From the RB Landmark:
3/27/2007 10:00:00 PM Email this article • Print this article
Candidates cry foul over RB High School mailing
Challengers claim PR piece meant to influence elections
By BOB SKOLNIK
Three candidates for the Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208 school board who are challenging the three incumbents are crying foul over an eight-page slick, colorful mailing by the district that began to land in residents' mailboxes last weekend.
The professionally prepared mailing which cost nearly $8,000 in taxpayer money to prepare and mail out is headlined "Another Banner Year!" It features colorful photographs of RB students and articles extolling the accomplishments of RB High School. It also includes, most controversially, a short article headlined "Happy together: School Board, administration, and teachers union enjoy unique relationship," which the challengers say can be interpreted as an attempt to support the three incumbent school board members running for reelection.
"I consider it to be contrived, self-serving and obviously political, and if we get elected this kind of thing is not going to happen," said Riverside resident Christopher Robling, who is running for the District 208 school board. Robling is working as a team with fellow Riversiders James Marciniak and David Hilpp.
Running for reelection are school board President Larry Herbst of Riverside, and incumbents Marty Crowley and Sue Kleinmeyer, both of Brookfield. Also running are Frank West and MariAnn Leibrandt of Brookfield. There are four seats on the board that will be filled at the general election April 17.
Herbst is quoted in the four-paragraph item extolling the relationship between the board, administration and union. The mailing also quotes Doug Schultz, a math teacher at RB and the president if the teachers union, saying "[w]e know a good thing when we have it. We have a great mix of people."
The teachers union has just recently voted to endorse the three incumbents, and no one else, in the school board race.
Robling, Hilpp and Marciniak questioned the timing of the mailing and feared that it was an attempt to influence the school board election.
"This is reminiscent of the mailing we got prior to the referendum," said Marciniak referring to a similar mailing sent out at taxpayer expense in 2006 shortly before the vote on the nearly $58 million referendum that passed and is funding RB current renovation and expansion project that is about to begin.
"Exactly the same deal, things are great, we're all holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya,'" Marciniak added. "I can't say that this is at all unexpected. I just didn't expect to see it this early. I thought it would show up later to try and avoid any response from the community to this mailing."
Marciniak, Robling and Hilpp favored last year's referendum, but claim that they are better qualified to help oversee the project.
The PR piece cost District 208 $7,885 according to District 208 Business Manager John Gibson.
Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann estimated that the district mailed out approximately 9,000 copies to District 208 households.
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Comment:
Don -- The article above ran before the 2007 election, not after, as you said. It took me about five minutes to locate. If you were going to attack someone, why did you not check your facts?
All three of us joined in it, not two of us -- as you said -- after the other was elected. I take back not one word and I am proud of attacking that abuse. Tellingly, with Jim Marciniak on the Board, it did no such mailing this year.
You are also wrong about the certificates. The certificates are the responsibility of the teaching or administrative professional. The professional (referred to in the business as, "Illinois certified staff," by the way) works with both offices, regional and Springfield. The procedure for teacher and administrative certification and re-certification are explicit, well known and easily followed. 99 percent of Illinois certified staff never has a problem with its certification.
The official documents available still at the Landmark web site in the Baldermann case show clearly Jack Baldermann's five attempts to earn re-certification for himself in his year of non-certification. Five attempts by Mr Baldermann himself personally in one year, after other notices of expiration, etc. show that he knew quite well that he was not certified and was trying to become re-certified. So, you are wrong in sluffing Jack Baldermann's responsibility for knowing he was not certified onto Mr Flowers, who acts in this matter on our behalf according to statute as a record keeper, not a policeman.
As for Pasarella, I have not seen his documents. But what your "different take" does not encompass is that if John Pasarella is not certified, then he cannot legally be employed in an Illinois public school district. That is not my language, or Bob Skolnick's, or Larry Herbst's, or Senator Cronin's, or Secretary Duncan's, it is the language of the Illinois Compiled Statutes and the Illinois State Board of Education. It is binding law. ISBE balances this by providing Mr Pasarella and Mr Baldermann with straightforward means by which to remain employable, i.e., re-certification.
So you were wrong about who attacked the publicly-funded mailer, and you were wrong about when we did so, and you were wrong about certification, and you were wrong about Jack Baldermann's awareness of his certification. As for the rest, I think considerable ground exists on which to suggest your other assertions may also be wrong as well.
I agree with you I have always heard good things about John Pasarella and he seems to be a good fit, but that does not matter if he cannot legally be employed.