September 7, 2021 - District 41 Committee of the Whole

001we'll get started come on in take a seat all right good evening to everyone the september 7 2021 committee of the whole board meeting will now come to order i'm mr lobach i see you back there will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance 2 5 the united states of america into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all mrs moak roll call please mrs butter mr estes here mrs hill syad here mr lowbach dr martelly dr bruno here thank you very much uh let me please introduce the superintendent melissa kaskowski who has a brief report this is probably the briefest report that i've ever given if that's a word um i would like to welcome mr will mcdermott from first student will has

002graciously agreed to join us tonight and give us a quick update on busing and help us better understand all of the issues that are impacting the transportation industry right now will you don't have to come up we're not that formal if people can hear you you can talk from there if that works from you thank you very much for the opportunity to give an update i know that um the school bus industry has been said to be in a state of emergency um and we're doing we're working diligently in um to overcome some of the struggles that we're having so just to put it in perspective i read an article about two weeks ago in 2018 there was 55 000 more bus drivers than there are today that's nationwide of course to put that in

003perspective first student's the largest bus company we have 48 000 total buses across the country in canada about so we've been rehiring in terms of with the attrition stuff so i mean that's with school districts too so every every um everybody's short i guess is what i'm trying to say and um the impact on kids is tough it's tough for us as well nobody wants to get kids to school more than us i happen to be a teacher and a principal so that you guys know my background i'm here because i think school busing is important and i learned that through hopewell which also provides transportation to the students with disabilities at your district so in terms of what has caused the labor market so the pandemic had a lot of industries part-time labor part-time

004hourly employees the most we've all gone to restaurants we've seen that impact so um in terms of the labor market what's happened where the education industry has always been recession proof well it hasn't been pandemic proof right so it's school bus drivers with public policy and stuff a lot of them were on unemployment we can't gauge we kept and we've tried to keep them engaged with the location but about two weeks before school we had about 24 drivers find other employment so you see health wanted signs everywhere now they can get a part-time hourly job with a few more hours right so those are some of the struggles that we were facing specifically in the glen ellen depot now the good i think the good news is so i supervise six other locations um and

005glen ellen is probably in the best position out of any of them and my peers across 24 locations in northern illinois and i would even extend it to southern illinois as well and part of the reason that is is in the beginning when we lost we're short theoretically 30 drivers at our depot but the community in what i mean by community six districts really came together i had a meeting right after the drivers had found other employment and between districts 15 16 87 93 and 89 we were able to get some route synergies the week before school our routers worked you know tirelessly to create synergies between the routes and we were able to tier the routes in such a way that we went from about 170 routes route packages i shouldn't say routes to

006so that allowed us to do more with less drivers and what we're finding is because the labor market is so volatile that helped us retain employers so our normal attrition for the first month of school when it's really hectic actually decreased and i think that's because we're providing that part-time hourly work that people are seeking with a few more hours so we're having a smaller workforce but a more reliable stable workforce and i can see that coming to the industry you know moving forward so it's something that i'll work with and continue to communicate with all districts to say this is a really good thing with synergies and the more we can do so our goal from the beginning was to get every student to school and not say hey 41 we're not going to

007cover three buses here and district 87 you're going to get these three today but next week 41 gets them because that's not good for kids so that's why we wanted to do that solution and it really was a team effort between all districts the business managers um eric deport has been a big champion of this so i want to i appreciate all the collaboration to allow us to do that so moving forward i think the biggest update i can give you and i need my glasses for this um is what is going on at glen island in terms of what we call the pipeline and recruiting so in the beginning i'll just give you that personnel so our office and maintenance staff we have 14 14 staff members we have current drivers 130. now i

008was also since i supervised some there's some synergies between locations that i was able to back borrow and steal drivers from other locations to borrow them to help the depot out which is why we're able to cover more rust so you hear 140 we have 130 plus 10 borrowed drivers but of our staff about six of them can drive so that has to cover our call offs as well just so everybody knows kind of understands and then our recruiting and training our new drivers road tested this week is one our drivers in behind the wheel training i'll explain what all this means after is six and we have a total of 18 drivers in training that includes them so the interesting thing when you see the big buses you need a cdl okay it takes

009about three to at the best the smallest amount of time it takes three and a half weeks to meet all the state requirements that you need so if you come an inexperienced driver with no cdl you first have to pass a test at this dmv call for your clp your commercials learners permit it's a very difficult test so we provide tutoring one-on-one basis to help people pass it so if somebody goes fail we don't just say oh you can't be a driver we try to remediate them and teach them to pretty much pass the test so that we can get into more adult learners learn differently we know right so once they can pass that test it's difficult for them they can eventually become a good driver with some hands-on training and some more kinesthetic

010learning so that's what we do and so it's you have to hold state requirement after you pass your clp the commercials learning permit for at least 14 days before you're even allowed to test out so that's already two weeks right and then you have to have the background checks which always don't come out with this you know the state police and the fbi they don't always come back in a timely manner either and then the physical paper work as well so assuming that everybody's healthy and the medical so that's the whole process so you you know i know before i got into busing um i used to think why don't you just hire somebody and have them drive the next day it really is a process so i just wanted to explain that as well

011so one of the other things that we've done since we're short drivers is all the districts came together um and we did it as a company but i let them know like we did a perfect attendance bonus because when you're short you know it's part-time hourly work right so there's call-offs every day and if somebody calls off when you're just barely covering routes it causes a problem and it's a ripple effect between whatever like i said all the route packages are tiered so we put in an incentive where your first month of perfect attendance is a set amount and then it escalates the second month consecutive month of perfect attendance you'll get a little bit more and then all the way leading up to christmas if they have three consecutive months they'll get a little

012bit more so the drivers will get a nice christmas bonus before the holiday so that has actually helped um i have numbers so it has decreased call loss by 50 percent in two weeks since we announced it so um thank you to the district um for partnering and understanding what we're doing with them and i think it's it's made an impact so although there are routes that are bad um it's um everybody has come together to make it i think as good as it could be even though it's not to where i wanted to be her first student wants it to be so thank you board any questions for will before we let him go so if we ran as we did in 2018 or 19 before the pan damage we would need 30. now

013if we ran the way we are we probably need to be comfortable with call-offs than your normal we would probably need like 22. and that's just with charters and everything too right so home to school is our priority the learning part but yes but we're always hiring so if i got 40 drivers i'd still have the help wanted sign up because we do have natural attrition and people find so we're competing another thing i didn't mention is with the pandemic right you have all these delivery jobs open people are making money at amazon amazon's actively recruiting in our markets and other transportation companies so yeah it's tough thank you well i think you described it better than any of us could have and i know i appreciate you coming and and talking to everybody thank

014you all right we will give will a chance to leave bob we're just going to go right into the next okay um then i am going to take the next item as well and um tonight i would like to introduce dr steve webb um steve will be joining us virtually steve is a retired superintendent who is now affiliated with aasa steve is going to kick off the committee of the whole meeting by delivering the content related to board governance after steve wraps up his presentation the remainder of the meeting we will facilitate on site as i said steve is joining us virtually tonight welcome steve to glen ellen district 41. good evening everyone thank you dr kaskowski dr bruno members of the glen ellen board of directors i just want to do a sound check

015here if someone can respond that my sound is suitable then we'll go ahead and get started i'll do a screen chair here in just a moment how's this sound um can you speak up a little bit steve we can hear you but it's faint sound check is that better much better okay all right well as dr kazkowski introduced me earlier my name is steve webb recently retired superintendent of vancouver washington public schools vancouver is on the north bank of the columbia river adjacent to the greater portland metro area recently retired after serving as superintendent superintendent's successor for 15 years here in america's vancouver and as dr kauskowski indicated i was recently retained by asa and the successful practices network as a learning 2025 national senior consultant and i'm so pleased to tell you that i've

016been paired with glen ellen school district i want to congratulate the board dr kaskowski the district leadership team staff and certainly your students for the district selection as a whole learner whole system whole community national best practice district and i am so looking forward to supporting your work this school year here is tonight's learning target to continue to build a shared understanding of what high-performing governance teams do to improve student achievement and i just want to take a moment to applaud you for your commitment to continuous improvement and professional learning as a board and as a governance team davis campbell former executive director for the california school boards association and michael fullen a national education thought leader frame high performance governing teams in this way our vision is of a governance system school board and

017superintendent working together as a cohesive unified team with a common vision driven by a shared moral imperative three essential elements a cohesive team a common vision and a moral purpose which is about serving students and improving student achievement and setting young people up for post-secondary success i'm proud to say that vancouver public schools was highlighted as a best practice governance team case study in this particular publication john carver is the father of the policy governance model in this book he addresses delegated authority and accountability for the superintendent and for the board his suggested policy governance framework includes executive limitations ends and means policies and frequent progress monitoring reports in his view boards legislate superintendents execute in other words boards identify of the what and the district administration executes the how the national school boards association

018in its seminal work focusing on key works of school boards puts it this way local boards of education are no longer merely overseers of school systems they are leaders of public education in their states and communities they're charged with the responsibility to create the conditions within their school districts that enable students to meet rigorous knowledge and performance standards as state and national policy landscape shifted to standards-based accountability the national school boards association acknowledge the shifting role and responsibilities of our nation's school boards as more active and engaged participants in improving student achievement in our country's schools for us visual learners this is the old model pretty transactional and traditional with the community electing the board the board hiring a superintendent and the superintendent managing the district this is the making sure the trains run on

019time operations approach to governance it evolved to this as the leadership for student learning model in the late 20th century a response to the standards-based high-stakes assessment accountability policy landscape i just referenced this model is rooted in an implicit agreement that each role brought a unique view in surveying students that would help shape district policy district strategic plans and school and district improvement efforts but it also had an explicit set of understandings around those roles and responsibilities this is the lane-based approach to governance focused on improving student learning today's 21st century model is more nuanced it acknowledges the interdependent roles responsibilities sets of relationships focusing on the whole learner and the whole system and the whole community children and students and student learning are always at the core the high performing systems develop governance team

020mindsets that explicitly recognize the interdependent nature of working together and that some responsibilities are in fact shared for example boards do not act in isolation alone in adopting a district strategic plan they must engage the community in doing so after all these are the public's schools similarly superintendents must consult and consider advice and counsel of a board routinely regarding how that strategic vision gets executed for example action steps are informed by community values the board is elected to serve and getting this right focused on student and systems outcomes can result in unparalleled student achievement this is the transformational thinking and doing approach to governance here are some common misperceptions and i share these because i often hear criticisms in some communities that high performing governance teams simply are not rigorous enough boards are too differential

021directors are not asking the tough questions that unanimous votes are nothing more than the board rubber stamping superintendent decisions in my experience nothing could be farther from the truth often hours upon hours are devoted to researching understanding considering alternatives before a board acts on a superintendent's recommendation this can happen through board study sessions or work sessions presentations to the committee of the whole board or superintendent committee structures and certainly individual board directors doing their homework in the evening after work in advance of meetings through regular briefings and updates in fact high-performing boards use the following levers to execute good governance and i want to be clear these are the high leverage high-yield governance actions of high-performing boards and subsequently high-performing governance teams first strategic planning futuring and visioning second board superintendent goal setting and alignment

022third align budget development and investment in the district's identified strategic priorities fourth board and superintendent out annual evaluations fifth board policy setting and then finally communicating a strategic vision and engaging a community in support of that vision so what do high-performing governance teams do well there is considerable consensus and convergence in the literature and from the field high-performing governance teams do the following five things they create a community-wide shared vision set of goals for improving student achievement in a strategic plan and i understand that glenn ellen is engaged in a futuring strategic planning process this year second to create the conditions and direct the resources for accelerating improvement in student learning third holding the system accountable to high and equitable achievement for each and every student regardless of race regardless of wealth and zip code

023fourth communicate needs and progress of students to the community and then finally building public will to improve outcomes for all students and succeed in reaching the district's student achievement goals now the next several slides could serve as a vehicle for governance teams self-assessment it includes statements of best practice and evidence questions that boards and governance teams could pose to dig more deeply into the best practice behavior of a system but in the interest of time i'm just going to highlight a few for example how do high-performing governance teams responsibly govern they do so by adopting a formal policy and annual process that integrates student learning as a factor for the evaluation of the superintendent so what's the look for to what extent does the board provide the superintendent with a clear statement of its expectations

024for his or her performance which is used in the superintendent's evaluation and in my experience these are typically mutually developed next how do high-performing governance teams focus on improving student achievement by leading the development articulation and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by schools and the community so what's the look for to what extent does the board ensure there are student achievement and strategic plan progress monitoring reports to the community and what is that cycle of reporting and engagement relative to progress around those student learning goals next how do high-performing governance teams create conditions for student and staff success they do so by adopting and monitoring an annual budget that allocates resources based on the district's visions goals and strategic priorities for student learning so what's the look for to

025what extent does the board ensure that the budget appropriately invests in safety and security staff well-being professional learning and training and for the improvement of student learning consistent with the district's strategic plan next how do high-performing governance teams hold the system accountable for student learning well they do so by committing to continuous improvement in student achievement at each school and throughout the district what's the look for to what extent does the board establish and follow a schedule for the timely review of the district and school improvement plans there are artifacts that can easily be pulled relative to the business practice of the governance team and progress monitoring student achievement improvement next how do high-performing governance teams engage with their community they do so by collaborating with families and community members responding to diverse interests and

026needs and mobilizing community resources in support of the district's strategic plan so what's the look for to what extent does the board ensure that public engagement and student voice is central to district strategic planning and school improvement processes i'd like to conclude my brief remarks here with this quote from this text because it really gets at the fundamental reason for transformational governance models the supreme challenge to the school board superintendent team is not really anything that deals with the position or the business of the other but rather the mechanics of governance and leadership within roles and responsibilities often in overlapping ways it is doing a job together that is greater than anyone can accomplish without the others balk and adamson nail this in building great school board superintendent teams a systemic approach to balancing roles

027and responsibilities fundamentally they argue this is about synergy right the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and those sets of relationships focused on those core behaviors those high leverage high-yield actions levers that uh boards and superintendents work together towards can result in transformation of a school system and transformational results for student learners in glen ellen i'm happy to respond to any questions that the board may have steve thank you very very much for the presentation taking the time let me just look out at the room and see if any of my board colleagues have specific questions for steve either about the presentation the points that he addressed or other questions that you might have thought of in preparation this evening no we're good okay ted please so um stephen in your experience

028over this last year and a half um i had to imagine across the country school districts are sort of in a survival mode in reaction to the pandemic um and versus like concentrating on that developing strategic plans and that sort of thing is is that is that your experience in terms of what you've seen i think that's a fairly accurate assessment of most school systems experiences all across the country and of course until we get through the delta variant and begin to stabilize communities i think we're still going to see quite a bit of disruption in board rooms all across the country i will say this as someone who spent 15 months leading through the pandemic the day-to-day crisis of the moment you know the uh concerns uh related to uh covet transmission rates uh

029to contact tracing to uh the notification of staff and families and community related to outbreaks all of that is critically important because it builds trust and confidence in the leadership of a school system remembers safety and wellness are your first priority and so sometimes the non-urgent uh takes a back burner but in those moments i would invite you and dr kaskowski to continue to contemplate how this pandemic and the experience can be a disruptive positive change force in accelerating student achievement in the system and i think we've learned uh uh for for those systems that were uh thrust right into the throes of the pandemic without considering uh alternative uh learning platforms uh digital transformations and digital tools that could scale uh personalized supports [Music] it has cost those systems to deliver a different modality

030of learning and i think that bodes well for the future of public education families want choice they have always wanted choice and many families are choosing not to engage in uh the public schools for a variety of reasons and we just need to embrace that and lean into that and really leverage that as an accelerator for a public education in this nation thank you thank you steve any other board members steve if i can ask you laid out the principles behind high performance governing teams and strong functional productive relationships between the district and the board obviously you've experienced dysfunction and you would be aware of what would you know what would lead to low performing or underperforming or poorly performing can you in your experience just address one or two bad practices that reflect board

031district work that need to be avoided that that you feel most contribute to not advancing student wellness or achievement i certainly appreciate that question i uh try to maintain a positive outlook and use appreciative inquiry as a way of reframing uh what boards and superintendents ought to be doing to create the context and conditions so that all ores are rowing in the same direction but that is not always true fundamentally it comes down to two critical issues trust and trust is about the little things we say and do that either create an emotional deposit into one another's trust account or a withdrawal in someone's trust account and it can be something as simple as not uh you know following agreed upon norms and protocols relative to the way in which the governance team has identified

032it's going to engage with one another in advancing the work of the system and then the other is communication and that's timely two-way communication boards do not like to be surprised superintendents do not like to be surprised and so uh time and effort in having deliberate communication systems and then being flexible and responsive in placing communication as the first and foremost obligation of everyone and that means that the superintendent has to design those systems and have the kinds of flexibility to adjust on the fly but it also means that the board has obligations collectively and individually to communicate what they are hearing in the community uh superintendents rely on uh the wisdom uh your insight and uh your ears to the ground in getting issues in front of the team so that the team can

033respond accordingly trust and communication thank you steve all right with that then uh we will um thank you for uh getting us off to a good start you're free to stick around if you like uh but otherwise we'll we will let you go and we will move on to our group activity so thank you very much stephen we look forward to working with you going forward thank you very much have a good night thank you melissa do you want to you want to do it for right there yes i will pick it up from here and explain what this next activity is going to be so each group has a poster board where we're going to ask people as a table to take a dot and you're going to have to indicate whether you think

034this is board work superintendent or cabinet work or building administration work and this is an activity that was done with the board the first year that i started with dr van clay came in to do a board workshop and so the board member's feedback was that this was a really valuable um activity to go through and it opened up great conversation so one dot per activity per table so you don't all have to worry about putting your own dots up there there is one freebie on the poster let me see what it is that when we had these made they didn't take that off so recommend strategic priorities um and um that falls under superintendent and cabinet work so every group has one freebie out of 20. but we're going to give about 15 minutes

035for you to work through these tasks or activities and put one dot per table and then we'll go through and go through the right answers and explain why and it's really just meant to increase people's awareness i think without speaking on behalf of the board the reason that they asked to have this topic come up early in our committee as a whole is based on i think emails and phone calls and conversations to really make sure everybody's operating from the same understanding of is this board work is it superintendent work is it cabinet work or building administration work because then we'll all be speaking from the same language and starting point moving forward so bob anything else that you want to share about why the board asked for this topic bright and early in the

036year yeah right because it became i think clear as we went also through an election season that we heard from the community that they were very much interested in better understanding what board district responsibilities and roles were and there was a commitment made on my part that we would revisit we would visit this and we would do it early and we would do it affirmatively as a way to provide good information and education to our community partner so it's fulfilling a pledge um to the community and as melissa said it also just grows out but from the kinds of communication we got which showed there was a lot there was a lot of confusion about where responsibilities were so we're going to take this step most communities don't do this most boards don't do this

037we're going to do this because we really want the community to be a partner and understand we've got some big work to do going forward and it's going to be important that you understand how that work gets done so with that okay so you've got i will note that someone may have to read the items to people because maybe it's a little small print and we'll have some discussion [Music] all right dr martelly's group that's okay you are the thoughtful respondent [Music] there is no prize so i hate to disappoint you but we're gonna go through the answers and um a good piece of learning is never assume that everybody in the room knows the same language or is speaking from the same point of reference so i know many people had a question about

038what in the heck does cabinet mean it's really just the district level administration so i have three assistant superintendents marcy katie and eric finance facilities and operations teaching learning and accountability and human resources and then we also have directors so our director of student services our director of language programs our director of buildings and grounds our directory director of technology and innovation um did i forget anybody there's 10 of us all together our director of communications erica most days start we formally meet once a week but in all sincerity most days start with a phone call i would say teaching and learning katie and i talk almost every day on the way in so we formally meet once a week but we are with each other every day and then um every other week we

039have what we call ad team and that's where we get the principals and assistant principals and all the district administration together so i apologize for not explaining what cabinet was or who they are so we're going to go through these and give a little bit of explanation um if there's any confusion you don't have to change your dots there's there's no competition we really just want to get to better understanding so evaluates the superintendent that's the board that has that luxury selects curriculum resources as superintendent and cabinet sets policy as the board so typically um you know if we're doing a new curricular adoption so when we did second steps as our sel curriculum there was teacher study teams that worked with our teaching and learning department to vet resources and do some piloting of

040materials and so that selection process came about through the teaching and learning department and then a recommendation was brought to the board because the board approves the financial end of it but that work is done internally such policy as the board determines lunchroom procedures is building principles probably their one of their least fun responsibilities evaluates teachers are the building principles addresses student discipline is building principles unless of course it's a big ticket suspension or expulsion item then there is a process for hearing with the board evaluates principles that would be me implements policy that would be me and building principles so we are the implementers after the board sets the policy makes residency decisions that would be superintendent and cabinet if there's a hearing a request made for hearing then that goes to the board

041but we drive that internal process subject to the open meetings act that is the board that rule that law applies to them meets with union leadership that is the superintendent and mrs conlon my assistant superintendent for hr prepares the district budget is superintendent and assistant superintendent eric deporter with input from everyone else approves the district budget is the board communicates directly with staff i know some people were putting dots in between or wanted to put two so communicates directly with staff as the superintendent cabinet and principal communicates through the superintendent is the board so the board should not be going directly to staff determines the what that is the board is dr webb shared the board sets the direction by determining the what and it is up to administration both at the district and building

042level to determine the how so when we re-engage in our next strategic plan process we will be talking about all of the what's the big ticket priorities of the district and then administrative will come back with action steps or the how and we'll bring that back to the board hires a new teacher that is superintendent cabinet and building principles to some degree well it's more so cabinet and building principles but if i get to i don't mind participating in that but typically it might be a cabinet member and building principal and a team decides just close the school because of weather that would be the superintendent and cabinet and prior to the pandemic that used to be the most stressful decision that had to be made um i think on our weekly superintendent meetings across

043dupage we all laugh and say wouldn't it be nice if the hardest decision we had to make this year was closing for weather so um but that that rests with me and of course i would consult with cabinet particularly buildings and grounds dave gets here very early and rides the roads we consult with other superintendents and the board would be made aware hires a new principal they are part of my administrative team so there would be a team interview process where the building would be involved but typically the board is not involved in the selection interview nor selection process for a new principle so if there are any that anybody has a major question any table really felt like i disagree i think that the right answer should be this um please speak up this

044would be a great time to do that so i'm going to go table by table and just ask if there was anything that your table wanted to share disagree with comment on or say that was a big aha moment for us so table one anything that you want to share sorry i did not go down to the next page approves hiring of staff that would be the board um again internally we do the interview teams and bring a recommendation and the board formalizes the recommendation through action hires a new superintendent that is the board recommend strategic priorities that would be the superintendent and cabinet as a result of the strategic plan process as i said the board would adopt the big priorities and give us the direction and then we would bring back the how

045approves the strategic priorities that come out of the strategic plan process would be the board there is a point when the board would adopt that plan and then develops a plan to address strategic priorities again that comes back to administrator and building level work as we formulate a plan of how we're going to accomplish the directives of the board now we're done so i'm going to start with table 1 any questions comments that table 1 would like to share well the one thing i wanted to point out was that um building principles do a lot more than what's listed on here oh absolutely absolutely this was just the top 20 things that we we took from an activity that the board had been through this does not at all represent anybody's all of their work

046i think we'd need a couple more pages if we were to include everything table two if i could if you notice well maybe other folks can't quite see but on that second item we found ourselves straddling the yeah just like yeah just like table one so i'm curious about their thinking but in terms of selecting curriculum resources and obviously that's an important decision but maybe there's some confusion too as to how does a what's that resource as opposed to a curriculum right what what what does that decide well that would fall under a curriculum resource so if if we bring a recommendation i'll i'll go back a new second steps as as the example if we bring a recommendation to the board to adopt the second steps curriculum there's typically also the action item which

047involves the purchase of those materials so you are approving really the purchase because the work has been vetted by a committee of teachers and building administrators and district administrators before it comes to the board for action well i guess my question is and i'm curious about table one if they'd like to share what were you reflecting in wanting to place that decision at the most local direct level as opposed to at the at the at the next intermediate level or at the district level conceive if you'd like to hi everybody steve dively hadley jr hi uh i just really like the collaboration the the committee structure that we have with selecting the curriculum uh resources uh you know the uh cabinet and the superintendent are going to set that strategic priority and help give us

048some direction using the data and feedback but then using teacher committees administrators and then that kind of just flows on up into the into the district committees and then eventually to the uh to the board level uh if there's a budget item is needed on that so we did put ours in the middle because i've been fortunate to be part of those committees it is not like i can choose something for hadley it's it's a good it's a very uh strong committee structure uh with a lot of people involved right i guess it's part of the house right and that each principal understands their school the student populations their families and what their needs are so we call ourselves not the curriculum the curriculum the resources that execute the grades good answer i'll give another

049example of that that we recently went through when we were um in conversation about how to accomplish live streaming as one of the options for kids who are on a mandated quarantine andrew set up with different vendors to come in and do demos with a teacher committee that was meeting throughout the summer and so they trialed some of the different technology that was available and brought back a recommendation for what they felt was most beneficial we had priority parameters on it you know is it financially doable is it equitable will it align with new technology purchases so let's not purchase anything for this one purpose that won't work with future purchases and technology and so the options that were put forth all had to meet those criteria before we move them forward for the team

050to trial and pilot and then when they had that opportunity to do so that group came back with a recommendation on on the owls and and so that's what's in the process of being installed so that was just a much smaller scale than what um you know an ela adoption or a math adoption would look like but it's very much driven by teacher input we put the users in it and get that input but we would factor some things out um you know if it's not a research driven curriculum if it's been not vetted through our county curriculum committee a county-wide curriculum we might take that off the table so there's some work that happens before that committee would even investigate the different options or consider and pilot the different options so it's work that

051starts at the cabinet level becomes a bigger committee initiative and then it comes back to cabinet to prepare the recommendation to bring to the board i just thought of this question but what if it's um a curriculum that's set by like you know recently like back in 2019 governor pritzker if he signed something saying i want this to be so how does that how do you guys work that out right so there's the the board approved district adopted curriculum and then every year there's hundreds of new pieces of legislation and mandates that come on board so between dr mccluskey and the dupage county regional office they stay on top of all of those new mandates and what is the implementation deadline that we have to do so then we would go back and evaluate is

052what we're currently using cover that or do we need to incorporate new resources so that we're teaching what we're mandated to that's a constant challenge there's there's bills and legislation every year that continue to add to our must do's our last five-year audit that we went through which was last school year katie do you remember what we're up to now in terms of mandated like the extras beyond um you know how many probes there were i want to say it was like 123 different probes that in in elementary district you had to do this you had to do that so and and it changes and gets bigger they rarely take anything off sorry if it's a statewide curriculum that's set you know into law like do you guys like collaborate with because statewide state is

053huge do you collaborate with other districts and stuff to figure out how yes so they're even give you like if it comes down from the governor do they even give you any like information on well how are you even supposed to roll that out right it depends on how specific how specific the mandate is so they don't provide materials typically but they might say okay this is now incorporated into the learning standards from pre-k through grade 12 but what piece of it or what you have to do with it looks different depending on the grade level and so those grade level standards look different so that's something that katie stays on top of and will say we now are required to teach this and so our sel curriculum meets the state mandate we cover all

054the required topics and they do that for all the content areas so every time there's new mandates that come down there is a regional it's a dupage county curriculum council that meets katie is a part of that so they stay on top of that as a county but then we bring it back locally and and look evaluate our own curriculum well done here you go now how do you do it my concern is as i as i was a teacher for 32 years if you're mandating the state board is mandating certain things it's hard enough to get your regular curriculum in and that is a disservice to the children because they need to learn their math their science their social studies you know the general subject content so everything that's really important for their learning

055to be a better citizen to grow and to be educated is diluted greatly my biggest thing that they've introduced is crt critical race theory which is very controversial some parents know about it some parents don't know about it but that's a big issue that's going to be probably discussed in this board too and it needs to be addressed what does that look like is that acceptable to parents to have to know their kids are being told this a white person has to say i'm an oppressor that's there's no place for that i'm less than i'm more than i i you know i have hate i don't have hate so i'm i'm very worried about that in particular yeah critical race theory is not part of the elementary standards um you know you'll see if you

056read the social emotional learning standards acceptance and things like that are spelled out and you know what we're required to do but critical race theory is not a mandated state standard at the elementary well it's not a mandated state standard in the in the learning standards you are right though nothing ever comes off the plate every year there's new mandates added but nothing ever comes off katie are you aware of anything ever coming off you know so you do your best to incorporate all the mandates and we look at when those implementation deadlines are and sometimes you'll get two years notice that something is coming and you know they give you time to work on it sometimes they make a decision and you have a very short turnaround time many times if you're using good

057curricular resources those standards are already covered but it is a huge task to just yearly stay on top of the new mandates table three thank you table three table four and you don't have to have a comment jason if if your table does that's fine sorry about that i got a question for you um in terms of a superintendent in the board does the board have the ability to extend a superintendent's contract prior to the ending yes okay so in other words if someone has three more years left under contractual agreement he can raise his hand say how about another year and you guys can vote say sure right um the way it works is that the longest contract that you can be afforded as a superintendent or as an administrator is a five-year contract

058so in the course of your contractual period the board can wait till the last year and enter into a conversation about writing a new contract and extending your original one the board can at any time also say we want to conclude and do an extension and and it's done differently in different places but typically the year before your contract expires those are conversations that happen but the board does have the ability at any time during the contract to say we want to create a new contract and and develop it as a as an extension let me ask you a question what would be the purpose of that if you did indeed have three more years let's take four more years on your contract would motivate that conversation to say hey one more year yeah go

059ahead well it's hard to it right it's hard to speculate not necessarily and i want to be very clear it's not necessarily this district 87 for an example is what i'm referring to you don't have to mention specific well i just did but fair enough you did it's out there now well i'm not commenting on anything that's happening at district 87 but just speculating on why if there were a few years left on a contract while you might extend outward right that's the basic question well if the district was assuming or taking on larger projects that were multi-year projects in multi-stages and it did not and it felt its leadership was strong it would not want to change its leadership it wouldn't want to change the horse in the middle of that raising stream so

060it might look to extend that contract because it has this foresight as to where its plan is going to go and if it feels good about its leadership it doesn't want to change that leadership but it knows to meet those goals they're going to need maybe they need one more year or they need two more years so that's a speculative answer but i think it's a reasonable one why you might get an extension beyond the contract but it could be that it could be introducing new curriculum right it could be some wholesale change that that happens in a district that's really transformational you would not want to change your leadership if that leadership was solid you'd be introducing an entire because you if you change that leadership that person you're likely to change other people

061that cabinet's probably going to flip if you do that i i agree with what you're stating but however uh like any business transaction or contractual agreement generally as you spoke earlier up front there was that you will make that decision with a year left on the contract three years out and extending it an additional year based on speculation of what programs are going to be moving forward in my opinion contractually don't make a lot of sense i was just digging a little deeper and again it was just a simple question just because i heard wind of it and i thought it was a legitimate question to ask if they indeed had the power to go ahead and okay that type of of change in the contract that's right can i just add to that too

062as well because there's there's a fair amount of research about the importance of stability and leadership in the district and how that positively impacts student achievement so stability and leadership and the vision and the mission for the district is pretty important relative to student achievement and this is like all the other labor markets it's it's one where there's certainly not an abundance of candidates um so there's a teacher shortage there's a lien pool for principals there's a lien pool for superintendent so for a district that's looking to continue to improve student performance and maintain that stability you know you have to be proactive and not just in the contract but in the way that you treat your superintendent well if it's based on performance then definitely they need some work there but thank you there

063could be a variety of reasons based on what was in that initial contract you know they may be looking to tighten something up add something you know different reasons but typically the the pattern is you would start those conversations the year before the last year of the contract and table five so our group talked quite a bit about the fact that we recognize these scenarios might fall into one particular column when it comes to decision making but we also talked about that the process to getting to that decision there's a number of different stakeholders that are included in this and maybe not necessarily represented on this you know primarily the teachers you know whether it's about curricular adoptions or or managing student discipline or things like that all of those things they begin with the

064teachers and while the final decision depending on what that decision needs to be may not reside with them we just discussed this group was handicapped they had a board member that does some of this work that was manipulating the conversation so so yeah but we did just want to recognize the fact that teachers do play a big part in many of these aspects in different phases absolutely all right i'm going to turn it off over to you bub so i i have a question um about um it's been talked about crt and just uh i'm just wondering would that come possibly from the state or would that be a local option or do you not know at this point right um i mean katie so correct me if i'm wrong critical race theory is a

065theory what would come from the state would be mandated standards that we have to cover so broader topics but they wouldn't they would not mandate the implementation of a of a theory there would be learning standards [Music] mandated and required but not not a learning theory yeah typically they will outline your mandates what you're mandated to teach and it will tell you typically they will tell you the grade level as well that they want that to occur in the district has the autonomy in deciding those resources that they're going to use and that's the work that teachers and administrators come together to do in order to meet that mandate and then the districts are audited on how they're delivering that through their resources and we have to be able to prove that through our resources

066we are meeting the mandates and that's done through the audit process with the regional office all right can you give an example of what a learning standard is just for anyone who might not be familiar with it well um so gosh like by grade three to divide by the tense or something like that well so you have your common core standards that that's for math and for literacy and that's going to take you by grade level what the expectation is for example in math so when you want students to be able to add single digits double digits triple digits and what that looks like then in social studies and history it will tell you what you need to teach and at what grade level or what grade level band so some things will only be

067by the time they graduate high school so those are the things that are typically handled at the upper grade levels and then there will be some that is you know at the primary level we expect in first grade students learn bicycle safety and so we make sure that that's embedded in our curriculum when we determine how we meet that mandate but we have to do it within that particular grade level so i just had a follow-up question so when when something like this that you know the crt whether how it's understood as a theory or a mandate can you just tell me how will the um how will the school help the public to understand what it is and deal with that will that be something that the board invites discussions or can you just

068tell me like i'm wondering how the community can understand it better because there's so much misinformation about it and what where is the responsibility of the board to help the community or to answer questions or to deal with it right that's a wonderful answer and i think you know that would be something that would make for a great future committee of the whole meeting to discuss and lay out kind of what is crt what isn't crt and really what are the standards that we are mandated to teach and then if there was a major turnover change in standards then yes we would talk about it and inform the community so that's definitely something that we can think about and talk about and plan for i appreciate this back and forth this is very helpful that

069you're answering these questions and speaking of curriculum and the mandates i know a lot of community is concerned about the sb 818 bill that was also signed into law on august 20th and um that a lot in that curriculum i know it's very concerning and boards each board or district has the opportunity to opt out of sb 818 can you tell me if district 41 is following through with sb 818 i am pulling up 818 because i'd like to tell you that i know them all by senate bill number um so this is the repeals the sex education family life so if there were radical changes made at the elementary level or really any changes made at the elementary level we could certainly have a conversation about that here katie in terms of the new

070legislation what is the impact that i mean i i know it's been the topic of different webinars typically everything will also be vetted at the county level by the curriculum coordinators group because every district has membership on that but do you want to talk about what's happening or what you're hearing in the realm of so this these conversations are honestly just beginning so i don't have a solid answer at this point but these are conversations that um dr kasikowski has writers happening at the dupage county level with all of the assistant superintendents of actually what does this mean and what what grade levels does it affect and what is the depth of what they're actually asking to be taught so that's something certainly we would bring back to the community always when it comes to

071topics of health education sex education anything of that nature parents do have the option to opt out and we do typically typically formalize that for parents so that they know what topics and content is being covered um that has not been formalized at this time still okay because i when i looked at the national education sexual or sexuality standards that was um provided for them to make this decision on these this new um law that says grades three three through five students will learn about romantic and sexual feelings masturbation mood swings timing of pubertal onset describe the role of hormones playing the physical social cognitive and emotional changes during adolescence and the potential role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender define and explain differences between cisgender transgender gender non-binary gender expansive

072and gender identity explain that gender expression and a gender identity exist along a spectrum and that's just grades three through five so there there is some things that a lot of people are concerned about six through eight it says that students will learn about vaginal oral and anal sex contraception methods uh withdrawal so there are some things that i'm i'm hoping that the community can have some input in as far as what will we actually be taught and what the materials will be taught for this right and and once we as i said once the process goes through the the county and then we have something to bring back and work with our teachers with and discuss you know how we plan to overlay our curriculum and do we need to bring in new material

073is do we need to talk about what that looks like i think you know everything i've read so far you know and really comes down to everything you know what's the age-appropriateness um and then where is the opt-out for parents who are just not comfortable with that but we are not i mean there's nothing that we have to make immediate changes on um so we're in the very early levels of looking at what does this mean um for each grade level and and how would we do that in an age-appropriate manner and i think people should recognize that they want to look at what this statute contains it's set forth in 105 ilcs five slash 27-9.18 it sets it all out if people want to look um i have it pulled up there's no mention

074about oral sex we're building about anal sex there is a comprehensive educational of a process but feel free to take a look at the act itself look at the law itself and and and read it and see how it and then you can judge its implementation when it comes down to pipeline into our school and we could probably we can we can link that mrs mo yeah mrs smoke we can link that for people in our our notes um our board meeting summary we can put a link to the senate bill so people can pull it up easily [Music] and the other one is the national education of sex standards and yes and that's what planned parenthood um planned parenthood helped to define what what grades we'll be teaching what as far as this new

075comprehensive sex ed along with glenn's i mean there's a lot of different organizations that went into into this okay so it's yeah it's not just the law it's you have to research the actual national education sects standards that that helped create the law yes okay go ahead i think is this on now yes okay um it just has to do with the comments about the the senate bill and i'm 80 years old and i'm really glad that kids can be informed and operating out of from information out of intelligence instead of ignorance um this idea to keep our children ignorant is going to cause a lot of problems that's that's probably why we have a lot of pregnancies and abortions and problems in the red states end of common thank you yeah we will post

076the link for the bill status because it gives you all of the amendments to the bill and people if they want to look and see how it developed and and where it ended up um i am going to turn it over to bob so we can move forward the rest of the meeting okay well i want to thank all of you for participating in this second committee of the whole meeting we will continue to do these as we move forward and you can check our calendar for when the next one will be but we did want to allow before we close this session we do want to allow time for public participation so members of the public who wish to address the board should indicate on the sign-in sheet speakers are asked to maintain respectful

077decorum limit comments to three minutes or less and with about 30 seconds or so to go i will politely remind you mrs milk is there anyone who would like to make public comment carolyn osterlund carolyn yeah and can she make it at the table no because we need the camera okay carolyn could you please come up to where dr mccluskey is at hi first i'd like to thank the board for all the work you do so thank you for for hold on carolyn we may have to turn your mic on okay okay thanks uh to the board for all the work you do for the community it's very important work um my name is carolyn austerly i've lived in district 41 since 1983 both my children went to school at well forest glen and hadley

078and i'm here because of the news reports that i saw about mrs ms crowe's class issues at abe lincoln school and i just thought i would make a come and make a few comments about that i am a retired pediatric ophthalmologist and have spent my life advocating for children as you do as well and uh i don't have the details and i don't think i'm probably ever going to get them i think much of the news is wrong but it appears from looking at things i've seen that much of the controversy has to do with the lgbtq themed books that miss crowe had in the in her classroom these books really create a positive educational environment and i did some research i'm going to read something from the policy statement of the american academy of

079pediatrics entitled ensuring comprehensive care and support for transgender and gender diverse children adolescence this is about 20 pages i'll give you a copy for the board if they want it academic content plays an important role in building a safe school environment the 2015 glsen survey revealed that when positive representations of people who identify as lgbtq were included in the curriculum students who identify as lgbtq reported less hostile school environments less victimization and greater feelings of safety fewer school absences because of feeling unsafe greater feelings of connectedness to their school community and an increased interest in high school graduation and post-secondary education 30 seconds carolyn books with lgbtqt themes do no damage to non-lgbtq children but to an lgbtq child these books are nothing short of a miracle miss crow should be commended for her inclusive

080teaching thank you thank you ma'am okay mr brown good evening and i too thank the board can you hear me yes mary sue brown a 50-year resident plus resident of glen ellen both my children one now biology professor and the other high school english teacher obviously got a good start at forrest glen school district 41. so i was kind of surprised when i heard that a third grade teacher was suspended for posting a video on tick tock tick tock by the way is a a way for it well a lot of people use it but it is a way for teachers to share um teaching ideas and the video which was accompanied by music and dance is a sort of short bibliography of children's books that reflect many types of diversity and help kids understand

081that they aren't the only native american black gay or lesbian child or the only kid whose parents are two daddies or two mommies the glen ellen public library has taken a creative lead with their mirrors windows and books websites it's really great take a look at it and they're well placed collections of children's books that reflect the diverse makeup of the community there's a quotation on the website from dr rudin sims bishop this is good when children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are apart dr sims coined the phrase mirrors windows and books she describes mirror books as those where children can find themselves their families their backgrounds and the communities reflected in the stories window

082books and i think this is just as important help children see the world around them including characters that don't look or live like them so it works both ways for many years the the characters in children's books were animals or white people there were also trucks and trains thomas the tank engine and most families wherever the father knows best variety now most public libraries have books like heather has two mommies so there's progress being made i served as a cod trustee in the 90s for 12 years when we passed an addition to the personnel policy that stated the college would not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation 30 seconds ma'am i'm sorry what 30 seconds please okay i also served as a public library administrator at woodridge public library where we had a small

083number of residents who sometimes objected to a title anyway instead of suspending this teacher who is working hard to help the children feel that they are part of the community she should probably get an award for her innovation thank you very much thank you so much ma'am nancy nancy menzies nancy's going to pass thank you nancy i've already talked thank you thank you hi folks hi can you hear me yes sir you know i can't remember yesterday's lunch but i sure can remember don chase which was my principal here at hadley when i attended in the late 50s thank you board of education for allowing me to speak about things that are important to me my name is howard e bushnell i graduated from glenvard west in 1964. i have an undergraduate degree from elmhurst

084university and a master's degree from indiana university i also served our country as the first lieutenant platoon leader and company executive officer of a u.s army combat infantry company in vietnam i was shot at received two bronze stars and earned a combat infantry badge for services rendered on behalf of this great country but i come to you with a heavy heart across from biester gym at glenbard west high school are five trees with memorial plex those plaques memorialize students who sacrificed their lives fighting marxism communism socialism i attended a splendid memorial ceremony at a recent football game for bruce capel and his family who had a plaque presented that remains on the hill be between the school and the duchamp football field bill duchamp was a coach for whom i served as a student equipment

085manager john skull and tom duffy also memorialized across the street from biester gym were 1964 classmates of mine bruce capo was a couple years ahead of me we all fought on behalf of this country against marxism communism socialism and now i fear that you and your educators are introducing marxism to our kids something we fought for and some died for concepts that we were against and i might add were successful in fighting my father experienced hiroshima after the atom bomb was dropped while fighting the same ideologies during world war ii i believe our kids at glenbard west and your school here are being taught to hate america capitalism and not to love it capitalism which has helped more people in the history of the world come out of poverty the united states of america is

086the least racist country in the world which is why all these people at our southern borders want to come here besides the opportunity of economic success perhaps even owning their own businesses not many want to go to venezuela cuba or north korea 30 seconds sir thank you your students should be taught the strengths of america we were talking earlier i'm going to go ahead here because of my 30 seconds bill ayers was a classmate of mine well actually it was a year ahead of me he was a confessed communist and also a glenbard west attendee it was a year ahead of me was founder of the weather underground with his wife bernadine doran he became a professor of education at the prestigious university of chicago his terrorist group bombed and killed people in the 60s

087he promoted a certain brand of education but not mine he is an american marxist he taught a lot of students at his university went on to teach maybe even some here sir critical race theory can you wrap it up please yeah credible race theory i understand is that i'm a white guy i'm an oppressor i have a black grandson a product of my white daughter who fell in love with a black guy my grandson is a graduate of purdue he has a minor in portuguese and he planned to go to angola africa to start businesses with his best friend from high school and and golan national sir i'm sorry i hate to have to keep interrupting we do have other people anyway i know of a glenbard west graduate i was taught by one of

088her teachers that reparations were a good thing i mentioned this to my black grandson he said why would someone who has never been a slave owner give money to somebody who's never been a slave thank you thank you sir miss smoke marilyn mayer oh i guess i i get to take this off right you can you won't hear me otherwise go ahead please speak into it thank you for giving um community members the opportunity to speak i too came here in response to the events that we understand occurred with a teacher at one of our district 41 schools including her being put on leave which i still am puzzled about i'm an auw member the auw is the american association of university women it is the oldest women's active organization oldest continuous women's organization active

089in the united states even older than the dar we have a hundred and seventy thousand members and supporters and my goal in coming here was to lend support for the point of view that education is important enough and resilient enough to accept the variety of historical understandings that that this teacher is trying to present i am here basically to read some of the auw policy priorities so that i'm not misquoting and giving you my opinion so much as the organization's published statements on this topic we produce a the uw public policy priorities are adopted every two years every member gets to vote on them they are a guide for our national efforts and our local efforts we are our opinions are shaped by our commitment to being nonpartisan fact-based interacting with integrity we strive for

090our work to be inclusive and intersectional collaborating with diverse allies and conditions to achieve equity for all personally i'm a little annoyed by some of the terminology that is used in what i basically see as a as a request to simply expand our knowledge of what history includes who's included where it happens what it's doing but we're here to tell you what a uw things we hope that there are 170 000 of them who are supporting you and your efforts to make education an open thing 8uw believes that high quality public education is the foundation of a democratic society the key to improving economic prosperity and gender equity 30 seconds man oh really yes it goes fast and in conclusion please everybody do everything right no it is okay auw supports the civil rights of

091all individuals and opposes all forms of discrimination including just uh discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation at uw supports freedom in the definition of self and family including protection from discrimination and guarantees of civil rights for all family structures and it has a lot of statistics on how many of our children actually have oops have um gender questions and i say questions i think it's there are permissions to be to be a lot of different things and nobody's teaching anyone to be one thing what we're trying to say is you don't have to say to little girls boy you're pretty and and so good to make her compliant and to say to little boys oh you're you should get tough and and be a little more aggressive these are the kind of things

092uw opposes and the kind of things that it supports thank you ma'am mrs bulk chris warden susan warren are they doing it as a team yeah absolutely well you're both getting your three minutes for 30 years i know better um my name is chris warden i'm a father of five boys one of the young men that i i adopted um i used to coach a young black son that i have that just had his first baby thank you i'm a grandfather now my kids went to district 41 and currently have a senior at district 87. i know i have three minutes i'll be brief i'm not here to discuss the mask and scientifically proven harmful effects of wearing them for eight hours a day no that's that's not what i'm here for i'm here to

093point out this school board is unwilling to listen and when i say this and i heard the presentation earlier what i found very helpful and encouraging for what he had to say long distance on that little skype uh you all know they're not listening and i've come to multiple 87 41 and watched the reactions and watched the folks come up and speak and and and of course everyone looks down and kind of ignores what they're doing they're clearly just putting you through a paces appease you and send you out the door which again referring back to the skype i found it very encouraging when each and every time he spoke he talked about the community being involved you've seen the behavior of these members in the past once an individual starts to speak they look

094down ignore you or whatever not so much here as it is at district 87 which i'll i'll grant you that this meeting and all the past and future meetings are placed well in advance prior to parents walking through the door we know that's obvious the virtue signaling with the mass demanding mask and mask attendance not necessarily here but at 87 they'll pull you out pull it up over your nose over your ears whatever i wonder if any of these characters actually go out to eat that's always my question you can sit in a room and sit down and have a sandwich and share french fries with someone but you come into a classroom and you have to have a mask on for eight hours a day here's a real issue about this board every single

095individual you see on this board is being led and directed by a self-proclaimed socialist marxist i've been done it's a fact self-proclaimed self-proclaimed laugh as as you will look it up which so many in the community have been blindly voted to lead our children an individual that openly advocates for socialism in our community in civil discourse his quote this is you and all you want directing our grade school children i don't think so an individual who moved into our community from new jersey and is well regarded nationally among marxist labor union activists pretty funny and comical but not for me um i find it very deceiving for someone to come in here and move into this town chris 30 seconds please okay you got it he also has a questionable history and education system in

096the past which are currently look we are looking into through a foia efforts and other sources elections have consequences folks and this one is a disaster this long as you know is much greater issue than what meets the eye and it's a very dangerous situation not only here but also to our community masking our kids and all being led by a questionable individual in his minions this position is ideal platform of the socialist marxist to come in and direct curriculum to favor his clear agenda to think this character has control potentially indoctrinating our kids minds along with teachers within these walls and curriculum should alarm all parents in this community i individually along with others have committed ourselves to watch bruno and his board in the other direction and sex ed programs which is actually

097factual it will hit there chris they're pushing throughout the school season we'll do whatever it takes to continue to expose all of them in this building and outside the wilderness thank you all for listening and god bless this community we're going to need it thank you very much [Applause] i'm assuming that mrs warden is up i'm gonna i'm gonna just kind of show you guys kind of uh just maybe why we're masking the children i don't know if you've all seen this so maybe there's a reason why our children are being masked and maybe a reason why you're being led to be masked i don't i don't know if you've looked but there's not one documented peer-reviewed double-blind study that say these masks work so we're sitting here in school eight hours a day breathing

098this stuff in these poor children it's child abuse it's 100 as i'm a chiropractor i work to keep people healthy for the last 25 years so when i think health take this off vitamin c vitamin d zinc we've got therapeutics we've got many many many things that keep us healthy this is not one of them we go to a game after school and we're crammed into the stadium nobody says one word it's normal it's not it's not good not good at all um another study so here's that study another thing we were talking about was children and this is the book that they're looking at perfectly normal these are some of the pictures that are in there very very normal but i'm not here to talk about lgbtq i don't care what anybody does on

099their own it's wonderful you know this this happens and i think it's amazing that we can all come together and and you know know these people are a part of our community love them but it doesn't need to be taught in our classrooms it doesn't need to be not not the lgbtq i don't care about that when the the the teacher is dancing and she is talking about white supremacy and she's talking about white supremacy existing she's white check yourself to third graders that's the danger here that's the danger with some of these pictures you know talking about to the children that this could be you i remember when i was in high school dana dawkin didn't like me and i thought oh my god but if i had a teacher that maybe was telling

100me well maybe you should like girls maybe girls like you maybe i would have thought that maybe that's fine but that doesn't need to be taught in our schools our schools need to be taught math english social studies arithmetic history our grades are suffering right now 30 seconds dr orton crt they're teaching our children that they're white and they're bad i don't think that's right we raised a black kid he thinks this is just we need to be all together they talk equity they don't mean equity they mean putting black kids over here and asian kids over here and mexican kids that's not equity pull them all together let's teach everybody you know read together learn together do math together let's get our grades up let's not worry about gay flags pride great have a

101great time go do school on your own time maybe maybe if she needs to teach a school there doctor warren can you complete your statement and also with the thank you this that needs to probably be vetoed thank you dr wood appreciate your time uh mrs mook any others steve foley see folate [Applause] are you in the past thank you ma'am george smith um george smith i don't think george smith is here going once twice okay okay nelson miss nelson good evening i don't have any prepared comments but i did want to make a couple of statements just based on some of the work we did earlier actually which was the reason that i came here tonight america nelson i live in wheaton i've been a member of the community for 24 years my children

102went to churchill elementary school and to hadley and graduated from glenvard west my daughter is an elementary educator bilingual educator and prior to coming here tonight she gave me a call we facetime for a few minutes and she asked i always ask her how was today so they started back into school and she's with her children and she said mom today i had one a new a new student come in who is one of the refugees from afghanistan who was just resettled in the dc metro area and alexandria virginia where she teaches and she said um that's the reason that i teach because i'm focused on each child all children dr warden which i concur with in your comments and the importance of welcoming them having them feel like they're a part of a community

103especially coming out of what they've come out of we came here tonight um because we were talking about governance which i really appreciate and i think the lack of understanding as community members typically around responsibilities of administration and management responsibilities of an elected board responsibilities of building leaders our principals and then our teachers is really foundational to understanding why and how as community members we become involved and then get activated to do great work for our communities there's been a lot of comments lately and much as social media but then also um just hearing comments and it goes something like i want the district to focus on education right so the core of that is governance and the work that they're doing and the more we understand that as community members the better that work

104can be are we going to agree with all of it together no in fact in some of the comments i heard right in the middle of comments we were flipping back and forth between being upset about something and then recognizing the importance of being holistic being equitable etc so i want to say thank you to the board of education and for these committees of the whole where we as community members can come together whether we agree on some pieces all pieces none of it perhaps but that 30 seconds miss nelson b thank you a commitment to be present and a commitment to share responsibly we're not going to agree on everything but in the end beautiful piece of prose by dorothy law nolte children live what they learn and they live what they learn from

105parents who speak here or at home with each other on the street corner on facebook whatever that might be so i want to encourage all of us to come together and work with the organizations that we are a part of thank you thank you very much whoops mohammed sabite i don't see him here oh jan laskowitz i'm going to read something that i saw published it's a published paper and it talks about mass and it's very important and i don't i know this is not the biggest thing that we should be worried about but it is it's it's important to me and i think it's representative of everything else being said here the cdc itself squelched its own study showing masks were ineffective for kids in school it was in the new york magazine it's

106a must read in may as the column says cdc published a large study scale of coba transmission in american schools it concluded that masking then unvaccinated teachers and improving ventilation with more fresh air were associated with lower incidence of the of the virus in schools the fact that they seem to work is reassuring but not surprising but it's what the study found that the cdc did not tell us that's the most important the cdc's published summary of the study did not include its findings that certain other common mitigation measures in american schools do not work distancing hybrid models classroom barriers all the things we've been using hepa filters and most notably requiring student masking the masking issue and based on susie's chart that this district is getting four million dollars to stay if we don't

107if we if we agree not to mask and we go along with the uh the rule then i guess we get four million dollars i'd like to hear something about that later but we can deal with that these measures could not be said to be effective after this whole study it found that math and school kids do not work and it should come as no surprise for many reasons and some of the reasons are america america's pure nations around the world like the uk ireland scandinavia france netherlands switzerland and italy have all exempted kids with varying age cutoffs from wearing maths and classrooms no problems there were no differences between america these countries along with who whose child masking guidance differs substantially from the cdc recommendations have explicitly recognized that the decision to math students

108carries with a potential academic and social harms for children and may lack a clear benefit i'll go down because i'm sure i'm going to get the warning um what evidence could other other scientists point to supporting the recommendations of mass in schools um it wasn't able to find a data set as robust as the cdc itself did did a study 30 seconds janice that's fine it was an indeed a major study it was 90 000 elementary school students in 169 georgia schools and according to the cdc itself it was not it proved no difference there was nothing that they could support that kids should be wearing masks but they squelch its own results enough said i'm just so upset thank you janice scott fisher wait one second mr fisher okay you can skip the timer

109it's fine okay uh to the board to the superintendent i am your ally i am here to address the protesters in between the district 41 building forest glen my name is scott fisher i have called glendale in my home for a total of 29 years i was given an excellent education in force glenn hadley in glenbard west mrs ballinger mrs waltz mrs baron shot mrs prus and mr klospitz shaped me as a student a person and most importantly as a parent and eleven of my years away from glennell and i was serving active duty in the military as a lifesaver and a federal agent i have a bachelor's degree in emergency management a master's degree in global security i now run a portion of the internal crisis management department for accenture six hundred thousand person

110consulting firm and i manage a behavioral threat suicide concerns workplace violence incident incidents between my education and experience i believe it's safe to say that i'm qualified to speak regarding anxiety stress conflict management and law enforcement to be crystal clear for the render of my time my first and last priority is my almost six-year-old leonora eight days ago my wife kristen was taking noah to school alongside our two neighbors and their kindergarten their kindergartener as they progressed up elm towards the intersection they noticed the protesters were especially loud a woman on protest line inched as close as she could to the edge of the grass and was yelling at my wife and the two neighbor parents that they were engaged in child abuse they were suffocating their children then she shifted to leonora and her

111best friend two little girls in their first month of real school and yelled at them you are the youth of hitler they are stuck at the light there is nowhere to go the school board is standing 30 in the group 30 yards behind them unaware the police are standing 20 yards across elm unaware three parents placed themselves in between the woman and our children and shook until the light allowed them to cross i'm not here today to discuss politics the science of master individual freedoms of which i am also an expert of giving up there is not enough time to fix ignorance here you have dedicated yourselves to my child to our children to our future and listen to what's happening to them learning how to cope with adversity is an important part of healthy

112child development when we are threatened our bodies prepare us to respond by increasing our heart rate blood pressure stress hormones such as cortisol when a young child's stress response systems are activated within an environment of supportive relationships they the physiological the physiological effects are buffered and brought back down to baseline the result is the development of healthy stress systems 30 seconds mr fischer all right i'll be fast however if the stress response is extreme long lasting and buffering relationships are unavailable or short-lived to the child the result is damaged weakened systems and brain architecture with lifelong repercussions when toxic stress response occurs continually or is triggered by multiple sources covet new school time away from parents appropriately manned appropriately mandated social restrictions tense households etc it can have a cumulative toll on an individual's physical

113and mental health for a lifetime the more adverse experiences of childhood the greater the likelihood of developmental delays and later health problems including heart disease diabetes substance abuse and depression i could go on with the facts harvard is only one source that provides endless evidence for this topic now what do we do eliminate unnecessary adversity this is your job protect my child both the state of illinois and the village clearly define statutes that prevent unpeaceful protesting every these protester's actions violate every applicable wall put into place for peaceful protesting i understand you're not the police but if you cannot gain their support weigh on them show up at their door every day i or i advise the community to find a board that can this isn't politics it's not a coveted argument they are causing

114so much stress on already stressed out children it will damage them get creative and be on my side excuse me john excuse me janice everyone who went everyone who went overboard everyone who went over i permitted i even permitted people to uh uh have some additional material props and i think that's a real good faith effort to give people an opportunity to speak their truth okay thank you very much mr fisher very good thank you mrs bilkin thank to thanks everyone who made public comment all right moving on just a couple announcements we've got some upcoming board meetings on monday the 20th will hold a public hearing and this will be a regular board meeting 6 30 here at hadley and then on october 18th 2021 another regular board meeting 6 30 here at hadley

115does any board member have any items for a future agenda hearing none then may i have a motion to adjourn to close session to confidentially discuss the following section 2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee to determine its validity number two section two ce emergency security procedures and the use of personnel and equipment to respond to actual danger to the safety of employees students staff or public property provided that a description of the actual danger shall be made as part of the motion to close the meeting section 2 c10 the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters related to individual students and then finally section 2c11 litigation when an action against affecting or on behalf of

116the school board has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal or when the school board finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis of the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the close meeting i need a motion i so move i need a second did we get a second just a second any discussion mrs moak wrote call please mr estes yes mrs hill mrs syed yes mr milova yeah dr martelly yes dr bruno yes this closes the open the end oh mr i just missed but okay this closes the open meeting and the board will not be taking any action after