Um, so it's the events that we put on, um, that are what turn our young kids into, uh, good high school role models. So, um, I want to just thank not only the the PTA, but the all the teachers, all the staff that come up with these ideas, um, that, uh, I think those of us board members probably couldn't come up with. It's pretty exciting to do that. So, um, also, um, exciting to hear about the, uh, superintendent group that you had. Um they seem to have very much enjoyed being involved and being heard. Um so that that's exciting to see that continue. Um I actually wanted to ask them a question, forgot, but I was kind of hoping to hear, you know, are they getting other classmates coming and asking questions, getting, you know, are they actually moving that information around? And I would say they probably are.
So, again, this gives the principal an idea of a place to just start, right? So, what is the very first thing that I need to do? Um and then goes in order of all the different things that they should be thinking about. And when we first created this um you know we were using uh documents that different suicide foundations had said here's what you would do you know in a suicide. Um but then um a few years ago it became a reality and then we took everything that we had learned that we had put on paper and then we had real people in front of us. And so then um after that suicide we had a lot of conversations with parents, with teachers, with principles. I went back to teachers and said, you know, where did we um drop the ball? Like what did we not do?
Similar to Boulder Hill and Long Beach, there is also celebration for Fox Chase and Old Post. Um, in school year 25, both Fox Chase and Old Post, um, their designation was also commendable. Um, so, none of our schools are currently in an active school improvement status of targeted or comprehensive. They are currently in that cycle because of their performance back again in school year 23 or 24. So, the plans linked here for Fox Chase and Old Post are reflective of their goals and objectives based on their subgroup of children with disabilities. Um, so as mentioned before, on June 8th, we would like to bring to you our consolidated consolidated district plan as well as our five Title 1 school-wide plans in order to operate school-wide programming and our four Title 1 SIP plans in order to submit those plans to the state to access our year two and year three funding for our children with disabilities.
Um so, uh I just think that's exciting. Um all the all the fun things that we've got going on. Um, so, um, with that being said, uh, hopefully we'll see everybody at graduation. Uh, jerk has one more thing. >> Question. What time are we to be there at graduation? >> I'll check with Mr. Long. >> Okay. >> He's planning their >> normally 15 half hour before, right? >> We'll make We'll make sure you're not late. >> Oh, I won't be. >> Kirk just wants to know if there's going to be donuts ahead of time. That's all he wants to know. >> Yeah, that's right. >> All right. >> Be there at 9:00 and bring the donuts and there'll be donuts. Rosville will be >> say good luck next year because Kennedy is officially one of the class presidents. We have multiple questions coming. >> She wanted to come today.
When did you not feel comfortable or wish what did you wish you had more support on? And again talk to the principles. And so out of those conversations, um we added a whole bunch of new things to the checklist and then a whole bunch of new documents um for each of the the principles or whoever is in charge at that time. So um one of the things that's also in this folder is um emails so that you know who do you need to let know when this happens. So you need to let your staff know, you need to let um the community know. So there's emails that you can use as a starting point. Obviously, every principal is going to add into um you know, their own emotion and feeling of what's going on, but you need a starting point. Um, one of the things that I heard from teachers is that we weren't sure what to say during first period.
Is there any questions that you would like to ask Julie, myself, or Phil, Pete, or Jeff? >> Erica? >> No, I already saw this presentation, so >> So, you're good? >> I don't have any additional questions. >> Okay. >> I'm good. Thank you. >> Okay. >> I I will underscore that back in the fall when this shift occurred and the the public reporting happened at this board, we spent quite a bit of time talking about the intentionality and the focus of your school improvement plans and the work that you all had put in to think about this. So, I just want to thank both um Julie Dr. Kade and all the teams that were listed and especially our principals here this evening and the collaboration with our educators to make these changes. So, I just want you to know that we recognize and we are we are appreciative of the leadership work you all have undertaken in supporting our students and their growth and success.
>> Okay, I just need one more motion and that is for a journment. >> So move second. >> All in favor? >> I all right. Thank you everyone.
Like, we felt a little bit lost. Um, so I wrote a script about what you could say in first period and then sent it out to a team of teachers and said, "You read this and tell me if this feels like something that you could say, you know, the first time that you're addressing students." Um and so we created that um for teachers. Um and then we also wanted to make sure that um when students came to talk to a support team. So one of the things that we did here at the high school is we opened up the library and the locker lounge as a place for students to come and talk. But we realized we weren't creating like a grief log or a log of each of those students that came, why they came, what was the connection to the student who had passed, and how could we follow up with them afterwards.
>> Biggest priority? >> Yes. >> So. All right. Thank you. Next on the agenda is 1010 our board policies for first reading. Going to stop there. >> Yeah. So. >> Thank you. >> In our policy and legislative meeting this past week we reviewed press issue 121. Throughout this issue there are some policy legal references, footnotes, and then some language recommendations by press. Really focus on continuous improvement review. With that we would just like to highlight a few of the policy changes as well as there are four questions that we must respond to as part of this press review. The first question is in policy 2200. The question is referring to open meetings act posting of the agenda. Our current response would be yes to the question because the recommendation is to leave our current practice as is. So, currently we post our agendas in both our district main office or district administrative center as well as the location of the board meeting, which in most cases is us we go east.
So that was something that we changed, too. So now we have a grief log so that every um supporting adult that comes in um gets logged uh logs the child that they talked to and kind of what was the conversation that they had afterwards so that myself and counselors and nurses can follow up with that student afterwards and see how they're doing in the days and weeks and months afterwards. Um, we also talked about, you know, for the, um, actual principal, what does that morning staff meeting look like when you first bring everybody together? And then we found out from teachers that they wanted to have some sort of touch base at the end of the day. It didn't have to be something that everyone had to attend, but come back together at the end of the day. and if you need, you know, a hug, if you need a conversation, if you have a question about something maybe you said to a student and you weren't sure if it was the right thing to say, um that all of that would happen at the end of that first day.
The second question that we have to provide responses to is policy 2220. Based on legal review the first uh recommendation is to respond no, uh, to restrictions to our board agenda. What this would do is leave our current policy as is, so it aligns to our current practice. The second question, um, the recommendation is to respond yes, uh, to press' questions, um, because our board currently takes roll call for action items. So, again, this leaves our current practice as is, it aligns to current practice. The last question is in policy 5250, um, and the question is simply just about the number of full-time or part-time employees, um, that we have. Um, one response is about 51 or more, and then the other option is 50 or less. We definitely have, uh, more than 51 employees in our district, so that will be our answer of 51 or more full or part-time employees.
Um and then there's a whole checklist of things that we didn't think about um as far as like uh you know, if that student was on a list for military recruitment, how do we reach out and make sure that those phone calls don't keep happening? um we give blood at this school and that student might be on a list of donors registered. And so there's all of these different things that parents clued us into that if you could help us with basically the logistics of death, help us to coordinate that so that we're not getting phone calls and we're not getting reminders. Um so that was really um helpful talking to those parents. And I think in this past um couple months I think that I've learned so much from um students mostly of what we can do to come around them. And I think the biggest thing like my biggest takeaway from the last couple months um is that after a day or a week or a month a lot of us are moving on and we're healing because maybe we were on on an outer circle of what happened.
So, some of the other highlights that we would like to bring, um, as part of the redline version in your packet, is policy 2220, um, which adds active military, um, within the changes, recommended changes from press. 2250, um, brings some recommended changes based on FOIA practices. removes prior notice, uh, to instruction. Uh, this is a change to Illinois school code. Um, policy 5550 provides some provision, uh, to on-call employees. 5250, um, includes spouse, and then also, um, includes some changes to the family neonatal intensive care leave. Uh 530, uh rewrites um some of the election day. The current policy is specific to the 2024 election, so it changes the language uh to a more uh broad uh application of the school code that restricts attendance on certain election days. And then last, 6170, um aligns uh some uh ESEA Title I. Uh currently, it was uh the Title I Parent and Family Compact, and the new language is the uh Parent and Family Plan.
but that there's so many students that are still grieving um and are still dealing with that loss and for us to be mindful of what that looks like. So I am glad that we have this post vvention plan that um that we have created it but I always want it to be a work in process as every single family comes to us and tell tells us like this is how our grieving process was and this is how um you could do things differently. I hope that I never open this Google doc again, that this folder just remains a project that we worked on at some point in time. Um, and I will talk about what we're doing for um, suicide prevention uh, when I come back and talk later. But I just wanted to make sure that you knew that this these documents were available to principles um that we're thinking about this ahead of time and that we really want to do a good job um for the community, not just the people who work here at the school, but the broader community of Huntington.
So, the remaining policies um in your packet for first read really focus simply on changes to legal references, but notes, and then some minor language changes based on uh continuous improvement review.
>> Me, I want to thank you for coming today. This answered a lot of questions that I think several of us have had. Uh I commend you on the amount of work that has put into this. Um, and I'm happy to hear that. Well, unhappy and happy at the same time that we're learning unfortunately through through things like that. The other question I have for you though is do we do tabletop exercises to help people maybe understand and work this plan at the point just so we can get them used to this? Because while the checklist is great, sometimes having been through it even in a sinuation, I know EMA does that. They do those tabletop exercises and things like that. And we thought about doing something like that just to get people more comfortable with it, hoping that we never have to use this.
So, with that, is there any questions? Um for now, it looks like. So, we will be bringing these policies on June 8th for uh action and second read. And obviously, if any questions come up, shoot them over. Um All right. 11.1, board member comments. Erica? >> Um got to go to the uh BPAC um dual language graduation ceremony with I think everyone else was there. Um it was really uh it was my first time, so it was very uh exciting to see all the joy and pride in the room. Um even though I did not understand about 75% of the ceremony, you could tell by the looks on people's faces that they were very excited to be graduating. Um and then also went to the retirement dinner along with everyone else and um that was pretty awesome as well. Um the Wheatlands really showed up for their staff and >> Yeah.
I would ra I'd rather you open the folder for tabletops once a year, >> right? >> And we learn from that and not have to use it in real life. >> Yeah. And I think that any sort of like crisis preparation that we can do is always I mean just as a nurse like working in the emergency room I know like I want as many possible practice crisis so that my muscle memory so that my brain is you know thinking about oh what if this you know would happen. So I would be completely open to that. I know that we do a lot with our um like physical health like okay we have a medical emergency CPR things like that but I think just wrapping your head around um the mental and emotional exercise that this is and what kind of mental and emotional strain that would put on you um as a leader in your building.
>> It was nice to recognize the years of service of so many of our staff members. That's all I got. >> Great. >> Um I will reiterate Deepak. Um this is my third time going and it was it actually was a it's usually just kind of Don and I I think from from the board that goes. So it was really nice that everybody else kind of joined in, too. Um I thought that was that was pretty cool. Uh I also sat there even though I'm on day 366 of Duolingo. Um I also sat there and and nodded. Uh >> Well, they're not much better than we are, yeah. >> I have a couple of them that have lost their streak. I had a couple of streak freezes, but anyway. Um so there was that um and and the retirement dinner for sure. Um I we also went today to I think it's the second-to-last school connections.
I think that's a good exercise to go through so you can reflect and ask questions now so that you could be ready in the future. >> And then a follow-up question. This is a great checklist even just if it's not so much a suicide but maybe just a traumatic event. Have we thought of maybe having a variation of that or are are there things in this that say if there was an accident a different type of accident that we could use this as a model for other things as well? >> Yeah, the actual like title of um the whole package is postvention response to a suicide or death of a school community member. And so one of the really important things when you're looking at like postvention resource research is that you don't treat a death by suicide differently than you would treat any other traumatic death.