001e e e and the star okay great all right the board of education has been enclosed executive session to discuss the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students the employment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body the purchase of Le purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body and Collective negotiating matters between the board and representatives of its employees no action was taken during closed executive session would now ask everyone to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the it stands one nation indivisible do we have a recommendation for tonight's agenda uh yes we do I recommend the board approved tonight's March 4th 2025
002open session meeting agenda as presented I have a motion move second any discussion all in favor by saying I I those opposed sa sign motion carried and as a note the district highlight has been pulled from the March 4th agenda and we'll move on now to our public participation the Board of Education would like to note the following during public particip participation identify oneself and be brief comments should be limited 3 minutes any public comments should be submitted to the board secretary uh they'll be included in the record please note that during any Board of Education meeting and public par participation board members do not respond Andor comment to public comments All comments are referred to Administration furthermore the board refrains from referring to specific students or staff members by name and request that public
003commentors refrain from doing so as well the request that you admit names is made to protect you from allegations of liable or slander or from violations of the Illinois school student records act it is not intended to Shield an employee from criticism M Bradford do we have anyone wishing to speak to the board this evening or do we have any uh comments that should be added to the record yes Abby still good evening since I was here last my name is Abby steel um my daughter has now spent more than the equivalent of the academic month of December in an a split amongst other classrooms one of those days just since I was last here was spent in the music room all day can you imagine what kind of instruction was provided during music time
004can you imagine if work was given to her how feasible it is for her to be able to complete work in a music room during music all day um the current system is not working for anyone it's not working for job seekers in our community I've heard from multiple individuals who have applied with no response applied to work in DPS schools with no response or they did not receive Aon response until seven weeks after submitting their application teachers it's not working for them they're stressed yes it's great money but they're taking students in their classroom so then that's making it more difficult for the students that they typically have to be able to complete work often times te teachers have to give up their own um planning period because they have those extra students within
005their classroom it's not working for students and I feel like that's a point that is very evident um it can't possibly be working for the district so I'm a social worker licensed social worker I am not a mathematician however if one class is split amongst four teachers that is roughly $600 a day that's being spent for that let's imagine it's happening within two classrooms in a Day within a building that's $1,200 a day let's imagine it's happening let's say among six buildings in our district that's $7,200 a day that's being split that's being spent on this so let's imagine that's happening because I believe it is 5 days a week that's $36,000 a week that our district is spending on this to be split amongst other classrooms along with that goes the time that the
006administration is spending on payroll to be able to do this because it's my understanding it's up to them to complete those payroll things if money is being spent I would prefer that that money be spent on the education of our children not on the babysitting of our children because when they are split amongst other classrooms that is what's happening what needs to be done um if we can split amongst grade levels first so my sixth grader who's in a fourth fifth sixth grade classroom can can go to another fourth fifth sixth grade classroom they can be enveloped in the instruction that's being presented already um by those teachers um find a better method for hiring and retaining listen to your teachers concerns I left the district approximately 5 years ago I was never given an
007exit interview um please start with addressing this before we move further in our road map the road that we're currently on is too bumpy right now and we need a detour I'll be back on March 18th to update you where my daughter's been and share suggestions from our community Colleen V ven grber good evening my name is Colleen vitting gber and I'm a middle school teacher this is my 13th year teaching and my 10th in DPS I'm here tonight to talk about the academic accountability or the major lack of it for students teacher are struggling because there's no accountability for our students or their families in this District we have students who have not mastered grade level standards or passed a class in years that we're moving on to high school we have students who
008don't come to school for weeks months or quarters that are being passed to the next grade level why is retention so difficult on a teacher part we've had several teachers and staff members complete the timec consuming retention packets that the District requires only for them to be denied year after year we have mountains of evidence that our students are not prepared for the next grade level yet we're forced to pass them on especially at an early Elementary level retention is not always the correct solution but something has to give at least two-thirds of my middle school students are not at grade level some are several years behind but they'll all go on next year what are we doing besides setting them up for failure our students are seeing these decisions being made and they know
009that they don't have to actually do anything and they'll still get moved on to the next grade level they have no motivation no drive to do their work we have student athletes who are not eligible academically playing sports because they need players or they already paid their tournament fees where is the consequence we're passing them on when they've literally done nothing where is the accountability and then we hear from District leadership about our test scores again where's the accountability you're asking your teachers to do the impossible our students are coming to us further and further behind because we just keep passing them on but we're expected to go up we're expected to get them up to grade level and passing State tests how especially when we're so understaffed we have students who haven't had a
010certified teacher in years or who have gone through multiple teachers like my own child and subs in one year our kids deserve better side note huge thank you to our long-term Subs we could not do this without you um and I can't speak for everyone but I know that teachers and support staff are fighting a losing battle and it's taking a toll on us you're going to continue to lose certified teachers if something doesn't change as a district as a whole together we need to start holding students and families accountable for their child's education teachers can't care more than them I appreciate your support on the behaviors over the last couple years but I think we've lost our focus on academics we can't continue to allow students to go to the next grade level when
011they aren't ready it sets everyone up for failure as we move forward as a district if we don't start prioritizing academic success we're going to continue putting young adults into our society who are not ready we need to start holding students and families accountable for their students education thank you Rebecca Cordova good evening members of the board Administration and fellow community members my name is Rebecca Cordova I am a decator native current resident dps61 educator and DPS parent I have come this evening to bring more awareness to an issue affecting the access to education of our students we're all aware of the severe shortage of Subs to teachers and more often than not if a teacher is absent a sub simply cannot be found it's not a secret my building is a prek 8th grade
012program and for us in buildings like ours when a sub cannot be found substitutes are split up between multiple classrooms and the teachers covering that class receive a stipend this may sound like a great solution to keep kids in class however under current contract language this opportunity for extra pay must be equally offered to every teacher and that sounds fair right but what in action that means there is a list of all certified teachers in the building and every day students need to be split admin has to just go down the list to the next name regardless of if that places those students in an appropriate environment for them for example preas students can be in a class with sixth graders or all day in Orchestra this may not matter much for students if their
013teacher is only out for a day or two as I believe what was intended for this solution but this has major impacts for students of teachers with long-term absences such as major illness family loss maternity leave or any of our many unfilled teaching positions these students would be and are randomly split every day not knowing from one day to the next where they will even be in the building and certainly not receiving an appropriate instruction for weeks or even months current contract language has no exceptions for these worst case scenarios and is tied to admins and Educators hands when trying to find Solutions every student deserves access to a free and appropriate public education I hope the board will work together with union leaders and other stakeholders to find a solution and an immediate amendment
014to support our students already facing these issues now these worst case scenarios are already happening in our buildings please help us fix it thank you that's it Board of Education thanks everyone for their public comments thank you um move on to board discussion is there anything the board wishes to discuss at this time I would just like to say a couple things um I appreciate the administration um taking away the third year on the calendar proposal and I also appreciate um the administration putting out a survey for our staff to respond to those comments I think that's a very good step in our communication with our staff thank you all right moving on to reports from Administration speaking of the calendar ask Maria Robertson director of communications and public relations and Monica wils Director of
015Human Resources to join us at the podium to present a second read and other information on the dps61 2-year calendars 20 25 26 and 26 27 hurry up M good evening board um thank you Mr shider that was a perfect Segway into our presentation um we are here for the second read on the proposed calendars and based on the first read we wanted to dive a little deeper into the professional development days we received a lot of feedback not only from our certified staff but also from our board members so we wanted to reach out to our staff to find out um a little bit more about what the preference would be for full or halfday professional development we also surveyed other districts we looked at their calendars just to see um how they were
016able to offer professional development and just as many districts as there are and I'm quoting our attorney here there seem to be different offerings for calendars um so we found that some of our neighboring districts do full day some do half day some do a high bird so um so we're going to dig into the staff feedback survey a little bit here um we wanted to show you that we had 373 total responses which was pretty good um 62.7% were certified teachers and the second largest group 14.5% were teaching assistants but it was representative of all staff and all staff were eligible to participate so one of the first questions we asked was in terms of priority to rate um the importance of certain priorities as the district develops a school calendar so um the
017two highest priorities were ending the school year in the month of May May and then um it was uh close between a 4-day break during um around the Easter holiday time and then a full week off during Thanksgiving break lowest rated um was kind of a split between half day and full day PD so we wanted to dive in a little deeper there we um asked the direct question would you prefer to have half day or full day PD I'm sorry instead of half days and so the majority for 48.3% said no I to point out though that the extra phrase if it means giving something up if it means giving something up because of course the um you know in order to have a balanced calendar there would have to be some adjustment and
018so we wanted everyone to realize that there would have to be some sort of adjustment we would have to give up something in order to get the full DD so thank you for pointing that out um we wanted to look at that by our certified teaching staff only because we did receive feedback from our teaching staff so um of that uh subgroup 47.443840 what is the primary concern with half day PD just wanted to see um how that could be improved um but the largest segment of the respondents said that they have no concern with the half days um and the second was those who were just concerned about student attendance on those days we asked for a secondary concern um and again it was 35.9% that said they have no concern with the half
019days all righty so our final recommendation which will go for approval at the March 18th board meeting um is to keep the half day professional development days um but as Mr shider pointed out we are recommending two years of calendar so 2025 2026 and 2026 2027 and um no longer a third year there was a tweak to the calendar that we made we heard feedback from um two of our Union partners that starting with building meetings on a Friday wasn't very conducive to their staff so we did make that adjustment at the beginning of the 25 26 school year we have the building meetings held on a Monday as opposed to a Friday um the teacher work day and openhouse being on Tuesday and then the first day of school being a Wednesday August 13th
020so we did receive that feedback and make that adjustment um so most everything stayed the same for the rest of the calendar um it's just in the 25 26 school year um when you're looking in the fourth quarter that means that school would actually end um the last day of school would be Tuesday May 26 so still honoring the desire to End School in the month of May um but it would be right after the Memorial Day holiday are there any questions we can answer for you thank you okay thank you you it's a lot there all right any other administrative reports all right move on to consent items do we have any do we have a recommendation for the consent items yes I recommend the board approve the consent items as presented a Freedom
021of Information report all right I have a motion any discussion all right roll call vote Dr Collins hi Mr shider hi Mr Dion hi and Mr Reynolds four i0 n three absent motion carried right for the listening audience audience roll call Item C contract between theater Public School District 61 and straight up solar for solar for an on-site solar PV power agreement contract has been pulled from the March 4th 2025 Open Session board meeting agenda due to the final agreement and contract review and we'll move on to roll call Action items do we have a recommendation for the Personnel action items yes I recommend the Board of Education approve the personel action items listed in the memo from Monica wils director of human resource in the human resource department as presented and we have motion
022so moved second any discussion roll call vote Mr Reynolds Dr Collins hi Mr Dion hi and Mr shider hi for i z n three absent motion carried do we have a recommendation for the intergovernmental agreement between decator Public School District 61 Board of Education and the decator park district regarding the Oak Grove Park property yes I recommend the Board of Education approve the intergovermental agreement between the decor Public School District 61 Board of Education and the decator park district regarding the Oak Grove Park property as presented motion so moved second any discussion roll call vote Dr Collins hi Mr shider hi Mr renold and Mr Dion 4 i z n three absent motion Carri all right and again roll call Item C has been pulled uh the announcements and upcoming dates are listed on the
023screen can you go back to see just for a second tell me why you pull um just for contract review we got that I mean Mike's coming up so I did it to you again you did you're very good at this I appreciate the opportunity to not get away from talking to you today uh we pulled it because we are still it's more like tabled there was a few um items in the contract that we're still reviewing with the uh PPA provider uh and so we felt like we'd want to clean all that up and bring it to you on the 18th all right a and down okay the announcements and upcoming dates are listed on the screen um Board of Education and administration sends condolences to the family of Dolores green Johnson who passed
024away Sunday February 16th 2025 Miss green was a retired teacher at the former French Academy school from decer public schools my oldest daughter Michelle had her as a teacher and she she still remembers her he was a great team he was a [Applause] great all right uh important dates March 12th districtwide half half day of school for all students uh please see your home school for details if needed March 14th end of the quarter March 21st parent teacher conferences no school for students 24th to the 27th spring break week no school district offices are open and March 28th Casmir palaski holiday observed no school and district offices are closed the public portion of the next regular meeting of the Board of Education will be 6:30 p.m. Tuesday March 18th 2025 at the Kyle administration building
025please note due to spring break week the March board meetings are the first and the third Tuesdays and do we have a motion to adjourn all in favor say I I those oppos same sound