001chair will crawl toward her tonight's regular meeting of the board of education tonight is august 10th 2021 uh roll call please miss decade here miss conover miss hoover miss fredonia here mr avia here miss coyle here mr marin okay can we stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all the first item on our agenda is closed session the chair will entertain a motion to enter closed session to discuss negotiations and personnel so moved second roll call please mr marin yes mr abia yes miss coyle yes mr visteckitty yes miss rodonio yes okay 601 we can head into closed sessions if you guys could bring your black folders with you into closed that would be great
002it's august 10th and the board is resuming open session after our closed session the first item on the agenda is public comments and we have one public comment from whitney rogers go ahead and step up to the podium good evening everyone my name is whitney rogers and i am coming before everyone here this evening not just as a resident of westmont or only as a concerned cusd 201 parent but as an advocate and voice for the entire student body of cusd 201 our children we are all aware that governor pritzker issued a mass mandate last wednesday stating that all students and teachers in schools will be required to wear masks while indoors governor pritzker also stated its mass will also apply to all students and coaches participating in indoor sports and other activities so not
003only does the governor want parents as well as members of each respective school district i.e the teachers the administration administrators superintendents etc to inflict this control tactic onto our children he is asking you the members of cusd201 to inflict this onto yourselves governor pritzker is encouraging all parents and guardians within the state of illinois to abuse their child or children that's right abuse the definition of abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit abuse can come in many forms such as physical or verbal maltreatment injury assault violation rape unjust practices crimes or other types of aggression governor pritzker is mandating parents and educators to do something that is not only immoral but is illegal the mass mandate is requiring the responsible individuals us the adults to
004abuse our children it is requiring us to enforce the improper use of a thing the mask for improper gain school funding it is estimated that only approximately 25 percent of school funding comes from the state of illinois while approximately seven percent of school funding comes from the federal government now if at least fifty percent of the cus d201 parents were to remove their children out of the cusd 201 school system and opt to homeschool their child or children that would mean cusd will lose approximately 16 of their funding a 16 deficit doesn't sound like much but when that 16 percent has to be made up elsewhere i.e tax dollars property tax increases etc that's when it'll become more of a concern why wait until something like that occurs to make it a concern then our
005children are priority so the concern is now so not only is governor pritzker requiring the parents and educators to abuse our children he's abusing each and every resident within the state of illinois the abuse is coming in forms of physical mass mandate verbal maltreatment stating that we are required to mask our children and ourselves when a mandate can't trump a law especially a law that does not exist injury mass can potentially create fear anxiety and headaches violation physical mental emotional and legal and unjust practices we are morally and legally obligated to protect our children from harm not inflict harm unto them as a mandated reporter being that i work for the largest juvenile facility within the country cook county juvenile temporary detention center in chicago i refuse to allow my children to be abused and
006i refuse to stand by and watch other children to be abused i have not only a legal obligation to report the maltreatment of any child be it mine or someone else's i also have a moral compass that allows me to be empathetic towards others and stand up for what is right and not bow down to what is wrong mandates violate the separation of powers doctrine mandates are not legislated into law and have no lawful standing in court no government or private entity open to the public can mandate that a patron employee or any other citizen to wear a mask or get a vaccination anyone that threatens another with no service no employment fines or jail for not wearing a mask or for not having a vaccination is using coercion which is a felony anyone who
007does this is also violating the americans with disabilities act religious discrimination hipaa title vii of the civil rights act of 1964 cole 42 subsection 1983 and the newer burn called article 6 section 3 which is international law anyone who does any of the above mentioned is also committing a felony under the deprivation of rights u.s cold section 242 of title 18. forcing mask is not only morally wrong and abusive but is also discriminatory and illegal attorney thomas devore of davor law offices llc has filed a lawsuit against governor pritzker for the mass mandate as of yesterday august 9th so i am now asking that the cusd 201 board of education exert the same level of sovereignty that the state of illinois has the ability to do govern your school district don't allow governor pritzker to
008inflict gaslighting on any cusd 201 parent teacher administrator or tool or superintendent by making one into believing that masking guard children is the right thing to do understand that the right thing to do is to not allow fear-mongering tactics to sway your moral compass when it comes to that of our human and constitutional rights on behalf of our children and ourselves it is our right to have a choice as to what happens to us as human beings exercise that same right into our children allow them to have a choice as well thank you thank you thank you okay since there's no other public comments we'll move on to the next item on the agenda oh i'm sorry i'm sorry okay this is lisa lance hi there lisa lance elementary parent just wanted to make a
009public comment that i'm very very thankful that equity inclusion are on the agenda tonight i know this is something that i've talked to you guys about before from this podium but i'm just really thankful that you're digging in and that you're asking tough questions and you're hoping to equip our students our teachers our families in our district to um to tackle some of these issues that i think in some ways we dismiss culturally because they become like a buzzword or things that people have animosity about on social media and then as a way to sort of not get involved in the fray we just dismiss it all together and so i'm really thankful that you guys are taking this on and i'm excited to see sort of the trajectory as we start these conversations because
010it isn't going to change us overnight but that i'm confident that you guys actually putting in a specific plan to implement these kinds of discussions and this kind of inclusivity will moving forward put some good roots down in our district to help all of us grow so thank you i feel like you don't hear thank you enough you hear a lot of critique so i'm excited to be a part of these conversations with you i know there are lots of families in our district who are really excited there's a lot of voices that haven't ever come to the table that have a lot to offer in this so i'm excited to see how you specifically seek those people out and include them but thank you this is this is the work that you guys actually
011i'm pretty sure are passionate about and why you joined the school board masks probably weren't on your agenda when you decided you know to care for our students so you've done all of that really hard work that you didn't necessarily sign up for but i'm pretty sure that helping our kids grow is something that you're passionate about which is why you're in those seats so thank you for caring about this and kind of beginning this conversation tonight that's it thank you thank you okay i think there's no other public at this point so so we're gonna move on to the next item of the agenda which is the approval of minutes the chair will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the july 20 2021 regular meeting of the board of education as presented
012so moved second all in favor all right any opposed okay just making sure you're there um the chair will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the closed session of the july 20 2021 regular meeting of the board of education as presented so moved second all in favor aye the opposed okay the chair will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the august 3rd 2021 special meeting of the board of education as presented so moved second all in favor aye next item is the consent agenda agenda the chair will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented number one personnel recommendations john baldwin part-time fte for pe teacher for miller school john baldwin part-time fte for special education ta kimberly rosales dual language kindergarten teacher at miller stephanie gilto special ed
013teaching assistant gene heasley special ed teaching assistant chris hans special ed teaching assistant jeffrey melvin and then we have resignations number two certificate of hazardous crossing number three board authorization of vehicle use number four approval of additional july 2021 expenditure report and number five approval of donation from osco drug of children's masks and hand sanitizer so moved second roll call please miss conover yes mr avia yes miss coyle yes miss stephanie yes miss fredonia yes mr marin yes okay the next item on the agenda are the information discussion items starting with the summer facility projects update all right we just wanted to update you on what we've been working on this summer so at the high school the building automation system has been replaced that should be complete hopefully by the end of this week
014and that will provide better control of our heating and cooling systems at the high school there were plumbing projects there as part of the 10-year life safety survey for the kitchen and in the trainer's room we had gone out to bid late spring early summer for the roof replacement at the high school because of wind damage and then also an alternate bid to replace another section of roof and as the board has been informed it's difficult for a contractor to guarantee delivery of product and the price and so we will be working on that going out probably to re-bid um late winter early spring so that we can get some uh guaranteed pricing and availability of material in the meantime we just found out today um we saw uh repairs uh pricing um to kind
015of get us through the winter uh months and the insurance company gave us approval today for the repairs to get us through the winter so that will be starting soon then um at the junior high again another plumbing project on the 10-year life safety survey with some drain work that needed to be done and then the village has finally approved the replacement for the digital marquee sign and so we're just waiting for one more permit and then we can get that project going and so john jones the principal has funding set aside for that project at manning again there were plumbing projects on the 10-year life safety survey where they had to address some hot and cold water supply lines and some areas in the showers in the gym and a sink in the basement
016of the building and then there were also some things that needed to be fixed in the art room related to plumbing so those have all been repaired and then the principal put in a community garden at manning and you should see there's like six raised beds in that area at miller again plumbing projects related to the 10-year life safety survey so they had to increase a pipe from a two inch to a four inch it was quite a large project but that has been completed as well and then some additional work done in the kitchen related to floor drains and the air gap and then there were no projects at south this winter and those plumbing life safety projects were part of funded through our life safety remaining like our life safety funds that we
017have remaining and then we also received a 50 000 matching grant school maintenance project grant to offset some of those costs um we will be working with the facilities committee joe is working on reprioritizing items so that we can go through that with the facilities committee then meet with the finance committee and start working on that and as we've discussed at other meetings the hvac system replacement at westmont junior high is the top priority we've also set aside six hundred thousand dollars in sr3 to go toward that project so we may need to go out to um and issue some bonds but as we get a little bit closer we'll start looking at that and having discussions and then we also did receive notice today that the state has another school maintenance project grant funding
018out there so we will be applying that's again a fifty thousand dollar matching grant you have to do a hundred thousand dollar project and they'll match fifty thousand if you're approved for it it's a competitive grant so joe and i will be working on that and present that information to you that's due sometime in october so does anybody have questions all right thank you okay there's no questions the pr committee update is next hi that's me i haven't made any kind of presentation or anything something i gotta do in the future um we've as the boards are all on a bunch of committees so [Music] recently the pr committee met um myself adina and carlos going forward will be on this committee as well um jack balderman and amy cuatron are on the committee with
019us we met back in july to throw some ideas around and we created a smart goal of that by the end of the 21 22 school year the 201 pr committee will significantly approve stakeholder opinions of d201 through the use of pr materials increased communication and more community involvement so starting on our end as board members um and we're going to include all the board going forward we're going to be more present at events so we can mingle with the community they know who we are um it's going to be a different array of events the first one starting next monday when the staff is officially starting the school year we will whoever is available because we know it's during the day whoever's available will meet during the official first meeting of the year after
020that we're looking to have a celebration of the accomplishment of accomplishments in d201 the who is it the awards the um scholastic team we're going to do that in october at the high school um they're looking to get a real estate fair together where amy said this has been done in the past where all the real estate agents they have a bunch of real estate agents come in and we fill them in on what's going on in our school district so then they know and they can tell their clients what's going on and why westmont's a great place to live so they're looking to do that again and then if everybody can keep open november 10th it's going to be the 100th anniversary celebration so we want to try and get everybody in the community
021for that um other than that we're going to ramp up our social media presence we've started an instagram just to promote all the good things going on because facebook has kind of laxed over the last couple years but people still enjoy just seeing the pictures on instagram so we're going there and then in the future when the giant committees start again we're going to be looking for other stakeholders to continue to join in on this pr to get more ideas so that's where we're at great any questions from the rest of the board uh yeah i just have one which is when is the when's the next uh subcommittee we thought maybe the end it looks more like september we will let you know i'm going since i get your email we're gonna send you
022the original agenda and anything and then amy and jack will communicate with you thanks did you guys talk at all ange about things like town halls or you know coffee and conversation with a board it was mentioned um we didn't do a full blown like we just dabbled on it a little bit but not like full blown get the town together um beyond the real estate we did talk about maybe doing meet and greets with business owners yep and then just going from there so okay and i and i know that that's part of the plan for certain projects so maybe that's how it starts as well um i just wanted to see what had been talked about there yeah we dabbled on it a little bit because the same thing we brought in the
023tasks for us where that would be um comparable to do that so but we didn't go in any big picture on that awesome lori your question made me think of another one and i know we've talked about this before but just um and also let me say that that all sounds really great um i'm following the account on instagram appreciate that um but we've talked about like newspaper media coverage and how we're kind of in this black hole of coverage in this district and i think it would be nice to get some of that great news published in some of those outlets too so is that part of like do you have a contact with the suburban my suburban life oh great um and we dabbled in the idea of maybe getting a whole community
024newsletter from us out and in westmont life but we're we were coming against some roadblocks because that whole media aspect is kind of dying off and that's why we're ramping up social media but we were we were talking about how to get to the other areas that don't do anything with social media so we talked a little bit about a community-wide newsletter but that's all still early in the works and once we get carlos on and then more people going forward i think we'll get a lot more ideas great i was just wondering thank you for the update thank you any other comments or questions for ange okay the next item on the agenda is equity and inclusion uh um i just wanted to assure the board some of the thinking and the planning around
025equity and inclusion that we're considering as a district and um you know as a district we want to make sure that all of our students have a sense of belonging that they're successful we want our staff to have a sense of belonging our community and um we want our schools to be welcoming places that's what we're we're striving for um currently in the news media um you're seeing three terms that are are kind of out there that are being used interchangeably and those are critical race theory culturally responsive teaching and equity and inclusion i just want to first start with kind of just briefly defining those terms and and really they're not synonyms for one another critical race theory is actually an academic concept and it began in the 1980s it was a harvard study
026and the harvard study was taking a look at laws and policies and seeing if there was um some either intended or unintended discrimination or bias in some laws in in some policies and and that's where you'll see critical race theories more in law practices it's used as a lens when you're looking at different laws and different policies it's uh not something that's taught in schools and i think you'd be hard-pressed to find a k-12 school that is teaching critical race theory again it's a it's more of a lens that's being used to determine if practices are are discriminatory and so it it definitely is not um again it's not a subject that's being taught in k-12 schools it's not part of anybody's social studies curriculum um and again it's not a cinnamon nim for uh
027culturally responsive teaching in terms of what culturally responsive teaching here are three different definitions but um you know it's it's more about knowing our students knowing our community that we're working with and um developing those positive uh relationships it's as this slide shows it's it's really about the relationships and understanding our students and when you have a dual language program you're already very much entrenched in culturally responsive teaching i mean you can't teach your language without being culturally responsive uh over time we have taken a look at the books we have our students read um i always like to say that for a while there was always old white men that uh that was lit the literature that you know students read and there are a lot of you know great female authors there's a
028lot of different authors out there different ethnic groups that students really should be exposed to and there's also you know when students can see themselves in either the literature or in the context that's being studied or even in our staff i mean that goes a long way towards building those positive relationships and so that's um that's more the crux of what culturally responsive teaching is again it's um it's our you know it's making connections it's understanding and bringing different cultures into the classroom it's understanding that sometimes the way people think and respond is is based upon their culture and it helps when we when we understand those things uh again sometimes what we hear of what it is it's definitely it's not it's not telling any students that they're racist that's not what culturally responsive
029teaching is um so we're we're talking about equity and inclusion and i love this definition it's to ensure the fair treatment and quality of opportunity and fairness and access to information resources for all um it's when again students and employees all feel welcome they're seen they're safe they're respected care for and understood and again that's the the positive relationships it's those relationships that are critical towards equity and inclusion i like these graphics because again sometimes we talk about equality and sometimes we talk about equity and equity especially in a school setting is making sure that all students have what they need to be successful and so that's why i like the the second graphic in the lower right where you know it's more important that again you know not every student needs the same amount
030of support but we make sure that the students get the support they need to be successful in our schools and so that's what equity is the other thing too is it's not just ethnicity or race when you start looking at equity you know there are so many different lenses to look through and this chart kind of shows you all the different lenses that when you start talking about equity and inclusion it goes beyond again that race or ethnicity you know it's it's about you know special needs students it's students that speak different languages different cultures different social economic backgrounds gender sexuality all those things when you start really looking at equity and inclusion you've got to look at all those subgroups you know i made a point to also share i do this every fall
031when the school report comes out and uh we talk about our demographics and so definitely in our district we have ethnic diversity but again when you start to look at your demographics we again have students that have ieps we have students that english is their second language they're emerging bilinguals we have low-income students we have students who are homeless you know when you start looking at our attendance and our mobility rate chronic absences it's not just enough to look at the numbers but you got to look at what students are making up those numbers and that's where the equity comes in that's where the inclusion comes in you know making sure that we understand what those numbers mean and and who those students are um so in terms of what uh i'd like to the
032district to do is we can call it a committee or um or a task force but an equity committee or task force and i would think that the first step is an equity audit and i would recommend in um at a future meeting i can share information with the board but there's a couple of different outside resources that will come in and they'll do the deep dives you know they'll look at your your data they'll also do the surveying and the interviews and they talk to students and they talk to community members and they talk to staff and they ask those hard questions you know and we like to always i know every fall when i talk about our um our schools we are so proud of the fact that we have a 100 graduation
033rate of our african-american students and and hispanic students and that's something we're very proud of but that doesn't necessarily mean that those students feel welcome and included you know you can't necessarily make that correlation so and again we have students that come from all different backgrounds that we want to make sure that our schools are welcoming places for all the students and um that we're supporting them as they they need to be supported and so it's asking those tough questions and then once we have that data and we see where our gaps are you know and where we need to get better well then we can start putting together the action plans so that we can address those areas we can make sure that those areas that we're strong in that we continue being strong
034in those areas but then those areas where possibly we need to be better and we need to take a hard look in the mirror and say okay where do we need to be better that then we take those steps to put in those action plans to make sure that we're better and at the end of the day i think you know i'm proud of our district i think we're a great district but you know i think we need to you know take that hard look at our district to make sure that uh you know below the surface we're just as proud of who we are so any questions i i don't i don't know if i have questions but i do have a couple of comments one would be thank you very much for putting
035this together um i think it's really useful to draw these distinction between these these terms and i really appreciate the focus on equity equity and inclusion but equity i think the word equity and the graphic that you showed is also perfectly illustrative of what we're trying to what we're talking about right right um so that's comment number one and comment number two is you know i i have a lot of contact with the hispanic community not in this community actually believe it or not even though i've lived here for two years but in in general terms i do um in other communities and places that i've been and um it's easy when you're when you're in the hispanic community to understand that that a lot of people that are that are in your community don't
036speak the language because they quite literally don't speak the language some of them some of us um of the people that are sitting in on boards like this and in places like this but it's not so easy whenever you're whenever your distinctive quality is is your is something about your gender your sexuality maybe your your income level that that everyone speaks a bit of a different language and i think that when as we move forward with this effort i think we need to understand that we're going to be talking with people who don't understand what we're saying you know and it's not because of english as a language right and that we need to understand them and we need to make sure that they feel understood by us right and i and again when you're
037part of the hispanic community it's easy to identify this issue but when it's when when the differences come from a different place because we all speak english i think we forget this so if this is more maybe to the other board members than it is to you it's it's as we do this keep this this piece in mind because it's it's a it's a it's pitfalls waiting to be fallen into um on that note i really appreciate that we're going into this because um i grew up in chicago and went to a school in the suburbs that took people a private school with a lot of people and when i went to the um it was the same thing though i knew black i knew white i knew latinx people that was it i moved
038to the further out suburbs and i saw a race of people that i had never encountered in my life when i was 16 and i was like who are these people i don't know who these people are and i knew nothing about it i don't know how it was never touched on maybe it was all the years i was in private school or not but i really appreciate that schools are looking forward to doing this and expanding everyone's knowledge um i shared this with kevin i just want everybody else on the board to know are we going to make sure on a task force that we're going to have everybody covered i know we have a lot of allies in our district i just want to make sure every voice is going to be covered
039in that task first um i also am so appreciative of this i think that um like carlos said just defining the terms is so great i also just um you know there's always work to be done and a lot of steps to be made but i want to commend the district for what they've done already i mean i think anybody who's walked in the hallways or met teachers know that you know i think when you boil this down to the bare minimum conversations of equity and inclusion come down to relationships and care for the people who are in front of you and wanting to know them and understand them and i think that the district and the teachers and the principals have already done a lot to do that there's still a lot of work
040to be done and i appreciate that we acknowledge that but also appreciate the great things that have been done already to care for our students um and and appreciate all of their differences um i guess some of my questions these are kind of more like logistical questions two things number one um what like a proposed kind of timeline might be like when are we hoping to have this audit completed or um you know procure an audit company who's gonna do that and just a little more information about like the cost of that if we're bringing somebody in to do that that deep dive i would be really curious to know about those things um you know i'm curious about the action plan too and potential professional development i don't think we're even close to that
041yet and so i won't really get into that i think for now it's just questions on that first step um because i would you know love to see this kind of materialize sooner rather than later i think everybody would so um what's what are the ideas on that you know um definitely we're um i've already got the names of a couple of outside consultants who do audits the roe is also available to do audits so i'll be reaching out to them and getting proposals from them so i can bring to the board great what those costs are and essentially they're the ones that will then look at the size of our district and tell us how long they think it would would take to complete that okay awesome and so we're thinking within the next
042couple of board meetings okay fantastic thank you that was the only question leah are you i know i don't know kevin if you were to comment on leah if you had anything you wanted to comment yeah um i just i just want to comment really um and thank kevin and the district for putting this together um and for helping us along with the definitions um and especially something that really resonated with me is is really calling out that equity isn't just about um ethnicity you know seeing almost 20 percent of our students with ieps and knowing personally that every single iep is different um and that's not even including 504 plans uh i think something that our district does does particularly well especially in comparison to some larger districts is is how we individualize um
043and that's a benefit of being a small district and i think that we lean into that so i look forward to continuing to to lean into those pieces and learning more about what we're doing really well which i suspect is a lot of stuff and also what we can do better on which i know as a community will reach for so thank you i guess the only thing i have to say i'm thankful that all the students that do need help are getting help um and i've seen that firsthand you know the my son they've the schools have made him a wonderful reader he loves it and i'm just thankful that all the students are getting the help they need yeah and i'll just say um so thank you kevin for putting together this presentation
044i mean i um my personal opinion is this is one of the most important things we can do for our district and for our students and i'm so glad with the approach you've put together and my only question slash comment is similar to jessa's um i think you know carlos and ange have both covered making sure we hear all of the voices and then i'm also curious as you lay out a timeline for this work how do you see that timeline intersecting with other major strategic projects that we have going so for instance the strategic plan is is one of those major projects that could be very heavily influenced by the outcomes of this equity work the elementary school task force i think is another project that in my mind could be very heavily influenced
045by this equity work so i guess i'd just be curious from your perspective what how you see this timeline intersecting with those other major timelines that we have out there well uh my goal is to have the audit completed this fall you know so we'll have an idea of where those gaps are in those target areas so the elementary task force is looking to wrap up in november so i think the timing there works and then uh tomorrow we're having an admin workshop on the strategic plan so i think uh after that we'll have something for our committee to take a look at and and so i think the timing of it and a strict plan is also a living breathing document and so as we get more information and data we can can tweak
046the strategic plan as as needed awesome thank you um on a side note with the elementary task force um once the audit is complete will you bring those test results to the task force as it because i know the meetings are a little more limited now from here until november okay any other questions or comments from the board um thank you kevin and then the next item on the agenda is the elementary task force i don't have a formal presentation for this but i did include some some documents for the board on august 4th we uh our task force we met we had four meetings this summer uh to focus on the uh our elementary schools and the model we think will work best for us as a district and um it was and as
047i shared in my board memo there was actually kind of this aha moment because um i think the task force was very focused on enrollments and this idea that we're looking at this as a way to accommodate bubbles as they move to the district and so the question came up like what pain is the district trying to avoid is that why we're doing this and is it worth creating a lot of angst and anxiety for something like enrollment bubbles and so forth and the reality is it's not so much um a pain we're trying to avoid but rather the vision we have for our elementary schools you know that we want to be able to meet the needs of all of our students academically support them social emotionally uh i'll give you a quick example
048at manning lindsey peterzak is going to be able to have a have a stem program this year that manning has not had before so she'll have a dedicated staff member that will all the students will have experiences in stem and um and that's in part because of how she's currently organized and she can take her staff that's a resource and manipulate it and create that opportunity and so you know those are things we want to make sure that we're doing you know that our our struggling learners are being supported our advanced learners are being supported um as you can imagine even you know if the the easy example is when you look at high school versus junior high versus elementary there are certain staff members that are more talented with different age groups i mean
049that's only natural and so so often you'll hear even the staff talk about oh i could never teach junior high or i don't know how you teach high school or i don't know how you teach elementary well even you know we talk about elementary k5 but again it's a pretty wide range of ages and abilities and there are some staff members that work very well and and not just the classroom teacher but when you start looking at special ed staff and social workers and psychologists that you know when we one of the questions that the task force had was some of the area districts that are in grade level centers for instance what do they see as the advantage and that's what was reported from some was we're able to take our staff and their
050strengths and put them in a building where they will be most successful and our students are best supported and so there's all those reasons now um you know we said the task force can we do that in 2k5 buildings we can but that's where sometimes the pain comes in you know if we want some of those opportunities it might mean a larger class size because again you know we know we have limited resources you know staffing budget there's limited resources and so that ultimately is the question is okay when we envision where we see our buildings going how do we best accommodate that and so again we had the four meetings this summer um the first meeting was just you know not limiting ourselves to the concept of of k-5 or grade level centers but
051are there other possibilities and so some of the things that were brainstormed were you know um adding on demanding and having one elementary school you know building a brand new elementary school um moving a grade level to the junior high um flipping manning in the junior high you know because of different capacities so there there are a lot of things that were generated the second meeting then we kind of started to drill down a little deeper into those different options and okay what does that actually look like and is there cost involved and what does that cost look like and you know what does that look like and then our third meeting we started to narrow focus and start talking about the the strengths and weaknesses of different options and um and ultimately we we
052came down to the top two options ended up being grade level centers or 2k5 buildings a new elementary building or one elementary building was was close you know and so then our fourth meeting was okay this group had an opportunity to look at all this different information and have this discussion but how do we now get input from our other stakeholders so how do we go from a group of about 30 we have 900 families in the district plus we have um you know people who live in our district that currently don't have students in our in our schools either they never did or their children have grown or maybe they haven't started sending students to our district and and so um we brainstorm then those different subgroups so we have parents of current students
053we have uh community members in the district we have teachers and well staff i should say uh administrators so we have these different groups and then we started to brainstorm okay what do we what information needs to be shared these groups and then what responses are we looking to solicit and how are we going to do that and so we generate some questions to be asked of those groups to get feedback on um and now it's a matter of a core group of us kind of taking that feedback and you know putting into surveys and then we brainstormed okay how do we now reach out to these different groups you know and so is it social media is it through we know we have at least one homeowners association in our district do we have
054others you know do we enlist the help of the chamber to reach out to businesses in the district um the easy groups are the the groups that we have right our own staff and those individuals but it's it's working outside those groups so we're starting to put that together and then we're gonna bring our committee back together to kind of review that information we'll start to have those surveys in those meetings and then our goal is to bring a complete report to the board at the november board meeting so that the board can start having those conversations so that if we want to do anything for that next school year we have time for the board to you know discuss it and come to a consensus so that we can move forward with whatever that
055recommendation is so kevin do you envision at that meeting or in the future after you've gathered all this feedback like bringing to us what the recommendation is like you're going to kind of like you and the administrators will sift through that and say like you know based on all of the work that we've done and it's a tremendous amount of work i'm so happy that we're doing it like we really think that grade level centers are the way to go and here's why or we really think we should stick with to k5 bill is that kind of what you envision or just kind of coming to us and saying here's everything what do you think um i envision us coming to the board with kind of the consensus of what okay our committee did with
056the pluses and minuses but again it's not a decision-making body ultimately right but we will share with you what the consensus of that group was okay great i just wanted to ask that and then my other question um just a point of clarification i think this is what i'm hearing is that when you initially went into this there was maybe an idea that the grade level centers were being discussed as just like a quick fix to this temporary issue of enrollment but really what i think i'm hearing is that the grade level centers are are more motivated by the ability to bring the absolute best educational experience to our students and you know just on the tail end of a conversation on equity to ensure an equitable educational experience for every child in this district
057okay i just wanted to be clear on that thank you right because one of the realities we've already faced is you have miller manning and they're just two different sized buildings and so when you start talking about you know for instance implementing a stem program how manning is able to do that is going to look very different than what miller would be able to do and again that creates in some cases inequity because of that and i think you know and i'm sure that the task force has done this but a very simple exercise of a side-by-side comparison of the report cards which are available online it's a very visible inequity in our grade schools and so i appreciate that we're having these conversations and not to mention the makeup of those two schools is
058very different so the students attending their income level their backgrounds their demographics so um i mean it's definitely something we want to pay attention to as we're looking at this this work um i had a question kevin about the um the feedback and maybe i just um am being not too smart right now but are you saying that these between the parents community members teachers and staff and administrators that the feedback is all survey-based or is there different types no we'll we'll be doing uh some survey but then we'll be also doing some in-person meetings okay you know we're hoping that we're going in first okay but yeah that's and and part of it is um you know typically it's kind of interesting you ask angie about the coffees and i i can probably find
059out for you but you know we were doing super intense coffees at one time and we weren't people just weren't coming out you know and uh so that's why we kind of moved away from that um the best meetings that we've ever had were always around referendums because then and that's when you get people who are invested beyond just parents of students you know now you get you know those property owners and so forth so the the and maybe it's a conversation with our pr committee is what's the hook to make sure that we're engaging you know a really good cross section of our of our district and so survey is one but it can't be the only way so there will be some dialogue and some conversations yeah that that was kind of you're
060predicting what my concern is i think um back to the equity conversation how do we make sure that the people we're hearing from um when we do this work uh represents the true equity that exists in our district um so that we make decisions that are that are really based on you know making sure everyone is seen and everyone is heard and feels respected and a part of this process and there's obviously different strategies to reach different groups of people and so i just would challenge us to really think inclusively and comprehensively about how we reach as many of the stakeholders as we can especially in the parent group right kevin so two quick questions um have we or are we planning to partner with the city you mentioned the chamber of commerce but also
061the city maybe having a representative at um the village meetings or something in uh just the library etc have we or has that come up um that did not come up leah but those are ideas that we can explore um we you know it's kind of nice our district has a very good working relationship with our village with our library our park district so those are definitely avenues we can explore to get input yes yeah definitely i think about like we're getting the cool new board at the junior high which is amazing but then there's also the library board which i know i read all the time and then also the fire district board on the south side um on cass avenue so that i definitely read and then my other uh question slash comment
062is just a a note i haven't heard a lot about cost factors here so i know that in theory if we were operating two of the same buildings yes it might end up costing the save but it's costing the same but i just want to make sure that budgets and um the dollar amounts are part of the conversation as well as far as maybe one of the two can potentially help us um save some money here or there being able to consolidate some stuff kind of like the stem program over at manning so just that i just didn't hear anything about any budgetary implications and we we did talk some numbers we didn't get very deep into numbers with the task force but uh that's definitely got to be part of the consideration thank you
063appreciate it yeah so um i just want to look back to what laura was asking because i'm not sure that i understood the between august 4th and november 16th what what's going to happen is kind of a really broad open question so there's a lot that's going to happen obviously it's a lot of time but are there specific events that are going to happen are there are there specific meetings that are going to happen or or is that to be determined right that's that's currently what we're working on based on the feedback from the task force we're currently developing the surveys and and other materials that we're going to be then sharing with the different stakeholders right and then seeking that feedback and so the outreach start interruption the outreach will be more than just
064um surveys right right right okay then the second comment or offer i guess really is how can the pr committee help help you i think you mentioned it i think i think it's some you know we're we're just the the pr committee for the board of education i mean the school district is i think a much larger thing than just that committee i mean pr for the school district is a much larger thing than what it is for the board and then for the whole community it's even larger right so i don't i don't i don't know how exactly but i'd like for us to be able to you know we'll definitely be reaching out any other comments or questions about the elementary task force okay thank you for that update kevin um the next
065item on the agenda is our action items enough the first one is the approval of the 20 21 2022 westway contract um is there any discussion needed here or anything you want to say about it kim in advance in this calling no other than um you know they're looking for a four and a half percent increase in our regular routes and 3 percent for athletics and field trips and given the scarcity of vendors that can provide transportation services and the ability to attain drivers i think those are reasonable requests that other districts have received much higher requests and so they did do a nice job for us this year it was a lot of work for everyone involved but the number of times that we switched back and forth and every time we switched we
066added and subtracted students so it was like starting a new school year probably six times during the year and so um they were able to accommodate that so i think they're reasonable requests and a little bit higher than the prior years but i think overall we're in a we it was a favorable renewal for us okay the chair will entertain a motion to approve the one-year contract extension for the 2021-2022 school year for the regular education transportation services with westway coach inc oakbrook illinois as presented so moved second roll call please mr avia yes miss coyle yes miss decade yes miss fredonia yes mr marin yes miss canover yes okay number two is the approval of the atletico three-year contract the chair will entertain a motion to approve the three-year contract for the 2022-23 and
0672023-24 school years including summer athletic camps for atletico training services with atletico management llc oakbrook illinois in the amount of 95 751.33 as presented so moved second roll call please miss coyle yes miss decade yes miss fredonia yes mr marin yes miss canover yes mr avia yes okay superintendent's report uh just uh one item in my report that uh next monday august 16th starts our new school year and the first day of student attendance will be august 18th and if there are we have any families who have not registered yet please contact your child's school and the building administration will set up an appointment for you so that we can make sure that you're registered before august 18th but we're looking forward to full-time in-person learning um this year so we're very excited about that
068great thank you are there any board reports i have a quick update uh board report for stafford uh fasted kicked off the new year uh about a week ago they did they were planning this new year um celebration to happen in person and they did transition to a zoom new year opening session uh they also have released their guidelines on how they're going to handle the school year and basically they're going to follow whatever the school districts have in place for the different school districts so staffing is planning all of its folks to be to be in the buildings and following whatever's happening with within each different district and is excited to get the year kicked off great thanks leah any other board reports elementary family night is this friday the 13th at thai warner
069park the lauren manning pto's are getting together just so you can see the kiddos before before school starts fantastic okay matt are there any other uh public comments i don't think so okay the last or the next item is future meetings and events so westmont junior high school has the ice cream social that's august 11th tomorrow night at 6 p.m at westmont junior high there's a new dual language family orientation august 13th at 4 30 p.m at miller elementary school as ange mentioned the miller manning elementary family fun night byo meal august 13th at 6 p.m at tie warner park the miller manning back to school night is august 17th at 4 30 pm the first day of student attendance is august 18th preschool screening by appointment is august 19th through the 20th and our
070next board meeting is august 24th at 6 pm at village hall like that um motion to adjourn second so we need to finish sorry we need to sorry it's removed second all in favor aye anyone opposed meetings adjourned you