I’ve been talking to people familiar with DeKalb’s administrative hearing system to try to understand the point of it all. (One of the responses became the title for this piece.) At heart it’s theater, but hardly entertaining. What’s collected probably doesn’t cover the costs of putting on the show, and the performance contains the threat…
Category: Dist 428
Three reasons District 428 should abandon plans to dodge a referendum by buying NIU’s School of Nursing
District 428 needs a new elementary school, and has decided on a so-called “rent to own” deal for NIU’s School of Nursing to get it. This is based on a reading of state law that says a school district can do renovations on a building without a referendum if leasing it. Here are three reasons…
City’s and school district’s claims that they don’t support ticketing children in school is easily disprovable
DeKalb’s Human Relations Commission (HRC) met last week. The city has not yet posted the video of the meeting although typically it posts the next day. At least two of us saw a city staff member turn on the camera, so perhaps the reason for the delay is due to less-than-stellar conduct, as described here.…
Human Relations Commission to explore roles of police embedded in District 428 schools
DeKalb’s Human Relations Commission (HRC) meets tomorrow night and the agenda includes a discussion of the role of school resource officers (SROs). Superintendent Minerva Garcia-Sanchez and District 428 security staff are expected to attend. During its last meeting, HRC members expressed concern about the ticketing of children for local ordinance violations in Illinois schools, so…
Series: Prosecution of City Ordinance Violations
Our local schools employ city police as “school resource officers” (SROs) via intergovernmental agreements, and have for years. The objectives are enhanced safety and better relations between law enforcement and the public. What people don’t know is many Illinois schools, including District 428, have turned to SROs to take on disciplinary roles for school infractions…
What FOIA has revealed so far about prosecutions of children in City of DeKalb
Since last spring, I’ve submitted several requests with City of DeKalb for information about school resource police officers’ ticketing of children in local schools, a practice in more than 160 school districts statewide, including District 428. Here, I want to summarize data I’ve obtained that readers might find useful in evaluating the administrative hearing program.…
DeKalb must overhaul ordinances if it insists on prosecuting kids
***2nd Update 10/7/2022: This week in the DeKalb Municipal Code I’ve found a provision for “court supervision” that includes community service, but am leaving this recommendation in the post because at this point I don’t know if or how it’s used. ***Update 9/15/2022: Pro Publica is hosting a virtual event on the subject of police…
School District Trying to Double-Dip City TIF Dollars
Monday’s city council Committee of the Whole (CoW) meeting includes this: Consideration of a request by DeKalb School District #428 for TIF assistance in the amount of $2,000,000. The assistance would go toward construction-related improvements to two schools that lie in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, Founders Elementary and Clinton Rosette Middle School. Here’s the…
November 25 Council Agenda
The city has put up another meeting agenda for tomorrow that’s a revision of the original, so all you early birds will have to read the new one. However, keep the old one handy because they didn’t include the rest of the packet with the revision. Highlights: Item 1: Another hit to the Public Safety…
Belated High Five for District 428
Talk of a possible teachers’ strike last month was tense and emotional for a lot of us. When the school board and the teachers’ union came together at nearly the last minute, I felt relieved and psychologically moved past it right away. But that was wrong. What I should have done, and will do now,…