\n The Oak Lawn-Hometown District 123 board voted unanimously last week in favor of closing Brandt School. <\/span>At a special meeting tonight, the board will reconsider the issue.<\/p>\n
(File photo)\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The meeting was called after a week of mounting criticism from parents and teachers who say they were not given adequate notice of the meeting or the proposal to close the school. <\/p>\n
Oak Lawn mother Karen Craven has filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office alleging the board violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act. Craven, who had planned to send her 4-year-old daughter to Brandt School, says the board failed to give adequate notice for the Feb. 22 meeting. <\/p>\n
The board released the meeting agenda to the SouthtownStar two days before the meeting but refused to answer questions or comment about the pending closure of Brandt School. According to the attorney general’s office, the notice should be given two business days in advance of the meeting. <\/p>\n
Although the board did allow for public comment before and after the Feb. 22 vote, there was no debate or discussion among board members about the merits of closing the school, leaving critics to believe the decision was a done deal before the meeting convened. <\/p>\n
“These decisions are about my property level, my kid and my quality of life. And these decisions were all made behind closed doors,” Craven said. <\/p>\n
Faced with a $1.5 million budget shortfall, school officials have said the closing of Brandt will save them from cutting more-critical programs. <\/p>\n
The district’s teachers union said it also took issue with the lack of discussion over the closing before the vote, but was encouraged the board called tonight’s meeting to revisit the issue. <\/p>\n
“I do believe it is the intent of the board to take a step toward becoming more transparent,” said Elaine Barlos, president of the local representing District 123 faculty. “I applaud them for reconsidering and hope they have a dialogue with teachers and community about their rationale.” <\/p>\n
The attorney general’s office confirmed it received Craven’s complaint Feb. 24. The office has until Friday to respond to Craven and decide if the complaint will be dismissed or if it merits further review. <\/p>\n
Reached by telephone Monday, board member Theresa Roche referred media questions to board President Joseph Sorrentino, who could not be reached for comment. <\/p>\n
The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at Oak Lawn-Hometown Middle School. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Read the original article from SouthTown Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Don’t erect the tombstone for Oak Lawn’s Brandt School just yet. Although the Oak Lawn-Hometown School District 123 board voted unanimously last week in favor of closing the early elementary school and science center, the board now has issued a statement saying it will “reconsider” the issue at a special board meeting tonight. The Oak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-379114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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