And so this is why when we talk about data, we have to actually look at the whole picture of the child versus singular snapshots. So when we talk about district populations, if a student has been identified as lowincome, they are also more likely to be truent. And so she quickly switches to behavioral incidents. But in terms of attendance, we wanted to kind of present a picture of what are we looking at and how do we serve our students? And everything's going to drive into how it shows up in academics in the next presentation. So when we talk about behavioral incidents our incident data for 2526 academic year in total right now there are about 189 total incidents right seven of seven schools reporting there about 64 suspensions 66 minor altercations however what she says is two schools account for 63% of all our incidents that are in the data that shows here and it's our larger schools it's our middle school and our high Right.
Then you're going to come back and have a home group reflection to see what happened in that learning. How did you peers interact? And then afterwards we'll have a quick break again and then you'll go into your like groups and have a discussion and we'll come back out and share because what we're going to do today is ask you for two things at the end. We're going to ask you if as an individual or as a person, what's your commitment to take back to your roots, to your town, to to your classrooms? What are we going to be able to start doing when you're sitting with your colleagues or your friends or your peers? And then what do you need from us as a district? A lot of these conversations is always the district saying, I need, I need, I need, but we need you to tell us what do you need from us?
Without each lobe and hemisphere, the brain cannot function. Likewise, we wouldn't be here today without the people who shaped us, challenged us, and believed in us, often before we believed in ourselves. Vision is a neural function that varies among us. Some see it more clearly than others. Yet, regardless of how strong our vision is, the people who supported us along the way acted much like the occipital lobe, helping us process what we could not always see ourselves. Through family, friends, counselors, and teachers who served as role models, we gained new perspectives and learned to recognize opportunities beyond our immediate view. Self-comparison is inevitable, but being able to celebrate individuality and differences is a gift. I encourage you to embrace yourselves. As you lean into your role models and influences, a healthy balance will come with differentiation. Each audience member here is proof of your importance.
Then they also pre present in terms of you know what's happening with our suspensions and they also present in terms of physical altercations. Minor is the most common incident type districtwide. So not just with them but in all of the incidents thus listed. The one thing that she wanted to point out was that data is limited. So behavior records are captured as narratives. So a lot of what we're able to pull out, we actually have to go in and read through and identify. Now that helps with the qualitative side, but we also need to see how it reflects in the numbers. So there may be some anomalies in these numbers that present because it's the other thing is information about bullying, behavior, and student support. They live in separate places and so it's the team now in pulling this together have to create a convergence into one place.
Do you need us to kind of shift how we partner with you? Do you have ideas for how we can work differently? So, that's the end of today. And so we're going to walk through that and I hope that you have a great um investment in time. This we don't have all the answers. We probably don't have a lot of the answers, but it's our hope that it as a collective we can start thinking of how we can commit to supporting our students together. Are you on for the journey with us today? >> Awesome. If anything, at the end you get a great box lunch. So it has to do. All right. So I did say I was nervous and I have a heap of papers but I'm not going to defend. All right. So state of the district summit from reality to action and I have the setting the stage.
If we have this many people here supporting us now, I encourage you all to think about the lives that we can continue to impact. After all, how we live our lives is our business. Just know that our hearts and our minds are given to us only once. Therefore, we cannot live our lives as though we have two more to live. Be free from your fears of judgment. All is temporary in due time. So, whether you are more logistical or creative, an introvert over an extrovert, or thinker rather than a dreamer, there's a place for you in this world to make an impact. This class of 2026 is not just one lobe or one hemisphere. We are a consonants of brains that are still growing up. I ask that you choose to be your own unique ray of sunshine, to come together, to hug your loved ones tighter, and to love your neighbors more intentionally, and to never underestimate the power of simply showing up for one another.
So the her office has completed inventory of where the information lives and are working on a plan to bring it all together to house it. Um, we've already identified or started to identify through through different conversations someone who's able to even create a dashboard that will pull this data for us and allow us to see what it looks like. It's going to take some forms and not doing things paper based because a lot of our things are also paper based. It's not digit digitized. Now, families are reporting. Families are having conversations. Families are calling and saying this happened with my child at school. Caregivers are coming in and saying this incident occurred in different places. They are reporting about 20% actually are considered bullying. So we pulled our or she pulled our full data the brim data for bullying. Um and from that platform 233 reports were filed between 2025 and first quarter.
So why is change necessary and what are we building together? And it's not all about change. A lot of times people say change like if we're going to do something brand new, right? We're not. Change also talks about shifting what you have and building on. Because when you build on what you already have and we have a lot of good things in these districts that we need to build on and expand and step forward to and that's the that's the conversation today. What are we building on? What maybe we need to leave behind and start a fresh or even what have we never thought of? And so all of those three steps are a form of change. And so what we're going to be talking about is some form of change is necessary and how do we build it together. So it is not change itself but our goal is a stronger system more aligned to better serve our students.
We are proof that genetic individuality will not weaken the system that we have built here at Downers Grove North. It strengthens it. As we leave this chapter and continue to navigate the intricacies of our brains, may we carry forward the knowledge and wisdom that we've acquired from one another and from those that showed us how deeply life is meant to be lived. Because in the end, love is what connects us, sustains us, and keeps the system whole. So, whatever continent, country, state, county, career, or school we venture into next, may we lead with compassion, move with courage, and remember that we are stronger together than we ever will be alone. Congratulations, Class of 2026. Thank you, Talulah. Next, we will hear two selections from the Acapella Choir. The first, under the direction of Dr. Frank Pecars, is a contemporary arrangement of You'll Never Walk Alone from the Broadway musical Carousel.
So last year and this year in terms of quarter 20% of those were confirmed bullying cases 80% were of a different concern. What we're finding is that although our bullying reporting software, Brim is the only software that parents or students know that they can report something that the school is going to look at or dive into. So now we have an increased which is great because they have an avenue but it is our avenue to report bullying. So what we're doing now is anything that is reported we have to look into but we're also identifying how do we capture parental concerns of different things that are not bullying so that's not lost because sometimes we narrow our focus and that's the conversation that's right here the routing problem and prioritizing a clear way for families and students to report concerns so the right response is given.
And I feel like everyone in this room regardless of how you get to the conversation the why you are in the conversation is you want a better system for students. agree. And so this is very important. Our students experience. I've been asked that a lot recently, especially from my school community members, um, who are in the room or not in the room. They keep asking me, well, what's the student experience? What's the student experience? And then I have parents who I talk to who are telling me about they are they've heard from their students about their experience. I have individuals who don't who aren't in the system enough to talk about our experience and then I have individuals who experience our students after they've left us the industry right when they've graduated and they've gone to to postsecary and so the student experience the the most impactful right now what we're talking about is supporting a system to support our leaders to support our teachers who support our students the student experience the most direct impact In our 10, 11, 180 days, our educators at the school, our family and community, your goal is to kind of encompass and support that.
The piece is often performed at ceremonies celebrating graduate students as its setting in the original show takes place at a high school graduation. The second selection is the North High Alma Mater. Today, it will be conducted by senior Emma Hearn. Emma is involved in many things here at North, including band, choir, and our intro to teaching program. Emma will be attending the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign this fall, majoring in music education. When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm is a gold and sky. above and sky and the sweet sweet silver song of a lark. Walk on through the wind. Walk on through the rain. Though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on. Walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone. You'll never walk alone.
So it's not just like okay we've ruled out bullying and move on but we've this is now how are we how are we closing the circuit or the loop um what we've also seen is that there is um a recurrence and so we have to shift our culture in terms of name calling insults and harassing language are present in nearly every report and we have a concern because we're seeing um homophobic or transphobic and racist incidents are recurring themes especially at our school level. So we're trying to build now what this points out is we have to shift something in the culture. This is not just a what are we doing as a system. We have to shift something in our culture in terms of how we operate. um suspension disposion. Oh, this one is a good one. So, we kind of started to break out incidents by gender, by ethnicity, by age.
And as district leadership, we have to hold space for all. That's how our student experience is actually a collective. It's not a silo. It's a collective being of how we all come together to create. And that's the intent of today. So, we're going to go through our diagnostic reality today in terms of we want outcomes, but they're not consistent across student groups. So, we're not even just having a conversation about how we as districts compare to the state because that looks really great. You see our numbers compared to the state. Yeah. But we're going to be talking about how we compare to ourselves. We're going to be talking about how we support every group of learners that come through our doors and what does that present in this story, but does it match up to what our needs are because our student needs are increasing and they're showing up differently?
Walk on. Walk >> [music] >> on through the wind. Walk on through the rain. Though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on and on and on. Walk >> [music] >> with hope in your heart and you'll never Never walk alone. You'll never Never walk alone. You'll never >> [music] >> You'll never You'll never walk. alone. Please stand if you're able for the alma mater. >> [music] >> O town of sites, to thee we raise with grateful hearts our songs of praise. With love sincere, we pledge to thee our everlasting loyalty. Thy wisdom, learning, faith, and truth >> [singing] >> shall ever guide us in our youth. The coming years will ever prove the greatness of thy watchful love. >> [singing] [music] >> Please be seated. It is my pleasure to introduce our second student speaker, Yash Garg. While at North, Yash was president of DGN DECA and a DECA state finalist, president of the National Honor Society, a four-year member of the math team and investment club, and he was an intern at both CliftonLarsonAllen and Northwestern Mutual.
We wanted to even check our subgroups in terms of English learners because a lot of individuals especially newcomers like it's not just that they are they don't know how to behave. It actually talks about maybe a shift in culture like what I think is okay from from where I am culturally. I learned that real quick. Some of the things I say is not appropriate for Alice, but it flies in a VI but it does not sit well here. And so we're when we look at the data, it's not just about the numbers, right? We have to dig into what each one of these incidents actually say about what's happening with students. And so we're also looking at in terms of our suspensions and our behavioral data, where is the focus again? And one of the key things that we're pointing out is of the percentage male students also young teens and so and then our African-American and black students.
And then is our system just being reactive versus proactive? And then we know I I tried to find a very good graphic. Me and AI were back and forth about finances and this is the only one I could think of because there are a lot of pressures around finances and the need to strategically plan and how to move and so we get stuck in a fragmentation trap because we keep acting or in the same vein. What's the definition of insanity? And so it >> puts our student in the center of that trap because we are not in a in a sense the systems or system has a lot of broken pieces that are not connecting to the student experience. And it's the reality of what we're facing, not just here, maybe nationwide, the financial strain, they need increasing student needs, but the experience of the student.
Yash will attend the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to study finance and accounting. Please join me in welcoming Yash to the stage. Hi, everyone. I'm Yash. I want to start by thanking the teachers, staff, families, friends, and everyone here today for being part of this special moment. It truly means a lot to all of us. When I started thinking about what I wanted to say to the class of 2026, there was one idea I kept coming back to. It's simple. Sometimes one small decision can take you farther than you ever imagined. And I didn't learn that from the internet or a quote, but I learned it from my own experience. Going into my freshman year, I didn't have a team, a sport, a club, or a community to be a part of. Like most students, I didn't know what I wanted to study or what career path I wanted to pursue.
So we we're kind of looking to see about where's that over representation and what do we need to do? >> Yes, >> I missed it. You do you have percentages and on the right there's by gender is it we're looking at 140 incidents total and those are the percentages I think >> so this is overarching behavior behavior >> like overarching like oh and then this is the suspensions >> so what are those what is the actual number of that you're looking at the percentages of >> on this side Yeah. So, out of the suspensions that we talked about earlier, the overarching number of suspensions, the percentage of suspensions by African-American students is 25. >> Was it 64? What was the total she? >> Oh, sorry. Okay, >> that's okay. >> Let me go back. >> Just trying to help you. >> Thank you. >> 64.
There are gaps that are broken because our educators start to feel it when things shift and change, when policies shift, when we have to go through notices, when we turn around and we say, "Well, we're not we're going to adopt a whole new program or we just spent two years in the program." Like, it starts to affect the student experience. And so there's also a conversation of we've been doing some things a very long time. So we have our own status quo, not just the national or state status quo. We have our own status quo. And for me, this is the reality of it because I have to look at the whole system. The district leaders have to look at the whole system. So we start to see gaps and it's hard because when you're sitting in your own sphere, you're not seeing that. So it seems like we're trying to shift from the old paradigm, maybe focusing on one thing or two things or three things.