Odds and ends with some a bit odder than others:
Every strategy needs a contract: Good for the school board at Oak Park and River Forest High School. Last week it unanimously passed an updated version of its strategic plan — this time with actual ways to measure if the strategies are working.
The primary focus of this plan — then and now — is creating equity. That’s the new shorthand for closing the achievement gap. The plan has effected measures on every aspect of the effort. And the district has hired a data master to keep tabs on what is being measured.
This is all good. But I’d suggest that the real opportunity this new board and new administration have in terms of creating change at OPRF is just ahead. Starting now and through the next school year, it will be time to negotiate a new contract with faculty.
The first thought for a new contract is money. How big are the raises and how long is the deal? Clearly important, and with the historic generosity of school boards on behalf of swamped taxpayers, this would be a good contract in which to be prudent about raises.
But the greater opportunity is to remove hidebound and obsolete concepts that directly limit progressive changes in teaching and evaluation. Specifically, D200 needs to follow the lead of District 97 elementary schools, and a select few other districts, and eliminate steps in the pay scale. These are the automatic pay hikes that reward every teacher just for showing up each fall. They run 2-3 percent and get added to the negotiated pay raise. They don’t motivate. They don’t reward merit.
The district also needs to look hard at the sort of continuing education credits it ladles out raises for. An awful lot of the post-graduate coursework is a joke. Teachers will tell you that if you ask the question right. Again, D97’s last contract changed up the strategy for continuing education, adding rigor and focus on what is most important to the district.
The Faculty Senate, better identified as the union, is extremely powerful at OPRF. Has been for years. That power has made change difficult at the school. And it explains why you can’t remember the names of the past four OPRF superintendents.
So long NGP: Eight years ago, a little grassroots effort started in the villages with the goal of helping small kids understand the value of giving back to others. The Neighborhood Giving Project it was called. Launched by moms, the group tackled a whole bunch of small efforts where children could be hands on in learning the gratifying feeling of doing something good for someone else.
Now with the first batch of those little ones heading to the high school, NGP is wrapping up its organized phase. But it seems certain those kids will keep seeding our villages with good works, taught early by loving families.
Sort of like the new Comiskey: When the White Sox, well, actually Illinois taxpayers, built the new Comiskey Park back in 1991 it was fully utilitarian. Big bathrooms, lots of food stands, and about as welcoming as a prison block. But year-by-year the place has gotten better, warmer, more idiosyncratic.
That’s what came to mind this week as I saw Base Camp students from the Oak Park Education Foundation creating a tile mural on a portion of the south and west walls of Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School on Washington Boulevard.
Built 15 years ago, the twin middle schools are not architectural award winners. The most positive thing I’ve ever heard mentioned is that “they work well inside.” A low bar.
So more murals. Grow some ivy. Add public sculpture. Warm these schools up.
