This is the smartest thing the new board has done. First things first. Dr. Bonnette is doing a fine job. Let him continue and use his expertise in selecting a principal and then getting him or her started.
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Landmark letter - Turnaround needed at RBHS
(388 posts)-
Posted Monday Nov 2, 2009 17:27 #
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Agreed.
Inasmuch as Larry Herbst deserves credit for reaching out to Bonnette in the closing weeks and months of the old board, I agree about this act and the new Board.
There will be a public input session on 3 December in the evening, I understand. All are welcome. Perhaps this can be the start of a community-wide shared vision for RB becomming the finest Illinois public high school of its size.
One hopes.
Posted Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 09:08 # -
Thanks for the info Chris.
To expand on your vision statement, and to tie this in with the discussion on rankings, look at the most recent Sun Times rankings, where RB is rated 41. If you look at the schools rated ahead of RB, I can see only one other public, non-magnet, high school in the 1000-1500 student cohort--Vernon Hills. There may be others (I used IHSA stats to get these numbers) but even if so, I don't think there are too many. Does this mean we're close to meeting your goal? Or are there other rankings, ratings, opinions we should be looking at?
Posted Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 15:43 # -
We are never close to the goal -- that's where complacency congeals the community. We have been dealing with that for the last several years.
The goal is always before us, but just a bit too far to grasp, causing us to reach farther ahead of ourselves.
Rankings are limited depictions, that is no news. Lots of rankings equals lots of limited depictions. Living by rankings imposes the wrong ordering priciple (and results in "teaching to the test...").
JohnM, my two cents are to find out where you think RB is. Go to RB events, join one of the committees David and Jim pushed through. Read a board packet and go to a Board meeting. Then you will know where RB is relative to your conception of its goal. If you decide RB is important enough for your personal time, then you will be improving RB.
I guarantee you this, RB has no issue that more involvement by our community cannot overcome.
Posted Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 17:01 # -
Chris,
But if the goal is for RB to be the finest public high school of its size, how do you measure that? Standardized tests? COllege acceptence rate? A football team with a running game?
Again, I'm in agreement with you that we can improve--just trying to figure out where we're trying to go and how we know when we get there.
(As an aside, I understand the constant exhortations to "get involved." Community involvement is important. But really, attending village, D96 and RB meetings, while trying to hold down a job and raise a family seems a bit of a daunting task. I do like a bit of free time. That's why I'm asking you these questions--I'm honestly curious).
Posted Tuesday Nov 3, 2009 17:18 # -
The metrics form a bouquet of achievement, not all of which will always be in our dirrection, but all of which will consistently show both strength and improvement:
1. Sound budgeting in which expenses are less than revenues, a capital plan is established and maintained, a reserve fund is established and maintained, we do not dip into the market for payday loans, etc.
2. Graduation rate in neighborhood of 98 percent.
3. College matriculation rate in the 90's.
4. Percentage admitted to first choice college high and growing.
5. Academic attainment levels across the broad spectrum of standardized tests for Illinois high schools are consistently in the very highest tier, say, top ten to 15 high schools in state.
6. Premiere-level state and national teams in academic, intellectual and forensic competitions (Math Clubs, Chess Clubs, Computer programming competitions, Langauge societies, debate, individual speaking, etc.).
7. High and growing rates of indicia of personal, non-academic achievement by students showing ability, mastery and dedication, such as High School All-Americans, Eagle Scouts, leading volunteerism, etc.
8. Pace-setting vocational-ed program for non-college bound students that is designed and updated annually to relate to west suburban employer needs.
9. A professional and collegial organizational environment in which the students' learning is the ordering principle for all decisions.
10. A workplace in which no individual, be he department chairman, football coach, athletic director, longtime union leader, etc. exert influence beyond his area of particular responsibility.
11. An organizational structure that is instinctively open, transparent, inclusive and respectful, that locates the school as the manifestation of the community, that treats all its employees with respect and humanity, that does not tolerate inappropriate activities or beahviors by anyone, and that is equally prepared to reward initiative and performance as it is to hold individuals accountable for their failures and shortcomings.
I think these would be a good start, but I claim no special knowledge or insights, and there may be far better indicia or metrics out there.
What is so amazing is that we have a majority on the Board composed of two former school board presidents, a professional educator who is a principal in a large nearby school, and a current president who obviously wanted the job. But they are silent on their vision.
Why they have articulated nothing, let alone something sensible like the above fairly self-evident points, is a reasonable question. In the absence of such, and in light of their record, they seem married to the status quo.
I think we are underserved. The majority has been running things over there for years, and beyond a few axioms, like, "We hire the Superintendent and then take a seat in the balcony..." (??!!?), it is tongue-tied on where the school should go. Thus they drift from crisis to mess to patch-up to personalities to fear of offending over-influential employees to the next thing. Simply put, they are not up to the job.
Whatever you decide, JohnM, with a principal search on, there is no time like the present to Improve-RB.
Finally, I re-state my resentment at being probed by an anonymous poster. Nothing personal, but this is less for you than others who may happen by.
Posted Wednesday Nov 4, 2009 08:42 # -
Chris,
Thanks for the post. Hard to disagree with any of the criteria you enumerated, but a challenge to implement. Still, given the right leadership and with sufficient community involvement, I think most of this is possible.
One thing I want to note, which I think some are losing sight of, is that RB has improved dramatically over the past 15 years or so. I graduated in 1985, and back then, the prevailing attitude seemed to be "well, we're better than Morton.". There was never any concerted effort to be on the level of Lyons Township or a Hinsdale Central. The fact that we now set our sights higher is, I think, evidence of a change in thinking that was a long time coming. Again, we're not where we should or could be, but it seems to me that we are moving in the right direction.
By the way, I don't consider myself an anonymos poster. JohnM is my log-on name, my real name is John Mathews. I've stated this on several occasions before, but figured it can't hurt to state it again. Don't want you to resent answering my question. But when discussing schools, I can think of many reasons why others may wish to be anonymous--they could be employees of the district, they could have children in the school and not wish to draw attention to them, they could be friends or neighbors of Board members or administrators. Its certainly your perogative not to respond, but I wouldn't take it personally.
Finally, you didn't respond to my question about a running game. Seriously, top_notch quarterbacks and receivers seem to grow on trees around here--can't Zeman find someone to mix up his offense a bit?
Posted Wednesday Nov 4, 2009 11:22 # -
John, thanks for the note. Good to know you are a real person.
What I know about football fits in the smallest thimble they sell at Target, but I hosted Jeff Joniak and Tom Thayer for two years at WMAQ-AM. They confirmed my belief that all of football starts with a first class offensive line, that enables either running or passing. If you pass all of the time, that means you are not running. Red Grange, Bronco Nagurski and Jay Berwanger, should they walk out of the corn rows one evening, might mistake RB's game for a passing drill, mightn't they?
I am all up for RB improvement whenever and how ever. I think the Klingsporn era was an upper, and Jack's era began that way. But it did not end that way. There are many really gifted and dedicated teachers there, and the school is not bad at all. My son goes there. But, it takes focus and clarity to move from good to better than that, not status quo-plus. Best.
Posted Wednesday Nov 4, 2009 13:31 # -
Following (below) is a note I have posted at RBLandmark.com, about RB's deficit-causing five-year contract. There is a disappointing tone in Board discussion about RB's deficits that others (the State of Illinois) have not done their part (fund schools appropriately). That is a big issue for another day -- and it diverts attention from the current Board majority's role in this mess.
I hardly think Larry Herbst stepping down and firing triple-dipper Otto Zeman, which specifics I suggest in the note, justify a referendum. Rather, those steps are better understood as preconditions to the hard work necessary to -- as pointed out by Hazard, Young and Attea, the board's recruitment consultant -- 'restore the school's integrity...'
It is only after such decisive steps, and a formal renegotiation with the teachers, and other cuts, can the Board hope to make a sensible -- and credible -- presentation to the community. What the community will do then is anyone's guess.
Here is the Landmark note:
Back on October 20, this paper ran a letter about this very issue:
http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=5476&SectionID=3&SubSectionID=17&S=1
The proximate cause of these deficits is a contract we could not afford when it was "negotiated" and signed by then-Board president Larry Herbst.
It provides annual salary hikes of approximately five percent over five years, for a cumulative pay increase in the neighborhood of 30 percent.
All responsibility for this rests with the Board majority, led by Herbst, and including Jim Marciniak, Sue Kleinmeyer and MariAnn Leibrandt.
It is time to seek concessions from the teachers formally, many of whom are first-rate and every one of whom deserves security in their income expectations, but who must acknowledge that this community can only do so much.
Other cuts in expenditures must be made as well. Our triple-dipping re-employed annuitant athletic director (via salary, pension and stipends for coaching), is a good place to start the cuts.
Finally, but most significantly, Larry Herbst must step down from the board. As one who has praised Larry for recruiting David Bonnette and making serious attempts at community involvement, I believe our community has lost whatever confidence in his leadership it ever had. Surely, it will not approve new funds for RBHS if Larry is to have a role in their management.
Larry's tenure will rightly be noted with accomplishments, such as the building program, and a long list of failures, including most prominently the Jack Baldermann fiasco.
Even as of this weekend, Larry -- and interim assistant principal Troy Gobble -- appeared as favorable references on Jack Baldermann's consulting website. They just don’t get it – and after what we have been through it is fair to assume they never will. This shows the community that Larry -- and Troy -- resolutely look backward, and are incapable of bringing about the future RBHS richly deserves.
Posted Thursday Jan 28, 2010 09:26 # -
With this morning's news that Dr. David Bonnette will remain as interim superintendent through mid-2011, I salute RB's board of education and acknowledge that the needed turnaround is indeed taking hold. Congratulations.
Important further steps remain, principally extricating ourselves from the $8 million fiscal quagmire into which Larry Herbst led us, but with Dr. Bonnette and incoming principal Mrs. Pam Bylsma a team is assembling that -- in the words of board consultants Hazard, Young and Attea -- can restore integrity to the school and its operations.
http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=5832
(I want to abide by this site's rules, which I think are to include links and not text. If I have that backwards, please forgive me -- no offense intended.)
Posted Thursday Feb 11, 2010 10:46 #
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