost the district? Well, that is to be decided at the May board meeting, but one thing is for sure...CHA-CHING!

Our condolences to the staff when they go to contract negotiations next year. When Fredisdorf, through his inadequacies, gets done raping the district, there likely won't be any money left for them.

The D107 Crazy Train

2014-04-25T22:59:00.002-05:00

Please click the videos below to see the Pleasantdale School District 107's crazy train in action!

These clips feature Dr. Mark Fredisdorf as a smug, insubordinate superintendent. You will notice how easily he skirts around the truth. He couldn't care less about the students, staff or the taxpayers, and he has no respect for the the board of education as his boss.

Not only was Fredisdorf disrespectful to the board of ed, but sadly so were a couple of the teachers; one being the teachers' union president. Bullying antics, continuous nodding and facial contortions did not make for a good meeting and they had to be shushed so board members could hear the discussion. One word of advice to them... you are not making things easy for your fellow teachers. No wonder there is low morale and animosity between grade levels and buildings. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

The Board President just sat back, seemingly oblivious to the downward spiral of what was transpiring, that is until Gina Nelson asked a series of questions to get at the truth, and then he exploded! If the board dynamics haven't been obvious lately, they seem to be now.

While we were never a fan of former Board President Leandra Sedlack, at least she had control over the meetings, the audience members and Fredisdorf.

This video is broken up into four parts. Each part is less than 15 minutes long. The entire meeting lasted over five hours, with closed sessions bookending the open meeting. The segments below are just one topic of the entire meeting: the Math Common Core Professional Development Plan.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Fredisdorf's lies are now going to cost the taxpayers of this community a heck of a lot of money. The math trainer that was at the meeting during this discussion plans to charge the district $1850 per day for her help. According to her vision, which she shared at the board meeting, it would cost $55,000 for just 30 days of work! This would be in addition to the math audit that cost the district $20,000 so far. All because of Fredisdorf's incompetence and lies!

Clearly this board should reprimand Fredisdorf for his insubordination at the April board meeting. Will the majority of the board members support that action?

People say that Fredisdorf is like a snake charmer when it comes to board presidents. We're not so sure about that, but we wonder if it's something Fredisdorf slips in their tea. It is evident that the Board President, who ran for the Board last April, is not the same person now that he was a year ago. Either he has been charmed, or he is now drinking the ~~Kool Aid~~ tea!

Trash

2014-04-22T00:06:00.005-05:00

Smart move neighbors!

Why would they want someone else's trash!!

Superintendent Lacks Experience and Supervision

2014-04-08T12:37:00.002-05:00

Well, this explains it all!

For quite a while, this blog has been curious as to why Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf seems so out of touch with current educational pedagogy and the dynamics of an actual classroom. When asked questions, he defers to others for answers. He comes up with cockamamie plans and uses the curriculum council as a shield to carry them out. When his plans fail, he has someone to blame.

FOIA requests to several public entities are finally providing answers.

First of all, Fredisdorf has had little professional development in the last three years and we suspect that has probably been the case for quite some time. The photo below is what Fredisdorf filled out in early December citing all the professional development he has had in the last three years. Most of the training listed is mandated by the state, and is not professional development.

Secondly, according to Fredisdorf's resume, he has spent one year, yes, you read that right, just ONE YEAR teaching school in the United States!

His one and only year ever teaching school was his very first year out of college waaaayy back in 1978-79!! Seriously, we cannot make this stuff up!

To be honest, we spoke with several people including administrators, a former principal and college professor who were alarmed about the lack of teaching experience Fredisdorf has had in his career. It is essentially unheard of to become a superintendent with so little experience!

While he has taught a few years in various countries overseas, they don't replicate an American classroom. For example, you don't even need a teaching degree to teach English in Japan - anyone with a college degree can do it! Not only was he a job hopper, but a country hopper too. Why?

In addition, Fredisdorf has never been a principal or even an assistant principal. The majority of his career has been spent away from children on administrative tasks.

It makes us wonder what board members Gary Bozick, Rita Uckerman, Bettina Johnson, Thomas Anselmo, Kathleen Blank, Ellen Blakeman and Patti Essig saw in him that led to hiring a superintendent with almost ZERO experience!

It certainly couldn't have been his expertise in strategic planning because Fredisdorf had to hire an outside company to help write the plan back in 2002. Heck, he can't even explain the plan when asked about it. It was written about 12 years ago and he continues to ride its coat tails as if it is actually meaningful today. Egads!

Mark Fredisdorf's resume:

In his job application to Pleasantdale, Fredisdorf writes about being an independent consultant for strategic planning, curriculum and staff development; none of which he seems to have any clue about! When asked to provide the board with the middle school language arts curriculum recently, he responded, "What do you mean by curriculum?" Just watch some of the board videos if you don't believe us.

Fredisdorf also claims that he played a major role in creating innovative technology plans, overseeing the networking process, purchasing hardware and software and advancing the instructional use of technology. Say WHAT??? He can barely even operate a video presentation without help!!

Finally, Fredisdorf does not have a job description (which directly violates board policy 5:30) so the board of education doesn't hold him accountable for anything and no one knows exactly what he is supposed to be doing to earn his $250,000 a year salary! In addition, the board of education not longer keeps track of Fredisdorf's weekly schedule - he does that on his own. Remember what happened in the township treasurer's office when the board of trustees, elected to supervise Robert Healy, allowed him to do as he pleased and let him run amok? "Healy instructed his staff to stop logging his off-days, which they did. Even though sources said he often was not in the office, by Healy’s calculation he used only 25 vacation days in 24 years, and no sick or personal days." You can read about that here, here or here.

Pleasantdale Board, superintendent, send out apology letter!

2014-04-05T23:22:00.003-05:00

By: Chuck Fieldman

The Pleasantdale Elementary District 107 Board is sharing responsibility with Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf for misleading the community about the district’s math curriculum being aligned with Common Core State Standards.

A letter dated March 21 and sent to parents and guardians of District 107 students stated, “Earlier correspondence to parents was misleading about our progress in aligning our curriculum outcomes to Common Core State Standards; for that we humbly apologize.”

Please click here to read the entire article.

http://burrridge.suntimes.com/news/schools/math-WYD-03242014:article

Pleasantdale Board Members Overrule Superintendent, Question Curriculum!

2014-03-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

March 12, 2014

The Doings Weekly
By: Chuck Fieldman | cfieldman@pioneerlocal.com | @chuckwriting

At least two members of the Pleasantdale Elementary School District 107 Board believe the district is playing catch up with its math curriculum because of inaccurate information provided by Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf...

Read the full article here.

http://burrridge.suntimes.com/news/schools/math107-WYD-03122014:article

Despite spending over $100K in the 2013-2014 school year so far on a curriculum coordinator, a math curriculum audit, professional development, staff surveys, etc. one thing is certainly true:

Superintendent Mark Fredisdorf does not know much about curriculum and instruction!

We could have told the school board that a long time ago and saved the district a lot of money.

Earlier this year, when asked to provide board members with the middle school language arts curriculum, he handed over a pile of papers. There was no mention of curriculum maps, pacing guides, textbooks, etc. Just a pile of about 1,000 worksheets and assessments!

The man has been a fraud for years and sadly it has taken board members this long to finally figure it out. He hides behind a hand picked ineffective working group he calls the curriculum council and uses them to push through his misguided agendas and ill thought out plans. Then when things go wrong, he has someone to blame it on. Recent survey results indicated only 11 members of his entire staff of over 100 feel that this group is effective. If that isn't a wakeup call, we don't know what is!

Hopefully this community will wake up and demand a change rather than continuing to spend $250K a year on nonsense.

District 107 Common Core Time LIE

2014-03-13T01:01:00.003-05:00

District 107 Common Core Time Lie

November 17, 2010 - Board Meeting open forum:

July 18, 2012 – Board Goals proposed for 2012-2013

August 15, 2012 - District goals approved:

Implement alignment of Common Core standards for math grades k-8 and above level language arts in grades 5-8.

Letter to Parents and Guardians – Math common Core Standards to be implemented in 2012-2013

Fredisdorf announces “relatively minor changes were needed in our rigorous curriculum to align with Common Core standards.”

October 17, 2012 - Math Common Core Standards Update at BOE Meeting

October 26, 2012 - Letter to community announces math curriculum realigned to CCSS and being implemented!!

December 19, 2012 - Board majority approves generous new contract for Fredisdorf.

April 3, 2013 - Mark Mirabile (Candidate for BOE) states full math curriculum alignment in campaign literature.

April 5, 2013 - Facebook Parent Group P3 – Sharon Rak’s rebuttal to Mirabile/Fredisdorf’s claim:

I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry when I read in a recent email this quote from Mark Mirabile and Michael Hawbaker: “Specifically the entire math curriculum was aligned to the Common Core standards to start the 2012/13 school year.”

I would like to make clear our entire math curriculum was NOT aligned to the common core standards to start the 2012/13 school year! I am a Math Common Core professional development consultant for the Illinois State Board of Education as well as the Illinois Principals’ Association who travels the entire state instructing school administrators and staff on math Common Core implementation.

Common Core math requires three major shifts: FOCUS, COHERENCE AND RIGOR.

The first shift of the Common Core is FOCUS. There are a specific number of standards for each domain and grade level. For example, the study of probability does not start until grade 6. If your child is currently in grades K-5 and they have been taught any probability this year, then Pleasantdale’s current curriculum is NOT ALIGNED TO COMMON CORE. FOCUS means abandoning the mile wide, inch deep curriculum and therefore we need to eliminate many current standards.

The domain of Counting and Cardinality is solely a kindergarten domain and it has 7 standards. There are 22 math standards that kindergarteners must master and these will not be repeated in a first grade Common Core aligned curriculum. Between the numerous math and English Language Arts standards that must be learned in kindergarten, there is little chance it will be accomplished with a half day of instruction. Students will need more than a half day of instructional time, and this cannot happen during the extended day program since no new learning can take place. Good luck to our poor kindergarten teachers that must accomplish this in two and a half hours a day while staying true to the kindergarten philosophy of giving children instructional playtime as well.

The second shift, COHERENCE, arises from mathematical connections. The eight standards for mathematical practice should be connected to the content standards and embedded in classroom instruction, discussions, activities, and ASSESSMENTS. The eight standards for mathematical practice are NOT in our current assessments.

Trust me when I say, there is not a school district in the USA that is fully aligned to both the Common Core content and mathematical practice standards.

The third major shift, RIGOR, requires a balance of three things: solid conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and application of skills in problem solving situations. These three things need to be embedded in curriculum, instruction and assessment. Standards need to be taught and assessed with all three parts of rigor.

This year my 8th grader has had algebra. His conceptual and procedural knowledge are very solid but the balance of APPLICATION is definitely not there. The common core documents state that pursuit of all three requires equal intensity in time, activities, and resources. We do have level 4 questions on our assessments, but there is not an equal balance of them.

The process of curriculum change will take on an average of at least 3 years.

A common curriculum development practice is using the Backward Design Method. The Backward Design looks at what the learners need first and targets assessment and instructional strategies around those needs. Both the Smarter Balance and PARCC assessments HAVE NOT been written yet and that is why it is IMPOSSIBLE for Mirabile and Hawbaker’s quote to be true.

In closing, I would like to thank Mark and Mike for their great quote. I will be using it in my next common core math workshop and I am sure it will get quite a few laughs!

Sharon Rak

Mathematics Common Core Professional Development Consultant for the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Principals' Association

    Jacqueline M. You Rock Sharon! That email was ridiculous. Also not even sent directly from either Mark or Mike. I find it nice to hear directly from the candidates.

    Linda M. As a parent, it disturbs me our curriculum is not prepared for Common Core (lies notwithstanding). This is exactly why we need a change and people who are FOCUSED ON THE FUTURE. The level of discontent among Pleasantdale parents with our curriculum amazes me. What amazes me even more is the denial. I am so thankful to have four candidates who see this and want to make a change. They have put so much time and effort into finding solutions and being forward thinking. I didn't need another reason, Sharon, to know my vote for Kim, Kristen, Doug and Greg is the right one. But thank you for this information and giving us the heads up. It will help me be better prepared to help my son. April 6, 2013 at 9:12am

    Alexis E. Sharon - thanks for taking the time to explain the Common Core standards. It is refreshing to hear information straight from an expert. Sometimes things get a little murky in the midst of all the rhetoric...especially now that the election is coming up. I always like to believe that our district has a lot of well-meaning parents, people and professionals whose main goal is to make sure our district provides a good education to all. I have my own reservations about putting all students on the same page at the same time but I will leave it to the experts to figure things out. I hear you when you say it will take several years for all the changes to take place. Now can somebody please address the No Child Left Behind program? Good luck with that... April 6, 2013 at 10:41am

    Jolene C. Thanks for taking the time to explain it Mrs. Rak!! Very informative
April 7, 2013 at 3:12pm

May 2013 – Curriculum Council Common Core Update

June 19, 2013 June Testing Report – Scores are down but will go up as district is aligned with Common Core and being Implemented!

August 2013 – Letter to School Community again stating CCSS were implemented last school year.

September 4, 2013 – Curricululm Night presentations announcing alignment/implementation to CCSS:

Mrs. Berwick 2^nd grade – Curriculum night presentation

November 18, 2013 – Common Core Parent Meetings

Dr. Fredisdorf audio track that D107 is completely aligned and implemented in Common Core in Math.

“What have we done? We started first with mathematics. That started a couple years ago and we began this school year fully aligned in mathematics to the common core standards.

Math was kind of the first one out of the chute and so we jumped on that pretty quickly and teachers received support, curriculum writing time, we had trainers come in…I’m not going to go into all the gory details of it, but our math right now is completely aligned with the common core. What does that mean? Because we already had a challenging curriculum, it wasn’t a wholesale change. It wasn’t like okay one day this, and one day something else. What happened was in certain grade levels there were like certain functions or whatever that were moved down like multiplication started down in second grade, the end of second grade, whereas before it that may not have been until sometime in third grade. That’s just one example. So we took what we did and common core and we aligned those and also we’re updating our materials…

Language arts, middle school language arts is aligned to the common core and we’re starting that process in elementary and by the beginning of next year we will be completely aligned there as well. What are teachers finding? When we look at what we have been doing and common core, it’s not like a momentous shift.”

Evening Session with Nan Ochs presenting

Mrs. Rak: “I just want to confirm, so you’re saying that in math, our instruction and our assessments are already common core math aligned?”

Nan Ochs response: “Yes.”

Following meeting Dr. Fredisdorf refuses offer of free help with Common Core, loses patience and refuses to allow Mrs. Rak to meet with himself and board member or colleague.

November 19 Email to BOE

From: Sharon Rak

Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 11:20 PM

To: <tegtmeier@board107.org>, <violante@board107.org>, <Houk@board107.org>, <gilman@board107.org>, <mirabile@board107.org>, <Scaletta-nelson@board107.org>, <barker@board107.org>

Subject: ITBS & CCSS Parent Meetings

Dear Board of Education,

By definition, ignorance is a state of being uninformed. “The word ignorant is an adjective describing a person in the state of being unaware and is often used as an insult to describe individuals who deliberately ignore or disregard important information or facts.

Individuals with superficial knowledge of a topic or subject may be worse off than people who know absolutely nothing.

Ignorance can stifle learning, especially if the ignorant person believes that they are not ignorant. A person who falsely believes he or she is knowledgeable will not seek out clarification of his or her beliefs, but rather rely on his or her ignorant position. He or she may also reject valid but contrary information, neither realizing its importance nor understanding it.”

This definition epitomizes superintendent Dr. Fredisdorf.

On Monday evening I attended the ITBS/Common Core presentation put on by Dr. Fredisdorf and Nannette Ochs. As an educator that has traveled the country providing professional development, I work with a lot of superintendents and I have never come across anyone as ignorant as him.

His presentation was incredibly confusing, riddled with misinformation and false information. When questioned on the district’s math Common Core alignment, he became downright mean and unprofessional.

Board members Doug Gilman and Gina Scaletta-Nelson, in addition to administrators and other parents in the room, witnessed this demeanor.

If a staff member ever conducted himself or herself in this manner, Dr. Fredisdorf would undoubtedly put a letter in his or her file.

I would like this letter added to Dr. Fredisdorf’s personnel file as a permanent record of how disrespectful he was when I questioned his knowledge and offered to help our district with Common Core math alignment.

It is disturbing to me that our school board would allow Dr. Fredisdorf to continue to behave in this manner with his lack of intelligence. It makes me sad to think that the children of our community have this man making decisions that will impact their future.

Sharon Rak

"The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple." ~ S. Gudder

December 4, 2014 - Mrs. Rak sends second FOIA request for information. Few questions were answered completely.

December 18, 2013 - Open Forum:

Curriculum council begins to back pedal on former claims by Fredisdorf.

The Curriculum Council facilitator states staff did not want professional development…someone to tell them what to teach and how to teach. They just wanted time, time to do it on their own. Their greatest gift was time.

January 2014 - Board of Education approves scope of Common Core Math and ELA Audits and cost.

Audit begins but Fredisdorf misleads staff into thinking it is Professional Development. He then tries several times to stop audit while attempting to discredit Math auditor Jennette Winters on numerous occasions.

January 23, 2014

Dear Pleasantdale School Board,

I am writing to request that, if the audit of our math curriculum continues, some of the following concerns be considered. During the audit process, some of the teachers felt uncomfortable with the line of questioning and type of questions. One teacher expressed to me that she felt the method of questioning was leading to discredit the work she and our district had done. The teachers would like an administrator or teacher to be sitting with them when they are questioned. They would like the purpose and expectations of her visit given to them beforehand so that the time is used effectively. I want to reiterate that teachers welcome additional professional development and consultative services that would further successfully implement the Common Core State Standards. I hope we can work to ensure that, as a district, we are collaboratively moving forward.

Sincerely,  Erin Berwick
 President  Teachers’ Association of Pleasantdale

January 24, 2014

Superintendent’s Board of Education Weekly Update

Independent Math and ELA Common Core Auditors

Per my work with Mark Mirabile and Kim Barker, Jennette Winters was selected to conduct the math audit. Ms. Winters indicated she was able to begin on Friday, January 17. I met with her in the morning informing her of the Board’s desire to gain an outside assessment of the District’s progress in implementing math Common Core Standards. I informed her that I would need a cost proposal from her, but that she could begin her work immediately given the Board’s desire to have the audit conducted as soon as possible. Ms. Winters spent the remainder of the day interviewing teachers who serve on the math committee at both the elementary and middle schools.

On Tuesday morning after the holiday weekend, several teachers approached me at the beginning of the Institute Day complaining about Ms. Winter’s interviews, which they described as being “pressured”, “interrogated” and “drilled.” The Teachers’ Association submitted a letter (see attached) expressing concerns about Ms. Winters.

I received Ms. Winter’s cost proposal on Tuesday (attached) indicating she would require 10-12 days to conduct the audit at a cost of $20,000-$24,000. I was very surprised by the cost, as I never expected the cost to exceed the $10,000 threshold that would require Board approval. I immediately emailed Ms. Winter’s indicating I was not authorized to approve an expenditure exceeding $20,000 and that she should stop her work until further notice. My email exchanges with Ms. Winter are attached.

I believe Ms. Winter’s costs for an audit are exorbitant and unjustifiable, particularly since no other cost proposals were solicited. In retrospect, I should have required Ms. Winters to submit a cost proposal before conducting any work. In addition, I should have checked references. I sincerely apologize to the Board for this oversight. I absolutely will not commit that mistake again.

Regarding the ELA Common Core audit, Gail Bohnenstiehl is scheduled to meet with me on February 4. Given my experience with Ms. Winters, there will be no charge for this initial meeting and no work will begin until a proposal is submitted.

At this point, the full Board needs to discuss how to proceed with the math audit and, perhaps, the ELA audit as well. Spending $20,000-$24,000 without conducting an RFP process is inadvisable. I believe the audit could be conducted at a much lower cost by a consultant of equal or higher quality. I will be discussing next steps with Doug.

March 11, 2014

Jennette Winters presents audit findings to BOE.

See the live video here!

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Overall Satisfaction - New Leadership Clearly Wanted!

2014-03-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

Pleasantdale School District 107

School Climate Staff Insights Survey - 2014

Overall Satisfaction

How would you describe the strengths of Pleasantdale to someone new to the community?

-- Strong academic standards; great teaching staff

-- I love working at Pleasantdale and the relationships that I have made with staff members are lifelong and our supportive.

-- Teachers are passionate about their work. Our school is a friendly and inviting place. The principal loves to spend time with the children: playing kickball, playing UNO and greeting them every morning.

-- The teachers work well together to support each other and the the students. The teachers will do whatever they can to advocate for the best interests of students. The parents and school board are also supportive of both the teachers and the students.

-- The teachers and support staff will work their hardest to make sure that each student succeeds.

-- This is a great school district with many dedicated teachers that are wonderful at their jobs. It is a good community with alot of parent support. Their are many opportunities for children's growth at all age levels

-- amazing staff and great students/families

-- The teachers and staff at Pleasantdale are hard working passionate people who want each child to succeed academically and socially.

-- Friendly community, good teachers, provides a variety of services, nice facilities.

-- The teachers--hands down. They hold this entire district together for the good of the kids.

-- Small class size, high academic achievement, dedicated teachers

-- Supportive staff, principal

-- Teachers work well with each other and have the students interest in mind. We are passionate and committed to give the students learning experiences to better themselves.

-- We have a great group of students. Our staff is child-centered and caring. The new principal is actively involved in the school.

-- Good staff, principals and support staff. Great kids and parent support.

-- most of our students arrive ready to learn, the teaching staff is sincere and caring

-- Teachers are well trained, compassionate, knowledgeable, kind, caring, and respectful. PTA is strong, very student-focused, and great to teaching staff! We have a great classroom budget to help with classroom supplies and curriculum materials. We differentiate to student strengths and challenges. Our schools are bright, clean, cheery! We have wonderful creative arts programs!!!!...Art, Music, P.E. Our Pre-k-K program is strong, developmentally appropriate, and student-centered Our Spec Ed program

-- Both schools have wonderful principals that really do care for their staff and students!

-- There are teachers that will work hard everyday to ensure students are learning and loving what they learn. Our schools are comfortable and have a multitude of resources.

-- Clear mission and set of Core Values. Dedicated, qualified and caring teachers. Amazing, supportive and involved families. Excellent, qualified, and respectful administration.

-- We do have a lot of strengths -- most teachers are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, supportive.

-- Most of us all have a passion for our jobs and are here because of our love and concern for children.

-- Teachers, kids, parents, resources, extra-curricular activities, gifted program, teaming idea

-- The district is financially sound with many resources. The teachers truly care about the students.

-- Pleasantdale has dedicated, educated, hard working and caring teachers. The teachers do their best to meet the needs of all their students.

-- Teaching staff and financial stability of the district are our strengths. Class size is fabulous. We have the finances to be a leader in the area of technology.

-- Beautiful school with wonderful resources to support teaching. Teachers that love kids. Wonderful teachers and great parents. A Principal that loves kids and spends time getting to know all of them.

-- 1. Caring staff within the schools, trying to do everything in their power to make kids successful, prepared students. 2. Students are treated with love and respect by all within our school 3. Safety for our students is always first

-- The staff makes our environment a happy place for students. New students adjust very well.

-- Great staff-leader of the middle school has great vision. Families are great and support the teachers well.

-- Pleasantdale is a caring community of educators that work very hard in providing students with an optimal learning environment.

-- The teachers work hard to do what is best for kids. They work well together.

-- Loving passionate community. Aware in implementing latest teaching trends. Great resources available. Caring staff.

-- We have caring, dedicated teachers who are trying to provide the best education they can.

-- Dedicated and caring teachers, supportive families, small class sizes, great access to resources

-- Students return from LT, they say they are doing well academically and enjoy highschool but miss the close, nurturing atmosphere of Pleasantdale's school community. I think we have a competent,caring staff, great families and enough money to fund what is important. We should be able to thrive.

-- Teachers, support staff, and school administration are constantly working towards giving our students the best educational opportunities they can.

-- Caring, hardworking teachers and support staff. Supportive parents. Wonderful students who work hard and experience success in school.

-- Dedicated professional teachers, beautiful building, classrooms, library music and art programs, materials, parents who volunteer and respond to teacher/child needs, great PTA.

-- Caring hard-working teachers, eager students, strong families, great resources and facilities. High academic expectations, Good test scores. Successful graduates in high school and beyond.

-- Pleasantdale is filled with adults in every capacity who want the best for the children in the school. This applies to teachers, support staff, administration, the superindendent and the board. The school strives for excellence and takes steps to achieve it. Students are cared for and loved.

-- The staff is very dedicated to the success of the students that go to Pleasantdale. (I rated #3 with an A because of the hard-working and dedicated staff.)

How would you describe the weaknesses of Pleasantdale to someone new to the community?

-- Challenges in the area of supporting "non-typical" students

-- The staff is overworked and underpaid. We are offically the lowest paid staff in all of the surrounding areas. For the amount of work we are expected to successfully complete and the salary that we are given the balance is flawed. Our district has no vision for the future.

-- There is a disconnect between the staff and the administration. The staff has trouble prioritizing initiatives because there are so many. Teachers want to teach and with so many new responsibilities and committees, their time is being compromised.

-- The amount of new initiatives is creating teacher overload. Unfortunately, teachers are not as focused on classroom instruction when this happens. Compared to other school districts, Pleasantdale teachers are underpaid; this along with the work load creates the potential for high teacher turn over.

-- Many dedicated teachers but the leadership is in transition.

-- We are falling behind many other neighboring districts in regards to technology and the common core.

-- Too much time is spent documenting every thing that is done for every lesson. Teachers don't have time to teach.

-- Superintendent does not know what he is doing.

-- The current curriculum/curriculum writing structure is concerning, conflicts between the board and superintendent, salary scale is low

-- Overworked and underpaid teachers Fear of consequences for speaking out BOE and Superintendent at war lack of professional development money not spent appropriately on technology

-- Behind on required initiatives such as RTI and Common Core. Behind on integration of technology. The very small size makes flexibility in scheduling to meet individual needs difficult.

-- Communication between adm. and staff

-- communication breakdown between administration and staff. Part time position for special ed director which needs to be full time to meet the needs of students and teacher support.

-- I do think we need to work on communication to the community. The community does need to be aware that it is a two way street. I always contact parents within one day of contacting me. I have some not contact me back at all when I have initiated the contact. Initiatives need to be clearly defined and the reasons for them stated to the public. Especially prior to implementation.

-- Teachers have a lot on their plates. Teachers overwhelmed/overworked and underpaid.

-- I would not. Publicizing our many weaknesses would not be professional, polite, or proper.

-- Administration to Teacher relationships Communication between admin and staff Unnecessary heavy workload...fixing things that aren't "broke" Too many plates spinning

-- The school boards approach to getting what they want is extremely ineffective. They need to work more as a team with the administration and staff if they want to make real strides.

-- The Board, Administrators, Teachers, and support staff are not a team. The morale of staff is VERY low. People do not feel respected or recognized.

-- If you have a special needs child, make sure the minutes or goals are really being met. Make sure the child is paired with the classroom, whether an aide in the classroom, or one-on-one is required, that the school is really providing that.

-- Taking on too many changes in a limited amount of time.

-- student support for kids with special needs, focus on testing, fighting school board, lack of trust in leadership at the district level, study hall for 5th and 6th graders as inappropriate

-- They are behind on implementing CCSS and need leadership and unity to be successful. The district is in disarray right now. No one has a vision and we lack cohesive leadership.

-- The greatest weakness is the lack of collaboration between the school board and the superintendent.

-- I would focus on the positive.

-- The current arguing between the Superintendent and Board. A principal, while a fine person, avoids making tough decisions and leaves it up to the teachers.

-- 1. Breakdown of power and unclear "jobs" within the upper ranks (between BOE, Superintendent and Principals). 2. A lot of negativity and lack of trust within the district 3. Many unqualified people taking on roles that are forced on them 4. Many of the SAME staff members chosen to represent the whole group (on committees, etc.) and then SPEAKING FOR THE GROUP without asking the whole their opinions!!!! In other words, too many "pets" keep ending up on decision making committees.

-- Our salary is ridiculously low. It is so depressing to hear all the new teachers leave within 2-3 years and then tell us how they are making 10-15,000 more! I am a veteran teacher, have a masters degree, and am not making $60,000. It is so crazy to talk to friends in neighboring districts and how much more they make. We don't even have a pay scale. This is unheard of in other districts. It feels like a secret. I have been here long enough to know that we have lost 8 amazing educators...all based on money reasons.

-- The need for unity between board and administration.

-- The administration does not work well with others.

-- Not up to par on Common Core.

-- Our school board and superintendent have not implemented Common Core in a timely fashion.

-- Changing direction (curricularly) over the past several years, seems behind with Common Core, discord between the school board and superintendent

-- I think the uneven leadership and lack of empowering teachers to do what they think is best for their classrooms has inhibited growth.

-- A board and administration that are fighting. We are then asked to do additional work to prove which side is "right." Why can't they just work together to help us be the best teachers who can best service our students? A discrepancy in salary for our new teachers. How are we supposed to keep talented teachers in our district when we don't pay them fairly? We are focused on being #1 in testing instead of looking at each student and his/her life pursuits. We need to focus on each student and his/her growth and potential.

-- Administration is difficult to work under, many pressures placed on the teachers

-- Lack of clarity of how to best accomplish the mission. Low teachers salaries for 0-15 year teachers. Unhealthy relationship between the board and the superintendent.

-- Pleasantdale's weakness lies in the adults between groups occasionally lacking trust between each other. While each group (teachers/support staff, administration, school board)are working exceptionally hard to do their absolute best, there seems to be a disconnect in the vision or process in achieving district initiatives. The primary example of this is between the superintendent and the board of education not seeing eye to eye. This damaged relationship has begun to affect the moral an trust of the teachers and staff.

-- The greatest weakness is our superintedent and the insulting salary for highly qualified and educated teachers.

Final comments:

-- We need strong leadership and clear direction. We need to restore trust among the staff and the administration.

-- The board may benefit from a less. Negative attitude. It is seen as attacking, not helpful. I am seeing Pleasantdale going in a unpleasant place if the current climate continues. The dysfunction among decision makers is creating many problems

-- Common core needs to become a priority sooner rather than later. The district needs to commit to implementing them. Curriculum needs to be written by a professional that feels comfortable with the common core instead of an overworked and under payed teacher that doesn't have the appropriate training to write core aligned curriculum.

-- I believe that the leadership at the elementary school is a disgrace. Some of his practices are both wrong and illegal. New students are coming into the school with IEP'S and no aides. Aides and teachers are being pulled in too many different ways. There is not adequate supervision at recess time outside. There is special treatment given to certain people on the staff who "know " the principal. Considering that there are so many that come from his church, know him or his family, live in his neighborhood, ect. It is becoming a hostile environment.

-- I wish we could turn the clock back and have the same atmosphere we enjoyed years ago. Everyone is so busy we no longer have a moment to enjoy our coworkers. Many of us feel guilty for taking a couple of minutes just to catch up. We need to feel comfortable and appreciated by administration. The kids will benefit from an atmosphere where their teachers are happy.

-- Pleasantdale is a nice school, but above areas need to be re-assessed. Special education coordinator should be a full time job (this is the norm in local similar sized districts). The district does bring in some continuing education, but is it directly related to meeting the needs of our students. Many staff members attended Larry Huggins training, but I question the impact it had directly on my students. Other continuing education conferences or speakers would likely have more of an impact on my teaching skills.

-- Please help this district rebuild. It is worth saving.

-- If something is broke you fix it. I hope we can restart with a new spirit of collaboration and trust.

-- We will be losing many qualified and excellent teachers if the salaries are not adjusted during the next negotiations. We are at the lower end of the pay scale for the surrounding districts. This causes a revolving door and thus loses continuity for the students. It is a shame to lose competent and dedicated teachers for this reason. Especially when we are fiscally solvent. New initiatives need to be preplanned and clarified prior to implementation. Ongoing support for them needs to be there and then afterwards there needs to be a review of the validity to them. I see a school that has the potential to be phenomenal if the teachers were respected and looked as colleagues. Curriculum Council needs to be revisited and revamped for better use or increase Core Team and eliminate Curriculum Council.

-- We used to be a high performing district. The decline in test scores and rankings relative to our neighboring districts is sad. Morale is low, teachers are burned out. We need knowledgeable instructional leadership and we need it now.

-- It's time for a change.

-- I feel the few voices that represent all of the teachers on Curriculum Council are only voicing their opinions and not the opinions of the whole staff. I feel there has been a breakdown between the school board and teachers because the few teachers sent to the board meeting to represent all the teachers voiced their opinion and not what all the teachers feel.

-- It is my hope that Pleasantdale will find its way back to being a place I am proud to be part of. I would like to see our teachers/staff receive quality training allowing us to be the best at our jobs. In addition, recognition or rewards would do wonders for morale.

-- I am always grateful for the many opportunities to share my insights in a confidential, respectful manner. I have become accustomed to change stemming from staff concerns. I hope I can expect the same positive change I am used to in this amazing district.

-- ThI believe the staff of District 107 continues to work hard to ensure that each student is given the opportunity to be academically successful. What is lacking is strong Adminisrative leadership.We need someone who will support the staff and include staff in making critical decisions regarding the best interest of a student. Often, Administration will allow parents to dictate the course of action of their child (academically, social or emotional) without including the appropriate staff members in decision making process. A successful environment, MUST have strong Administrative leadership and the support of the staff.

-- I really like the teachers/staff that I work with. It is such a shame that years ago the atmosphere under the old superintendent was better. The teachers/staff do not trust the superintendent or principle to provide the leadership needed to be a great school. AND we were a great school years ago. It is time for new leadership.

-- I love the community as a whole. I do, but I don't like working with a hammer over my head and always waiting to see when I will be punished again for doing what is right.

-- The salary of the Pleasantdale teachers does not reflect their hardwork and dedication. Why is Pleasantdale one of the lowest paying districts compared to the neighboring districts?

-- There has been an uneven quality of administrators in the district in the past. Outstanding administrators have been hired but have left the district after a short time. The district has not supported special education services and social work unlike neighboring districts. SEL education and training of staff has been an after thought. There has been an unusually high rate of turnover at the middle school. The base salary is not attractive enough to keep people here. It will continue to be an issue in the future if it is not addressed which will effect the pay scale for others. The turnover will effect the education of students. The lack on continuity does not work. Sub pay needs to increase to attract quality subs. Subs need to have a lunch and not be assigned to staff lunch duty if they are subbing for a staff member who is being paid extra for lunch duty. Pay the sub extra or offer to pay a staff member for taking that duty.

-- Assign an ipad to each teacher. Stop fighting at our highest level. I have heard several times from several staff members that the Superintendent yells at people in his office when he is angry and in disagreement with them accompanied by pounding on his desk. This is unacceptable behavior.

-- We are losing focus on the children because of the animosity between Superintendent, Admin, and BOE! We need to make changes and get on with what we are here for - to best serve our children and prepare them for their futures! Can we reconsider the roles that we all play and quit using unqualified personnel to "save a buck" and not hire the people/positions needed to get us on top? Give staff an equal opportunity to be heard before making major decisions, too. One person cannot effectively represent the whole without having time to communicate to them. Can we get our time back with our grade level teams, where we can effectively impact our students instruction and success?

-- Thanks for giving us the opportunity to voice our opinions.

-- The term RTI is unknown to many teachers in this district. The school board has many missions-Is there anyone who can be unbias and begin to prioritize them? We are behind the other districts in terms of science opportunities. Our students need more training after school and during in the means of engineering and computer readiness. Taking the technology "teachers" away in both schools has really been visible. I know we have a mod tech teacher, but I am talking about helping our students be creative, technology literate and smart.

-- Question 4 on this section (how do we compare) seems to be one of the board's major concerns this year. We constantly compare our district to surrounding feeder districts for LT. This "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality is not beneficial. We need to look at where we are and see how our students are growing from year to year instead of constantly obsessing over how we stack up against the other feeders.

-- Pleasantdale has great potential in being a top performer but would benefit from a plan to provide teachers with training on Common Core practices. Potential is there but so much is needed to improve curriculum. Teachers should not be SOLE writers and curriculum council comprised of "non-educators" should not be making decisions about assessments/curriculum. Professionals in curriculum writing should be consulted. Further, the need of a FULL time curriculum director is needed to provide PD and be a communication piece between the state and our community. We are in a box with air holes for breath! There is such potential for us to grow.

-- We have the potential to be a stellar district. We need to work on one thing at a time and do that at its best. Don't overwhelm the teachers. Pay the teachers what they deserve. Respect the talent in our district staff. Decisions made with what is best for children. I want our district to be the one everyone wants to copy. We can be that way!

-- I think if we had a strong feeling of trust throughout our district, we would be a stronger and more cohesive team of people.

-- I think the Board, Administration and Staff all need to work together to move forward. I also think we need to raise the salaries of the new staff (people with less than 15 years of experience). It is not good for the school to have teachers that cannot make a decent living and raise a family without working two jobs. Too much teacher turnover, even if we get good new people, takes away from continuity and stable leadership within the staff. Even if people stay with jobs being tight we want people committed to our community to help it grow not constantly looking to go elsewhere.

-- We are a very human business. Some have better "human skills" than others. We've had seminars in transforming the organization, synergystics sessions in how we function, surveys and end of the year evaluations. Sometimes I wonder if they've helped. Overall this is a great district. We have some work to do to repair relationships and get on track with how we plan to move forward.

-- As Superintendent, I am very committed to having a better relationship with the current School Board. I believe we are all committed to making this the best school district possible for students. I appreciate all the time and effort Board members commit to the district. I am confident we will become more effective and efficient. Mark Fredisdorf

Pleasantdale School District 107

School Climate Staff Insights Survey - 2014

Results Summary
Overall Satisfaction

Question: Please rate your overall satisfaction with Plesantdale School District in the following areas: (items are sorted by average highest to lowest)
Item	Response	Count	%
Teachers percentages based on n=72	Excellent	50	69.44
	Good	20	27.77
	Fair	2	2.77
	Poor	0	0.0
	Not Sure	0	0.0
Average Response: 3.66 s= 0.53

Support Staff percentages based on n=72	Excellent	47	65.27
	Good	23	31.94
	Fair	2	2.77
	Poor	0	0.0
	Not Sure	0	0.0
Average Response: 3.62 s= 0.54

School Administration percentages based on n=72	Excellent	13	18.05
	Good	28	38.88
	Fair	20	27.77
	Poor	10	13.88
	Not Sure	1	1.38
Average Response: 2.61 s= 0.94

School Board percentages based on n=72	Excellent	3	4.16
	Good	19	26.38
	Fair	26	36.11
	Poor	16	22.22
	Not Sure	8	11.11
Average Response: 2.14 s= 0.8

District Administration percentages based on n=72	Excellent	3	4.16
	Good	13	18.05
	Fair	30	41.66
	Poor	25	34.72
	Not Sure	1	1.38
Average Response: 1.91 s= 0.83

Question: I am satisfied with how well Pleasantdale School District 107 is accomplishing its mission: To ensure that each student is a passionate learner empowered with the academic and social skills to responsibly choose and excel in life pursuits
	count	percentage n = 69
Strongly agree	4	5.79
Agree	42	60.86
Disagree	19	27.53
Strongly disagree	2	2.89
Don't know/doesn't apply	2	2.89
	Total: 69		Average Response: 3.4 s= 1.04

Question: Students are often given the grades A, B, C, D or F to denote the quality of their work. Suppose our District was graded in the same way, what grade would you give us?
	count	percentage n = 69
A	4	5.79
B	33	47.82
C	25	36.23
D	7	10.14
F	0	0.0
	Total: 69		Average Response: 3.49 s= 0.76

Question: How would you rate Pleasantdale School District 107 compared to neighboring public school districts?
	count	percentage n = 69
Much Better	1	1.44
Better	19	27.53
The Same	22	31.88
Worse	14	20.28
Much Worse	1	1.44
No Opinion	12	17.39
	Total: 69		Average Response: 3.08 s= 0.77

School Culture

2014-03-11T10:54:00.001-05:00

Pleasantdale School District 107

School Climate Staff Insights Survey - 2014

Culture

Comments/suggestions:

-- Our district seems to be focused on one aspect of our students..their achievement on standardized assessments. We have stopped looking at the whole student, and focused on scores from a weeks worth of testing. The thought that tracking students performance on these aformentioned assessments,and then making decisions based on their performance is, at times, very hurtful and counterproductive to the relationships of staff members.

-- Just because I am comfortable asking a supervisor for assistance does not mean I will get resolution or timely assistance.

-- I truly do not feel like I have the opportunity to bring about change because I do not have enough of a role in the decision making process. I am almost never consulted for decisions being made on a large scale level.

-- Grade/content areas are 2 different teams for many employees

-- While we work hard on ways to improve, what does "work hard" mean? Since there is no vision, we all have way too many spinning plates. The plates are now starting to fall into a pile of broken hopes and expectations. In many cases, the curriculum was poorly written in a way that set the expectations for students at a low level. Because there was no assessment advice/training/supervision for the teachers, there is little higher-level thinking assessed at the ES. The directive from the administration was to get it done. Little was said about quality.

-- staff evaluations need to be given for administration

-- Our staff is wonderful!! Very hard working, open to ideas, collaborative, student focused, positive to our students, respectful. I don't feel comfortable asking any supervisors for advise because I know more than they do in my area of Early Childhood Education! I am not even confident being evaluated by a supervisor because they do not know how an ECE classroom works. We lost Kelly Voliva because administration did not want to make her full-time. She was a fantastic advocate for ECE...knowledgeable, helpful, approachable....our new ECE supervisor has not been effective to me as a teacher at all this year. It is like we have no one to be our advocate.

-- The support from our Administration and staff members is overwhelmingly positive.

-- Parent involvement is important, but I believe the principle puts too much emphasis on doing what the parent wants and not what the teacher feels is best. My teams work well together there are just a few who are clueless!!!

-- 1. I totally trust the grade level team that I work within making decisions that impact our students. I do not, however, feel that anyone in our school does well in teaching LA due to lack of a series. Are we meeting CCSS is a good place to start. 2. I feel totally at ease asking Matt for advice or assistance. I feel that he does everything in his power to help us. He treats us with respect as the professionals we are. I feel he does not have the "power" needed to make decisions needed to be made by a principal. This may be because of the ineffective, destructive relationships between BOE and administration OR is it between the Superintendent and the principals?

-- The staff is wonderful. They have the passion to what is best for all children. Many are discouraged because more and more is asked of them and we are not compensated in our salary. We need to be paid like other districts that achieve what we achieve.

-- Many staff members work as team players, although there are people that don't. I'm sure this is everywhere but I believe it is getting worse and the principal and superintendent are not addressing the issues in regard to these situation. Being a team and trusting your team is crucial in getting things done efficiently. I have tried to bring about change as far as being a team, but have been told everything is fine. Our board and superintendent are focused on being more than 100%, which is unrealistic and 99% on standardized tests is inadequate.

-- While we are able to participate in discussions, our opinions are considered worthless if they differ from the hidden agenda. Decisions are not really made by consensus. They are made outside of meetings and then we meet, and if we don't go in the right direction we're told we have no consensus. This will have to be an executive decision, even when it's obvious we do have consensus. Why do we have to be at these meetings if the decisions are already made?

-- I feel comfortable asking our new principal for advice/assistance.

-- I know I can speak openly for the most part as I am tenured. I have seen instances with nontenured staff that that was not the case. I do not feel I had an adequate say in areas such as Marzano, 50% for work not done, discipline, etc. There are some areas where we are asked for input but it is usually on minor areas.

-- I do not feel that staff have been allowed to bring about change in our departments depending on who the administrator in charge of that department has been. I feel that some believe that the staff is not capable to making an educated professional decision concerning their curricular area. Or possibly, that staff is too lazy. I have not seen this to be at all in my department/grade level. We have an incredible number of staff with Masters degrees and beyond. We are educated and continue to seek knowledge in our fields. I can and have always been able to go to fellow staff members for advice and assistance. I have seen staff bend over backwards to help others professionally and personally. That includes the secretaries at building level and the district office as well. Purchasing materials has been difficult in the past. Personal budgets and department budgets have been dwindled down so small that it is difficult to purchase curricular resources for your classroom with it. This year there seems to be an open check book for some departments, which is not necessarily ideal either. It is uncomfortable when you are told you need to choose a text or program too quickly without adequate time to evaluate the programs available and make a decision that is intelligent, based on research of companies and sources. Buying is fun especially when it is not your money, but one needs to evaluate at least a few options not just one. Time needs to be taken to review the materials, maybe even use a sample a few times in a lesson before giving the thumbs up to spending money. Teachers know the importance of such purchases. This will determine the course of the next few years of education for students, it should be studied and calculating in its approach.

-- I know that parent involvement will greatly improve. Our new leadership has a lot to do with this.

-- So many 0f these questions depend on the group or my answers this year vs. past years where very little parent involvement or or teacher input was encouraged or allowed. I feel like I could go to any staff member for advice or support. I feel that this year's principal is open to new ideas, and more contact with teachers, students and parents.

-- I agree that employees are encouraged to share work-related ideas and suggestions, but I disagree that employees always feel comfortable enough to share these ideas.

-- For the past several years the opinions of teachers as the experts of their subject area have largely been ignored. Not only that, but when opposing viewpoints were offer, those individuals were often perceived as problems and retribution sometimes followed.

-- The greatest strength is the work ethic and the mutual support of the staff here at Pleasantdale. Everyone cares about others. The interaction and conversations are professional and purposeful among the teachers.

-- Staff members are fearful that whatever they say may be used against them. They do not feel that they can be open and honest without being reprimanded.

Pleasantdale School District 107

School Climate Staff Insights Survey - 2014

Results Summary
Culture

Question: Please indicate your level of agreement for each item. (items are sorted by average highest to lowest)
Item	Response	Count	%
Students here believe the staff cares about them. percentages based on n=84	Strongly agree	51	60.71
	Agree	32	38.09
	Disagree	0	0.0
	Strongly disagree	0	0.0
	Don't know/doesn't apply	1	1.19
Average Response: 4.61 s= 0.49

I feel comfortable asking a peer for advice or assistance. percentages based on n=84	Strongly agree	46	54.76
	Agree	37	44.04
	Disagree	0	0.0
	Strongly disagree	1	1.19
	Don't know/doesn't apply	0	0.0
Average Response: 4.51 s= 0.63

My grade/content area operates as a team. percentages based on n=84	Strongly agree	36	42.85
	Agree	37	44.04
	Disagree	4	4.76
	Strongly disagree	0	0.0
	Don't know/doesn't apply	7	8.33
Average Response: 4.36 s= 0.71

My school invites parent involvement. percentages based on n=84	Strongly agree	21	25.0
	Agree	49	58.33
	Disagree	9	10.71
	Strongly disagree	1	1.19
	Don't know/doesn't apply	4	4.76
Average Response: 4.0 s= 0.89

I am encouraged to try new ideas or ways of doing things. percentages based on n=84	Strongly agree	26	30.95
	Agree	40	47.61
	Disagree	11	13.09
	Strongly disagree	3	3.57
	Don't know/doesn't apply	4	4.76
Average Response: 3.93 s= 1.08

Our school is focused on student growth. percentages based on n=83	Strongly agree	20	24.09
	Agree	43	51.8
	Disagree	12	14.45
	Strongly disagree	4	4.81
	Don't know/doesn't apply	4	4.81
Average Response: 3.79 s= 1.11

My school works hard to find ways to improve. percentages based on n=83	Strongly agree	23	27.71
	Agree	39	46.98
	Disagree	14	16.86
	Strongly disagree	4	4.81
	Don't know/doesn't apply	3	3.61
Average Response: 3.78 s= 1.17

Academic expectations in this school are reasonable. percentages based on n=83	Strongly agree	17	20.48
	Agree	49	59.03
	Disagree	13	15.66
	Strongly disagree	3	3.61
	Don't know/doesn't apply	1	1.2
Average Response: 3.78 s= 1.06

Staff members like me can bring about change in my department/school. percentages based on n=84	Strongly agree	24	28.57
	Agree	34	40.47
	Disagree	19	22.61
	Strongly disagree	2	2.38
	Don't know/doesn't apply	5	5.95
Average Response: 3.74 s= 1.17

I feel comfortable asking a supervisor for advice or assistance. percentages based on n=83	Strongly agree	21	25.3
	Agree	43	51.8
	Disagree	13	15.66
	Strongly disagree	6	7.22
	Don't know/doesn't apply	0	0.0
Average Response: 3.72 s= 1.21

Employees here are encouraged to share work-related ideas and suggestions. percentages based on n=82	Strongly agree	15	18.29
	Agree	47	57.31
	Disagree	15	18.29
	Strongly disagree	4	4.87
	Don't know/doesn't apply	1	1.21
Average Response: 3.66 s= 1.12

My school operates as a team. percentages based on n=83	Strongly agree	13	15.66
	Agree	38	45.78
	Disagree	23	27.71
	Strongly disagree	8	9.63
	Don't know/doesn't apply	1	1.2
Average Response: 3.3 s= 1.29

I have adequate opportunities to participate in decisions that affect me. percentages based on n=84	Strongly agree	11	13.09
	Agree	27	32.14
	Disagree	33	39.28
	Strongly disagree	10	11.9
	Don't know/doesn't apply	3	3.57
Average Response: 2.95 s= 1.32

Just like Pleasantdale!!

2014-03-10T16:18:00.000-05:00

http://www.hold181accountable.com/2014/03/many-people-think-you-curriculum.htmlMonday,

March 3, 2014

"Many people think you (curriculum department) are delivering a great product.” Marty Turek, Board President of School District 181

Toward the end of the February 24, 2014 Board Meeting, school board president, Marty Turek, made the following statement after Kevin Russell, Co-Assistant Superintendent of Learning, shared the winter MAP results: "There are 4,000 kids in here. You can surmise there are over 4,000 parents, so it seems to me 40 showed up. It seems to me that a lot of people were pretty happy with it if they did not feel a need to come to get this explained. I think it is a testament that many people think you are delivering a great product, not perfect, but the majority are happy with the services you are giving." (Time stamp 3:34:00 of podcast)

We bloggers believe this an important statement for our readers and parents in the district to understand. The board, or at least the board president, is looking at the number of parents who are showing up to board meetings as a reflection of parents' satisfaction with the services that are being provided to our students. We cannot blame any of the board members for taking this position, because they can only act on what they are told either by the district administration or the district parents. We have more than 134,000 hits on this blog as of this posting. We believe there is more dissatisfaction in the parent community than what the board is hearing, but that does not mean anything if the only voices the board hears are the same handful of parents who do consistently speak up at board meetings. The board cannot react to anonymous postings on this blog. They must operate from the information that is shared with them directly.

So, is Marty Turek correct? Are there only 40 parents who are concerned about the direction the district is taking? Are there only 40 parents who are not happy with the average to negative growth on the MAP test results their children are getting? Are there only 40 parents who are unhappy with the math program and the need for over 100 4th graders to receive tutoring on 4th-grade math skills? Are there only 40 parents who are not satisfied with what their children are learning with the new reading and writing curriculums? Are there only 40 parents who are not satisfied with having to provide tutoring at their own expense instead of student needs being met in the classroom? Are there only 40 parents who are unhappy about the heterogeneous one-size-fits-all differentiated driven classrooms instead of targeted instructional services? We could continue, but we’re sure you get where we are going with this line of questioning.

We have tried to provide a forum on this blog for dialog among parents and to get out the facts about what we see as issues in this district that we believe are having a negative effect on our children and the overall success of our district. Mr. Turek has shared his truth with the public and has now stated what we believe is truly the board's position. If very few parents are attending or speaking out during board meetings, then there is nothing the board can do but assume the majority of parents are happy with the services their children are receiving.

We informed our readers on our February 24 posting that they should not miss that evening’s board meeting because some important information was being shared: Dr. Moon's comments to the board and the MAP test winter results. We know many of you are listening to the podcast or the live streaming audio of the meetings, but this is not making a difference. Either parents need to email or attend the board meetings and express their concerns so the board can include your voices in the future decisions they make, or they have no other choice but to follow the direction given to them by the administration. We are at an important junction in this district, because with the hiring of a new superintendent, the board could give different directions for the district or they can continue on this same path. We believe it is of the utmost importance that the board has the real story from the teachers and the parents and that they hear from them in enough numbers that there is no doubt about the direction we need to take.

We know many parents believe they have spoken up and written letters and nothing has changed, and we share that frustration, but now is the time to either step up to the plate and be heard and let the board know what you expect for your children, or we will have no excuses for not accepting things as they now are. We cannot expect the board to act without hearing many voices expressing concerns. If your child is bored; if your child is frustrated with the accelerated pace of instruction; if you are providing tutoring for your child to keep up; if you are a teacher and are frustrated with what is expected of you, then all of these voices need to speak up now while there is still a chance to make changes. If you cannot attend a board meeting, then we encourage you to write to the board. The only way change will occur is for the board to believe parents are not happy with the services their children are receiving, because right now they believe you are all happy (with the exception of the 40 who showed up to the last board meeting).

We do not believe we have had over 134,000 hits to this blog because only 40 people are unhappy, but we cannot make changes on our own. The only way change will occur is for all of us to be directly involved at the board level. Only six BOE meetings remain before the end of the school year. They need to hear from you; otherwise, from the lack of presence at the board meetings, we are telling them we are happy. Are you happy? If not, then you must speak up for your child, for our district, and for our property values. There is no other way change will take place.

We welcome any comments, positive or negative, regarding the status and direction of D181.

Work Environment: Hot Spots!

2014-03-06T20:17:00.001-06:00

Pleasantdale School District 107

School Climate Staff Insights Survey - 2014

Work Environment

Comments/suggestions:

-- Teaching is a strenuous job. Constant changes in learning, resources, expectations, mandates, students, etc. require a great deal of energy. I am very busy and I love it. Our new curriculum director has assumed many of the duties that are time consuming and frustrating. I am thankful for that. I have never been denied of any materials and/or training if I had a solid rationale. I feel very fortunate for my administration.

-- The amount of work I am asked to do is reasonable because I am a very resourceful person. There was not a lot of information given to me about the responsibilities of the job and I had to do a lot of leg work on my own. Communication was lacking on many aspects of my position at the beginning of the school year.

-- While it is wonderful that the students all have laptops and ipads to work with, it would be beneficial to all if they had someone who would teach them how to use this technology. It should not be up to the classroom teacher to teach the students how to type or how to navigate a web browser. There should most certainly be a technology teacher for this. As for the amount of work I am asked to do, I find it completely unreasonable that I have to write my own curriculum. While I believe all of the teachers are doing their best, this should be a job for a professional. This is especially true due to the lack of appropriate compensation for the teachers who complete this job.

-- Teachers are over worked with initiatives without the appropriate support/ resources, taking away from their primary job of teaching students.

-- In our contract aides are supposed to be given one plan time a day. This is never the case because we have bus duty at 8:40 and resource and team meetings which start at 8:15. We need plan time to prepare for any pull out time with our kids.

-- For a district as financially solvent as this one, I continue to be amazed at how little is spent on resources, supplies and technology--for both teachers and students. We always seem to be behind on what we need, especially for technology. I truly think we are doing our students a disservice when it comes to technology. There is no training for teachers, no technology teacher for students, no technology able to be brought home for students, no cloud to encourage collaboration and no attempt to look outside our little microcosm to see what might be working elsewhere. Our district is afraid to take this step and therefore, our students are losing. Teachers cannot be experts at everything! When students already know more than the teacher, the district is failing. Getting laptops and a cart of ipads was a step, but only a step. No attempt has been made this year to continue to more forward.

-- At the elementary school, we keep asking for books and resources for language arts. Haven't seen them. The carpet in my classroom is over 20 years old. It is filthy and stinks. The laptops and computers my students use in the classroom are old and falling apart. Since the district tried to implement the "Marzano Standards" thing, we have been writing and rewriting curriculum and assessments without any training or guidance. The guidance we were given was poor and wrong.

-- Amount of work reasonable? I work through lunch most days, taking home work most nights and a few hours of work on the weekends. I am asked to wear many hats in my position and not compensated for it.

-- When I started working here, my area had a budget of $2000.00 or more. Currently the budget is $500.00 and includes more grades to use that amount. Our maintenance workers do a great job with our classrooms. In the area of technology I feel more pre-planning is needed and prior and on-going training. As for the amount of work I am asked to do, in a day I have one 40 minute period to type homework, copy materials, grade papers(if lucky), put grades into the Skyward, check emails and send emails, plan (if lucky), and do other tasks as asked. It is not uncommon for me to stay to 5:30 or 6:00 to complete what I need for the day.

-- I do wish we had a larger selection of guided reading materials. Our budget is awesome, however so I feel like I can order things for my classroom without difficulty!! I am not satisfied with our technology, however. Problems with laptops working or old computers down in the Prek-K rooms make it difficult to use all the wonderful resources and software programs out there. Judith often appears angry or put=out if we ask her for help and John is so busy with administrative stuff that often it takes a while to get help from him and get off his "list". When John can help us, he is very clear and helpful in giving us the skills necessary to learn ourselves. The maintenance staff is fantastic!!! Our schools or always clean...although, it's probably time to replace some carpet at the elementary building that has now been in place for 20 years! YUCK

-- Considering other comparable districts I feel that the availability of tech resources (e.g., I Pads) is lacking. Compared to previous districts I've worked in, the emergency response plan does not appear as thorough and clearly understood by all as it should, in my opinion.

-- The work requests are never ending---creating assessments, implementing CC, reviewing materials, reporting to meetings, agendas, commitments....then add in teaching, grading, and reporting in Addison to communicating with parents.

-- I believe the maintenance crew do a good job, but the carpets are old and could be updated if not replaced completely. The computers do not support any new software for the children to use. They are old.

-- We should have a technology teacher. We used to have one, and it was much more beneficial to students. The classroom teacher stayed in the room to assist with a lesson planned by someone much more qualified to teach this subject. Students are lacking in technology skills because of the loss of this teacher. As far as the work we are asked to do, our classroom responsibilities are fine, but we are expected to do so much more than be TEACHERS. We should not be in charge of curriculum.

-- To deliver services with integrity requires additional teacher support. Pleasantdale has so many aides that could be eliminated if one or two more resource teachers were hired.

-- Out personal budget amount has not been raised for 12 years. It's difficult to get the basics we need. Most of us buy them ourselves at back to school sales.

-- We need a technology integration specialist to help us prepare the students for these new online tests.

-- There is not enough training and support for the technology. I feel there is only one person available to assist me when I have problems. That person does the best to his/her ability to fix the problems based on their availability.

-- I feel that each middle school classroom should have a minimum amount of technology, a standard amount, so that teachers could move from room to room and have the same items available to them to teach their content area. I know that staff are not all at the same comfort level with technology, but we have attrition. When a new teacher comes into that room, they will not the use of a smart board or class set of computers. Each time a new piece of equipment is added, it is a different "model" and has different specs. The use-ability from room to room may not be so seamless. This is true for students as well with computers. I believe that there should be a minimum standard of equipment and then special needs would go up from there based on content area. I am more comfortable with our response plan now that an fob access has been added to the back of the APR. It has been a concern in the past for teachers on outside duty at lunch.

-- I am very troubled that we have rooms with old carpeting that foster mold growth. Classrooms should not have carpet. Not having access to an ipad in my room on a permanent basis and a means to print from it is outdated. Other than an ipad, I have been given everything I have needed and requested for instruction, thank you Pleasantdale!

-- 1. There is no support for technology in our building. We need training or go back to having a computer teacher that is versed in all programs we have. 2. We are asked to do more busy work than work that directly benefits our students!! We need to quit having meetings about things that ALL must attend even when it does not impact their teaching or students.

-- I do not feel equipped to write assessments that are valid and have statistically strong measures. I also feel that technology for science needs to be improved. I wish our building had IPADS. I do not understand why we are solely a PC devoted building.

-- I have a brand new printer in my room, from day one of this year. Still has not been connected.

-- When will we have time to focus on making our teaching better. There are too many new initiatives being thrown at us monthly. Let's focus on the kids.

-- In order to meet the needs of our children we must do more work than teaching day to day. I am here early and stay late and work through lunch in order to achieve that.

-- I know our district is very lucky to have all of the resources we have, although we are behind regarding Common Core and resources for that. I am satisfied with the amount of classroom work I have, although all of the extra work asked of me is overwhelming. Especially writing curriculum, assessments and not having the proper training or TIME to properly complete all of these tasks. Administration and the board are not realistic in regards to any of these tasks.

-- In terms of materials, we have had the same $100 budget for classroom supplies for over 20 years now. I've always felt like the spending of money was discouraged instead of encouraged. It almost feels to me that we approach our budget as if we are a corporation focused on having more in savings than what we spend. As a school, I would hope that our goal is to use the money we bring in on making the school a better place for students and staff.

-- I have not eaten in the lunch room this entire school year, and I come in 40 minutes early and stay 40 minutes after school. We have had so many new duties added to every day that every teacher feels overworked and never feels as competent as they truly are. Always being asked the impossible and never being given credit for accomplishments. It's not a good atmosphere for teaching.

-- I am not one of the teachers in the high pressure areas, so my added work load is fairly reasonable. However, I feel that the district needs to consider the long standing pattern of curriculum and assessment writing that go beyond teaching, planning and classroom responsibilities. It impacts the daily creative energies of the teacher that should be directed toward planning great things for the students.

Pleasantdale School District 107

School Climate Staff Insights Survey - 2014

Results Summary
Work Environment

Question: Please indicate your level of agreement for each item. (items are sorted by average highest to lowest)
Item	Response	Count	%
Our classrooms and schools are well maintained. percentages based on n=75	Strongly agree	25	33.33
	Agree	42	56.0
	Disagree	6	8.0
	Strongly disagree	2	2.66
	Don't know/doesn't apply	0	0.0
Average Response: 4.09 s= 0.95

I am comfortable with our emergency response plan. percentages based on n=75	Strongly agree	19	25.33
	Agree	46	61.33
	Disagree	3	4.0
	Strongly disagree	3	4.0
	Don't know/doesn't apply	4	5.33
Average Response: 4.05 s= 0.88

I have the resources I need to work with the student population. percentages based on n=75	Strongly agree	14	18.66
	Agree	38	50.66
	Disagree	16	21.33
	Strongly disagree	5	6.66
	Don't know/doesn't apply	2	2.66
Average Response: 3.54 s= 1.21

I have been given the materials and supplies I need to do my job effectively. percentages based on n=74	Strongly agree	16	21.62
	Agree	32	43.24
	Disagree	19	25.67
	Strongly disagree	6	8.1
	Don't know/doesn't apply	1	1.35
Average Response: 3.45 s= 1.3

I am satisfied with the technology resources/support available to me. percentages based on n=75	Strongly agree	7	9.33
	Agree	34	45.33
	Disagree	21	28.0
	Strongly disagree	12	16.0
	Don't know/doesn't apply	1	1.33
Average Response: 3.04 s= 1.33

The amount of work I am asked to do is reasonable. percentages based on n=75	Strongly agree	4	5.33
	Agree	32	42.66
	Disagree	26	34.66
	Strongly disagree	13	17.33
	Don't know/doesn't apply	0	0.0
Average Response: 2.84 s= 1.29

Everyone's Voice - What have you got to say?

Quote of the Day

Hallelujah!

News from around the state

Lies, Lies, Lies...Again

Mr. Jim

Congratulations!

Truth!

Congratulations to the Class of 2014!

Lessons for life...

Thanks Neighbors!

Breaking News!!

Mission Accomplished?

Caution! Directional Shift Ahead!

Cha-CHING!

The D107 Crazy Train

Trash

Superintendent Lacks Experience and Supervision

Pleasantdale Board, superintendent, send out apology letter!

Pleasantdale Board Members Overrule Superintendent, Question Curriculum!

District 107 Common Core Time LIE

January 24, 2014

Superintendent’s Board of Education Weekly Update

Overall Satisfaction - New Leadership Clearly Wanted!

How would you describe the strengths of Pleasantdale to someone new to the community?

How would you describe the weaknesses of Pleasantdale to someone new to the community?

Final comments:

Question: I am satisfied with how well Pleasantdale School District 107 is accomplishing its mission: To ensure that each student is a passionate learner empowered with the academic and social skills to responsibly choose and excel in life pursuits

Question: Students are often given the grades A, B, C, D or F to denote the quality of their work. Suppose our District was graded in the same way, what grade would you give us?

Question: How would you rate Pleasantdale School District 107 compared to neighboring public school districts?

School Culture

Comments/suggestions:

Just like Pleasantdale!!

Work Environment: Hot Spots!

Comments/suggestions: