Gavin gets grant check but grumbles

The Gavin school district on Friday received a check from a nonprofit education foundation to help fund a technology upgrade.

However, at least some board members complained the $5,322 cashier's check arrived from the two-year-old CURB Education Foundation after an unnecessary delay.

Foundation president Ron SaLee said the group's board of directors agreed Dec. 4 to fund the district's grant request.

"I'm glad they received and we are happy to help," said SaLee, who added the check was signed Dec. 19 and put in the mail. "And, now, we can put this whole issue behind us."

SaLee said the foundation didn't have the entire $7,952 the district requested but provided what it could to help.

Still, District 37 school board member Connie Thorsen said it shouldn't have taken two years to approve the grant.

"After numerous requests over the past couple of years, it's about time CURB gave the money to the students like they promised," she said.

SaLee said the board's early requests were made orally, and the district has always had to put grant requests in writing for review by the foundation.

Thorsen made oral grant requests during the past two years, she said, because the foundation never explained its rules until earlier this year.

This is isn't the first time Thorsen and fellow board member Diane Hanson have clashed with Citizens United for a Responsible Board, which later became the CURB Education Foundation.

CURB was formed in 2005 after SaLee and others filed a lawsuit in Lake County circuit court to halt demolition of Central School on Route 59 in Ingleside over structural problems.

According to tax records, CURB raised $14,889 to help cover legal costs. It paid $5,000 in the first year for litigation and $2,028 in fundraising-related expenses, leaving a fund balance of $7,861 at the end of 2005.

However, that same year, after the demolition was stopped, the school was repaired and the lawsuit settled, SaLee announced CURB would become a nonprofit group. Any money raised would be donated to students.

CURB paid $1,796 on the first two grant requests it received in writing in 2007, leaving about $6,000 in its bank account, records show.

District 37 board members made a request in June for $800 for a camcorder to record student behaviors, but Thorsen said CURB never responded.

SaLee said the request was denied because "it didn't fit the criteria of helping the students."

In November, Superintendent John Ahlemeyer asked in writing to have the CURB funds transferred to the district to help buy new multi-media carts with slide projectors capable of showing Internet Web sites on the walls in classrooms.

For the last two months, Thorsen and Hanson have been questioning former CURB supporters about the money. The former members said they knew no details.

SaLee said CURB may now fold because of the "grief from some of these board members."

"We have really poured our hearts and souls into the project, and through it all, there have been very few thank yous," he said.