[5/23/22] D65 - REGULAR BOARD MEETING

001good evening everybody thank you for your patience we're going to go ahead and get our regular board meeting started so alaska did you look for the roll call here kim here lindsey ryan here sue here here here hernandez here i'm going to go ahead and read our land acknowledgment land acknowledgement and acknowledgement of the contributions of the enslaved we take time to acknowledge that the land we meet on is the traditional homelands of the council of three fires the potawatomi ojibwe and adawa this land also served as an important meeting place for miami ho chunk the menominee anoka sac fox peoria arapaho cheyenne and other tribal nations this land has long been a center for indigenous people to gather trade and maintain kinship ties located at the intersection of several great waterways the region has

002become the site of travel and prosperity we acknowledge evanston and john evans are tied to the massacre of the arapaho and cheyenne for railroads and western expansion upon which john evans developed his wealth and founded evanston this land was violently taken under settler colonialism through genocide and open warfare and the region that is now illinois and chicagoland is still home to thousands of native people who are actively struggling for sovereignty self-determination and justice the genocidal acts of settler colonialism extended to peoples of africa and their enslaved descendants despite illinois eventually prohibiting slavery slavery was an accepted practice before and after statehood the vestiges of slavery remain present throughout the united states and directly affect the descendants of enslaved peoples descendants who helped define the african diaspora rich and heterogeneous communities descended from african peoples the

003genocidal patterns of violence against peoples of african descent and indigenous people have been replicated to exclude and harm people from many intersecting marginalized identities religious minoritized disabled and lgbtq identified peoples black and indigenous people of color and people of color ripped large in the united states these patterns of violence demonstrate that the pursuit to end state-sanctioned violence against bypoc is a daily struggle for liberation from continued social political and economic anti-black racism and oppression today we acknowledge that we are living breathing loving grieving laughing and sharing space on unseated territory may we learn to honor the historical and contemporary presence and power of the people and their belief that we must be caretakers of the lands and waters for the livelihood of future generations the land that surrounds us is part of who we are

004it reflects our histories it is within district 65's responsibility as an academic institution to disseminate knowledge about black and indigenous peoples and marginalize people's writ large consistent with our commitment to equity we will work towards sharing truth and promoting healing for the sake of our children and families it is important to understand the long-standing history that has brought us to reside on the land and to seek to understand our place within that history land acknowledgments do not exist in the past tense or only in a historical context colonialism is a current ongoing process and we need to understand our present participation we encourage everyone consuming this message to continue expanding their knowledge and reduce their harm through awareness of local mutual aid models for survival and engagement with online and local resources such as the

005chicago american indian community collaborative and the shore front legacy center thank you uh next we want to go into the will ask for the approval of the meeting agenda so enjoy i move that the board of education approved the meeting agenda as amended to exclude agenda item number 20. culture and climate 17 and 20 17 and 27. um so i move that the board of education approved the meeting agenda as amended to exclude items 17 and 27 for future meeting dates second yes tim yes lindsey ryan yes sue yes and now the next agenda item is we're going to give our district update from our superintendent here so we're going to go to our high five award good evening everyone tonight we're going to recognize the may high five celebrating excellence in the district 65

006war award recipients the final recognition for this school year now in its fifth year we have received hundreds of nominations and honored over 90 licensed and support staff members for their tremendous work i would like to thank byline bank for its continued support and sponsorship of the program over the course of this school year this evening recipients will receive 100 gift card and a frame recognition certificate i'm now going to turn it over to melissa messenger our executive director of communications who will help with our recognition this evening thank you dr horton thank you everyone for being here tonight we're going to recognize two recipients karen barbour and cynthia battle after [Applause] i'll invite you both up in just a second and we'll do some photos um so tonight we're gonna uh recognize our licensed

007staff recipient karen barbour karen is an esl educator at dewey elementary and has served our students and families for 35 years [Applause] she was nominated by one of our family members who wish to remain anonymous but wanted us to share some remarks tonight miss barbour has been there for both of my children and teaching english and for emotional support the time my child spends with miss barber has always been she's always been fun and full of energy the way she knows the students to let go and have fun while learning is an absolute pleasure she prepared little goodie bags on special occasions for both of my children even before my younger child started seeing her in school the fun she puts into learning english and the confidence that she gives children is amazing can we

008get a round of applause for miss barbara and then next up we're going to recognize our may educational support staff recipient cynthia battle cynthia so cynthia is a paraprofessional at our joseph e hill early childhood center and has supported our students for 21 years so she was nominated by a staff member jenny parent who was also unable to attend tonight due to another commitment but shared the following remarks with us cynthia routinely goes above and beyond to help each and every student she sees where the need is and steps up to help every time i appreciate her artistic talent cynthia is a superstar when it comes to helping students with every need that might arise she does whatever it takes to make sure students feel safe and welcome every single day she is also a

009person who will help anyone in need and instills a love up for learning wherever she goes thank you both for your efforts um if you want to both come up here we're going to do some photos with our superintendent board president and protect present the certificates [Applause] literally what's up sure [Applause] thank you so the awards keep coming in the next award that we got is the uh phillips phyllis cancer award good evening my name is corky siegfried and i have the honor of presenting the 2022 phyllis cancer outstanding pta volunteer of the year award phyllis grew up in our community attended our public schools and later chose to raise her own three children here she was an outstanding pta volunteer deeply committed to promoting the welfare of all school children she was willing to

010work in any capacity even behind the scenes she engaged and involved others and she did this with an immeasurable spirit and great enthusiasm today these are the qualities we look for in our award recipients the corona virus pandemic forced us to put the award on pause skipping it in 2020 and then acknowledging the work of all district 65 parents and guardians in 2021 today i'm happy to report that we are honoring two amazing pta volunteers kate lister is currently the president of the haven pta here is an excerpt from her nomination she works hard to build communication at haven with families following a year and a half of remote learning community building and communications are especially challenging in middle school when most families don't know each other and cannot access the building to participate in

011much directly through it all kate's charisma hard work and straightforward positive attitude have helped haven families find their way in a confusing and difficult year before this past school year even began she worked with the administration to make sure students had a day where they could take a brief tour of the building and for families to get a packet of information and ask questions about haven so they felt more comfortable before starting school she made sure the event was festive and welcoming knowing how many students and families were brand new to haven haven middle school has been in the news a lot lately for gun threats fights and more as we see tonight through it all she has kept the focus on the kids making efforts to communicate with administration so that she could provide

012clear communication and updates to families regarding the impact on students and their well-being it hasn't been an easy year at haven but it's important work for her she always responds quickly and thoughtfully she's always like this working in all capacities without complaint and purpose driven thank you kate congratulations [Applause] francioli maya yay joseph is the president of both the oakton pta and the district 65 pta council again i quote from her nomination throughout the cove pandemic yoli has written to oakland families weekly through the cougar bugle her focus has always been around supporting the community of families at oakton and i look forward to this messaging each week her messages center wellness of children and families and are inclusive and welcoming yoli has equity and inclusion at the center of all she does she has

013a keen eye for seeing where exclusion happens and will absolutely bring this to light and insist the changes are made she took the reins of the dormant equity committee at oakland and spent her valuable time and expertise to educate members of the equity committee on how to make impactful change in the school and she proposed ideas and initiatives and got everyone excited about equity work she single-handedly created a restorative justice and healing series called our stories our community at oakton elementary which brought together families from all walks into the school to learn about restorative healing practices and how to build relationships with one another a lot of pgas faltered during the pandemic yoli not only kept oaktons together and thriving she set an example for the whole district in her role as pta council president

014and coaxed along those at other schools providing encouraging words and innovative thinking where pta council meetings could have devolved into long complaint sessions she challenged the participants to envision a different pta and to focus on what we have not what we've lost she has a wonderfully kind way of calling people in and asking the right questions to help them grow jolie [Applause] congrats thank you very much citywide pta book uh now we've got uh time for our our superintendent and board comments so yes thank you what what what a month it's been what a year um we are coming up this is our last board meaning that we'll have while school is still in session the next board meeting we'll have will be on june 13th school will be dismissed but uh it's important that

015i provide a few updates but before we go into updating with some of the issues that have just ripped this community to shreds and many answers i just want to talk about a few celebrations we have our 8th graders that will be finishing up 8th grade moving on to high school as june 2nd we have we'll have some of those event ceremonies taking place with our fifth grade uh promotion ceremonies that's going to take place and also our early childhood so i want to you know really make sure that we thank our teachers our administrators our parents and most importantly the students for uh probably i would say in my 22 years in this field it's been the most challenging year but i believe this year is necessary i'll continue to come back to that

016um i want to update on a few things that well there's been a lot of celebrations that we've shared in these meetings and we may not have gotten the media of coverage that that it rightfully deserves i just want to lock in on something today around what has happened in our community with when we talk about members of my team and the board and community members will help me say there's the hour facing work around equity and then as the then there's the internal work that has to happen and we spent a great deal of time over the last two years doing a ton of excavating and excavating a lot of practices that were not benefiting all of our students excavating policies that were not necessarily benefiting our most marginalized students it's no secret i

017sit here with armed security 24 hours a day because of our efforts to fight that's not healthy for anyone and when you take incidents like what happened on friday the 13th right when the news is found hanging because they were backtracking that to some decisions that the district that we made and support of our board to right the ship to make sure that all of our teachers kept their jobs and make sure that we can keep a balance of our educators after a pandemic to keep them employed the reaction and some of the adult practices were just unacceptable and outright racist [Applause] and we can talk about you know i read the comment time my wife tells me not to read them i read them and i i'm gonna continue to do that because i

018think that continues to fuel my fire as a leader um but to be honest there had to be a shift in how we do business and if we don't do this and what does this inward work of how we structure our schools how we support our teachers our educators but most importantly position our students to be successful while also being fiscally responsible we opened up a fifth ward school and we didn't get maybe two articles about that it's okay we don't do it for the articles but it shows the true reality when this country is grounded in racism from the media perspective from how we do business to how we lean into what's right and with a disrespectful show in the last board meeting i'm going to ask that we still be respectful however passionate

019we feel about what has occurred let's be respectful of the structure and i'm going to ask that we don't repeat that and then that we honor how we move but the fact that we make these shifts we have our our students who are attempting to protest because for their beloved teachers and we respect that but it gets out of line the protest becomes a little bit quite a bit out of control we have nooses found outside i think all of that has to i hope everyone takes a minute to look in the mirror reflect what does this really mean for us as a school district when we have students that take protesting to a level where there's some nuisance found outside i want to tell you as a district we have been investigating since may

02013th we have been as well as epd there are a lot of things that we cannot share there are cameras every single where there are people that's talking and sharing things with us we can't make a statement to say who we've seen who's done what but just know that we're not sitting back and allowing this to rest and not be addressed it's going to be addressed and we want to make sure that we cross all of our t's and our eyes throughout this investigation process but i'll say this again as this room as packed as this room is tonight because of this these acts of hate and racial and racism that was displayed i expect to see you when we're talking about our student achievement data when we're talking about how our how our educators

021are improving how our leaders are moving the needle in their schools i expect to see this room crowded the same way don't just show up when things get this bad because if we're showing up early enough and this board in our administration and our teachers union who've been side by side with us contrary to what people may believe we can make a lot of change for our students and that's the only way to do it is together if we have any other approach and any idea that we think we're going to do this with division and not addressing the issues head on good luck with that you will continue to get the same outcomes that has plagued this community for decades so with that i'm going to close this out and just say um john

022lewis right talks about getting in good trouble that's what this board and this administration has been about we're getting in good trouble we're going to do what's right for our children and this community regardless and for those of you who are supporting us we really appreciate that and we will continue to work our butts off to change outcomes for our students so thank you [Applause] thank you dr horton i invite my board uh colleagues to maybe want to do you have a comment to share be sure thank you sergio um i shared these comments at the last board meeting the finance and buildings and grounds is that what the committee's called it's pretty long personnel but i think they're still relevant so i will read them again three nooses hanging from a tree a planned

023premeditated act invoking lynchings that brutally murdered thousands of black lives and terrorized millions more in this country in the not-too-distant past enraging saddening disturbing but unfortunately not surprising this act is not an isolated or random incident it didn't come out of nowhere it's not an anomaly this hate crime found fertile ground at haven where racialized us vs them mentality has convinced some people that it's not the deeply institutionalized racism or mental health needs or trauma or the pandemic that are at the root of haven's recent problems but certain black people whoever committed this act was paying attention they made the implicit explicit they condensed and summarized all the anger vitriol and insinuations of incompetence nefarious intent lack of care and conspiracies about retaliation directed at principal ladding and dr horton into a single symbol of

024racist hate they translated the subtext of anti-black adult discourse into the text of profanity-laced chants and an act of racial terrorizing nothing says you don't belong here and you don't matter to black students families staff and leaders as clearly as those three nooses but let's be honest that message has been communicated already and other more indirect ways over many years most recently remember when the fights at haven among dysregulated children were characterized as assaults against teachers remember the demands for accountability and swift action against the students perhaps even security guards to monitor them remember the recent board meeting when angry teachers and parents shouted down and booed the black board president for talking about past racist incidents at haven as a context for current issues they yelled i don't care and whatever what are we

025modeling for our children one parent wrote to tell us to stop sending useless communications about black lives matter week or lgbtq week and start dealing with the safety of his children as if working to ensure the safety inclusion and representation of our most marginalized students was incompatible with the safety of those in dominant groups i wondered if that is what this parent feels comfortable communicating to us what are his private conversations like most recently in the midst of haven's student protest minutes before mr ladding sent out his communication at 1 56 p.m an angry parent wrote with the subject line unbelievable in all caps about students leaving the building and the fact that there was still quote still no communication from the principal and then once she read the email this parent wrote another angry

026email blaming mr ladding for failing to control the chaos of what was supposed to be a peaceful protest take responsibility she wrote these are just two examples of a consistent and relentless pattern but once dr horton's message about the hate crime crime accompanying the protest was sent nothing who should take responsibility for these racist acts who can explain why some people thought invoking lynching was an appropriate response to an employer's personnel decisions why did they think that a symbol of racial terror was compatible with supporting haven teachers how does a silent protest in support of beloved teachers devolve within minutes into loud vicious chants and racial hate directed at black leaders who should be responsible for answering these questions by the way the suggestion circulating that perhaps these were not in fact uses referencing lynching

027but lassos or something else is offensive on multiple levels that kind of denial in the face of facts context and history is gaslighting of the worst kind after dozens and dozens of concerned and sometimes angry emails from haven families about the fighting a few weeks ago the silence surrounding this latest incident from certain parts of the community is notable our board inbox is very quiet whose lives actually matter whose concerns whose safety whose well-being whose sense of belonging and learning are most urgent and critical to address as a board member as a parent in this district as a member of this community i'm compelled to speak out and i'm committed to supporting the equity work in our schools to working to dismantle racist policies and disrupt racist outcomes and to support our black leaders doing

028this work on the front lines these efforts are not at the expense of white students or biracial students like my own children they too deserve the truth about inequity and injustice in our community and the opportunity to be part of building a more just world this is not the time to deflect deny or distance ourselves from this act it came from within our community and it absolutely violated the safety of our black community our neighbors friends and family we are all responsible for for what happens in our schools we must all hold ourselves accountable as always our children are watching and listening thank you [Applause] thank you so much any other board colleagues want to make a comment yes please i'd like to spend a little time tonight sharing my perspective as a white woman

029that has had a front row seat to the resistance to our equity journey in district 65. i spent five years as a consultant working for our district where i worked with teams in every building to create a positive school climate i also spent five years as one of the leaders of the pta equity project and i've spent almost three years as a board member in these eight years i have witnessed certain behaviors repeated too frequently to be considered anything other than a predictable pattern i want to be clear that that tonight i'm not talking about the folks that identify themselves as against equity policies and practices uh that promote equity i'm speaking to the white members of our community that moved to evanston or chose to work here for its diversity who profess to value

030diversity and inclusion and who believe in equitable outcomes for all students we are screwing it up friends we keep underestimating our own socialization and white supremacy and overestimating our ability to rise above the ways we have been taught to maintain white power and control we keep thinking we can accidentally create an inclusive community that we won't have to give up anything to do so and that any of our actions to undermine black leadership are clearly misunderstood because we are the good guys we are evanstonians i have had numerous opportunities to watch the disparity in the way our white and black leaders are treated because not everyone has had the access i have had i want to share with you what i have seen happen over and over in our district in the past eight years

031and can only assume before that time i want to acknowledge that the pandemic has led to an acceleration of this cycle i believe this is because so many of us are still struggling to be okay when we feel so out of control of our lives and helpless as we try and protect our children that we're losing perspective i'm not saying our leaders are perfect there are times when leaders are ineffective and concerns need to be addressed many of the actions i plan to discuss are not inherently problematic and may be appropriate at times however the reliability of this pattern and the frequency in which it now happens means to me that we have gone far beyond the protocol for sharing concerns about an ineffective learner leader i ask that every white person take a deep

032breath and try to hear what i'm saying attempt to sit with it not explain it or rationalize it as something else i've created this visual the building blocks of white supremacy in district 65 to undermine black leadership it begins hold on it begins with a black leader being selected there's an immediate lack of trust or confidence and a starting assumption that the leader won't be any good then we have discomfort where members in the community are on high alert to validate that discomfort we then see the magnifying of mistakes a minor mistake or mis understanding or even a perceived mistake gets blown out of proportion this mistake becomes justification for attempts to discredit leader and initial attempts like look like claiming a lack of transparency or a lack of communication often the communication is plentiful

033but not satisfying when the leader has appropriate boundaries for what is shared about personnel or students then we see the demands folks start sharing ideas based on incomplete information and without expertise as an effort to control the leader when those demands are not met even when they are unreasonable inappropriate and not feasible the leader is accused of doing nothing and not caring then we see working around the leader i like to think of this as going to the manager the educators are activating parents often with incomplete or misinformation to advocate on their behalf rather than using appropriate channels through their union this often includes an attempt to partner with people of color so that the attacks on black leaders will not be seen as racist this is when the board and superintendent are brought in

034on building level concerns that the building leader is trying to address white people in power are contacted in attempts to leverage us in white solidarity the consistent attacks of our leaders are pervasive we see claims of dishonesty incompetence that they're untrustworthy that there's a lack of care for the community and a lack of communication those are all common at this stage the attacks are so pervasive that students are influenced by adult feelings when students are witnessing conversations regularly disparaging the adults they need to rely on how can they not feel unsafe and fearful white rage lack of control causes people to act out in a myriad of ways discourse becomes more hostile and disrespectful everything is declared a failure often before it's even happened there's a focus on any imperfections rather than improvements there's demands

035that the leader is removed black leaders safety well-being and humanity is not considered after pre-previous steps it's difficult for a leader to do their job folks are looking for evidence of their failures and an inordinate amount of time is spent on adult feelings rather than being able to focus on the needs of students folks expect communications about events in real time before the crisis is fully managed news is death threats and physical violence i want to be clear that the threat to emotional safety is felt throughout all of these stages and the threats to physical safety don't just begin here they become commonplace folks who have not been able to see these previous building blocks as white supremacy are shocked and confused at how we got here this is not evanston this is not our

036community deflection minimization rationalization at all other levels make the breeding ground for this level white supremacy and racism are adaptive and they find myriads of ways to thrive the attempts to to name other levels as racism or white supremacy are ridiculed and discredited we're reckoning with how to explain nooses as anything other than racist or trying to portray it as anomaly or a surprise rather than a predictable likely outcome to this process these of course are not original ideas black people have been saying all of these things i have said tonight in a myriad of ways and been dismissed and this is not an exhaustive list of all that is happening our black leaders on this board and in our administration have said it and been dismissed and heckled my board colleagues and i have

037been trying to call attention to this pattern every step of the way however i'm trying again tonight because i'm hoping that since our children have chosen to use nooses a symbol of white terrorism white supremacy and murder in their advocacy that at least some of you will finally listen and reflect on the ways you are participating in this pattern please know there is harm and threat in every stage of this not just the nooses know that while your school may not have reached the point of a hate crime many of you are well on your way please reflect on this and be honest with yourselves about the ways you're showing up the ways you've engaged in these behaviors and the way your silence has allowed these behaviors to thrive our children are clearly taking their

038cues from the adults around them we can can't address the horrors of a hate crime with acknowledging the without acknowledging the erosion of civility consideration and care for our black leaders and the constant threat that led this hate led to this hate crime and will lead to others let's teach our children how racism thrives how to act with humility how to take responsibility and how to use their voice to create communities where everyone feels affirmed welcomed valued respected and safe where everyone can thrive and excel thank you vis any other board colleagues with any comments joy keep it brief in a time where our children our black and brown brothers and sisters had to bear witness to a symbol of such hate three nooses hanging in a tree and had to relive the images and

039newspapers and conversations over and over again over the past week and even had to drag themselves out to our meetings like tonight and to school arrival and dismissal to just convey the simple care for one another and show them that we know they're there thriving with us black and brown and beautiful and strong we must make space to hear the voices of those in pain and let them know that they are not alone as a white man i stand with you to repel the hate that has been thrust your way the anti-defamation league states that a hangman's noose has come to be one of the most powerful visual symbols directed against african americans comparable to the emotions that it evokes of a swastika for jews it does not get used accidentally by children or adults

040it is used for two for two reasons to strike fear in the hearts and the minds of people of color and to tell members of our community who share these views that hate does in fact have a home here i stand by my comments last week at the finance committee meeting and want to briefly state again that if you are not explicitly and outspokenly anti-racist in this moment then you are finding safe harbor amongst racists there is no middle ground [Applause] thank you julie any other board comments from our colleagues so i didn't prepare any comments tonight because um the levels of violence and vitriol are incredibly painful to see murderous values taught to children and encouraged in children is unthinkable and incredibly painful to see um but having experienced the last board meeting that

041we had that i feel very confident saying felt like a lynch mob to me i feel like it's really important for us to know that we want district 65 to be a loving place for all of our children and families and every single child and family in our community deserves to feel invested in and to feel like they have the world at their fingertips because we love them when we believe in them and we cannot do that if we cannot ensure that folks that look like our children and families are safe this is shameful and the folks who consider themselves as fierce advocates and sometimes even win pta awards need to think about that those building blocks and need to think about what it looks like when you are advocating and your advocacy is not

042racist but it's not anti-racist and um we we should not those of us who are people who are black people in this district we do this work because we believe in it and because we believe in our kids and our families the we should not have to get a side of death threats to to love and care for our children and families um but that is what that is what we have been coping with and when we ask folks to come here and work for us and to invest their their love and their care and for their families to get excited about their work with us and then we treat them with racism and and threats of death we really need to sit with that as a collective community and organize our capital to care

043about everyone's humanity and be accountable if you're not and that's all i have for my non-written statements [Applause] any other board colleagues yes so initially as anya i did not write a statement tonight because i was told that if you have nothing nice to say you should say nothing at all however i ran in this race for this purpose right here that for the people that feel like they have no voice i have to be that voice that at this point i have to use my seat to speak on what is the obvious and the obvious is our black people this is racist like this community is racist it's harmful and it is hurtful to all of us and our children are not safe here our children don't feel safe here we don't feel safe

044here we don't feel safe showing up in these spaces trying to advocate for our children because what we get back is that we're angry black people when in all when in all actuality we're just loving parents and nuisance being hung at a in between an elementary school and a in a middle school is gross this is 2023 or two whatever you're in i don't even know what year here because this is re this is ridiculous that we would have to go through this level of hate at this point and please know that your black leaders that dr horton and and the cabinet and all and all of the people that work with him black or black brown white they are we are all working together for equity and the good trouble that we are getting

045in we are going to continue to do that no matter what comes our way because we are fighting for all of our children because all of our children matter our superintendent as he stated as a black man and for his cabinet to have to walk into haven on may 13th and these black men having to deal with the trauma of seeing three nooses home how do you think they felt i just want i just want to say tonight before i get myself in any more good trouble that you we are working together and to see all this support that is out here tonight if we continue to work together there is there's so much more that we can accomplish but we have to stick together this racism is not tolerated in district 65 and we

046will make sure that whomever is responsible for this we'll be held accountable for this because if it was on the other hand we would want accountability [Applause] thank you [Applause] thank you marquis any other board comments or okay well i'm going to close out um and again it's been over a month since i became the first for president first latino board president of evanston's coking school district 65 school board it's been one of the most difficult months in my professional and political career but i know what i was signing up for i signed up to continue the groundbreaking equity work that honors and builds on past efforts focused on gaining equitable access to the resources and rigor for all students and families in our community and specifically our most marginalized students and families to empower

047them and normalize their social emotional academic and economic success in the evidence goku community i signed up with my colleagues here to forge ahead with fundamental educational systems change in district 65 where we focus on reflect on and eliminate past educational policies and practices that have exacerbated inequity and which favor families with economic privilege who through opportunity hoarding continue to create barriers to accessing the resources supports needed by our most marginalized families so tonight if you stick around and i don't expect you to but again we record these meetings and as dr horton said you're going to we're going to hear from our multilingual department we're going to hear from our individual education department around some of the supports that we're creating to ensure that our most marginalized students our multilingual students our kids with

048ieps are getting the supports they need so again i invite you to get stick around but i know you got families i know you've got to get back and feed your feed your family and be with them but again we record these meetings and again find some of this information because we are doing some incredible work uh and funny enough i was at the um you know we were mentioning how the media covers it or dr horton mentioned how the media covers us um so i we i was at the uh at the haven uh event uh earlier uh last week we were greeting students who were coming in uh to help us deal with and heal uh from that racist and hateful incident that happened on the 13th uh and of course we ran

049into a gentleman jeff hirsch from evanston now and again i'm going to extend this invite to you again jeff again we have some incredible work that's going on and i know again what bleeds is what leads that's what the media uh likes you know that that's what that's what news that that well that's what makes news is what bleeds with leads but all you know let's let's let's focus and showcase some of the hope that's happening right we have families i know my colleague marquis a couple of months back talked about some of the families that are being impacted by our academic student centers where we're supporting students we're giving tutoring to students during the school day in order for them to reach levels uh in in in in reading and math that they had

050never achieved before right i invite you jeff hirsch that was the round table uh you come on over come and talk about those things i know we'll do our press releases and send them out to you and we just had one around on the create project where we're creating we have a pipeline of teachers who are going to be from our community who've already been working with us who are culturally responsive who are diverse who know our community who again we're building our own pipeline where in other school districts across the country are struggling to to hire teachers so again we have some incredible systemic and foundational pieces that are that we're putting into place now it's not going to address some of the immediate concerns that i don't have we keep getting letters from

051families we're upset that we the teachers have to get switched around but again i our apologies for that it just has to happen and we're not the only school district that's doing that where we have to switch teachers around because again we've had lowering and romans just like everybody else across the country but what i do want to guarantee to you is that again we are diligently working together to make sure that these foundational changes in our educational system again help normalize success uh and opportunity for for our students and our families so again this you know i'm so i'm so proud of this board that i'm with our administration our black leaders uh and again please stop with the attacks please stop with the barrage and again if you have the privilege to be

052able to do that and the time to do that you know what make sure that you're asking folks who don't have the time who right now are working a second or third shift job and include them in the conversation if they feel the same way that you do because i haven't seen them here we need to consider their voices and we want to elevate their voices as well and those changes that i just talked about is again directed at those folks to make sure that they have access to the resources they need so they can we can normalize their success in their children and create generational success and generational wealth for them right because that's what we need so i will leave it at that that's what i have for this evening [Applause] we're going

053to go into our public comments section uh so we have uh so members of the public are welcome and invited to address the board during open public meetings speakers are discouraged from using the public comment period to your specific concerns about staff members being mindful that the public comment period is not a suitable forum for fact-finding or resolution of disputes rather we encourage members of the public who have concerns about specific district employees to follow district communication guidelines found in the student handbook please remember to state your name and that you have two minutes and 14 seconds to address the board again i i'm sorry i'm sorry that we have to i'm sorry that we have to shorten we have a long agenda and then again we have these great foundational pieces that we want

054to talk about which we would love to share with you so uh also note that it's not a customary to uh for the board to respond to public comments the best way to correspond with the members of the board is by emailing school board at district65.net and with that ada if we can call our first speakers please sure i'll call our first five so they can come line up um we have devon cravens nathan campbell meg houseworth olivia olson are you all together should i keep going linea mayo and jocelyn davis okay i know that some of the topics were addressed but i still like to talk about them get closer to the mic devin cravens from the youth advisory committee as an eighth grade student at hayban can you do it closer to the

055mic throughout my three years there have been numerous fights but i feel that this year things have been way out of control during the last school board meeting i want to quickly point out that the parents acted very immature and i feel like some parts of the situation were blown out of proportion it seemed like some parents misinterpreted the situation and thought that the students that were getting into fights were bullying or hitting other students for no reason and to clarify to those informed misinformed that's not the case usually a couple of students got into arguments and decided to fight usually no other students got harmed unless they are part of the group i also noticed that whenever people talked about the students involved in the fights white parents were using criminalizing and triggering words

056such as repeat offenders in those people white parrots staffs and officials pushes and positioned themselves to be the moral compass of this community when historically and even present they can't do that there's barely anyone acknowledging that fact and at the same time there's no penalty these students are 13 and 14 year olds they're kids and as they call them that the students aren't not being properly shown or told that what they're doing is unacceptable if they're continuing to get themselves in trouble they either simply don't get proper punishments at home for their actions or they're not in a position where they aren't able to get the essentials a child at this age would normally get when it comes to students doing their best in school not only does their learning environment at school need to

057be substantial but the environment at home needs to be just as secure instead of suspending them and transferring them to different schools they should be given proper and reasonable punishments in the resources they need and deserve to be successful besides the trouble that these students get into a lot of them have stories and with those stories they need support as someone who's not the brightest when it comes to concluding things like this it didn't take long for me to put two and two together but it baffles me how this wasn't one of the first priorities after the first several fights occurred nevertheless we students shouldn't have to speak out about these things earlier this month on the 13th a protest was held due to the fact that some of our teachers were being relocated to

058different schools during the protests three nooses were hung between haven and kingsley the thing that frustrates me and other students is that we have not gotten any updates or emails about who did it although officials are not able to say who did it we should at least know what grade they're in what consequences they got or if they were even expelled a lot of us can easily say that this student threatened a whole community to instill fear and into a whole committee my community the student who hung those up not only overshadowed our protest and nursed the idea that it was a racially motivated protest but they also hurt the black community us not being update communicated communicates that no repercussions are being given nothing is being done to prevent that this hate crime will

059be happening at haven again yet black children involved in fights are being demanded to face repercussions which seems like they were almost immediately given people think please think ask yourselves what kind of school is this although this school year is over i feel that these things should be put into consideration for the next coming year to prevent these events that previously transpired [Applause] um uh hello my name is nathan campbell i'm with the youth advisory committee and i came here with c e c 2 c i want to address what happened at haven middle school i want to start off by saying that what happened is very disturbing and it shouldn't have happened and should never happen again in the future if i was at haven and i saw this i would have felt a

060ton of emotions as a young adult black male a part of me will feel scared because i don't want to see nooses at a place where me and my fellow classmates are supposed to feel safe and protected i will i would also feel angry because there is no valid excuse for this type of behavior i also want to add that the fact that they found this after the kids of havens had to sit in for the district's decision to transfer some students to some teachers i'm sorry to a different school this is something that stuck with me because it was like the kids were taking action to move 10 steps forward for something that they were passionate about and when they walked outside it was like they were taking 20 steps back i want to

061con i want to congratulate the kids who set up the sit-in to make sure that their voices were heard it takes a lot of patience power and determination to get middle schoolers of all people to come and get her to make sure that they are taken seriously i also want to say that this act shouldn't be something that should be taken lightly if the school ever finds out who did this they shouldn't get off with a slap on the wrist i want to say this i want to say this because this situation makes me think of another situation the written house situation and the lockdown that we had at my at uchs my high school written house killed two people killed two people with a gun and didn't have a license to have the gun

062either and there was a young adult at my school who had a gun in his locker and not on him and we went into lockdown and a young adult was arrested and taken to julie i am saying this because we had a discussion whether the boys should be held accountable or shouldn't he i in my opinion said that the boys shouldn't be prosecuted for having a gun because if you look at carl rennhaus the situation a grown man that knows better have killed had a gun and killed two people and now he's being streamed like a prince and now at our school with a young adult who didn't have a gun on him is being punished even though the situations between rin house and haven are different from each other the consequences might show i

063think that if the district ever finds out who did this they should not give them they should not give them a light punishment i want to end up by saying that even if you or other people want to do something that you feel is a joke it might not be to others so as my mother would say think through a thought because you don't know who you might hurt thank you [Applause] good evening evanston community my name is meg houseworth i'm a junior at eths a graduate of king arts a student advocate for cradle to career and a representative for the youth advisory council and an evanstonian deeply troubled by the recent acts of violence displayed at haven middle school i just want to reverberate what other people are saying that this was a hate

064crime a deliberate racist act meant to conjure fear worry and silence this is an event that will take time for us to collectively grapple process and heal from but what we must not forget is that racism and white violence have always been present in evanston this is just one of the few times we've seen these beliefs materialize into something physical institutionalized racism is in the bedrock of our homes our red line neighborhoods our social circles our policing systems and our educational institutions these beliefs are disseminated across generations exacerbating profound inequality and tolerance to western way of thinking if these beliefs are not challenged at home and in educational spaces then particular students white students maintain that their beliefs can be practiced without consequence what we saw last week when three nooses were hung in front

065of haven was a product of violent beliefs going uncontested for too long this display of racism was not an impromptu act but a climax to hateful beliefs being collected and internalized across days months and years i urge those in this room and those in the evanston community more broadly to critically reflect on what it means to live in evanston a town that regards itself as a progressive community yet is an incubator of white privilege and white supremacy [Applause] we have a lot of work to do to dismantle racism within our town but it begins by teaching our children particularly those in white households that this behavior is not welcome here hate is not welcomed here thank you for your time [Applause] hi i'm zian blair a seventh grader at haven middle school i just wanted

066to give my thoughts of the unsafe activities at haven i first started off at the district in sixth grade taking all my classes online due to covet i was excited to have my first year in person at haven i just remember getting ready for the amazing school year it started off good at first then fight started to happen verbal to physical from just little things that's when i wasn't safe anymore walking through the hallways hoping i would not get hoping i would not get hurt from just looking at someone the wrong way that's what that's when i first saw that i wasn't safe anymore then there became protests they all said that the protest would be peaceful hearing people chanting and banging on lockers it escalated fast it was not peaceful anymore hearing people screaming

067down the hallways to find out later that a hate crime happened after the fact just to find out that three nooses were hanged outside of my school as an african-american i know that back in the day black people were hung by nooses just so for being as a for me being a black person i feel very unsafe that i have to go to school every day knowing that i'm being threatening at my own school by being hung by a noose nobody wants to be threatened like that so as an african-american i believe we should do better thank you [Applause] hi my name is olivia olson and i'm here tonight as a member of the city of evanston youth advisory committee i'm 14 years old and a freshman at eths i graduated from haven a year

068ago as a member of the class of 2021 and i have attended three disney district 65 schools orrington and kindergarten fifth grade bessie rhodes from first through fourth i am saddened that i am back here again speaking in front of you as our community is facing similar issues to those i saw three years ago when i came here to speak as a sixth grader from haven about the racial divide plaguing the school at the time i was the only student who spoke that night and to a standing ovation dr goran promised he would bring me in to hear my thoughts on the issues and hear the voices of more students but he never followed through on his promise when dr horton joined our administration i reached out to him to see if he would give

069students some kind of voice within the administration and within a month he had created the superintendent's student advisory council for which i represented haven the council in its [Applause] the council in its infancy felt to me like a step in the right direction we need to give our administration and our board ample time to respond to the issues facing our community since they can be traced back to farther than their time in our community and to be frank many decades before i was born but and this is a big but this community deserves more than deserves a calculated and rapid response from the administration and board and specifically as a black biracial former student of haven i can say a few things first that i have found haven to be extremely segregated and from what

070i hear it has long been but that shouldn't prohibit us from demanding and working towards change to explicitly address the events of may 13th i feel that the hanging of three nooses should have been the last straw for those who were hoping these racial issues at haven would simply evaporate with a new fifth ward school or some showings of solidarity but unfortunately we are long past the time where that is enough the events of that day were a direct threat to black students and families across evanston and i act that are i ask that our community view it as such i ask that you all put the needs of students and our teachers and put the needs of students first and our teachers next because they deserve to be heard as well they deserve to

071feel safe i remem i if you remember anything that i have said tonight i only hope you remember this the mission of d65 is not every parent every day whatever it takes it is [Applause] it is not every teacher every day whatever it takes it is not every administrator every day whatever it takes it's not every school board member every day whatever it takes it is every child every day whatever it takes thank you all for giving the students some time on the podium tonight all right thank you okay we can shut it down after that we can shut it down after that one good evening good evening board my name is jocelyn davis i am an evanston resident for 16 15 years and a district 65 parent for six years um in 2018 2019

072d65 saw an uptick in racist behavior where black children were being called derogatory names like chimp chimpanzee the n-word and were bullied by their white counterparts for wearing natural hair styles i stood here at this very pulpit during that year to to voice my concerns in 2022 the same students are in our district 65 middle schools hanging nooses from trees recently there have been increasing incidents and forms of blatant practices threats of physical violence orchestrated coups dissemination of racist and biased materials and other expressions obigotory towards our district 65 black leaders including my principal these tactics are being carried out by white parents by some white parents and some white educators in our dewey community i'm so emotional i'm sorry this is setting a dangerous a dangerous precedent for our black leaders and educators and

073the community to either be forced to work in a hostile environment or be bullied bullied out of their leadership roles as principals educators and administrative staff where is the accountability i have two questions for the district 65 community that allows for this racist climate to continue number one will we be the district that will take actionable steps to eradicate the behavior or will we be the district that will allow white supremacy to continue to poison our community with discriminatory practices and that's all that i have tonight [Applause] okay so i'll call the next few people on the list we have shanique shelton tanya brown renee stone shannon watson my name is shauniq shelton and i have been a district 65 parent here since 2013. i was also an employee at one of our schools here

074in 2019 i want to say i'm no longer there so i want to start with this as black moms in this district we have apologized we have inquired we have asked we are done asking we demand that all educators are able to relate to all kids in the district a black kid expressing themselves should be looked at in the same light as when a white child expresses themselves for example all children may not be able or may not be aware of when they have anxiety or acts sorry or have when they have anxiety so i asked educators ask your students how their nights and mornings were before telling them to stop or or before ostracizing a black student in front of their peers we demand that educators will uplift and empower all students when educators

075constantly hyper focus on black children as if they have targets on their backs how do you expect for these children to feel do you think they realize that they are being hounded do they even know do you think that that they will be receptive to that teacher knowing that deep down that this teacher does not truly care for them and i do mean white teachers how can you expect the student to perform under those circumstances these type of targets can cause anxiety stress and depression like they have with my own 13 year old um good evening my name is tanya brown for the record i have a current haven student also for the record i was a haven student i graduated from haven so i know the racist history that haven and kingsley in the

076neighborhood the racist history of the of the neighborhood that haven and kingsley sit in i know it i lived it so now my son is living it i am here to request really demand that the individuals responsible for hanging the three nurses on the property of our schools are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law we know what nooses symbolize stop allowing white people to say this was not about race and hate this was a hate crime again this was a hate crime let's not sweep it under the rug the white community is trying to minimize this hate crime if this hate if this hate crime is minimized we will allow white people to continue and be cut to be comfortable and hate crimes will be continued in this community we know that

077having a black leader having black leaders is a threat to the white community dr horton has been under attack since he arrived our black principal and assistant principles at haven have been under attack since they arrived we know that these issues that haven didn't just start when the black administration arrives let's be truthful let's be truthful white folks have been showing their ass long before this recent hate crime existed let's let's let's let's tell about it let's talk about it [Applause] when does it stop i need the white folks to stop acting shocked when this stuff happens your friends and neighbors are the perpetrators come on now protect our black children black lives matter [Applause] good evening my name is renee stone i was raised in evanston and attended school in district 65 and 202.

078i am a former haven parent and a current nichols parent and i know all too well the experiences that many black parents face at haven as a black mother raising black children in district 65 i am sick and tired of being sick and tired on may 13 2022 three nooses were hung from a tree between haven and kingsley schools this act was perpetrated by one or more white students and must not be seen as anything other than what it was a threat and a hate crime which must not go unpunished these criminal offenders were seen walking around with the ropes around their necks prior to the nurses being found and the fact that they previously took the time to learn the nodding technique to create nooses is intolerable for many that harmful act cultivated painful

079memories of ancestors past which caused several individuals in the evanston community to endure emotional and mental distress our children should not be dealing with this in 2022. in good old evanston a city constantly ranked as being one of the best places to live but i asked for who as black parents we demand to know the following are our kids safe what is being done to ensure that our children are able to heal emotionally mentally and physically what is being done to ensure that no other student will have to endure such trauma attending school in district 65. how long will the investigation of this hate crime take and when will we be informed who is responsible for the hate crime what will be the consequence for the students that committed this hate crime as black mothers

080we are demanding transparency regarding this situation and i hope that the district will facilitate our request and to these beautiful black men that are here from eccsc who have taken time out of their day to show up and support our children i appreciate you [Applause] good evening my name is shannon watson my child he currently attends haven middle school i also attended haven middle school all of district 65 and 202 schools i attended i am an ev estonian i was born here and raised here my mother was born and raised here as well um i am very emotional right now i got a whole lot right here but i have a child a black boy sitting at the back of this room who is numb i mean numb and he is a very vocal young

081man okay i asked him i was out of town out of the country when this took place when i got heard of it i was livid okay i asked him over and over talk to me about it what happened what was it like he had zero words and still have zero words he is trying to digest what he encountered at school where he is supposed to go every day for a just education a radical education because he know when he walk out my house what we going to do learn that's it that's all okay i've been in these board meetings before i've stepped away from them because of the racist antics that i would hear see and live in right but i'm a this is something i do want to point out those three nuisances

082were hung right it's not okay it is a hate crime it is atrocious and heinous activity come on now is trauma being inflicted on our community okay not only my child every child black white i don't care everyone inflicted trauma that day by seeing or hearing of it my phone went out y'all hold on give me let me let me just get this through y'all we all know the history of a noose which is derived from origins of american lynching of blacks so when that noose was hung it was very intentional and used as a threat for our black community and children okay and i'm getting ready to be up off of here all i ask is that we protect our black children dismantle these systems and my son is in sports and when something

083is not just in sports whether it's a player that's down that's hurt or something happens with one of the family members of a player they take a knee and for you baby [Applause] foreign [Applause] so i'll read off the next speakers shannon watson oh i'm sorry needs to be repeated marlon milner the donation brown beth brady good evening my name is marlon milner i'm a resident in evanston i have two children at haven middle school good evening my name is marlon milner i'm a resident of evanston i have two children at haven middle school after the april 4th board meeting i made comments online about statements made by ms biz lindsey ryan and then i attended an april board meeting where i commented about the experiences my two children have had at haven i do

084believe in the right of parents to come to these meetings and speak out in the ways that they've in fact done on tonight but the fact remains that the statements that i shared both online and at this meeting were used as a part of a racist sexist and homophobic attack both on this board and on this administration and for that i offer an unqualified and unequivocal apology thank you [Applause] hello everyone my name is indonesia and i am a former haven student also a parent of a former haven student grandchild of a former haywood student daughter of a former healing student and tonight i'm here to speak about what's been happening i'm often told to stop speaking up for black children and what our children and our families are going through but if you know

085me and you know my family i will not stop but today i will speak about racism racism has always existed in the annals of district 65 in some shape or form but what had what had not existed is the blatant signs of hate to some a rope doesn't mean much but to those of us whose ancestors hung as strange fruit throughout this country we know it all too well a noose is a sign that was meant to instill fear in the hearts of black people to let us know we are not welcome and if you come too close you will be the next one to hang i am tired of the excuses and the blame i am tired of the symbolism i am tired of those of you who choose to use our pain and

086trauma as a means to get paid i am tired of those of you who only show up when there's a camera or microphone where were you before it got to this point where were you when haven parents were writing calling complaining for years i've seen it firsthand and i've been directly involved were you putting on yet another show to pretend as if you care about black children signs in yards held high in the camera just to be seen all that means nothing when those children can't depend on you in their times of need some are saying that the nooses that were hung were the result of trauma so then what type of response would be expected from 400 years of trauma this district needs to allow black children to be in a safe to be

087in safe spaces to address what has taken place not an ally group i repeat not an ally led organization poking and prodding our children for answers leading to more trauma and harm but a safe space with individuals who are willing to protect and uplift our children a group of black men showed up to create a safe space for our children as they walk to and from school ex-cons for community and social change showed up to speak the truth that many in our community do not want to acknowledge so that we can prevent what is happening black children will no longer be put on stage for your entertainment those of us who have truly been reaching out to black families are demanding change [Applause] hi good evening my name is shanice brown i have a current

088sixth grader at haven and my husband and i have also raised two daughters through d65 willard and haven students with one graduating this past sunday from eths i'm not from evanston we've lived here 20 years now but when my husband and i intentionally left michigan where we went to very very predominantly white schools we chose to seek a community where we could raise the children that we knew we would have and where they could be valued we bought the dream we bought the fallacy we saw heavens and signs and we thought that we were bringing our kids to the right place but as my fellow moms shared for whom is evans imperfect whom feels comfortable i've watched my daughters grow up but honestly i've told my husband raising a black son is above my pay

089grade i've watched him go from a chubby little baby boy to getting slurs thrown on the playground to being watched intensely watched this took nine years it was before haven that he had to grow up so it wasn't until may 13th despite all the challenges that have been happening at haven until 104 on friday may 13th that i got a frantic scare text from my son who said there's a riot it's out of control they're police i don't feel safe come get me and i was taking out braids from my daughter who was going to prom the next day and i just turned around and i went and got him when he found out there were nooses he said i don't want to go back but where do i go mom and that's the problem

090all the parents in here all the black parents in here we don't know where to go we don't and i don't have an answer for him so i just hope that you hold the people responsible who did this because the terror started a long time ago and we need to show our children that we have their best interest in heart thank you [Applause] my name is beth brady and i'm a parent and educator in district 65 and i'm directing my comments this evening toward our parent community particularly our white parents in the conversation about supporting teachers in this community i would like to share my perspective but rather than talk about how the extraordinary challenge of this year has fallen on me and my students and my colleagues i want to share words that have

091helped me to orient myself through this turbulence to identify what my struggle is teaching me i've held these words close all year spoken by abdel shakur eths teacher in february of 2021 as district 65 and 202 considered reopening in his statement he said these times give us a tremendous opportunity to revision education in evanston and to allow us a moment to shift in a more equitable way to not let our systems and traditions dictate the way we serve our children the reason i am speaking specifically to white parents is to name some of those traditions that have dictated how we serve our children in district 65. there are historical patterns of engagement that we have fallen into in pursuing our goals and advocating for what we believe for a system to be healthy there have

092to be functioning feed feedback loops to analyze where our system is not working when we as white parents the group that who has consistently been best served by this district have strong feelings about what is and is not working we take up more than our fair amount of space and flow outside the channels provided for that feedback we squeeze out spaces for black and brown voices and perspectives that are vital to achieving equity we have decades of evidence that our schools fail to provide spaces in which black and brown children thrive the feedback we most need about how to change that must come from the families and caregivers raising and loving those children i urge us all in our advocacy to consider how many perspectives we have access to how many schools neighborhoods and families

093these perspectives represent i urge us to engage humbly in continual curiosity about how the issues we care about are experienced by families in different situations than ours and i encourage us to protect spaces for the voices of the families whose needs our district is striving to center if we are seeking equity we as white parents must be adamant about participating equitably in this conversation about change thank you [Applause] the next speakers we have are amy landall julia eisenstein robin brown mike hoffman and terry shepherd i'm amy landault and my kids are graduates of haven the news threat that we will tolerate you but know your place is not new to evanston or our schools we use redlining and redistricting to say we'll tolerate you but know your place when the law required the integration of

094the schools we bust black children to the white schools saying we'll tolerate you but know your place when we talk over jeer at and question the qualifications competence and intentions of the school board members and administrators we are saying we'll tolerate you but know your place we have not eliminated hate crimes racial intimidation or harassment in evanston we must not downplay the hate crime or pretend it's the work of a few bad apples or pretend that the disrespect we show the administration is not the same racist energy white evanston must demand accountability for this hate crime and take ownership for dismantling the systemic racism that nurtured it we need to treat the incident as seriously as any other felony committed on school property [Applause] thank you that's my sister i just want to first say

095thank you all for having us here and um for you all the job that you all have done to to keep order and try to educate our children this is the emotional thing for me as someone who's been discriminated against my whole life so as a black man in chicago i don't know if y'all know john burge a lot of us was wrongfully convicted tortured by racist cops and it still happens you know we just don't cry about it as much today but black men die while walking black black men die while driving black and it's clear that young black men and children can die by being educated or at least the fear of it it's like do we have to wait for boston i mean uh new york to happen again before we take

096this serious we're here prison there's over a hundred years over 100 years of prison time of our guys here today but we've given so much back in as a and are an example of what real equity looked like different gang culture different sexual orientation up here but yet we act more civil than a community that claims to be one of the best in the country i take all children lives as my own our all children lives matter because you have to ask yourself where did they learn that it's easy to point at the child like i tell police officers legislators and judges black boys don't create bullets guns drugs they don't but you would think we was the ones that do all of that with the time that we're spending so all i'm saying to

097you all and maybe i get my time to to finish but really let's do better let's do better let's figure this out and you women with young sons we deal with young men every day i mentor over 80 young men ages 8 to 27 white black and brown it's unfortunate often white women call me more to mentor their sons than black women so i'm telling you y'all have brothers we've been through it we know what they're going through and we've overcame anytime you can overcome two decades of prison and the 9 by 12 cage and still come out here with a sense of urgency a sense of purpose and a sense of service that's the least parents you all can do in this community and figure out how we can get at the mental health

098aspect of these young boys and girls in these communities in these schools don't put it all on them parents it's your responsibility link your child to positive mentors we are a village and we must come up together as a village in order to change the systemic racism that has permeated this [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] robin brown my name is robin brown i'm a parent thank you to everyone that has spoken i really just thinking about what the last speaker said the words that are ringing in my ears are parental responsibility and so i'm here to talk to white families over the past week after three nooses symbols of racial terror were found on d65 property i've heard lots of white people ask in disbelief how did we get here i imagine that black and

099brown evanstonians can answer this question much more fully but they shouldn't have to so while acknowledging that my perspective is limited by my whiteness it's important to share we did not arrive in that horrific moment on may 13th spontaneously we've been moving there for months more likely years more likely generations questioning our highly competent superintendent because the he is the leader of real movement towards racial equity is how we got here heckling our school board president while she was giving opening remarks is how we got here demanding answers from dr horton or the board when something feels uncomfortable is how we got here perpetuating baseless narratives that somehow this board which is made up of educators and our superintendent don't care about teachers is how we got here insisting that our board and superintendent are

100not transparent when there have literally been hundreds of communications and opportunities for family engagement is how we got here resisting change when we don't like it is how we got here young people witnessing adults repeatedly demonstrate disrespect for black leadership is how we got here the list goes on well here we are to my fellow white people if any of this sounds confusing to you please reach out to other white people to discuss explore and uncover what you've been missing or perpetuating thank you uh uh good evening uh and thank you for allowing me the time to address the board and the visitors my name is mike hoffman uh parent of two current haven students and two on down the line that will be there soon enough i want to join the voices of concerned

101haven parents denouncing the unconscionable act of hatred and intimidation perpetrated between the haven and kingsley campuses last week to publicly invoke such a vile tool of racism and oppression is bad enough but to do so at a place where children come for education support and camaraderie is deplorable there are people in evanston trying to make it a safe place for children and in particular bipac children there are people working on restorative measures to advance educational equity and to ensure the communities and neighborhoods are made whole this is all no noble work and a source of pride in what good can be accomplished when we work together hand in hand it's a genuine shame to think that evanston is also home to people who have it within them to terrorize young children children who have done

102nothing to deserve such cruel and poisonous images placed in their paths and seared into their memory evanston let's do better thank you for your time so we have terry shepherd michael neighbors sarah peterson okay my before my starts ticking i want to give my compliments to the board because the last time there were this many black folks in here that board called the police on us and two weeks later there were white folks knocking on the windows but they didn't get the cops called on them so we've we've come a little way at least as far as the board goes okay so good evening superintendent administrators and board members my name is terry shepard i live at 150 barton avenue in emerson illinois president hernandez you mentioned what we would hear if we stayed around

103i hope we are going to hear about the african-centered curriculum when i first began addressing the board many of you if not all neither none of you lived in evanston nor had children attending district 65 schools the present board appears to be more progressive than past boards and supportive of d e and i policies i'm addressing you tonight as the chair of the education committee of the naacp and a long time supporter of the african-centered curriculum program currently housed at oakton elementary school when a group of african-american parents and activists introduced this curriculum to the board it was understood that to be fully successful there must be two strands we propose that a strand be placed at oakton where there were strong african-american presence within walking distance of the school for the same reason we

104proposed the second strand to be placed at kingsley this was about 15 16 17 years ago the board at that time refused the placement of the program at the northside school in spite of the number of african-american students within walking distance i reiterate reiterate this component of the program because parent support is critical to the success of this program parents like their children could walk to any event program housed at kingsley from our the original designers and supporters perspective of this program the acc has never fully met our expectations of weaving the curriculum around african successes this is the fault of the writers of the curriculum and the inadequate training of the staff i have a grandchild in the acc program who when asked what she has learned at school today never mentions africa the

105lack of attention continues to depress this program the acc classroom should be infused with history and affirmations proclaiming our greatness mrs braithwaite has such a room but my personal favorite was that of mr hollins you could learn about your greatness just by looking at his walls his walls made you want to open a book and learn about yourself i'm hoping with the building of the fifth ward school that the original proposal of a two-strand program be reintroduced with one strand housed in this building fund the program adequately allowing african-american students to see themselves throughout the history of the world thank you [Applause] to superintendent dr horton board president hernandez to vice president witherspoon and other board members and to those who have come out tonight one week ago on monday evanston was filled with bustling

106activity that morning an outstanding safe passage effort planned by parent sharita williams was conducted for students attending and leaving haven middle school when i arrived in the morning there appeared to be at least 100 parents and concerned residents lining the sidewalk and encouraging all children as they went into the school while i could not attend the safe passage at the end of the school day i heard the numbers were the same that evening a rally titled racism has no place anywhere was held at fountain square the rally was sponsored by the naacp evanston interfaith clergy and leaders and about 400 people attended to hear speeches against racism both here in evanston and in response to the unimaginable number of those killed in buffalo something is egregiously and terribly wrong both here in evanston and in

107our nation the rise of racism in the united states over the past few years has been unprecedented since the previous 50 years public demonstrations of racial hatred can be seen all over social media platforms acts of physical violence are rising against blacks asian americans jews and muslims and in our own town last week three nooses were hung on public school grounds this visible outward display is a painful and crushing blow to black people but people of color today i want to share with everybody are not our grandparents we are not our great grandparents we will not stand idly by we will not go gently into that good night we will respond when racism rears its ugly head however atrocious however mean we will rise and we will meet the common foe because that's the reality

108of where we are in america today so i want to say that um i had other things to say but i'm not going to say those because there's been a shift tonight and i want to share that and dr horton i hope that you can see that tonight there is it seems to me a groundswell of support for the work that you and the board are doing with regard to equity work in district 65. i want folks to know that when you first got here in your first six months here you were threatened your life was threatened there was ugly vitriol and letters going to you and to the former president anya tanya voody coming from anywhere and coming from everywhere and the fact that you have withstood that the fact that you did not

109say i'm a preacher to hell with this town and i'm going back where i came from the fact that you said i'm going to be rooted here because this struggle is larger than just me and my family it's larger than just those folks who are on the school board tonight this is a struggle that affects every single resident in the evanston community and it affects everybody in the united states so i think that when you leave here tonight you should leave with some sense of knowing that you've got tremendous support but you ought to also know that means there's a high level of expectation that we are going to have because of the support that you have so we commit the naacp we commit the faith community in evanston to work with you to root

110out every vestige of racism in this district and in this community because if we don't call it a war if we don't call it a battle then racism is going to continue to rear its ugly head we can't pound on it over here and watch it rise there we've got to root it out everywhere and the way that we rooted out is everybody coming together and fighting with what they have so that's what we're committed to doing i thank you so much for this opportunity and as this brother said we should have ended when that young lady spoke about an hour ago [Applause] hello my name is sarah peterson and i am a parent of a second grader at willard and a fifth grader who will be attending haven middle school next year as i've

111been processing what i want to say tonight i've been thinking a lot about the body here i stand safe in my white body while a visceral physical threat calling up centuries of traumatic pain to black bodies was made through a display of nooses hung from a tree outside my white daughter's future school i'm here to name the violence and harm done by those nurses and i'm here to name the violence and harm done by white people repeatedly shouting over our black leaders at a public school board meeting i watched on live stream last month i'm here to name the harm done by white people like me staying silent for years in the face of ongoing racism and i'm here to name the harm done by white people like me who are most vocal in times

112of crisis and fade away or deflect focus as real change begins to happen i'm here to name the harm done by white people like me showing up just for appearances and i'm here to name the harm done when white people smile and walk on by when invited to engage in conversations and real reflection on race i'm here to name the harm done by our school system that hadn't made needed changes for generations and i'm here to name the harm done when important progress begins and is stalled because white people begin to feel fearful that things are changing rearranging uncomfortable that black and brown voices are finally being centered when we have been used to our white voices always being heard first loudest and most frequently in the past when my body feels constricted and afraid

113i know i need a deep breath in this moment i sense how we also need a collective community deep breath not to push away the truth but to allow us to go deeper into it particularly those of us with white bodies so resistant to accepting how our vocal attacks of school board members performative supportive equity or compliance silence and inaction are harming black people's physical bodies in our community right now today thank you [Applause] we have next speakers we have our alice barry rich levine greg sherman and uh ty ruth mohammed he already went right there okay and then ralph edward i'm not going to be long because um time was yielded i'm not going to be selfish we just want to be used utilize us use us we're asking you superintendent to use us

114we need to figure out how they look we'll be doing a lot of if y'all haven't seen the pretty pro the amount of patrol cars that we have out there um we'll be doing a lot of patrolling in the area not just for this but violence in general violence in america is a disease and it's happening too much too often so we'll see a lot of us whether the school use us or may abyss use us because we've reached out to him on several occasions long before this we we had conversations in the mayor's office about what violence looked like and about how we do real behavior modification in these schools no response i'm just wondering do we have to have a mass shooting or killing or something before we deal with the trauma these

115children is under it's on us and it's going our motto at eccsc is it's going to take us to save us it's going to take us to save us they can't save us they work for you so we have to save us as a community so thank you [Applause] alice barry good evening i just would like to say i'm overwhelmed with pride and joy to see so many black women children and men stand up for justice young lady you moved me to tears you are a powerhouse let the last message resonate silence is violence let's leave be loud for justice god bless y'all [Applause] okay um i believe i've gone through the list of speakers that concludes our public comments for tonight as always we appreciate public comments and engaging with the community so thank

116you very much to all of you who come and uh you can express yourselves you're always welcome back um i'm gonna go to item 14 so i move that the board of education accept the recommendations outlined in the attached group motion and approve the excuse me is it a team guys is it possible to take the photos out there we're trying to make sure it's gonna be a long night thank you thank you gentlemen thank you all thank you i move at the board of education except the recommendations outlined in the attached group motion the door the door should i start over and approve the personnel appointments leaves and separations april 2022 board of education and committee meeting minutes april 2020 destruction of closed session meeting minutes and recordings march 2022 treasurer's report list of

117bills and budget amendment may 2022 contracts above twenty five thousand dollars second hillburn yes ken yes lindsay ryan yes sue yes yes hernandez yes emotion passes 7-0 so the next item on the agenda is the appointment of the king arts principle i don't know if you have to draw sure um this is a really great night for us uh here in our district we have the opportunity um you know king arts when i came on board it was uh it was some work that needs to be done rally with the parents and the board we were able to identify a really strong leader to lead us and dr henderson is now moving forward but tonight i would say i'm going to say this is really teary-eyed for me because there is an opportunity to now

118identify someone who came in as the ap in their first year in our district who's now getting ready to be promoted but i would also be a caveat you know there's a there's this thing that goes around i keep a lot of talented people in my circle but i was really honored to be able to serve as this individual's principal in their first year teaching so uh this is a connection so it's not this is this is still part of that work that we're doing and y'all don't know that this job uh so i just want to celebrate and recognize and bring up our new principal for king arts rebecca callaway thank you dr horton uh thank you members of the board let's start with the boat and then we can welcome you officially just

119one sec all right i move that the board of education approve and authorize the board president to sign the contract with rebecca callaway and substantially the form presented to the board to serve as the principal of dr martin luther king jr literary and finite fine arts school second oh great i'll take vote pern [Laughter] yes i will come out in the hallway afterwards and say it again kim oh yes lindsey ryan yes sue absolutely kanye woody yes weatherspoon yes hernandez yes motion passes [Music] so i'm gonna start that over thank you thank you dr horton thank you members of the board thank you evanston and king arts community for being here i really appreciate you all um i appreciate you taking a chance on me 10 years ago as a first year teacher and now

120as a first year principal dr horton that's uh it is a full circle moment so thank you um it's not lost on me that while this is a very celebratory personal moment in my career uh it is a very testing time in evanston so i appreciate the confidence and support i'm really humbled and honored to be selected for this position i know there's a lot of work to do in king arts and in evanston i'm grateful for the partnership that i had with dr henderson that will allow me a smooth transition to continue doing the work that we've begun um and to continue to work on um moving towards dr king's legacy in our commitment to social justice so thank you again for the opportunity i appreciate it so much i hope not to let

121anyone down thank you [Applause] all right luckily we're celebrating so congratulations uh the next piece that we have on our agenda is the uh discipline improvement plan so yeah i moved that the board of education approved the state required discipline improvement plan presented second can i just make a comment on the plan i just want to say when i started my tenure on the board we were looking at reports that had upwards of 300 suspensions so to see something that notes uh a decrease of that by at least a third is progress in the right direction of restorative justice and different approaches to responding to students as they arrive at school and that that is good news for us and for kids i'll take both hailpen yes kim yes lindsey ryan yes sue yes tanya

122booty yes weatherspoon yes hernandez yes 7-0 so the next item is the technology lease agreement so marquis i move that the board of education authorized the superintendent to sign property schedule number one to the master tax exempt lease purchase agreement dated june 1st and all related documents with american capital financial services inc for the financing of the school district's lease of technology equipment in the amount in an amount not to exceed two million six hundred and fifty thousand million fifty dollars wait i read that wrong two million six hundred and fifty thousand yes second second yes kim yes lindsey ryan yes sue yes weatherspoon yes hernandez yes that passes 7-0 the next item on the agenda is the canon cop beer services contract for fy23 fy27 joey i move that the board of education approved

123the five-year copier service contract for fiscal year 23 through fiscal year 27 as presented second halpern yes kim yes lindsay ryan yes sue yes tanya booty yes weatherspon yes hernandez yes motion passes 7-0 the next item on the engine is the least certificate proceeds investment in arbitrage rebate management i move that the board of education approve pfm asset management for the district's lease of certificate proceeds investment and arbitrage rebate management second hal pern yes kim yes lindsay ryan yes sue yes yes weatherspoon yes hernandez yes motion passes 7-0 the next item on the agenda is the approval of the treasurer's boundary rule for fiscal year 23 of this i move that the board of education approved the fy23 treasurer's bond renewal as presented second half yes kim yes lindsey ryan yes sue yes tanya booty

124yes weatherspoon yes hernandez yes motion passes 7-0 so the next item on the agenda is the approval of the decentralized strategic plan i move that the board of education approved the district 65 strategic plan as presented second do we have any information or just quick comments on that or i know this was discussed in the policy committee meeting so just wanted to make sure that i do want to thank dr latarcha green for all the work that she has done in spearheading and organizing the strategic plan i know it was not an easy task so i appreciate all of that [Applause] um before we vote i also wanted to mention that um you know one of the things that causes vitriolic behavior is disinformation and there was a report earlier this year that suggested that

125this board and this administration do not care about black and brown student achievement because of a cherry-picked piece of information out of dr horton's renewed contract and i want to say specifically to our community and those folks who insist on reporting this information that the strategic plan is what characterizes what our commitment is to student outcomes and this strategic plan is bold and visionary concise and and clear about what our standards and our expectations are across um across our district and i i'm proud of the work that you all have done and very very appreciative of um the hard work that's gone into making a clear and concise plan out of some really big hopes and dreams that we have for for kids and and families um and so i'm excited to to make this

126vote take the vote yes hernandez yes motion passes 7-0 i think it's important that this is really huge for us as a district i think we went um two years the pandemic without really having a strategic plan and then a couple years a year or two prior the board and administration prior to me decided to shift a little bit from the from the other strategic plan but i would say this is a big lift for us when we talk about accountability uh transparency you will see a lot of that in our reporting in our comm in our committee meetings next year uh and our personnel meetings our board meetings is going to be a new challenge and as we stated earlier there's more good trouble to get in because we come when in order to

127change these outcomes the adults have to change our practices and so just know this is a fair warning that this is something that's going to come to all of us as we work to lift our students so thank you all for the vote thank you dr horton uh the next item on the agenda is the approval of the board meeting calendar for year 2022 2023 anya yeah i moved at the board of education approved the 2022-2023 board meeting calendar as presented second i'd like to propose an amendment adjustment and we have a monday august 22nd it was reported as a sorry i'm sorry i didn't hear what you said sorry there's like two um incorrect days of the week or it's not matching up one of them was monday august 22nd and i just lost

128my other note but it was for the december date okay uh sorry where did it go oh it's listed as 23rd but you're saying it's 22nd right so it's monday august 22nd 2022 and then um monday december 12th not thursday so let me read that again i move that the board of education approved the 2022-2023 board meeting calendar as amended so the so the board meeting is on monday august 21st 27th oh i'm in 2023 my apologies and we should also note you should also know in february um there is a meeting listed for regular board meeting but it was proposed to possibly combine the committee meetings in february so that there's a availability for one regular board meeting and a joint board meeting rather than have four meetings in that month so you're saying

129in february that would be like a committee of the whole meeting instead of instead of two committees okay so what date would be eliminated a deal or to be february february 6th and february 13th would become a committee of the hole on either the 6th or the 13th correct is there a preference for which one of those would be 6th this is busy on the 13th it's my child's birthday if other people don't have a preference then if they do then so february 6th would be a committee of the hole that's i believe and then the august date so does anyone want a second the approving it as amended i can second it so we have the sixth the 21st and the 20th january 30th if we can approve the board meetings with february to

130be noted we'll identify the proper dates for committee of the whole and a regular board meeting for february and we'll present them again as an fyi for the following okay so just to be clear we are we're eliminating the february 13th personnel buildings and grounds finance committee and then we're repositioning it to uh february 6 where to be the committee as a whole deal is recommending that we hold off on deciding about february because there's okay and we're just so we tabled the rest of it okay because we would have a regular board meeting followed by another got it okay that makes sense and all the curriculum committee meetings are 4 45 and all the personnel buildings and grounds fans are 4 30 and then regular board meetings are 7 o'clock um i thought the

131curriculum and policy meetings were at 4 45 [Music] so it is second i second we're voting on the every date except for the february dates that will come later okay um yes kim yes lindsey ryan yes sue yes yes weatherspoon yes hernandez yes motion passes 7-0 all right the next item on the agenda is the approval of the board meeting calendar i'm sorry the head start early head start application i moved at the board of education approve the head start early head start cost of living adjustment and quality improvement supplemental funding application second hillburn yes kim yes lindsey ryan yes sue yes yes hernandez so the next item we have on the agenda is the student services report so first off we have a report on the multilingual program good evening and thank you for

132the opportunity to share the progress of the multilingual department families in keeping with the evanston school district as district 65's commitments to culturally relevant and teaching culturally relevant teaching and equity the multilingual el program's mission aims to work together as a community inspire creativity and prepare each student to achieve the academic i'm sorry i mean to achieve academically grow profession personally and contribute past like this um sorry i am technologically challenged um to grow personally and contribute positively to the global society by becoming fully english-speaking and or bilingual by literate and bi-cultural we have two program models the first one is transitional bilingual programs which are the state knows that it means tbe dual language which is our dual language or two-way immersion tweed that we call it here that are grades k through five

133preschool spanish language preschool middle school spanish for spanish speakers we also have a model for transitional program of instruction and it's an english language english as a second language support for all els who speak one or more languages that are not spanish we will explore the demographics on our next few slides if you notice on this slide this is english learners currently eligible for services by race if we look at the pie we will notice that over 91.09 percent are students of color notice the hispanic black asian are the top three followed by white multi-racial non-non-disclosed and other or pacific islander here we will look at the emergent bilingual demographics by program there are less english language learners in 2022 than in any of the past three years however this is the case for all

134students in the district pre-pandemic numbers of all students in the district in 2020 were of those 100 1 223 were english learners which accounted for 15.1 percent of the population of students requiring language support in 2022 the total number of students in d65 was 6979 of which 1096 were el students and which account for 15.7 percent of the population of students requiring language support which is a bigger percentage than a few years ago if we look at the next slide to view our historical data we notice that 10 years ago in 2011 district 65 population was 76 11 of those 3.6 of students were in bilingual programs and when i say bilingual i mean all of tui so english and spanish speakers those that exit uh that exited services according to isb but still we

135still have the responsibility to monitor their academic progress and those students that came to our district completely bilingual the total percentages of students receiving eb services was only zero 0.92 whereas 10 years later in 21 22 school year the g65 population of 69.79 of those 24 percent of students were in a bilingual multilingual program again this includes all students in tui those that had exited services according to isb but still we still have the responsibility to monitor their academic progress and those students that come to the district completely bilingual the total percentage of students receiving uh receiving english language services was 15.78 from just two years ago when it was less than one percent english language learn english language learners that are eligible for special education services make up about 26.7 of our el population

136anna marie will be speaking more about this about our el population in the in her presentation that is coming up more demographics 71.25 of our students are eligible for free or reduced lunch speaking of demographics we will notice on the next slide that we have 82 languages in d65 we have changed our name of our department to value each and every language of our district since spanish is spoken by 735 students it is a partner language of the tweed program other languages equally important are in the in packets across the district making it very important for all general program teachers to know the linguistic needs of all their students with all these languages we have made a commitment to all our english learners with an e l expansion i would like to thank the board

137of education and dr horton for providing equity for els across the district by supporting the el expansion in five short years we went from busing els to four schools in one in the district and only one middle school with esl support for newcomers next year we will have el support in all of our schools 17 under the 18. 17 of the 18 since rice has zero eels so it's all of our skills with these demographics we will share what have we we have done this year to provide supports for our teachers with the rise of english learners in the district professional learning some of the examples that are limit are are to include some are examples i'm going to give you but are not limited to medicine my view implementation with the grade level pacing

138for dual language model given by the dual language standing committee a committee of teachers that are dedicated to help and support their other colleagues dewey and willard educators received targeted professional learning for their tweet chats by alejandra gilamo from tajiu both administrators and teachers received monthly pd since february we also have had eb educators both tbe and tpi learn about eye station we have had our tpi or esl educators go through four sessions of best practice best practices for newcomers we have all educators including general program teachers tbe teachers tpi educators not just teachers instructional coaches administration the psyop three-day professional learning that um that require not only three days but once they've done that they can go on to another six hour course on building academic language through psyop we've had new teacher orientation

139for our all our educators and sss teachers uh uh spanish for spanish speaker educators had um a constitution the constitution of galeria training as i mentioned the professional learning around me vision let's dig into this curricular resource the curricular resources that we are piloting and are asking to adopt are me vision or my view mi bision lectura was built for by literacy dual language at educators implementation and receive implementation guides that includes planning and pacing charts routines activities and professional articles grade level and standards based spanish and english language standards they have focused on social emotional learning in every lesson they have authentic and trans adapted text assessments and observation tools are given for teachers to assess formulatively in the moment and medicine provides a new library of print and digital leveled readers to support

140guided and independent reading in addition to doing that dr horton gave us the task both the bilingual department the professional learning department and rad to apply for this u.s department of education office of english language acquisition and professional development grant and in it the purpose is to provide professional development activities that will improve classroom instructions for english learners and assist educational personnel working with such children to meet high professional standards including standards for certification and licensure for teachers who work in in language instruction programs or serve els in addition in under the fiscal 2022 competition they the department includes competitive priorities that we accounted for on each of the priorities we we covered the department also included invitational priorities for school readiness and family engagement in which we did all um they have founded uh

141the this grant is founded from uh 2022 for 25 million 500 000 and an estimated range of awards are 350 thousand is 600 000 per year for each year of the five-year grant the average size they say is 464 but we are hoping for 600. um we submitted the elevate grant that highlights to include the following professional learning for all t twee or tbe right esl or tpi educators pre-k educators and all staff the grant is focused on providing the university of california san diego a language dual language certificate for our twee educators the psyop for all educators parents as first teachers esl certification and learning spanish for the entire staff should we receive the grant it will only continue to support the hard work of our english language teachers and our general program teachers

142with els in their classrooms because of what they're doing already in i'd like to really take the time now to thank our el educators i'd like to publicly thank them for all the hard work they're doing as we are still in a global pandemic our teachers are moving forward and doing the hard work sometimes in two languages our tbe or tweet educators piloted the language arts curriculum in both spanish and english they are piloting a new science curriculum they're continued to pilot the math breaking and are moving to add a new math curriculum already our tpi educators have this uh are working on the saya model for orington lincoln walker and other el educators that have spent their saturdays learning about the psyop models for six hours each of those three days and then continuing

143on for a six hour additional and developing academic language and as i said before the es esl tpi teachers participating in four sessions to deepen their knowledge of newcomers i will be sharing the data to uh with you to see the wonderful work that these teachers have done the first piece of data i'd like to share is the percentage of students that have now exited the program these are the percentage percentage of students and actually exiting the program according to access it's important to note that we are looking for the results that we're taking in the fall which is be considered as a 20 21 access test and i'd like to say that only 42 tested in the fall so the numbers can be greater the caveat is that there is a small n size

144and testing uh would have been done so if it wasn't for covid last year so with the schools if i'd like you to notice the schools with the highest percentages and um these of students reaching an overall language proficiencies of 4.8 were orrington which is our flagship school that really began in the learning and implementation of the sayab model followed by lincoln and walker who were in the second cohort let's look at some national national data about program models because i think it's important that we kind of see where we are this is thomas and colyer's work between 2001 and 2009 and these are this graph represents second language researchers which are thomas and colier and their data comes from a nationwide study on the different programs models and their results for students long-term achievement

145if you notice the blue line represents two-way immersion or twee and that's all the way up on the top and um the pink one is one-way immersion programs the yellow one highlights late exit transitional programs the light blue represents early exit transitional programs the proper represents content edl programs and the maroon represents pull out esl we have twee and esl with a focus on pushing in unless it is for very targeted instruction of a newcomer as you will see our tweet data is similar to the results of thomas and colier's data of the nationwide study we need to be consistent in using data to show the entire picture as such we will continue to work hard to elevate all el's first language as research shows the importance of keeping the native language to be successful

146in the second understanding that map is only a snapshot of one day of a particular assessment that does not assess language development but is used for all students to measure academic achievement regardless of linguistic backgrounds this is the data that we have we need to compare apples to apples we'll notice some very interesting results when we look at the data that verifies the nationwide research on second language acquisition i'd like you to see this because this is really important i know it's late and we've had but i'm i was very excited about it uh the percentage of students at or above grade level by e l status or model program including general program or monolingual students so you will notice here former els so they had uh either a an esl teacher or a tweet

147teacher general program students tbe which is for us twee or the spanish preschool and tpi and if you notice that once we get our tves and tpi's outside of our program that they achieve a 4.8 they are actually outperforming even our general program kids which to me is amazing while students are learning one or more languages and um not have yet you know caught up to their peers once they do they um will out achieve um the students in the program and even general ed students this confirms the work of research conducted by collier and thomas cummins krashen wong fillmore and snow to name a few so we are heading in the right direction students at or above grade level by eb oh sorry i forgot uh academic performance i've taken out the general program

148students to compare english to compare english language notice the english language learn learners we notice tpi or esl els perform better in math than in reading spanish speaking els perform better in reading than in math once tws which are two-way immersion spanish-speaking students getting services once they exit with english language services they reach higher academic levels in both math and reading than when they were still acquiring the two languages if we look at academic performance making expected gains again i'm including els and the general program once els both the tpi and tpe exit programs they outperform general program students in making expected gains in math and in reading as well as those that are acquiring or keeping their their another language percentage of students making expected gains by els status all el students are doing

149better in making expected gains in reading than in math there are higher percentages of tpi students making expected gains in both math and reading when students then students in tws one could hypothesize that those in tws are receiving academic literacy and content in two languages so that's where it might be showing up that they're they're just acquiring a completely separate language and that's why it looks like they're lower but once the tws students have become english proficient they make higher than expected gains for both tpi and tps students that have not yet exited the program this are these okay areas of growth because we have them and we will honor them right um and we'll work towards them but what we notice is these are the students in the first quartile by model including the

150general program once els both tpi and tbe exit programs there are less els in the bottom quartile than the than those in the general program students in math and in reading as well as those acquiring and keeping another language so they're actually when they're former els these are in the lowest quartile they're actually doing better when we take away the general program model and just leave the two tbe and tpi program models we notice that for mathematics there are higher percentages or more twee tws students in the bottom quartile than they are for tps and twi spanish speaking students that are now english proficient so if you notice oh sorry i think i have the right all right so that's where the twx is what these twxes are former tws's that have exited out of

151the program so um for spanish-speaking tweet students that are english proficient twx as well as those that are not yet english proficient tws's they do have higher percentages of students in the in the bottom quartile in math than they do in reading so we have to keep working in math um tpi students in the bottom quartile are equally in need of support in both math and reading those are our challenges but as we think about oh that doesn't look good at all so there was a cute little graphic and i want to end with with systemic change we can provide justice for els by providing access to adequately challenging content fair assessments quality instruction inclusive environments and personalized support thank you very much thank you so much so i appreciate you presenting um i want

152to open it up to board colleagues if you have any questions regarding the presentation so um i'm excited about the grant um do we know when we're gonna hear about do you know dr horton i thought it was like most federal grants you here at the end of september it's very weird so it's kind of uh i don't know if someone knows but it's typically like that very end of september okay and they actually kick in right away so oh great fingers crossed i just wanted to um appreciate the thoroughness and the expansiveness of what you shared and the leadership dr horton that you've shown in investing in our multilingual department and really pushing for us to do what is right by the the program and everyone who benefits from it um when i first

153came to the board the presentations that we often got um were about how we were failing the program um how we were failing to invest failing to be brave to resistance and the exceptional amount of labor that that placed on our educators on the department and the ways that the department was failing our kids because we were not properly investing and giving care and so it was one of our first orders of business to figure out how to to right that ship and i'm just heartened to see this presentation tonight and to be able to feel proud of how we are treating this work and the educators that are doing it and the children that have the opportunity to benefit including my children who are in in twee and have the opportunity to be with

154amazing educators and peers who are incredible friends and who are very culturally diverse and proud and able to sustain that their language and their cultural experiences because they're in an environment that elevates that and appreciates that and recognizes their bilingualism and their their their multilingualism and their um their literacy as an asset as opposed to a barrier and i'm just really proud and appreciative thank you thank you and i'm so appreciative of you and your support and our all our teachers i work so hard and sometimes as our kids are getting there and haven't quite captured that language yet it's frustrating to just look at that data but there is our work is hard and it's and it's they're doing a great job so thank you teachers i i think the report is particularly exciting

155or it's very exciting um i wanted to just show my appreciation i too have had my kids go through twee um and i think the thing that is uh really important that is shifting is that the burden for our tweet educators when we didn't kind of coordinate professional learning and some of these other systems we didn't have the right infrastructure for them to do their jobs effectively was really uh you know it was it was unfair and unjust what we were asking them to deliver seven or eight years ago so i appreciate that in that and i don't think it's an accident that the data is getting better as we are um you know being more strategic and and working smarter not harder um as as we provide these services so thank you for all

156of the coordination and systemic pieces to make sure that our educators are getting all the tools that they need because we've had for a long time it was like here's the tool now you adapt it for for tweet and i i think we're really getting to the place where that is we're getting rid of that additional step or as much as possible for our educators which is great so thank you sure oh i just wanted to name one other thing which is i appreciate how um your report centers um our children who are english learners and in much of the history of our uh multilingual departments especially our twee programs have been oriented towards english learners and specifically or english speakers monolingual english speakers that are becoming bilingual um and specifically white monolingual english speakers

157who are becoming bilingual and um that is not the purpose and that is not the the service that is being provided and that we justly and equitably should be delivering and so i really appreciate also having a report tonight that centers our english learners and the assets that they are bringing and developing so just wanted to name that my um my first i have two questions my first one is more of a hr finance planning when you mentioned where we offer support that it's in 17 of our 18 schools the first thing i thought of was gosh i hope we're saving a spot to staff the 18 school should a student move into that school and need the support for us to be blindsided and either overburden the staff that need to be spread across

158multiple buildings or not have uh the finances where they need to be to be able to jump in and service kids if they if they need it at that school so hopefully that's something that's in the planning and and holds somewhere and that's probably related to our next presentation too around uh special education needs as well um so i guess the first question for rafael and andale is is that something that we have like planned for um or do we rely on stretching the people that are already in the spots let me answer that i'll take that um yes we'll play yes we plan for it we talk about making sure that we don't we're trying to get out of the business if we can of having teachers split in schools we talk about that

159a lot while we're it's a very unique approach because as we reduce teaching positions we do know that as population grows or services expand themselves we have to have the flexibility in our finances to be able to provide schools with with teachers and not just uh you know trying to squeeze like you just like you were just describing and some of the other things there there's fun and there's funding out here there are dollars that we that mrs griffin and and and myself and our team that we're responsible for going out to get we we're trying not to just sit back and depend on the dollars that we already have so that we can create this model like i i'll just add to that too um you know it's almost like the as i think

160the commenters are made by this which is great the multilingual approach should not just fall on the emerging our eb teachers it should be the school community in the district as a whole in order to do the lifting because beyond just the the actual language it's the connection it's the relationships it's the culture and so that's why i was excited always ask him about the psyop there are schools that are volunteering to do the side training on their own which which also enhances because we're still going to have some families that will probably opt out of the services or maybe be somewhere in the middle of that that where we can properly equip teachers that don't necessarily teach um our el students that can have strategies to do it so joey to answer the question

161yes we we want we are prioritizing that i don't know if dr gilgati wanted to add anything to this or raphael but we we have prioritized it awesome my second my second question is is a bigger larger question i've asked it before and it precedes uh you and this role too amy um but it's really about the pathway towards bi literacy that includes a middle school option for continuation of services and you know it's you you reference the thomas and collier data 2001 through 2009 there's updated stuff yep the 18 yeah right 10 years later that just strengthens the support for middle school by literacy and bilingual options for towards high achievement towards um you know the the need to staff those classrooms with teachers who know the language and the content in um in

162the language of instruction so hopefully that's something that comes and actually we wrote that into the elevate grant so if we get it it's guaranteed but thank you for your support and if we don't get it that you'd support us too any other comments does that mean if we get the grant we are compelled to follow through on what's written into the grant i'm sorry if we get the grant we have to follow through on what's written into the grant yeah that's great you're on the record we're trying to get this money [Laughter] uh i i just want to say again and i echo my colleague support uh for the expansion of the english program and under your leadership amy it's really expanded i can i can tell you that about six or seven years

163ago uh inspired by our uh our black parents here in evanston who demanded accountability for uh for their students and then the former administration started creating the achievement reports for for black students we organized with i organized with a couple of educators as well as parents to really address the concerns around how again many of these services are being offered were as anya mentioned favoring our white monolingual students who were part of the program and and many of the things that we asked for because we we had wrote out what we asked for uh around you know making sure that we had high quality teachers a high quality curriculum that wasn't a crappy translation um we also talked about the middle school expansion which now looks like a possibility and if we don't get the

164create grant we'll still continue pushing um again those are are coming to fruition uh and again we i was sitting in the days or you know at the podium you know talking to the former board members of the foreign administration about this and you know again they started some of the wheels turning then you got hired and then you've grown and expanded this program and to see again the uh this list of the expansion because i used to hear stories about where okay if you wanted to go to magnet school well guess what they would they would tell people well you can't have both like if you qualify for your services you can you you have to waive uh you know the services in order to attend their magnet school and there were stories about

165uh you know sped and if a child qualified for both special education as well as esl or bilingual services they were asked to do a choice make a choice and that was wrong uh and again since we've taken on this equity work you know we've corrected a lot of those um those issues those historical issues and barriers um and now and i'm so happy that you're both presenting uh you know around you know around the ieps and individual education as well as multilingual education because again uh i always we i would always tell my colleagues you know again we are one in the same and then we we we commiserate together about some of the same issues that we would deal with uh so so again to see you united and and collaborating also is

166very promising and just incredible and i appreciate all the work that you're doing uh romeo and her department and just appreciate the collaboration as well and and uh thank you thank you for for bringing to reality some of the things that that we had organized about around years ago and now uh they're coming to fruition so we appreciate your work sure thank you thank you great job if we perform a wrestling team romeo could be the catholic and she wrestles us for money resources and everything for her now we're going to have a presentation around the individual education individualized education departments thank you everyone for this opportunity to share updates and progress on iep services and achievement for students with disabilities in district 65. educating our students with disabilities requires a collective approach and before

167i turn it over to miss anna-marie candelario i'd like to start this presentation by centering our vision our goal is to provide all students with disabilities with an excellent and equitable educational experience to do this our focus has been on and will continue to be on providing students with an inclusive learning environment developing rigorous and standards-aligned ieps developing strong parent partnerships with our families and viewing our students through a strengths-based lens this year we've partnered with inclusive education to provide staff and families with learning opportunities and resources and i'd like to share the following definition of inclusive education created by dr jill costin and dr christie predi forensic as we continue to discuss our vision inclusive education means every student is valued because of their strengths gifts and even challenges as disability is simply diversity

168everyone benefits from meaningful participation and opportunities to learn grade level content with diverse peers we must trust that all students come to us as incredible whole people who do not need to be fixed belonging is a human need our educational system practices and spaces need to be reimagined so with that i will turn it over to our director who oversees iep services in district 65 anna marie candelaria who's been a wonderful addition to our team i will ask good evening everyone thank you for saving the best for last [Music] i would like to begin this presentation with some realities of our data this year it is important to note that in previous reports we included data from ka d65 schools for students receiving iep services this year to be more consistent with how state reports

169on our students with disability data capturing eligibility and educational setting we did not include students that are placed by dcfs and students who paid tuition to attend park school these students are included in our overall iep count achievement data and considered in our planning but are excluded from eligibility and setting data since d65 is not responsible or is responsible for service delivery but did not recommend that placement we have experienced limitations while pulling our data from previous school years however we are continuously working with the rad department to view our data sets we have reached out to a power school consultant to analyze where data sets are not matching between powerschool and embrace and in addition we have connected with embrace our iep system to make specific fields required so that data is consistent when

170reports are pulled this figure displays the continuum of services in district 65. our bilingual students with ieps have increased since last year which lends to the increase of bilingual special educators in the general education setting research shows that bilingual learning behavior specialists who support bilingual students contribute to a more positive instructional environment some benefits include the use of two languages by the students and the teachers role of the teacher in affirming the diversity of the student population represented in the classroom and the development of critical thinking skills in two languages this will enhance our engagement and belonging in the classroom and we are excited to see the growth of our bilingual students with disabilities in 2223 school year one of our specialized programs the structured teaching education program step is expanding to lincolnwood due to

171an increased number of eligible students the expansion will allow students access to their home school or be closer to their home we have increased service providers to include dedicated step related service team learning behavior specialists and paraprofessionals to support step lincolnwood we have already met with the lincolnwood community to share our transition plan and received feedback on how we can support all educators in creating an inclusive environment we have continued to make progress towards increasing access to our general education as you will see in the next few tables but we also understand some children require learning opportunities to be planned for lessons should be structured and the learning style and needs of the learner must be considered accommodations for learning styles academic needs sensory and social gaps may need to be addressed in this smaller

172setting first as we work towards generalizing those skills in a larger general education classroom in addition we have created a procedure for placement recommendations and now utilize a placement checklist this assists the iep team in evaluating the accessibility and appropriateness of the general education setting to support students with disabilities the checklist incorporates observations discussions data-driven intervention and data-driven outcomes the placement checklist considers the physical environment the general learning environment the school culture and how well the learning environment is matched to the student's academic behavioral and social needs last year dr de christofaro spoke to the case brown versus board of ad the outcome of this case and idea are laws meant to provide equal opportunities and access to education and provide students with disabilities a free appropriate public education building on this case on march

17322 2017 the u.s supreme court issued a unanimous opinion in vs douglas county school district this case was meant to inform our efforts to improve academic outcomes for students with ieps minimal and meaningful is not enough we must be providing minimal beyond minimal and the child's program must truly be individualized reasonably calculated and enable them to make progress as we continue to find students eligible for ieps we must keep this principle of this case in mind during this school year we have seen an increase in evaluations resulting in students receiving ieps at the end of april we had close to 100 evaluations still pending the delay in the evaluations have been because of the pandemic families moving into evanston families moving out of private schooling and an increase in interventions during due to the impact

174of the pandemic we currently have 1072 students with ieps as our evaluation increase and we find students eligible for ieps regardless of the pandemic we must be more cognizant of the following areas data-based decision-making cultural responsiveness core instructional programming assessment screening and progress monitoring evidence-based instructional and behavior interventions and supports if we truly find the root cause of disproportionality in these areas where we begin to see an equitable learning environment for our students with disabilities for the past three years district 65 was cited by the state of illinois for being significantly disproportionate in the area of identification of black students with emotional disabilities the purpose of this infographic is to review the significant disproportionality regulations under idea and create a greater understanding on how we are aligning our data with these state regulations specifically states

175must collect and examine data to determine if significant disproportionality based on race is the occurring in the state and school district with respect to the identification of children with disabilities including the identification of children with disabilities in accordance with a particular impairment the placement in a particular education settings of such children and then the incidence duration and type of disciplinary actions including suspensions and expulsions in this figure we are comparing risk ratios of the likelihood of students calling qualifying for an iep illinois has chosen a risk ratio of 4.0 as its over-representation threshold a risk greater than 2.0 of a racial ethnic group indicates a risk of over-representation while a risk ratio less than 1.0 indicates under-representation although we are under the risk ratio of 4.0 for all races our black students are 1.7 times

176more likely to qualify for an iep and our latinx students are 1.3 times likely to qualify for an iep which is over three times more than our white counterparts in addition we've seen a decrease in iep eligibilities for our black and latinx children and an increase in eligibilities for our mixed race white and asian children in district 65. as you can see our black students are significantly at greater risk for being over identified for ieps as well as our latin ex students we must continue to analyze the root cause of disproportionate representation disproportionate outcomes produce inequitable learning opportunities while special education services can provide access to additional education environments and opportunities they can also serve to stigmatize children and further marginalize them in this figure we are comparing the 20 21 and 22 percentage of

177english learners with ieps there was a slight increase of 1.74 of english english language learners who are eligible for special education services as mentioned in slide four we are increasing our allocations for bilingual learning behavior specialists because we acknowledge that bilingual learners have three complex challenges language differences cultural differences and disabilities that need to be supported by a teacher that can affirm the diversity of the student population in this figure we can see our black students remain the highest percentage of students with emotional disabilities we have remained relatively the same for latinx students with speech and language disabilities and a slight decrease of black and latin next students identified with specific learning disabilities as mentioned before illinois risk ratio threshold is 4.0 for significant disproportionality as you can see our current data shows we are

178under the threshold in all areas we also would like to share that in the first time in three years we are under the threshold for black students with emotional disabilities we also have seen a decrease in these specific disabilities for both our black and latinx children with ieps in regards to the slight decrease in emotional disabilities the teams have really utilized medical documentation to inform the impact on student behaviors students are now qualifying more for other health impairments than ed as they have direct medical impact on their behavior the slight decrease in speech and language is a direct result of our slps using a bilingual screener tool that is sensitive to language impairments in bilingual students in this figure we are comparing our progress of students being taught in the least restrictive environment in isbe's

1792021 annual illinois report card only 53.3 percent of illinois students with ieps are taught in 80 or more in the general education currently 70 of our district 65 students with ieps are being taught in 80 or more in the general education setting 16.7 percent more than the state-wide percentage as you can see we are showing progress with inclusion we continue to see increase in the general education settings and decrease in less than 40 percent in the general education setting unfortunately due to many outplacements and diagnostic placements there has been a slight increase in separate settings please note our outplacements have been connected to mental health needs of our children as you can see in slide 10 there has been a significant increase in children's ieps classified as other health impairment which has resulted in hospitalizations

180diagnostic placements and therapeutic settings in this figure shows the percentage of students receiving services in each educational setting by race although there still continues to be an increased gap of our black students with disabilities placed in more restrictive settings than our white students access to tier one core instruction has increased there has been an increase in separate settings for d65 asian multiracial and white students with disabilities we would like to know that there has been an increased number of outplaced students again connected to mental health needs in this figure we are reviewing specific settings by racial breakdown we are not significantly disproportionate in our numbers in regards to less than 40 percent in gen ed setting and in separate settings white students were excluded for the less than 40 percent in gen ed figure and

181latinx students were excluded from the separate setting figure because the end size is less than 10 students however you can see that in separate settings white students are at higher risk ratio than black students placed in separate in a separate setting white students are also at an increasing risk to becoming disproportionate in this figure you will see a higher percentage of students primary disability in the educational environment that they receive services students with emotional autism intellectual multiple disabilities are most likely to be educated in specialized settings such as step rise rice and park since last school year the percentage of students with emotional disabilities spending most of their day in general education setting has increased 28.2 percent in 2019 to 50.9 in 2021. additionally the percentage of students with emotional disabilities receiving education in a

182separate setting has continued to decrease from 48.7 percent in 2019 to 32.7 percent in 2021 educa educational setting plays an important role in the academic success for all our students with ieps in the next several slides we'll be discussing our academic data in reading and math this figure compares the percentage of students by iep status who made expected gains in reading and math from winter to winter in the last three years the percentage of students making expected gains increased for both students with and without disabilities this 2022 winter 53 of students with ieps who took map made expected gains and 41 percent made expected gains in math although we are headed in the right direction we must acknowledge that in order to close the achievement gap students with disabilities must make significant growth in order

183for them to be prepared for college readiness as such the goal is to have gains that are at a higher than their general education peers this figure shows the percentage of students with ieps making expected gains by race black latinx multiracial and asian students are making gains at a lower percentage than their white peers in reading and math with the exception that asian students are making gains at a higher percentage than their white peers in math in this figure we are comparing the percentage of students who are at or above grade level by iep status we see the percent of students with disabilities at or above grade level are increasing in reading in math the percentage of students with disabilities at or above went up in 2021 and down in 2022 in this figure shows

184the percentage of students who are at and above grade level by iep status the percentage of students with disabilities at or above grade level are increasing in rating in math the percentage of students with disability at or above went up in math in 2021 and down in 2022 when we look at the at um or above by race we continue to see the discrepancy by race we see that the highest percentage of students at or above grade level in reading math are white students with disabilities in this figure we provide information about map achievement for students with ieps compared to the amount of time spent in the general education setting students spending most of their day in general education setting continue to be more likely to make their expected gains and be at or above

185grade level on the map assessments for the first time parks school conducted a school-wide benchmark assessment measuring literacy skills this data gives us information about the instructional literacy level of park students in the areas of fluency reading comprehension phonemic awareness concepts of print and word recognition the majority of our park students are learning at an early emerging literacy level demonstrating interest and awareness and active participation in literacy activities we notice that our students in the hispanic or latino group have a greater percentage of students at the early emergent level while we know that students are multilingual are all in racial demographic groups park school is taking an intentional focus on el students for the 22-23 school year the ci department has funded a summer learning project focused on the essential elements to the el wida

186standards and park school will have a part-time el teacher for the first time next year so 22-23 updates and priorities with feedback from staff and families we are officially changing the name of our department from special services to the department of individualized education the name change is more representative of what we do as a department and shifts from antiquated euphemisms for students with disabilities the language we use is an important step that we must be paired with appropriate action we will continue to place significant focus on parent partnership and parental education on the iep process we'll be hosting a live panel of parents advocates and legal counsel during institute day to provide important insight to building trusting partnerships with our families additionally parental surveys will be part of each iep meeting next year and our

187district administrative team will be hosting monthly virtual virtual coffee chats for parents to discuss iep process updates answer questions about our individualized education programming and just ask questions and share ideas and feedback we also have a listed feedback for department chairs on professional development interest we developed over 20 professional development sessions that target specific department needs in addition we developed a schedule for each department to have embedded monthly roll time together to create better consistency and a communication across all schools we will continue to streamline critical procedures processes and policies that create inequities in our department our 22-23 mental health priorities supporting the mental health needs of our students will be a continued focus expanded mental health supports and wraparound services through community partnerships with trilogy turning point river edge and the ywca with funding

188from the community partnership grant we will be able to provide more access to acute a mental health care in addition we have incorporated time in our weekly schedules for social workers to meet together and learn from ellie hartnett and how to provide wrap-around services if each social worker takes on one to two wrap-around cases we would be able to reach close to 60 families we are excited to welcome four new individualized education coordinators each coordinator has a different strength to help us tackle this proportionality of our most marginalized students the following roles will include overseeing the educational behavioral and mental health care services ensuring the appropriate delivery of culturally responsive special education instruction and related services compliance of the school and all local federal laws and regulations they will build capacity in leading iep teams

189using a strength based and family centered approach and they will monitor progress evaluations and eligibilities to ensure equity in our services key takeaways we are making progress towards the over-representation of black and latinx students with disabilities but this work continues students with disabilities are making more progress in reading than math while offering a full continuum of services we continue to increase access to general education setting for students with disabilities our priorities focus on parent collaboration iep procedures inclusive practices mental health and equitable access to summarize disproportionality is the result of systematic racism and implicit bias impacting our students of color with disabilities our focus continues to be and providing students with disabilities appropriate support for which they are entitled thank you thank you so much again best for last you you really laid out some

190really incredible information regarding some of the progress we're making with our individual individualized education program i'm going to open it up to my colleagues for any questions that you may have on the presentation i had a question about one of the graphs i need to flip through to find the specific page so to aid me it was about achievement based on amount of time spent in general ed and it looked like there was greater progress for students in reading and math based on general ed placement at 40 to 79 percent versus 80 or more and i'm just curious why we would guess that would be the case because i think in general the suggestion is that the least restrictive environment should be the most effective environment for folks and so that the eighty percent or

191more genetic replacement would ideally generate the greatest academic progress but that's not what this data is indicating am i reading it wrong or is there an explanation yes there is actually great question so the state sees that gen ed less than 40 percent um is considered restrictive in the gen ed 40 to 79 percent those are our students receiving pull out resource support unexplicit specially designed instruction so we still will see the gains within gen ed 80 or more and gen ed 40 to 79 so we would see gains in both of those areas are a benefit because that is part of our continuum of services i would just add also that in previous reports we've i mean the percentages are actually pretty close in previous reports it's the 80 or more category has been

192higher and i'm hoping what that means because we've spent a lot of work um on providing appropriate interventions too is that hopefully that the interventions that we're providing in those pull out small group settings are are effective because we've really invested in those so i feel like maybe i'm misunderstanding something i don't want to belabor a point but so the for reading the percentages are pretty close um for making expected gains but for math the making expected gains percentages are quite different is that not significant am i belaboring something that's not no i think that my perspective if you have anything else anna marie is that we didn't drill down to look at the end size for each of these categories either and just based off of what we know about where students are grouped

193we have a significantly if we were just looking at n sizes more students in that 80 range so that's something that we could certainly consider and then something else that i'm thinking about is just the trend that we've seen across data with concerns regarding math so i'm just wondering that's just something i think we need to think about and look at a little bit more i don't necessarily have the answers and i don't know if you do either but it's definitely worth further exploration and i do apologize i know we usually do try to get questions to y'all ahead of time but i was emotionally exhausted from the last week or so so i didn't do that so i apologize but thank you yeah um i'm thrilled to see the decrease in the discrepancy there's

194obviously still a lot of work to do but i know many of us talked about we've talked about this for a long time many of us campaigned on it that this was something we really wanted to look at so i appreciate that the data is going in the right direction one thing that came up in those conversations was that we seemed to have two problems simultaneously one was the over identification of students and one was the under identification of students so i just want to make sure that as we're seeing these numbers get better it doesn't mean that folks who need these services are having a harder time getting access to them is there any analysis on whether we've heard from folks that they're having a harder time getting what they need i haven't heard

195the hard time getting with their need but when working with staff we definitely have to streamline those processes so it doesn't lead to under identification and what's helpful and i'm you know looking forward for the coordinators to be reviewing the ieps before they're sent or reviewing the reports to really target any data that would be a cause to underrepresentation so haven't heard anything but i know we have to look out for it and we have a plan in place to make sure we're monitoring that yeah we don't want to solve one problem and exacerbate another um obviously the mental health data is pretty concerning i know we've been talking about it in other settings and it seems like we have a lot of things in place for next year um but i i hope that

196we continue to have updates about that because it's uh it's with the pandemic it's not a shock it's what's happening nationally but it is concerning um i i just have one question and maybe i'm not understanding data but on on slide 17 and 19 there's a pretty substantial drop for asian students do we have any analysis as to why that is happening so in 17 and 19 um so it's the yellow green and blue one yeah so in reading that's pretty substantial over that period do we have any idea as to why that's happening just again i think it goes back to the sample size being so small you have a shift of like two students that change their their percentile it could significantly impact the percentages we had had this last year in that

197data too and we should probably preface that sorry yeah and i i don't know if we would be able to determine this but obviously this two-year period has seen a lot more very public asian hate um and a lot more of our asian students getting targeted within our buildings so that might be something for us to pay attention to as well and whether this is like school climate pieces that are affecting achievement which is certainly what we see with our black and brown students thank you i would just like to say i like to see uh i appreciate the more inclusive practices that we are adopting um involving our parents and obviously giving them uh you'll you'll be having town hall meetings with them uh i that is going to be very crucial in the

198iep process because that way the parents are educated about what they need to advocate for for their children um that is that is crucial um in the iep process um but i had a question and i think you said this but it's almost 11 past my bedtime so um on slide on page 11 or slide 11 yep so we have ed it only represents the black students and then speech and language only represents the latinx students so um when the norm sample size is 10 and under the state doesn't mark them so it's that's why there's no um information because the sample size is 10 or lower gotcha gotcha i remembered something like that but these were the two that we were most concerned about from our data previously right and then the emotional disability

199black students and speech and language for latinx students and i just wanted to say something about this slide because we're excited about it it's good news we're moving in the right direction we did the 3.8 for emotional disability that's based off of current data right now what we're able to pull from embrace iep the data that so this is current so we're hoping that we can stay on this trajectory um what was the five percent is or the f five risk ratio is from last school year and then what was reported which came to us in our significant disproportionality report was data taken from the fall so this is real time we're still significantly disproportionate we're still developing a plan and then we hope that this trend continues going into next year well i'm hopeful

200because it has dropped um that that that looks good so if we can stay if we can we can stay there that would that would be great we it just um to look at to look at this it it rings so loud because black students are they're they're just identified as emotional or you know you're you're too passionate about something so uh i i would like to just continue to get updates to see how we um identify properly identify our uh black students and it sounds like it sounds like you guys are putting in the uh the supports to do so so i'm i'm hopeful thank you so much this was a great presentation thank you for for the presentation i had some questions on slide 24. the update on the role of the coordinators

201just kidding but i'm listening so there's some big these are some big bullets here in terms of what the responsibilities are for the so there's four new coordinators coming on correct um i guess my question is who's doing these things now because these aren't new things to be done what do you expect the overall bandwidth or work workload transition to be that will make the overall process for staff better and easier to manage or more focused in terms of their day-to-day operations so our assistant principals have really been the boots on the ground this year and have been you know working alongside with me to ensure things are happening romy and myself have really taken on and i don't think our emails ever stop and so with that we're able to streamline more with the

202coordinators we're going to be meeting weekly on fridays we're going to be meeting with our teams on a weekly basis we'll be able to have more availability to review ieps more thoroughly streamline that impact like information as well and then we also are going to have time with them on the role days on thursdays to also streamline any policies or procedures so there's going to be a lot more accountability and check for understanding um throughout the year now with the coordinators thank you can i just add though that our goal with adding this this role is to be more supportive to the team and really again continue to help build the capacity of our iep school teams we also have our department chairs who are working closely with the related service teams but our our

203goal is still that our assistant principals and principals would have ownership and continue to support the teams and this is just an added support to help with all of the many um needs of our iep teams and it it's um there's a lot to special education and it requires a team approach so so a family's point person will still be someone at the building level to work with right i wonder too if there could be some like metrics like you know uh reduced number of due process you know things like that right but that that could be something we have to track that if we have the right people in place and teams in place that that would also we would see a decrease in that i'll keep track of that i'm sure you do

204oh yeah so i think it's slide 14 identification risk by educational setting the most significant um there's a disproportionate representation of white folks in a separate setting and um when i think business question about where we over diagnosing and where we under diagnosing comes to mind here i'm wondering if we have a proportional need for separate setting support that is not being maybe requested or advocated for and therefore not being received and you know we want to make sure every child is getting what they what they need and deserve and so i wonder i have had um heard conversations in the past at park talking about how they would be more equitable with how they offer services to families because there are based on folks sometimes racial ethnic and economic background may be less likely

205to advocate for or demand additional supports or extra investments when that indeed may be what they deserve their child deserves their needs and i'm wondering if perhaps we need some adaptation to our processes that would lead to that being more proportionally distributed and if that has been a consideration um i could say that the increase in separate settings um and i'm all of the outplacements and diagnostic placements have gone through me there has been an increase of students white students that have resulted due to mental health needs so that is something that we are targeting with i talked in the curriculum policy meeting about tier one mental health supports that we are training more individuals for mental health first aid de-escalation trauma and food training so all of those items are put in place in

206order to address that i don't know how many of you have additional well i was i would just add that i think one of the biggest needs that we think will continue to help us advance appropriate services for all students is making ourselves and school teams accessible and available to families so the ideas that we have next year for creating opportunities to hear families and more about their needs and answer questions and connect them with resources i think we'll just continue to work towards making sure that that all students who may need increased needs and level of support potentially in a separate setting that that they know that those those things exist and they can ask for them i would also say too and you we didn't necessarily speak too much to the community partnership

207grants where a big part of that is making sure that we're able to connect families and students immediately with acute care that they need and in many of those cases there are times when recommendations are made for hospitalization separate setting etc and so by by having these partnerships with resources close by making sure they're getting those services that's just another way that we're making sure or working towards making sure families have have access when those mental health and support needs come up okay i i talked a little bit about this at the curriculum and policy meeting but i i guess i want to drive it home that you know this idea of white folks having increased mental health needs i think in some ways is overshadowing that sometimes mental health needs are culturally expressed differently

208in different racial and ethnic groups and you know there was a public comment this evening about a woman feeling like her child was traumatized and numb and that you know stoicism is kind of expected that resiliency is expected out of black and brown folks in ways that is not necessarily expected of white folks and you know perhaps mental health needs are expressed as stoicism or low effect and there could be some under diagnosis there and i just wonder if that's playing into some of this disproportionality um and i certainly appreciate the role that community partners play in creating safe and culturally relevant spaces for folks those needs met but um yeah i just wanted to highlight that just to add to that that just thinking about how much of that is parent parent caregiver driven

209right if if what is leading to some of those things is advocacy from parents and communities that that is culturally considered appropriate and a preferred option right that that also may lead to us under identifying folks that didn't eat those supports well you know i think you know as i mentioned earlier you know this is this is a place where opportunity hoarding can happen right um and again those parents who have the the knowledge of how to navigate the special education system how to um who to talk to who to identify within our staff to to to get those services take up a lot of those services right uh to the point i imagine where it ties up us reaching out to those marginalized communities who again might express stress or mental health issues in

210in a different way or we've been or as i just mentioned you know how we expect it to in regards to being stoic or just kind of getting over it um so um and going back to what sula talked about a little bit earlier it's like how do we track with that you know the due process piece i'd love to see that because again and who who's taking advantage of that right and who isn't and and really making those opportunities for all families right particularly black and brown families and low-income families uh to really learn about uh the you know what what it's like so i appreciate that you know the the inclusion of the iep coordinators will be coming in to help that will be able to to to i imagine operationalize that as

211well as um i know there's the special education advisory committee that's still meeting i imagine so um i'm hoping that they they're thinking about that as well and making sure that they're more inclusive the families who may not always show up or you know for these type to learn about these types of services uh not that they're not showing up but that we haven't figured out how to engage them so so you know again that's one piece another thing i think about a family engagement um is um again i know we have the two uh federally funded family resource centers so i know there's the family resource center for disabilities in the chicagoland and collar counties who can have webinars and trainings in spanish too in different languages so frdc again i've done work with

212at the state level you know do some really good work around engaging families as well and again they're federally funded to do that to offer those trainings and webinars for free so uh again if you haven't taken advantage of that i'm sure maybe you have i don't want to say you haven't but again it's an incredible resource um and again happy to hear that we have bilingual screeners and and and and again this is where those two worlds intersect uh which again i was excited to to hear both of you present because again uh the these are again for me it's uh first last and the last first uh so so we really are again tonight are talking about those uh families uh and those kiddos who who can require uh uh the most attention

213and the most supports and to get them to where they need to be in regards to the outcomes that we want for them um so that's all i have for today i don't know if there's any more parting questions thank you so much to all of you uh thank you for our audience who stuck around so late with us i appreciate you uh i am going to adjourn our meeting at 11 0 1 pm you