001[Music] well good evening Welcome to our board meeting this evening before our regular board meeting we have a bond issuance notification act hearing and so now please call the role Sir Mr breaker here Dr cross pres Dr CW present Mrs Layman here Mr neie here Mr Roth present and Mr red here hey this evening we're having a hearing to hear um from the public on the proposed bonds to be issued um the reason for the bonds to be issued is to have facility upgrades first the first thing on the agenda is the Morton High School Entrance and locker room improvements and then we plan to move into Early Childhood some Early Childhood improvements and some sport servic improvements um so that is the reason for the issuance of the bonds so now we can open
002up the um anyone the board have any discussion items for that with that Jerry does anybody have any written testimony we received any there is no written testimony okay now we will open the floor for public comment if there's anybody in the public that would care to um address the bond issuance with that we will declare that the bond issuance notification act hearing is closed Valerie please call the role I need a motion excuse me I need a motion to yes to close the hearing some of support all right here we go Mr Ross yes Mr neie yes Mrs Layman yes Dr crawl yes Dr cross yes Mr breaker yeah yes and Mr red yes and just a few things about uh what just happened so we just had a hearing we get to hear
003from the public if there's any comments about issue before we issue bonds at our next meeting on December 12th we'll have a parameters resolution so basically the board is voting to agree to go issue bonds and then there's the process of accepting bonds uh in January February timeline and then we'll get those funds for those needed projects so that's the process tonight was us listening to our community if they had anything to say about it and the next steps will be will be approving the process to actually issue those bonds okay you with that we'll call our regular Board of board to order Miss Mr breaker here Dr cross present Dr crawl present Mrs Layman here Mr neie here Mr Roth pres and Mr red here with that please join me in the Pledge of
004Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and for our audience presentation we're going to have just a brief comment from the board um during the public comment segment of our recent board meetings there have been a number of threats of lawsuits and claims of complaints being made to governmental oversight agencies such as the Illinois State Board of Education the Federal Department of Education the office of civil rights therefore the board will no longer comment on these matters with that we this is the time this is the only time set aside for audience presentation the Board of Education will take all presentations under consideration and respond at the latest by the end of the regular next Board
005of Education meeting please limit your comments to five minutes participants are expected to conduct themselves with Civility and respect and follow the guidelines outlined in the board policy we want to emphasize the importance of maintaining a professional decorum during the public comment segment yelling verbal abuse and cheering clapping will no longer be tolerated and those who cannot conduct themselves with respect will be asked to stop speaking so with that we will open up to pug Joe who do we have first we have a couple students uh Kaden Brewbaker and Emma Bley hello so my name is Emma Bley like he said and I'm a junior here at Morton High School I'm the vice president of our local skillsusa chapter and I recently got elected to be the southern vice president of the Illinois skillsusa chap
006chapter overall uh I'm Ken Brewbaker I'm a senior at high school I'm the secretary for the chapter of the high school and then I'm also a state officer along with Emma and I am the parliamentarian yeah we are just here to say how much we appreciate apprciate the funding that the board has given skills USA and the opportunities it's been able to open up we understand that it's kind of a newer thing in our school especially and it's just been such a great opportunity and we just continue to ask that the board keeps funding skills USA because for me personally there's been so many amazing opportunities and I know talking with other students in our chapter and from other schools it's just such uh interesting and beneficial experience one example of this is we recently
007had the chance to go to a lead conference where we were able to learn how to better serve our um individual chapter and that was also where we had the opportunity to run to be elected for a state officership which was also really beneficial just learning those skills and those personal and workplace skills together with students from other schools like seriously thank you so much for the funding as we're both aware uh it's very not cheap to be part of skills USA a lot of the events cost quite a bit of money and there's registration fees and everything so it helps a lot to relieve some of that stress off the student shoulders and off like morland's budget shoulders uh an event that I think everyone looks forward to is our state competition that we
008experienced in late April uh it's called the championship and it's like over like $100 just registering for it and then we also have to get hotel rooms so all the money is really appreciated and the support that you guys give because we really try and make sure that everyone that's going into any kind of trade or technical related field really gets all the experience they can we have kids going for welding diesel tech and last year I did uh robotics Urban search and rescue which is like you build a robot and it has to navigate a course and like without funding from the board and all the support that we get it wouldn't be possible we have another event coming up this Friday though where we have I think 14 or 16 students including us
009going to uh Poria for construction Pathways which has over 20 industry Partners in construction related fields and all the students there are looking to go into the construction uh discipline and they're all going to be able to learn from all the great opportunities there and they're going to be industry Partners so they'll have a much better uh jumping off point in the future for anything they do thank you guys yeah thank you so much thank you thank you okay our next speaker is Heather M good evening I'm Heather mcmein I am reading this statement for for one of the parents who could not be here this evening her name is Julie Peters and she will be inboxing this to you good evening my name is Julie Peters for those of you who may not recall
010I spoke at the last school board meeting I positioned myself in this conversation as a concerned mom stepmom mental health therapist and Morton resident I will be succinct please remove Michael Saunders from his position as principal at Grundy Elementary School I listened to the statement from Amy MCL par at the last school board meeting and I have lost confidence that Mr Sanders has the capacity to lead the students Mr Saunders pardon me Mr Saunders segregated a black disabled child from his peers and prevented him from seeking the support he would have needed to be successful in the classroom furthermore he ignored trauma informed best practices to support the students social emotional needs and mental health concerns earlier this year a complaint was made that Mr Saunders assaulted an lgbtqia student the father of this student
011requested that a community advocate help and that Community Advocate me filed a foyer request due to evidence of bias that the principal may have a deeply rooted conflict of interests L linked to the phobia of all Queer folk I wish to make a very important point that seems to be missed over the past three months the foyer request could not have yielded any such such evidence Mr saunders's bias could have been difficult to reveal but that is not what happened the foyer request yielded thousands of results linked to homophobic and transphobic rhetoric hate groups and extremist organizations and racist Cults in most communities this result would have initiated an immediate investigation followed by the dismissal of a man grossly misusing his authority and power to project a bigoted agenda due to the demographic majority of
012the 709 School District this man's behaviors were defended as this is the season of gratitude I feel very thankful that I have not succumbed to the idea that morality is defined by the volume of folks who share an opinion as I am proud to stand in opposition to the majority voice of this community and to align myself with a higher calling of morality lat we have heard folks step up to share the fear-mongering rhetoric rooted in the idea that supporting the rights of minority children will impede the education and rights of their own children this statement is simply false and anchored in ignorance granting the M marginalized majority of voice rights and protections in a society does not threaten the rights of the majority my efforts to protect students who identify as black indigenous and
013other persons of color and students who are part of the lgbtq plus Community pose no threat to the major majority of white CIS heteronormative able-bodied students and their families in District 709 but I hypothesize that we will hear more uneducated backward claims purporting this very idea I suppose it can be scary for a very homogeneous Community to imagine changing the tber of its attitude towards folks who exist outside the bracket of the majority perhaps folks fear losing their edge of affluence and influence I imagine this is why the district is having such a crisis of conscience upholding Title 9 which demands that public schools accommodate student interest proportional financial assistance and equal benefits and opportunities for all students including queer students Title 9 protects any person from sex-based discrimination regardless of their real or perceived
014sex gender identity Andor gender expression female male and gender non-conforming students faculty staff and community members are protected from any sex-based discrimination harass harassment or violence I guess this is why the district is also having such a hard time upholding title 6 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race color and national origin or identity in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance finally I guess this is why the district is having trouble upholding the Americans with Disabilities Act which requires people with disabilities to have equal opportunity to benefit and access all of the program services and activities I have been really befuddled by the district 709 school board's reluctance to investigate take seriously an act in a situation where an administrator has broken the law please open this District up to an external investigation
015follow guidelines suggested by the Human Rights Campaign to ensure the safety of historically marginalized and oppressed students who identify as black indigenous or other people of color and lgbtqi students use resources such as the Trevor Project and the American Pediatric Association recommendations for LGBT T qia students please remove Michael Saunders thank you okay our next speaker will be Tammy woodmancy black children does it make me woke or a bully if I stand up for their rights to it Grundy at the direction of principal Michael Saunders a black child and an almost entirely white school for most of the school year was forced to eat separately use a separate bathroom come into school at a separate time and leave school at a separate time he was segregated from the white students and labeled a problem by
016Michael Saunders they Michael Saunders told that child's mother that he didn't have time to babysit this mother has the digital proof to sub substantiate her claims this same black child is legally blind and has an IEP that was ignored after the child's biological father was murdered this child was punished for putting his head down playing with his necklace and writing on his fingernails but kids that say the fword ending in t slave and the n-word have had zero punishment it's a crime it's a hate crime the black child I'm speaking of has an IEP that allows for quiet time the black child was put at the back of the room he's legally blind the black child was constantly and consistently sent to study independently though he had no ability to self- te he was isolated
017segregated he was deprived an education and social interaction for putting his head down when this child black child was unable to understand the material to do the homework or maintain good grades he was punished he was deprived in education he was deprived PE no school carnival no walking to get ice cream at DQ with the class no field trip because of his inability to complete the work that the school made it impossible for him to complete when this child reached I'm sorry reacted to this abuse he played right into the hands of his abuser Michael Saunders because then he' fit the problem child narrative that principal Saunders created this child with an IEP had no support he was set up to fail by Michael Saunders when minority and marginalized children react to rights violations and
018abuse in this District they are labeled the problem they are gaset Dr smuck because of Michael Saunders you all have a big problem you supported the abuser and not the children but now you know now you know you must act I know you don't support that a group of us have stood up and stood with these kids though we've been called lunatics this is for you all woke bullies and pot stirs by friends of Mrs Johnson I'm so upset the supporters of a bigoted teacher that is no longer in the school they are here tonight Johnson's supporters they are here to con for the continuance of bigotry and crimes against children it is illegal these bigots community members you hate being called bigots it is exactly what you are as you rally the good white
019extremist troops they may be your neighbors and call themselves Christians shamefully excusing their intolerance by calling it disagreement it is hate citing their religion they blame it on Jesus but make no mistake these hateful people do not believe in equality democracy and the rule of law that is outlined in the Constitution of the United States of America in this great nation religious freedom does not allow for one's religion to impede other people's rights you to children children it is a crime you are not allowed to make choices for all parents because of your beliefs allies of marginalized children will continue to make good trouble as I stand here as long as I can stand I will stand against bigotry join me do what is good do what is right intolerance of one's existence is hateful
020it is not a simple disagreement you have the right to be a bigot but it is not your right to Rob another of their constitutional rights with your beliefs this is a public school Prejudice even if not deliberate it is still prejudice and the result is the same today you know more and you can change your mind you can do what the law says You must do demand the resignation of Michael Saunders and Diane crawl they colluded they broke the law stand with all students that's why you are here okay our next speaker will be Daniel Countryman thank you for the time tonight I just um like to say a prayer for our um board tonight dear God we just ask that you bring your peace love and joy to this room in wisdom that
021you would fill this room and fill us with your presence that you would allow everyone here to show respect and that all the people in here would feel loved and respected that the truth of the presentations would stand out and that you would guide the people in this room to create an environment where the kids can learn and grow to be great citizens and great um build great communities I um also God please um end the bullying that's happening in our schools we know um there's many kids that don't feel safe in our schools we ask that you would bless them and that you would lift them up and that You' take care of them and that you would um guide our board on the best policies to set forth and our schools and our
022teachers and the other students there to be able to end the bullying we also pray for on the school absenteeism that's been going on God we ask that you just lift up our school and bless it and help to be a place where the kids want to learn and to be we ask that you bless the math the reading and the preparation for the careers um we ask that you bless um the our school and create an environment where we truth and respect are there um we just ask for a blessing on on the finances and on the um bonds that are being set up that you would give our board our school a good interest rate and that the kids could be blessed God please just um bless this room and the people that
023are in here God in Jesus name amen thank you for the time okay our next speaker will be Nathan Fay first I'd like to start by thanking the board for the time and effort you all put in to make sure that District 9 stays stays awesome it's easy to listen to some of the speeches at these meetings and get the assumption that uh the district is failing or falling apart yet the reality is that because of you the great administrators and the awesome teachers and staff that make up District our district District 709 is one of the best school districts in the state this is why me and my family have chosen District 79 as our school district we have achieved this without adopting the far-left curriculum being pushed on us from both the state
024and federal levels and now being pushed on us by this activist group because we are fairly conservative here and are not and have not adopted their agenda uh that makes us the high poy that has to be cut to size they are doing this by throwing out spous Act accusations like spaghetti and hoping that some will stick but if you examine any one of their accusations with an impartial eye they quickly fall apart this last meeting was specifically egregious when they outright accus principal Saunders of racism because of a disagreement on disciplinary action it is very easy to level accusa uh accusations when because of the nature of privacy laws the board and principal Saunders are unable to defend themselves publicly thankfully the accusation level last meeting was was so clearly missing key details that
025anyone can clearly see through it you have heard or will you will hear tonight specific examples of how principal Saunders supports and cares for minority children in his school Mr Saunders is truly a great principle and I know that uh a student's race or sexuality plays no factors on how he treats them this act uh these activists claim love and acceptance yet try to destroy the careers of good men and women they rail against individuals for their personal religious beliefs and in posts online mock people uh for how they cope with medical issues they pretend to care for the individual student but real uh really only care about getting the leftist curriculum like csse in District 709 CSC or comprehensive sexuality education when you listen to how it is described sounds mostly Innocent but when
026you dig deeper you'll find uh things like the concept of transgenderism being introduced to children as young as kindergarten you'll also find sexual sexual exploration is being promoted as a normal lifestyle to adolescent children these things you'll find are just a couple among a host of other issues uh they will pretend that you uh can sit your child out of the lesson or two and that it'll be fine but the part of the but part of the curriculum is that it is supposed to be incorporated incorporated into daily discussions I encourage the board to stand strong against these attacks and stand behind our teachers and administrators administrators with support I encourage those sitting at home listening to these meetings who agree with the board to show up in person and voice your appreciation and tell
027your story of why you chose District 709 if you are listening and aren't sure what to believe I encourage you to listen with a Discerning ear and to determine if what they are saying sounds like the truth or just unfounded attacks thank you for your time and your dedication our next speaker will be Leslie sh Shanks my name is Leslie Shanks I graduated from Morton my oldest graduated from Morton the younger two were pulled for Morton following eth and sixth respectively and homeschooled for several reasons one of which was this push for teaching that does has no place in schools in sixth grade my daughter's teacher asked the children to research and report on the primary candidates the teacher filled out the first Square on her favorite candidate Hillary Clinton my daughter added to that
028square some negatives with my blessing however she was afraid of receiving a poor grade because she had disagreed with the teacher public schools have been become a place for indoctrination and I am glad that Morton stands firm on making education their focus on two occasions I was contacted by the junior high principles once for my oldest and once for my middle child I thank the principal for informing me of the matters at hand I supported any decision he made both of the younger children exp experienced bullying at the junior high I contacted the principal he addressed the boy doing the bullying and that was sufficient for me bullying is not a new thing nor is it exclusive to Morton nor is it exclusive to any particular group nor is it simply expressing a difference of
029opinion nor will it ever go away completely nor is it okay I think we need to carefully examine the motives of those who are making very serious accusations about our town and our schools they are not credible I have had personal experience personally experienced slander from several of them a pediatrician who claims to advocate for children has repeatedly denied Christ for help from a domestic domestic violence victim she silenced the victim with threats of legal action and refused to view evidence she stated she knew everything she even stated that since the abuse did not occur in front of her that it didn't happen she repeated the lies from the abuser in medical documentation she clearly has a prejudice against the victim who holds different beliefs from her given the fact that this doctor is a
030notoriously poor historian the abuse VI requested to record the latest visit with this so-called advocate for atrisk kids the victim was denied the right to record her visit and told that the doctor's staff would have to be a witness astonishingly two weeks later this doctor had the audacity to stand in this building and say there should be recordings of complaints and that a subordinate was not sufficient because of fear retaliation this is the epitome of hypocritical following this Doctor's first speech I was compelled to end my silence I simply could not not believe that someone who so callously ignored the cries of an abused victim could stand in this room preaching about the safety of children I left an honest review I was met with cyber bullying and slander from two of the people accusing
031Morton have having a bullying problem Morton has a bullying problem and it starts with a small group of adults in the room who are bent on forcing their opinions on anyone on or silencing anyone they disagree with they cause harm by teaching that anyone who disagrees with you hates you imagine how traum iing it would be for an adolescent to believe that everyone who disagrees with you hate you your value does not come from the opinions of others people who disagree can and do love you love is not unconditional approval nor is disagreement hate in spite of claims that it was against the law to have a prayer before the meeting just this year the Department of Education stated that is wholly acceptable had the clergy lead in prayer at school events last year a
032football coach was Vindicated of his wrong for firing for prayer praying in the F field two weeks ago at St Lou's airport the Jehovah Witness has had a free speech Booth while I don't agree with them I simply walked on by this is what our forefathers intended I care deeply about hurt kids I don't believe that persecuting Christians and teaching young children about exploring sex is how we solve the problem studies show that teens who are not sexually active are least likely to be depressed or consider suicide we need to evaluate what is really best for the kids we need to set an example on how to communicate with one another kindly and make an attempt to understand each other we need to prioritize facts over feelings why feelings are important sometimes they lie to
033us we need to treat others equally and remain consistent regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof finally there is a whole lot of misinformation about the Constitution and rights the First Amendment does not give freedom from religion it prohibits the government from establishing a religion and protects freedom of speech the the term separ separation of church and state does not exist in the Constitution freedom from offense is not a constitutional right just because people continue to repeat falsehoods with conviction does not make it so perhaps we need to spend a lot more time on the constitution in school thank you okay our next speaker will be Gabrielle Burke you hi my name is Gabe Brookie I attended Morton schools K through 12 and have four children who are either currently in or previously gone through
034nearly every grade at Grundy all School aged children in my home are black and have extreme trauma backgrounds one child started attending Grundy when he was in the sixth grade he had a behavioral IEP and trust me he earned every penny of it that being said Grundy flooded him and our family with support to help him succeed and communicated frequently to update us on his progress as behaviors got worse the school social worker wrote us a message saying that she had asked our child to come up with a way to with ways to request a break when he felt like he was starting to lose control the method our student chose get this can I please please go to the office for a break far from feeling threatened by Mr Saunders our black child found
035nearness to Mr Saunders a refuge and safe space to go when things got crazy after one particularly difficult week of excuse me poor choices he was disappointed that he probably wouldn't be able to attend an endof year field trip that everyone else in the class got to go on the final decision though rested with Mr Saunders in his message to us Mr Saunders outlined the severity of our child's choice es and then stated and I quote from my perspective those two incidents alone would make the average student ineligible for the field trip however our child is not the average student he has experienced things in this life that most of us cannot fathom sadly his life experience has altered his worldview which directly impacts his day-to-day Behavior going on Mr Saunders said that he would
036provide alternative discipline but would still allow our child to attend the field trip this would have been such an easy time for Mr Saunders to continue this Vendetta against black people that I've heard so much about over the past few months instead Mr Saunders chose discernment he chose Grace to this day that foster child who is now High School age and has attended countless High scho countless schools all over the state of Illinois says that Grundy Elementary School was the best school he has ever attended the biological father of one of our other children was murdered our son son was subsequently diagnosed with an anxiety disorder again Grundy was awesome in responding to his needs 504 plan was put in place and lasted a few years in time as regular ongoing Services were no longer
037needed a meeting was scheduled to discuss termination of the 504 plan moments before the meeting the school social worker who was our primary point of contact on the matter told us that she wouldn't be able to attend the meeting Mr Saunders said that he would lead the meeting in her place Mr Saunders wasn't directly involved in the routine business of the plan so we were a little nervous he might not understand the finer details of what our son's needs were but when the meeting started Mr Saunders proactively addressed every single one of our concerns going down the list Point by Point showing demonstrating that he had read up on our child's needs and knew the issues well as for Diane crawl I don't know her in an educational setting though I do know her initially
038from being a former neighbor one day as our families would our family was playing outside and other of our neurode Divergent children was having a massive meltdown as Di and happened to be going on a walk past us she came in close and in her quintessential calm and quiet demeanor asked if she could help out by taking our little guy on a short walk with her she ended up giving him an enjoyable piggyback right around the block if I remember right all this is perhaps anecdotal evidence but it suggests a reality that is a far cry from the Absurd analogy I heard last month that gay and black kids are like Christians fearing for their lives on a daily basis before their Taliban principle a suggestion that would be laughable were it not so offensive
039if issues come up I encourage you discuss them if allegations are made take them serious investigate them but I cannot thank the members of this school board and the staff Grundy enough for the welcome sense of safety that they have been able to provide my children over the years thank you okay next is Megan Bon Megan Bond thank you very much for your time uh to continue what Tammy said Schoolboard and Dr smok if you support Michael Saunders and Diane crawl you are not supporting all the children you are legally task to support they colluded and they misused School funds to violate the rights of students they put all of you in legal Peril they put the distri districts finances and their personal finances and families on the line don't let them drag you along
040with them get some diversity in place not bigoted leadership taking those overnight training courses but Place true diversity and Leadership and learn from them right now show all the students in this District that Morton schools will stand with them and give them the lay Level Playing Field that the law requires thank you all right our final speaker for the night is Gretchen Hulan hi everyone I'm fret hulin um my two boys go to school in this District um we own a home in Morton and and my dad's Bruce aolan I don't know if anybody knows him but I've said things about um I'm worried about bullies in this town and people being bullied and um I feel like adults are being bullied like my criminal record has been brought up to people because of saying
041about I don't know people just like I feel concerned because people are being bullied and I'm here to support um people and that's why I come to meetings just to show my support and I have concern and I feel like it should be addressed and people shouldn't be scared to come forward or something just because others make it harder so thank you I appreciate you listening right that is it thank you with that we'll move on to administrative reports okay well hopefully everybody had a great Thanksgiving break and restful time um now we're back and running for four straight weeks so here we go I don't have a very long report tonight uh I just want to thank the Grundy staff uh for hosting us tonight maybe Mr breaker can say a few more words
042about that but just uh a big congratulations to the the teachers and staff and administration at Grundy uh for their exemplary status they're very proud about that uh it's a very high honor for them and uh that's just a great thing that happened for them this year uh the business office renovation just right across the hall is just about complete almost ready to move in I suggest that board members before you leave tonight just take a gander over there walk through it and see the big change that happened over these last few weeks I know the business office team are looking forward to moving in and getting settled into their place they've been kind of scattered about this building different places so I know they're looking forward to making that their home again the U
043Morton High School renovation project uh of course is the design process is pretty pretty much fully completed um the we went out we made notice for bids uh on November 16th we will be opening those bids that are due on December 13th and then approving the low bidder on December 19th at that special meeting of ours so thank you again for us being able to add a meeting to your calendar it shouldn't be a very long meeting that'll be the only action item I'm pretty sure on that agenda but it's a big one it's who's going to do that work on a major renovation project that's going to really change the face of our high school and then lead to other big improvements over there so that's kind of what's ahead of us uh as
044we head into December and that's all I have to report on tonight thank you any questions for Dr slock get A+ for brevity so um president's report is to um the we had the opportunity to be at Grundy school this evening and appreciate do uh Mr Saunders and his staff taking the evening to spend with us and the hospitality they showed us and it's always great to spend some time in the in the schools and um we learned a lot got to learn what their what their needs are and and help her celebrate their success as well so that was um a good thing um for agenda building I think next month we're going to add on to to the discussion item is our AUD audience presentation policy so next meeting come prepare to discuss
045that we're going to discuss some options and just some ways to make it a little more productive so anything else for agenda building anybody oh with that we will move on to our discussion item which is the our discussion of our recent visit to the Illinois joint conference School Board conference um we I think we're all attended and it was I think hopefully we all learned a lot I I can start off um two of the seminars that I uh visited one was on collective bargaining and just a good overview on just helping us understand some of the processes that go into that and my two takeaways that probably hit me the hardest were probably maybe I should have known before I went which happens a lot but the reality is is that both sides
046have the same goal and that's to improve the kids' lives and so going at it with the fact that we're all have the same goal is trying to to help the kids probably would help and then secondly is the reality is is when it's done we still all have to live together so civil being you know making a civil process is of the utmost importance um the other one I attended was what your superintendent wants you to know but can't tell you can't wait to hear this yeah anyway it's basically it's it I think Craig paid the speaker but we're supposed to be nicer to him I think basic how could you be the reality is no it's it's one of the two couple takeaways is you know what sometimes we get caught up in
047this and we don't really show our appreciation for the admin staff and for the teachers and the people that put the day-to-day work in and there one of the comments was you know take time to get show appreciation to those that are involved in the real work of the school district and the other one was is um I can't read my notes now so his feedback making sure that we give the superintendent feedback if he's not meeting our expectations or information that we want to know that we don't feel like we're getting or if there's a goal that's not met to let him know he can't read our minds so those were the two that my takeaways so you want to go next sure um I went to the tried and true art of school
048boarding which has been I think he said in the teens of years of annual presentation and found it helpful as other board members have in the past um and it was really neat to see that on a a national level um our board really operates in a lot of the best practices and he gave lots of examples of um places he'd been and conflicts he had helped resolve and um I was just really challenged by one of his quotes um in light of what um you know the last three years on the board has been personally um he said that um disrupt in a he culture disruption Spurs Innovation and so as I've been thinking about his presentation just the disruptions the things that aren't for weeks on the agenda and moving down from discussion
049to action um the things we don't expect are actually the things that we can hopefully shine on the most because we have the resources to do that so what have we not thought of and instead of seeing those as derailments instead seeing as well ways that we think differently and bigger so um that was just a very encouraging session and then um I really just want to thank our community for the investment and sending the board for development to this conference um I went to a trauma informed policy um a round table and was just really encouraged um that the steps our district has taken in social emotional learning and support and the way that um Dr smok has restructured with our Wellness coordinator is on point um a big takeaway for me as a
050board member was that the resilience from trauma that our students have really depends on the culture and the next things that happen after the trauma and so we really can make a difference if we have a context and culture for healing um and so just thinking how can our policies really inform that um and they gave some really nice examples so those were um some highlights for me not supposed to follow that you no pressure go Jerry wow thanks Diane that was a really really well said I get a follow so I went to uh actually Valerie and I seem to go to a lot of the same classes last year and this year went to the Google productivity class um which I always love going to those and I wish I could get in
051there more often but they talked about uh Google keep um which if you go into Google you'll see the waffle go into Google keep and there's a lot of interesting stuff that you can do there um if you do have a file a document or whatever you can go in and there's a version history so if you make make any corrections to it and you mess up you can go back a version to get the old version which I I've known that in spreadsheets Excel but not in Google Docs so that was kind of neat there's smart chips which I haven't played with yet building blocks haven't played with yet um basically he just did a lot of training in Google dots docs and a little bit of Gmail so the moral of story is
052with that is if you don't play with it you're not going to learn anything so you need to take a little bit of time to play with it and all this is about efficiency um which I get chat GPT later I also went to working together for kids again with Valerie and that was more of a an interesting thing for me to see what how the superintendent and um well basically the administration valer work together to get the boatloads of information out to us as the board to know what we need to see and um without inundating us with information so that was really interesting talking to listening to a superintendent and a and another Valerie I I enjoyed that um again it was more for for you guys but it was interesting to see
053all the communication that goes back and forth so there's there's a ton of information that you guys have to to to go through to figure out what to put out and how to get it out the most efficiently again I was working on efficiency because my life right now was not efficient enough um Saturday uh the delegate assembly so they handed out this delegate assembly packet they had the delegate assembly report they give you a little clicker um you guys probably already seen how the the votes where it went as expected um Tom has a a huge deal with that he has had a huge deal with that we got to elect a president and vice president coming up for the the delegate he can speak on that if he wants to um this thing
054is a a lot of back and forth there's opinions Galore thank goodness the ISB narrowed it down from when I first started like I don't know 20 20 of these down to I think five this year and then those five still took way longer than what I expected but everybody has an opinion what's really nice in there is the opinions were at least nicely stated from from each each person or each School District so if you guys want to see that know about that I'll give you a whole lot more information it is interesting now it goes to to get voted on so there's that the next thing was uh effective meetings I didn't make that because I was in the uh the delegate and then this goes back to the ISB I was able
055to download uh several different documents so which are power points that I can go through later and read and then chat GPT was the most interesting of everything that I've seen they uh there was a gentleman in there that was from it that got on chat GPT and show showed us exactly how it worked you can pretty much pull anything that you want and I've read about it I've seen it I just haven't actually used it now I downloaded it I'm ready to try to use it so again it's all about efficiency not about trying to cheat system so in our next meeting that reminds me that we're going to have some of our uh donm and yman and de Ripa are going to do a presentation on AI the good bad and ugly I
056really don't even know what exactly it's all going to be about but I you know we've asked them to kind of get us up the speed on some of the concerns and some of the benefits so we can look forward to that at our next Flor I am so looking forward to that because there was I'm assuming they were teachers that were asking the it gentleman that was in charge of it hey do this do this do this and they were like writing letters and then he would change it from like one type of author you know which would be English to another type of author which be like I don't know in the early 14th century and to another type of author which would be like oh shoot you remember all those authors Valerie
057it was it was crazy it was just neat on how it changed yeah they pulled up like do it in Dickens style do it in Shakespeare's style yeah it's pretty cool so it it's interesting on what it can do and uh there is the Bad and the Ugly Part uh he showed the good part okay well I'll share a few highlights of some of the sessions I went to uh the first one uh the session I wanted to go to was full and so this was the default uh session that was open I can get into and it's geared towards administrative assistance but uh they had this uh speaker on there who was a Administrative Assistant to some uh Fortune 500 executive person and she there's a lot of good takeaways from what she had
058to offer um one of the takeaways I wrote down that I thought man this is good and took notes of was uh life offers us opportunities that we can either ignore or take a chance on to see where they lead us and uh another thing that she brought up is to never let fear to decide your future and I thought man those two were good right there just in general but even as a board you know if you have uncertain times they're just good reminders and then the last one that I wrote down that I thought was good is if you see the light at the end of the tunnel it's just an oncoming train um which I thought was good because just when you think you're at the end of something oh you're going
059to get hit with something else and I think that's how life is so um that one was good and then the other session I want to talk about was the one that Tim went to as well it was the what your superintendant wants to tell you but can't and uh basically the biggest Takeaway on that was uh just how much uh stress the superintendent is under and how underappreciated they feel and so Dr smok I just want you to know that I thank you for the job you're doing and I appreciate what you do for us that's a pleasure Troy and I went to a very I'm not sure how I would Define it the unfunded mandates we probably could have spent our time in a better fashion because it's a lot of what we
060know there's too many of them they send you the mandates they say well this may not even cost you money but if it takes staff to fill out reports those are still costly to District so there was um like 600 plus mandates most all of those impacting public education and we just have to stay on top of that as a school board and a Schoolboard asso Association um Saturday was kind of the end of the ride for me on the only Schoolboard Association but it was a good one uh I think I've been serving as an officer for like 10 years uh Sunday I received a little plaque and they gave me a book or one of the gentlemen gave me a book he gave me two books and first was make your bed and
061I thought oh but it's mcraven wrote it and he said an admiral and he said if you make your bed first thing in the morning you've had some success and it's a good way to start your day I got through that one in a hurry then they also gave me my home team which was about our Morton girls basketball team I have not finished it yet but the one I found very interesting was the generational presentation and I've bought the book on that and it's going to take me a while to get to R but there was a lot to that when we think about our Generations that what how we have to educate our students not have to how we get have the opportunity to educate our students but the things that change over
062time and one of the things that that was highlighted in his presentation is what kids are coming to school with as a result of Co and Beyond Co all the technology and down the road as an agenda item I'd almost like to see a task force to look to see are there things that we can do to turn that around for our district I know that's easy to say not easy to do but I'd feel great if we could be a Pathfinder in that at least put it back a little bit because what we heard tonight is we in some of our presentations was how that's impacting teachers trying to teach children and that are have so much experience with technology and it's still such a distraction for them so it was uh something that
063I think it would be great if we could look at that I know the Seal team they're looking at it but maybe coming to us with some ideas is that you're thinking about or ways that we can even more better educate parents on things that that we can do collectively I know we talked about that previously but I think it's a big deal as we all know and that was a big issue um in his presentation but he walked us all the way from World War I to where we are today and how your community um is impacted I mean we have we're living with six generations of people right now and it's just mindboggling when you think about a community and the values and the Norms in that community and I'm spending too much
064time talking but uh it was a good conference for me um on Sunday I wrapped it up on legal issues things you can't believe that would people would bring up is was kind of the title of it and indeed we've been faced with some of those in our own District some of the challenges uh that school districts are are faced with the issue of the prayer and and the things that we've heard about and uh I guess I I feel that we done a good job in dealing with most of these issues so thank you for indulging me thanks for your representation on the association for all those years much appreciated so we represented as well people are high expectations if we beat somebody they'd say oh you're Mort you must be as good as
065Tom no we're not and the comments about the generations was brought up at several tables tonight Joe was we were on the same tables they were teachers were discussing how kids are coming to school with just more issues and difficult issues than they have been in the past so that a spoiler alert on your book the girls won stay three years in a row I know that I knew how it ended I I but he was comparing his Sports riding light also so did you read that part I read it last night so you're right I was all excited I had have sat with a librarian I got to brag I read a book so life is good uh so for me um I think the two that I took a fair bit from from
066so one was the same I sat on the intro to collect a bargaining uh with Tim um being that apparently was nominated to serve in that capacity as representative for the board last meeting when I wasn't here thought maybe I should sit on that um uh get some details on that I thought it was actually really well done you know lawyer superintendent kind of went back and forth through the whole thing and um I took a lot of notes um which I will not bore you with but I think it will be super helpful um a lot of it is pretty low hanging fruit right simple stuff you just got to remember you know what you're all there for like you said um and the other one I went to that I found pretty helpful
067was understanding impacts of inflation on your District right I mean inflation is something that everybody's dealt with it was actually brought up to me at Grundy today um you know you know inflation's rough you know how about a raise in the spring I'm like oh here we go and um but it was actually super um helpful because they talked about longterm and where they think it's going and I had a a lot of notes in that too that I need to sit down did you go to it at a different one did you did you find it useful okay say I wonder what we're doing with that so I have some things then our next time we have a financial committee meeting I'm on a vendor year like well what are we doing for that
068because it's pretty it's pretty interesting I thought okay all right well the two I was going to talk on of the several that I went to have been talked about pretty well but there are of school boarding I went to last year and I would highly recommend I liked it so much on my back this year I feel like the guy that um speaks at it is just super knowledgeable he was the past superintendent and he um serves now like on a hospital board so he's kind of seen both sides of how both of them operate um one thing he said is being a superintendent which I thought was good and it was a good reminder is he said tell me what you're thinking but don't tell me how to do it coming from a
069superintendent so we hire you and we trust and we you know are confident in that decision and appreciate what you do thank you for that um another one was just that we help right policy but you the administration obviously um implements procedures so we're thankful for that part too but um generational studies I went to that as well I didn't see you in there but it was such a big room that I can see why I didn't see you there but they um I thought it was interesting that there are six Generations six gener living Generations like you said living here in 2023 and that just from childhood through 18 that's your formative years and then you become a generation um just a lot of different people who have um grown up and have different
070values and different different things that have shaped the way they are and we're kind of dealing with all of that within a school district when you think of grandparents down to new parents so couple other ones I hit I won't touch on but they were they were good too okay couple comments for Mr neie first thank you um I thank you for your service on uh the board um not only do you represent uh more 709 you represent Central Illinois which doesn't get a lot of representation on on the triple I boards okay and so that is commendable and you've done it for so long so thank you and then the second thing that thank you for bringing up MC uh Admiral mcraven the 10 ways to change the world I kicked off a home
071station training about five years ago six years ago with the my unit and near guard and that's the video I showed and now I got to go back and watch it because it really is you can change the world when you do these things okay so thank you for doing that I saw his video so I will so um I did negotiations one word relationships I think we've got great relationships here in 709 um it was very uh well done presentation um you always have uh certain takeaways the second session I went to was uh a group from a school district we'll just say in the Suburban Chicago area um listen to two of their Tech Team guys talk about everything Google and so uh if any of you would like so I went up
072to him afterward and I said hey so all these videos I think they've got like 130 like on average 2minute videos now about half of the videos are specific to their school district like you know Chromebook turning but a lot of them are on like Google keep and organizing your email and all that so if anyone out there wants me wants that uh link to that website just shoot me an email I'll copy the link and I'll send it to you because I I have used it so many times like for example Google Slides presentations I didn't realize you could use that to make posters that you can change your orientation of slides now I brought it up to our can do tech crew here and they said oh yeah we've been doing that for
073a long time but the quick two-minute video is worth to watch okay and the last thing there was a school district outside of Rockford they had 79 slides and it was on manufacturing and careers in manufacturing 79 slides that they accomplished in about 50 minutes um but it was fantastic they they called uh there is one big takeaway a regional immersion night and it was uh multiple high schools got together and they brought in a different manufacturing entities so it was almost like a um just like a a a huge area that had uh booths with all the different trades and so it was truly an emerging emerging night in U manufacturing I'm going to reach out to Jill Warren who is our EF Director to see if if anything like that could be done
074here regionally but they said that they had over 300 students attend from multiple high schools and so that was a huge takeway all right the two I'm uh just going to quickly talk about um really talked a lot about the current state of affairs that isn't so good and there wasn't a whole lot of solutions unfortunately I was hoping to hear more about Solutions uh the first one attracting supporting and retaining effective principles um that was done by Jason Ley of the IPA so he's the executive director of IPA and just a few notes about that only one in four principles remain in their positions for five years and even in our district we've seen administrators leave entirely the the area of education and go into into the commercial world and that's in Morton um
075so for some reason people just don't want to do these jobs anymore and they're really having a hard time even getting teachers to be interested in taking the education courses to become principles so this is a serious problem so he mentioned one in four principal stay for 5 years but it takes 5 to 10 years to actually build a building culture so cultures aren't getting built there's this uh you know it's a Turn Style of turnover and you know that's a difficulty the average hour is a week the principal spends this is back in 2018 this is pre- pandemic with 61 hours and that's probably our at the job and not at home and that's the other aspect was the stress levels theal and mental health issues that they deal with with students uh with
076staff with themselves um the Advent of the cell phone was just a great tool that follows you everywhere with email and you think think back like what was the principal's job like prior to email and cell phones and they walked out the door and maybe they got a phone call at home now and then but probably pretty rare so it's just a completely different life and uh and stress that a companies that um what are the solutions so it's more like expressing the problem the one of the things they did talk about is you know we know that administrators make more in salary than teachers but one of the suggestions was but look at the per day pay so how does how does their pay really compare when you look at it per DM uh
077compared to teachers and I know we've had that issue in our own District when we've moved a teacher to an administrative job you think oh now they're making the big bucks no not necessarily so that was maybe their only suggestion is is that but um we have lost administrators and that's a and you're hearing the outcry from universities right now we need teachers into these programs we can't get them in and uh you know It's just tough finding people that are willing to step up to do those jobs and I think it's not surprising uh so sorry that was kind of a downer wasn't it um uh the other was K12 economics and policy in Springfield so that was Brent Clark of the IESA another big hitter in our state and there were two state
078representatives the Deputy Governor was there and basically touting ebf funding which is evidence-based funding how schools are funded through State funds now compared to what they used to be and and basically saying it's a success I agree with that I think schools are pretty well funded now more than ever they did mention however the categoricals which are the kind of the sideline issues you could say transportation and special ed are two big ones um they're not as well funded and so that's one of our concerns they indicated immigration in our state is having a big imp impact on the state budget and uh I didn't know that that was kind of a surprise to me I know Chicago was dealing with that issue I've seen that in the news but didn't know what it what
079kind of impact it was having at this point and the the one that wasn't so much of a surprise is pensions um and some of you may know this that some of our faculty are in what's called tier two tier one are employees that were hired before January of 2011 and those hired after January of 2011 are in a completely different pension situation same system same contributions they work till their age 67 tier people worked to age 55 to get to full retirement so that's just that's just scratching the surface on the differences that's not going into all the details of other big differences so one of the concerns is that uh since teachers don't pay in Social Security there is a law that their benefits have to be as good as Social Security to
080be not in Social Security well there's some concern about whether two-tier folks now that they're starting to get to retirement age are really in this Safe Harbor of having benefits better than Social Security would have been for them so this this was predictable I think Joe and I have talked about this even before Joe worked in our district we had conversations in iasbo about this is a lawsuit it's just a matter of time in a few more years people are going to start waking up to this and they did talk about that so we'll see where that goes I think there's some a language right now to try to change tier two a little bit for those younger teachers but some of those teachers aren't as young as they we used to think they were
081so 2011 was a while back now so and the last thing I'd leave you with is the they T they just talked a little bit about the state uh $900 million budget deficit that they deal with and you know I don't know that they have any solutions to that so again a lot of I guess you could say problems without a whole lot of solutions but um yeah I I still found it educational was great to hear from those big hitters in those organizations those are the two you know big organizations in our state uh and lastly I just want to say thank you to our school board um who went down there for spent two or three four days apart from their families apart from their jobs to do a volunteer job I mean
082it's it's truly a a thankless job at times um and I just really appreciate the dedication that you all have to take time out of your life lives to go do that and to be to educate yourselves about things relative to um Illinois education and the issues and solutions I just appreciate the fact that that we had you all up there and uh it was a good time to get to know one another also a lot of good education um as well so appreciate your dedication to that not every school board has their full team up there so really appreciate that that's all I have I they tried to tell me it was in December so I don't know what they were trying to get me to go a month later really appreciate that um
083and know it was it was a good time to spend some time with each other just on a just on a social level a little bit got to eat dinner one night two nights together and just to have get just a personal not really Schoolboard business and just so that's good so with that we will move on to action items we have two of them first we'll accept a motion for the Board of Education to approve the property tax relief Grant the Board of Education approve theion of the application for the property relief Grant support any discussion Mr red yes Dr cross yes Mr Ney yes Mr Roth yes Mr breaker yes Dr crawl yes and Mr flam yes the second item is the motion to approve the base bid plus alant bids One and
084Two from Midwest Service Group in the amount of $131,700 best is baited out of the tunnels we'll let keep the ground running when they actually start the demolition and renovation process in that part of the building so I think this is a great idea to to get this thing going and have that done before the rest of the renovation so we're going to try to accomplish this we are going to accomplish this over Christmas vacation when students aren't in the building so moved Tim you wanted a motion I got a motion so move support Second fall asleep yet Mr neie yes Dr cross yes Mrs lammond yes Mr Roth yes Mr rud Mr breaker yes and Dr crawl yes he already read next we'll accept a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so
085moved I got to look at you otherwise I get in trouble thank you Dr cross support that support Mr R Dr cross yes Mr red yes Dr crawl yes Mrs Layman yes Mr neie yes Mr Roth yes and Mr breaker yes I guess Troy wanted his tie mention before we go into Clos session or something so I don't anyway we'll see a motion to in close session to discuss Personnel so moved support oh go ahead you you got let's Dr cross yes Dr crawl yes Mr breaker yes Mrs lamman yes Mr Neely yes Mr Roth yes and Mr red yes that will'll take five minutes to tear it down [Music] than