Speeding Upsets Residents
April 22, 2024
Maine Prairie Continuation High School has taken over the old CA Jacobs Middle School site and it seems the teachers and administrators don’t want to share the large campus with the Dixon Teen Center which was displaced from the old Dixon High which is now the John Knight Middle School because of the middle school’s renovation.
Five teachers from Maine Prairie spoke to the Board of Trustees on Thursday night, September 7, 2023, during public comment to voice their displeasure stating such things as “we shouldn’t have to share with outsiders” and “I don’t like what I have heard about the Teen Center.”
The Teen Center was offered at the old Maine Prairie school site next to Anderson Elementary. One proponent, Jerry Castañon, objected because that site is not as centrally located as the CA Jacobs site and the old Maine Prairie site is in need of much repair to make it habitable.
As this was not an agenda item, the Board could not discuss it but could only listen to the commentary.
One member of the public did respond, however, expressing the need for the Board to hear details as to how the Teen Center would be managed, what programs would be offered and, in response to one teacher’s remarks on expansion of programs, exactly what expansion ideas and plans were being offered by those in charge of Maine Prairie.
The audience member then went on to complain about the school district’s email system which has long been a problem under the poor leadership of former IT head Marc Monachello and superintendent Brian Dolan. A person wishing to contact a faculty or staff member within the school system by email must first get that person to send him or her an email to release the “block” Monachello placed within the system.
The first item of business was the action to approve Dolan’s new contract. Dolan’s salary was left static at $202,000 per year but there were provisions for cost-of-living adjustments. The contract specified the duties of the superintendent, specifically spelling out that it is the trustees’ responsibility to set policy and the superintendent’s to carry that out.
The Board also heard from a consultant, Leigh A. Coop of School Site Solutions, Inc., who gave an update on $4 million for continuing construction and rehabilitation at Anderson Elementary. It had been pointed out earlier during public comment that spending bond money (Measure Q) without having an active and properly staffed Citizens Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC) of 7 individuals was illegal and that this was a continuation by the District of illegal expenditures. Any citizen can go to court and stop spending Measure Q money because there is not an active CBOC, as required by the law. None of the construction activity was related to classrooms with only the gym seeing structural repair benefitting the students.
