Today I attended the ground breaking ceremony for the new alternative school in the old Social Security building on Knoxville Ave, representing our neighborhood association.  I’m not sure yet what the official name the district will eventually give this school, but the program is called Transition to Success. It is for grade school students who, for a variety of reasons, are far behind in their academic studies. The program is currently housed at Manual High School, but program has need for more space to accommodate more students. In attendance where several of the School Board members, recovering superintendent Ken Hinton, associate-deputy-co-superintendent Cindy Fischer, the schools principal Mrs. O’day(sp?), a couple of the teachers, the architect for the building, and City Council member Van Auken. This school was slated to open at the beginning of the current school year, but the district lost the funding for this project twice already. It is now slated to open at the beginning of the next school year.

I attended last night’s D150 school board meeting (10/15/07) because I was interested in finding out what plans the district now has with the former Social Security building now that they have once again lost the funding to turn is into an alternative school. However, I got a lot more than I bargained for.

First, the audience was treated to a performance of the Star Spangled Banner by the combined choir of the four Peoria high schools. These kids were awesome! Then the Lindbergh Middle School student council presented a information on their school in the form of a mock evening news cast. These kids were very creative and entertaining, while still being informative. Then several teachers received honors for being state finalist in their respective fields for teacher of the year in the state.

 Last night I attended the D150 forum for where to build a replacement school for several of the Woodruff High School attendance area.  For other views please check Peoria Pundits and The Peoria Chronicle.  An overview was given to the 80 or so residents in attendance, which I find interesting was made up of 98.75% White, 1% Black, .25% Latino/Asian.  Anyway, the district has secured funds to build two new primary schools: Harrison replacement and one for the Woodruff area.  The school board has studied this issue and came up with eight proposed sites, which are not exclusive.  We learned that any and all recommended sites suggested by the public will be added to the list for debate by the board.  All the schools that are targeted for closing are more than 100 years old.  There was other criteria given for how much land is needed and what type of amenities are desirable, along with what is undesirable.  This information has been presented at other area blogs, but if anyone wants that information, I will post it in an update. 

Last night I attended a public meeting explaining what District 150 intends to do with the Social Security Building located on Knoxville Ave. For those that may be out of the loop, the Social Security Administration moved there regional office from Knoxville Ave. to Pioneer Pkwy. They then sold the building to the school district for $1 with the stipulation that the building must be used as a school for twenty years. So the district has this basically free building sitting around and must find a use for it or risk losing it back to the feds. The current plan is actually the second plan. The first plan was to make it an alternative school for fifth through eighth graders, but the grant applications were not submitted in time for this plan to be funded in time. So the new plan is to use the building as a transition school.

This week District 150 kept their promise. A couple of months ago, the school district met with the neighborhood surrounding the old Social Security building in Knoxville Ave. to discuss the future use of that building. During that meeting, neighbors were told that no definite plans had yet been made as to the use of the building, but it was being considered as the alternative school for grades 5 – 8. And because of an intergovernmental agreement, the school district does not need to go through the normal zoning process to use the building for such a purpose. The neighbors asked if when the district put together more plans if they could have some input. The district said they would notify all residents within 150 feet of the structure that they would have an informational meeting. Well, we got the letters and the meeting is scheduled for this Thursday. Promise kept! Now we’ll see if they will listen to the residents.