Comedian Jon Stewart’s valedictory performance on last Thursday (08.06.15) night’s “The Daily Show” contained a segment that should be “must watch” for anybody who wants to understand American (and Park Ridge) politics and not be an unwitting dupe of all those elected and appointed officials, as well as the career bureaucrats whose stock in trade is, in a word, “bullsh*t.”
If you saw the show, or if you watch the clip of it embedded here, you may recognize what Stewart described as “premeditated institutionalized bullsh*t designed to obscure and distract” when you read this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate article (“District 64 seeks community input from new council,” August 10) about Park Ridge-Niles School District 64’s latest transparency charade called the “Community Relations Council.”
This new Council is the brainchild of Supt. Laurie Heinz, who said it’s something she wanted to do since she came to D-64 a year ago. And since Heinz is already accepting applications for the 20-30 membership slots, we can only assume she got the idea rubber-stamped by the bobble-headed Board majority.
As Heinz is quoted in the article: “I understand that I’m accountable to the community and I want them [sic] to be well informed.”
Premeditated? Check.
Institutionalized? Check.
Designed to obscure and distract? Check.
Heinz so badly wants the community to be “well informed” that, during her rookie year at the helm of D-64, its Board – with not a peep of objection from her – appears to have led all our local governmental bodies (City Council, Park Board and D-207 Board) in those secretive closed-session meetings designed not just to obscure the taxpayers’ view of what the D-64 Board is doing but to conceal it altogether.
As a result, Heinz has had no problem with keeping the community in the dark by what seems like a closed-session at every meeting – and especially not with all those closed sessions Board president Tony Borrelli called leading up to her recent contract extension and raise. An extension and raise based on those reportedly outstanding mid-year and year-end written reviews that never saw the light of day.
An extension and raise that the community didn’t know any details about until the moment they were called for a vote by the Board.
She also has failed to provide details of the mysterious student fees the District keeps billing parents. The roughly $300/year/kid ones those freeloader parents don’t want to pay without an itemized list of every pencil, paper clip and Dixie Cup that comprises them – even though they’re getting $14,000/year/kid of “free” education that they will never come close to repaying through their RE taxes, even if they don’t bolt from Park Ridge the minute their youngest graduates Maine South, as a D-64 mom bragged about in a comment on the Park Ridge Citizens Online Facebook page.
And let’s not forget the chirping crickets coming from her office at even the merest mention of D-64’s modest rankings and the stagnant student achievement on the standardized tests that help keep those rankings depressed.
So don’t be fooled when Heinz says she wants a “well informed” community. What she wants is a clueless, docile community that keeps paying her $250K-plus per year until she finds herself another district offering an even better deal, all the while demanding no measurable improvement in D-64’s rankings or its students’ performance.
And that’s going to take a public relations machine of 20-30 gullible rubes, preferably well-known and with large circles of friends and acquaintances, who are willing to serve as naïve endorsers and mindless conduits of whatever propaganda Heinz, the D-64 Board and its minister of disinformation, Bernadette Tramm, crank out.
Think of them like those paid shills at old-time traveling medicine shows who could barely limp up to the wagon with their last dollar to buy a bottle of Doc Watson’s Magic Elixer – which they would guzzle down right then and there before almost immediately proclaiming themselves miraculously cured of the gout, lumbago and the grippe.
Except that those 20-30 Community Relations Council members will be doing their shilling for free.
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14 comments so far
I have watched the videos of the meetings, and the only person that seems to always vote against closed sessions is Eggemann. The rest of them act like they can’t wait to go off the video and into hiding. That Heinz or anybody over there would have the chutzpah to say they want to inform the community is a joke.
Don’t forget Heinz’s signature “For your children” sign-off on her letters, press releases, etc. As you or some commentator pointed out, it is more like “For my $250K.”
These various public relations tricks, when combined with all the secrecy and misdirection, actually harms people like Heinz’s credibility with the people who are paying attention and thinking critically about these issues. But if that is only 5% of the population, on the other hand, the gimmicks may be working for her.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Exactly. They sell the “sizzle” because they’ve got no steak. But when so many taxpayers seem unable to tell the difference between steak and shoe leather, or just plain disinterested in it, selling the sizzle is more than enough. Especially when the only word our bobble-headed Board members can seem to manage is “Amen.”
The posting for this community council says it hopes to get applicants that do not have children in the schools. I thought you were all for more non-district parents getting involved that they can keep an eye on the bottom line and reign in the freeloading parents?
You aren’t willing to give her a chance with this idea, see if it is useful before dismissing it as a farce or trick?
EDITOR’S NOTE: No, we’re not. Because unlike Charlie Brown – who keeps believing agaist all evidence that Lucy won’t pull the football away at the moment he tries to kick it – we no longer trust the folks at D-64 when they claim a desire to be transparent and to help the community to be well-informed about what D-64 is doing.
Leopards don’t change their spots, so we’re sticking with our healthy, realistic distrust of such idle talk – while at the same time hoping against hope that those leopards’ spots might actually change.
I think you are right about this p.r. effort. Heinz etc. will come up with the message and the 20-30 members will be told to sell it, no questions asked. Its like Axelrod, Rove, etc. who control the message and turn it into a manufactured reality
EDITOR’S NOTE: As we noted below, we would love to be WRONG about this – and we would love to issue a public correction/retraction of this post should it prove to be wrong.
But it’s hard to assume anything but the worst about a Board and administration that seems to do almost all of its important business in closed sessions – that it insists on keeping secret even after the final decisions have been made in open session – presumably to keep the taxpayers in the dark about who said what when it really mattered, prior to the open-session Kabuki performances.
Round up the usual suspects, like the people who ran the “Strong Schools” referendum committee and the PTO people who enable the administration and board.
I am a bit surprised at your attack on this new “council” being formed. I consider myself a man of integrity and I have sent in my application to be on this council. I have NO intention on supporting anyone’s agenda. I DO want to have a better understanding of what is going on at my children’s school and want a better understanding of where they will go and how they plan to get there. I have three children at Franklin and want the best for them while at the same time making sure I am not gouged with property taxes and “some student fees” that have yet to be explained what exactly it is going toward. I am currently building a home in Park Ridge that will have a tax base of roughly 28K per year and plan to stay in that home for hopefully the rest of my life. I moved into this community because of the School system well before I had any children. I do not consider myself a free loader just because I demand to know what I am paying for. I have donated thousands of dollars a year to the PTA as well as the ELF functions to support our schools and children, but find it insulting to be charged a student fee without being told what that fee is going toward paying. Although I agree that there are some out there that expect others to foot the bill for their life, I find it insulting that you group all of us that demand transparency “free loaders”. I have no issues with paying a student fee for my child to have an advantage, but I want to make sure that fee is going toward my child and NOT into someone’s pocket.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve seen these kinds of public relations scams before, so we’re not as easily fooled by them as novices like yourself.
But if you truly “have NO intention on supporting anyone’s agenda,” you’re blowing smoke up your own fustanella if you think this Council – or Heinz and the D-64 Board – actually cares what you think. You can’t even get them to tell you for what specific things you’re paying those student fees you keep beefing about, and you’ve been harping about that for how long now?
Where you need a reality check, however, is your sense of economics.
Because if you “have three children at Franklin” you’re already getting $42K/year of “free” education. So even if you were already paying “roughly 28K per year” in RE taxes for your new house, you still wouldn’t be paying more than $10K of it to D-64. Which means you’re sticking your fellow taxpayers for $32K/year of your kids’ education. And the chances of you ever catching up to “even” are virtually non-existent, no matter how long you might live here.
So when you and your fellow beefers want to stick those same fellow taxpayers with an additional $300 per kid in fees, you basically DEFINE “freeloaders.”
Where are you getting the number of $14k/year? Is that compared to private school? Is that the number coming from the state level of an average amount/kid the state pays for?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually, it’s $14,886 of total cost, per the District:
http://www.d64.org/about/documents/WA_IIRC_2013_14.pdf
District 64’s statement about student fees:
http://www.d64.org/business/documents/Fee_Flyer2015_164-21-15L.pdf
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re not certain, but we think these are the “pie charts” that the freeloader contingent says are grossly inadequate to explain the fees in the detail they demand.
And we have to assume that they also object to the District’s pointing out that the fees they are beefing about only cover about “52% of the District’s annual costs for instructional resources and technology.”
I have a deal for the D64 Parents. NO FEES for the mandatory, state guaranteed needs.
BUT, parents have to pay for everything else, IE: Lunch supervision, Buses, Library Use, Web site maintenance, gym equipment, all supplies (even teachers), non- school mandated gym use (such as V show, dances… who pays this electric and security at these events?) and every other non-essential cost.
These are just a few examples of stuff that should be back on the parents. Let’s bet you’d beg for these $300 fees back.
Don’t be so cheap parents. I saw a post on Facebook the other day about a poor mom (and many other freeloaders chiming in) paying $700 in total fees for BOTH of her kids…but she says in Hoffman Estates it’s free!! Awwww, does she need a GPS? Why does the community want people who are here to soak the taxpayers?
The absurdity and cheapness of these people is astounding.
She is PAYING 2% of the total cost approximately.
If you are building a house in Park Ridge, then you probably should enjoy that you are ABLE to do that because you are sucking up $42,000 PER YEAR in free schooling. I bet if you take that nugget out of your budget, that new house wouldn’t be so new.
You’re welcome.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Nailed it.
Bam. And thank you 9:33.
9:33 AM Excellent post, but FYI, the V Show at Field School reimburses District 64 for the custodial staff, gas and electric etc. It comes out of the net proceeds the show generates thru ticket sales, ad book sales and all other monies. The cost this year from the district for the shows in March totaled upwards of $ 6,400.00 and allowed the V Show to still donate over $ 20,000.00 to the Field School PTO.
Hello,
I’m wondering if you could find and post or lead to somewhere where I can find D64 salaries: administrators, teachers, secretaries, teacher’s aides, custodians, everybody.
I haven’t found a site that shows all of these numbers but since they are all public employees they should be available somewhere. With all the talks of cost-cutting measures and concerns over contracts, raises, overtime fees, etc. I’m interested to see who makes what and what they do to deserve those salaries.
I hope you can help
Thanks.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If D-64 actually cared about transparency and accountability, a link would be on the District’s “Home” page. But if you find your way to the “Financial” section, you will finally find – under “Other Financial Information” the following: http://www.d64.org/business/documents/Admin-TeacherSalary-BenReportREV9-23-142013-14.pdf and http://www.d64.org/business/documents/IMRF75k2014-15093014.pdf
I think that maybe PUBDOG might be onto something with this NEW council created by the superintendent. I was offended that PUBDOG would suggest that only YES men would be put on this council, since I applied to be on it. I, along with others that believe there is good and bad with what the district is doing and had NO INTENTION of being YES people, have been denied a spot on this council. I hope that I am wrong but it looks like I might owe PUBDOG an apology for his original take on this Council.
EDITOR’S NOTE: No problem, George. We’ve been doing this for so long that it’s like “Groundhog Day.”
And when bureaucrats and/or politicians form these kinds of committees, they usually take the position of the infamous Chicago pol Paddy Bauler: “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.”
Welcome to the real world, George. Or at least D-64’s version of it.
Hi
You mention all the free education our kids get without paying the taxes. Excuse me but my tax bill is $15K a year so to say parents don’t pay taxes is not true.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Then you had better re-read the post, because we didn’t say “without paying the taxes.” What we did say is that most taxpayers with kids in the public schools weren’t paying anything close to the cost of those educations.
If your entire RE tax bill is “$15K a year,” then you pay approximately $5K of that to D-64. If you have just one kid in D-64 – costing approx. $14,000/year – you are $9K short of paying for that kid’s education. And if you’ve got two kids in D-64 schools, you’re $23K short.
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