In our collective outrage over the most recent tax bills in Oak Park, one cannot help but wonder whether District 200 is making best use of the 64 percent of our tax dollars that they share with District 97. I would be the last person to object to tax dollars going to education but the first to object to tax dollars going to needless outsourcing because entrenched employees of the school district are unwilling to do the work themselves.
I am thinking specifically of the special education programs in District 200. I have read the recent exchanges by your readers and find it astonishing that OPRF cannot handle the vast majority of special education needs as most school districts in the state seem to be able to do. I’m sure that there are some special needs that cannot be accommodated. But $3 million in outside placements sounds entirely too much, given that the figure represents about 100 students or approximately 20 percent of the special needs population. Why do we have to send about 20 percent to outside placements when the statewide average is closer to 2-4 percent?
Perhaps more interesting is the question of who is accountable for these outside placement decisions. Who decides to spend $20-30,000 of our money each time a child is sent elsewhere? Is it long-term faculty who would rather send them away than retool the curriculum to keep the children here? Is it the administration that simply rubber-stamps clout-heavy teachers rather than take seriously an important educational issue?
Aren’t we entitled to know how this has happened? When a budget item such as this one is so clearly out of line with statewide norms, shouldn’t there be at least some transparency to the decision-making process so that parents/taxpayers can have at least minimal assurance that their dollars are being wisely spent?
I, for one, have seen enough of this special education controversy in the press to suspect very strongly that what we are seeing is the old stonewall technique. Throw money at the problem, make the decisions in private and maybe these people will go away.
Leonard L. Cavise
