Your Turn to Ask

Springfield School Superintendent Walter Milton Jr. was the guest of The State Journal-Register editorial board on Wednesday. Before the meeting, we asked readers to submit questions they’d like Milton to address. Here are some of them with Milton’s answers.

QUESTION: I would like for Dr. Milton to further explain his reasons for the administrative changes he has made. It appears that many changes have been made purely for the sake of making changes. I can understand if Dr. Milton chose to move administrators from schools that have shown great improvement on standardized tests to schools that have not. In some cases, such as at Lanphier, he is moving an administrator who has been in the building less than two years, which is hardly enough time to allow her to have any significant impact.

(Milton first explained that the district had four options for addressing sanctions for low- performing schools: Turn failing schools into charter schools, terminate staff, hire an outside company to manage the schools or do its own restructuring. It chose to restructure.)

MILTON: These decisions were not made hastily. There are a lot of things that go on in the organization that the average person can’t see. I have spent a lot of time with my administrators individually, collectively. I have really listened to some of their concerns, their questions, their ideas. And the bulk of all the people that were involved in the process are people who have articulated to me that they want to do something differently in the organization. You have to respect that. That’s what leadership is all about, and really helping and aiding people to get there.

The person going over to Lanphier (Shelia Boozer) has an impeccable track record. She was principal at an elementary school and turned the school from low- to high-performing. She has a good grasp of that part of the community and the children that she had led before know her; they are going into high school… The person that is leaving Lanphier (Jane Chard) has the skill sets that we need to really bring about the international baccalaureate program, to close some of the educational gaps that we have at the secondary schools… So these decisions were well thought out. They really were. And no one was moved totally against their will…

We have a lot of needs in our district and we wanted to make sure that we began to put the talents and the strengths directly where those needs were.

QUESTION: District 186 provides several teachers throughout the “regular” school year at the Sangamon County Juvenile Detention Center. During the summer months the staff tries to conduct school, but I really feel that this group of minors would benefit from having trained teachers working with them and wonder if he would consider staffing the center with District 186 teachers year round. I feel that when the minors at the center we, the community, should be doing everything we can to educate them and I feel the community is missing this by not taking advantage of this opportunity in the summer months to continue to educate them.

MILTON: “I had an opportunity to visit our incarcerated youth program. I’ve gone to the facility I think twice since I’ve been here, and … the person is right who asked the question. Oftentimes many children find themselves in that situation because of their weak academic skills. I think the only way to help them gain that kind of confidence that they need is to have them at a place where they are learning. So if we have that year-round structure it can give us more time on task so that we can support those children. So that’s definitely something that I would have a conversation with our union as well as human resources.”

QUESTION: If Illinois passes a concealed-weapon law, should public school administrators, teachers, coaches and other school personnel be allowed to bring guns into the public school?

MILTON: Absolutely not. We would find ourselves in a situation where someone could get severely harmed as a result of (having) the gun. I mean, when you have guns around, there is a high probability that they will be used eventually.

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