Manual High School Restructuring

Below is a rough draft of the speech I was going to give at the board meeting Monday night. I have decided that instead of speaking, I will e-mail my message. I don’t want to take away from the time allotted for others to speak about the cut in the school day. I'm glad for those of you who were hired back. When I saw how many outstanding teachers weren't hired back, though, I knew something strange had happened. This will probably be the last time I address this issue. Thanks...

This is a rough draft … so don’t blast me for errors.

Jeff Adkins-Dutro
2610 West Barker
West Peoria, Illinois 61604
(309) 672-9714

Lifetime Manual Community Member
Manual Graduate
Manual Educator of Fourteen Years

Many months ago, I stood before you to respectfully request that you restructure the Manual High School restructuring process.

Since then, I, along with over half of the Manual faculty, have been displaced. Tenured teachers, of course, thanks to groundwork laid years ago by the Peoria Federation of Teachers, are guaranteed a teaching position elsewhere in the district. That, though , is little consolation for the highly qualified Manual teachers who have spent their careers pouring their hearts, souls, … minds … into Manual High School – into serving the students they’re now being forced to abandon.

We Manual teachers were promised by Mr. Hinton that we’d be kept informed as this process played out. Nope. What I learned about the restructuring process, I learned from other sources – largely from the Peoria Journal Star. In fact, I learned I was officially let go after another faculty member said, “Hey, by the way, all of our jobs have been posted on the net.”

Burke and a couple administrators did come to speak to us a couple of times. Each time, we received little information. Often, we were given conflicting information. All in all, we teachers were left in the dark – left asking the same question a Manual sophomore asked at the end of an “informational” assembly held in our auditorium during the school day – an assembly Hannah and Hinton did not attend. The student asked, “All of these questions you don’t have the answers to, when ARE you going to have answers to them?”

During my fourteen years at Manual, I have been vocal about the problems we’ve faced. I’ve written to administrators and board members, written to the Peoria Journal Star, met with Hinton at least twice, met with Fischer at least once. I laid out the problems we were having and offered solutions. As always, though, Manual was put on the back burner.

In the meantime, we MHS teachers have been holding things together – remaining hopeful (many of us) that the district would come to our rescue.

The majority of our staff reapplied for jobs at the “new” Manual. In fact, some of the teachers who were initially rejected put down Manual as one of their transfer options – only to be told, essentially, “After you’re rejected once, you’re rejected for good.” Instead of building upon the solid foundation laid by a highly qualified faculty – instead of building upon what our teachers, students, and community members refer to as the manual FAMILY, the district – with one capricious blow – razed that foundation.

I e-mailed Richwoods’ next principal and asked him, “Did you start with a brand new faculty when you made major achievement gains at Centralia?” He responded by stating that he was fortunate to have a mixed staff – a staff filled with many wonderful teachers that had been left “abandoned” for years. He went on to state that he believed his administrative philosophies and the approach he took to his daily activities helped energize his staff.

It’s too bad this principal wasn’t sent to build upon the foundations we highly qualified teachers have built at Manual High School – sent to energize a faculty our district abandoned long ago.

The research that has been compiled and analyzed regarding school restructuring indicates that it’s best to keep the existing faculty while bringing in a leader to do just what the future principal of Richwoods did at Centralia -- energize the faculty and make a few powerful changes that will produce large-scale results in a minimal amount of time.

Quite the opposite has happened. The district has bitten off more than it can chew. The Manual faculty has been gutted. And an assistant principal notorious for destroying morale and dividing her faculty has been put in charge of teachers many of whom – given current circumstances – will probably be involuntarily transferred to Manual due to the closing of Loucks.

I do hope – for my students’ sake – that Manual will make gains next year. Certainly, though, the opportunity to make massive gains in a short amount of time has been missed. What has been destroyed can’t be replaced by what’s being brought in.

As for my family, my wife and I have decided that our children will not attend Manual. My family’s long history of MHS graduates will – out of necessity – be broken.

It’s too late to reverse things at Manual High School. Please, though, don’t allow this mess to occur at any other 150 schools. Board members, please be relentlessly inquisitive – don’t settle for broad generalizations, meaningless educational jargon and tired clichés – and don’t fall for red herring stories about “Once upon a time…”

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Jeff Adkins-Dutro

P.S. If Manual is going to be advertised as a world-class school, it would behoove the district to proof read and correct the MHS restructuring information that’s presented – for the world to see – on the district’s web site.

These errors are the kinds of errors Manual students will be asked to find and correct on the PSAE / ACT. Everyone makes errors. I’m sure this non-proofed document contains plenty. However, to publish error-laden information in an effort to try to entice new families to Manual High School is absurd. Personally, I think it speaks to how this whole restructuring process has been handled.

My favorite is the statement that Manual will offer more “duel” (not d-u-a-l) credit courses. Better ensure students’ emergency contact forms are up to date if students are going to take ten paces, turn, and try to gun each other down for high school credit.