The Matteson School District 159 board is considering whether to keep some of its administrators in an effort to raise student test scores and lower budget costs, officials said.
But many of the more than 100 people who attended the school board meeting were concerned the board was firing the district’s entire administrative staff, including the superintendent that night.
“We’re here because we heard for whatever reason carte blanche the entire administration was being dismissed,” said resident Patricia Welch during the public comment portion of the March 14 meeting.
On the agenda was a decision to whether or not to renew contracts of administrators.
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“Because there’s a nonrenewal of contracts it doesn’t mean we’re dismissing everyone,” Board President Eric Perkins said.
He said the board decided, not the superintendent, to have the opportunity to sit down and evaluate each administrator.
Perkins said the state average of the number of administrators in a district is one per 190 students and Matteson is currently at one per 126 students.
“One of our first goals is to make sure we’re being as efficient as possible with the budget,” he said.
Perkins said board members also will look at student performance in their evaluations.
He said the state average for student readiness, which determines if a student is ready for the next level, is at 34 percent.
Perkins said District 159 currently falls below that average at 26 percent.
The district includes four elementary schools and one middle school.
Earlier in the meeting, Nina Gregory-King, principal of Woodgate Elementary School where the meeting was held and is also the district’s student test school analyst, provided a grim report about the district’s low math scores.
She said 70 percent of students in the district do not meet math test score requirements.
“I don’t know how we stay in business,” King said. “If we were a corporation we’d be shut down.”
During the public comment portion of the meeting, the board received criticism about student performance from Rich Township High School student and class president Brian Martin.
He said the top complaint he hears from incoming freshmen is that they weren’t prepared educationally for high school.
Perkins answered back inferring that District 159 is not the most to blame.
He said the state average of students meeting or exceeding PARCC test scores in a district is about 33 percent.
Perkins said the average test scores for students at Woodgate was at 40 percent.
He said test scores from feeder schools from other districts were much lower, including 26 percent at Barack Obama School in Park Forest, 19 percent at Posen Elementary School and 26 percent at Indiana School in Park Forest.
Board member Carolyn Owens said most of the people were at the meeting because of a flyer that was circulating throughout the community stating the board planned to fire all the administrators.
She urged the author of the flyer to identify themselves.
“Right now, we’re answering questions from a ghost,” Owens said.
Former District 159 School Board President Traycee Fox-McCall during the public comment said she wasn’t the author and wouldn’t “waste time” creating and distributing the flyer.
She asked the board if they intend to fire Superintendent Mable Alfred who was hired before last school year and rehire former Superintendent Barbara Mason who had retired.
Board members did not directly answer Fox’s question but Perkins said to another resident Catherine Miles, later that no decision has been made to fire any administrator.
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Perkins said that community input is very important in the board’s decision making process and encouraged those in attendance to keep coming to meetings to be heard.
He said any decision the board makes regarding dismissal or rehiring will be transparent.
Frank Vaisvilas is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.