……cover public schools’ rear ends.

Abuse situations, convictions and lawsuits have been wafting between the ~60 mile range of Normal and Urbana, Illinois.  I wrote some about it on the Illinois Review yesterday. 

You always wonder a bit about who in the schools could have more blame for these drawn out occurences? The abuser or the enablers.  The ones that say: "Why, Mrs. Ryan, I’ve not heard this complaint about Mr. XXX before.  Are you sure it’s not your child’s vivid imagination?  I did have a conversation with Mr. XXX about your concerns and I understand from Mr. XXX that your child has a vivid imagination.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day!" 

While I was looking around a bit in the excellent, but very disheartening Scott Reeder piece called Hidden Violations, I ran into another situation close to home, as well.

Larry Albaugh was employed by the Monticello School District and he also had illegal, extra-currricular activities.
From Scott Reeder:

SPRINGFIELD — Monticello High School teacher Larry Albaugh stared into a webcam sitting atop a classroom computer, dropped his pants and fondled himself.

He thought his 2004 lewd performance was being viewed over the Internet by a 15-year-old girl, but it was actually an undercover police officer, a Macon County search warrant affidavit said.

Whoops…. He plead guilty to the felony of indecent solicitation of a child and amazingly, his teaching license was revoked.  But before that revocation, he was permitted to resign.  The terms of agreement were drawn up by Brian Braun’s law office in Monticello, which does a great deal of business with schools.  They’re good at what they do.  They do Education Law, also known as School Law. 

Who is Brian Braun?  He is a former DuPage County language arts teacher turned lawyer, who wrote the Illinois School Law Survey.  He offers his opinion (as a legal counsel for schools) about homeschooling in that book. 
Here’s his thoughts below listed under Home Schooling:

May a school district or the State Board of Education adopt rules regulating home schools?

Courts in other states have upheld state regulation of home schooling, including certification requirements for home-school teachers and minimum curriculum requirements, finding that the state has a compelling interest in the education of children. In Illinois, however, the General Assembly has opted to not interfere with home schooling and has not enacted legislation.

Local school districts have the authority to regulate their own programs, which has the indirect effect of regulating certain aspects of home schooling to the extent home-schooled students avail themselves of various aspects of the public school program.

As an Illinois homeschooler with lots of freedom to educate our children, I don’t feel warm fuzzies when Mr. Braun goes into such details about other states’ homeschool regs, certifications and minimum curriculum requirements. 

Another Illinois lawyer, the Illinois School Principals Association counsel, wrote a book called The Law of Homeschooling that was published by the Education Law Association.   I wrote a bit about it here: 

The Law of Homeschooling via a school lawyer

The Law of Homeschooling Education Law Association publication was written by Brian Schwartz, counsel for the Illinois Principals Association. This monograph is particularly intriguing to this Illinois homeschooler. The state of Illinois has no homeschooling law, for instance. I reviewed a copy and have a few thoughts stemming from my immediate reservations after seeing a press release about this monograph last December.…more at NewsComm

In Scott Reeder’s article, the difference was also pointed out between teachers’ pensions in Chicago and the rest of Illinois.  (Unfortunately, Chicago also seems to have the most blatant infractions of homeschooling rights on their website.  It’s a shame considering it’s the nation’s 3rd largest school district.)  But back to Reeder’s article and accountability:

A 1955 law designed to punish corrupt police officers, deviant teachers and politicians on the take mandates that state or local government employees who are convicted of job-related felonies must forfeit their pensions.

Ironically, Mr. Albaugh’s pension woes may have as much to do with where in Illinois he chose to teach than his own conduct.

Because of an anomaly in the law, if Mr. Albaugh had spent his 29 years teaching with Chicago Public Schools rather than in rural Monticello, there is no question that he would be able to keep his pension.

I would imagine that same law is the reason why George Ryan has his legal counsel, another former governor (Big Jim), trying to use loopholes and connections (Dick-Durbin) to get Ryan’s pension and freedom back.  6 children were lost to the Willis family (homeschoolers) via that particular governor’s greediness MO.  So it goes in Illinois.

So easy to get distracted in the mire of Illinois corruption politics. 

In this post, I wanted to note school abuses, for one.  Following that, stepping into the sticky web of who is employed with whom and whose interests are really represented in "helpful guides" and such is definitely tricky and complicated.  After reading the Florida comment at my Home Education Magazine post, I also recommend homeschool advocates be very aware of infiltrations into homeschool advocacy by school lobbying groups such as the IL Principals Association (or the IL State Board of Education).  From my Illinois perspective, I don’t find it even "potentially useful" in the same manner that it appears the commenter does.

Along the lines of transparency, I should mention that the same Monticello law firm that helped give Larry Albaugh a teacher’s union enforced pass with his resignation, also provided pro bono help with an educational supporting foundation for our local school.  I helped found that foundation and am most appreciative of Mr. Tracy’s wise and generous counsel. 

No one knows how the school system, administrators, teacher contracts and other inside goings on work better than these particular lawyers.  It’s their job as legal counsel, and they do it very well.