The first full day of school in District 150 is August 20, 2012. At Monday night’s Board meeting the school board was prepared to vote on expanding the ELITE program, which has been highly touted as “successful” (although there is no data to prove it) into Harrison School. The founder of the ELITE Program, Carl Cannon was “caught by surprise” by this information and is not prepared to expand.
Now the vote has been tabled until the August 16, 2012, Board meeting – four (4) days before school starts. Here’s the problem with that…the programming for Trewyn, which is totally based around the ELITE program is now up in the air, because everything about the ELITE contract is now open to renegotiation. As an extension of that debacle, the programming for Harrison is now up in the air.
The Superintendent “announced” in May that she was expanding the program. Why didn’t the Board make sure that Administration was making the necessary plans in May, instead of waiting and finding out a few weeks before school starts that as a result of the ELITE snafu, they have major programming issues at two of the inner city schools that need the most planning and attention?
Monday, the board tabled a vote to renew the one-year licensing agreement with Cannon for use of intellectual property rights for ELITE at Trewyn until the Aug. 16 board meeting. Delaying the vote gives them a chance to settle questions about who can make decisions to carry the program to other schools - Cannon or the park district.
District 150 Superintendent Grenita Lathan announced plans to start the program at a second school during her State of the Schools address in May. She eventually decided to expand the program to Harrison. Neither Cannon nor the park district has made public pronouncements about expanding the program this year.