On Monday we told you about tonight’s Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64’s dog-and-pony show (7:00 p.m. at District 64 headquarters, 164 S. Prospect) being put on by special invitation for our community’s “key communicators” – members of last year’s referendum committee, members of the district’s Elementary Learning Foundation (ELF), members of the community finance committee and the presidents of each school’s PTO – so they will help sell the rest of us on the District’s plan to add more than $700,000 a year in new personnel, including more administrators.

If you didn’t qualify for an invitation, D-64 might still let you in if you call and RSVP (847.318.4300).  Of course, if too much uninvited riff-raff shows up, there might not be enough room because the D-64 folks chose to stage this pro-spending pep rally at its headquarters rather than in one of its more spacious school auditoriums – presumably because that makes it easier for the Administration and School Board to control the proceedings and the listeners.

Frankly, we think limiting a presentation such as this to a select audience “by invitation” is an insult to all the rest of us taxpayers who will be paying for the new personnel the District wants to add.  And we also think it’s insulting for the District’s elected School Board members and its salaried administrators to engage in what amounts to Amway-style multi-level marketing of their fiscally irresponsible ways through a select group of unelected, unpaid cheerleaders. 

But even though it promises to be a carefully staged event (there’s going to be a Power Point presentation, after all), we hope somebody asks some of the following questions:

*  Why didn’t the District tell us about the “need” for this additional personnel during last year’s referendum campaign?

*  Why should the average D-64 administrator be paid $2,000 a year more ($67,489) than his/her counterparts in Winnetka D-36 ($65,252), $4,000 more than in Wilmette D-39 ($63,433) and $4,000 more than in Deerfield D-109 ($63,063)?

*  Why should the average D-64 teacher be paid $3,000+ a year more ($62,183) than his/her counterparts in Deerfield D-109 ($58,958), almost $4,000 more than in Winnetka D-36 ($58,706), and $6,000 more than in Wilmette D-39 ($56,020)?

*  Why is it that these schools all appear to regularly out-perform D-64 in student testing?

*  How much of the approximately $12 Million in budget cuts you made over the past few years – while assuring us they were not affecting the quality of education in the district – have been restored since the referendum passed last April?

*  Why did the District keep on raising teacher and administrator compensation while it was regularly appearing on the Illinois State Board of Education’s financial “early warning” and “watch” lists for bad financial management?

*  Why did the District use a sneaky “back door” (non-voting) referendum to issue $5 Million in working cash bonds a few years ago rather than do the honest thing and ask the voters for that money through a conventional voting referendum?

But whether you ask questions or just sit and listen, we suggest you bring your own beverage into the meeting…unless you’ve got a taste for Kool-Aid.