I appreciate the Landmark using the Freedom of Information Act to bring attention to the District 95’s Board’s recent $90,000 payment (and family health insurance for an additional year and a half) for the departure and silence of former teacher Deanne Ray (“District 95 pays teacher $90,000 to resign,” News, Sept. 26).
It’s unlikely this information would have reached the public without your effort. Keep up the good work.
As we citizens of Brookfield and LaGrange Park were the ones actually (unwittingly) funding this payment though our “educational” property taxes, I am concerned about how those taxes are actually being spent by the District 95 board and superintendent.
How big an unaccountable “slush fund” do the school board and superintendent actually have and what else have they privately spent our money on? How often do they do this kind of thing? Who decides what to spend it on and when?
Whatever the basis of this particular settlement I’m really not interested, nor, I’m sure, would the school board, ever tell us. Someone did someone or something wrong. Let’s stuff it under the rug. Politics as usual.
But I am personally angry that my taxes, and those every other taxpayer in the district which are intended for educating our children, are being secretly misspent by the very persons we entrust with our children’s education.
Tom Kedzie
Brookfield
Ed note: The school board voted in public at a special meeting on Aug. 14 to agree to the settlement with former teacher Deanne Ray. The agenda for the Aug. 14 special meeting stated that the board was convening in closed session to discuss “appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees of the district” and that public action following closed session could follow. The minutes of that meeting, which specifically mention action on the settlement agreement and the teacher’s name, were approved by the school board at their Sept. 13 meeting.
