001e e and Mr dowy we are ready good evening welcome to the district 225 Board of Education meeting mam secretary would you please read the role Mr dowy here Mr gaki President miss malbeck here Mr O'Hara president miss siguan Mr shine present Dr Steinberg here six members present item number two on our agenda is to approve the agenda Dr John's are there adjustments in the agenda we have two changes we're going to remove consent item 5.10 and we're going to defer consent item 5.11 and relabel it as 11.2 other than that any changes sir other changes I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended yes I move to approve the agenda as amended second all in favor I I motion carries good evening welcome to everyone here for this meeting uh appreciate you
002all coming out tonight um our summer season is uh up and running at the glum Brooks with summer school and many facilities projects that we typically do this evening we have a number of topics on our agenda we have our typical opening components of community comment board and superintendent reports and consent uh then we'll have an amended budget hearing which is an annual uh very short uh hearing about amended budget a typical procedure for us then we will have three items on our regular agenda first we'll have the investigation report on the Glen South yearbook we'll be following that a discussion of three policies and three procedures uh concerning traffic and parking control staff development professional leave and educational support Personnel benefits they're all on first read and we'll be coming back uh at a
003later meeting on second read again thank you all for being here this evening I move to item three on our agenda which is recognition of community visitors this is an up to 30 minute General period uh we have have of our meeting we always deeply value the input we get from our community right now we have a our speaker list established which uh we will go through each speaker is allowed up to two minutes to address the board please give your name and address uh you Al and your connection to the district these are not required pieces of information but they do help us with follow-up we remind people of a number of items first the board does not respond at this point we listen very carefully but we're listening to you second please keep
004in mind that we maintain confidentiality and privacy as to our employees and as to our students number three the board does not control the topics raised or the substance of public comment number four we remind speakers to direct their public comments to the board and they those topics should relate to board business to the district they should not be related simply to politics this is not a political Forum this is a School District Board District meeting number five we remind speakers that their comments are not automatically protected by any immunity or legal protection item six we ask everyone to main Civility and respect we know that comments at points during our May 28th meeting became heated we understand that there is a lot of pain and emotion associated with the gumber South ybr passage which
005as presented the board recognized as anti-semitic we recognize that there are disagreements but we do ask that you please respect others as they speak and please when you're speaking if you're one of our speakers please try to speak respectfully directing your comments to the board if we do this if we maintain respect we can better understand what is being shared we can do our best as a district this way as a community to address issues even those most difficult at their core we can learn from this we can heal we can work together and improve our schools and Community because after all we all care about our students and we're neighbors as always we want to keep our students at the center of all we do and model the civility that we all expect with
006that I have the list that's has been provided to me and I'll call you up in the order on the list again uh you'll have two minutes to address the board um I have on the first on the list is uh Josh uh Wier they say right wi Wier Wier Mr Wier so I already spoke for the six o'clock meeting so I'll skip introducing myself but um uh you know I don't come to the school board to cause an issue with all with you all I do want to work with you uh my grandfather was a school superintendent in lincolshire schools um and he actually wrote his dissertation on dealing with public pressure um School boards and superintendant and how to to use that to um a school board and a superintendent's advantage I just
007want to talk briefly about where I think um these anti-semitic incidents are coming from um these things don't happen in a vacuum um at JV the second organization that I mentioned that I'm a part of we deal with critical social justice ideology and how it manifests itself in our institutions including K through 12 schools this is an idea that we should split the world based on power structures social and cultural power structures and that we should look at people based on their identi as either oppressed or oppressor and unfortunately what this does clouded in moral righteousness because it is its intent is to help write a moral wrong that our society definitely does have to reckon with it ends up dividing us into groups and it ends up with us othering each other into different
008types of people with different social responsibilities and I just want this school district to be mindful that when we have people running Dei courses or Consulting courses and we're saying you know you're part of one group or you're part of another and if there's inequities in society we necessarily have to solve those inequities um by othering people into different groups by giving people different advantages over other people you're creating hate and you're creating resentment and the fact is that the Jewish people we are overrepresented in society and one of the ideas of anti racism one of the things that comes into critical social justice is that we should solve those inequities by sometimes positively discrimination discriminating against groups that are overrepresented which is I think abor I have to ask you to wrap up Mr
009Wier sorry I appreciate your words and just one last thing and and also that is inherently racist to support those inequities so as a Jewish person to support my own community that is inherently a racist Act so think hard about who you could have consult and what your di Consultants are doing in the school thanks for the extra time I appreciate it Mr thank you sir um I now call Chuck I believe it's Goldberg am I reading that right Mr Goldberg Chuck Goldberg uh I am a parent and I have three alums from GBS uh the board has listened to the pain caused by the inclusion of the quote that murder torture kidnapping and rape made a member student member of the GBS Community happy we can't tell people what to think or how to
010feel but adults who work advising the yearbook have to have the common sense to edit and counsel young people who might want to include words like that not every Young Person's opinion should be printed especially if it's hateful the fact that Brenda Fields the yearbook staff coordinator didn't edit the comments that should hold her accountable for what she has done and she should either be removed from the earbook staff are fired alog together and here's why Brenda Fields let down the young girl who had her views made public and caused her to get embarrassed and harassed for that Brenda field should either be removed from the earbook staff or fired Brenda Fields let down the yearbook staff making the yearbook an example of hate speech gone unchecked not Excellence Brenda Fields let down GBS as
011a whole making a first class school look like an amateur hour and diminishing our national reputation Brenda Fields let down the board causing Untold damage control based on her negligence and willful ignorance for these reasons brend the field should be removed from the yearbook staff or fired but the main reason for disciplining her should be what she has done to our community her actions or lack of actions have pitted one side of Glen View versus another I don't care what people think but only what they say out loud or print she gave a voice to opinions that didn't need to be presented publicly but once out can't be taken back I'll never forget the young lady telling me in the last meeting that raping killing and torturing is allowed in a so-called slave revolt what
012was done in the yearbook is serious it didn't need to happen it needs to have consequences if Brenda Fields isn't removed from the yearbook staff or fired then the board will have taken ownership of this fiasco and hatefest thanks for the opportunity to speak thank you Mr goldber next um I have Steve Andrews Mr Andrews uh my name is Steve Andrews I'm a parent of three graduates of the district 225 um you had mentioned at the beginning that you were sorry about the anti-semitism um we can learn together and heal and I don't think we heard anything about the findings of the investigation so we have no idea what's going on and how this is going to be rectified is that true I generally won't comment while you're doing it but I'll just address that
013Mr Peter will be uh presenting the investigation this evening on the regular agenda okay thank you so the anti-Semitism as the last gentleman said has caused the divide in the community you're talking about bringing the community together letting someone have hate speech in a yearbook in your school is not bringing a community together and in fact this anti-Semitism and racis racism gets worse and worse as we saw yesterday there was a Jewish woman who was trying to get into her synagogue who was beaten by Palestinian protesters so not only should it be sto St now before it gets worse and people physically get hurt they've only been emotionally hurt which I'm not saying is better or worse but they've been emotionally hurt because of the actions of Glen Brook South and the people that were
014supposed to be supervising the students like the last gentleman said you can't tell people what to think or feel and that's okay but they shouldn't be allowed to have a a forum at glum Brook South to talk about that hate speech and divide the Community that's really all I really don't know what to say because I thought we were going to hear what the findings were before we spoke so that we'd have a chance to react to the findings but apparently that's not going to be the case is there going to be another meeting to be able to react to the findings of the board uh just to clear that that for everyone uh that'll be on July the 8th and the investigation uh report will be available um I think tomorrow morning is going
015to be available any hear about the report tonight okay thank you very much thank you Mr Andrew um the next speaker is Susan glass Miss glass I'm sorry Hi um I'm a parent of three GBS graduates and a former District du 25 board member um there's just a few points I want to make one the ADL has a program I think it's called a PL there's no place for hate and no matter what I think that should be seriously considered to be brought into the school and um and the program given to the teachers the administrators the kids they can gear it towards different ages and to you all at a minimum two uh someone's responsible for what happened and that and however that works out because we haven't heard about the investigation um just
016as a side note um someone mentioned to me that the way things go in the yearbook is that kids have complete control and the teacher stays away from it and let them do what they want that's not okay um brains are not completely developed to your 25 years old these are 15 to 18 year olds they should not have control of the earbook nor should any student in either school have control of any um anything that's going on at the school um three I believe something should happen with the earbook instructor I don't know she needs to be fired but we need to replace her as far as the earbook goes and four I do not believe that anyone was misquoted that was mentioned at the last meeting in May I don't believe this child
017was misquoted I think she meant to say what she said and um I brought this up to my daughter who's a grand uate of GBS who works for Israeli counsil in Atlanta and is responsible for seven Southern States and she says that's the first thing someone would say if they're in trouble so what I'm looking for is what you all are going to do about this because it cannot go under the rug thank you Miss glass my next call Steve is that blunder my name is Steve bler I'm the parent of a graduate of Glenbrook North and a student who just graduated Maple Junior High this past year I live in Northbrook this board and this school district represents our community and represents Our Community Values one of the values of our community is taking
018responsibility when you do something wrong we get the credit when we do something positive we bear the burden when we do something wrong I've yet to see anyone from this District take responsibility for what happened at Glenbrook South in the yearbook what happened at Glenbrook North with the Holocaust issue which by the way seems to have been swept under the rug but the issue is as a board who's going to take responsibility and how whatever discipline you may choose to impart on the yearbook supervisor that's scapegoating that should happen that should be part of the process and you'll follow your process do it what questions are you asking of your Administration your top administrators who have a period of things happening in the schools it's both Schools they're responsible I've yet to hear anything from
019the top administrators from this District accepting responsibility we teach our children to accept responsibility to be participants in the community to stand up for what's right there's been deafening silence from your administrators from the top of taking appropriate responsibility and addressing the issue what are you doing to hold your administrators our administrators for our community responsible what do you putting in place to judge the culture in the schools fish rots from the top not the bottom and I would implore this board to take a look at your top administrators and ask the question what did they do to enable this to happen what have they done to accept responsibility what have they done to ensure it will not happen again thank you thank you sir I next call Susan Eisenberg oh all right all right
020um maybe try Susan glass that's the name you call before oh oh there a Susan glass has not had a chance to speak is that the same person no okay she she has decided not to speak okay thank you sir for the clarification um I call Howard is it Wolfman I believe yes thank you for the opportunity to speak my wife and I are 58e residents of 225 I three children are graduates of it we have one grandchild in the schools right now and another one about to enter uh I had my two minutes a month ago and I appreciate that I came here tonight familiar with the process with the agenda and the realization that you have the comments from the public before you give any reports or anything else so I am very
021interested in learning what happened in the preceding month in terms of your investigation and your report both in terms of the specific incident in the yearbook and looking ahead in general what will the policies be to prevent things like this from from occurring in the p in the future uh it's very challenging today we see all of these issues occurring everywhere and we're relying upon you as our board to establish policies and procedures be they disciplined whatever they are and then follow through with them and that's one of the big weaknesses I've seen around the country is a lack of follow through on procedures so very important that you do that now on a minor point I wanted to learn more about the agenda today so I called the superintendent's office I got a voicemail
022from somebody by name of Robin who I assume is their the assistant I left a message I called the Public Relations number I left a message no name I called the operator the operator gave me the name of a lady by the name of Christina in public relations I called left a message no response three calls no responses nobody saying I'm out of the office here's another number to call so I I think you need a Communications Improvement in your system and in Industry that would not be acceptable but overall I'm here to learn what was in your report and hopefully at the end I'll Stand Up and applaud your report if not you'll hear me screaming thank you thank you Mr M Mr wolman um Jeff Levan is our next speaker I know I
023spoke at the other one but we'll do this one too as well Jeff l two students at gbn during the during the 20 24 and 25 school year upcoming school year the boys girls and golf State series is on yum Kipper in case you're not aware yum Kipper is the day of atonement which is the holiest day of the year in Judaism as the dates for the state series are created years in advance this is an avoidable scheduling conflict this was brought to the attention to gbn in which gbn policy is quote gbn does not host any events on religious holidays however we will continue to particip ipate in tournaments ihsa's official response was the ihsa is not able to modify the golf State final dates as son directly reached out to ihsa and division
024board members there was no acknowledgement or rationale on how and why this decision was made as a school you promote self- advocacy this is a learning moment for a student to try and understand why a school in ihsa elected to religiously discriminate and in the end provide an unfair advantage to other students purely based on their religion but no response does this set the right example to students when adults make a decision and when asked about it provide no response this only happens to events that affect the Jewish population pursuant to the ihsa and I quote if an event falls on Easter the event will be rescheduled this is a clear-cut decision to discriminate against Jewish students because of their religion pursuing ihsa's own handbook this is a clear violation of the statement number 27
025quote ihsa does not discriminate on the basis of religion in addition 225 receives Federal funding as result title 6 is a federal law that prohibits any entity that receives federal financial assistance from discriminating it is the ultimate goal of any student athlete to compete at the highest level due to this decision the school has made students now have to choose between the holiest day of the year for the Jewish religion and a state series is disappointing that 225 their leadership and all ihsa corporate Partners inclusive of the Marines and CBS accept this clearly defined religious discrimination against Jewish high school student athletes continuing to ignore nor the issue and concern will not make it go away thank you Mr L next speaker is Julie is it Yash Yos hi hi uh Julia thank you for
026listening uh Northbrook Rising sophomore gbn I'm going to talk about something very very personal I'm going to talk about the worst day in my life as you probably can hear I have an accent I came here 30 years ago from the former Soviet Union I grew up in Minsk personally I was subjected to a lot of anti-Semitism I was bullied while my teachers were standing next to me doing nothing I grew up close to a place called pit it's a place of a Minsk gattle I apologize for being emotional the worst day of my life happened a few days after October 7th my daughter came back from school she just started there as a freshman she said Mom I need to talk to you I said what happened she's like how do you deal with
027anti-jewish bullying I was shocked we are not in Nazi Germany we are not in the former Soviet Union and what happened she was approached by two girls with the bracelet with the map of Israel and with a carving saying from River to the Sea Palestine will be free saying that there will be no place for Jews there anymore immediately my husband is in the audience by the way I'm a child of a holocaust Survivor who is right there immediately we wanted to go to school my my daughter goes mom please don't you're going to make things worse there was another incident and again mom you're going to make things worse so the students know that going to school is going to make things worse prove me wrong please act on it a week ago a
02812-year-old girl was raped in France just because she is Jewish just because she is Jewish not acting on what happened makes you complicit and would make us justify that crime thank you ma'am for sharing tonight I next I next call Linda mayor Linda mayor it looks like Linda mayor m a y e r maybe oh maybe I'm sorry yeah yeah I just I think the whole reason that people are at this meeting because they see a lot of the same face that were at the last meeting is we want answers nobody has responded to anything that occurred at the last meeting there's been no report given out we don't know what you did about the yearbooks we don't know anything there was the incident in District 30 at Maple School the school responded immediately where
029somebody wrote something in the yearbooks after after the fact and they collected all the year because they took care of it immediately here we're going on a couple of months and we have no answers we don't know you're having us all come and and speak but I think the whole reason everybody is here is we want answers what would have been a good idea from the board is to give a response if you even have one before you let people talk because we don't have to hear the same comments we heard last time we want answers you the school board is elected you're you're responsible to the citizens that live in this district and it behooves you to give answers that's what I had to say thank you thank thank you I think it's James
030mayor I saw the article and then I went to the meeting the problem with both of them is we as human beings don't celebrate murder rape terrorist executions Etc what are we teaching our kids I think most people in this room don't celebrate murder and feel sorry for the other side dying but that's that's War but we don't celebrate it it's not being a human me that's being barbaric and that's what we have to address also on a micro basis not a macro because we can't address macro here but we have a real problem when we have kids who are writing articles like that celebrating murder who are Lab Partners they're play sports together what are we teaching them by celebrating or having some people celebrate barbarianism this is just wrong thank you Mr Mayor
031uh the next speaker is believe it's Dorothy is it Hanley Manley is it Dorothy here by chance I'm sorry Weinberg apologies yes hi I'm Dorothy Weinberg my husband and I have lived in Glen View for 52 years we have children that graduated from Glenbrook South um in response to having people call us back I have to agree I did call three or four times and left messages and finally I have to compliment um Miss Smith Carol Smith your PR person who did call me back twice which so thank you very much okay regarding the yearbook um there is a yearbook advisor I understand understand from what Miss Smith told me that this is a class so therefore whoever is the yearbook adviser is a teacher the teacher should look for facts before putting anything in
032the yearbook if the facts are erroneous such as the Gaza declared war on Israel that's not true Hamas invaded and took hostages but the whole point of this is and I consulted with my 19-year-old grandson who lives in another state now he saidh are they putting politics in yearbooks it should be a celebration of the experience experiences that the students had during the year this is not a place for politics I understand if you have a student newspaper okay you can have different opinions people pay for yearbooks they shouldn't have to be subjected to that and I have one other thing I'd like to say regarding freedom of speech Yes we all agree there is it it's a law freedom of speech but there are limits to freedom of speech one is no hate speech
033and also if you're in a crowded theater and you yell fire that's not freedom of speech you could be arrested so I'm saying that freedom of speech has its limitations and whoever is in charge of the yearbook in the future should be a good educator and focus on what a yearbook really is all about out thank you very much thank you Miss Weinberg uh the next up is Lisa Kan I believe let's see if she is she possibly next door Mr R there's a delay in the road is that why I'm hearing a different voice oh hi my name is Lisa Kane I am a parent of a Glen Brook South student shout out to the Overflow room uh where there is a slight delay um last month I was here speaking to the board
034about my frustrations regarding the yearbook but more specifically regarding my frustrations on how the administration and the school board has handled the yearbook incident we are a full month later and I'm back with the same concerns again it has been one month since the last board meeting and in that time it has been truly radio silence after the May 28th board meeting there has not been a single email sent out to the school community there has not been a new posting onto the website and the June 10th board meeting uh that was coincidentally I don't know but it was canceled without any communication to the community that that was going to happen I've been emailing with the superintendent the board as well as the principal to get some more information and the superintendent shared that
035uh the school did in a closed door meeting with the board present information at the June 6th meeting and that that information be shared tonight my frustration is why did I have to email the superintendent to find out that I understand I am a school counselor in a different District I have been part of many school-based investigations I understand that there's a place for due process I understand there's a place for time but I also understand the importance of communication accountability and transparency it would have been very very easy for school administration or for the board to send out an email and post the website hey we are investigating this we are going to first present to the board in a closed door meeting and then at the June 24th meeting the investigation will be
036presented there then everybody would know but without that it just feels like nothing is happening it feels like our concerns are not being heard it feels like we cannot trust you or I can just say I don't trust you so I hope that when we get to agenda item 7.1 on your meeting that we'll get there but I just don't know thank you I'm now going to go next door back to the Overflow room and if we thought ahead we could have done this in a space that would have been big enough for all of us thank you Miss Kane um next up is Jill hartzman [Music] Jill take Jill hello thank you for being here tonight and for letting us speak I'm a GBS graduate and a parent of an incoming freshman and as
037we've heard other people State here the yearbooks are a way to preserve memories and politics do not belong in yearbooks I was at the meeting on May 28th when you heard the fears and concern of our community once words are spoken they cannot be taken back the fact that the author of this of the quote and her supporters are saying that she was misquoted is proof enough that it should not have been published by allowing a student to publish her words of hate you failed not only that student but also the students families and community members her hate was directed toward we as a community have not yet heard the finding of your investigation but we know that rape murder and hate against any people should not be celebrated anywhere and especially not in our
038schools we remain concerned for our students and for all students because school needs to be a safe space so again I would like to reiterate my concerns how was the statement allowed who approved it and how are we going to prevent this from ever happening again I appreciate you guys being here I know this is a difficult situation I thank you for hearing our voices and look forward to your findings thank you miss harsman our final speaker is all stat Paul Eisen stat uh from District 31 uh I was at the uh May 28th meeting I was allowed to say my piece and I addressed the board as did dozens and dozens of other people and a lot of them had a lot of very inflammatory opinions uh and then I sent a letter to
039the board I wanted to share that with you this was my observations uh and also my um gratitude so I sent a letter to Dr John's I'm going to read it to the board this may be a minority opinion but it's how I feel I said and this is written for the day after so thank or that day of thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak at the last meeting I commended you uh chairman um dowy were you were absent at that meeting Mr glak so Mr glowaki so I commended Vice chairman glowaki and the board for maintaining their Jesus Christ I thought I turned that off I'm sorry sorry I thought I turned that off okay uh I commended Vice chairman gaki and the board for maintaining their composure in decorum under
040extreme fire and it was extremely fire uh and the board really maintained their composure and I noticed every one of them listening really with respect uh and I went on to say you were respectable listened and demonstrated interest in the remarks of your constituents I apologize for those who were disrespectful and there were plenty of them or wasted your time and my time by not addressing the actual issues while I while we my wife and I do not agree with some of your policies I do admire your honorable and decent demeanor uh I look forward to hearing the results of your investigations at tonight's meeting um that's my piece thank thank you Mr that concludes our public comment uh I want again to thank you for joining us and sharing those comments um it all
041makes a difference to us we listen to them carefully whether they come by voicemails or by emails or by uh texts or by talking to us face to face or coming to a board meeting is always appreciated and and we listen to you very carefully we're going to move now to item four on our agenda which are board and superintendent reports uh I just want to note one thing um that while neither uh Dr Scott or Mr Bild is with us tonight um they've now concluded their service in our district as and principles at clber North and their uh leadership is greatly appreciated during this transition year and Miss Hughes will be taking over on July 1st uh but uh is deeply to be appreciated by the board and the district with that Dr Johns
042thank you Mr dowy I think in the interest of time I'm going to forgo the superintendent updates tonight okay that's fine board members anything you want to share okay great um we are now moving to item five on our agenda which has our consent agenda um per what Dr John's uh said item 510 is remove 511 has been uh moved to 11.2 uh any other changes in the consent agenda Dr Johns no okay uh board members any uh questions on the consent agenda okay entertain a motion I move to approve the consent agenda subject to the amended uh two amended points second any discussion on the motion hearing none Mr gaki yes M Mullen Beck yes Mr O'Hara yes Mr shine yes Dr Steinberg yes Mr dowy yes motion carries item 6.0 on our agenda
043uh regards uh the amended budget which is an annual item for us uh the first is uh 6.1 public hearing on the amended budget uh I am at this time opening the hearing on the amended budget for fiscal year 2023 2024 the amended budget was previously discussed by the board of education on Monday March uh May 13th and was made available for public inspection information about this public hearing and availability of the amended budget document was published in the Chicago Tribune on Friday May 10th so anyone would like to address the board I don't think we have anyone on that list for addressing the board during amended hearing hearing none any questions from members of the board about the amended budget just to be fair we have a 10c delay so hearing none should Dr
044Steinberg I Will Wait the proverbial seconds here thank you Dr John's are there any comments or questions from the public that have been submitted through the public comment process we've received no feedback okay I will therefore entertain a motion to close the public hearing on the amended budget so moved second any discussion on the motion hearing none M mck yes Mr O'Hara yes Mr shine yes Dr Steinberg yes Mr dowy yes Mr gaki yes motion carries with a vote of six to zero I declare the hearing on the amended budget of the fiscal year 2023 2024 closed uh I now move to 6.2 at this point we'll entertain a motion to approve the amended budget for the fiscal year 2023 2024 so moved second any discussion on the motion hearing none Mr O'Hara yes Mr
045shine yes dror Steinberg yes Mr dowy yes Mr glowaki yes Miss malbeck yes motion carries I move now to item 7.0 which are discussion action agenda item 7.1 is the glener South yearbook investigation report after our May 28th meeting we began an investigation it was led by Mr Justin Peta who is the longtime outside general counsel to the district for decades now and one of Illinois's foremost education attorneys our direction to Mr petara was to be thorough and prompt as with everything we do we address issues carefully we respect due process that means We Gather input and we liberate we act appropriately both regarding what happened and in learning from it to prevent recurrence and we heal as a community for the good of our students as noted earlier we understand that this situation has
046caused significant pain we appreciate everyone's patience as we proceed we deeply appreciate all of the input we received it takes time to speak to us it takes time to write to us it takes energy it takes courage it takes Grace tonight we will hear the report presentation the board will then be able to ask questions of this evening we will then be able to deliberate on the report as well as other inputs coming in those from the community which we've received and we undoubtedly continue to receive and we appreciate that actions as I mentioned earlier are expected by the July 8 meeting uh when we meet again one item that we will be addressing tonight after Mr Paka is finished uh is the yearbook replacement options so with that Mr petara if you would please
047proceed thank you Mr Dy um I apologize to the people who have to St look at my back I don't know how else to make this work get closer to the microphone can you hear me now thank you everyone pleas up thank you um I I want to point out that I listened uh respectfully to all of the comments and I think you'll hear uh the answers to the questions you have uh asked tonight and been waiting for I also want to briefly comment on the scheduling and the timing of of this report um I know people are anxious to get information I think you'll get the information tonight you'll decide whether um it's appropriate or whether or not you disagree with the way things came down our challenge was that in the three and
048A2 weeks that took us to do this we had to consider several um factors one is um this began two days before graduation so we had issues with availability of Staff availability of students I wanted to make sure when I talk to students I also talk to their parents to the extent they were available we had in that period of time um beside graduation two intervening holidays Memorial Day and juneth that cut into it and as a school lawyer of many years now I know it's most important to get it right than to get it fast so um tonight you'll hear what we've come to believe happened and then um you'll have the opportunity to see the report uh in its whole uh cloth uh beginning tomorrow so as as has been said this report
049was requested by the Board of Education after the uh controversial events with the publication of the Glen book South 2024 yearbook distribution of that yearbook occurred in May the board meeting was May 29 I think about a week after the distribution and it was at that time the board asked that I conduct the investigation this investigation was conducted over a number of full days of interview in May and then in June before the official end of the school year the process of the investigation involved talking to three administrators at Glenbrook South the principal and two assistant principles we talked to the yearbook adviser at length that interview was um close to three hours I talked to three students who were directly involved in soliciting and producing the quote and for two of them their families
050their parents and we were able to secure the audio tape of the interview of the young student student three I referred to these students by number the student one arranged for the interview student two conducted the interview student three was interviewed so we secured a copy of the audio tape of the interview and were able to play it the one um difficulty we had and you'll understand why as I get into the report is there were three seniors who are denoted as the editors in Chief of the yearbook I will describe their role as we get into the report we asked to interview those three students because they had a significant role in the production of the yearbook all three of them through their parents refused the interview with us so I don't have access
051to any information they would provide but I think there's enough in the report to understand exactly what happened so let's talk about the findings um I first want to point out that there's a lot of information in the report it's 17 and a half pages uh single space so I'm kind of giving you the cliffs notes version of what I think are the highlights of what we discovered I want to start very quickly by just explaining a legal issue that we have to deal with there are a number of cases in this country Supreme Court cases one in particular that dealt with student Publications that create the notion that student Publications are protected as first amendment speech but that there are situations where the school district because of its involvement in supporting the publication in
052authorizing the publication has some limited ability to cont control what goes into the publication the problem in our state is that in 2016 the illino legislature passed what is called the student rights I'm sorry the speech rights of student journalists act and it was clearly intended to um defeat the Supreme Court announcements about student Publications because of the way it's written that act essentially protects the rights of school student journalists but is not in play here because that Act deals with the ability of Administrators to exercise censorship or what's called prior restraint before the publication of the yearbook in this case there are limitations on the ability of the administrators that uh prevent them from exercising what's called prior restraint and again prior restraint means that someone in a position of authority can um censor
053material to be published or restrict the material to be published or alter the material to be published so it's not necessary to get into a First Amendment conversation about the GBS yearbook because there was no opportunity for prior restraint or even prior review because distribution Printing and distribution had occurred before anyone knew about the problem it was already printed it was already distributed so no one had the opportunity to review it KN one in administration um and I just want to be clear with all the work I've done I cannot find any evidence that there was prior knowledge or prior involvement on behalf of the billing Administration the central office administration or the board itself and production of this yearbook it was all after the fact a couple of people mentioned we hope that there
054would be board policies to govern this well there are board policies that govern this there's a board policy that is relatively new and comes out of legislation that creates for Public School Employees and especially teachers what is called an educator code of eth ethics it governs the behavior educators are supposed to demonstrate and the ethics they are supposed to abide by when they're doing their job when you get into the report you'll see my explanation of how that should have applied here in terms of the behavior of the adviser there is another really interesting policy 6 colon 80 that deals with how the school district intends for controversial issues to be handled that policy um would arguably if the content had been known ahead of time allowed the administration to review the content and exercise
055some control over the published quote so we have policies in place more importantly you have a very comprehensive District 225 parent student handbook section 136 of that handbook is specific to school sponsored student Publications and should have been used to allow the principal to review the controversial materials prior to their publication its publication and thereby allowing at least the principal to give some advice to the advisor Andor the editors about whether or not the quote should have been used those policies weren't followed and the um School Board parent student handbook wasn't followed in that case um most interesting um we I've represented well over 100 school districts and I do work nationally the issue of student Publications is often very thorny very complicated very controversial and there is there are actually several what I would
056call codes of conduct codes of Ethics that govern student journalists and student journalist advisors there is a code of professional ethics for students and the advisor and while that code aggressively texts the Free Speech rights of student journalists it also contains ethical considerations which should have been considered before the publication of this quote they were not okay so we have policy issues handbook issues and professional codes of Ethics issues let's talk about what I discovered about the normal process for creating and Publishing the the yearbook um I will start by telling you the yearbook in this situation and normally is completely and totally controlled by students that's the design that means within the yearbook staff there are students who are reporters and they're given assignments by other students there are students who are involved in
057the design of the yearbook in the layout of the pages in photos and which photos to use in the final publication decisions and in marketing of the yearbook and most importantly they decide the content most of the activities are driven by selected editors of which there are 26 now how can there be that many editors because there are section editors there may be one for sports there may be one for clubs there may be one for band or performing arts and then of the 26 three are anointed if you will as editors and chief they tend to be seniors and those were the three who declined to be interviewed the three and in fact all of the editors and in particular the three are selected by the advisor and quite frankly they have virtually unfettered
058discretion over the content and the assignments the advisor refers to it as a quot her totally student run close quote students are chosen for yearbook participation by the advisor from four sections she teaches of yearbook classes those classes are offered as electives through the English Department they are offered for credit Co co-curricular Credit which I think ultimately is electives credit for graduation and they are to be graded for their participation in those classes the information I've collected leads me to believe that the advisor spends minimal time performing any oversight of the publication process ring on students primarily the editors in Chief to make decisions and of course that results in decisions being based on at least three people's opinions biases and interests as to what should be included in the yearbook the editors and chief
059in 2024 wanted to cover in the yearbook current events and among the current events they chose to cover was the Gaza War that's how they refer to it the reason that was chosen according to the advisor was because two of the three editors in Chief were Jewish and they felt it was important to them to cover the war now I want to point something out to you um on page 125 of the student yearbook there is a full page on the war in Gaza that it has pictures and it has two quotes of about a quarter of a page each that are specific to the war and actually specific to the date October 7 and what happened so it was already covered earlier in the book it begs the question why did it come up
060again in the index Pages if you go to the index pages I have them in front of and you start on page 379 and you go through Page oh I guess it's 403 um these are the index Pages where alphabetically students are named and then you can find their name and look at pages and the pages indicate where there could be more information about students clubs they participate in sports teams they're on whatever at the bottom of each page the editors in Chief decided to take every month of the school year starting in June and going through April June of 23 through April of 24 and they picked a month they ped the month and then they decided within the month to pick a day or two and solicit student comments about their feelings about
061what happened on that day I can tell you um I don't have children but I can tell you when I'm looking at this it looks like most of what they chose was pop culture culture who hosted the Golden Globes which rap stars are putting out new albums when you get to October suddenly October 7 is picked and there's another October date just to give you contrast and it deals with the day Matthew Perry died and so there were quotes about that and as well as quotes about October 7 again the students are chosen by the advisor info is collected and it leads to the belief that again she didn't exercise any oversight on this the EIC or the editors in Chief made it so again I have to tell you I'm not sure why there
062was already a page and that page doesn't seem to have any controversy attached to it at all it's the quote at the end that is ancillary to the real content of the yearbook that appears earlier let me talk about the adviser the adviser has been performing this role at GBS for 23 years she teaches one English course and the four yearbook courses that I talked about there are approximately 80 students total in the four yearbook courses during the yearbook course time class time instructional time the advisor is to be teaching students um how to learn about journalism and actually taking time spending time on the production of the yearbook so she's getting a regular salary for teaching and then she gets an advisor stien and she teaches among her full load 80% of her load
063are the four year book courses and in the courses students are allowed uh to are instructed on journalistic standards ethics and then they're allowed time throughout the year to work on and produce the the yearbook um I asked the adviser what she believed to be her role and she said quote providing guidance and knowledge I'm an advice giver her main role is to keep them on Deadline and this is important the deadline for creating content for this yearbook was mid-march so the editors declared that all cont content had to be in the hands of the editors in mid-march with the idea that they would have about a month to send it out for printing in April with the idea it would be back for distribution in May okay I also asked the advisor about her
064personal and professional role and she is uh very articulate about the ethical standards in journalism and how that's what drives what she does and what what she teaches and of course those ethical standards can be found to a great extent in the code of ethics I told you about from the professional associations interestingly students because they get credit for this class are graded for their participation in the class they get a credit they get a grade it counts to a graduation the advisor admits that her determination of the grade is based almost totally on meeting the yearbook dead line so that if students got their work in for publication by mid-march they met the deadline they got an A I asked the question well then who's responsible for determining the quality of the work who
065checks grammar synx spelling factchecking accuracy quotes misquotes and the answer I got from her was that those are areas that she believes are to be monitored and left to the Judgment of the student editors as long as you met the announced deadline you received a grade of A in the class let's talk um as we wrap this up about the quote because that is the most troubling area for me the editors in Chief decided again to highlight each month of 24 they picked the the one or two days each month and they were expecting the reporters to solicit students to talk about their feelings about the events of that date student number one a sophomore reporter in a staff meeting claimed that she knew or had a friend who had strong feelings about the war
066in Gaza and she was assigned by the editors to determine if that student would be willing to offer her comments about the war she contacted the student who is student three that's the student who's been quoted about her willingness to be interviewed again about the war student number one was very clear that the task was to see if she can get someone to comment about the war student 3 consented to the interview thinking she was supposed to be talking about the war another sophomore reporter student 2 in the report was assigned to get the quote to actually interview student 3 when I asked the student reporter who was to do the interviewing what did you understand was your assignment she said she was supposed to get a quote about current events and in this case
067the war in Gaza not October 7 students two and three met for the interview that interview lasted approximately 3 and a half minutes it occurred in one of the G PBS Library meeting rooms near the end of the day and it occurred on February 23rd that is virtually two months before the deadline for turning in content and three months before the printing the tape in the the tape of the interview clearly reveals that student three was asked initially this question so what are your opinions on the war in AA she gives a rather lengthy answer detailing her knowledge of the history of the conflict in the Middle East and um talks about how in 2020 Israel and Ramadan bombed Palestine and the war and a War began and then she says and when I woke
068up that morning I was happy to hear my country was defending itself so the quote again never mentions October 7th is not related to October 7th and you have to read the context of the whole C the whole interview three and a half minutes to understand that she after her lengthy anwers asked one final question and the question is what do you think are some misconceptions about the war she talks at length about people not being educated about the conflict the historical nature of the conflict understanding that people are dying and she wished she wished everyone would understand that and learn about it nowhere during the entire interview process from the time student one was given the assignment to solicit a quote through the interview setup and in the interview itself was the term October
0697 ever used or referenced nowhere neither student one student two nor student three were told the quote was to be about or used in reference to the events of October 7 the editors and chief chose to use the quote in relation to October 7 without any context being given other than allegedly describing the feelings of student 3 about October 7 the adviser admitted having several conversations with the editors about the quote so she at some point in in March as they were looking at content saw the quote had several conversations with the editors about the quote prior to the printing of the yearbook she clearly had some reaction to that quote otherwise there'd be no reason to have several conversations nonetheless she allowed the editors to make the decision to use the quote because um
070it was their job to make the final decision and she admitted having provided no recommendation no advice and experi or explained that she had no concerns that she expressed to them I asked if she ever considered telling them not to use the quote and she said no more importantly given her concern that generated several conversations she chose not to seek principal advice which would have been contemplated by the board policy I referred to and the student handbook she did neither of those nor did she seek to resolve any concerns she may have had as specified through the board policy on controversial issues when asked if she ever sought principal input on content she admits never having done so in her more than 20 years as an adviser finally it's important to note at no time
071before printing was there an opportunity for student three or her parents to review the quote they never got to listen to the tape they never saw in writing I asked student 3 when she actually first saw the quote she said well after they distributed the yearbook one of my friends called me and said you better take a look at this and she sent it to me so that's the first time I actually saw the quote parental permission to identify student three by name was never requested there was no concern contemplated nor expressed regarding the possible consequences of this quote on student three or on the larger community and the adviser took comfort in allowing the editors to decide to use the quote as presented because two of them were Jewish and they didn't think the
072statement was anti-semitic the actions of the advisor and the editors appear to be out of conformance with the self-professed ethical standards they subscribed to and probably um are out of compliance with the board policies on page eight of the report I'm sorry page three and four report and the student handbook on page eight and that's my report thank you Mr petara uh for the efforts of you and your team um we're going to open up to preliminary board discussion just to review with people Mr petus report will be available so you can read it in full if you wish tomorrow morning on our website U and uh right now the board is going to have some initial questions and but much this ultimately will have to be done in close session and as I mentioned
073before um we will have an announcement tonight as to the replacement of your books and otherwise we'll be coming back on the 8th to be taking uh actions um prior to turning this over to my colleagues mrka just a couple of follow-up questions for you um I know that you mentioned with respect to the policies and the codes of Ethics um and the student handbook uh when you were discussing with the advisor these discussions with the EIC did she have any discussions with them about the policies not that she acknowledged likewise is there any quite frankly I'm not sure she knew there were policies in a handbook actually the students I talked to about soliciting the interview setting it up and soliciting it weren't aware that the teacher had any involvement in the whole thing
074at all following this line uh and thank you for the additional information are you aware of any discussion that was had with the EIC by the advisor regarding codes of Ethics with which I'm sure she was familiar there is a society of professional journalists um document called the code of ethics during my interview I asked her if she subscribed to that um ethical code and she said absolutely I showed her the code and I said this is what you subscribe to and she said yes and you're not aware of any discussion about the code that she had with the EIC regarding this article the only question I asked because I was um kind of confused by um why she was getting a stien if the kids were students were allowed to use class time to
075do the yearbook um and um part of the instruction that goes on in the four classes and you should know the four classes really are two titles there's sort of an introduction to yearbook publication and then there's an honors course in yearbook publication you have to be at least a sophomore to get in any of those classes and the editors in Chief are picked by the advisor from the honors course when I looked at the course descriptions for the courses it's clear instructional time should be spent on journalistic standards ethics um writing marketing publication all of that stuff whether was done as unknown to me similarly are you aware of any discussion was had by the advisor with either the EIC or the editors about the student parent handbook the principles to which you referred
076pr4 um no I think she was surprised when I pointed it out was there any discussion at a just more basic level of using good judgment um I asked at the end of and and it was not a comfortable interview for her but I asked at the end knowing what she knows now would you do things differently and she said of course hindsight is 2020 I was more concerned about the fact that there seemed to be no time spent no concern about the impact this whole thing may have had on student 3 and I asked student 3 specifically if anyone one from the earbook including the adviser had spoken to her after the distribution and the controversy and she said no but her counselor and her Civics teacher reached out to her to make sure
077she was okay thank you Mr petara I'm going to now ask my uh colleagues if they have any points at this at this time Mr gaki will start with you uh first of all thank you Mr P for all your work on this first of all has anybody from the administration how is the student doing oh sorry thank you sorry first of all how anybody from the administration or Mr parar how's the student doing student number three bar we have had ongoing communication with the students since this has transpired uh the most recent was within a day or two ago we've spoke to her parent she's doing well she's in good spirits and they're enjoying travel that was pre-planned prior to this event thank you for checking in um so I most of my questions
078will be around the facts of this I know we have a of issues that I'm still I don't know where to start but how would you character whose speech in the end was this in the yearbook was it student 3es was it the executive committee the editors was it the advisers when we transcribed the quote um it's been done twice to make sure it was accurate because some of it's garble then you can imagine there are sophomores involved so the I asked the student too the interviewer um how did you tape or secure the interview how did you get the information and she said there's an app that everyone on the yearbook uses that's provided to them at no cost and she used that on her phone to secure the interview the quote is clearly
079student 3's quote I asked student 3 three times if the quote was accurate and she said yes it was only until you look at the context of the entire interview that you can see the quote was a part of a much larger conversation and again it only went on for about three three minutes and 24 seconds but when you look at the entire context of it I I think I looked at this before I came out tonight and um there is an argument to be made that some of the quote that appeared on the October 7th issue is only a partial part of what the entire quote was about the war it was selectively Chosen and the you in you if I heard you correctly the October 7th was not ever mentioned during any of
080the interviewing no I asked student 3's mom if she was aware of the interview and the quote and she said all she knew was that her daughter had come home and said she was going to be interviewed for the yearbook and she was excited for her but again no one saw the quote no one heard the quote no one was allowed to preview the quote before it was printed uh you ref you referenced that there was a number of discussions about the use of this and this section being created do you know if those were when were those were done they had to have been done before it was sent out for printing so between mid-march to Mid April is when those the conversation would have had to occur because then it was already approved
081for content and sent out for printing in April let me I guess follow up to that were they done during class periods were they done during advisory periods or some other time I have no idea of knowing because it all sort of runs together at some point because class time is used for production during class time are you aware of the curriculum and anything on reviewing quotes verifying sources and any of those parts of the lesson only from the course description which makes vague references to journalistic standards but there's no curriculum that you was produced to prove or show when these topics are covered I don't know nor did I ask what the specific curriculum is for the four classes because we had the course descriptions okay um I'm still shocked by all of this
082as many are and everything just that how we've got to this situation and it's incomprehensible but going back to I guess the supervision piece of it that you referenced of bringing this to the attention of our supervisors had the teacher noted any attempts to bring this at any point in time to the to anybody's attention or attempts to try to none as now since the lines are blurred here what are Miss what are the teachers duties to the students in terms of their responsibilities well there's the board policy five colon 120 which creates the ethical requirements and um interestingly the code of conduct that we used and referred to has a subsection that essentially says Do no harm and requires considerations about um what's happened and what you're using as does the board policy as
083does the handbook as does the state law that I started with it Everyone likes to read in the journalism business particularly in student Publications the first two sentences of the law which has a clear indication that student Publications are First Amendment protected speech you have to read the rest of the law which isn't very long to find out that there are ways you can constrain that speech and there are four examples exceptions to the protected speech requirement likewise you and your board policy uh on controversial issues list items that are not considered protected speech and what we're talking about would have been one of those items that could have been subject to at least prior review we can fight about prior restraint a different time but there was no attempt made to get anyone else's
084opinion except the students and is this teacher advisor uh just to make sure I have their background correctly excuse me sorry losing my voice is this teacher advisor a lawyer by training the teacher advisor is the furthest thing from a lawyer I mean she as this particular person as this particular person taking any legal classes that you're no I I will tell you this um there is there are several organizations um I guess they're viewed as professional organizations that um to which advisors and student journalists belong I named one of them they have a conference every year students from all over the country go out there and there are publication student publication lawyers who advise them I think the advice from what I gather and my experience is that it's nobody can tell you you
085can't print it in fact I've had them try to tell students you know this the school district's lawyer is wrong on this and I said well I invite you to come to court and show me but they've never taken me up on it so this code of conduct that they subscribe to there isn't a test or any type of certification or as lawyers would go through in terms of going through this code of conduct that you're aware of no I I think there's a lot of information that comes out of adult media publication electronic print or whatever where journalists believe look this all started with with um Watergate right and deep throat and all of the information about the role journalists play in finding the truth and it sort of translates but um quite frankly
086we're talking about 15 to 17 year old kids making decisions and there's no supervision uh my last question in terms of the this mix of the advi having the classes with the um advisory taking place when did that form when did could you tell when did that start the yearbook at South has been in place since 1963 um I I may be wrong on this I don't think organizationally you use the same structure at North no um uh somebody can comment on that I I don't think it's part of a class for which credit is given I think it's almost forgive me almost like a club activity outside of that but uh I will tell you having been in high school many not years decades ago um I was the editor of my high school
087newspaper and back then we did have journalism class during which we learned journalistic standards and worked on publication of the school newspaper so I don't think this is new so in terms of I guess this the in your report you referenced this is run by or the teacher that this is run by students when would you say that this format changed that it was run by students I I don't think I know I can tell you that I saw some information in the district possession that um before 2001 yes before 2001 it must have been different because in 2001 students on the yearbook wrote a letter about uh complimenting their advisor for letting them um essentially run the operation that happens to be the Year this advisor started thank you thank you Mr kowaki Mr
088O'Hara um thank you uh Pete you had a lot of my questions um most of them actually I just have two comments um first I I just want to note note for everybody that our yearbook has garnered national awards for years and stuff um and Barb's been here for two years now so I I just from an Administration standpoint if you come into an organization it's a big organization and something doesn't seem to be doing anything wrong you might not be looking at it until and so just for Barb I I understand why you might not have interacted much um given what you're working with and what was going on previous to this because if you looked at this last year and you're in a national you're the number one yearbook no one would be
089asking you anything right it seems so it seems um from our our my standpoint for the administration I I feel for you guys it does seem like it might have come out of left field for you a little bit um and that's upsetting and and it's very upsetting um I would ask the public to please read the report um i' I've only skimmed it myself and then put it away for a second you'll probably be a little upset and then go back and read it again because I think we do better when we read something twice and give yourself a little bit of time to think about it because if you're upset about something you don't actually think about it as well as you should um and that's what I'm personally going to do and
090thank you Justin for being thorough with this um I I I know Justice delayed is Justice denied but I don't think a month is especially with the the holidays and the graduation and getting that all done we weeren going to push graduation I mean these seniors they they want to go they're they're done they want to go home you know they want to go to college so I I appreciate the the speed you've done this with and I really think I I think it's important that we as a community sit down and read this report and then come back on July 8th and let's get this thing solved for us huh thank you thank you Mr if I can just mention something off of what Matt just said in all fairness to be truly balanced
091which is what we always strive for um this advisor has won national awards she is natural nationally recognized this yearbook has been um by J's who prints it um one of the top two or three in the country for a number of years so the I mean I look I represent a lot of school dist I've never seen a 400 page yearbook I hope I never see one again but the fact of the matter is in all in fundamental fairness um she is recognized in her profession for what she does thank you uh Miss melck people please if you would please thank you Miss mck um I do want to say thank you Justin for all the work you've done on this I know it was a heavy lift and I'm sorry is that better
092I was saying that along with everyone else on the board we appreciate the good work that Justin has done on this and I concur with What U Mr Hera had to say that work like this does take time and I'm sorry to the extent that people have felt impatient and felt as if we should do something more quickly um we do have to follow process and procedures and there are lots of different um perspectives and issues that need to be taken into account so I would rather we do it deliberately and deliberatively than um do something off the cuff um and I do want to Express again and I said this at the last meeting that I think it is um a terrible blow to our community that we've had to all go through this
093whatever I don't know that I would say whatever side you're on because I feel like there's a broad gamut wide spectrum of views we've heard from many many community members and I find it some folks think that there's an obvious solution maybe not realizing that what they considered be the obvious solution is diametrically opposed to someone else's obvious solution so we're trying to take all of that into account um and I I just hate that that um we've been torn apart this way um I have a couple of specific questions for you Justin um one is when you mentioned that that the the adviser felt it was necessary to talk to the editors and chief multiple times about this particular section of the yearbook did she elaborate at all on why she felt that was
094necessary does she do that for every quote in the yearbook uh no in fact um I asked the question um when did you solicit permission from parents to have students quoted by name and class designation because every page of this book excuse me is replete with quotes from students you know I'm they go anywhere from October 7th to I'm glad they finally got better Pizza in the cafeteria and then the kid is quoted I mean that's the kind of stuff yearbooks are about what's important to students but um when I said why wouldn't you take the time essentially to make sure it was right and and check the quotes and make sure people gave you gave the staff the students permission she said oh that would have taken a long time I said well maybe
095the book would be half as long as it is if you had to do that uh which was um upsetting to her but no I I I think um it's interesting I mentioned the year 2001 which is the year she began and I mentioned a letter from the editors thanking about the construction of the yearbook that year I remember that's the year she started and they thanked her as there this is a quote from the letter silent advisor so when you ask the question when might this have started I think it's right around that time another question specific to the actual publication um in addition to the two quoted students there are some um captioning I guess I would describe it as um did did the advisor or the students that you interviewed elaborate on
096who drafted those sections well the student the students I interviewed had nothing to do with content uh layout design photos they were reporters so to speak um but I it is of my is my opinion that everything you're looking at was the product of a decision by the editors and Chief and the section editors okay thank you thank you Miss Mull back Mr shine um Justin I'd like to start by adding my thanks to the comprehensive nature uh of your report um I for one was and remain uh IM uh very impatient um I I think this has taken a long time but it is better to get it right and um I'm always working on my patience uh um and not doing well in that regard so I have a couple of specific questions
097um the layout of this page so we have one two three four five about six elements on this page the student she has her piece the photo and the dating of this um this is strictly editorial right this this was layout and design layout was all come ultimate decision is made by the editors in Chief right okay and and they never so make sure that there's no ambiguity here nobody asked is it accurate nobody ever asked her about October 7th that you that is correct and that is what she told me and what the interviewer student to told me and but then we published like this I I think the process and again I'm not there but I think what happened is by the middle of March now remember the quote is solicited February 23rd
098got that so that's about three weeks from the deadline by which all content has to be in and then there's another month where the content has to be finalized before it's sent off to the printer and that's that period is where they may have had those conversations yes right okay so I understand how we got from a tape to what's on this page okay um I mean the re the reality is I asked the adviser um once you sent it out to print did you have any thoughts about what to do with it you certainly talked to students about it you had concerns and it's clear from what she said that once it's sent to print they are done with the yearbook for 2020 4 the rest of the semester is about marketing um selling
099soliciting and getting organized for the next school year because they have to pick the next group of editors understood so related to the course and you may not or and ask maybe one of the administrators does this course actually have a syllabus with um that lists the outcomes right the student student shell and do we have that in other courses so maybe maybe we don't do it like that but yes some courses have what we call syllabi in this uh situation I communicated with the instructional supervisor to try and obtain the course syllabus and we do not have a copy of that so we don't have a copy meaning it doesn't exist I cannot say whether it does or doesn't at this point we're looking for one but we don't have it right now okay
100um thank you um Mr petria can you explain the linkage to a staff person from the code of conduct in the student handbook so I when I think of that I think of this is how students and parents this is how you're supposed to behave here are the things that are okay here are definitely the things that are not okay but I think of that as students students friends family that side of it now we're saying we've got faculty and there is a linkage that you mentioned can you so let me just give you a little um context for years in this state when teachers particularly tene teachers were dismissed often times they violated what was believed to be a code of conduct in which teachers were viewed as role models for students and they're
101easy cases when you're dealing with sex abuse or criminal activity or or insub Nation um but we always I mean I've I've dismissed a number of tenure teachers under the what was called the role model Theory and the courts always upheld it that teachers are viewed in a different light than ordinary citizens when they engage in their profession so about two and a half years ago um I was pleased to see that the legislature had cified the role model theory in the context of the educator code of ethics and the one I'm relying on as probably one that um is violated here is that um School District employees must and this is the quoted section maintain a self and healthy maintain a self safe and healthy environment free from harassment intimidation bullying hazing and violence
102and free from bias and discrimination so that's a plank to which educators are help and I think it's not a stretch to argue that the publication of this probably is inconsistent with that ethical requirement seems rather clear uh thank you um by the way that's on page three of the report if you want to take a closer look and that's statutory just to be clear it's statutory now you have it in a board policy as everybody does okay sorry Mr sh thank you for clarifying that um in in a long career being faced with other you know difficult situations we can never undo what's been done and I'm left feeling you know very disappointed in us as an organization starting here at the board down through Administration not blaming individuals but I can't help but
103I I think of what was wrong with our process that we could get to this point a group of very intelligent people you know well-meaning love kids love teaching love learning all of the good stuff yet here we are faced with a situation that is kind of an unforced error right I mean somebody could have reviewed this somebody could before we even got to this point coached is part of the coursework what are ethical standards where are some boundaries what makes sense the purpose of this P of this document is not to hurt people it really is a momentto like what are you going to look at I went back and I looked at my yearbook God it was so embarrassing but it didn't really it wasn't a journalistic piece it was a different generation
104obviously so I think to get ahead going forward and trying to improve I think one thing we have to answer is what is our expectation for the yearbook I mean what is it why does it exist why do we pay for it why do we allow students to take courses related to it there's a lot behind this it's a big engine and we have to its Mission has to be made more clear and if it is then I think we won't be we won't be in these situations in the future because everybody will know like why they stepped up why are they in this course and it will help everybody and the other thing I think of is is there anything else going on in our organization that's kind of parallel not the same but
105are there other things buried out there that are just kind of coasting along in the background we're not sure we never look at them because nobody's complaining and we've had these in the many years that I've sat here these would come up periodically and we'd look at each other and go oh that's impossible that could never happen here and you're like yep and here and it's like this this this this and you're like I you know we can't believe it because we're so big and things that appear to be working well um can sometimes lead to a situation like this so I would say let's get our miss our mission and our vision clear on the yearbook but then also let's consider other things that may have a similar structure that may be kind of
106they're in the background working well um they're great the community loves them everything seems fine until you peel back the onion um and you're like oo we need to get ahead of this this this this doesn't feel right it doesn't meet our standards one of the first things I did at the beginning of the investigation before I talked to anybody was to ask if there was a job description for the yearbook adviser and there isn't and um I don't think that's unusual I think we're finding in a lot of school districts today we don't have job descriptions and quite frankly when you start dealing with disability laws and job qualifications and handling difficult Personnel issues You' better have some standards written down I suspect that I'm correct when I say to you there are probably
107a lot of teachers here um who take on extra responsibilities it could be debate it could be Sports it could be mathletes it could be clubs who probably have to take on a lot of responsibility to operate without much guidance in terms of what's expected of them whether that's communication dealing with vendors uh securing contracts for goods and services and I think um they're a little bit at Sea about you know what do we do and I suspect most of them do what they have to do to make sure it goes and the and the um activity runs so creating some set of standards would probably help a lot of people thank sorry may I ask a followup question to your point that you just made uh Mr par you said there's no job description
108for this as an adviser but is there a job description for this person as a teacher since we don't know where that line um I think there is a teacher job description M Romano yes we do have job descriptions uh for teachers they're more general and this goes back to the work that has been done through the perah joint committee and when the per joint committee uh came about uh through the law uh there were some recommendations to have a specific job descriptions for teachers perhaps or psychologist for different roles um we do have one again for teacher but we are working through getting job descriptions for those extracurricular activities thank you just want to make sure I follow that point I apologize thank you Mr Kaki Dr Steinberg thank you one thing that patients
109will value is that everybody will ask your questions before it gets to you so okay probably short and how difficult is to work on the 20 20 24 21st century I'm I was remembering long time ago a parent came and talk about how he had been bullied 40 years ago that most of these things are not new I think what we all lost sight or track is that we live in the century of social media so whatever we say gets expanded everywhere right or wrong and how we badly wronged a young student regardless if I agree with what she said or not or the context of what he said she's part of our responsibilities so it at least on my side I apologize to the student I think we as I said this is not
110a condonation of what she said or the context what she said but our job is to protect her like everyone I I had two kids that came to the school a lot of people here have children that came to the school or they are coming to the school and the first thing we want is to protect them and to recognize that sometimes they're going to make mistakes and and if this is not the ground to correct the mistakes when are we expecting them to make the mistakes once they are out there so let me start by by saying that I'm as I said most of my questions were asked but I think in there's this Duality I think one of the things that make us good is we give our students agency you just mentioned
111it we have debate we have sports we have different things where we try to encourage our students to be themselves to grow and to show and to represent us but I think part of the responsibility like you said and and I don't know if this is a job description but this could have happened on a debate trip right or this could happened somewhere else where's the line where we train or what what are the expectations that we have from the advisors so these things don't happen or that if mistakes are happened are not these kind of mistakes this is something that my colleague was just saying what seeing his earbook from the past this is something that stays in paper even if we change it or or people get a new yearbook somebody will have
112a copy of this so we we have to be we have to figure out a way how to minimize the possibility of this happening again and and I appreciate I have some questions I think we go into close session I'm more interested now at least for us in terms of how do we bridge this gap between we are here setting up policies people are somewhere outside they are implementing things that are the direct results of these policies but what do we do in between what what is that response I I'm being generous here on are being talking about Administration and the board but what are the processes that we have to to make sure that these policies are being carried correctly and and without taking away this idea of having agency and this idea of
113giving teachers space to grow because I think that's really important but today was this maybe another time was something else what do we do do we have and I don't know about this do we have annual meetings do I sit you were asking about the syllabus I'm I'm do I sit regularly with the teacher and say how is the class going what what are you doing what are the processes what things we can do or What mechanisms we can Implement to avoid these kind of things happening down the road I cannot say it's impossible for this it's possible for this not to happen again but how can we say you know this happen because somebody missed to Step One or step two we have a code where we have seven steps to do everything that
114we do we cannot say it unfortunately on this on this particular thing I I appreciate this year the administration worked really hard on strategic planning on involving everybody and looking at where we go to the Future that's good but we don't have if if we don't work on looking at how we Implement what we do at every step at the end of the day the interpretat of what we do are the students and the teachers everybody else we are in the middle we don't walk into the classroom we don't interact with the student for 90 95% of the time so what processes we have in place to make sure one of my colleagues I don't know if was you that ask are people being trained on what the code says or think what things we
115put in place What mechanisms we put in place so at least we can say we try we did and if somebody failed well we all may be failing at some point but at least we can say out loud we have the mechanisms in place this was an outlier this advisor as as Justin and many of you said had been working for 20 years and made us win Awards so we cannot disregard that part so probably even if we remove these two pages from the yearbook there are tons of things that everybody who has the earbook will be very proud of it right but we fail somehow because all the good things still gave room to something that was you know so bad that one page out of how many you said 500 800 how many
116pages the year book has 400 it's hard to believe that there are not 399 pages of good things that people are going to be feel feeling proud about it so my request as I said I'm have some questions for that more targeted for close section but in terms of what we learn and we talk about what the student learn from this this is teachable moment what what do we learn from this how do we come out from this excuse me would you please keep down the speaking right now thank you what thank you what do we learn from this how do how do we put in our planning or the administration planning a process where these situations at least the questions in terms of did somebody check on this was this was the advisor supposed
117to ask questions was the instructional supervisor supposed to talk to the advisor what were those mechanisms maybe we don't have them and if we don't have them we have to admit we don't we didn't have them or they were so outdated that made sense 20 years ago and don't make sense today so if they don't make sense Today part of our responsibility is to sit down I know few board members sit down and review policy all the time because they recognize that the policy of the past may not apply directly as the policy of today what about the processes of the past and the process of today clearly with the earbook maybe it's not so much different because it's printed so even without social media you will have it there but we have the other
118activities where students may make mistakes similar mistakes so my my request to us or to Administration or to V is to figure out a way of creating more mechanisms to try to avoid these things from happening thank you Dr Steinberg um thank you again Mr Peta for all of your hard work on this um as shocking and disturbing as this whole situation has been uh and the report underscores many aspects of that uh we do need to deliberate uh intelligently and yet promptly uh to address these these issues we need to address not just the situation in front of us but what can we do to prevent recurrence which you echoed up here in the last several minutes we also have to look at bigger issues uh policy implementation as Dr Steinberg was just alluding
119to supervision guidance because ultimately that's how we improve that's how we heal that's how we bring our community together because this community has been strong for decades and to see it torn aunder uh hurts us all disturbs us all and you felt that tonight and and your very thoughtful comments which we appreciate and we felt it in the correspondence and and the even the comments on the 28th as well of May and we appreciate that but our healing our bringing ourselves together is going to take the transparency the honesty the deliberation uh and not just looking at this situation addressing it but what we can do to prevent recurrence and look at bigger issues to continue uh to improve our district um the report as I've mentioned a number of times will be posted on
120our website tomorrow uh as all of us have encouraged you please do review it U Mr Peta has looked at it on multiple levels not only factual but legal and policy and ethical uh and it's uh it's difficult it's hard it's painful um but it's honest and the best way to get better is to start with honesty uh and that's important to all of us uh I did mention the one item we are going to address tonight is we have developed a couple of options the Administration has as to uh options for people who would like to replace their ear books um and uh on the 26th uh which is Wednesday there will be a Google form that will be sent to students and parents who purchased the yearbook um um it only needs to
121be filled out by the students or the parent Guardian that is Seeking a replacement or modification they've received and I'll explain that in a moment um the form will offer two options and you can obviously students can keep the yearbooks as is if they wish either they can request a reprinted copy of the yearbook that will not include the timeline story attributed October 7th and in that case the students would just exchange their yearbooks uh when and just pick up a new yearbook and exchange their old one in the alternative they want to keep their yearbook adjust it or modify it they would request a sticker to apply over the timeline story uh attributed to October the 7th students request in this option we mailed the sticker that can be applied to their yearbook um
122the Google link is going to go out on Wednesday the 26th uh which is this Wednesday uh and over the ensuing two weeks we ask that those who want to Avail themselves of either option uh do let us know through the Google link that' be July 10th um stickers in yearbooks will take a practi 7 to8 weeks working with Justin's to get uh come back to us we'll order the exact number of yearbooks that are requested through the form plus an additional 25 to 50 in case there are uh late changes on that uh we will also um order the uh enough stickers for all yearbooks previously distributed as well so those are the options you if are a family that ordered a yearbook uh you'll be receiving a Google ink on on Wednesday so
123uh we want to least give you that information uh we are going to now turn to the last regular item which is policies which you're of course invited to listen to but may not be exactly what you're interested in but thank you again for uh coming tonight and all of your input uh over the last several weeks we appreciate your patience and your dedication to our district problem in the policy stuff 7.3 we adjust something that was under the uh once I have Cofe it's Fe out of the door see okay we are going to pick up with item 7.2 which are I believe three policies and procedures and maybe a retirement or two if I've got that right uh Dr grel you will be walking us through uh those policies these are on first
124read so they will be coming back unless there are questions coming back back on the 8th of July on consent if I understand the right Dr John you want to add anything before Dr gell commences no I think M Dr Grell has since well covered take it away good evening everyone thank you for taking the time to review a few proposed policies and procedures as a reminder policies and procedures are presented to a superintendent committee that reviews board policies we utilize um heavily a board policy manual that is published by the Illinois Association of school board boards or iasb it's often times referred to as press and those model policies are utilized to compare against our existing policies as well as uh unique local needs that we might have that might be not addressed through
125a Statewide policy some of the policies before you this evening include traffic and parking control plans um I'll just kind of highlight the the key salian points from them with respect to traffic and parking controls as many members of our community know uh we have a high demand for parking specifically for students and we have a limited Supply um we go through a a as Fair as a process as we can by providing all of our seniors access to a parking pass as long as they apply for one uh by the designated date which is typically around April and then um after all of those passes are given out we go through a lottery process which is a complete random chance of uh remaining Juniors who are interested in parking when an individual doesn't receive
126a parking permit whether they be a a sophomore a junior or a senior that that doesn't go through the process um sometimes uh students make not the best choices to continue to park even without a permit uh when we identify a student's vehicle that does not have a permit we reach out to them we bring them down to the Dean's office we have a conversation we work through a natural process and we do that one two or three times will then proceed into a situation where a student might be provided a consequence of attention but we do have a limited but a a amount of students um and families that choose not to follow the parking rules meaning they will purposely Park illegally um in no parking Zone such as fire Lanes they will just
127park in staff parking or they will park anywhere on campus uh this is not an uncommon situation it is one that our board policy previously had addressed uh in Prior years uh where we would potentially relocate or tow a student's car after multiple infractions and things of that nature in consultation with other area high schools um we have got to that point where we're recommending that the board re the ability to number one place a sticker on a vehicle I want to emphasize none of this happens before multiple conversations with students and their families but they'd receive a sticker notifying them that they are improperly parked and on the third Andor subsequent uh occasion we would have the ability to relocate or tow a vehicle at the owner's expense again I just do really want
128to highlight these are individuals who have chosen to park in disabled spaces parking in fire Lanes parking and staff double par it's a variety of challenges and so that policy addresses that in policy five colon 100 staff development program um there are a variety of trainings that Illinois Educators or individuals with professional Educators licenses or any school support personnel must go through on an annual basis uh one of the most common ones that we go through is uh we actually discussed this morning bloodborne pathogens um those trainings are required to be listed in board policy but our policy doesn't currently state it um what we've done here is we've uh did you say pathogens pathogens yes oh okay just to make sure I listening no worries um we uh uh there's a a 9 minute
129video for you to watch if You' like um I am so excited recess no okay's what we've done is we've taken the model press policy which has all of these requirements and we've Incorporated um in our local policy manual we had about three different policies and procedures with some of this information but not all of it we've Consolidated it to simplify um and then also uh there are two separate uh procedural uh documents uh educational support personnel and Senior educational support Personnel that's procedures 5 colon 270 and 5 col 271 what we've done here is simply clarified the process um for different time off leaves which is in alignment with our recent uh guess and negotiated agreements we've always tried to keep all of our support staff in similar conditions and similar expectations and this
130makes that alignment with that said I'm happy to answer any questions regarding anything that's been presented and certainly can uh follow up um at a later time if any board members have Dr John anything okay um two things traffic and parking control stickers are we making sure that these stickers come off and don't damage the vehicles I'm asking because I remember people go to the pound in Chicago complain because they get written on and then it doesn't come off so I just want to make sure we're not vandalizing so to speak no certainly so uh stickers are properly affixed on a piece of glass not on any other portion of the vehicle so number one number two they are placed in a way where they uh where the individual can still drive the vehicle without
131having uh any part of the window obstructed that would create a safety issue waiting for number three however they are typically bright colored in nature and they are intended to serve as a deterrent so it will take an effort to remove the sticker okay so but when you're I got you all that but when you remove the sticker is there going to be a bunch of glue left for good like does Goan take care of it I'm being serious because people will say I get it from very from a very practical perspective for an individual who may or may not have received a sticker such as this in the past googon is a very effective tool yeah I appreciate you're doing your YouTube research excellent um okay second question serious um the staff development that
132it used to be 5,000 now 15,000 yeah and the last time we did the policies in 2014 so have has inflation been triple since then I know it's been bad the last few years but no it's a great question so one of the items that um we have been working forward and this is and forgive me for for not addressing that directly in fiveon 100 what Mr Dow's referring to is there's different levels within board policy where we prepare additional information and bring it for forth to the Board of Education first and foremost um overnight travel um that we have with students all comes to the board and we give kind of a truncated um paragraph if you will the number of students to cost so on and so forth all of the actual work
133is then vetted first and foremost with an instructional supervisor an assistant principal followed by an associate principal principal superintendent so on and so forth from a staff travel perspective um there are times when we um have a variety of Staff members transition or go for a conference or things of that nature we have worked really hard to incorporate the majority of those trips and those events as part of the annual budget process so we've incorporated into the budget we have writeups that are as part of the budget process that the board will next see in July um and those are outlined when things are not done through that process we have to have a threshold in which which we bring it forth for the board for approval and when again we've gotten feedback from staff
134and and other individuals about being able to move forward uh and also talk to other neighboring districts um our 5,000 limit is very low it's not necessarily inflation it was an amount that we just started with and through now forgive me three or four years of implementation we are recommending that that be lift or set at $115,000 again the budget requirements still exist for being incorporated into the budget but this is where an additional full scale memo is prepared and things of that nature okay and the reason I ask is that there is we're just thinking about different context much more you know really serious context to making sure that you as CFO and not worrying about overseeing the expenditures and whether it makes sense to send 20 people as opposed to 10 people making
135sure that we have that nice form saying are they going to bring back the knowledge and share it with in the department because that's so crimination component absolutely want to make sure that if we're expanding The Authority that we are expanding the accountability that attends that new Gap that is a that is a wonderful question or a wonderful statement and I appreciate the acknowledgement of not adding burden um in this situation this policy was also implemented at a time when we didn't have as um comprehensive or as clear responsibilities for our Educational Services Department as we have today so in addition to every expenditure related to this primarily is part of the school operating budget so there is a set amount it is clearly defined it is intended for professional development it will go through
136at least three levels of approval at the building it will then go to Dr adrey for her approval prior to getting to my final approval where my focus is making sure policy has been adhered to and that budgetary allocations are available and that we're not exceeding budget so you still go through all those steps even though you don't take it all the way to the board level correct okay I just want to make sure that there's accountability built in no there has to be absolutely I mean this is and again that's not to doubt any particular uh staff development I don't mean that at all directly the opposite we want our staff to develop we want them to have the professional opportunities it's just want to make sure that we're having the oversight that goes
137into it which has been so important okay that's cool any other questions on the policies and procedures anyone no no no no no okay so this is the first read this is the first read I'll come back on the eth any other things pop up please let uh Dr gll know or Mr oara because he's on the Poli me me all right thank you you're welcome all right uh 7.3 is our next item it is student use of electronic devices Dr John well I think you've seen across the country uh a growing interest in managing cell phone use in the classroom uh that has not eluded Us in District 225 I think there are three states now that are are contemplating uh Statewide laws uh limiting the access of cell phones to students uh we've
138had a committee that has been led by Dr rrey and Dr grel who've addressed this issue Dr grll and probably with some assistance of Dr rrey will walk through the outcome of that committee work certainly so first and foremost um part of my professional background as you know is I'm an instructional technologist so my focus is always looking at the affordances and constraints of any tool or resource that we have available to us there are absolute uses that a young adolescent has that is a direct benefit by having a cell phone with them on a regular basis we think of the obvious getting to and from school and being in contact with our parents or Guardians we have the opportunities to participate very rapidly within class which is supported primarily through a student's Chromebook but
139at different times can benefit through the use of a mobile phone but what happened um in the spring is we had a variety of of teachers come forward to members of our school leadership teams as well as the District administration to say hey from a teacher's perspective from a student's perspective the utilization or the the height of utilization of cell phones in the classroom has really become a distraction is there something we can do and instead of an indiv a group of Administrators just kind of going and working independently we work worked directly with our association uh the GAA and they identified representatives of um individuals from Glenbrook South Glen North as well as glbr off campus and we came together actually in this room uh we were supported by a member of Mr peta's
140firm uh Darcy Williams Who provided a legal understanding of what's how you can control if you will uh cell phone and and wireless devices we took an extensive Deep dive of our board policies in our student handbook and when we found was that we had a lot of flexibility for defining schoolwide expectations within the policies and procedures that exist but our real practical challenge is we haven't been consistent in what our guidelines or expectations are going to be so you might have one expectation for lack of better terms uh in a core content uh um subject at glum North and a different expectation in that same core content area at glum South and in fact as a music teacher you might have one expectation at Glenbrook North and a different experience at Glenbrook South in
141the same exact class as we came together we took an opportunity to really dig into the research and there truly is some amazing uh uh compilation of of information about how students really are struggling with being able for a lack of better terms to put that device aside um and it sounds so easy that you can just put it aside but when we are connected through smart watches through our devices through uh larger devices that are in front of us um all those notifications that come through and they come through fever um it's it's hard just to do by being told you know put it in your bag and what have you so we process through different options we talk to colleagues at Evon Township High School at Main Township High School Oak Park River
142Forest we talk to Folks at nutrier we talked to Folks at District 34 District 27 28 all around and we found this there's no cookie cutter approach to this it's really unique and what we also identified was that whatever we do you shouldn't necessarily go to the most extreme option and and we've certainly seen some states go down that route from a much larger level you should do incremental changes and let the data inform what's working or what's not working and so presented before you um is the recommendations that we plan to implement next school year for all of our students across north south and Glenbrook off campus our therapeutic day school and here's what it looks like when you're a student going into an academic class and an academic class includes our music classes
143our English math CTE courses every course uh if you kind of think of that that's associated with instruction and grades there's going to be what I actually call a pocket chart or what we're calling a phone caddy it's going to be a a chart that that's securely mounted to a wall or an IND idual will take their phone and they're going to put it into a numbered pocket and they're going to do that when they come in the classroom and then they're going to sit down we're going to get right into instruction and at the end of the class they're going to be able to go and pick up that phone and take it with them and yes we know that many of our teachers have implemented these and we haven't been clear on certain
144procedures so when sometimes students had that urge to go on their cell phones that would be when you you would raise your hand and you'd ask to use the washroom and you take the phone with you and you had an extended time that you were away from the classroom if you will part of the phone caddy process is the phone is dropped in and it stays there unless there is an instructional need that's been clearly identified by the teacher and the teacher allows you to take that out um or if you're leaving the classroom for the block so think of a student who might have an orthodontist appointment they're actually leaving the classroom they'll take their phone and things of that nature that's really what it comes down to but the communication and the data
145standpoint I think is the most meaningful from this this approach we've come into and that is we know kids make mistakes and we need to have process to work through that's consistent that's fair and so when a student might decide not to put their phone in the caddy and they might just keep it in their pocket but then it alerts them and they take it out of their pocket the teacher's going to have a conversation with the student and they're going to be told to put it into caddy if that happens again teachers going to have a conversation with that student they're going to put it into caddy and at that point they're going to put in a referral so that the parents are notified that hey this is the second occasion when your student
146has had an issue we've asked them to correct it and they're you know not doing it on the third occasion they're going to put it in the caddy conversation parent notified and they're going to have a conversation with a Dean to see what's what's going on here what what other supports that they need that might be a time when we involve their school counselor we might involve a social worker if it's needed so we can really get an understanding if we continue to see the behavior we're going to continue to document it but there might be a situation where students upon arriving to school are required to go to the Dean's office and turn in their phone at the beginning of the day and then they'll pick it up before they leave at the end
147of the day everything that I've kind of mentioned here are strategies that we've heard different schools implement but we're we're using it as our best effort to put something forward but a big concept here with anything you do regarding policy and procedure it's very much what I talked about about vehicles and and professional development a few moments ago in policy is you can't make a decision and then not evaluate it later on and so as part of our plan written in all of our communication is that before the end of the semester a group of students teachers and administrators will come together to review the data we'll look and see how many referrals have been have been submitted we'll gather informal feedback from all different stakeholders we're going to review that and see if there's
148other tweaks that need to be made to our systems so that it's not just what we're saying now is going to work we're going to implement it we're going to monitor it and we'll make incremental adjustments as needed and we'll report that all out to all stakeholders so everyone knows how it's going we think this approach is solid we've been very grateful to have uh Dr ad's assistant her team and um you know kind of what our goal here is to put forth a a starting point and now all of us will be working together to evaluate that data and determine what's next but while there's no action that's required for the board on this because again we we're we already have the policies we have the procedures we want we want to create an
149awareness of this and so another element that we're working on is communication with our families we wanted to present it first to the board our plan was next week that we were going to share an email about this with a frequently Asked question document that we've developed and we're still doing a little tweaking but uh We've made some good progress for for our our parents and students we're going to share that out with everyone and then uh Dr George just forgive me on the second blue and gold or green and gold old days we have our Dean's office presentations where we talk about schoolwide expectations and every student will go through the process and he directly from the Deans which is kind of one of the channels we use to create familiarity of their support
150team um they'll hear about this and they'll be reinforced in addition to every teacher reinforcing it during uh during their first classes that they'll have and so that's kind of an overview happy to entertain any questions I know Dr adrey would as well so thank you dral Dr John anything want to add okay um so thank you for this I'm a huge fan generally of of this whole concept I thought we couldn't do it and now sounds like we can which I think is going to really be helpful um in and the stakeholders did you get any input from the parents who have varying from my understand varying attitudes and then sort of the followup is when you do your periodic evaluations are you going to bring parents into the picture because you need to
151communicate obviously yes for I want to make sure sure they're in the stakeholder group if I'm Miss saying parents is part of our continu in gr and I apologize on that U it's all of our stakeholder groups in terms of this initial uh glance of moving forward um we gathered feedback from student focus groups from teachers from administrators we actually throughout the process received a decent number of emails from parents on this topic um and they were on both sides of of the spectrum but Gathering additional parent feedback is absolutely something we need to do more of um uh but I would say that that yes Dr ad drezy Dr John's myself and I believe all of our principles um received a decent amount of feedback from parents but we did not conduct individual or
152group uh parent focus group and second thing and last thing you mentioned about training the students on the second color day um the are you training the teachers as well and are you going to empower them to enforce at the levels that we're talking about yes um and I really want to drive home an important Point here um when we were going through this work we heard a lot from our our teacher Representatives that they have a role to do in making sure that each other are all working together to support this initiative um so I don't just view it as yes the administration will be sharing this with all teachers likely also next week um but we look at this on our first Glen Brook day when we have everyone together this is a
153great opportunity to model how teachers and administrators can come together to work on a common issue and how we're all supporting each other and that would be our big kind of message which is an alignment with the Strategic plan uh that I know Miss Smith and Dr Johns will talk about again on July 8th as an action item specifically associated with the goal of how we manage technology in classrooms thank you Dr G any Dr sber question and a comment in the schools that you were looking at and implementations have you run one thing that done in some universities and people are doing right now it's they putting the the phone on Focus which means no notifications come and there are a couple of articles online you can see the New York Times wrote One
154it changed the behavior not only in the classroom when those students went to do homework or went to do internship and work they started using it as well because they realized I have to put my phone away I put it on Focus I don't get any IMs I don't get anything I can focus on my work because the other part is not going to happen to us but if you work with the Mac or with a Windows machine and your phone is connected to it even if you put it away you get a text message it will show on your computer yes so the only way to really change the behavior is to put not to turn it off to put it on focus and then if your parent calls if an emergency calls from
155a contact or if you have a device for diabetes or for something like that that will SC sa the focus and will will come up but then you won't have people sitting in the classroom asking why is skip having a cell phone and I not having a cell phone and P there is having a cell phone somebody else and you have to start explaining well he has a special case that I cannot disclose and she has a special case I cannot disclose and she has a note from somebody else it may be a little bit more complicated in terms of you know as we know our community in terms of arguing the second point and this is evidence based on my youngest one that likely is not listening to me what's going to happen when
156the kids that leave the classroom and foret the cell phone in which in the case of my son will have in every single class well after the first one no case because she already forgotten the first one how are we going to handle that okay so you have a few topics that are going on um first topic is I could talk a lot about focus and other related um user features that are available that many people don't know about and that's one of the the important elements whenever you implement rules for lack of better terms you shouldn't just Implement rules you should educate students about those rules and also guide them um so they can make better choices much more Beyond when those rules don't apply whether it's in home life and things of that
157nature and so we are we have that on our agenda uh we ended our committee actually after the the school year ended so that is on our agenda for the fall um and we can report back on that with respect to how does this all work when students have seven classes and I'm at this level in one class this level in another class and so on and so forth while teachers will work through their classroom managed behaviors individually our Deans look at a holistic view of a student and they'll see if a student has progressed to step two step three step one across all of their classes um and they'll they'll navigate that in terms of how they are working with the student to help um guide remediate and and address behavior um so a
158student might have had gotten to that that almost final level in chemistry but in English they're only at level two once those infractions start to accumulate the dean uh will have discretion certainly to determine that you know what we're at a point where we need to check in that phone for the day and it is for the day it's not just for the class um and that intervention uh and approach will last for a period of time uh typically we've seen uh that's in a place for 3 to 5 days sometimes longer um and they'll kind of take it on a Case by case for all for each individual student based on the situation thank you Mr shine um you talked about uh unintentional theft of phones so that's one question and um see there
159one other trying to think was related specifically oh have we what kind of communication is occurred down to the middle schools because it would be nice if this started below and came up and we were all on the same page thank you Dr adrey has the direct connection with our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction where we gather data so I'll let her chat about that and then I'll talk about the uh potential theft reality yeah I spoke with I assistant superintendent from The Sound ship and the ones present at the meeting said they all have policies and procedures in place where students are not using the phone throughout the and it's put away either in their backpack or in their locker so we at the high school are the ones who are a little
160bit different um with having students with cell phones in class or on them that won't be a surprise to students because they matricula this will be standard operating practice more or less for many however I just want to acknowledge that with any school rule that's put into effect there are exceptions that evolve over time um and so that's just a challenge that we'll we'll certainly deal with in terms of potential theft and this is this is difficult to say I just want to acknowledge that um but it's the fact students are not required for instructional purposes to bring smartphones or telephones to school every student is provided a Chromebook or if on the basis of their disability they require a different device is provided a school issued device to meet their unique individual learning needs
161when individuals choose to bring other stuff to school they have options to secure that those items we have lockers for all of our students even though in the district less than 100 lockers are used across all campuses it's an interesting phenomenon um times change you know they do yeah um I think Mr Whipple you still have a lck yeah I just see you laughing back there it's the one you had in high school right okay yeah I love it all right for individuals that are concerned about potential theft of anything this theft could happen in the lunchroom when a bag is on the floor this could happen during physical education for individuals that choose also not to lock up their items in the locker room when they're changing for PE things of that nature we
162strongly encourage students to leave these very expensive devices at home when that's not practical there's a level of risk and throughout our policy and throughout our handbook as it exists today the school district is not responsible or liable for damage loss or anything of a student's property however in the event the theft happen happens we are very fortunate to have strong Partnerships not only with our Deans locally but with our police departments with our school resource officers and we'll work with students uh to report any theft or loss that happens and investigate to the best of our abilities so those would be our options okay as a follow up on this particular question yes sir what's a liability because it's different if the student has the phone himself or herself or we ask the student
163to give us their cell phone put somewhere else so in that situation again um I I like to think of it from a perspective of Eyes Wide Open Eyes Wide Open is if you choose to bring a device you need to follow the rules that are set by the school and we did confirm with legal that schools can set these rules I also do want to share many of our classrooms utilize this approach already it's just not consistent across the whole District um and so if a student chooses and they place it in the pocket and there is not we've heard of uh some different standards right there's not a willful disregard for the care of of how these um uh cell phone caddies are purchased or hung uh then the district does not maintain
164liability uh and that's again our guidance that we've received from legal so I'm sorry but no please because again my son used to lose stuff but this will be very different as a parent I think that was a parental thing if if you ask that's a parental thing if you ask if you ask the student to leave a phone in a pocket out of his side or her side and that phone gets stolen will the parent say the fancy law word if we bail it with the uh okay the same as a locker when you used to have lockers if your locker got broken into you didn't sue the school for the record we still have lockers available for all students no I don't your lock your lock don't you have to bring a lock
165I'm just saying legally it's the same Miss uh Mullen if you could uh no you don't choose to bring I'm sorry I'm sorry toer but I some parents want the kids the kids come to school from school go to extracurricular activities they go somewhere else not every sometimes they miss the bus sometimes the some parents are more protective than others the it's not the kid we see the fun part of it that the kids uses the cell phone for but we have to acknowledge that a lot of times the first time the parent gives the phone to the student it's not because the student was asking it's because it covers a different need right so again it's not the old funds it's the new is a new thing unfortunately these things that cost $1,000 so
166I don't think of a parent saying yeah tough luck he lost the phone if he wasn't holding the phone and I asked the student give me your phone and I'll keep it multiply that by 5,000 um okay well I I hear your point it sounds like legal is okay but it's a fair point someone will raise it if the kid's phone is gone and someone else buy insurance or whatever what I don't want is I don't want to have another bill on that budget that says that every year we put $5,000 or whatever which is nothing it's five phone out of 5,000 is less than 0.1% right over 300 over 200 plus days so if we make a policy we want to back to checking our policies and implementation of the policies we need to
167have accountability of the expense that the policy is going to bring yep so we don't get surprised when this happen so what I think if you're asking is do we have a liability expense or is there Insurance expense it's implicit and whatever umbrella leg things we have that that we have to be aware of as we figure out the expense of otherwise buying caddies no and that is that is why legal has been present throughout all of the committee conversations and we do not have a liability it gets into a willful and wanting standard um just to clarify the phone caddies we're purchasing will be securely mounted um uh to the walls um where we do have the ability to remove them if we needed but they are securely mounted uh that is different from
168maybe current situation where some might be taped up uh in an environment and a non-official so we've we've gone through everything to create a reasonable level and we certainly encourage students who choose not to take that risk or families who choose not to take that risk uh to again consider utilizing a locker or making that choice not to bring the device into the classroom okay I mean fundamentally for me um I think this is huge and I think it's a great thing we're going to do um I think in 30 years people are going to look back and it'll be sort of like smoking in airplanes they're like what what were you doing like why are we letting these kids have these addictive devices that don't let them focus when they should be focusing and
169as a school if you let them bring it in fundamentally that's far worse than anything else unless and so I I really see us as having to do this and this is going to be you make it one way for everybody it'll make it so much easier on our poor teachers who have different standards if it's if it's this way you just say to the kids you're doing it in their kids class you're doing it in my class I mean it's going to be I'm very excited for it and so thank you Mr miss m uh two things yes one is um I I agree with Matt I think it's it's you know they obviously shouldn't be looking at their phones during class or have them on them however I do remember the little incident
170of the fire where I think it was really really useful right but this is a too soon okay this is a practical question a real question there are going to be moments when having every kid having their phone on their person in the moment not five minutes away not like we order you're talking like a few seconds to the walk to the caddy right well so well there's so kids all running at the same time to get their phones well they're all going to do it very orderly you know that order f all right let me let me ask you have you have you ask your second question and I'll answer both okay um my second question I've probably completely forgotten now I'll go with your first question then we'll come back if you read
171what schools are doing and I want to emphasize there's no textbook written about this there's no model policy that explains how to do this it's Gathering what folks are doing around you and seeing what works within your local context if you look at what's happening the a large base of experience is that the last thing you want in the event of an emergency are 5200 students texting and notifying and sending misinformation and things of that nature that's where we get into conversation about source of Truth now let's just talk about a little bit of reality in practice there's still going to be students that are communicating in different ways whether it's through smart watches things of that nature um we are empowering just as we do for any emergency we're empowering our staff to make
172a decision in that moment and that is a hard decision to make when an alarm goes off when a notification happens but within our FAQs we utilize the the phrase to the extent of if it is deemed to be the safest action students may be able to retrieve their devices in the instance of of of an evacuation we'll use the a fire as an example the most important thing upon hearing the alarm our muscle memory is to leave all items as they are and get out of the building in a safe orderly manner if some of these caddies are located directly at the door it might be determined that it's okay to grab them because candidly these are not Pockets that you're having to open up with a button or a zipper it's it's just
173sitting there you can be walking out grab your item and you're off um in other situations where that the teacher deems is not appropriate one of the reasons why I I can talk so clearly about how they're going to be securely mounted to the wall is we were going to literally anchor and then screw the phone catties into the wall and we processed when we had an incident and students were not a able to gather their devices there was no way to lift that pocket chart up with 30 devices in a safe secure Manner and relocate it so students could claim their devices and get them in a more timely fashion so our mounting strategy is to Anchor hooks into the wall that are just as secure um as putting the whole chart in and
174allow us to move the chart after an incident happens to accelerate the return of those devices you might want to re re reemphasize when you're communicating with the parents how quick are if there is an emergency how quickly we will alert all of them yes because so many of them depend on their kids to tell them we had a a very small fire at gbn some years ago and it was a matter of minutes before we got the information out but by then we had you know whatever 1500 reporters uh who were all getting the information of the parents I'm not criticizing it but the speed at which we want to get things to the parents I know you're very aware of this um Miss Smith but just making sure we get the information out
175to them fast I'm sorry I me I C you wrong see it worked out and I I actually I think you addressed this if I understood correctly what you were saying but like talking about um kids who just can't comply you know because I can definitely see there are going to be kids who just can't do it so so in one classroom like first period in chemistry they they've done it once does it go into power school so that when it happens at the end of the day in in you know English the English teacher knows it already happened once today and now this their second strike for the day or does this all get coated by a Dean so a lot of that collation happens behind the scenes because ultimately the relationship was the
176teacher and the classroom managed behavior is unique to that classroom environment but that's one of the the challenges areas for monitoring that we've talked about talking about with teachers as we Implement um so right now a lot of that is on the office side or the dean side um and teachers would be managing uh the number of infractions for lack of better terms or in occurrences correct okay the incredibly patient Mr keki I was just going to make a suggest if you put a charging station in there you'll have no problems so to Dr seberg's part that would be a budgetary consider and I I certainly could could bring that back solar oh our battery solar pan when you start getting all the special request don't come to me to say I told you so
177that's oh you're the guy with the sun who keeps losing the phones I know anybody else in school I just know who we are dealing with Blackberry all right oh it's funny okay so this is just going to roll out this will be rolled out we will um we're waiting for next week when uh Miss Hughes um is is back with us we'll be sending communication out um and it will it will be in the parent and student handbook it will be presented to students during their Dean presentations it will be presented to students by all of their teachers at the beginning of the year it will be presented but to parents and students in two separate emails linked of course to the parent and student handbook and it will be shared at the first
178Glenbrook Day presentation I think that's covered a few op that's good did you did you alert the parent organizations of each school about this so our first convers um has been outside of our committee work and our student focus groups has been here and now we will continue that communication just make sure that you know they often are looked to by parents sort of leader groups and so that might be a helpful thing to get out ahead of before those two linked emails go out yes sir wonderful Bruce I actually forgot I had one other question just out of curiosity are there um I noticed there's that the exception for the the IEPs the section 504s and the BPS what why would a phone be allowed is that like for translation maybe or something no
179that's that's a great question the most frequent reason I'm sure miss melbeck uh can can attest to this um our students uh with diabetes that monitor their glucose levels okay okay thank um yeah and then there's there's other types of situations we oftentimes refer to it as um a a a stimulation break or a motion break where students with behavioral challenges require off-task behavior um uh or ofas activity in order to maintain their Behavior so that might be an a bip or a behavior Improvement plan um there's there's different needs that might exist there oh got know right okay okay thank you Dr Carell thank you all item eight summary of the meeting we had uh 15 I think or maybe 16 Community visitors address us this evening we also approved our consent agenda we
180had our brief amended budget hearing and approval of the amended budget we had our investigation report uh on the GBS yearbook uh that came out in May uh from Mr Peta and a discussion thereafter we had first reads on three policies and procedures and we have just had a discussion of the updated procedures for student use of electrical devices electronic devices item nine possible topics for future board meetings please uh feed those to Dr Johns and me if you have them um item 10 on our agenda is Clos session um I will entertain a motion to go into close session to consider the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of
181the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine the validity Collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees student discipline and litigation when an action against affecting or on behalf of a particular public body has been filed or is pending before a court or administrative tribunal when a public finds that action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the to the minutes of the closed meeting pursuant to sections 2 c129 and 11 of the open meting act so moved second all in favor I any opposed motion carries terrific um we it's 20 of what's we convene at 10 of 10 seven minutes left
182in the third you want FL to one you your phone out Boron used to do that all the he used to be up here he's he used to watch all the games huh e e e and Mr Dy we are back we are back in Open Session item 11.1 uh first action out of closed uh termination I move that we dismiss Miss Shelley jaffy from employment with climber High School District 225 effective June 5th 2024 any discussion on the motion hearing none Mr O'Hara yes Mr Mr shine yes Dr Steinberg yes Mr dowy yes Mr gaki yes Miss molbeck yes yes okay item 11.2 is the old 511 I move that we approve the Aller schedule in 11.2 as discussed and closed second any discussion on the motion hearing none Mr shine hey Mr Steinberg
183yes Mr dowy yes Miss glowaki I'm sorry Mr glowaki while ago Dr Miss malbeck yes Mr O'Hara yep motion carries did you say Hey or yay hey oh okay that's a new way to affirm things okay uh item 12 motion for adjournment so moved second any discussion on the motion hearing none I all in favor you're killing us where to go thank you everyone thanks good yes thank you