Going to Unit 5 School Board Meeting Tonight?

In case you need to some help speaking, below are a FEW of the MANY emails that were FOIA’d by a friend. I redacted the sender’s names because they aren’t important. Many parents feel just like you. (Note Weikle forwarded the email without comment and is still using pronouns) Did the Pantagraph ever do a […]

Resign Kristen Weikle

By: Diane Benjamin Besides the fact that Weikle has known about the “structural deficit” for years and did nothing to fix it, she is either allowing illegal activity or promoting it. Anyone believe how she runs Unit 5 is perfectly legal? She is hiding what is really being taught to your kids. What did Dr. […]

Number of students down, personnel cost ups: Unit 5

By: Diane Benjamin Unit 5’s own data shows controlling costs isn’t happening. They have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Start with this chart complied from OpenTheBooks: https://blnnews.com/2022/04/01/unit-5-did-esser-funds-inflate-salaries/ Compared that chart with the one below compiled by Unit 5 – PDF page 15 https://www.unit5.org/cms/lib/IL01905100/Centricity/Domain/51/CAC%20Financial%20Presentation%2002-02-2022.pdf Why did PERSONNEL costs (blue line) skyrocket since 2015? The […]

Unit 5 and Pronouns

By: Diane Benjamin Just two examples are below. I’m sure there are many more. Why would the the Superintendent and a teacher need to include their preferred pronouns on public documents unless Unit 5 students are allowed to “pick” theirs. Is this done behind the parents backs? Are students told they can pick their gender? […]

Why I oppose the Unit 5 referendum

By: Diane Benjamin Listen to Chandler and Swan Sunday at 7:00am or the replay at 5:00pm. Cities 92.9 – we discuss some of the below. It should be on spotify too. Unit 5’s superintendent uses PRONOUNS in her signature. Their job is to educate not cater to ridiculous ideology. Pronouns virtual signal to the far […]

Unit 5 uses fear porn!

By: Diane Benjamin Last night’s live stream: https://vimeo.com/event/2815172 The video will not play for me! See if it does for you. Since I was at the Tri-Valley meeting, people who attended this meeting let me know what happened. If you can get the video to play, go to around 1:39. A retired financial guy from […]

Unit 5 is WOKE, Wake up Parents

By: Diane Benjamin Quote from this story: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/america-first-attorneys-demand-rural-iowa-school-stops-indoctrinating “School should prepare students for citizenship in our constitutional republic and colorblind society, not turn impressionable children into social justice warriors who view all that is good and just through the distorted lens of race, sex, gender, power, and politics.” This is a screen shot of what […]

Just say NO to Unit 5

By: Diane Benjamin Unit 5 has a superintendent that uses PRONOUNS! Proof: https://blnnews.com/2021/08/27/the-winning-email/ If that doesn’t tell you your kids are going to a leftist indoctrination camp, maybe this will help. Unit 5 is all in on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Stop and read this article: https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/10/500-school-districts-publicly-declare-only-woke-teachers-need-apply/ Is “woke” Weikle only hiring woke teachers? Would […]

More Unit 5 salary increases

By: Diane Benjamin I previously wrote about large increases in salaries reported to the Teachers Retirement System: https://blnnews.com/2022/05/21/this-needs-explained-by-unit-5-part-2/ Since not every employee of Unit 5 is a member of this pension fund, I also FOIA’d IMRF for salaries reported in 2019 and 2020 by Unit 5. Tracking down who these people are would take forever, […]

This needs explained by Unit 5 – Part 2

By: Diane Benjamin Part 1: https://blnnews.com/2022/05/21/this-needs-explained-by-unit-5-part-1/ Things to know: All of the data came from the Teachers Retirement System Not every employee of Unit 5 is in TRS Some employees earning minimal amounts (less than $1000) were deleted for clarity The main list has 923 employees A list at the bottom has another 44 with […]

This needs explained by Unit 5 – Part 1

By: Diane Benjamin Part 2:  https://blnnews.com/2022/05/21/this-needs-explained-by-unit-5-part-2/ —— Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2022/05/18/unit-5-big-raises/ OpenTheBooks.com shows: In 2019 Unit 5 had 2059 employees – total salary: $85,561,545. In 2020 Unit 5 had 2024 employees – total salary: $90,070,590 That is a huge increase in salaries with fewer employees than the previous year. I FOIA’d the data Unit 5 […]

Unit 5 half truths

By: Diane Benjamin Unit 5 didn’t have many attend their 2nd round of Community Engagement sessions last night. They really want to put a property tax increase on the ballot in November. They need attendees to get yes votes. From a person who did attend, video is not available: Kristen Weikle lamented unfunded mandates. They […]

Unit 5: BIG raises

By: Diane Benjamin Unit 5 has another Community Engagement meeting tonight! 6-7:30 at Parkside. See the other two meetings in this story: https://blnnews.com/2022/05/18/middle-of-the-road-college-at-veterans-pkwy/ Maybe somebody will ask them to explain this: Remember Superintendent Kristen Weikle claiming on video nobody got 7+% raises between 2019 and 2020? https://blnnews.com/2022/05/07/unit-5-word-salad/ OpenTheBooks.com showed total salaries increased 7.9%. Since their […]

Unit 5 Word Salad

By: Diane Benjamin In this story I showed the salaries reported to the Teacher’s Retirement System from Unit 5. That is where OpenTheBooks.com gets there data from. https://blnnews.com/2022/04/01/unit-5-did-esser-funds-inflate-salaries/ This chart is from the OpenTheBooks website, it clearly shows salaries increased in 2020 while Unit 5 had fewer employees. This data is used to determine pensions […]

Schools can’t quarantine your kids!

8:45 am update – Unit 5 sent the child home. Obviously the Health Department and Unit 5 know masks don’t prevent spreading COVID. It’s child abuse! By: Diane Benjamin Some people want to pretend they can take away your rights whenever they feel like it. They can’t if you don’t allow them to. State workers: […]

The winning email! Unit 5

By: Diane Benjamin If you missed the update to Normal West’s evacuation drill, at least 25% of the students were left behind because of not enough buses. https://blnnews.com/2021/08/25/fly-on-the-wall-normal-west-2/ I’m reading a ton of emails from Unit 5, I also have emails from District 87 I haven’t started reading yet. One thing is clear, some parents […]

Cedar Ridge teachers appalled by citizens!

By: Diane Benjamin Below is a long email signed by 6 Cedar Ridge teachers. Evidently spell check doesn’t work or the writer doesn’t care about spelling when writing to the Superintendent. Kristen Weikle’s response follows. The Unit 5 overlords didn’t appreciate citizens disturbing their meeting. I didn’t feel tension in the room, the writer did. […]