By: Diane Benjamin
Proving yet again local government has no respect for religion, the Unit 5 School Board held a meeting on a Wednesday night during lent. Churches don’t do Lenten services anymore? Mine does.
The video claims this meeting lasted until 2:43 this morning.
75 people signed up for Public Comment. Not everyone stuck around to speak however.
Many people and kids spoke about cutting band for 5th graders and foreign languages. These proposed cuts are about infuriating people to get a tax increase. They aren’t about adjusting staff to fit needs.
I certainly didn’t listen to every comment! If anyone mentioned decreasing enrollment I didn’t hear it. See this story: https://blnnews.com/2022/03/04/unit-5-enrollment-is-decreasing/
At 1:18 AM the meeting reconvened after a break. This meeting should have been suspended and continued today, the Open Meetings Act allows it. It is beyond ridiculous and unnecessary to conduct business in the middle of the night. Suspending a meeting does not mean another 48 hour posting requirement. They could have continued the meeting today.
Scan the comments, but don’t miss these:
3:36:35 – Stan Nord. When Normal’s Uptown TIF expires in just a few years Unit 5 will be getting a lot more money.
3:49:18 – Patrick Manieri. Unit 5 can use Esser Funds instead of diverting them to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion nonsense. At 5:29 Dr. Weikle appears to dispute Patrick’s claims.
5th grade band was not cut. Foreign language for 8th graders was. 36 teacher and staff position were cut along with 2 administrators.
See the video here:
https://vimeo.com/event/1743783/videos/668365177/
Our GOVERNMENT is non secular by design
I agree, we should never insert religion into schools.
Shootings and fights are always better than teaching all lives matter.
Let’s talk about how Unit 5 got where they are with their $13 million debt. A lot of it is interest on the money they borrowed from the bonds. Haven’t heard one word about that. I’m not a big fan of Kristen Weikle, but she did inherit a mess from her predecessor and a board that is culpable. At the very least I think she does understand that she can’t continue to operate the way Unit 5 has in the past. The problem is turning to the taxpayers to bail them out of they mess that they got us in. This is always governments solution to the problem.
So, they have survived this long on reserves? That means they seriously over-taxed in the past.
Seems like the Unit 5 school board isn’t a big fan of Jesus Christ.
So what Unit 5 was supposed to know Diane Benjamin’s church schedule and contact other churches for their schedules. Right. Florida has had over 71,000 COVID deaths including 10,000 more infections during spring break. Florida is not the model for anything.
Infections are meaningless when 99% survive. Florida didn’t destroy their economy like much of the rest of the country did. Their death rate was lower than New York who did. Wednesdays used to be off limits for meetings since we were a country of Christians who attended church activities on Wednesday nights. I bet you didn’t know that and never did.
We need to pack the next school board meeting on the topic of: Daily Fights in Schools. We need to pack the place and have 75 speakers from parents and students about the daily occurrence of fights in the elementary, junior high, and high schools. Who is planning to attend??
Cutting band and foreign language is just another way of dumbing them down and isolating them, what I think they would prefer is a school where only “current events” taught in a fully leftist fashion, gender studies/sexuality and math and maybe SOME “approved” science is offered. I always come back at anyone who tells me how “bright” these kids are, many of them know NOTHING of any value, but hey they can “work the gadgets” and that’s all they really need, right?. Band teaches so much more than just executing a pattern of notes on an instrument and foreign language opens up more of the world, being bilingual or even better having at least SOME of 3-4 languages is a Godsend when traveling and the younger one starts learning a second language the better, (I know from experience) of course they are doing their best to discourage travel as well since they fear people from other countries connecting on a human level with each other and both languages and music facilitate that happening. The public school system is broken and needs to be completely overhauled.
They always start cutting in areas that educate children.
They should have cut 36 administrators and. 2 teachers instead.
It is quite obvious they do not care about your kids.
Democrat/progressive/socialists make our community an expensive , yet crappy place to live.
100% agree.