It is a small portion of the Landmark’s coverage area. But we pay attention to the District 103 public elementary school district because someone has to be watching this semi-functional, politically-controlled district based out of Lyons.
This week we follow up on one weird story out of the district and we report another coming departure from the principalship of George Washington Middle School.
First we have confirmation that the district is paying round trip airfare for Guadalupe Vander Ploeg to fly once a month from her home in El Paso — yes, Texas — to spend one week actually in person at her full-time job as the director of D103’s English language program.
Initially we reported that Vander Ploeg lived in Texas when she was hired in 2022 for the $121,540 annual post and that she worked remotely three weeks out of four. At that time we asked the secretive district to confirm it was also paying her airfare. They demurred. So the Landmark filed Freedom of Information requests and the district finally coughed up the information that it has reimbursed Vander Ploeg $2,652 in airfare just since last June.
This, of course, is all ridiculous. Why would a director of an essential school program live 1,600 miles away from her job? Why is she allowed to work remotely 75% of the time? Has anyone on the school board looked at state test scores for the many district students intended to benefit from this person’s efforts? The percentage of those students hitting state averages is microscopic.
Meanwhile, yet again, the middle school is losing its principal after only two years on the job. Joshua Dakins has resigned, we think, effectively at the close of the school year. We know this through a teacher in the district. Superintendent Kristopher Rivera, of course, will not talk to the Landmark. (Small tip, run spell check on the district website. “Superintendent” ends with “ent” not “ant.”)
Dakins will be the fourth consecutive middle school principal to last only two years. That’s a lot of chaos for a small school in just eight years.
Something is wrong in this district. Political hacks from Lyons run the district and plant their stooges on the school board. Nothing will change until voters wrestle back control of this district from the politicians.