After spending the first 21 days of this month doing the real-world work that keeps the editor of this blog employed, it’s finally time to write about the May 21, 2018 report by Lisa Harrod of LMT Consulting about the special education (“SPED”) program run by Park Ridge-Niles School District 64.

That report, available on the District’s website, concludes that – among other things – the District’s SPED “[p]rogramming options and the continuum of services have declined over the past two years.”

SPED students tend to be the District’s most vulnerable and needy, so a two-year decline should be disturbing and unacceptable not only to the parents of SPED students but, also, to D-64 taxpayers who are footing the bills for what should be improving rather than declining educational services, especially for SPED kids.

In addition to that finding of decline, the Harrod Report contains other findings and conclusions that should be troubling to anybody concerned with the quality of education our children are receiving, including:

“Lack of trust in district administration was a consistent theme discussed by staff and parent groups involved in the [SPED] review process.”

“There is an adversarial environment reported with many staff members hesitant to provide feedback and ideas for students in special education meetings.”

“IEPs [Individualized Education Plans/Programs] are not consistently written in a clear and comprehensive format.”

“Lack of Trust.” “[A]dversarial environment.” IEPs not “clear and comprehensive.” Those are far from glowing endorsements of the current D-64 Administration and its SPED program.

Predictably, however, Board president Tony “Who’s The Boss?” Borrelli dismissed the finding of that decline as “nothing but semantics.” And his queen, Supt. Laurie “I’m The Boss!” Heinz, said that the use of such a term “doesn’t sit well with [her].”

Criticism never does “sit well” with bureaucrats, or with the elected officials who are supposed to be holding them accountable but who, too often, spend most of their time and effort propping up the bureaucrats and concealing their failures. In Borrelli’s case, that includes shameless cheerleading.

At D-64, any evidence of failure and incompetence is treated as little more than a source of temporary embarrassment to be ignored, or spun and smoothed over by D-64’s chief propagandist, Bernadette Tramm, until it’s forgotten.

Which is why SPED parents are concerned not only about how their kids were not educated for the past two years and how they will be educated going forward but, also, whether their SPED kids might disproportionately suffer from the ill-conceived School Resource Officer (“SRO”) program that Heinz and the Board continue to diddle themselves silly over – to the point of holding a “special” meeting last Thursday night solely to discuss that SRO program.

Of the 14 parents addressing the Board on that program, most of them identified themselves as parents of SPED students. And all but two – Tracy Fregassi and Greg Bublitz, both D-63 teachers who live in D-64 and have kids in our schools – either opposed the SROs or had significant reservations about the role(s) of SROs in the proposed 4 hours/day, 2 days/week “pilot” program.

Having listened to the Board’s discussions of the SROs over the past months, we are dismayed that the police, the Board and the administration still sound schizophrenic as to whether the SRO program is supposed to be nothing more than an “Officer Friendly” public relations exercise, or whether it is to bring discipline and order to the District’s middle schools where it is rumored to be sorely lacking.

Kind of like that old commercial: “Certs is a candy mint; Certs is a breath mint” before concluding that Certs is really “two, two, two mints in one.”

Rather than portray SROs as merely two-dimensional Certs, however, Park Ridge Police Chief Frank Kaminski, Heinz and the Board are touting SROs as all things to all people – the better to garner support for that deeply-flawed program.

In peddling the SRO program Heinz and a Board majority of Borrelli, “Tilted Kilt Tommy” Sotos, Mark Eggemann and Larry Ryles have shown no difficulty in blithely ignoring the well-researched, well-reasoned report (Cost: $15,000) by the District’s SRO consultants, the Ekl, Williams & Provenzale law firm, that was critical not only of SRO programs generally but also the District’s half-baked pilot program in particular.

Of course, none of the supporters of the SRO pilot program have produced any comparable report in support of it. Instead they rely on warm-and-fuzzy, data-lite anecdotes – like Kaminski’s unsubstantiated claim that “there’s been positive feedback” from the SROs in the Maine Twp. high schools; and Ms. Fregassi’s equally unsubstantiated claim that the SRO’s in D-63 schools “have had nothing but a positive impact on students in District 63.”

Fortunately, Board members Rick Biagi, Fred Sanchez and Eastman Tiu have recently displayed the insight and courage to reject the go-along-to-get-along mentality of the Board majority while raising serious questions about the program.

Whether they can sway even one member of the majority from their lemming status remains to be seen. But just slowing down a boondoggle like the SRO is a refreshing change from D-64’s S.O.P.

As would be speeding up the improvement of the SPED program to make up for the last two years.

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