Township High School District 113 has to a survey released in March that measured community interest and opinion in capital improvements to Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools.
, the District reached out to members of the community to seek input and guidance before developing a new plan.
Patch and at least three others made requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the raw data used to create the marketing committee's report on the survey. All were denied. Patch made its request May 7 and the District denied it May 14.
“A majority of the members on both the market research team and the leadership team decided that the raw data you requested should not be released,” District 113 Superintendent George Fornero wrote in a letter to Patch after the request was denied.
At least one member of the leadership team, because of the unwillingness of the administration and District 113 Board of Education to release the data.
Marci Cohen, the head of marketing committee and the author of the report, declined to discuss it with Patch this week.
Members of the community who were on opposite sides of the question a year ago both want the raw data released. They believe the Board and administration are not being sufficiently transparent after conducting the survey.
“The transparency of government is important,” Highland Park resident Lane Young said. Young voted in favor of the referendum. “There is lots of good data, which would be useful to understand what the community was feeling in that snapshot of time.”
Young was one of the people who filed a FOIA request for the information.
Fornero does not believe the release of the data is necessary and does not think the District has a legal responsibility to disclose it.
“It was the opinion of the community members on the Market Research Committee that releasing the data is not a common professional practice,” Fornero wrote. “Furthermore, the requested data is exempt from FOIA because it is predecisional material.”
Another community member, Frank Pirri of Deerfield, the head of Education First, has the same thirst for the raw data as Young. Education First was the major group campaigning against the referendum last year. He did not file a FOIA request.
“The community is entitled to know the responses to the questions,” Pirri said. “If you want community input you should share the information.”
I find it interesting that you have such a relaxed hands off vibe on this issue but you are one of the most active and vocal critics of the 109 Board and leadership. Let me make sure I understand, for 109 we need to be more active and vote the Board out of office, for 113 we should relax and let the Board do its job. I await your instructions on how to think.
All it means for me is that I head to Monday's meeting suspicious, rather than bought in to the findings and ready to support. It could so easily have gone the other way, unless the district has something to hide. And again, for the record, I want to find the right set of improvements for these schools for their futures.
I can't speak for anyone else. My recommendations were made without using the survey data as a guide. I say that not out of arrogance, but as someone who spent a lot of time analyzing the buildings before the survey results were made available. The needs for the building and the investments are not necessarily always apparent in just a simple survey, nor can you always judge them without actually seeing the conditions. That being said, I think the survey can provide a plan on where some work is needed. For instance, if the Board and their professional team determine that a specific action is needed and it is in conflict with the survey, that tells me that there should be clear, sound basis for the actions that are taken (or not taken.) As an example, the survey states that the community does not value athletic facilities, yet they expect the improvements to extend the useful life of the buildings 25 years. Some of those PE facilities are at the end of their useful life. Perhaps maintaining them does not make as much financial sense as replacing them, so the team needs to quantify that and make their case to the community why they are making a certain recommendation.
The survey is one tool. The millions of dollars invested in volunteer time to me have a greater weight. I know these people and I know this process. The process has worked. It has been highly transparent and engaging, at least from the facilities standpoint. It's working, but we're not even at halftime. I'm looking forward to seeing what the professional team and the community put together.
The survey said the community does not value athletic facilities - yet D113 has spent about $6M on Wolter's Field, hasrecently spent about $1M on DHS's athletic field, and wants to spend even more at Wolter's... PE facilities at the end of their useful life are different from athletic facilities - one is for teaching a PE class, one is for accommodating a sport or sports. They essentially have different maintenance and operational costs associated with them. We could be tempted to increase the size of a replacement PE facility to serve a dual-purpose of also accommodating athletics, but I believe that'd be going against the wishes of the community and should not be done. Whatever the plan ultimately looks like - it needs to: * Balance the needs of the taxpayers for tax relief with the needs of the students to receive a quality educaiton * Take into account demographics so we right-size the plan (i.e., we don't want to overbuild or underbuild). * Take into account the desires of the community - the survey is one tool to convey those desires. And we need the raw data to verify any claims made.
If someone claims the data supports their belief - ok, fine. Let's have that discussion. Show us your analytical methodology, and we'll talk. Maybe we'll end up believing you, maybe not, or maybe - just like on the 1914/et. al Study Group - we'll all learn something from each other and, sometimes, meet in the middle.
It's been sooooooooooooooo obvious that this is E1st's "thing" for the moment. This is how they're building the foundation of their battle. Can't trust the boogy man. Too bad they can't stick to the discussion of the actual plan. Too bad they weren't properly prepared to build a consensus for their direction.
I don't really think it has much to do with Education First discussing the current plan (which hasn't yet been released) or not, and everything to do with transparency in the process.
I haven't agreed with you a whole lot and I'm not in love with where you're going. If you don't mind me saying, I think you should distance yourself from much of the direction of the rhetoric. Your work says a lot more than most of these people have to say. You pounded through this and seemed to have shown the process and community the respect it deserves (excuse my side commentary). I have nothing but the utmost of respect for the time you put in and that you stuck to your guns and stuck it out. Once again, my bad.
http://www.dist113.org/communityaction/Market%20Research%20Minutes/Market%20Research%20Results%20Community%20Survey.pdf Page 5 This analysis focuses on 1,703 voters −District 113 community members who voted in the April 2011 election −Represents 9.7% of 17,480 actual voters The analysis only included people who voted on the referendum. This means that the results were not representative of the entire district. This group is on average much older and much more likely to have voted no than the entire sample. This limiting of the results was done to make sure that the most conservative were considered in the analysis. If the results were expanded to the entire sample or balanced to the demographics of registered voters the results would have been much more positive.
Open to a New Plan •The community is open to a new plan for improving the District 113 schools, and open to considering a referendum that would request funds for these improvements −73% of No Voters agree “I decided to wait for a better plan” −90% of all voters are undecided (55%) or are leaning in favor of approving (35%) a potential second referendum It seems that the primary concern with the old process was that the planning process was not good and that we needed a better plan. This is the main driver for the massive amount of time and resources that are now being devoted to the new long range plan. There have been over 100 formal study group meetings and many informal work sessions. Several thousand hours of work have provided by community members many of whom have specific expertise in the subject areas. For example the 1914/PE/Athletics committee has many architects and other experts on it. In many ways though, we are just getting started. On May 21 2012 the board will hire a new architect firm and it will be at least half a year of more work before their plan is ready for the next step. The community will be involved every step along the way.
But I'm sure more than 100 focus groups and more than 50 participants still won't satisfy some of the big mouths. I don't envy your position, but I appreciate all your work ... and patience.
Next thing you're going to tell me is that many people called for a new process and strong community involvement. Then, when they wwere invite to participate, they didn't show up and worked hard to discredit that process. Oh, wait ...
http://www.dist113.org/communityaction/Market%20Research%20Minutes/D113%20Study%20Group%20Recos%20with%20Community%20Perspective%204-26-12.pdf We also plan to use the panel to get additional information as required.