001um board member citizens and staff that participate uh either by the comments via email which may have or coming in first the health department continues to advise the communities practice social discussing with face masks face masks and avoid unnecessary contact with others so based on these current health concerns is the public body uh do not think it's either practically a person to hold a complete person meaning education uh location in order to participate we will continue to hold the meetings in this hybrid format with updated practices um [Music] here [Music] is be limited to three minutes and two items review of the whole it's actually not intended to be a dialogue with a great could be made the response time to any questions will be um assume it's possible by the administration airport as appropriate
002um so if you do have public nominations via email we also have some speakers here who would like to present so it seems to me um have accepted i'm sorry just because other people will be using it no one else touch it good evening my name is flo schumacher and i'm the parent of a senior in the team program at oprs i'm here tonight to comment about the photography restructuring of the special education department if the special education department wanted to devise the worst possible ending to this already terrible year it could not have done better than this proposal to remove the special education chairs parenting a special education student means dealing with a lot of red tape for many parents the only source of actual assistance in this maze of red trait red tape
003is our program chairs for my family that was fun joyce fun cared for my son will in a way that was real and immediate john was there to help with any problem they were small fun is oprs ever-present antidote to the stilted email responses admins speak and one-sided listening sessions sold out by the special education administration what this proposal does is remove the people we rely on to help us get through the red tape and replaces them with free new red tape dispensers i recognize that this plan attempts to solve some newly identified problem unfortunately this solution removes the only part of the special education department which actually appears to be working for us parents from what i can determine the ideas requirement regarding lea representatives has been in place since at least 2004 it
004is difficult to believe that a sudden and complete overhaul of the special education department is necessary at this worst of all possible moments to meet a requirement that has been in place for 18 years i challenge this board and the special education administration to come up with a solution that does not involve eliminating the positions of the people our students rely on the most this new proposal will strengthen your ability to serve and support parents and students but no one has asked parents or students what service and support they need this is typical of the top-down administrative style that this school has adopted lately and it is not working for parents or students along with a number of other parents and students i ask that you go back to the drawing board and come up
005with a plan that resolves the technical compliance issue without removing the program chairs who are the heart and soul of this department thank you the next all of us in the community my name is doug hill i've been in the school for about 15 years in special education department um the program chairs are the true embodiment of teaching leadership the positions serve as a source of collaboration and problem solving for any member of an iep team they understand the curriculum the nuances the logistics the budgets the data and the criteria of the programs that they are responsible for relieving integrity and transparency in fact any member oftentimes collaborates with them to come up with creative solutions for layers nailing the threads there are various voices various spaces personally i spent many hours working closely with
006all of them more so than any other year during this pandemic they are the ones who are turning for advice answering some questions and honest feedback about my classes and casemate simply put their leaders during this pandemic it was the program help teachers determine how to best serve students and help teachers to ensure students needs were met they are the ones in the museum teachers discussing individuals kids and families they are the ones on the phones with counselors using criteria to determine the appropriate placements one thing that has been made clear to me at this time that the role of program chair is invaluable our students deserve teacher leaders who are such strong advocates this proposal clearly shows how out of touch that the current social education administration is with the day-to-day needs of our
007students education staff program tutors are not wise administrators they are serving leaders that follow our benefits thank you this charcoal good evening and thanks very much for listening my name is kristen charcoal and i'm here in opposition to the performance special education leadership direction my friends and team is one of the four specialist programs that will lose their programs here under this proposal i can't imagine a worse time for restructuring special education i'm an executive director and has been here for less than a year of regular operations our students have their school lives unabandoned administrative overflight at this time is hard to understand i mentioned earlier my son friends and teen bon joyce is the team program um fun is a shining light for her students she's passionate about their well-being and progress and a
008remarkable leader and team builder for her staff her incredibly strong connections throughout the whole prf and throughout the community allow for her students to have opportunities to engage with their non-disabled peers that otherwise wouldn't exist oprs can be a really big place even bigger for students with disabilities this fun support and understanding enables your students to engage as fully as any others to suggest that the elimination of the program shared positions and the effective demotion of these individuals is not negative because they can return to the classroom and or apply for one new position is dismissive of their wrong service and incredibly valuable contributions i heard no mention of who would pick up those roles and to accept that case managers would do it presumably without a reduction in their teaching responsibilities of additional pay
009on real estate in addition to being a parent and also a school lawyer and most of my practices in special ed so i ran with interest the reason for this restructuring was that program chairs couldn't satisfy the role of an lea representative and i know what that means i know what they're required to do and under the agenda it says that the problem is that they can't meet the illinois requirements which are the um law reps have to be able to commit district resources and also to ensure implementation of iep services but in order to write program tours can't do that then there's federal guidance that expressive says that an lea does not have to be an administrator but your special education students begin to transition to something like normalcy they don't need additional layers
010of administrative oversight they need a highly dedicated and capable program jurors who have known and supported them thanks very much good evening board members and thank you so much for providing this opportunity to discuss the new special education proposal i am von joyce and i'm one of the program chairs i have probably been an employee here for 14 years i was a team teacher for seven years and a program chair for team insight for the last seven the administration what urgency there is in drastically changing a system that is currently working this pandemic has affected everyone significantly next year will be a rebuilding year to get students back in the building and on track this top down decision decision-making did not include any input from stakeholders which will surely impact student growth the proposed leadership
011structure outlines the rules for administrators to work in silos which will sterilize the relationship with teachers students and families proposed isolation of administrative duties will force disconnected administrators to work in compartments one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing the current model works because it provides continuity it takes specialized teams to help students and families during these difficult times we work with teachers related service providers tas counselors and secretaries to be creative and determined and meeting student in need student needs we work with our programmatic teams using relationships that we have built over time some of those moving parts that will be lost is the off-campus program chair who works with therapeutic day schools and staff the sed program chair who works with the social workers behavior interventionists and gpt specialists the site
012program chair who works with rush hospital and the transition specialist the ld with general education and inclusion facilitator program chairs work with each other and developing what is best for individual students we have created severity matrices for the hybrid plan the continued continuum of services and master schedules for our programs we work with and evaluate tas by program we work with the junior high so students have a successful start to high school and we are the lea for our students ieps administrators with entrenching defined roles will be unable to do this as they won't be specialized in our continuum of services we know our programs we know them well we've taught in them and we know the students from eighth grade to beyond graduation we need to support our students and families not make things
013more difficult in a time where things are very difficult and i cannot emphasize enough the importance of building trust in nurturing relationships to focus on helping students program chairs have bridged the gap between teachers and administrators if you cut these supports out there will just be more padding between administration who essentially makes decisions and students who should be the focus of all of our efforts students need support families are asking for help please reconsider this plan and illicit input from those stakeholders thank you good evening thanks for the opportunity to weigh in on the same topic my husband and i were shocked and disappointed by the correspondence francois blue stating that she's planning to restructure the special education department by eliminating the roles of the program chairs and increasing administrative positions the program shares are
014important conduits between the families who have students in special education and the administration their personal knowledge of the students and understand how to best serve the students within a special ed structure one joyce has been a tremendous resource enough to get for our son eddie her personal knowledge of his needs and his strengths combined with her understanding of the structure of special education department and the general education curriculum i've made her [Music] an irreplaceable asset during his iep meetings and issues that have arisen each year adding three new administrators will likely be just one more layer between the families and the director of special education it is unrealistic to believe that administrators will have the opportunity to increase our opportunity the opportunity or interest to learn about the students and their individual needs ms francois
015blue stated that the new administrator's quote would allow her us to better fulfill the role of the local education agency representatives at iep meetings as well as optimize and increase administrative supervision and oversight that strengthens their ability to serve and support students and parents my husband and i question how removing school staff who actually know the students will better fulfill the ability to both serve and support the individual student as is necessary in an individual education plan in addition i imagine the cost of that in three administrators will increase budget is this what we want to be doing in a year that has caused financial stress throughout our community finally miss funds raw blue was welcomed into our community at a unique time she has not had the opportunity to get to know the people
016she is serving or the stash she represents it appears to be a misguided act to change the system that she has not had the ability to observe and truly judge what works and what does not for people who she does not know my husband i strongly disagree with the restructuring of the special education department we request that the present program with the student represent the program chance remain in their current positions thank you emma [Music] good evening members thank you for having us here um i'm going to read a statement for my daughter emma mascara she dedicated it to me last night um she said my name is mms i graduated from oprn and site i have an intellectual disability and anxiety we need people like miss joyce she helps people with disabilities she has
017a calming voice being a team insight helped me get out of my comfort zone making the special education department smaller will not help anyone and to add on to her words my name is corinne ro9 mom she graduated from opioid site in 2020 right before the pandemic started i could not overstate the impact of all the teen program as well as psyched the classes and teachers along with the program chair is a speculative blonde choice they increased her confidence and her academic skills in a way that an inclusion general education class just would not have done yes i do want my daughter to interact with all kinds of people but at the end of the day her friends that she goes to the movies with and the teachers here who helped her write a resume
018and practice her job interviews they came from team they came from sight and also included this voice please don't restructure this program now um to pray i strongly believe and i ask you that the program shares not be taken away thank you good evening uh here to speak on the restructuring proposal for special education uh as we look to build a positive community here at old care fhs a community of warmth top-down and unilateral decisions do not build a cohesive department school community and therefore hurt our community at large and most importantly our students as educators we are asked every single day to make data-driven decisions when i look at this proposal i don't see the data behind the decision making and again that lack of interest and understanding of the data or even proposing
019it hurts student success at this point more than ever we are asked to meet students where they are [Music] it's important to know so that we can support the students as best as possible with zero communication between special education staff program chairs with the administration i'm confused how this helps students and supports them the best we need to think about how destructive this move would be for our school community and again our community as a whole the program chairs are in every facet of this school they help support case managers teachers and again as you've heard and you will continue to hear all evening they help support students be successful here at obrfhs and beyond we go to support as case managers and teachers to our program chairs because we can't get very many straight
020answers from our current special education administration the data to add more admin to this department does not support that decision we can't get straight answers we have to utilize our program chairs adding more admin again creates more distance between the administration and the teachers therefore again impacting student success a few people have touched on the uh language surrounding legs and i just want to read this quickly so the actual law states that the meetings must have the authority to make commitments to the provisions and resources and able to ensure the services set out in the iep will be implemented the law does not indicate that that person needs an administrative certificate it does not indicate that they need to be a school administrator this is not the right decision at this time we the fact
021that there is no dialogue and no connection at all between the decision-making powers that be and the people that are on the ground every day is ridiculous thank you okay we will now good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is renee rogitori and i am the parent of a current freshman a junior as well as an opr fluff i'm here tonight to urge the board to reject the proposed restructuring of the special education department this plan will eliminate four crucial program share positions and create a massive void for so many students caregivers parents and teachers for the more than 17 percent of ocr students who receive services at the high school the program chairs are so much more than their role of ipidp facilitator they are literally the heart
022and soul of the special education program they develop connections with each student within the program and understand their individual strengths and challenges they provide support and resources to students and work tirelessly to ensure that oprm is a welcoming and inclusive community i know that they speak for many special ed parents when they say that our program chairs have been an absolute lifeline to survival during this pandemic here our program chair has helped us navigate technology issues scheduling issues learning resources social connections and so much more our program chair has been a phone call or email away always listening to our frustrations or concerns for our freshman who's in the teen program who has been filled with tremendous anxiety over transition to a new school our program sheriff has created a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere in
023the most challenging of times going forward the program chairs will be even more essential as we come to understand the academic social and emotional impact of the pandemic honor students their role will be essential as these students return to in-person connections and will undoubtedly require complex supports to meet their needs the role will be essential as we welcome new 8th graders in the transition process to the special education program their role will be essential as many in the special education space will be displaced with further construction this fall this is absolutely the worst time to force through a massive change without taking all of these considerations into account i hope that the gordon administration can solicit and listen to input from special education parents students and teachers in this process i hope that the board
024of administration can find a more creative solution to meet the needs of the district without it without eliminating such a fundamental and vital support for one of our school's most vulnerable populations let's get this right thank you is there anybody else here who wanted to make public comment in person all right good evening uh my name is heidi lynch i'm a counselor here i have been a book partner forest high school for over 25 years as a teacher as a counselor and uh now recently in the parents um and one thing that i've learned from my many years here is that relationships are the heart of this place we never get anything done well we're effectively when we are not connecting with each other and using each other to solve problems i would say that
025our program chairs are the absolute embodiment of that spirit they are the nexus between all of the stakeholders so to see the parents here to see karen and emma to see christina who i get to hear how jada's doing in school to see to talk to kristen this morning as she was dropping that off at school that just shows you the love and the connection that our families and our students have to this issue and to this particular um and my brother's concentration um just to just show you the connection that people have to special education to the support that we have and so our program chairs really truly are that link um our motivators are teachers they've all taught in their program they are specialists in there in their programs and lindsay kirby is
026the embodiment of kind calm consistent stability she's the perfect representative for std i said on the staffing last week with fawn where she you know we haven't been able to visit the middle schools this year obviously we did a stair transition stamping in font said well i remember you from seventh grade um and that just made that family feel all the more connected um counselors as my role is spend all kinds of time relying on the expertise of these really incredibly thoughtful smart knowledgeable women i have seen over my many years just the growth of this this connection between teachers and program chairs and families by the explosion of programs we have adapted pd we have adapted art we have adapted food that comes out directly as a result of our program chairs understanding the
027needs of their students and making it work in this school in a collaborative way um i ask that um you know what what problem are we trying to solve we've heard about leas and it seems like there's some alternative interpretations why that why are we trying to solve what problem are we trying to solve my hope is that if we have a problem we would solve it collaboratively rather than through a top-down approach and use the inspiration of our program chairs who are indeed the embodiment of a collaborative relationship anyone else physically present who would like to make yes good evening i'm catherine hall i am the grandmother and guardian of a junior who uses services in the special education department here i am deeply concerned about the proposal to eliminate team managers from the
028department of special education and replace them with administrators while i have no doubt that these administrators will provide value to those already charged with the sometimes daunting task of running such a large department i fail to see how they will compensate for the loss of four highly skilled team managers before any changes are made we need clear answers to the following questions in what ways will the restructuring promote academic achievement significant profit progress toward iep gold or student morale how will the new configuration counterbalance the loss of collaboration shared innovation and council resulting from the loss of team managers and what specifically are the objectives of restructuring and how will the success of the new configuration be measured unless these questions are answered the plan should not be approved until there is input from the
029parents of these most vulnerable students the plan should not be approved if the administration of the special education department cannot provide specific examples of harm caused by the current structure of the department the plan should not be approved i understand that a strong leader may want to implement strategies that may have proven successful in other contexts this is commendable but only if the new strategy is needed and i'm not convinced that this is the case there is more than one road to success and it appears that we're on one why can't a program manager be a designated lea representative why should a team be denied leadership that has already demonstrated its value why should we replace people with boots on the ground with people whose time will be divided between the office and classroom observation
030i would much prefer to see adjustments to what we are doing rather than the wholesale abandonment of a system with the proven track record i believe that anything else would be a waste of time energy and resources [Music] do you have any additional folks in person we do have a significant amount of um comment for the comments on this email so we will begin with that now okay our first one is from sarah my son transitioned this year to oprah from julian joyce one of the program chairs has a lifetime a lifeline for our family my son is very complicated and additionally cystic fibrosis before we even begin the process of transitioning to ocr i met font presentations she organizes disability community navigating various agencies online situations in a child who is severely disabled is
031extremely complex and fun has consistently organized wonderful and helpful speakers to help educate parents on these issues this parental education that fond does is critical to parents transitioning my son into oprf during a pandemic when the school is closed could have been a nightmare he has so many difficult to make transition in the best of times fawn started participating at the very beginning of his transition of his transition confidence hard work and kind personality turned what could have been a nightmare into a smooth and positive experience for him there have been dozens of issues that could have come up either due to his autism or medical condition and i began to understand right away that fawn responds promptly and does whatever she can do in order to help fix adjust the situation everything from a
032busing schedule which was problematic due to the how much time his breathing treatments take in the morning to scheduling and picking cat classes for students who do not who does not fall neatly into an academic category working with all of his teachers and his aid to ensure that he is being educated effectively to small accommodations like finding a spot for him to have a short snack a day when he's in person his nutritional needs are different due to the seal the list goes on and on and she's been critical in helping us feel comfortable and assured that my son is receiving the best education as possible at this time oprs has a massive special education staff from a parent's perspective when it really comes down to the actual experience of special education at ovrf there
033has been one singular person who truly made a difference for our family and that is fun choice as you can imagine i have been involved with countless individuals over the course of my child's life due to his developmental and medical complexities spawn stands out as the absolute top of professionals in terms of her confidence her effectiveness and her compassion it would be a huge loss for my family and for ovrf to remove fawn from her current position which is what i would call a lifeline position for my son and our family i ask you to please consider removing fun and the program chairs from their physicians these program chairs are absolutely essential for the day-to-day well-being of our special education um from vanessa and donovan anderson first and foremost i want to say that this
034is a very shameful thing to even think about cutting miss law enjoys joy sponsors from opiora fawn is invaluable she is most understanding and has been a comfort for me and i help her to my son donovan i understand the physical and emotional demands of working with children and to have the perfect blend of patience energy compassion and responsibility but she talks about with a dose of genuine love in addition she has excellent listening and verbal communication skills to effectively work with parents and their challenged children she was very thoughtful even off the clock as i was still she called me and checked on me during the week my week stay in the hospital she's like a rare diet irreplaceable speaking for my son and i we would be overjoyed if she was allowed to
035stay this is jennifer manning good evening of an incoming freshman who will be placed in a team setting in the fall i'm writing to express a concern about the proposed change in the program cheer positions within the special education department please accept this as a public comment at our son's transition meeting last tuesday and enjoyed meeting his anticipated ninja in particular we were impressed with ms joyce we i had the pleasure of speaking with in advance underneath and who facilitated our transition she was very positive encouraging excited to meet our son and us and reassuring it's a challenging moment for any student coming into a new building and learning and learning environment and it's scary for us parents especially when the sun multiple and complex special needs imagine our shock but the very next day
036we learn from facebook that there is a plan afoot to remove all the current program chairs and return them to the classrooms and that this plan's approved is to be approved on march 11th very very concerning to say the least several things about this concern is what we found out indirectly two there's no real clear reason our explanation for this proposed change three it's a wholesale demotion house cleaning of what we hear a very experienced successful and dedicated staff why we're putting them [Music] get pushed out so does this mean that my son's teacher will be potentially an entirely different person after we just spent two hours reviewing his needs with someone we were glad to believe his teacher is hold on one second please we're having some audio trouble one two testing one two
037testing one two [Music] testing all right um so i'll start with five these devoted program chairs will have an opportunity to apply for the new positions it sounds like a slap in the face if i ever heard one why remove them if they can apply you risk losing a lot of very valuable staff your biggest asset your biggest asset the staff were quite completely unawares of this new plan and therefore this plan did not include any discussion with or feedback from students parents teachers other related services staff or other administration i hope that you as the board will make every attempt to fully understand this bizarre and unexplained proposed plan and insist that the new executive director of special education make every effort to include all stakeholders in the problem identification and exploration of solutions
038before accepting this proposed plan many things the next one is from christine nelson i request all board members my interview she's asking what metrics are being used to justify this change are they in this industry standard were the data collected pre-coping the rather anemic survey sent out by the sped stat department is hardly likely to justify this how did those metrics been used by other school systems to justify these changes did they hold up in post-implementation monitoring was there a statistically significant improvement in the running of the departments at 6 12 and longer time periods after implementation if this approach has not been successfully implemented in multiple districts i am willing to have my child be part of this experiment here i am unwilling to have my child be part of this experience here where
039were the focus groups of parents parents caregivers i was not asked to participate surely all parents should have been asked what size were they and how often did they meet what were the questions asked what other alternatives have other schools used to improve upon the aforementioned metrics besides upending the entire department what other solution options are available and if not chosen why not from kd reno per the letter dated march 5th from miss francois blue i would like to ask that the board asks more questions about how adding more administrative roles will better serve the special education department before approving these changes as a parent of a sophomore in the teen program i cannot understand how this is being proposed as a positive restructuring i would also like to understand that there's an addition of
040four teachers the current program chairs will that mean that four non-tenured special education teachers will be dismissed will this also mean that the case managers or teachers will take on the additional responsibilities of the current program chairs the program chairs work hand in hand with staff and families to navigate the complicated special education services with the student success as a main goal i've never had an interaction with anyone in an administrative role that i didn't initiate this proposed new role with higher level of approvals power seems to have the budget and district's best interest in mind not the success of the students natalie anders and haywood kelly as the parents of a sophomore at oprf who received special education we are concerned about the recent announcement from the oprf executive director of special education this
041is france rob blue regarding the complete restructuring of the special education department which includes the elimination of the program chair positions we have a host of concerns which include number one mrs francois blue's short tenure at in high school given the magnitude of the change he's proposing this francoise blue has been in a role at opr for less than a year and that year can be accurately characterized as highly unusual respectfully miss francois doesn't know or under our students and hasn't seen the way the program chairs interact with and support them so it's difficult for us to see how her recommendation could be based on careful observation and consideration of the needs of students and their families number two the elimination of the program cheer roles will effectively remove one of the most important coaches
042our daughter has had on her team during her time at oprf vaughn joyce the team program chair has been an invaluable resource she has helped our daughter and family navigate oprf advocated for her daughter during a challenging period of resource support and has been a tireless booster for all diverse learners most importantly she knows our daughter acknowledges her humanity and values the contributions she makes though prf during this difficult almost completely virtual year she has been one of the few consistent points of contact from oprf for our family the lack of clarity around how this change will improve the situation for diverse learners oprf in the past no prf administrators including dr kurt adams and his francois blue's predecessor have expressed a commitment to creating more opportunities for inclusive education at opera we aren't opposed
043to changes in special education department structure that are clearly aimed at bringing the school up to par with others in chicago and area who provide meaningful opportunities for inclusive education for diverse learners however this francois blue's announcement only provides information about the benefits of this change restructuring would allow us to better fulfill the role of a local education agency lea representative at iep meetings as well as optimize and increase administrative supervision and oversight we have played an active role in our daughter's education over the years and have been willing advocates for change when it's clear that it benefits all levels learners however we have not been encouraged by the way that opr has supported the first letters during the pandemic and by ms francois who's recent announcement we strongly suggest the administration conduct a more
044thorough review of roles and responsibilities under more typical circumstances and seek feedback from students and families regarding the strengths and challenges of the current structure before implementing changes from jill's shipping ricks we cannot imagine we cannot imagine the special ed department without the incredibly helpful people like thon joyce our family can always count on her for correct information and answers to our questions she is a lifesaver and cares so much for all of our students why would you make such a drastic change in limiting all program chairs when this particular area in the apartment is so helpful to so many families we do not like changes being forced upon us it's not right we all strive to protect and surround our kids with caring comforting individuals we live in this community specifically for the quality
045of the special education program do not change what is obviously working for this community from trini pockets dr burt adams and members of the board of education i'm dismayed by proposal to reorganize the special education department replacing the four program chairs three administrators and an igp coordinator both of my children have graduated from oprah my younger daughter utilized special education services graduated in august 2020. she had an off-campus placement and he worked extensively with lauren achara one of the affected program chairs i will address mr churro and the role she plays in a minute but first i want to address a more general issue it's hard to see how funneling the needs of existing families students three administrators versus four subject matter experts is going to better serve students and families especially as we continue
046to move through a time that is causing increased mental health issues among teens the special education department should be planning on how to serve more families with perhaps more complex needs coming out of this year of isolation loss of routine and varied disruptions including economic insecurity and possible loss of family members families and students rely on the program chairs to help navigate the special education system at opr's community in the case of site and off-campus placements program chairs are the experts they are the human face of the special ed process for students and families having been in numerous 504 and iep meetings over the course of my children's educations i understand that there is a large administrative component to the 504 idp process and to the meetings however i do not believe that improving the
047administrative efficiency of the process should come at the cost of the human component of the process the parents that deal with off-campus placement and have worked or are working with mr are often in difficult situations sometimes in outright crisis her knowledge and ability to guide the process understand options and work with family should not be underestimated families and students rely on people not simply process not simply processes and removing the people at this time of increased needs we should say yes mr chora was and would be an excellent classroom teacher and i believe that would be a waste of our value to this community i haven't worked as extensively with the other program chairs but i think their value constituency is just as great i hope before this patient does not approve this request sincerely
048kathleen holt good evening i am running in support of the program to your positions i'd like to start by saying for some students and families the high school experience is less traditional because of the services the child receives as a part of their iep for my sons this has been the case as they are off campus students as a result it's very normal to feel unconnected to the opr to old park high school experience in general therefore the relationship with the program chairs is crucial in allowing families to have consistency and predictability during the years of high school and also providing that connection and link to feeling like we too belong to the opr for my family in particular their relationship has been with lauren arturo having lauren's guidance expertise and caring attitude during periods
049of placement maintenance of a placement and periods of transition have been priceless lauren's knowledge and all of the legal and state guidelines and making sure placements and idps were on point has been crucial i always come to the iep meetings knowing that my sons and our family were in good hands with lauren and that has always been a huge relief as a parent also important of importance to note is that for many of us the services our children receive extend beyond the traditional four years of high school knowing that we had learned there to support us in the post-high school years was so important to us and finally the relationship with programs and the depth of knowledge that lauren has with the schools and programs all over the state of the country is remarkable that's
050not something that can be easily or quickly established lauren's professional calm knowledgeable and caring attitude let me fill in reassured in meetings but also enables her to communicate and work with all different people from so many different schools programs to sum it up lauren has provided a sense of connection for us as we navigate the high school years before non-traditional matter it's hard to imagine a future day when i can't reach out by phone or email and get a good response from lauren to hear her guidance and get her help on issues that arise from lost campus placements i asked the board to consider the years that have gone into performing relationships and knowledge she brings families who have a less traditional high school experience before taking that away thank you from jeffrey charcoal in
051a year that has been difficult for everyone this is often the case individuals with disabilities are impacted both significantly now with the vague allusions to unspecified evolving demands in a special education program the administration has suggested that elimination of special education program chairs is required in the list of a pandemic because they have not been granted the authority necessary to fulfill the role of an la representative set forth by the illinois state special education regulations there is no explanation of why that authority could not be granted to the special education program chairs nor is there nor is there no indication or analysis of how frequently if ever additional district resources are required to be committed as part of the iep process to individual students indeed there is no indication that the replacement role of iep
052coordinator has the authority claimed to be laughing by the special education program chairs this is particularly troubling here where one of the individuals that is to be eliminated is fine joints mrs joyce has been a ray of sunshine for many parents of special education during the pandemic primary coming in whose joyce went out of her way to do what was best for the students notwithstanding the fact that the newly installed special education director failed to provide her with adequate resources it is ironic that the need to replace her is based on the lack of authority to provide students with the resources required to meet the student's imp goals in my most in almost eight years of experience in iep meetings with her this joyce has been an empathetic voice and more importantly for present purposes
053of problem solving even when she did not have active authority to accomplish what was required she did everything she could to try to make her happy he has highly skilled of her job has a long histories in school and has connections to the community that cannot be replaced there proves to be no analytical basis to conclude that the revised plan will serve to provide additional or adequate resources to meet students iep goals there appears to be no material cost savings there is no explanation of why the existing personnel could not be accommodated in the new positions created or what the evolving demands in the special education program are other than new directors wanting to terminate highly student employees to install her own team ms joyce is too valuable to the school from students and the
054parents with exactly marijuana big changes of conspiracy investment administration should include abuse and experiences and experience them as well experience because we have a lot of information about very individualized becky rebecca kaufman and peter sharma this superintendent pruitt adams presidents finder and members of the district 200 boe i am writing a great concern about the seemingly sudden and drastic changes being made to the special education department by the director of shillingwood francois blue for your parents and students within ieee our chair nancy kirby has been our lifeline as we have navigated the complex needs of our child and the rules and guidelines of oprl in this day leslie always provides answers even if the answers aren't the ones we want to hear she is the conduit between a very large team where specific answers are
055hard to come up between parents students counselors teachers case managers social workers doctors therapists evaluators and administrators anytime we begin to try and move up the ladder and should rarely come does the department need change but i don't ideally change would need more students and family support and less entertainment group them change will gain better programs and resources of all special education students with classes that meet not only their educational needs but social emotional needs as well from my vantage point and my daughters we solely like that black death at opioid health but all exchanges include input from the stakeholders can be done in a slower thoughtful way without that process it feels reckless even more so after a year that we have all experienced thank you for your consideration and for your service from
056mr oscar medina i am writing to objects to the proposed restructures of the special education department this pandemic has been a challenge for everyone but the special ed news students require consistency fine deutsche second guardian model the past four years at oprm and currently while the advertising drug transition into the site program fine has made this episode seamless it would be difficult if additional transitions would be in place i hope that the administration of the board can come up with some other plans that will meet the district committees without depriving us of our program chair from tina bayer i am riding in opposition of the proposed dismissal of the foreign department chairs and special education department it is not in the best interest of the students to remove the passionate people who have developed and
057built those employment programs that have proven to be beneficial it is not an advantage of the students to remove the practice and people that have built an important reliable relationship with individual students and their families i trust that the board members will hear these concerns and make a decision that is the best interest of the students receiving special education services from sandra to mesa my publisher in response to the letter from the spanish pueblo and recommendations to restructuring the leadership of the requirements i'm a guest as an instructor and i am against assigning current program results with the current program chair ron joyce my son hillary has is a junior in the team at oprm he's finding he is bright he is also autistic and ocd [Music] when you see him in the comments at
058opr fhs you'll notice his wonderful smile as he skips his next class what you won't know as he's walking by is that he has ocd and how it affects his day you won't know how his excitement from seeing the bus outside at the end of the school day causes him to lose focus on how he needs to have the same conversation with the teachers each day causing the delay in learning the only way you can know this about dylan is if you interact with him daily i spoke to me his mother her authentic doings she would know this fine george knows dylan fine joyce knows me from what i understand the proposed new administrative position wouldn't be interacting with dylan on a daily basis having an administrator that has no heavy contact with my son
059on me is not serving his needs fine joyce however does have daily contact with dylan and could be reached by me by passing along a concern of suggestion she could she would understand because she interacted with my son every day how can someone that doesn't witness a student's strength and and challenges have that concerned this too in order to help dylan you must witness his behavior go to school day and engage with him up close not from before i trust find joyce because she sees dylan's needs first hands and takes his time to understand hillary i would like my employers to remain a program chair i ask that the current program chairs maintain their current positions and i believe some reassigned to teachers thank you i am a parent of a special education student at
060oprmhs and with regards to mrs francois blue's recommendation to restructure the leadership of the department i'm strongly against this change for the following reasons one there has been no demonstrated justification for why a change is needed what metrics will be improved by the recommended changes two i am disappointed that if a deficiency was identified why wasn't parent inputs solicited before a fully formed recommendation was made was there an examination of alternatives why is leadership structure and why not the confirmed volunteers build these roles by default three i am concerned that the overall quality of the students educational experience will suffer from such a massive restructuring many of our children like routines and even seemingly minor changes can have major impacts on their emotional well-being and behavior one of the program chairs is [Music] if i
061could please ask everybody in the room to turn down that and to make sure they're muted one of the program chairs affected is calling choice my wife [Music] here we go i got it one of the program chairs affected is fawn joyce my wife and i have worked with her since our son's 8th grade transition meeting she is as hard working caring and driven as any educator we've worked with since our son started many years ago in our early childhood program in district 97. i do not understand the need to change her job status when she's done a wonderful job as program chair it is shameful that she is being demoted in a restructuring that has not been explained except in a one-page letter does it not make sense for her to film one of
062the newly created special education supervisor or iep coordinator positions and not have to go through an interview process i'm very surprised that this recommendation was put forth with mrs franscott blue having less than a year's experience with the department and that experience has taken place during a pandemic without the benefit of seeing the department perform during a typical school year it seems reckless and premature for a leader to call for a significant change to a school special education department during a pantone with mostly online learning after only eight months from leslie i have read that 20 classroom renovations have been removed from the plans for phase one of imagine the estimated cost for these classrooms is 1.4 million dollars i also heard on facebook that the d200 budget has a surplus of two million due
063to the pandemic in my opinion it is unconscionable that these classrooms are not to be included in the existing construction of phase one when costs will be lower and construction more efficient i am particularly troubled that the classrooms do not seem to be in the plans at all anymore d200 continues to have a large 90 million dollar in reserve 90 million dollars in reserves there is no good reason to not bring the classrooms up to the 21st century under these circumstances from amy stannis good evening everyone first i'd like to thank you for your dedication to support our students parents faculty staff administration and community at large my name is amy stannis and i am a community member taxpayer parent of two future opr students and a teacher in the special education division this is
064my 18th year in special education and i have never spoken at aboard me or submitted a comment to be read at a board meeting but i'm compelled to do so tonight i'm grateful to have this opportunity to express my serious concerns about the proposal to restructure our service delivery model in special education since an opportunity to discuss these monumental changes was not afforded to our division members our special education students or their families in a district that has historically valued and encouraged stakeholder input effective communication and transparency i would have expected our veteran leadership to have ensured all voices were heard before submitting the proposal to the board i am in a unique position having worked in the building for 15 years in the ld continuum and now off campus in our state transition program
065which serves young adults with disabilities from the ld scd and team continuing as well as students from off-campus placements when i worked in the building and transitioned off campus to my new position at site to say that i rely on my program chair for guidance is an understatement for 18 years my program chairs have served as my mentors they have been my main points of contact for problem solving in the classroom and instructional coaching without fear being negatively evaluated as you are aware while special education teachers do not have dedicated instructional coaches like other divisions our program chairs have actually fulfilled this role for several decades in addition to mentoring and instructional coaching i've always relied on my programs here to help me build positive relationships with my new students and families because the chairs
066are the most consistent and integral members of their iep teams under the proposed model it is not feasible to offer meaningful and individualized supports to our students families and staff thank you [Music] okay [Music] so this is from vanessa and donovan hooker first and foremost i want to say that this is a very shameful thing to even think about cutting this joyce spawn from otaku reports fawn is invaluable she is most understanding and has been such a comfort for me and the help of my son duncan i understand the physical and emotional demands of working with children and to have the perfect blend of patience energy compassion and responsibility but she tops it off with a dose of genuine love i think this was comment number 12. oh good again okay then i will go
067on um this is from sinead always elworm l ward good evening i'm the parent of a rising ninth grader currently attending brooks elementary with an iep she has interrupted she has had an interrupted education for a year in order to engage in the classroom she required the assistance of a one-on-one aid which is physically impossible and involved learning over the last year she has to deal with the trauma of losing everything she helped you school special olympics bravo best buddies and piercings in person school is everything to her as a minimally verbal child with autism and developmental delays she has struggled to understand what is happening and why she attends in person four meetings a weekend sporadically joins to zoom when she can to get her cooperative outside get her cooperative outside of those times
068the trauma of change is very real to him our initial introduction to district 200 was be on an alabas process of class registration littlest process of class registration i was expected to choose classes for my child on a form that did not have any special education options i had to register a minimally verbal child in honors or college prep classes just so i could get her into trouble choir i had to plan for a transition meeting with no ability to visit the school or see the classrooms or observe the teaching style last week we had our transition meeting to oklahoma she was introduced to the team staff she was introduced to someone who was labeled a case manager and teacher altogether it was a successful transition meeting and it was all a good way to
069start such a significant upcoming transition a few hours after the meeting i discovered that the teen program chairs had been given notification that her role was being eliminated and replaced by anna ministry additionally we discovered that all four special education program chairs will be eliminated first let me unpack what this signals to my family and what it means to my daughter to my husband and i this means that we are spending are sending our already traumatized daughter into a school and into a department that is in disarray additionally it means that we cannot trust anything that has that was shared in the meeting because the special education department is clearly run by someone who does not trust their own staff it means everything is subject to change to my daughter it means additional trauma she
070was introduced to people who may not be there in the fall this is a child who has gone from a loving school to throwing school providing electronics against the wall to get out of attending zoom classes at a time when she most needs a consistent schedule a consistency and a consistent plan she's now facing into a completely unknown experience we are looking forward to high school we were looking forward to high school for years our community has applauded fonjoy's mt program our community has thrived in team we have lost all trust for our voter's future in okinawa students with significant special needs are not pawns in a budget game from jerry humphrey dear president dickson's by being members of the district 200th award i am writing to you today regarding the restructuring of the special
071education program department i always found the program chairs that attended our iep meetings to be professional helpful and engaged the program chairs made changes to the accommodations in the iep clearly and with the consensus of the team in the meeting i do want to call your attention to one program chair who went above and beyond last year was my child's senior year we were having two significant issues at school one with another student harassing my child and one with a teacher the issues were so significant that they were causing trauma and harm to my child fawn joyce called me about the upcoming iep meeting and asked how are things going that simple question began a conversation and a relationship that literally changed our lives when i told fawn about the two major issues with my
072child she rejected to help her focus was completely child centered fond never said this is outside of the scope of my job font did not try to pass the problems along to someone else fawn dived into the middle of the issues because my child of opium was severely struggling and she knew that someone had to manage the issues across the silos and victims that is oprl she showed professionalism integrity compassion and patience primarily john center the child fond of center of the child she had numerous conversations with my child to make sure he knew someone was trying to help him through the maze and rotate the hands off at oprah fun advocating for my child her most important job now she talked to me every step of the way that included calling me from home
073late at night and calling me while driving with her own crying children in the car fond understood that these issues needed urgent attention in school day hours did not find her sense of service she worked on my child's problems day and night she's the epitome of a public service in a public school to think that the special education department would lose that leadership and the example of bond choices to put her back in the classroom is disheartening of course the students in bronze class would benefit from her loving love being and tender care but the special education department needs fun in a leadership position i like to say that the special education department has certainly problems with the program chairs are not one of them i would like to encourage executive director to reevaluate your
074decision to remove the program chairs from their positions i believe there are two many areas that can be improved within special ed with one of the top focuses of top ones focusing on twice obsession exceptional learners at opr that area is completely lacking from my experience and these types of learners sit in no man's land at opera it also might be proven to have somewhat normal year with students and teachers in school building before attempting a restructuring from holly barnes as a parent of a child who received special education services i was shocked to hear of the plan to essentially devote our four excellent program chairs and replace them with new staff and administrative roles the chairs are the heart and soul of the programs and a wealth of institutional knowledge and strong relationships with
075families i cannot imagine why the current administration thinks our children will be better served by having mean consultants rules an announcement came out of the blue with no input from parents and the letter that was meant to explain this decision did not did nothing to clarify how this plan came about many parents rely on the current program chairs for guidance and assistance and to have those lifelines removed to support the globe additionally reassigning the program chairs to the classroom will end up pushing out some unten year teachers what a way to thank them for their hard work and inventive work at the end of an extremely challenging school year the board should not vote on this plan tonight is that as it has risen so suddenly and without suitable explanation are restructuring this traumatic put
076into place by the by a brand new executive director of special education and presumably blessed by an outgoing superintendent requires extensive discussion and consideration before any decisions are actually made board members please put the brakes on this next one is from john and shannon o'brien dear school board we are writing to express our extreme dispatch satisfaction with the recent actions of the executive director who after seven months in her position during a pandemic is attempting to restructure her department obviously this is her prerogative and we are ready to strongly voice our objection in the letter which she chose to send on friday at 4 pm can you say friday newsday four days four business days before the board meeting she calls the parents of the special education students valuable partners if we were valuable partners
077she would have solicited our assessment of the current personnel and educational structures if we were valuable partners she would have asked about our children's response to the department's efforts during the stressful year partner is defined as performing a task together we have been fortunate to partner with miss vaughn joyce ms joyce through her phone calls to our home in the evening we're stopping at the learning lab to check on our daughter's anxieties during this crazy year has earned our highest respect as a true partner in jackie's education we urge you to hit pause on the restructuring and ask for input from the parents and teachers as well as review the educational metrics required by the state let's remember the school's mission and strive to thank you for your public service one of my favorite quotes
078is from then vice president joe biden in 2008 don't tell me what you value show me your budget and i'll tell you what you value under this board and administration i have senior budget and then appears united administration accounting more administrators and 30 million cafeterias but you definitely do not value services and support for students especially those with special needs from the absurd proposal this winter to cut thirty thousand in funding for special education field trips with the current rush proposal to suddenly restructure the special education department at least your budget is consistent more money for administrators and less hands-on support for our most vulnerable students in their families i've been a taxpayer in visiting 223 years and a parent of opr students for the past seven in the past five years and specifically the
079last five months i continually i continue to be shocked by the massive changes that this board superintendent and new administrators are racing to push through before the elections next spot and before the next administrator is in place what is a rush why make a difficult year more challenging why create more chaos what are you afraid of having why would you not seek input in the teachers program and families of our most vulnerable students before making significant changes your values and your rush to implement them are transparent only in their consistent disrespect for the community of students you serve and the community of taxpayers who support this district slow down listen to the practitioners listen to the special needs families that have been in crisis for the past 12 months surviving without the hands-on support of
080their team please thoughtfully work with them to meet the needs of these extraordinary students that require their teachers their classroom names their support services and their program chairs to work in concerts for the students from john schultz your boe administration thank you for your public service one of my favorite quotes from marcus dear boe the board of education's roles to be an advocate for our community and students especially during difficult times i am requesting that the boe did a decisive and urgent stance for the benefit of our students increased time in the classroom through the end of the school year by collapsing or eliminating cohorts and opening the school's students the week after spring break i also requested such measures be implemented immediately with respect to all iep students most of the teachers have been
081fully vaccinated the cdc reduced social discipline to three feet in schools safety protocols in place and opr high school saliva testing mitigate nearly all risks many students have been traumatized for the lack of in-person learning this year while millions of students across the u.s have been in the classroom safely since august with no serious health issues to students or teachers these large and small school districts opened safely followed the following day on science safety protocols and a student first mice meanwhile in school districts of heavy canada unions that put teachers first and students remote learning was the only option due to unnecessary prolonged school closings many remote students struggle with anxiety depression and as a result teen suicide is now a national health crisis lack of in-person learning has been and continues to be especially
082damaging to many children with ips it has been absolutely remarkable to experience a positive difference my child has been able to attend school in person this is consistent with what many parents educators and mental health professionals have been stating for many months that a return to in-person learning is critical particularly for children with ieps the ble should be focused on ensuring our students have been as as much time as possible over many few months it's important to note most chicago suburban high schools including downers grove north and south glenburg north south lions township and new trio are in person five days a week for all students that want to attend it first additionally these schools do not have a post-spring break at that's the cause they will be as personal for as much time as
083possible in the fashion closing parents nor taxpayers should have to beg to get our children safely in classrooms we deserve better and so do our children thank you for your consideration tammy schultz i am the parent of three students with iuds at oprf one past one present and one future next year we have received much care and support for the special education department and are grateful for their hard work on our behalf lindsey kirby and von joyce have chaired every iep meeting we have had for the past seven years and both have done excellent sports receiving the notice of the elimination of their positions and favorite administrators was upsetting to us why would those who have served our school with excellence be demoted or required to reapply the answers provided are inadequate and we see
084no benefit to the restructuring proposal proposed the led requirement by the ipa has been in place since at least 2004 and met for nearly 20 years by our current structure using this as an excuse to remove those we have full competency as a public this francoise who has not yet served as a current executive director for a full school year she has not met our students nor seen the school function in full we fail to see the wisdom in implementing this proposal without her full knowledge of our school what will be the measurable outcome of this change how will it benefit our students and the teachers and students who serve them we have struggled through this uncertain year of pandemic our students and children are the ones most deeply affected as seen in my child
085who has had two hospitalizations in this past year our need for structure routine and familiar and familiar is stronger now than ever making a change at this time leaves us without one of our needed supports we request that time energy and resources to be directed strengthening our special ed department at this time and trust that a better solution can be found than the proposed within the proposal presented to you tonight from penny flannery dear voe i am requesting the blb take a stand for our students increase time in the classroom to the end of the school year by collapsing or eliminating cohorts and opening the schools to students the week after spring break most of the teachers have been fully vaccinated cbd the cdc reduced social business into three freedom schools the safety profession and
086we'll pr in high school this seems to be a previous one it's not an opr high school saliva test in mitigating all risks many students have been traumatized by the lack of in-person learning this year while millions of students across the u.s have been in classrooms safely since august with no serious health issues to teachers these large and small school districts open safely following data science safety protocols every student first bites there meanwhile in school districts with heavy-handed unions that put teachers first and students last remote learning was the only option due to unnecessary and prolonged school closings many remote students struggled with anxiety depression and as a result team suicide is now a national health crisis the boe should be focused on ensuring our students have as much time as possible in the remaining
087two months it's important to know chicago high schools london north and south alliance scholarship and retriever are in person five days a week for all students they want to attend in person additionally these schools do not have a post-spring graded cause they will be in person for as much time as possible the closing parents and our taxpayers should have to beg to get our children safe in the classroom please thank you for your consideration this one is from mr john this is a comment to the board regarding the restructuring of the special education department in a time when there is so much talk in the community and indeed an opr about taking the time to solicit feedback training i find it odd in the middle of the night and without any community discussion this board
088has decided to replace the entire staff of the special education department and hire a new director from outside of the community and the parent of two children with disabilities i found this disturbing and hypocritical while we have had a long and extensive discussion phenomenal community around curriculum race and equity the disabled employee absent from this discussion and is present at all it has been the least the best live service we even allowed the film crew in here for two years to highlight the racial divine however this restructuring merits nothing but a short memo to parents who have spent years and countless hours developing relationships in school so that their kids can drive this will disrespect that investment that those parents have made to understand what keeps the parents up at night everyone needs to understand
089that as adults these kids will face staggeringly high rates of unemployment mental health issues substance abuse among things that no one would ever want their child to go through these kids are largely invisible to us sucked away from you our off campus effectively guidance from the community those who are silenced when they are with us are left without their knowledge discoveries if we even have one and they are easily forgotten when they leave us boy has given no specific reason for this change and after curriculum changes nothing has been offered but would have been better first that would have been better for our children please wait until you consult the community please wait for the new ward these kids deserve no legs thanks from irene wolensky good afternoon we have debt to the organizational change
090in special education how does this help our community and our children we have been in touch with many parents of special education students at otrl we are all very confused and offset private change we would like to understand why this change is needed the current system works and the staff have been doing a great job fine joyce is our chair and she has been an excellent and invaluable department chair facilitator and empathetic resource to all the families can you let us all know who will have the decision-making power over our children's education once the program tariff rolls our campaign from carla bulowsky the modern education's role is to be advocates for our community and our students especially during difficult times i'm requesting the video if you take a stand for our students for the previous
091time in the classroom through the end of the school year by collapsing or eliminating cohorts and opening new schools of students the week after spring break most of the teachers have been fully validated the cdc reduced social distancing to three median schools most controlled consequences and opr f o p r f h s the library's testing through the gains nearly our risk many students have been prophesied by the lack of in-person learning this year while millions of students across the u.s have many classrooms safely with no serious health issues to students or teachers these larger small school districts open safely open safely followed data science safety protocols and a student first mindset meanwhile in school districts with heavy-handed units that continues first and student plan remote learning was the only option due to unnecessary long
092school poses many remote students struggle with anxiety depression and as a result teen suicide is focused on returning our food that much time is possible in the remaining few months it's important to note most chicago suburban high schools including valleys broke north and south blind group north and south science township and new career are encouraged five days a week for all students that want to attend a person additionally these schools do not have a close spring break after fall they will be in person for as much time for the classroom and closing transfer taxpayers today to get our children safely in the classroom they deserve better and so so this is from um christina moore i'm writing to object to the proposed restriction of the special education this is foreign always giving awesome information on
093programs and generally caring about not only jalen but my daughter jaden my husband and myself this swan is an important part of our to our family and is irreplaceable she needs to retain the position of the administration to come up with some other plan that will meet the district's needs without depriving [Music] lindsay kirby's sep department chair is an invaluable resource she knows her teachers understands the nuances of the program and curriculum and cares about the students and family during the craziness of the year now does not seem the time to instruction [Music] and excuse teachers students and teachers please put the brakes on this proposed restructuring and consider why the current program chair model is working in the ecd department thanks to the caring knowledgeable and tremendous efforts of witnessing i have one that
094i i don't think you've read but this is from john schultz one of my favorite quotes is then is from the vice president joe biden in 2018 it was two different yeah okay thank you um are there any other people present who would like to make [Music] i believe that we are voting on this tonight this is not up for a vote tonight it's not only for discussion so certainly we welcome those who want to wait to hear the discussion but this is not an action item so no action would actually be taken this evening all right [Music] okay um so now we have a discussion that we are very much looking forward to uh is the extension of the 2003 community performance report um this report was a little bit dated at this point
095however i think a lot of the findings are still applicable which is why we wanted to continue the conversation tonight and look at effectively where we were and here we are um joining us this week by uh dr lincoln chandler who will be facilitating the conversation and we have dr spike one of the original authors of the report as well as dr bailey um virtually [Music] i just want to add that this is thank you um thank you board for uh taking uh this conversation and for inviting me hold up myself there's something that he also said to be rejected on the screen i believe it [Music] um so thank you for thank you for having me and thank you for inviting this conversation um i know it was essentially doctors but um do we
096know if he's taken he's back he was having some technical difficulties okay excellent so we're going to start by um having dr spike who was one of the authors of this report uh provide some reflections but then we're going to move into some of the findings and recommendations uh for uh conversation so without further ado i will turn a little reduction [Music] there we are i had to uh totally restart my computer a moment ago it's not nothing like murphy's law challenges there but i'm back now thank you to uh superintendent and board of the whole uh i uh apologize for not being there physically i would want to have been i'm a uh seriously senior citizen who has not had his first uh covet vaccination so i did not uh want to risk coming
097out in the public forum but uh i'm going to tolerate this uh zoom session i detest the whole process that it feeds into my worst um uh introverted aspects uh to try to talk and communicate through this kind of medium but we'll we'll do as we can uh james baldwin has observed uh in his time um many years ago that uh these are dangerous times and they are dangerous times indeed we are in a period where the voices of black lives and black minds matter uh are colliding with the resurgence of uh white supremacists and white opera tunis populism we have many challenges that we face in trying to navigate this educational terrain that we all work in and i am appreciative of the opportunity to talk about something quite old for me but which
098seems to have some currency for at least some of you certainly i'm struggling to appreciate uh both the intention and the intentionality that brings us together to talk about this it seems to have been a long time coming and certainly i have been perhaps rather cheeky in asking for a privileged opportunity to speak uh with some amount of focused comments so early in this evening's agenda perhaps already late now my goal here is to speak the truth to uh earth while powerful forces uh in the educational world of park and river forest and to look back uh in a way that helps us to find a way going forward i feel i'm uniquely positioned to bring to this discussion some important insights and perspectives which is what motivates me to ask for a few minutes
099i'm going to try to focus my time i've got a set of notes that i'm going to try to use to guide me in honoring a request for about 10 minutes my wife and i and children moved to the oak park river forest community back in 1987 motivated by desire to benefit we thought then from the quality educational opportunities that were part of river forest community afforded when i moved here i was an experienced uh already an experienced technical manager a research scientist and a university educator talking about 1987. my wife and i were immediately immersed in trying to guarantee our access to quality education for our children in our part my wife was a co-founder ultimately of an organization uh called apple came to be called apple african-american parents for purposeful leadership and education
100uh and i also ultimately got involved in that same organization as it was being birthed in the late 80s uh early 90s in 93 94 i was chair and the statistician of a powerful 10-member discipline study team which established definitively that there was and is a discipline uh gap uh in terms of behavioral consequences at oak park river forest high school that team involved about 10 members including gerald clay who was a co-founder of apple uh and jocelyn simons who was the leader of the naacp at the time very powerful activists in the oak park river forest community 93 94 when that study team made it clear that there was a an achievement gap around discipline and a discipline gap itself in 97 98 i was president of apple itself and continued to be involved
101in trying to advance the issues of african-american parents at oakport river forest high school in 2003 uh i became um well 2001 to 2003 i became a member of the african-american achievement study team which ultimately gave rise to the discipline uh sorry the learning community performance gap of 2003. in 2004 to about 2009 i was uh what was called an institutional researcher at orport river forest high school uh hired as a part-time uh member of staff uh this is uh you probably can't see that very well a uh what would have been a kind of business card car spy phd institutional researcher uh that i used when i was a member of that uh part-time staff for various msan meetings that was 2004 to about 2009 in that time i was involved in trying to
102advance many of the recommendations uh implementation of many of the recommendations of the 2003 learning community performance gap report i was also tutoring the who was then director of instruction uh phil prell who ultimately became assistant superintendent for curricular instruction field peril i was tutoring him in action research and in how to implement information-based differential evaluation and improvement processes and programs uh i ultimately terminated my involvement at oak park river forest high school in when i became extremely frustrated with the then superintendent and his uh management style and since 2009 i have self-described myself as sitting up in the high bleachers uh observing the uh stumbling efforts uh at oakport river forest high school to attack both the discipline system gaps and the achievement gap [Music] as i saw boards come and go administrators come
103and go and superintendents come and go my observation is that uh opportunity force communities have been sadly and disturbingly how can we how can we say it uh capable of making disastrous choices uh in board members uh in superintendents and in administrators chosen by superintendents and a firm by boards uh of course uh all president company accepted uh these choices have been a part of the problem of why so little progress has been made at uh oakport river forest high school in the discipline gap uh and in the achievement gap the 2003 report to my eye is quite dated but it remains salient in many of its aspects but certainly quite dated is a difficult uh and cold read known in 2021 the 2003 report it's a gumbo that was best served warm and now
104and of course it is quite cold 2021 compared to the 2003 date when it was released to the public that report was a document that spoke with passion and wisdom and professionalism and intellectual brilliance from its eight members but it's also a document that talked the language of uh wade boykin triple quandary and talked uh the language of uh william cross uh black uh racial identity attitude scales brias and so on uh you talk the language of uh what then would have been the legacies of black cultural nationalists thinking about black identity so this is a document that is quite dated but it has some salient aspects and those i want to focus but before i do it however i want to spend just a moment or so to do something perhaps unexpected and that
105is to recommend a more current uh document uh in this case a book uh i'm going to try to [Music] represent it there it's a book altered by amanda lewis and john diamond uh the title of the book uh despite the best intentions how racial inequality thrives in good schools much of the insights of our 2003 document are captured in a book in this case about 10 years later published around 2015 which has a much better better narrative form a much greater readability uh much more current uh in its language and it has some powerful insights actually it affirms uh and reinforces and perhaps better articulates the many points that we made in the 2003 document and i'm speaking now with some authority about the 2003 document since i was there and was a part
106of the process of the 2003 document this book should be something that new board members ought to be required to read in context and in association press with the 2003 document because of its power uh in chapters one and two of the book uh it introduces the concept of uh operational organizational routines and this notion of a uh an ostensive uh and a performative aspects to those routines that gives rise to the great difficulty of attacking achievement gaps be they in schools or elsewhere uh that are racialized uh by our currently uh lived experience in uh the us uh this book is is powerful in that regard in chapter three it talks about uh i'll choose to read for a moment it's title the road to detention is paved with good intentions race and discipline
107uh in this case at riverview uh riverview is a community talks about in the book that is very much like oak park river forest uh in terms of the uh community road to the road to detention is paid with good intention chapter three chapter four uh the title of that chapter is like two high schools race tracking and performance expectations chapter four chapter five it talks about uh opportunity hoarding creating and maintaining racial advantage this book is a powerful affirmation of what we tried to say in our 2003 report but it's much more current in this voicing uh john diamond is member of faculty university of wisconsin madison and amanda lewis the co-author of the book he's currently at uic uh and in that sense uh is uh opportunity uh there's an opportunity in terms
108of their envelope availability uh john diamond has a youtube video uh uh easily available called race performance expectations and opportunity hoarding which gives you some quick access to the book if you want to uh approach it from a somewhat different uh learning style so i'm recommending the book uh as a way to to affirm to explicate to better articulate perhaps much of what we tried to say in the 2003 report uh and i know that's probably somewhat unexpected in terms of this conversation uh to return to the report however there's something that is quite singular in my mind that is worth uh emphasizing and so i'm going to read one of the findings of the report literally as it reads in the report itself it says quote there is a systemic learning community performance gap
109at oak park and river forest high school the learning community performance gap suggests that two communities exist at the high school one for white students that place them at academic promise and one for african-american students that place them at academic risk the learning community performance gap is further exacerbated by differential outcomes that observation continues the learning community performance gap is further exacerbated by differential outcomes in the success rates for african americans and white students in accelerated and honest courses two schools in one one placing students at academic promise the other placing our students uh at academic risk uh in particular in accelerated and in honors courses so i'm going to finish my comments by uh affirming something that i see underway at the high school uh after having been away for so long uh sitting
110in the high bleachers looking at stumbling efforts up to this point the flag the flag of equity at oak park river forest high school has been in 2021 squarely placed in the arena of detracting the freshman curriculum and in the battle of implementation that has been engaged in that detracting in my view this is precisely the battle to be fought at this time uh in this fierce urgency of now the good news is that you have undoubtedly a uh impassioned a skillful and properly placed administrator uh set on the task uh greg johnson and uh laurie fearing resident whoops fiore renzo there we are ferrenza there we are laurie ferrarinza and greg johnson are uh exemplary administrators for the task at hand and so i end up and beg the question uh can a board
111be preserved and elected and can a superintendent be found in 2021 with the skills and the courage to create and stay the course of institutional investments in the critically needed evidence-based activities academic action research that will be required for the success of this initiative the de-tracking of the freshman the freshman curriculum can a board be preserved and a superintendent be found in 21 with the courage uh and the skills uh i'll give back whatever time i might have had for comments thank you thank you so much [Music] so for the balance of our time here for the sake of the folks unfamiliar with the document um i've prepared some summaries looked into three areas we're going to talk about major findings from the report we're also going to talk about some barriers to the success
112of a previous past interventions and we're also going to provide a summary of the recommendations uh for colleagues at the board and just for the sake of time i'm going to ask that after i summarize that we limit our responses to a couple of minutes just so we can kind of keep things moving okay thank you um next slide please okay so in summary the major findings asserted this notion that black and white oprs students experience separate learning communities during their time there were quantitative findings mainly that my students and non-honors classes are less likely to receive a's or leads black students scored lower on standardized tests um among seniors with comparable honors enrollment and test performance white students had more easy leads in those honest courses over time rights news were showing growth in
113their accumulated gpa whereas black students were showing there to be no gpa growth the correlation between the cumulative gpa and standardized test scores it was high improvised there was a black white gpa gap within opr opr students from this major feeder districts district 97 district 90. however overall district 90 alums had higher average gpas and a smaller gap explained black students students and over three years and over a three year period it was observed that the pattern and frequency of disciplinary infractions remain constant students some of the major qualitative findings were the notion of they found that black students who were able to successfully internalize and negotiate what was called a triple quandary of white minority and cultural norms tended to have higher gpas however even for those young students with higher gpas there was
114still a learning community performance gap compared to white students uh a successful note by successful negotiation it implied an awareness and external perceptions so they were aware of how they would be perceived and also supported by strategies from family and communities to manage uh frankly with with what they with those perceptions uh black students who did not successfully negotiate that triple quandary tended to have lower gpa and more disciplinary actions for being disrupted or defined it was also found that lexington found quote less likely to feel safe and happy about school and classroom environments and also less likely to feel happy about their teachers and finally was the point that dr spike left us with saying that the gap was seen to be systemic and it did suggest the existence of two community communities coexisting
115in oprl one for white students that placed an academic promise and one for black students that placed them at academic risks so those major findings um as we've said some of them seem to remain relevant and persist to this day and they currently inform several current board initiatives um such as ccbd and then the recent work with racial equity so i'm asking the board uh for feedback on what were your takeaways from this analysis and where are you seeing the progress [Music] i mean i will but anybody [Music] that i think still persists um is great inflation for the higher army [Music] just services some of the things around calculating gpas and how many honors classes should be counted towards the gpa and um and so i think it's set up in a way where
116um you know those already on the other end of the academic ladder coming in his perception that that's part of it and i didn't get that i've asked for people's website since 2003 this persistent gap about one point uh three quarters and a point one point you know between white students and black students and so um you know existing in this whole thing here too colleges already were on track of not requiring sats but even this year especially all that's been going on disruption to students and not having sap required angle [Music] so all right it's tom i can't see myself but i i just want to make sure i'm being heard that's all uh okay so i'm i want to go back you know dr chandler you asked a question uh dr uh spite
117asked a question why now okay so i want to kind of provide my perspective to bridge some of the gaps and answer the the questions i've heard one is um you know we've done as a board a number of uh i would say shared learning experiences uh on on books i appreciate your recommendation of of the book uh it's one that i know i read earlier in my career on the board um so it certainly sounds like it was a good read uh but in terms of um you know why now we've we've been you know talking about race in a variety of ways but how can we how can we make it actionable and here we have right in front of us um you know work product that was done thanks to the efforts
118of you and others who that really you know unbundled and outlined a number of things and why not look at what we're you know we had our own work versus go outside and so with the hope of making it actionable um there was recently a request to even look at another consultant to do this and that and you know we i don't believe we need to look at another consultant to give us another set of perspectives i think we have a lot of information right here at our fingertips and so i'm looking forward to unbundling and hearing what have we done um you know in that was outlined i guess 18 years ago i mean it certainly is uh frustrating or whatever to just think that you've got a study that was done that reflected
119back 25 years and now we're reflecting back 18 years so um the decades go by quickly so what has been done um versus what was recommended i i want to approach that in two different perspectives one issue that often comes up is resources and so i've done some you know digging and resources and our district has not been shy on the resource front we have since 2003 we have as a district we have spent significant money more than what cpi exists and there's data there so it's not that we haven't uh you know ponied up for resources but the question is are the resources we're using delivering results that we need and you know based on the fact that we're having this discussion today tells me the answer is no okay that the resources that
120we've used have not achieved the results we want and so i i really appreciate the the question there of what are the measures and and what is the progress on the specific initiatives i know um with with discipline with curriculum you've got some some action uh which is the first time you know it's it's recent um during my tenure on the board to me that's some positive steps forward but those are just two of the many things that were outlined so i'm going to just stop there and allow others to chime in i'll uh chime in sarah thank you uh dr spite and dr bailey for uh hanging in there with us and uh uh allowing us to have this discussion and i appreciate your uh honesty about the frustration of uh why now and
121also what happened and uh your perspective uh just the context is is helpful it raises unfortunately or maybe fortunately for me a lot more questions than uh solutions but i i do i'm always struck by uh with the recommendations um and uh dr spike you and i have talked about this the whole idea of impact and how we're talking about goals but also how we're measuring our impact and that being at the level of when we can that's reflected in our students whether it is um academic social emotional however we're you know talking about it and um and i think the the last uh bullet on the slide that you had up before lincoln that talked about you know we're having a process for reflecting on initiatives and deciding when they are plans for reflection
122and judgment of effectiveness and uh that's something i think that it would be helpful to hear the perspective lincoln yours as well as our um other kind of data and evaluation folks and and certainly uh carl you and george because that's where i think some of my frustrations come in how are we deciding what is working and what's not and if if it's not working what do we do to either course correct or to justify the elimination or continuation and um and i think we heard a little bit of that perhaps tonight even with public comment not to say that decisions that are or recommendations that are made aren't necessary but are we using a rubric or a standard that eliminates the kind of subjective nature that can happen and and i think of it
123about that just reflecting on my children's time at the high school particularly by um oldest and uh the project scholar was here um uh during his time he was actually one of the the mentors during that program and the you know the clustering that was done which has been evidence based and was resurrected quasi-resurrected i'll say a couple of years ago but um there's no real answer and i remember steve gevinson my first uh term on the board asking what happened to project scholar why did we stop that was a great program and we can't find out any information so um as you know i i appreciate your humility about this being dated and perhaps there are other resources but i think for our community we're still still talking about these same issues and um
124digging deeper into uh some of your recommendations that have to do with um things like grades and getting the perspective of some of the qualitative aspects of why classroom experiences are different are things that we've struggled with we have hypotheses on and sometimes we develop programs but i'm not sure we are gathering information and how to gather that information on how we address those issues that deal directly with race racism bias and you know uh that two schools and and that happiness factor that that you talk about so those are some of the takeaways that i i have you know i'll jump in if no one else wants to that okay yes just want to make sure you know when when you do this virtual stuff you don't know whose hand is actually up um
125so i do want to thank dr spike dr bailey look i i good news bad news um because i always want to try to find some good news along with the bad news uh the bad the bad news and i think you did a really good job of identifying it in your report and i think there's no reason to think it has gone away is your report really showed the death textbook definition of structural racism and i think one of the findings that really demonstrated that beyond any doubt was the relative change in gpa over time white african american that is damning that that clearly shows that a specific group of students were singled out for disadvantage there's no question i also appreciate the fact that you and there's other things in your finding but
126that's that to me is like one of the compelling things i look for when i research a system you pointed out that initiatives thus far have suffered from a number of flaws a lack of evidence base lack of identified metrics to accomplish from an outcome standpoint lack of way you know appropriate ways to monitor them i think the good news is our board is taking a step towards implementing policies at the board level that would require any proposal put forward by the administration to address these racial inequities be evidence-based have identifiable metrics and be reported back at regular intervals to the board so we could evaluate them against these metrics to determine whether a course correction is needed so those those flaws in implementation we are trying to address with policy right here right now
127and so i appreciate the fact that you highlighted that i agree it's awful hard to change a system unless you're taking a research-based approach i think the one area where we certainly need more information and in my mind this is the role of an of an equity audit or a racism audit we've identified with the data a compelling case that structural racism does in fact exist in our school what we haven't been able to do i think to this date is isolate the specific barriers and practices that we are engaged in that keep reinforcing and perpetuating this structural racism and i think identification of those specific barriers as well as identification of the practices is crucial in identifying the appropriate evidence-based remedies to be implemented so so i think to my mind we've done a
128really good job of identifying the problem and identifying why our responses to the problem to date have not been as effective as we would like i think the missing piece is well there's two missing pieces in my mind number one is that now that we know that the structural racism is there and there's no question about that let's really do what it takes to identify the specific practices that have contributed to those one of those we have identified i appreciate your support for the detracting initiative i think that's an impro a very important initiative but but we need to identify all the other barriers and all the other practices then i think we need to have call it a logic model call it a comprehensive plan from beginning to end once we've identified these practices
129that have perpetuated a structurally racist system over time then we need to create a priority list for which of those practices we're going to eliminate first in which areas and why if we don't have the resources to do it all at once although i'd prefer to do it all at once we we may not be able to do that it's it's a lot of change but those that have the biggest bang for our buck should certainly be done first but i would like to see the comprehensive plan you know from a from an instruction or pedagogy standpoint here are the barriers we've identified from a cultural standpoint here are the event barriers we've identified and here are the remedies and here are the remedies to each of the main areas of the school so that
130we have a structured approach to implementing these evidence-based responses to uh addressing the very clear structural racism so i i you know while your report may be somewhat dated in language and stuff i really think the essence of it is still gets to the heart of the essence of the problems we've been experiencing and and i think that the the focus on the best practice in in remedying these problems following those evidence-based approaches with appropriate metrics in place with appropriate oversight in place and with a clear identification of which which practices are the most problematic practices i think will finally move oprf in the right direction so that we are what we want to be which is a school that provides every student the opportunity to attain to the extent of her his abilities irrespective
131of their innate characteristics so thank you thank you uh gina or craig um i'll jump in uh there are a couple things that ralph said that i definitely agreed with um so thanks rob for hitting some of those points i think that uh first thank you dr um bailey and dr spike for being here i am in reading your report what what stood out for me was um how it's the same report how the information is the same information that we have now it was exactly the reason like tom said that i was like we don't need an audit because we have the information and we have it historically and you came here tonight to show us again that we have it historically so i agree um i agree with what ralph was saying about
132we need to have this um the practices right what are the practices that are going to actually change outcomes and this is what are the adult practices right one thing you can see in the change of the language um from then to now is we do have a little we do have a lot more focus on well it's not the students that are problematic it's the adults right and there was a lot of that in your report too which i was really appreciative of um and i i feel like one of the things that we don't that one of the things that we miss and that we have missed and continue to mess um is is that the practices are embedded in a psychology in a belief system in um beliefs and behaviors that come
133from an undergirding of a white supremacy culture ideology and i don't think that we attack that in the ways that we kill we could in a systemic way and i think that in order for us to attack those in a more systemic way has to be to acknowledge them as norms in our spaces we don't we don't acknowledge them as norms in our spaces we have not as a board acknowledged the norm of white supremacy culture and how it shows up as as a board for us right so there's um there's a need for us to unpack it in ways that we haven't but now what i find what i find interesting in looking at the 2003 and then now is that the language that we have to begin to unpack it is a little
134bit more widely used or beginning to be conversations that are had like the um the record the reference that you made doctors fight to the um to the book despite the best intentions right so we've got this information that really mirrors what your report said and how do we make our spaces amenable for the educators in them to say wow that whole practice that whole practice is based on the idea of branded inferiority of black and brown students like that is what would that's what that's the conversation we're not having like looking at our practices in that way wow that entire practice is set up from this idea of branded inferiority now if we don't start to attack that we're still going to keep doing the same things over and over again which we've been
135doing keep we keep doing it and so i just i'm i'm hoping what what i was so ex what i was actually excited about with this report coming and thank you tom for bringing it up and for you know i really appreciate the earnestness with which our board has said let's do this let's look at this there's a whole report here that was done let's look at this let's bring the folks back who actually did the report like i'm so grateful that you all are still here and willing to be here in this conversation with us um because it just affirms that we have what we have done has been minimal what we have done wherever it fell off for whatever reason whatever leadership spaces and as we move into bringing in a new superintendent
136i felt that your question of who is is this board and is whoever we bring in really ready really ready to do that unpacking and are all of the leaders in our system really ready to do that unpacking because it's going to require a lot on the part of the union it's going to require a lot on the part of our leadership it's going to require require a lot on the part of our security our tas our every single educator in the building every single person that works in our building is going to need to be a part of it so um ed engaged in the work engaged in the personal unpacking as well as the constant and non-stop interrogation of what we're doing we don't have a choice but to do that and your
137report outlined it in a number of ways our racial equality policy outlines what needs to be done in a number of ways and now it's a matter of doing it so um i was thinking in ccb in the ccb meeting that we just had and i'll wrap up with this because i know i'm on a rant now um and we none of us want to be here until midnight i think um lost my audio is it back okay good because it's yeah okay so um the last thing i want to close with is about ccb from um our meeting last night and we went over the behavior education plan and we actually finally got a report that sounds like we're going to begin to make some moves in a direction that allows us to do
138things differently um based on you know us having a trauma intervention coordinator the systemic approach that the administration has done with the um with the staff that presented to us last night and i really do hope that that presentation makes its way to the board because that was what we've been looking for it's a start really solid start so i think that it's now action time it's um 18 years later of action time it's 25 years later of action time it's 30 years later of action time when i graduated the same thing right so we're we're here and now we need we need um leaders that are really going to call it all to task and say yes absolutely this is what we're doing it's going to be hard it's going to be extremely uncomfortable
139there are going to be numerous people in our community who actually don't like it let's be clear that's coming that actually do not like it they've already made it clear there's there's a number of people who have find detracting very problematic and the next stages of what we have to do are going to be problematic and uncomfortable as well and we can't back away from it now we have to go all in so um thank you and thank you and thank you and i'm so so glad that you all did the work that you did so we could go back to it and say oh we still got work to do so thank you i really appreciate you all being here tonight yeah um i'm not going to need anything i think my board colleagues
140have said everything that comes to mind thank you thank you um i want to thank you both for being here this evening sarah um could we let uh dr bailey i think he wanted to weigh in oh of course i just i just wanted to make one point uh actually um uh the point that i wanted to make is one that i've been uh talking about uh repeatedly towards being redundant uh and it's um if you have these resources uh and uh been sort of uh generous with them i think you need to articulate something about the resources one um i don't know if you have a line item for the kind of research that it's gonna i mean evidence-based research if you don't have a line item for it a dedicated eye line item
141i think that's one way to keep the focus on it along with when the new superintendent comes in how do you keep how do you keep that superintendent on track uh and because i've lived in oak park 30 years and in some schools when a new superintendent comes in a program that existed goes away and all of the research that that that that's been collected god's way lastly um uh i think that sometimes rationality gets you into weeds and it's highly overrated so i believe in research-based mismatch but i also believe that you have to spice it up with some intuition for example let um we know that a lot of parents in affluent neighborhoods think that uh equity means that we're going to dumb down the uh curriculum at this high school we know
142that and um you can't talk you can't talk about that um uh rationally or authoritatively like sometimes you have to get down to where people are and it means going down in that hole with them in the dark with them and asking them to go down to that hole with us because it's a hole we're in and we need to go down to that hole together so um anyway that's my figurative language about that thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity of being here i know i'm really happy that you um were willing to join us this evening uh just to sum it up so i my colleagues i think i've said pretty much everything that needs to be said um but the one of the pieces that did stand out for
143me um was the need to have greater articulation between 90 and 97 and to start working at this systemically right across all districts um certainly if we try to go along which is in our historical model it's not working um so i would really like to use this as a impetus for more um not finger-pointing but like true collaboration across the districts sarah can i i just want to know what's next because um one of the uh things that uh i've struggled with and my time here is winding down so it probably will not include me but uh you know i uh echo the the comments about uh we have all the the the ingredients that we need to to make decisions and to understand what we have to be willing to to name but
144you know as a board as a policy as you know direction and leadership um i i will be uncomfortable if this becomes a discussion and then we move on and uh i i'm getting a little concerned right now that we're you know uh even i did you know thank you so much as though wow now our eyes are open i've been talking about this report since i read it i have uh you know the experience of our black students at this school in particular you know gina just talked about it you know graduating i don't know how many years when she graduated 10 years ago and now it is you know there has not been a uh our black students and our black families are are talking about the same things and so um that's
145i'm hoping that we can um figure out what's next at the board level to continue the conversations that need to be had around um as you know dr bailey just said get down in that hole and figuring out how we have these tough conversations and committing to some process that allows that to happen and that we are um steadfast because uh taking our eye off even for a second or you know we lose our conviction with when there's noise from those that think equity means wait a minute where's my piece of pie and that's not what we're talking about so i i just would like us to to think about that um how we ensured that we didn't have dr uh bailey and doctors fight and dr chandler wait 90 minutes to have this discussion
146and then we move on without truly digging in because um it's too vital we we've been talking about this too long we've been talking about i know the eight years i've been on the board we've been when talking about the need for this and um we have the leadership where we're getting traction but as a board how do we memorialize and and put in place policies that show the the type of of courage that's needed to be steadfast so i just i want to put that out there i don't want us to to to lose this moment yeah can i add something to that jackie because i think that one of the important pieces also is the education of our community and us being engaged and involved with our community in this like um sarah
147said about the you know matriculation between 90 and 97 and us like looking at the overall system as we are like with collaborative edges collaborative for early childhood education but there is a level of our community engagement and education that is required as well and maybe just because i'm an educator and i'm accustomed to being in spaces that you know folks have to be that we do some educating i think that um that's going to be a critical piece so i just thank you jackie for saying that i wanted to add that like our our collective community conversation is going to be critical see could i make a comment uh uh that for me is important to put on the table i don't know am i muted or not let's see no i can hear
148you no we can't hear you yes i want i want to emphasize uh from a perspective of somebody who's been involved in this since the late 80s uh in this struggle since the late 80s how much of an archimedean lever uh is represented by the tracking uh the freshman class this initiative that uh is still being worked out and still being articulated it's worth oak park river forest high school throwing all of his energy and all of its intellectual imagination uh into this struggle to be successful at that you'll see that in the process of succeeding at detracting that is providing a an expanded opportunity for all students best things that are best for all students in the freshman year you will uncover and uncloak many of the problems that has for decades now blocked
149any progress at all in either achievement or in discipline the detracting process that whole struggle the justification of the allocation of resources the imagination imagining of how to do it effectively uh is worth every energy that if you're talking about where you go forward you should stay the course you started a course you should stay that course you will find if you've read at all despite the best intentions in chapters one and two you'll see just how powerfully uncloaking it will be for the uh freshman uh curriculum to be detract right so i'm i'm advocating if i can make any advocacy at all that you stay the course and you throw all of your energies into that you will solve many of the problems that has befuddled decades decades of administrators decades of superintendents decades
150of board members and decades of members of the thank community um thank you all for a very rich conversation i just wanted to uh you know share just one more thing and just as a question because i think you already got into some of these things this notion of staying of course kind of takes shape in two different places um when we look before at the the the problems or the barriers to implementation state of course means being able to implement fidelity but then also as we looked at the recommendations they call for institutional investments and so given the inevitable transfer of distribution or exchange superintendents change um i want to leave you with thoughts on how do we begin to institutionalize our current efforts to close this [Music] you know one thing that i
151think was really a couple years ago one of the most if not the most recurring discipline was tardiness this crazy cycle that was really almost existential this is nuts and so i feel like giving strives institutionally to minimize that and do away with that because i feel like just puts people in people in a way that is just so unjust and can create such um resentment and feelings um and i know a year or two ago there's this of this statistical observation that black students will eventually show up late for class even within a day and there's how to grapple with that and so that's i think where i heard mentioned earlier spiders we're experiencing the different cultures and and how it's you know i mean we have to where the meaning there's a ceremony
152right it's versus some sort of link to the meeting [Music] of making some progress in that description so we've had an opportunity for students to be leading the classes this year which is unfortunate i'm looking forward to a lot more potential part of this but um let's put that up there and if anyone wants to [Music] the students graduating from the same school this year were born [Music] you know situation but i do feel like we need to celebrate these sets of progress as well and we do feel like that's one where um you know maybe there's a little lighting fruit but we plopped it i think one of the things that has always struck me here and i think i hear some of our speakers talking about the part way which is you know
153i think a lot of times we try to do everything we try to do 20 programs or 30 programs and yes the issues are big are big but what we don't do is pick take de-tracking we don't pick that and implement it with real fidelity and real change and real deep conversations we none of us have to bandwidth to do that 30 times from 30 to 30 different programs we're the bandwidth to do that in one or two or three but three programs that really drive change and sort of reflect in what jackie said you know what where do we where do we leave this or what do we do i don't think it's about you know commitment to change i think this board has a ton of commitment you know to stay the course
154of doing but what we have to have is real focus and and you know yes we're very inclusive and yes we're going to have conversations with anybody everybody in the community about some of these issues but in the end you know we have to change it and we have to pick those things up the balance that we i just uh i just want to leave one one other uh pathway to a real deep and authentic and terrible and wonderful discussion about this and you know most of america is about who are the makers and who are the takers right who makes the stuff and who takes the stuff our kids are seen as takers our kids parents are seen as takers by the supremacist culture in our country so like we need to we need
155to irrigate that we need to interrogate that to the max because uh if you view it as a taker you're not respected uh there's no one to listen to you so you can talk all the positivistic uh rational logical authoritarian stuff but if you're if you've if you're viewing them from your high ground as a maker oh they're coming to get my stuff um so i just think that even kids could talk about that i diamond calls it opportunity hoarding right numbers anyone want to jump in you know i concur and uh the stay the course uh carl did excuse me dr spike that you said earlier is truly maybe we should emblazon that on uh t-shirts and and read it before we start all of our decision making because uh um i i continue
156to be struck by how it's when things seem to to feel as though it's not fair from a certain perspective and uh dr bailey you uh um more directly uh talked about that and you know i i think a couple of examples of that are are in the report and i this is just anecdotal from my own experiences but i can tell you that um you know project scholar and the uh clustering of students that was happening stopped not because it wasn't working but because it was working and then families with privilege who had other resources and didn't uh uh wanted the same things for their kids not because it was needed but they you know it was viewed as um well this is successful i my child should have individual time and and those
157types of things and discounting that there's so many spaces and a lot in my you know children as well spaces for my children where they do have that access to tutors and you know those types of meat so it wasn't being uh looked at that way and then with the clustering by uh it was here for my oldest son and then you know by the time my second son and then my daughters were here i asked i said well wait what what do you mean what happened and off the record conversations with folks that um no longer in the district but um saying a lot of teachers and parents didn't like the fact that they had all white classes that's not what they hit you know what oak park is supposed to be about it's
158about diversity so it wasn't about what's best for our students but we went back to the sprinkle method of each class having one or two black students that you know in ap and honors classes so that it felt diverse not was diverse but felt diverse and so those are the kind of uh the you know the the emotional aspects of this that that kind of stick to the heart of um bias and and that trauma that we inflict on our students that they are the only but it is for the broader system to feel better and that i from my you know vantage point and it's really why i'm on the board that's not what educating students is about it's not to make adults feel better or a community pat itself on the back so
159that's the hard work of are we doing right by our students and i i just continue to think that we have examples and we have to be honest in reflecting on those and name the the issues that have to do with bias racism privilege um you know hoarding of resources all of those things and stay the course stay the course indeed jackie the high school has his hands on an archimedean lever stay the course use it use it find the courage use it find the intelligence use it find the heart use it you have your hands on an archimedean lever you will uncloak all of those systemic problems that liver that's the one and we see it already because as soon as we started it all of the opposition that rose up was clearly like
160oh hey so i just i'm so grateful um doctors fight and dr bailey and uh and dr chandler for the ways that we can continue to move this work forward and for your um are you bringing your wisdom to our group today yeah i want to say thank you so much for for joining us thank you and i add one more thing too because rasheeda graham washington um she mentioned something to us in our session about um and dr bailey you referenced it um also was that um the takers right and the idea and the notion that um what we bring to what our black and brown students what our black leaders what we bring versus what we take and how much more enriched we are when we when everyone is is there an acknowledgement
161of what we bring right what we actually contribute and the value of who we are and what we bring to it so thank you for saying that also dr bailey i just wanted to um mention that because it was part of our other session too thank you cory i need a nap now okay i just wanted to say that um you know i i want to thank you all for having this conversation and um you know given these things as given what i've heard um you know i know that we have more to talk about but um i i just uh just closed by saying um i as we continue to do the work um you know we should be thinking about you know what it truly takes to understand the course now the 2003
162report tells us that this is not new to this district and the uh the despite the best intention smoke tells us that we're not alone in these challenges but staying of course seems to be uh necessary for us to make sure we can have fidelity and that we can uh institutionalize our efforts so um there's any next steps i appreciate it or lincoln i'll say lincoln yes i i witnessed a recent uh legal women voters uh forum for the six board candidates for oak park air force uh district 200 uh high school board i witnessed their that forum and all six candidates within one minute uh was able to get some get to some version of yes with respect to whether they supported the initiative for detracting the freshman class all six quibbled in one
163way or another with some of the detailed wording but within one minute which is what they had to respond yes or no to supporting detracting all six of them to my eye and ear said yes that's good news you have support in the new board one way or another that six candidates for the four positions open will be surely occupied by four candidates uh that all have said yes to supporting the attraction that's what i heard that's what i saw all right thank you so much this conversation is surely not over um but is the hour burst late do you feel recommended i i will just add this one will be so you know we had these intensive focus groups and surveys in terms of the um leadership profile for our new superintendent and i
164was encouraged by how much of the community seemed to feel that equity was one of our most important initiatives um that gave me some hope um and made me feel as though you know we're certainly on the right track and we're headed down better for a better day so thank you thank you yeah so um i am so sorry for that so we had two we had two lost public comments that did not get read um so forgive us um that is what we will do now so bailey's going to read those for us uh the first one is from fred arkan as a community member i find it appalling at the restructuring of special education i [Music] magnitude and construct must be embedded in public input needs to be obtained from all stakeholders students
165families faculty and staff the administration institutional community partners and the community at large survey results survey research and comparable data needs to be outlined and presented there needs to be an open transparency process replacing four members of our family with three administrators without public discourse does that ask the smell test i find it hard to believe that our current process is not compliant however there are multiple paths that can be taken to solve this problem and the process that that suits our district must be transparent and exclusive the next one is ramona kashihan our district performs best when issues and challenges are addressed by collaboration stakeholders administration community according to racial and gender equity policies revisions to handle dress code disciplinary procedures restorative chat justice practices and id policy and imagine i call on the
166board of education to create a board committee inclusive all stakeholders to take on this challenge returning next year to the board with the evidence research equity evaluation and multiple alternative solutions needed for the district to transparently resolve this challenge i appreciate the opportunity to make a public comment this evening and respectfully request the district 200 board place and action on enough this board's general meeting agenda on march 25th the requested agenda item is a discussion and vote to fund and renovate now the 20 remaining classrooms placed on hold in project 1. the total cost of the 20 classrooms is 1.4 million dollars district 200 has an extra 2 million dollars due to the budget surplus resulting that would more than cover the cost of these classrooms renovations this 2 million is in addition to the
16790 million that's sitting in the school's cash rates here and 20 million of it's still in earmark for the future facility improvements in project 2 with its 37 people by 25 year old who will house in a 600 seat editorial when the board approved this construction of project one in december 2018 it was stated that it contained the school's priority academic and special education so many improvements there's no logical reason to delay their innovation on this priority of classrooms as the school has the money and the cost of these academic facilities improvements will only increase as construction costs rise three to four percent annually thank you all right thank you for indulging us uh item of um instruction is the 2021 2022 staffing recommendations making the presentation of this honor sponsored by sanders assistant superintendent
168human resource mr gray johnson associates superintendent michelle crossover executive director of special education and mr christopher payne director of educational technology each year administration provides our board of education with distracting recommendations for each campaign the staffing representatives are moved into four categories based upon the role of the position in each category of plays and providing services to our students they are instruction which is classroom positions instructional support non-classroom positions non-instructional support positions at the conclusion of this presentation it is recommended that the staffing representations move forward for approval at the march 25th board of education meeting this honor is in [Music] goal one district policy three cold and thirty and six colonies thank you dr boyd each year in march the administration presents with the board of education staffing recommendations for the next school year
169uh they're expressed in full prime equivalency this is a reminder for a [Music] represents recommendations based on analysis of the student enrollment projections course collections as well as the summer review of the existing faculty levels and proposals for new positions that were submitted to the executive career the staffing recommendations are grouped into four categories based on the role each of the positions uh plays in providing services to other students the first one is instructional or classroom positions um i will provide an overview for each of these categories and uh the rationale for new positions will be presented by mrexcel and so for instructional classroom project position our current allocation of fpe is 222.1 after a starter review of course proposals and texturing uh we determined that there is a need for additional fc in some
170positions in some divisions and other divisions were going down in their sections the overall effect of that is a reduction of 0.99 accordingly accordingly recommend to decrease overall instructional fte by 0.99 for a total of 221 points of them instructional support for non-classroom instructional positions currently have an allocation of 51.3 fde the recommendation for the next school year is to eliminate four special education program sharing positions and end one position for the faculty assignment which is a psychologist position then that in fact decreasing instructional support fce by 3.0 um next category is non-instructional support position and this is the category that consists of classified professionals building and grounds employees full service employees can have safety importance and not affiliated so currently we have 94 classified professionals 44 building grounds employees 30.5 to service fce 27.2
171fp in campus safety and 45 known affiliates after rejection for consideration and the staffing needs we are recommending maintaining the existing staffing levels for all groups of non-instructional support employees with the exception of classified professionals and not affiliated the changes that will be recommended here are based on perpetration so for for instance we will have two retirements in special education secretary positions we are recommending replacing it with wrong um another recommendation is a rare allocation of um another classified position that becomes a vacant due to retirement to in the non-affiliated position of the associated development so that's the summary of the non-instructional support positions and the last candidate means administrators um administrators of individuals who are working under the professional engineering license plus an administrative enforcement so finally we have 19.6 for administrators and then
17213.00 management positions that do not require a professional computer license with an administrative endorsement oh for the next school year we are recommending an addition of four administrative position licensed positions sweden special education iranian instructional technology um the overall effect of the proposed changes in terms of financial impacts um will be total savings of over 200 thousand dollars we're estimating there to be 200 thousand to twenty two thousand dollars and uh now turn it over to ms francois to talk about special education changes thank you [Music] thank you dr sanders and thank you board and thank you staff and parents for being here tonight i want to lead into the recommendations for the special education staffing restructuring by saying the one thing that i know i come to work appreciating every day is the um
173understanding that special education is beloved and old part i think one of the things that's evident tonight is that special education is at the cornerstone of what we do here at clark in education and it brings a lot of people together under not only times of uh celebration but also times of solidarity stressed i also want to make sure that i add that this is these are all been satisfactory to special education in oak park at the same time i want to also say that i know that my time in our park as a special education executive director has been short i've also come to learn and assess by listening to not only my staff but parents students and community members that there are some things that we need to improve upon and do better
174part of that included me uh coming to learn that we are private and balanced and inequitable in our structure and practices which greatly impacts our compliance with state and federal guidelines and social education the same guidelines that govern how we serve our kids the great thing is we have no ability to restructure this design to become one that reflects and communicates both internally and externally a coherent and efficient system that is in compliance with both bisbee and ida guidelines the recommendations being made today are not to displace get rid of staff devalue staff or disrupt relationships however it is about compliance and policy integration and ensuring that every decision that we make is timely and does not disrupt and does not deny any of the services that we're obligated to provide to our diverse learners
175it is also about equity and access for every diverse learner of old parker river forest high school when i say a coherent system i mean the foundation of consistent coordinated components of an organizational structure that can be responsive to the needs of our staff our colleagues and most importantly the kids that we serve day to day that brings me into the recommendations that i'm making for them at behalf of the division of special education on the staffing restructuring of the department for the non-instructional recommendations dr sanders has already read i'm going to go into the recommendations of the role of programs here and the function of the role of programs due to the involvement demands in special education program care positions are currently part of faculty senate bargaining agreement they have been serving in the
176capacity of not having teaching responsibility these physicians however do not have the supervisory or administrative authority to perform any tasks necessary to oversee special education programming and when we say that that means we've identified several challenges that have been brought to our attention from a combined standpoint we do not have the administrative authority in these function of the roles to make the commitment of provision of resources and the ability to ensure that these services are set up in in the iep and be implemented the function of the ropes also are unable to assign supervise and evaluate their peers and handle sensitive personnel matters in the programs in which the chair the physicians shared they do not also um have the authority to communicate to families decisions about the allocation of fiscal resources as it relates
177to how students um not only the provision of specialized resources will be fiscally funded and also interdisciplinary matters that require an administrative oversight it also does not increase function of the roles does not include the administrative authority to discuss discipline that is um without any input from a district administrator the other rationale are the recommendations for the restructuring of the function of the role of program share positions also has to do with uh being able to make sure that we are not being at a standstill to make decisions when we are in iep meetings which goes to the role of the purpose of the elected it does not mean that the people that are currently serving the role are not doing an effective job it does mean that we are obligated to ensure that we
178have that we uphold our pursuit my i oppose the future responsibility of being a compliance it is not something that i feel that should be putting the obligation on our parents or our staff to resolve i do think that as you hire me as the executive director and to assess the needs of the department but i find that to be my responsibility the recommendation is to ensure that we have three positions that have the administrative oversight that's needed at every stage in the special education process one of the physicians is a special education supervisor position instructional the position of special education supervisor is needed to provide additional administrative supervision and support with specific focus on the delivery of special education services in the district's instructional programs within the least distributed environment the special education and
179supervisor instructional will be charged with supervising and evaluating a science special education staff implementing maintaining and evaluation services evaluating services within established guidelines for idea and is the special education rules and regulations the second position is a special education supervisor off-campus in transition position the position of the special education supervisor in this role is needed to provide additional administrative supervision and support with specific focus on the provision of special education services and off off-campus placement as well as the coordination and case management of student transition back into district programming and services of course when deemed appropriate the special education supervisor will be charged with supervising evaluating and evaluating to the science special education staff and implementing and maintaining evaluating evaluating program services within the established guidelines of idea and easy special education rules and regulations
180the third position is an iep coordinator position the position of the iep coordinator is needed to provide oversight in the area of iep compliance and facilitation of iop meetings and alignment with these guidelines regarding the delivery of free and appropriate education services for students the imp coordinator will train and support iep team members in developing implementing and monitoring imp goals and individual education programs including accommodations and supports the position will coordinate and oversee iep implementation executed by each case manager within a division in addition to supervising iep team the iep coordinator will supervise the scheduling secretary and oversee developing and maintaining a yearly schedule of service staffings that meet the special education timelines for ibd this also is the iep coordinator special education supervisor off-campus transition and special education supervisor instructional these positions are also
181being recommended to to restructure the imbalance workloads among the current positions that as they function right now or get any questions uh in the practices i think there's two more from chris uh if you want would you do it too late we could have christopher's in here and then the boy has questions on the two or we can do the questioning now on a special ad restructuring and then move to christmas okay members do you have a preference for what you're going to do can we start with the special ed restructuring sure [Music] i have questions yes um so my first question is first thank you for the information my first question is what were the metrics that were used to determine how this change was made was there a quantifier where there's some quantifying
182factors related to the amount of students the amount of current administrators and the amount of work that the workload that the current administrators have that they could not um because what i'm hearing is it sounds as if the one aspect that is not doable by the current program chairs is the evaluatory piece um so i'm just curious what metrics were used for this determination thank you some of them and there was a there are a couple of different metrics that were used one is the workload that you mentioned current structure is that there is a recognition of the imbalance in the workload amongst the current roles of program chairs the number of meetings that they attend the level of decision making that they have to make at currently at these meetings have often repositive chapter
183reschedule numerous meetings to ensure that there is a decision-making partnership they are included on the provision of special education services and also the part of their entries also includes just the day-to-day operations within the division and also within the roles that they carry supporting teachers but at being able to evaluate them being able to address not being able to address personnel matters and or student discipline matters while also running on iep meetings the other part that we're looking at is an accountability piece to our compliance with idea uh and psp guidelines which carries a significant amount of um work and responsibility and right now the function of those roles as they stand right now we do have the day-to-day data that tells us that sometimes we have to intervene in a way where we need
184to make sure that there may not be a time where there may be a time where we need to intervene where there's a delay in services where's the delay in decision making where there may be um an inability to make a decision at that time requiring us to uh reschedule and and redo meetings within the division those are some of the metrics that we're looking at right now that have been assessed over the years before i even got here and also since then i've been here uh this past seven eight months but thank you i have a follow-up to that because i what i'm hearing is there's just it's still there's work that they're not able to do but i'm curious outside of the evaluatory piece i know that lea so my experience with special
185ed and i'm not a special ed teacher but i am an el english language indoor specialist and so i've worked closely with our special ed and been part of many an iep meeting and um in my experience there's and have attended some lea meetings as well um in my experience those roles can be done there's that like i have watched ieps be changed in meetings without having to have an administrator approval based on the conversation of the team and the um and the family right and the needs of the student and the specialists that are in that room so i'm i'm not clear on that piece of it and then i'm also um i'm also a little uh confused as to the pieces outside of evaluatory parts um i'm not sure i'm not sure the
186metric for needing to have three more three more administrators to do evaluation of these staff is there a certain number of staff per evaluation per you know certain number of administrators per evaluation and then lastly i'm curious why um or if actually i have a wondering if the um staff could not be trained in some of these areas that you're saying that they're not currently not currently doing versus hiring um new administrators to do those roles so i um i yeah it's just my experience is contrary to what you're saying and i'm also not clear on why the folks that have those positions cannot be trained in those ways outside of it outside of the evaluatory piece which makes sense inside that they cannot evaluate their own collective bargaining unit members i get that um
187how many administrators are needed to do this evaluation what kind of metrics were used to determine that you need three or even if you it's just going to be the one how many people are they evaluating that another current administrator could not be evaluated thank you for those questions our board member out here the evaluation component is just one component it's not all inclusive of the um the work that has to be done the other part here one thing that you mentioned the training component the training component in the decision making that they're currently making is being done we do have to make sure that we're in compliance with not disrupting any of the services that we provide to our students that does happen because sometimes we do have to make sure that there is
188an administrative of a person of an administrative authority that can make sure that they can intervene and make the decisions that they may not be able to make the other part is that the function of the role as it stands right now is not one as the program structure role to include the responsibilities that the growth that i just outlined that they can do as they stand right now for example an iep coordinator who is monitoring the compliance of iep goal development progress monitoring discipline provision of special education services they also have the administrative authority to go back and say that if a student was not provided those services were not there was a disruption in those services there's a accountability component that they have to that they have to have and right now as
189the positions of a program chair is in alignment with their uh teachers in the same collective bargaining agreement they can't make those decisions it puts them in a very precarious position in order to handle those positions into those decisions so then we do have to step in and given the fact that they are currently um over we have over 15 percent almost 17 special education students the number of meetings that they we have to have every year if we do was just those one meetings as our annual review conferences or eligibility meetings um that would be it but oftentimes we have to step in and reschedule meetings because we know that there are sensitive matters that we have to address and those things become problematic because at that moment we are stepping outside of our
190compliance of the special education rules and regulations so could you could could is it possible for you to provide then for us how often that happens that there's a need for someone to step in what the what the metrics would be for that how many how many meetings is this happening for how many students is this happening for i just feel like there's not there's not enough it's not definitive enough um to be warranted at this point to me outside of what outside of the evaluation piece so i i would i would really want to see a lot more um specificity thank you we can definitely provide her other comments or questions i just wanted to provide a response to the evaluation piece because the question was what is the ratio how many uh personnel
191our product administrators currently we have two special education administrators there are uh 60 licensed individuals in the division that they have to evaluate that's 30 for fees plus uh there are also non-certified positions um secretaries and of course i would just ask that members of the audience one dr sanders sure um thank you sarah you said um 60 people need to be evaluated yes and is that 60 special education teachers or are they 60 special well i'm not i'm not clear who those 60 people are that other administrators individuals faculty members cooperate under a professional educator license so that's teachers we have uh psychologists we have social workers we have nurses they all fall under uh and there aren't the there's no capacity for who's evaluating these people now the current administrators don't have the
192capacity to continue to evaluate these folks we can continue to examine the way that the staff that's not the problem but one of the things that is though that the part of the problem is we may not always be in that in that working within the classroom environment or observing that classroom environment during that time to see how instruction is provided to see how students are performing so we oftentimes definitely as if we can get to all those teachers in a meaningful way we do do that but it has been very difficult to do that because it pulls us away from other work that we need to make sure they're doing on behalf of supporting the students supporting the staff and adhering to the other administrative responsibilities that we have i want to go back
193to one of the things that i said earlier today about making sure that this is not about um just uh top-down the compliance piece is not about checking out the list to tell us what we're doing wrong it's also to tell us what we actually need to incorporate into our continuing services to better certain kids it's not to highlight or punish anyone and also part of the conversation to go back to earlier that was made that also includes making sure that we are seeing and engaging with our students and building those same relationships and that is we are we do our often rpr on the ground in the building going from either classroom to classroom or engaging with students and addressing parent concerns as well so the program chairs don't currently do that that's not
194what i'm doing that's not what i'm saying but i was going back to the evaluation piece and making sure that that is meaningful and the attention that they take from the time that that takes and to get that done yeah so that's the metric i'm looking for there then i'm trying to understand the amount of time the quant i need to know the numbers of how many evaluations how many administrators i feel like somehow i'm missing something something is missing in this for me so thank you very much i will stop now for real because then let other people speak i think um one of the questions tied to the number of evaluations also depends on where that teacher is on his or her cycle so sometimes it entails um several formative observations before the
195summative is done so i just wanted to add that in and i believe right now all the teacher the certified type of individuals have gone down this franchise does that help i still would like a little more specificity like i i'd really like to see the breakdown on how many are evaluated and how many administrators are needed for that as well as i'd like to see how many um how many this this the issue the the issue that these positions are supposed to solve i would like to know how how many times is that occurring that warrants changing these positions [Music] um thank you for you know explaining the rationale and a lot of this is really very um there's so many assets to this and i heard a bunch we all some of these
196things have been you know applies for years technically but we've made it through his institution especially in light of all that we're all going through particular students and families students so what is the downside to holding off and maybe this is the right decision to make but maybe this is not the right time for me very good question and i think it both brings me back to the mentioning of data over the past years 2020 has shown us that the data reflects has true impact on the mental health social emotional health the academic progress the academic engagement attendance the feeling of self-worth that school is doable and the impact it has been having on not only our students and our families but also on our staff when you don't feel that you can be empowered
197to get an already tough job done and you layer that or compound that with seeing your students in such a difficult place it almost makes you feel powerless and i see that the other part of it is is that special education and program development takes work and we are in a placement and we do have a sense of urgency to build that continuum in foreign and supportive infrastructure so that we can position and support our staff serve our students maintain compliance and make sure we are responsive when i think of why now i think of preparedness i think of support i think of responsibility to make sure we can serve our kids after offending we don't know the true impact until our babies are big seats and when they are in seats we need to
198be able to respond if we wait a year we're saying 2021 didn't happen and we cannot afford what i don't know is i heard a pretty unanimous opposition from and [Music] you know that that there's just such there's so many concerns and so much distress happening that um so i'm just letting you know that that's my struggle is in terms of whether to approve this kind of request in a couple of weeks i am not close to being there because of what i've heard and i i know having covered meetings like this for a long time in my career i know sometimes you hear a few people speak and there's thousands at home are content and so it's a skewed thing but these you know this is different in my view so so i i
199need to hear more from you swayed to where where you're coming from is being transparent yeah i definitely can understand that and i know that one thing that is uh important is that change um right now i truly understand can be difficult because they're already dealing with being uncertain about each day what school will look like i totally understand that i also say that any time that you have a change where someone feels like this will be your loss i understand what that means i also at the same time understand what it means when i hear that this has been a problem for years this has been going on since i got here we've been going through this so long and so much this is what we know when a system has not addressed this
200system the structure of special education right now and this board structure has not addressed problems that have continued to go on year to year that means that when it comes to serving our kids serving our parents we're trying to exist within a system that is not working for them and i definitely understand that any transition right now it's going to have to be a very closely supported transition the input of staff and input of students the influence of parents i definitely value that and when they're input of the people in these roles what does that need to look like i did not want to be pre-emptive and say give me your input now even that they may not move forward with this a supportive transition process has to occur and then that's a part of
201our first listening to see what do you need this to apply for you thank you turn over those questions thank you my question is that um i heard repeated references to the current um the incumbents as what it was instructional coaches so my question is is that part of i that surprised me i guess but i'm not that close to that specific role is that part of what is in the current role and where does instruct instructional coaching fit in within the special ed umbrella please so i think i hear what you're saying is what does the instructional coaching teachers play over how does that play a role within the current positions now and how do they continue yeah is it in the current job requirement and is it something what will it be in
202the new structure please maybe i just should clarify the terminology that i use was not the instructional coach it was ins in instructional support position which is opposed to classroom position so it's still within the faculty center it's instructional support we have a number of physicians that are not in the classroom but they provide support to students like for example psychologists um social workers these are instructional support positions but just so that i'm clear that when i'm talking i didn't hear it from you i i'm referring to what was said during repeated public comment there was repeated there were repeated references to instructional coach so i think that was a reference not the fact that so the district has people who have been identified specifically as instructional coaches i think what you've heard tonight from
203the various people who spoke is that they see the uh program chair as a coach for them helping them to meet their needs and get their situations handled not that they are the identified instructional coaches of the district they are a support system for the members of the state staff thank you sarah can hear me yes go ahead oh i'm sorry um i i'm curious um ms francois blue you've uh said that this has been a an issue or um concerns that you inherited for the most part i'm paraphrasing and uh so it sounds as though there is information data to support this decision that perhaps has not been um shared with the board i because i i share the the sentiment of i feel like there's a there's something that's here that some people
204know what what it is and and the board is being asked to render a decision without having that context or that data so i i would appreciate that i also just wanted to ask the the program chairs these uh three areas are not the programs are not being eliminated correct no programs okay so what what do they what will they look like uh moving forward and that's one piece and then the other piece is how many uh out of the uh entire special ed uh department how many students are able to access these programs [Music] your questions about the program the programs are not being eliminated you answer questions about how are they functioning are you talking about how the program comes in are the people or the position being proposed i'm asking because there
205was there seems to be some confusion that um you know um advocating for specific staff members who are these program chairs that they're being removed from the the school that the elimination of this these positions means the elimination of the work so i just i'm trying to make sure that that there's clarity on on that piece that these programs are continuing and there will be oversight and uh staff and you know all of those things so i'm just trying to understand how um the where the misconception is coming up that the elimination of these um the restructuring of these uh positions means some harm to the to the existence of the programs should be made no programs are being eliminated no we are not um eliminating uh staff we are looking at the the role
206and the function of the role and that is going to be restructured in normal purposes the function of the role the one thing that i also wanted to make sure that i go back to in terms of the additional information that i definitely can provide to the board is that when we talk about the structure of the administrative team we have to be able to make sure we can communicate not only to internally to our internal stakeholders and also to our external stakeholders what do each of these roles mean and what will people be doing right now our points of contact your line of support is very very fragmented and blurred sometimes we don't know who will be that point of contact or who should i go to and who's gonna make this decision every
207day i see communication from parents who are say asking who do i need to go to who can give me this decision and make this right for me and those are the things that we're trying to make sure that we bring into a cohesive structure so that we can be effective in how we're serving our students today we do have i do have a um the special education uh organizational structure that i can share it should be right it's also another one which shows how the different uh roles and the functions of those roles will be eliminated we're working within those roles will be delineated there's several things that had to be examined which is also how you embarrass the number of meetings that people have but also how do you shift some of those
208responsibilities into someone else so that there is the balance and structure of support for each role in each role every dog each person plays the other part of our day-to-day support who will rotate and be that's a program support participant each day for every king of the building we don't want to make we want to make sure that the division in special education has a leadership structure they can provide that so there are a number of things there are a number of factors and measures of data that i can provide as to strengthening further that rationality so i it sounds as though um and i don't want to put words i'll just ask a question is this an attempt to um provide access to more special ed students of the uh services and the advocacy
209and and decisions that need to ensure they're getting the the proper resources that is not occurring now it is not occurring in the in an equitable way that we would like to see it occur so when when you say i just i need us to talk so i i know you're you're and that perhaps it's better uh for uh dr pruitt adams to address given the the fact that it predates you what is the the equity issue what what what are we talking about really wasn't so much the equity of students having access uh is our understanding that there were um the delay in the delivery of services oftentimes happen because the program chairs could not make the formal decisions that needed to be made and so oftentimes meetings had to be rescheduled until the
210director could be in that meeting to make that decision and i answer that there's when you talk to dr martin when you ask pretty clearly what all what also is the equity issue our quarter one review of grades received for our special education students revealed that we had assigned grades of f's to special education students in excess of 60 that is not a position that is not something that right now we can say the functional role of a program chair can address an administrator can only address the practice of instruction and the obligation of adhering to compliance and special education as it relates to how do you grade how do you accommodate how do you differentiate instruction hiring you and find culturally responsive instructional practices that is always something that an administrator coaches do that
211but you said you had instructional coaches don't instructional coaches do that as well instructional coaches coach um educators in all of those practices as well instructional cultures do that but specialists in special education have to be those instructional coaches to augment that as well so we don't i want to make sure that i'm just i'm referencing examples of that thank you i'm just trying to understand because if we if instructional coaches do that if we've had them some of them mentioned that they consider these program chairs to be coaches to them and i think that you said that or someone said that that they consider them to be coaches for them i'm trying to understand tina i'm sorry but i think my understanding and i'm just sorry because it's a way to ask two questions
212at once the reference to coaching was that advocacy for families or was that for teachers when when and that's what i coaches to expect to me because that they're not instructional cultures i think i want to make sure we're talking about the right thing so and i also just wanted to make sure that i go back to the instructional coach piece as separate because i think that has came up that we don't want to work in isolation and say it is left up to one person special education is something that we have to make sure that we are being very very clear that it is a specialized service based on the impact of the student's disability and what they need that may mean that one person in a separate division whose role is to be
213an instructional coach separate from coaching and supporting kids and staff that doesn't mean they hold that spiritual responsibility on their own that is the responsibility of the special education leadership structure to make pro to ensure that that's being done and that's the administrative oversight piece that we're referencing which is why we spend so much time thinking can we make these goals work can they function in this way will we be putting them in a position where they are at odds with their peers if we do that those are all additional factors that students that came back that has played a part in making these administrative positions and i also want to just underscore administrative positions that are opportunities that are opportunities the current people that are in the program career roles i don't think we've
214mentioned that jackie i don't know if you have any follow-up questions or if uh ralph or craig would have any my only follow-up and i want to keep it really brief is to pile on what gina said i think we need more information and i think it'd be nice to know in a written format here are the compliance issues we think we're cleaning up here's the problem we we identified in the pre-existing system here is why these positions solve that problem here's why that's better than the existing structure you know i i would like to know all i geno laid it out much better than i am but i i kind of want to see the why and and and and the response to the why are all in in one form one written format
215so that i can understand it because frankly i don't as currently presented i mean i was thinking for me visually with different types of learners and so for me it would be helpful to see how it's done now step by step of a journey of a student from eighth grade coming in for orientation and so on all the way through to the programs around campus you know and into the early 20s right this is how it's been and this is in in maybe not every single block in this sequence is affected as much as the other of course but where's the login where's the flaws currently and what would the new approach do to help her make that and [Music] you know what's lost in that process it may be what's lost it's inefficiency and
216just people having to work crazy hours you know on the staff and you know what i mean so that's me and maybe it's not a realistic ask on my part but that'll help me to get it because this is all a foreign language to me so wherever they can come back for me and maybe for all of us and if you need me to clarify this anyway let me know okay um right yeah um uh thank you for all the global detail and the articulation that they put into this to me that you have thought deeply about this topic i have two things one question can is there any reason that the current program chairs cannot apply for these so if they chose to do that they could do that and granted they would have
217lots of relationships which we heard about today and lots of is you know i know you're you're pulling up a lot of data for other board members i don't need that data board work is from what i've been trying to figure out are we making a good decision it's not about getting down into that detail so i don't think that um and beloved right so i just want to be really clear to everyone which i think you've articulated well this isn't about people in the positions right this is about a structural change an organizational change um of course having people in those positions makes that tough right but the the place where i'm at is sort of i think a little bit different from my colleagues um my concern really is around what replaces this
218right like how you know these these program chairs are clearly filling a need um you know we've heard that from parents it sounds like they're serving certain that's personal um so like what replaces that um i don't i don't think that we've had i i don't think we know right like i'm not sure we'd have that conversation with families with you know with the stakeholders to kind of figure out how to fill that breach because there would undoubtedly be one can expand this um and so i heard you say that that was something that you wanted to address once we kind of knew what was going to happen um but i feel like that needs to be the first question right and so that's that's where i am in this position i'm not i'm not
219a no question to craig's question just real quick um craig's question was about could could they currently apply to be an administrator you need a credential are you saying that they all have the credentials to like they don't have to go seek another credential in order to apply for that position right they all can apply for the position that they have and i don't want to speak on someone's professional uh credentials out of terms but they have the credential of the type 75 there are additional qualifications and that credentials that are outlined in each of the proposed job descriptions but that doesn't mean that it negates them from their client right thank you so i just want to make sure so they can't apply but it's not like they can that like they're automatically qualified
220for those positions right now they would need they could there would be other requirements that would be necessary i just want to make that clarification yes because of the change in the roles yeah thank you uh gina to the best of my knowledge all four uh program chairs called an administrator of yours that would qualify them that would be the minimum legal requirements that uh and i just wanted to add like we were talking a lot about individuals today i really agree with everything that was said in all the public comments these are wonderful individuals we never doubted their quality of work this is not about them it's about by nature of how this position is structured they're at this advantage because they cannot make the decision that is required at the iep meeting they
221have to oftentimes call for an administrator and that's that's what delays just i'm confused now like so i know i keep coming back with questions but i'm confused now because you said they all have that administrative license but they can't make those decisions so i'm understand i'm misunderstanding then the technicality behind that you have to work under administrative endorsement oh the fact that they have it doesn't mean that they can use it you have to be in your sighted position in order to be able to utilize administrative endorsements so they technically okay thank you thank you [Music] right so i think part of what we're hearing from families is not just how much they prefer folks filling these roles but but really like who's going to do this for them right how are they going
222to get the answers how are they going to feel supported and i think that that's a very good question i think we're i want to separate the administrative um role and function and make sure that we are seeing that in line with being that conduit between school and parent sometimes it's assumed that it's an administrator they're far removed they're not connected they don't know kid when that's the direct opposite we want to make sure that these roles encompass all of that too because we don't want to see that we don't want to see the relationships or have people in these roles that cannot connect with kids do not know our students do not know our parents so i think that there's that kind of is a misnomer that if the role is an administrative role
223and it doesn't remain the same then it means that it's going to jeopardize that when that's that's not the case and i want to make i want to give a kind of a very very clear example i had a parent this week who i've been navigating trying to get that student not only into their hybrid programming but also on the often days into the learning class the parent i've been corresponding stuff for almost two and a half weeks we finally got all of the barriers removed for the student to start the student started this week but he's only been in the building twice mom has my cell phone and she called me and she said i don't know where my student [Music] okay because in parent's mind they know who you are and you could
224be absolutely absolutely so what i'll do is say this the student did arrive however i made sure that because the student wasn't in a classroom okay different examples of context already then i will i'll give a different example some of our parents may need a person that's going to be a point of contact for certain things that some of our parents are going to need a point of contact for something day-to-day and we want to make sure that these positions whether they're administrative or not have the ability to do that it doesn't matter if they are an administrator who has authoritative oversight or whether they're a teacher or a support staff that relationship building and that conduit of being that connection between community and schools or homes is imperative no matter the structure of the
225world so each person in these positions are going to be able to continue that and that's the expectation that we should have that thank you that they continue that work and that there's no removal of that okay that i wasn't clear on that piece so just to paraphrase to make sure i understand what you need to understand so the the roles being filled now in terms of this like liaison for the families and this you know intermediary to help navigate that would still be covered by the new role just that new world would have an additional additional responsibilities and one of the things in terms of the data the information that draft structural structure kind of outlines that because there's several times that we hear that i may not know who to go to who
226should i talk to about this and who can resolve this problem even clearly to the point where who is in control here who has this ability to help me with this so we really want to make sure that there's a structure where everybody is not only aligned in that administrative order oversight but there's no imbalance in the work and seeing that every day things get done on behalf of kids does that make sense yeah it does um so i believe i could prove that this is going to recap to make sure that she's got all the pieces um but if i could just click here for that um if for some you know if this doesn't if the timing doesn't work out to bring this forward this year um i would strongly encourage um more
227sort of you know and if the plan ends up being to bring this next year i would strongly encourage more collaboration and more sort of stakeholder engagement with families to kind of prepare them for this um possibilities i think that it's fair uncertainty in depth right like that's sort of the bugaboo of all fans right like people want to know [Music] to substantiate the reason for the restructure i've heard from the board of clarification specifically for the world's responsibilities uh that's my words not theirs that make this position the positions requested different from how they exist and why we need a different individual to do it versus the people who are currently filling those visits and i'm going to say that [Music] um i want to say the longitudinal data because one of the questions
228dr moore asked was previous to now what data points do we have and then the data point together this current year is [Music] important i need to so thank you for you know following the questions um in all of you um that's not to remember my question in a few seconds oh imbalance i've been hearing the word balance workload it seems like there's some people on staff who are my perceptions that are getting an avalanche of work and others are not and is that an accurate the word imbalance was chosen because there is a problem that needs to be addressed in the and only the uh which is part of the restructuring positions are being recommended as they are the number of meetings that one may have to attend how often they may have to
229attend another meeting to problem solve an issue that was not able to be solved before um as an example of that in balance so so is is that there would be more efficiency that may be less meaning more efficient within and coming out of meetings particularly the authority to make a decision [Music] the other thing i've heard though in our closing statement that you know as we begin to gather the data and analyze it if we realize that this is not the appropriate time that we take a step back and bring it forward once we can compile [Music] can i add one more thing because i can't help myself because um because the district has made a commitment to restorative processes and being a restorative community it sounded more that this decision was a two
230decision versus a with decision with the staff and i would um encourage that as we bring this back um that conversations are you know that it's if we're establishing a restorative culture it really does involve doing things with people so i would love to hear that as present in the process as well right um so i know that mr theme also has a presentation we've been it's been four hours you guys um does anybody need a break or can we go straight to chris and then take a break [Music] oh i'm back was that you tom that set your back trying to eat some dinner too you know right it's it sounded like you but i wasn't looking and i was like huh is that tom tom i think you and i are just ready
231and ralph we're ready where's everybody else and gina i have an entenmann's chocolate donut oh nice chocolate icing i want to tell you these things rock it sounds delicious thanks ralph i would like one bro okay next time ralph you can't you can't unless you're going to share with the whole class don't bring stuff that's that's why i didn't come [Laughter] particularly if it's chocolate i will just throw that little part in there too you know dr moore i don't know if you've had these entamon chocolate covered chocolate donuts but they are just addictive i i have on bad days eating half a box some of our fellow board members can attest and as well as superintendent to uh the chocoholic and i will be clear that that's the the part the chocoholic brownies cookies
232there's probably not a brand i have not uh sampled okay well while we're waiting for the in-person for the rumors to get on board with us here um jackie have you had coconut almond joy cookies from the jewel no and i will just tell you why i i don't want to be a snob but i i am a bit of a purist so i i feel like once i learned how to bake that it changed it changed a lot of things and then certain uh local establishments spilt milk is i feel like they're my sisters too so um that's where i usually get my my baked goods and having a daughter that loves to bake has been a problem well none of that baking is happening in my house so you know feel free to
233bake and we can pick up of course seriously lin i will send pictures lindsay is amazing i'm calling her out in a public meeting but she loves to bake and always trying new things and you know giving her a cookbook for for baking you would think that i just gave her a car so she loves it okay well we're hoping to receive over here i will let her know my chocolate chip cookies oatmeal chocolate chip cookies brownies there's a a chocolate theme with most of my baking chocolate cream pie those are my my thanks okay when well when we're all vaccinated and in person you know now there's an expectation of chocolate alrighty i'm there up there well i was gonna do before before this whole covet thing i was going to invite the board
234over for dinner with their significant or insignificant others or arm candy or whatever they wanted to come with and now i it's going to have to wait till we're all vaccinated and safe but dr moore you'll get invited anyway and i'll try to make sure we have something chocolate focused for dessert or i can bring it if if that helps but thank you for still including me and i will just say that uh my significant other considers calls himself arm candy when we're campaigning so i'll let him decide i love that we can still be this jovial at a 10 41 or we're just kind of slappy and we really we really as a team need to find a way to move these along quicker i don't know what the answer is but we really
235do because at a certain point we all start fading i mean you could see it in our faces right yeah and we've got some important stuff that we still have to talk about right and i don't know that we honestly are as focused as we would like to be at least i'm not after a certain hour and today you know we all have different days that are brutal this turned into my brutal day i didn't plan on it being a brutal day but it started at 4 30 this morning and i'm still staring at a flipping screen and i'm i am about to melt down i did not expect it to be a brutal day today either but it definitely turned into that so the you know i think the five minute break is up
236rumor people people in the room can we get started like the zoomers are ready the zoomers are ready to go i i told gina this and this is that the first time i heard uh zoomers and rumors i was thinking are you more not rumors and i was like oh my god what's going on tells you the last time i was in a room well all i know is the zoomers are ready we're we're all here and we have plans for cookies i think we have plans for jackie and or jackie's daughter's cookies is what we've got plans for i love it what else can we decide while we're waiting right exactly wait gail's back almost i think we're almost there and i didn't even know what door dash was a year ago and now
237it's a basic part of my life exactly sad oh they're finally ready thanks rumors for being ready the zoomers have been waiting i think you all heard that all right it's been handling okay all right so i think we're ready [Music] we have two positions that are bringing forward for your consideration i'd like to delve into the associate web developer position first we did a restructuring several years ago as a previous cio was going into retirement we were looking at our current status we were realigning uh the job responsibilities with that staff and um in on one side of our department um we've done what i feel is a very good job in structuring it for some of the more nuts and bolts aspects of what uh educational technology is responsible for us our network
238our help desk in our databases that we were able to put under one umbrella the director was oversight over those areas so that we could effectively manage and keep all of those functioning one area that fell in there as well was a website and keeping up the website and so the data systems became web and data services and through the course of that the manager who was primarily responsible for the web originally was now manager of date assistance which is in itself definitely a full-time job and a little bit more than that as well so he's uh managing that department um there are two uh data analysts that are working under him and besides the cyclical nature that comes with data systems the uh yearly reporting report cards supporters making sure everything is in place
239um there is also the need for additional assessment what you've seen on the data awareness is just the tip of the iceberg of some of the work that department has been doing in making um data warehouse views that are applicable and useful for different areas of the school to make data-driven decisions now all of that falls into the same area that oversees the website and so essentially what we've been doing is uh dealing with critical items when something is web related and it needs to be dealt with immediately um that's when we're getting getting to it we aren't doing things proactively to the extent that we'd like to be um and we aren't maintaining it as well as we should and so we're looking at that as an as an area that we needed to
240apply some additional support to and so we uh have this associated web developer position that we're bringing today and so i i like to kind of do this in two parts like to open it up to any questions you may have [Music] okay i'll just keep talking the way i was talking about the awards i'm just talking through is my wife working and indeed it's working better so um the uh so i think it clearly is indeed right the website has so many little nooks and crannies it's you know so uh and it's just we're doing this again with the resources we've had the question i have is where are we we always compare ourselves to other schools and they're in our niche right of the in the region or nationally how bad are we
241or are we actually above average somehow i just don't know other schools websites and and release that you know obviously we can build uh [Music] taking advantage of all the progress that's been made in the last whatever number of years to really make a substantial investment in this area so that's the follow-up today we're really looking into areas one is that we have an excellent applications department karen sullivan and so information that needs to be forward-facing and immediate is really taken care of effectively um we also are very lucky to have our current data and web services manager who has a wide variety of experiences in that back-end information repository because it's not just like the old days when we were doing web pages um we just had static information on the page now it's
242information that has to be appropriate to the viewer so whenever our staff and faculty go onto our internet what is happening is they're being identified by how they're logged in and then being presented with the information that's applicable to them same thing with students that go to our internet that's the internally facing web pages and they go there they see what's applicable to them based on their login that even extends outside so there are various aspects of what we do that has to be built with security has to be built with the appropriate information repositories and then displayed in a way that is useful and appropriate for the audience it is going in it's not just a static webpage that everybody gets it's a very fine-tuned thing depending on what your needs are um it's
243much like the old switchboards and yelp pages that we're used to um you go to that web page and it connects you to the appropriate resource based on who you are and what you need um that's the information that we need to be able the type of service that we're not all the way there yet we've got all of the pieces but we need that manager to be able to tap into a complimentary resource so so are we the cubs in the 70s comes in the 60s or maybe even maybe it's not a question but you don't know how to answer it but um can you give a sense of we're not the lovable losers what is coming what's coming up is too much information without the maintenance and calling of that information right so
244when you do a web search on our website um it's very common to get outdated information some of that needs to be there for archival purposes there's ways of structuring it so that when you go there and do that search it doesn't bring up the old stuff it brings up the music right because people can just end up giving up and and i've talked about me sometimes in the past you know because it's not totally essential that i get it right it'd be nice to try to get some pieces of info here and there um because i really think this is because we it's impossible to measure we just don't know how many times people haven't you know gained information and insight that that otherwise and that's another great point we do have the ability
245to tell when people have given up we have the ability to tell what places they're going to um this position would be able to effectively use that information now we can you know we can run up a report and we can as a management team and there's a district or a departmental oversight team we can get in there and take a look and say here's a few things to work on but it's a side job it's not something that keeps a person up at night thinking about new ways but i'd like to give to it as much as we can to move towards proactive thank you chris any questions from board members um give me the array of skills to support this why is it why are we hiring eternally to build a team to
246do that versus outsourcing [Music] i'm actually talking about this position is just another position you know with this skill set you're sort of building a team with this skill set i guess i'm asking why versus depending on a third party who would have a have better access to a raise of skills than you do yeah number one um you've got when you you've got the institutional knowledge and commitment um that comes with uh building from the internal side so creating a team that is centered on servicing this district and understanding what needs to distribute that's something that you don't necessarily get when you're working with an outsourced group um like i mentioned also you are working with data sets it's not like we um i'm not talking about student ppi but personally identifiable information but
247there is cases where we have information that has to be um accessible uh depending on your launching and so forth i'd much rather have that control and be looking at that and a security map in-house rather than outsourcing it to a company and um having done possibly networks for other parties so by keeping an internal grade how do most how do other institutions of our science do this is it a mix or is it always [Music] especially when you're getting into the nonprofit organizations um but when you're dealing with schools uh they're dealing with it in one of two ways and one is through a stipend program and the other is through a position for this um we're honestly beyond the stipend area yeah that gets you static information on pages [Music] here and make
248sure everybody updates it um when you're looking at those repositories of data which is where i'm really seeing the most value and an increase in demand um that really requires a position schools that are on that route are hiring somebody rather than doing it just as chris said what you what happens with outsourcing you lose control you also lose time so sometimes information needs to be on the website immediately and it's always the fee so it's it's a fee for posting oftentimes so it's less cost effective resources [Music] can you hear me okay i was just going to say in my previous district uh initially it was our source and we brought it in for the same reasons that dr sanders and mr james articulated there was always a time frame that we could submit
249anything and we had to wait and it was always delayed and the biggest pushback we got was that the information was just not coming up except we have one person who can update and release the website anytime so everybody finds a different way to manage it um it's probably a wash from a cost standpoint so i'm not gonna curious why i'm more worried about the skill set issues that's just other board members [Music] um also be responsible for the content or simply the the coding and the maintaining the website for maintenance and content too so um one of the things that is just typical when you're doing website maintenance is to identify the owners of content and then work with those owners to establish a timeline by which the content needs to be updated and
250then making sure there's follow through so it's seen and it see a little bit of it in the actual job description but it sounds like this is the person who'll be working closely with our communications put in both worlds um are we thinking at all about like the architecture of the website like restructuring it at all or is this yeah yeah and and um to have there's no way we can tackle projects at that size without having uh this position is a stipend position no no no no yeah no i ain't frankly frequently emotional um so i i [Music] and going back to the story about um how our department destruction and how we uh used um we took the responsibilities that were in the more nuts and bolts signed and created a very strong
251organizational structure there on the instructional side we're not as strong and not as defined we have areas of uh that are direct reports to me from every level of the library um and then we have our instructional technology team um they're the ones that they really make the magic happen um you can have the best system in the world but unless this is something that is embraced unless this creates that lightful moment for a student unless a teacher is able to take that and leverage it and create real learning it may work brilliantly but it's not working effectively and so on the instructional side of our organization we've got some great people we've got some amazing libraries we've got an amazing instructional technology team but it's a very flat organization in addition to that we
252are right on the other side of that cafeteria about to have three wonderful new floors of amazing things that we want to make happen and um in there is during the library space and uh we want to be able to create experiences in those places that really make those light bulbs turn on it's not just technology that works and we expect people to use it because all the wires connect but because they actually connect kids to learning experiences and so in looking at that development looking at the work that we've done in instructional technology and the work that's yet to be done the work that um that demands the attention and the oversight in order to make effective professional development for our staff and our faculty that engages our kids and engages the learning experience
253we see that this is an area that really needs this additional set of oversight so that we have a balanced structure within our department both for the infrastructure and for the instructional aspects of technology and that's why we're bringing forward questions um so is it that we're going to take the fte from the bookstore director into this position um do we not need a bookstore director so so here's how we're managing that um we've got uh so the bookstore um it functions very much like a burster's office in most schools so we're collaborating with the business office in east door and we're looking at those aspects that are more effectively handled by the business office with the uh the you know appropriate support so if somebody's coming in to pay their fees they have a
254quick and easy way to do that to handle and then on the curriculum side of it um there's some tie-in there's tie-in with this position number one because we're going um more and more focused on digitally-based curriculum that flows through the bookstore but obviously there's also the need for your traditional um [Music] paper volumes to be handled there too all of that having that assessment having that knowledge in order in order to understand how that all flows together either if this is a digital way or an analog way um we feel that's a good fit we can handle that incorporate it into this position it's not going to be too much of a strain it actually creates a good balance between the two sides of the department so we think that we can take on
255the bookstore those aspects that are at the bursar's office incorporate it into this position and actually take that director's position and make it do so much more than just from a bookstore question [Music] i'm sorry are we done with the personnel ass yeah no my question was you know so that's gonna this is gonna be coming up to for a vote on the 26th or in two weeks we have i'm just trying to understand the alignment with the administration coming forth with the adequacy evidence-based information so that we can make decisions that look at where we are [Music] yeah so i mean it's like we're going to be making decisions on changes and then we're going to find out where we are and then decide which just seems backwards so well it is are are
256we is it necessary that i mean i i know our calendar of uh uh reports but i'm trying to understand given the uh the new evidence-based funding model how are we i mean if we're looking at it in april or in june um how is it for next year and we're funding things for next year already the board polls indicated that at the april meeting we needed to come back with the framework that would show how we are spending more student focus we are now trying to start calculating the tool to a and b and based upon the workflow it said to make sure that that was implemented on june the staffing based upon uh guidelines from the state we bring in march because if there's an impact on teachers that have to be released
257they have to be released by a certain time in april and i think this year faithfully so how does that ref um i understand that with the teacher positions but the administrative positions it separate i think administrators when i first arrived in the district was done in like may or something uh it was done at a different time and uh the boy asked why we were bringing them separate that we should bring them all at one time and just have one form of decision making and so we moved the administration up to be in alignment with that uh with teacher contracts and i i appreciate that i'm just saying the the need to um this is a a new situation that we're in with the um the evf so i actually think that as we
258move forward it was going to balance out because your absolute correct is new and with the timelines that we were given it should start to balance out as we move forward okay all right i it's all right thank you for the ones can i ask that question in just a slightly different way because i think i agree completely with jackie and tom is there any urgency to doing this now as opposed to after an allocation of our resources along the model are done so waiting a month or two to get this done is there a realistic urgency to get these positions approved now um so the urgency is just hiring these positions because if we wait until june i'm afraid it will be extremely difficult to find especially for director of instructional technology which is
259an administrative position all administrative positions uh boasted very quickly and people start looking now so we'll be at this advantage and come back to this advantage [Music] i just have a questions gina um so if we're thinking about this in the future is there a way for us to consider our our entire timeline and process for this because if i know that we have a special instance this year but knowing that there's a specific time that we want to be hiring people um and making sure that we get the great the best candidates at a specific time is there anything that we might want to re-evaluate at some point is all i'm asking it can be done so we have no problem going through that process with the board that's how we got to this
260point is because the board asked us to bring them all at one time thank you i just that that must have that might have been a pre me or maybe i was here i don't know i just appreciated you okay this is better than it was i think the administrative contract and the um other contracts were given like june 30th sometime and then that had an impact on dr sanders said recruiting and hiring people so i'm just thinking for future if there's some backward by design piece we could work on um that would be really ideal it seems no problem if there's no more questions we will move to the next item under instruction and that is the analysis of the weighted gta calculation process making this presentation tonight is miss kristen mckee coordinator for
261me dr lincoln chandler consultant and great job superintendent but the conclusion of this information that's a discussion however involves under strategic plan foreign transformative and district policy six colon six family thank you dr peter evans um this is a bit of a lady presentation that we have for you here and so we will do our best to move through this in a way that is exciting as we go but i do want to bring us back to a context that we left a few i guess two presentations ago the community's got presentation i talked about a variety of recommendations that um have been with us for the better part of two decades one of those recommendations was to take a strong look at how grading practices unfold at opr that's exactly what this is um
262what you're going to see in this presentation doesn't have is really nice sound bite and it's big old appeal ah yes it's packed up in this one clean way but what you're going to see is a nuanced report that digs into how is affecting our kids okay and so with that said i want to thank our team here for all the work they've done to get us ready for this and uh let's go ahead and lean in a little bit so we go to the first slide here after the title um a few things um what we're talking about is api and that is the process that we use anal prf to determine weighted gpas for our students how weighted gpas are counted and internally it serves a number of purposes number one it helps
263us to determine what awards you know leads to not a scholarship cup and a few others it is used for some internal scholarships that we have that our counselors are out to help to get our kids to apply for and uh various departments and divisions allocate and also back in 2016 we saw this in america to me a little sniff about it it was used as a bit of a proxy for college career reference okay api was used as an indicator there we're gonna unpack that a little bit got preparation um externally the big takeaway i want the board to to be aware of is that with gpas they don't mean and i don't need to undersell it but they don't mean a whole lot externally and that is for a few reasons number one
264yes some scholarships ask for weighted gpa so kids are applying for scholarships outside of those that we have internally and yes some colleges and universities use legal gpas for admissions but by and large the practice that has been growing throughout the country over the past decade or so is that as colleges and universities recalculate gpa so that they can that they can more evenly compare two students from two completely different high schools against fun the idea is that they want to get a feel to the extent that an individual kid has to maximize the opportunities available to them okay and the only way to do that is to do the calculation themselves um so that is basically how many gpas work um i want to now dive into the history a little bit of what
265api and i'll be very brief on this but i want to say that this was kind of enjoying to go into the academic program index is something that started well actually i'll just say this first it is simply what is api it is not a way to gpa it's not synonymous uh the api is a multiplier and dr chandler is going to really explain that as we go forward is just a number that is applied to an unlimited gpa to get away a gpa so how did this thing start at oprs it didn't start until 1995 prior to that there were no weighted gps at opr there was no weighted grading process here um but in 1985 it started i was actually able to go through our academic catalogs and i called two retirees uh
266who had been long-time employees here to kind of get that history and it came about because they used this program called xp program which was described in the academic catalog as a college preparatory program kind of an alternative program for kids who would benefit from a little bit more hands-on practical application-oriented approach to schooling but it was very clear that it was designed to college prep well in that unweighted system there was one student and actually the people i talked to could recall that student by name there was one student who world through all four years at oprl in that asp program with nothing but aids that student did not take any honors classes but they just learned for you know weighted gpa right that student did not take any of the traditional honors classes
267was in the xp program and thinking at the time back in the 80s was wait a second that's the student's going to earn a scholarship is that really uh what we want the scholarship help to me and it really is that event from what i understand that triggered this this this movement towards weighted gpas at okrm it exists all over the place we are uniquely and so um there were immediately now considerations that the administration at the time and the first one is if we have a um a waiting system in place we have to make sure that we find some way to mitigate the effects of our kids playing the weighted gpa the idea is that as soon as we get weight grades out there kids are going to dive into this class instead
268of this class to maximize that gpa and they're going to end up taking those things that aren't aligned with their interests and real learning just to you know get the calculation they want by the time they block out and that would have a negative potential effect on electric current and so they wanted to put some sort of process in place that would um encourage protect electives so um the solution was to rely on this api that uh dr champ is going to talk about about a little bit here um i want to say one more thing if we go to the purpose uh slide the next one oh i'm sorry i was behind i should show you that's so that's a background about the history of api and so now we wanted to really take
269a look at it and figure out hey why how is this thing really working for our kids in this school and uh it's been something that's been in our strategic plan for a little while um and we have a silent team here uh dr chandler and chris mckee who we were able to post some pretty complex questions too and they were able to really help us dive into it and kind of operationalize this question so the first question we have is are the main questions for the whole thing is to help us understand how this uh this whole process works for our kids and so that said i'm going to turn over the next slide to kristen mckee and she'll get us through our questions in the first part of our session hi everybody i'm
270a zoomer tonight so uh nice to see everyone um so when lincoln and i started our research and analysis we considered the following we started uh with the basic how do we calculate the gpa and really how does api work um and then we move to why do we do it this way and then ultimately what are the implications of this practice this led to a more of an inquiry-based process of a review of the api our motivating questions are here on this slide how does the api approach to calculating gpa compared to a more conventional approach how what happens when students are in cs and ds um in honors classes um how does the api maximum and then the rollover components work and then also finally how does the use of api align with
271the district's efforts to remove barriers of to racial equity and promote academic excellence um what i want to be clear about though is that um i want to talk about what this is and what it is not this is a review of the system we have in place to calculate the weighted gpa from student grades it's not an analysis of what those grades are to begin with grading practices are incredibly important um but that's also for a separate analysis well it's not what we're doing tonight for this presentation all right next slide for lincoln thanks listen so um in short the way this works is that uh every semester students earn one honors point for every day or b grade that they receive however now a student might take five or six classes and semester
272but they can only receive up to three honors points per semester or 24 over eight semesters over their time in oprs that api is directly based on the total honors points received so if i've accumulated seven honors points in my time at prf i have an api of 1.07 students who don't take honest classes have no honest points and their default api is 1.0 so that api is a multiplier so to follow sports analysis we might think of it as a strength of schedule or degree of difficulty where we're taking the unweighted gpa that is and and so because there is a next on that on the strength of schedule on that api 1.24 the highest possible gpa you can get after four years is a 4.96 that's a 4.0 times 1.24 and uh so
273as i mentioned in our process we wanted to see if the api was truly unique to oprf that answer is yes to the best of our knowledge this is unique to our district in fact when lincoln and i first were exploring this for reasons i was googling it like simply just to figure this out but then that's what also led to one of this more deeper dive we did um so what we wanted to do is understand what approaches were used in other districts so we identified a list of peer districts which can be found in the appendix of this presentation so while the peer districts methods have some nuance depending on the district for instance some of the districts also give credits for d's they were mostly fundamentally the same and it's summarized here
274on this slide also this slide helps provide the three levers of how the weighted gpa functions students must earn a certain grade and then the how the honors points get applied for that um and then also how many are able to be received so if you look here at this table you'll see a side-by-side comparison of these three levers um going straight down so if you you look and you see that for oprf students must earn an a or b um in our peer districts the vast majority of them all gave c and as i mentioned maybe even some gave d's um for oprf honors credit is applied to overall gpa as uh dr chandler just said but in peer districts it's applied to that specific course um in oprf there's a limit um and
275in the peer districts all honors credits are applied to the gpa so lincoln is about to walk you through a pretty uh pretty step-by-step mathematical process of showing you exactly how that sort of plays out with um a gpa calculation okay thank you um so the first way that opr is unique in its process is that we do not award honors credit for seeds and so just to give you a picture what you're looking at is the last four years of the grade distribution for ap and honors classes um well up to academic year 2020. and what you'll first notice is that the two states of rain represent a's and b's together that's 85 of the grades are a's and b's and so 85 of the grades are the ones that earn uh honors credit
276but we see that um c's are represented by the yellow and in the year 2020 uh 10 of those rates would have been passing rates but they but those students did not receive honest credit for those passing grades uh the four-year average is 11 but it's been pretty consistent as you can see from year to year to um illustrate kind of the other two levers and how they work um we've put together this hypothetical example um and this is a hypothetical but it's not uh but it is possible um most students let's figure the next slide i'm sorry next slide okay right so what you see here is a hypothetical freshman report card these are all classes that a freshman student could take and most uh opr students have taken at least one or two
277honors courses by the end of their freshman year so this is hypothetical but it's not unrealistic and what you see here is that there's a kid who got a mix of b c's and d's in the first semester and then they uh for the most part turned it around and got basically a's and b's in the second semester so what we're going to do over the next couple of slides is look at what the annual and cumulative gpa look like here at prf and then we also created sort of an alternative policy that represents kind of an amalgam of what we see pure districts going so you can see that comparison next science okay so we start out with the unweighted gpa and this is a four point scale and so you basically assign points
278based on the grade and divide by the number of classes in this particular example uh you just add up the base grade points which are in blue and this equates to a one-year gpa of a 2.8 they acquired 28 points over two semesters and you have 10 different rates so 28 over 10 2.8 gpa so this is the unweighted keypad and another way to think about this is that if this child had taken no honors classes that would be their gpa next slide please okay so at oprah we uh we assign honors points for a's and b's so i've highlighted in grainy all the grades that qualify for honors credit so you'll see that at the end of the first semester if you move bottom you see that that student earned two points and then
279you'll see in the second semester is to earn five for a total of seven points earned now again we have a cap on the number of credits a student can receive after two semesters they can only receive a max of six credits that six gets applied to the api which is 1.06 and that 2.8 base gpa gets multiplied to create a 2.97 so at the end of the freshman year at oprah this student's grade point average is a 2.96 okay all right we're already on the next slide so in comparison um and under an alternative policy you see the yellow highlights the courses that would have qualified for honors credit so in the first semester the c's are also counted so there's a total of four out of five classes that this student's getting finance
280credit for and in the second semester they're getting credit for all five but what's happening here is that we're actually adding those weights to the actual courses so instead of 28 total base points we've added a total of nine honors points to get a total of 37 and then we calculate dt as we usually do we take the number of points and we divide it by 10 grades which now gives us 3 plus seven so we see that at a peer district using their policy that student would have gotten a 3.7 for the same report card that's like this and keep in mind that 3.7 again it's compared to the 2.97 of the previous slide for the exact same work so that's that that's right and what you see here is what greg just said
281right so we have three different yeah but this is so this is what we see right so again um in the blue we have the base case and this is the unweighted gpa but this is again also the gpa of the student that did not take any honors classes the green shows what that student would have had with honors classes after a year at oprf the yelling shows what that student would have had with honors classes at a peer district now what we can do in this case to extrapolate to understand the cumulative effect we have to say okay what if this student you know took five honors courses every year now what if they got the exact same rates it could happen right let's see what happens next slide please okay so what we've
282done here is using that example and we've kind of uh carried it out and something really interesting happens here so if you look at the blue you'll see the same two point eight two point eight two point eight two by eight right well we already said that the kid is getting the same grades every year so it follows that their gpa is going to stay constant if you look at the yellow case we see the same rate from average three point seven three by seven by seven three by seven and again it's because they're taking the exact same classes but what happens at oprf is that the api continues to grow as the student takes on more classes so what you see is the gpa rise over time okay now when we spoke earlier about
283the 2003 report it was called out on a couple of occasions that we have this phenomenon where we see um black students with a gpa that does not rise over time but for white students we saw the gpa grow and we see this same pattern here um to conceptualize this for and this is the kind of t of the standard part of this analysis although most students at oprf have taken at least one honors class by the end of their freshman year if you look at black students at opr most of them have not taken a single honors class after four years so for most black students their gpa is going to be closer to what we're seeing in blue because they're not taking classes and we do have this rise in phenomena but i
284think the deeper issues is one of access rather than the actual function of how this uh highest metric works [Music] yeah good thank you thank you again and um one other thing i will say about the api just as a way of explanation is the effect it has on scholarship hub because api has that cap of the total number of honors points that you can possibly get throughout your years in high school it has the effect of having this is your max cheap weighted gpa period there's no way you can go above that thing and so it allows a large number of kids to hit that point thus all equally qualifying for that scholarship cup if we didn't have that cap most schools and a lot of schools don't you have this huge extrapolation of
285gpas that go way up into the sky right there is no real cap i mean there is a cap but it's it's much harder to attempt to attain and as a result it would have an effect at least on that tradition here in the school if we had that traditional system right something would have to given how that unfolds so that's the explanation of how that game works that's how it functions and i thought that's somewhat slightly clearer than mud at this point but hopefully it's it's uh it's it's out there and we can take a look at it again if we need well once we kind of mapped all that out and took a look at what this thing looked like we decided that um we wanted to get next slide please it was
286time to do some analysis right what is this really doing for our gifts here and that channel began to get into that a little bit this isn't really a whole new program that we're proposing and so running it through the entire racial equity analysis tool that we have is not possible because that is designed for new programmatic purposes but it absolutely does work in the first few questions to help us understand how something has existed in this school and so these first three questions that are in that tool are are immediately um how are specific racial groups being advantaged or disadvantaged by what we have here um it's no there's no longer proposed it's an effect policy of course um how does this policy or procedure um actively address disparities if and if in any
287way how does it do that and finally um what are the negative impacts of this offending and so we try to tease those out in the next few slides to get some good answers for us and uh this next one is going to go back to kristin as we go to the next slide to take a look at how this uh is actually playing out for the kids in our school so what you see here is data taken from the academic history of all the students enrolled during the 2019-2020 school year this graph demonstrates a waterfall effect going from left to right and disaggregated by race so what you see in the blue is what the enrollment of the subgroup is what you see in the orange is how many in that subgroup were enrolled
288in an honors class what you see in the green is how many students enrolled in the honors class attained an honors credit that was applied to their gpa and finally in that goldish color what percentage of those students reached the maximum api as previously explained by dr chandler so overall 76 percent of our student total student enrollment attempted an honors class during their time oprah and of those students 93 earned an honors credit so let's look at that data in a little clearer context um on the next slide so i've got to go to the next slide too um so what we are looking at here shows by race honors enrollment and honors attainment so in the middle section you see the percent of students enrolled in at least one honors course during their time
289at oprf um during their academic high school years what you see in the green and red numbers were those those were generated by comparing the enrollment percentage to the oprf average so when you're looking at that in the sort of the middle column and the first set of uh green the percentage green and red percentages clearly we have disproportionality in these numbers mostly for our black students and slightly for our hispanic students and that disproportionality for our black students is pretty significant however what's interesting when you look at the columns on the right the percent of students in honors had earned at least one honors credit you start to see less of a gap when it comes to attainment so yes this gap still clearly exists um but it's much less of a gap than
290it is with the enrollment so this analysis clearly illuminates our issues around enrollment trends um and but it also gives us really interesting information about attainment trends as well um next slide and i think i'm going back to lincoln thanks kristen and yes and so again when this is um actually looking at again that four-year trend but now what we've done is broken it out by racial group and if you recall um we noted that overall ten percent of the grades that are handed out in honors and ap classes are c's but when we control for race we see that uh black and hispanic students uh get 19 and 16 percent of their grades disease so this is basically saying that black and hispanic students are less likely to earn honors credit because they are
291more likely to see rates um so from there we decided to just kind of take a look at the performance of our students and and um think of a what-if scenario so that what if was what if the students that received c's had actually um been awarded honors credit and how would that impact our numbers so overall so one um it would increase uh honors attainment um for everyone right because what we're doing is that we will be expanding the policy by um allowing honors credit to be extended to see students as well but what you can see over here is that there's a 5 over all growth and so the dark green represents the actual number of students who receive credit and then that lighter color represents the number of students who would have
292received credit allowing cds as well so you see the increases but you also see that the black students hispanic students the increases are slightly higher because again this would this would um because like blacksmith's faxes tend to get democracies and we took that one step further to take a look at well how would that impact the number of students who are reaching that max of 24 credits and overall that would actually boost that number by 19 and again it differs a bit depending on the student groups with the largest gross being and the number of black students to the number of spanning students they get those credits and so you know this is just again to give us a sense of given our actual policy versus an alternative policy um how that might impact uh
293attainment of honors credit uh with our students before i go on to the next slide i want to try to explain a point that might have a little bit lost in this and that is that the purpose of the cap one of the purposes intended purposes of the cap and the number of honest courses you can take is to say that look as soon as you hit that cap now you're free to take electives as you want you don't have to play the otter's game anymore because you've already hit your back so that encourages enrollment in these electives that might not be worth uh honors credit here at the school that is a benefit that you only gain access to as a student here once you hit that tag if you don't hit the cap
294you don't get that benefit so that also helps to highlight the importance of this slide on slide 20 right maximizing that benefit for some students so let's um slide down just just to the end and this is uh i know it's very very late um but we have of two ideas of executive summary and i want to go over these as quickly as we can but just as a quick read that api has been in place for a long time and it's unique to the school district in part it was designed to encourage a broader curricular experience but we know the the trigger for this within the school district as well um students must earn an arab to get that out of credit and there is that that in comparison to other districts the cap
295that we have in the school has the effect of limiting the max gpa earned by graduation fairly unique in the school district what we're able to find now what is the effect of limiting that gpa for all of our students well it seems to have the effects of maybe mitigating the gpa gap between our highest achieving students and the rest of our students of ensuring multiple students earned this scholarship copy each year and and i should say a large number of students earning the scholarship each year and for students who have maxed out their api providing the opportunity to enroll in elective credit so that's the effect of that that that max gpa has on students and the next slide the barrier now the imposed barrier bill honors credit for seeds does have compounding effects
296that kind of you know uh are linked to one another it may prevent our students from taking a calculated risk of enrolling in others because if it's uh if it's if it's not for that way to grade you're gonna say look i can get my b in a class that isn't for honors it's kind of a disincentive to take that risk in the more rigorous experience and it could limit the access to the non-honors elective opportunity available to those students to obtain an ex-api granting others credit receivers would increase honors attainment overall and have a significant positive effect on the percentage of students who earn the max api which we saw in the last few data slides the analysis highlighted um also our overall enrollment now president he's looking at this pretty clearly and uh
297a gap that has mitigated to a large extent um when you take a look at the attainment yet uh for students who actually are in honors classes and i'll ask a list so what that really is our basketball [Music] and our last slide here uh of the night is the uh our follow-up and the next step so where are we going with this information thank you um and i know that maybe we moved we went through a lot of information kind of quickly so i appreciate especially at this time of night how this must be sitting with you right now but our emergent hypothesis really is that um this is complicated um why while it may feel that it begs a clear conclusion it really doesn't lend itself to one right now uh we we
298really are trying to see what this policy purposely is doing and what it's accidentally doing and how does it really play out um so again we're not here providing a definitive recommendation about what to do with the api but rather we think that this does warrant further explanation exploration with an increased number of stakeholders who represent different areas of the school community we recommend that there is a continued data analysis that happens with our owners in ap data that includes enrollment trends and potential factors especially around racial equity and um and in our school community um again involve those stakeholders to analyze the impact of our current model in context engage in a robust racial equity analysis to further our understanding of the impact and then finally based on this further analysis um we need
299to revisit um and what what evidence-based models there are around college and career readiness and recommend potential changes so that is it for this slide right now so that's it this is the uh it's a great way to get old prf so um if there are any questions of course i have questions excellent thank you well i um i'm sorry the hour is so late because of course i'm sitting here geeking out over all of this and uh i hope that we can revisit at a time when uh perhaps it's an earlier hour and folks can be a little bit more uh engaged just because of fatigue being a issue now but um two things that come to mind for me one circling back to the 2003 the learning at report is uh and i
300i won't read it but uh on page 44 and 45 pretty much talks about exactly what you all are are talking about now in terms of access and um and even some of the the perhaps history around why there's so many a's and b's uh in honors classes so um i think it definitely begs further uh analysis on some heart issues of you know what goes into certain grades and there's some suggestions there about uh you know pressure from uh parents in in some instances um to to uh increase grades so it's you know do we fight or do we go along and as a teacher i know that perhaps sometimes it is hard to to just not say okay fine you're right i can't do this anymore um and that is the historical context
301um and then the other piece that i just want to bring up is it seems counterintuitive to me that our uh honors is unique in the way that that only a's and b's receive honors credit given that there's the determination of a fact notion that it's more rigorous so if it's more rigorous why wouldn't a c be a valued grade in an honors and that's the hypothetical i'll just throw out there and then given everything i've seen uh all of this data about the um you know even though the rationale for why this started because one child who was in a uh you know a different uh program wasn't deemed appropriate for a scholarship cup certainly points to perhaps the uniqueness of api uh is unique for the the wrong reasons so i'm just wondering
302what else you need to know before we you know make changes given the the strong evidence that was was shown here i i struggle with what else would you what would we need to to understand or know um before we made some changes so um you know i i think yeah it's raising there's good and bad evidence and i would point to the exhibit where we talk about the three main ways in which api is different from what we see other districts doing um you know this so the one piece of it is the the non-embellishment of sea braids but then there's also the the cat on honest credit which could you know depending on how you feel about it could be a positive so i think the the next step here would just be
303to pull each one of those laborers and then as a group have a conversation around which ones should be bold and why um if i might say something as well and i feel kind of weird i'm going to comment on the presentation we just gave um but i also want to add an element that i i wasn't sure belonged in this because it just something to comment on is that the way we calculate took lincoln a very he had to go through step by step to show everybody how api is calculated and api is done through the years and i feel like one of the things that's concerning me and jackie what you said i i agree you know we really have to look at this and one of the things is for somebody who
304doesn't have the experience we have an education or isn't as savvy to try to figure out a gpa at our school on your own is incredibly difficult and i feel like it just adds another institutional barrier to invite in people who aren't as trusting or educationally savvy of this institution and and i i want to name that um obviously that's not a data driven um so it wasn't a part of the presentation but i really feel compelled to name that i appreciate that uh to kristen because um you know i'm i i probably have been more anecdotal tonight than than uh usual but i just um the whole idea that and i'm just going to say the the there there seems to be a certain element of of understanding how to work the system to
305to get to that ultimate you know kind of uh penultimate of uh you know your of gpa and you know the slide that shows uh who starts taking honors classes uh freshman year and and we've heard the the information in prior presentations over the years about the discouragement of certain um students particularly black and brown students to wait to take honors classes and so they're you know from the beginning are a large number and this data bears it out they don't have a chance and so every year when we we say where are the you know uh why aren't there more black and brown scholarship cup one of the reasons is well if you don't start freshman year then it's uh you're pretty much out of the out of the running and i i think
306that those kind of things um speak to that savviness and that understanding of how to calculate and there's all kinds of uh information as to you know what our access means and what even what we're celebrating and how we're celebrating it so um i this just begs a lot of uh questions but the the data for me is pretty glaring as to the inequities so i'll stop it's late yeah and i just wanted to say thank you to kristen for bringing that up because yeah you know data is one thing but like what we learn from the data and what it's actually demonstrating and those that those additional anecdotal pieces of information actually drive change so thank you for bringing that up thank you welcome so first thing you'll see is some clarity so if
307someone takes two honors classes the first semester is impression then they take five the next semester catch yes potentially so you can bank for future application buyer's points the expense which you can fully catch up depends on your starting point and how many years you have so so the tone is considerably probably to be realistic to absolutely so that's good and i really enjoy this until i saw the presentation um frankly either and so there's some things i think are the strengths i like we are encouraging electives encouraging exploration must continue i think not giving credit for c is outrageous fair c is great i've got to seize the past and so i i definitely am on the campus [Music] out and we both i was massaging my initial pluses i didn't realize that so
308that's interesting to me is because that's how differentiation can occur in a lot of other places so i don't know how long that's going on [Music] but it was intriguing [Music] hey kristen thank you all very much this is all good i'll show them other board members so i have a question so first of all i feel like it's understanding so much better now about what's going on here um but can you explain to me please the idea around the electives you don't have to max out honors to take a license right like a student who is in non-honors courses can also take collectives that's the piece that i just didn't i didn't understand yeah so if you are a student who wants to if i'm moving through my high school career and i know
309kind of where i want to go and i want to maximize my honors experience but i also want to make sure i take some electives um then you probably claim this balancing that throughout throughout your years making very very careful choices now let's compare that to a kid who is really maximizing their their honors game right off the bat to get those 24 hours as quickly as possible you can do that well you know into your first semester or junior year and as a result of that that student who's really just playing that game right off the bat suddenly he has at that point a lot more freedom than other students to take a wide variety of electives at the time that electives are most available to you right when your schedule is free during
310the later parts of your june and your senior year because you don't have those same numbers of required classes that kind of can eat up a kid's schedule one thing that we could do here is take a look at a typical freshman schedule a typical sophomore schedule and how quickly they fill up right based on the required classes that we have our kids take where um when it's time to when it's time to take those electives during your later years if you're still really worried about playing that honors games you don't have the same level of flexibility and freedom that you would if you were smart in in the sense that you understand the system and play the system and uh and maximize your your honest points earlier so it's it's it's a matter of
311um opening up the right point for yeah it does i mean i guess initially my understanding from the presentation had been that you had to like that alleges were only accessible to kids who'd been in honors but that's not right [Music] when we re-design the fresh curriculum you need a different solution well because how are you going to raise your credit every class that honors well right now so actually there is nothing that we are doing in a technical sense for our freshmen or detract questions that requires a shift in how the calculating weighted gpa is right you can sit there and take our current formula which is just as immediate and you have the bulk of your kids coming in about 80 or so 95 taking honors classes in our intercourse and then you
312know we the honors credits are just going to be calculated out based off of their expenses classes but the fact that we are doing that in a year plus time means that we better really understand how this will play out for our kids your distribution of grade is going to change likely to change right yes so yes my only my only comment is and i think it's along the lines of stuff dr moore already put on the table while i can see holding back and maybe making changes in the maximum amount of credits that count because of the encouragement of electives i see no reason not to include cs right away to start addressing some of those inequities uh next year that's that's my one takeaway on that and i do appreciate that this kind
313of analysis and coming to us at this point with your thought process so greg i want to compliment you and lincoln both for for coming to us and giving us this information as you're thinking about it because as a board then we get to think about it with you but but the the c issue seems to me to be a glaring one and one that's easy to remedy thank you i appreciate that ralph and i also want to put in a plug here for our counterpart uh our coordinator of winning analyst uh chris as well [Music] all right thank you and our next item is the valor technology abatement conference and making this presentation is mr ron anderson executive director of operations mr jeff bergman although he's still there director construction mr brad pruitt founder
314director of the facility um at the conclusion it is recommended that the items for valley technology contract uh be moved forward to the march 25th regular board of education meeting for approval is an amount not to exceed 308 700 this item is in compliance with strategic plan priority four four products support pulling 60 let me tell you guys uh i want to be the first to tell you guys good morning happy friday so on february 24th we opened the news for the special debate uh we accepted two awesomeness based on the work that was approved february 25th the project was budgeted within the facility master plan and so it would not take budget it will not increase the budget project timeline is june 1st through um july 23rd and during that time you have multiple
315projects that starts at different times to to get those things done within the time frame of the different the different um a bigger project that's within the mammal interesting and the attachments will show you the contract and the um the encapsulation do you have any questions tom yeah i was just trying to unmute um what is the amount that it was you said it was in the budget how much was in the budget four hundred seventy six thousand six hundred eighty five dollars four hundred and seventy uh 476 685 okay thank you um i ask some questions can i clarify something there that that budget number that you you just heard from ron is a budget number that takes care of 21 22 and 23. all through that takes care of all three of those
316years to go along with the project one work that includes the city so so is what we're seeing here in line so i now you just kind of confuse me so um because we only have one year of actual in three years of budget or or what right this is this year is is the biggest piece of this work um as we go into 22 and 23 it's not the volume is not as big okay my ask and i kind of asked it in questions and and i want to be very brief you know this is a long standing issue that predated my time on the board and based on the response we got will probably um be around when my kids are on the board as such it would be important to get the
317big picture because what i think extrapolating we're talking about millions of dollars of asbestos abatement and it would be to me valuable just to kind of paint what that big picture is i just extrapolated because from a simple question it said that we spend roughly a hundred thousand a year and for ten years and we're only forty percent through so that quickly gets to be two and a half million dollars so i don't want to extrapolate data i would like to understand kind of what the the big picture of asbestos is abatement is just for my benefit and for future boards just to know that where it stands it's an ask thank you thank you other questions all right [Music] the next thing i don't know if it's a future agenda item or a future
318agenda uh request um our meetings are outrageously long i don't know if we can like when we have two hours or 90 minutes of um of public comment is there i don't know if it's possible for a to for us to adopt a meeting agenda with flexibility and things that don't aren't as pertinent could be moved somehow i don't know i just know that um by 12 o'clock at night and we still need to have a special board meeting um it's exhausting and it's we're not at our i i i won't speak for the wii i'll speak for me i am not at my peak when when it's good morning in our meeting so i just want to um put that out there if i could comment on that well for president i had that
319conversation today and we went through all the agenda items through jill and try to dissect what really needs to come to the board and then we want to really have a conversation with the boy as well um because the eyes we got today needed to come today the islands that are coming next week and unmarked between this need to come the attendants are coming in and how much information is too much information and so uh we talked today about them and um posing the board because she wants to be a part of this conversation for us to kind of create a framework and bring it back to the broader board for his discussion because this the other case too that dr kurt adams didn't mention that she and i did touch on earlier was public
320comment and how to manage public comment um but that again is also a question that we need to have as a for our conversation that we need to have as a board and that we would also need to um prepare our community for if we did decide to make some changes there's a number of ways the board to manage public comment um and we are very lenient um i don't know what the word is um we let everybody speak which i think is a good thing but there's other ways of doing it so so [Music] etc [Music] about [Music] i um as we indicated before we are working on the process now to bring more kids into the building after spring break we are also because you know we were told that something was coming
321about graduation and so we're all trying to digest it through the webinar today trying to help districts mitigate what is the now and what's down the road um i think the other thing that people don't realize and i really need to say this is we get compared oftentimes to other school districts and what they're doing and what they're doing right now we have over 138 students in quarantine and we have a case that we believe is that we have two renewable clusters of cases which should be an outbreak but we've been told to keep kids the quantity so we have to take those measures into consideration as well it is not just simply bring them all in but if we bring them in we can't keep them safe and we can't keep the spread down
322and right now it's this random we have almost all of our sports teams are quarantined and and it is not just the temple of rain and then the new guys also talked about people mentioned that three to six [Music] tomorrow it is a process and if we don't do the process accurately we will then probably end up at some point and we're trying to avoid [Music] so thank you [Music] um is your tom you look so lively yeah i'm i'm echoing uh gina's comments yeah i made sort of similar comments when we were offline earlier i i think there's got to be a better way this is not thank you but for echoing my comments by way of facial expression gina i couldn't agree more with a fellow board member i actually feel like the
323fact that i'm awake still is somewhat of a miracle so miracles happen that's what that's what this is proving all right is um although we are operating in a hybrid format i do not see any problems here dr moore here mr barron here mr eisley yeah mr roger president miss harris here mrs dickson's guide here i moved to enterprise session for the purpose of discussing the appointment employment compensation disclosed performance or dismissal specifically the district council for the district and specific volunteers estimated complaint lodge against an employee against legal counsel for the district validity collective negotiating matters between the district students employees or the representatives liberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters related to individual students session of love
324with close meeting minutes whether that's or semi-review of the minutes was mandated by the state statute it's nearest second second second dr moore [Music] yes mr barron yes mr oxley yes mr martial yep miss harris yes mr kovsky yes inspired yes all right so um virtual board members please go to the closed session link shortly elena you got a minute all right i think is everybody we're all in the right place do we have gina and ralph yeah okay okay we're now out of closed session and it's not showing that you're here correct i'm trying to stop sharing screen to avoid the uh false but we we need to be on camera okay so that's what i'm saying i'm trying to stop sharing screens so then it does that i'm trying to do that for
325some reason it's not to the top and go up to the very top of your window for that no we're good okay okay got it okay hello um all right so our action items um i move to approve the personnel uh recommendations including new hires transfers scheduling and leaves of absence is there a second certificate we have a roll call please go mr eisley yes mr martiri yep ms harris yes yes dr moore she's not a vessel mr bayern yes and this dickson society yes all right next item i moved to approve the settlement agreement as was discussed in closed session as your second second second voice mr martiri yep yes um all right we now have uh policies and these are for second reading sorry yeah um i know that ralph sent in some
326tweaks to the policies uh in terms of i think there was a reference to principal among a couple other relatively small issues um the only and sarah i have one still remaining big issue and that's in section 460 where we are supposed to approve emergency purchases up to a hundred thousand dollars after they're made and there's no statement about what happens if we don't approve it so i think 460 ought to be pulled completely and we ought to come up with some sort of consequence if the board chooses not to approve the emergency purchase put that consequence in the policy and then resubmit it to the board um so i think that uh ralph after speaking to legal counsel it's sort of a an all or nothing we either approve this or we don't there
327really isn't a way to have a consequence once we've approved a vendor contract and it's been signed no no but yes there is actually sarah so i just disagree with the lawyer so if if the if if there's an emergency purchase made and then the purchases presented the board for approval we thought it was an inappropriate purchase the consequence isn't getting out of the purchase the consequence could be you spent seventy five thousand dollars we didn't think you should spend you need to cut seventy five thousand dollars in administrative costs in the next budget that's a consequence that's got nothing to do with breaking our contract okay um i'm not sure what to do with this at this point um and it's 12 45 so you could just that's confused yeah i would say let's
328pull it out okay okay so we are going to remove policy for colon 60 purchases and contracts from consideration tonight um do we have any other questions or comments on any of the remaining policies all right um so i moved to approve policy 340 superintendent policy 480 accounting and audits policy 490 student activity and fiduciary funds i think i'm missing colon somewhere in here policy 5270 employment will compensation assignment policy 620 school year calendar and day policy 6300 graduation requirements policy 6310 high school credit for non-district experiences course substitutions are really students policy 6315 high school credit for students in grade seven or eight policy 6320 high school proficiency policy 6340 testing student testing and assessment policy 720 harassment students policies 7100 uh i don't know what that's called policy 7140 search and seizure i'm
329causing 7 300 extracurricular athletics is there a second second uh voice or roll call please sir mr eisen yes mr barron yes mr terry yes this harris yes mr koski yes yes all right uh i move that we determine the the unredacted portions of the minutes um as presented to the board regarding a former employee the school district no longer require confidential treatment and that the board make the unredacted portions of the minutes available for public inspection the dates of the minutes are october 4th 1983 december 13 1983 december 21st 1983 january 14 1984 january 23rd 1984 and january 28th 1984. is our second second uh mr baron yes mr eisley yes it's harris yes yes mr martiri yes and mr smith yes uh to adjourn again hi all right good night guys