There's another Vegas Junket on the taxpayers dime to report. From CBSChicago.com:
"The Chicago Public Schools system is suffering from a $700 million budget shortfall. So why did some educators travel to Las Vegas just days after a travel restriction was ordered?
CBS 2′s Dave Savini and the Better Government Association investigated questionable spending of school tax dollars and how children are impacted.
Former Scammon Elementary School teacher Laura Hoffman is angry that 14 of her Chicago Public School co-workers went on an all-expense paid trip to a Las Vegas resort and spa for a conference last year.
“That’s what happened. Does it make sense? No,” Hoffman said. “I think parents need to be aware what is happening.”
Hoffman quit her job at Scammon Elementary last year and says school officials should not have spent the $15,000 on the conference in Las Vegas while city schools are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
The school’s principal, Mary Weaver, went on the trip with her staff and allegedly missed their own school’s report card pick up day.
Hoffman said that time is “the biggest night for teachers to talk with parents.”
That's pretty strong stuff. The usual school officials lavishing money on themselves trick. Then it gets twisted:
"Michael Presnell is one of the students who says he was not getting his services, until his family spent years fighting for them. He says he still is not getting all that he is supposed to get, but he is receiving more than other special education students.
“Some kids — they just ignore them,” said the teen, who added that some special education students were simply placed in a room where horrible things happened.
Edwina Meyer was in that room last fall when she says classmates repeatedly engaged in sex acts. Teachers back up her story and say the room lacked proper staffing."
Lacking proper staffing is the least of that school's problems. Yet, the CPS can't figure out why parents are angry all the time?? Now for the numbers:
"The Better Government Association’s Andy Shaw says action needs to be taken.
He says the entire Board of Education needs an intervention. An analysis of an internal CPS investigation found hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasteful spending by Chicago School Board members.
Tax dollars were spent on champagne costing $125 a bottle; thousands more on limousines, steak lunches and a food and liquor bill from a Soldier Field skybox event that alone cost more than $6,000.
“The Board of Education has to investigate this,” Shaw said. ”Someone is not doing their job.”
It's a lot more than just one person. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, we need to reduce the influence of teachers unions and school boards, and put the school back in the hands of the Principals, Teachers, and Parents.
Background Reading:
CBSChicago.com: Taxpayers Send Teachers To Vegas Resort
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