Urbana Schools Updates

A few items for District 116 in the past few weeks, from IT issues, the latest update on the search firm to replace the interim superintendent, to a legal update on on the Urbana High School fight.

Additional IT expenses were incurred after it was discovered that some of the data being sent to the State was erroneous. For a more complete report on that issue board videos are temporarily at a new web address while the district new website is being setup. Here's a video link to the January 22nd school board presentation (link jumps to the 9:37 mark where the topic is raised). News-Gazette coverage from the February meeting where it was brought back up again:

Urbana district filling vacancies in tech department after data errors
Proper staffing in Urbana schools' technology department would have saved the district officials up to $7,500 in expenses after it was forced to hire outside help to correct 12 months' worth of data.

School districts provide data — on topics such as enrollment, attendance and test scores — to the Illinois State Board of Education themselves, which it then uses for things like funding and state report cards. The information that Urbana had submitted to the state prior to this academic year was "erroneous and often very misleading," interim Assistant Superintendent Jean Korder said, explaining the need for the expensive fixes...

At one point, Korder said, the data included 4,400 duplicated student records...

To prevent such a situation from ever happening again — which board President John Dimit this week said would have been preventable had the tech department been "properly staffed" — the district has begun to fill vacancies in the department.

"The people at the state board are aware of our difficulties — they're aware of our journey," Korder said. "They are extending some important deadlines for us. They have been very generous in giving us extensions. Their data people are helping us clean up."

The district has started to restructure a tech department in which responsibilities had been too specialized...

Also on the radar for the expanding department: replacing aging infrastructure as well as devices like Chromebooks that are 8 to 9 years old.

More information at the full article here, including more explanations from staff.

This week there was an update at the school board meeting with information on the superintendent search list (link to jump to that presentation here). The News-Gazette also had coverage on that:

Search firm details results of public input on Urbana superintendent
Twenty focus groups, two open forums and one online survey later, Minnesota-based School Exec Connect has generated a long list of ideal qualities for the next superintendent of Urbana schools.

School board members heard a long list of those qualities — and the conditions that inspired community members to request them — Tuesday evening, where a School Exec Connect representative presented its data-gathering methods in detail.

The 20 focus groups that included a "wide variety of stakeholders" got input from a total of 187 people. Two open forums gathered input from another 40, and an online survey of Urbana residents — with French, Spanish and English options — received 540 responses, most in English. School Exec Connect combined all three to create its list, representative Diane Robertson said....

Should all things with the search go to plan, Robertson said board members could be conducting interviews of a slate of five to seven candidates on April 26-27, with a selection ready to announce by early to mid-May.

That full article here.

And finally, another student pleaded guilty in a recent group brawl at Urbana High School. More background on that issue here: Urbana High School Violence. From the News-Gazette blurb on the plea:

Another teenager charged in a fight six weeks ago Urbana High School that forced classes to be dismissed early has admitted to mob action.

The 16-year-old pleaded guilty Thursday before Judge Heidi Ladd, who set sentencing for May 21.

The teen could get probation or one to three years in juvenile prison...

In total, eight students were charged in the Feb. 4 brawl that prosecutors say was between two rival groups.

Full blurb here.