It's not an award if you're paying for it

Remember back in your school days when you got your name in a volume listing top students -- and then were sold an expensive copy of the book? Or you got nominated to an elite student leadership seminar -- if you paid top dollar to attend the program?

That was called resume-padding.

It probably didn't sway any college admissions officers, but at least you were spending your own money, or more likely mom's or dad's.

Grayslake Elementary District 46 just did the equivalent, but the money it spent belonged to the public. It's been patting itself on the back for "prestigious" awards given to three of its schools -- by a South Carolina non-profit that got $22,192 from District 46 for an assessment of its seven schools. Then, the school district spent another $15,732 to send 20 administrators and teachers to South Carolina to attend a five-day conference and collect the bogus awards.

The total tab, once you include pay for substitutes for teachers gone traveling, was $40,468.

And there's more.

The District 46 board and administrators never mentioned they were paying the award-giver -- not after Web pages for Prairieview School in Hainesville and Meadowview and Woodview schools in Grayslake touted the awards, not after press releases were sent out, not until our reporter started asking questions.

We won't judge the fee to Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Inc., which led to advice ranging from increasing classroom technology to improving new-teacher orientation at Meadowview to creating a school song at Grayslake Middle School.

But Superintendent Ellen Correll and board members should be ashamed of their lack of candor and suspicious of Blue Ribbon's role in it. Even the name of the award, so similar to the U.S. Department of Education's No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Schools awards, suggests a deliberate desire to confuse.

School leaders should have declined the awards, knowing they appeared to come with strings attached.

And they should apologize to taxpayers for allowing such generous travel spending under the guise of rewarding a job well done. One project cited as resulting from the trip, installation of SMART Board electronic chalkboards, could have been launched with fewer people staying closer to home, since other suburban districts already use the devices.

We urge District 46 to reconsider its relationship with Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Inc. and focus on seeking guidance that's aimed entirely at improving quality, not padding resumes.