001Hey everybody, welcome to the board of education meeting for Tuesday, November 14th, 2023. Um, can we have a roll call? Silva here, Bradley here, Stacy here, here. No here. Limon here. Vinnie here. Okay, we have a quorum. Uh if everybody would please rise for the pledge of allegiance followed by invitation by Pastor Jared Cororsine from Unity Baptist. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Would you bow your heads? Heavenly Father, we thank you for this occasion tonight. God, we pray first of all for the wisdom and discernment for this board as they discuss and make decisions. God, we pray for our community that you would continue to provide and lead and guide
002as well as tonight those we could celebrate. God, we thank you for Landon and for Miss Bennett. We pray for a blessing tonight on them as they receive these honors. Father, we pray first and foremost that you would be glorified by all that we do in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Up next is public comment today. Awards the good part. Best part. Well, tonight um not that you haven't seen Mr. Harris here quite often, but yet he's here again. And I think just the beginning of all of his appearances here, right? We're going to go with that, right? So, tonight the Gy School District and the Board of Education Administration would like to recognize uh GCH's freshman Landon Harris. Come on up. Um, I'm gonna try to get this all right. Is it is does
003is coach WS here by any chance? No. Okay. Um, so I wanted to say uh Landon qualified for the IHSA class 3A state tournament NPR on Saturday, November 4th by placing 31st with a time of 15053. Want to explain a little how how far is that? Like they need to understand how significant that is. Okay. Um, for it's a three mile race. Um, not like a 5K like other states, but three miles. Um, each mile for like five uh 1505 is about 501.5 for each mile. And then like he continually did that. Usually you don't maintain the five minute mile, right? My kids all ran cross country so I have some idea. So it's really incredible that as a freshman that that you've done this too. I want people to understand that. Yes. Okay. The
00431st that he's a freshman and what was the winning time though? I don't think you you were crazy off that though. It was in the 14s somewhere. Yeah. But high 14s I think. Was it? I don't know. I think it should have gotten it. I looked it up. You were not far. So, it's pretty amazing to me that 31 kids are in such a small distance and the older you get, the more their the dur endurance of that improves and so we we look forward to seeing I don't know how any faster but we will probably. Okay. So, um so uh the gra is at the sectional. So, we are very proud of Landon and we want to give him we tried to make it a little different since you have several already. So, my
005assistant tried to do the IHSA and we put a few more things on there. Actually, put your time on there. So hopefully that is we're really proud of you. Good job. Super proud. He even has his cross country on. And I even bought one. Okay. Um next one I want to read a little extra on this. Um, since I've been here, this is um, we didn't the first year, but every other year we I have nominated someone for the um, Emerson Excellence and Teaching Award. Um, I need to have you kind of understand this. I'm going to read this. Um, Emerson Electric, the educ excellence and teaching awards program sponsored by Emerson Electric annually recognizes educators in the St. Louis metropolitan area from kindergarten teachers to um, college professors. So, look at the range of
006number of people who are examples of excellence in their field. I have these. Sorry. Uh recipients are selected by the chief administrators of their school districts or employing educational institutions. The institution must be located now keeping this in mind too in the St. Louis metro area which includes um Franklin County, Missouri, Jefferson County, Missouri, St. Charles County, St. Louis City, St. Louis County. That's a huge huge area in Illinois, Jersey County, Madison County, Monroe County, and St. Clair County. So you're looking at I would say you're probably looking over 10,000 teachers. I know that over a thousand were nominated and they only chose 84. So keep that in mind. Okay. I think that that's incredible when you think about that. Um I wanted to thank uh the Coolage Junior High staff. Uh some of them
007helped us identify and put together when we do uh nominate someone. It's it's kind of a big ordeal. We try to get all the input and make sure and look around. And while we have so many teachers who who deserve this, it's kind of hard. Once in a while you try to look and during COVID the very first year I remember going to this person's classroom and doing virtual museum tours in in her room and thinking of things that we could do to get the kids engaged online. Uh she there's always kids going in and out of her room. She's always going the extra mile and she's at the end of the hallway and sometimes people don't know she's there but we did. So, uh, I want to, uh, ask Miss Megan Wedkin, assistant principal
008at Koolage, and Miss Gayla Bennett to come up. We'll tell you what's going on. She doesn't like this, but we're going to do it anyway. So, Miss Bennett, who is in her 25th year of service in the Grand State Community Unit School District, all at Koolage Junior High, which takes something all in itself. Okay, those of you that know middle school students, you understand. Uh they're wonderful in their own special way. Uh so no, they're all great. Um she has been there among eight 84 teachers from across the St. Louis metric area who are being recognized this year through the program as examples of truly outstanding e educational excellence. The teaching awards are in their 34th year. It is one of St. Louis's region's most recognized teacher programs. Emerson is proud to sponsor this program
009as a way of helping the St. screen express our collective admiration and appreciation for the dedication to teachers in our area students. Um I just I mean I can't I can't tell you how much it means to me to be able to recognize teachers in our district because they're all they all do wonderful things but to be able to to take one and exemplify what they do and to talk about them and I had teachers in her building who were so excited when this came about and people who helped me uh helped get make this possible. So um she wins an award. They used to have a nice dinner, but she gets an apple from Tiffany and Co. We're going to show it. I mean, it's heavy. It's heavy. Make sure they don't. It's very
010nice. Crystal, they used to have the awards banquet, but co they ended that. I was really hoping this year they would have that again, but we're here. So, we're going to try to do that, too. So, we're really proud of him. Miss Lkin, would you like to say anything as well? I'm so happy to be here and just it's an honor for me to be uh standing next to such an excellent teacher. You really are wonderful. um I get to the end of that hallway, I get to see her every day and I I see all the wonderful things she does with our students and staff at Koolage. Um so on behalf of the students, staff and administration at Koolage, we are so proud of you and thank you and congratulations. Let me give her
011her plaque. And we once again we tried to make this look pretty. They even have the Emerson logo on there as well. And uh it's not as cool as the Apple, okay? But we try. So there you go. We so appreciate you on behalf of the board of education administration. Thank you. Okay, here we go. You go. And just so you know, out of those 84, I mean, that's across the whole thing. So there's several in the Madison County, but I mean 84 out of thousand almost 10,000 teachers. That's just no idea. So we just one more round of applause. Come on. Okay. Approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting held on October 24th, 2023. Do we have a motion? So move. Second. Okay. Discussion. Roll. Bradley. Hi. Stacy. Hi. Curin. Hi. Noble.
012Hi. Lynman. Hi. Vinnie. Hi. Silva. Hi. Um. The consent agenda contains those items that are repetitive and routine in nature. Any member may make a motion to approve the consent agenda or request that any of the items be moved to section seven for individual discussion or consideration. Do we have a motion? So second discussion since I I know it's not on here but I don't like to go a meeting without a gift and we have had one. It's going to be more on the December one, but I wanted to mention a grandparent who works for Amazon of a Prather student was responsible for a donation from Amazon. How many books is Oh my goodness. Hundreds. Hundreds. Hundreds. We're going to talk more about it. See, maybe she'll come. But she worked with Amazon and got
013them donated. So I once again, it's one of my favorite parts of the meeting because there's always something thinking about our kids. So we'll talk more and I'll leave you hanging for the December meeting, but we're really excited about that. We appreciate you very much so. Stacy. Hi Curran. Hi Noble. Hi Lman. Hi Vinnie. Hi Sa Bradley. Hi. Okay. Now our uh recommendations for communications. Do we want to pause and let people escape? Oh. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah. Some of you want to escape. I blame you. Don't do it. Yes, of course. Bye guys. Bye family. A send retirement resation. It is recommended that the following retirees resignations be considered. Michelle Michelle Mueller secondary teacher Maryville 256 Iman. Hi. Hi. Silva. Hi Bradley. Hi Stacey. Hi. Okay. 8B retirements and resations. Please recommend the
014following retirements and resations be accepted. in alliance care professional GCHS resolution effective 117 23 Michelle second grade teacher may zone retirement 25 professional resolution 116 202 I Silva Bradley I Stacy IC C request for leaves of absence is recommended following requests for leaves of absence be approved. Kim Antanovich fourth grade teacher effective 112023 to 122 24 Beaver Cafe Junior High School effective 11623 Kevin Lake effective 11123 to 1242 24th grade math effective Second roll call. Hi Vinnie. I hi Bradley. Hi Stacy. Hi okay. 8 D requests for extensions to leave. It is recommended the following request for extensions to absence Wilson effective 1163 to 1294. Vinnie I Silva I Bradley I Stacy I good 8E extracurricular resignation for the 25 school year. You have received detailed information about this item below. Administration is prepared to
015make recommendations. Her hold for discussion in executive session. The GCSD administration has recommended following teachur resation for the 2425 school year be accepted. Miss Linda Ames, GCHS head girls tennis. Second discussion. Silva, hi Bradley. Hi Stacy. Hi. Hi Noble. Hi Leman. Hi Vinnie. Hi. Congratulations. She'll miss Tom. Do I need to announce it or you just hold it? We just hold it. Okay. Under the 2C1. Okay. Hold on. 2C1. Um the 8G uh employee disapp. We requesting that the board uphold the two-day suspension without pay for the proced. Stacy. Hi. Hi. No. Imm 8H. Certified and classified substitutes. Below. You have received detailed information about this item. Administration is prepared to make recommendations available for discussion in executive session. It is recommend the following applicants be approved as substitutes for the 2324 school. Uh certified
016subs. Nicole Harris, Nathan Nson, and Megan Smith is recommend discussion. I No, I Stacey. Imployment of one ESL bilingual pair professional. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can all hear each other. 23 24 school year. Okay. You have received detailed information on this item below. Administration is prepared to make recommendations or hope for discussion in executive session. GCS9 administration. The interview committee consisting of Kristen Namasa Christy mode department chair Stacy Swingler and ESL teacher Hannah Bush are recommending the employment of Sylvia. I hope so. As an ESL uh bilingual pair professional for the 23-24 school year, this will be a position to service our high school ESL students were very happy for this approval is recommended. So discussion call I lin and HI2 employment of special education teacher at Granite City High School for the
017second semester of the 2324 school year. Below you've received detailed information about this item. Administration is prepared to make recommendations are hold for discussion in executive session. GCSD9 administration interview committee consisting of special ed director Mickey Watkins uh GCHS principal Tim Christian special education coordinator Stephanie Ber are recommending the employment of Stacy Rollins as a special education teacher at city high school for the second semester of the 2030 24 school year approval is recommended seme Submission of required paperwork discussion. Linn, Vinnie, I Silva. Hi, Bradley. Hi. Hi. Hi, Noble. Hi. Okay. 10 A request to intervene in appeal proceeding at the property tax appeal board PK uh Celely Lake View Corporate Drive 2 LLC. Okay. Uh GCS den administration request the board of education for the attached resolution so that uh school district attorney J
018schooly can intervene at the property tax appeal board with regard to an appeal by celely lake corporate drive Illinois LLC at 3951 lake corporate drive grant to Illinois approval is recommended discussion Hi Bradley. Hi Stacey. Hi. Hi okay. Uh 10B 2425 running start program contract. Uh, Grand School District 9 would like to continue to offer the Reading Start program with Southwest Illinois College. Since the 20134 school year, the board has approved an ongoing student participation in this dual credit program with the parents expect Swift has proposed to continue the program agreement with us at a rate of $4,318 per student per school year. Eligible students are participating in their junior and senior year of high school and would have the opportunity to earn a high school diploma and an associates degree simultaneously. We are seeking
019approval to continue to participate in the school credit program and enter into this intergovernmental agreement which is attached where parents will pay the full tuition rate to provide their child this opportunity or the district accepts the responsibility to manage the program as Smith. Smith bills the parent directly which eliminates the district making payments to switching request approval is recommended. Great move. Discussion. Roll call. Vinnie. I Silva. Hi. Bradley. Hi. Stacy. Hi. Herman. Hi. Noble. Hi. Lament. Hi. Okay. Um X C 10C tax levy resolution for the 23 uh 2023 taxes collected in 2024. Um in this case uh we the motion is to adopt a tax levy resolution and do all the acts necessary such as adopting the levy resolution uh authorizing publication of the notice of proposed property tax and to set December 123
020as the public hearing. We have a motion. Second. Second. We have any discussion. Roll call. Bradley. Hi. Stacy. Hi. Hi. No. I. Okay. 10 D. Resolution declaring intention to not issue to issue not to exceed 20 million working cash fund bonds of community school district number nine and directing the notice of such intention be published in the manner provided by law. So second discussion Stacy. Hi. Hi Noble. Hi. Hi Vinnie. Hi Silva. Hi Bradley. Hi. That's a long um 10E the GCHS sound system bid. Uh it is recommended that the board of education accept the lowest bid on the granite student high school sound system orders included is this is it DM audio or DM audio DM audio one 191,818 output unlimited $445,492. So the audio this includes this is the audi some stuff for
021the auditorium the football field the main gym the annex and from the soccer field which is second do we know why such a disparity or it's just how they came in just how they came in a big And we have audio, right? This is the DM audio is the people that did the sound system at graduation, right? Roll callin. Hi Noble. Hi Linn. Hi Vinnie. Hi Silva. Hi Bradley. Hi Stacey. Hi Okay. 10F Illinois Association of School Board delegate to represent the GCSD9 school board. And it's not just right. Right. Right. Members of the GCSA school will discuss and vote in a delegate to represent the GCS school board in Southwestern Division of Illinois Association of School Boards ISB. This person will also represent the district at the joint annual conference in Chicago and the
022delegate assembly annual business meeting which takes place in Chicago. It doesn't say, but it's not for all. She can Yeah, you can do it remotely. You don't have to be there. Right. That's what I want to make sure any IC I just I'm gonna move. Go ahead. We have Kristen and Alex introduce what's going on. Sure. Thank you very much. My pleasure. So, Donna White's been working with our K6 teachers this year. Um, specifically as we concentrate on phenemic awareness and interventions. Tonight, she's going to join us via Zoom to give us an update on the work she's been doing with our district. Recently, she was in district October 25th through November 1st. So, Donna, I think we heard her. There she is. Hello. There she is. Hi. Good evening. Thank you for having me.
023I'm really excited to share some of the news of what's been going on as I look back to originally when I pres um first made the proposal to the board. So never forget that I called it the path forward and and I was going to call this one stepping stones thinking of the path and getting there and and m making the small steps but really pretty impressed with some of the big leaps that some of the teachers have made and some of the schools individually have made. So I have a little presentation to share with you to kind of remind you of where we started and um where we might be heading here. So, let me grab this first in the middle. There we go. So, can you see that, Chris? Okay. Yes. Did it
024freeze? Donna, we can hear you. Oh, okay. So, can you see the presentation, Chris? Yes, ma'am. Yes. Okay. So, just a a reminder, I mean, for anyone that's new to the school board, and you came aboard after I think I first presented this back in February of last year, but I've done a lot of work in your area. I feel privileged to be such a big part of that particular area. I started in East St. Louis, um, stayed with Collinsville through that, added Belleville, Sparta, now I'm in Central, and and of course working with Granite City. My other contracts are out of state. Um, but the majority of my work has become Illinois work. I left a stage to work in East St. Louis as an embedded consultant looking for a way to hopefully change
025what was going on in that district with our reading scores. So, when I visited your district, if people remember, I did a little survey with the teachers and one of their big areas of concern was curriculum. Mostly because we were giving them a lot of options. They were finding a lot of options, but they weren't sure what was working and what wasn't working. And so I remember in the proposal saying, you know, we need to work with the educational leadership and focus the elementary core curriculum. Your best defense at tier one is to have a strong core curriculum that 80% or more of your children can master and be part of before so that a teacher doesn't feel frustrated every day and that the kids aren't frustrated. So, back then we talked about all of
026the different programs you have. I cannot tell you how hard Mickey and Kristen um Jennifer Smith has been a huge part of helping me with the technical side, but um both Kristen and Mickey have gone out of their way to track down what we were using, why we were using it, was it showing gains, wasn't it showing gains? And if it wasn't, could we just eliminate it? Now, of course, that's not going to make everybody happy. somebody's going to be upset that we took something away, but it truly was in the goal of if we do less, we will get more. We want the teachers to actually work less but get more. We want kids who master the skills, not just are exposed to them. Um, and so as they move forward, the teachers were
027honest with me. If people were at that board meeting, they did tell me they didn't know a lot about the science of reading. They didn't really know what was going on across the country in terms of um what we're finding out about truly what we did wrong in reading and how some publishers kind of duped us into kind of following them for years as our scores continued to decline over the years and we kind of blamed social circumstances but the truth was we didn't have a good solid curriculum. So your teachers were super honest with me which I appreciated. we moved forward. Um, I will tell you that your state under the SB2243 law has now adopted that comprehensive literacy plan. I'm really excited to say that we talked about this last February and so
028I'm thrilled to see that you got in front of the Aball because you've moved in such a d a great direction towards what this particular legislation is going to expect schools to do and that's to look at you hadn't at the time when I was there you had not yet adopted legislation that would say hey you're coming out of a new college as a teacher in Illinois we are going to test you on the science of read. We are going to find out what you learned during your degree program that will help more of our kids become successful readers. That was not in place, but it is now. It was actually um passed in May of June or June of this past year. So, you're really in front of the A-ball, and that's an exciting
029place to be. When the teachers told me that curriculum was an issue, um again, Kristen, Vicki, myself, Jennifer, um your superintendent sat in a room and kind of hashed out what is that we need to evaluate the tier one curriculum that we're handing to teachers and expecting them to to meet most of the children's needs with. So, with the help of the curriculum special ed directors, they began to sort eliminate unused ineffective programs. I think we even saved some money. We got rid of some digital and hard copy that weren't being used anymore or things that would not align with what I believe your state will adopt once they do the science of reading curriculum which is coming. If you read, if you go online and search um which states have adopted uh the laws
030and and what have they adopted, it's curriculum, it's PD, it's the uh program in college for the kids coming out. So, they've been hard at work trying to get us kind of aligned with where this is going to go. You had to pick something that was already we knew would be approved by the state when it came down the pike so that there wasn't any waste of money. adaption uh adoption of a explicit and systematic phonics system. This is the biggest step we have taken this year and it's been a huge step and a huge undertaking for the teachers. Um phonics first all of the new research says we don't have a strong enough phonics program. We don't have enough kids that are mastering it. not just being exposed to it but mastering um the
031alphabetic principles of our language to learn to decode and encode our language. So it wasn't it's been a hard road because the true um training of this system takes about 60 to 80 hours per teacher and cost somewhere between $1,800 and $2,200 a teacher. We were we first we couldn't get teachers. Many of them over the summer said they wouldn't be able to commit to that kind of training. So we did know we were going to be flying the plane and building the plane at the same time. But to do nothing would have been a sin. And that's what I told the teachers. Even if we only go in 20 to 25% this year, we're going to see results. And that's what happened. So already um I was there a couple of weeks ago. I
032was actually um in Illinois last week also when you guys had 80s some degree weather. But um we heard from the teachers and Jen and I would write down everything the teacher said to us on our visits or anything the principal told us that they were saying. They really like the student buyin that finally the kids are committed. They have to be the one motivated. A teacher can love to teach but if the kids don't want to learn they're not going to learn. So I was excited to hear about the student buyin. The teachers are excited about the goal of mastery. Not just covering things but ensuring that the children reach mastery before we take them to that next step. The consistent routine and repetition that's allowing us to meet those thresholds of what we
033know kids need as minimum number of repetitions when you're a struggling reader or a disabled reader. Um the ability to differentiate with choice. The teachers talked about reading and writing connection which is huge in Illinois because since you stopped testing writing writing has really gone by the wayside and it's definitely coming back and the impact on behaviors was exciting to me as a person who um my second passion is management in schools and social emotional and behavioral learning objectives that we some of the teachers have said behaviors have gone down Donna as the kids realize I can do this. When you're left behind and always beat up as a child, you begin to act out because you know you can't do what's being asked of you. So, it's exciting to see some of this. One
034of your co-taught classrooms was probably almost had me in tears. I would say 100% of the children were able to write the full sentence decoding and coding it and in an inclusion classroom at the end of October. That's almost unheard of in first grade. So, it's exciting to see what the teachers have been able to do as they've tried to find their way through this new curriculum. Most of all, to hear them say that every child is successful at some level. Success breeds success. So, we're certainly hoping to build on that. So, the focus was that elementary core curriculum. I think you've gone in strong. I think the teachers should be commended. It's not been easy. We've had push back. I'm going to be honest, it's been hard for them. It's hard to train. Um,
035but we prioritized and hopefully are offering professional development across the district. Jen does a wonderful job of trying to videotape me, doing model lessons, doing testing in the district so that people can go on to your website and watch that and see it modeled and hopefully be able to do it in their classrooms. But so far, we did our big introduction in August. That's always a tough one. you have a brand new class, you have teachers that are just worried about meeting their new people. Um, but we did do the intro. We talked about small steps that it isn't all going to come at one time, that it's going to take a lot of professional development and a lot of answering questions, but anything in makes sense at this point. We met with school administrators
036in September, myself, Jen, um Kristen, um yes, uh Stephanie, your superintendent. We tried to answer questions. I've created a quick and easy progress monitoring system. I'm super proud of some of the teachers who have gotten on there and already said to me, Donna, I can quickly determine what the child's missing, pick it up, teach it that week, and keep moving. And that's what we want for them. So the progress monitoring of the new curriculum and I visited and modeled in classrooms across the district in September. In October I visited with the teachers met with title one develop PD for the November 1st institute day. I pretty much took what teachers were asking us about and tried to develop that presentation for that day based on those questions. Um at that session we did have middle
037school or some of your fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade teachers saying hey we need help too. What about our kids that are struggling? So we will make every attempt to include them as we push forward in this next round. Um on the side I'm always consulting on management and social emotional because that is my heart. Um that kids who struggle and have behavior issues in school um hold a very dear place in my heart. The second area of concern for your teachers back in February of last year was assessment. And it was a concern for me too. I thought you had an awful lot of it, but we weren't using it in the best way to move the kids quickly forward. So again, your core group of administrators sat down together and kind of
038analyzed why do we have this assessment? Now, some of them you have to have. If you are the department chair for special ed, you have to report to the state and you're going to but there's others that we want to use as progress monitoring tools to make sure that what we're teaching kids are learning before we keep moving on without them. That review has taken place. Um certainly your superintendent added Panorama software for analyzing data which is a huge um way to bring all of your your data together and make sure that we're following it in the quickest path forward. The administrative team met and reduced the number of assessments. I know that teachers are pretty thrilled. They'd like to see us get rid of more, but we do have to keep the ones that
039we report to the state on. But it's imperative to reporting on those um that aid the teachers in finding the missing skills. And I think that we're honing in on those and doing a better job. Elementary teachers are being offered a quicker path forward and identifying basic skills that in the past have frustrated teachers. So, if I'm a first grade teacher and you tell me to teach some highfrequency site words and I teach 10 and then you give them a test that maybe comes from, you know, one of the testing companies and it tests site words. Too bad it doesn't test the 10 that I taught. So, it looks like I did nothing. Teachers get frustrated. We've come up with a way to find out what you taught. Do they have it? And as we
040keep adding to that, we're going to see it come back and give us gains on those state type assessments. So the progress monitoring is going well. I'm I I'm impressed. I mean, I I'm super happy for many of my schools in your area. Belleville, Collinsville, we have some commendable schools now. It takes time. It took us, you know, a lot of years in East St. to turn around what was going on with some of our students, but to see them now flourishing is very exciting. So, I tried to talk quick because I know you have a long night, but if there's thoughts or questions, I'd love to answer anything that anyone's heard or if you, you know, want to know any other piece about it. Appreciate it. You mentioned ESGI. What grade levels are we
041using that in? Is it Well, we we brought it in as a project monitoring tool for K, but then kind of started to say, well, wait a minute, you would have quickly diagnosed why this child can't read. Why don't we get that system? It is not built for kids who struggle with comprehension. The progress monitoring tool is built for kids who struggle with decoding of getting the print off the page. So, syllable occasion, long vowel rules, uh, high frequency work. But we have since learned that some of our other teachers need that support. Jen was very quick at contacting the company and saying, "Listen, we have some fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers that need some support here." And I think we're already up and running on that, but we need some training the next
042time I'm in district with those older grades. Should be in January. Kristen, if you want to speak to that, it's ongoing. It'll be ongoing training in January. Yeah, we're working on it. Anything else? I'm excited about everything that you're doing. It's just wonderful to hear the way in which the children are responding to that to that reading ability program. Yes, I watch it. There's been a lot of work the teachers who have jumped in and this isn't easy and I want to it hasn't I mean Kristen and Vicky could probably tell you better that it's not without a lot of you know complaints of we don't have enough training and we realize we couldn't do all those hours but we're really trying to roll it out as we can but some teachers have just taken
043that initiative to dive in and the ones that have are going to help us bring the others along because they're so excited. They're excited for the kids. Um I we have groups of third and fourth graders who can't write the way I saw some of your first graders writing when I was in district. And to think that you were only at the end of October. I was just pretty mind. I know that Jen said at one point, um can you believe they can do this? And I said it's our it's our goal and it's our hope, but it's the teachers making it happen. So, it's really exciting and having done in the classrooms with the teachers is invaluable. Um, I went in actually and watched a classroom and I was talking to a teacher and
044I watched a student doing some of the techniques. I forgot what you called them that they showed them tapping tapping and I mean, and the girl has is behind and it was really wonderful to watch her using them on her own without without any guidance and just doing it herself. Um, it's it's been really it's really fun to watch. So, we appreciate it. It's great to see the kids. Well, I'm excited and thank you for having me. And trust me, I mean, we didn't try I know Kristen and Nikki and Jen send me teacher questions. I try to make myself available all the time. I mean, all of you have been able to reach me, but I tell the teachers if they question the board, tell them please contact her. Make sure that you get
045your questions answered. We want to do the best we can for the teachers so they can do the best they can for your children. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you being with us tonight. You're another hour. She's an hour ahead, too. So, it's nice of you. Thank you very much, Donna. Thanks, Donna. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. 111A, the discipline of Kage Junior High School students. You have received detailed information uh about this item below. administration is prepared to make recommendations or or to over discussion in executive session. So move second. And again to explain there there are two student expulsions and one placement of a student. So do we need to do those separately or separately? I'm sorry. Do they need to be separate? Yeah, let's do the two student expulsion with services
046first. Okay. The two students expulsion. expulsion services. And then we'll do roll call on the two students. Hi, Vinnie. I Silva. Hi, Bradley. Hi, Stacy. Hi, Curin. Hi, Noble. I replace student. It' be it'd be a motion to uphold the administration's recommendation to for the placement. She services. So move. Second. Roll call. Vinnie. I Silva. Hi. Bradley. Hi. Stacy. Hi. Herman. Hi. Noble. Hi. Lman. Hi. Now. Yeah. Um 112A Freedom of Information Act requests. We received one request under the Freedom of Information Act during the period of October 18th 23 through November 723. request was handled well by administration and with the help of district attorney schooly. We appreciate that and we're still working on that one. We're still working on there. There are some we had to look into what we could provide. There
047are some exemptions that do apply to the request. So we'll be we'll be asking for an extension again tomorrow. Oh, we will. Yeah. 112C community advisory council report. Y we uh we were very pleased with the turnout that we had. Um it was an enthusiastic group of parents and community. Um, I don't think I realized how enthused they were until we we kind of finished the program and people began to start kind of sharing and talking uh as well as volunteering some of their own experiences with children that are struggling and their own awareness of the trauma that many children face. So it was it was really an experience to hear everyone contributing what they know about uh the trauma for our program which was uh the the whole child. So I'm I was very
048very pleased and uh I had hoped there'd be more people but maybe the word will get out that this is something very worthwhile. It's not a long period of time, one hour. So, and u with a nice snack and great conversation. Uh we did we did have have them take a survey. The survey was valuable in that we could uh get not only the questions that they had, but if they had some solutions as well. And I I felt like that really helps when someone can say well you know this is something of a problem I would do it this way you know whatever it is that people can can contribute as a a way of solving a problem we're very interested in listening and I I thought that was a um a great way
049of responding to the survey did you have something that you'd like to No I thought I thought the survey was great I thought people's responses were they weren't just number answers they were actual comments people could give actual comments. So, um I think that was good. We could see what people really were thinking instead of just a one through five like good or bad. And so, we're going to use those responses. I'm going to answer those responses, put the survey results online, and then list our responses to those because people had some really good ideas and valid concerns. So, we'll use those and then I think we'll see um from that what the next meeting in in January or February will focus on. We'll use those concerns for the basis of the second one that
050I thought I thought went really well. We appreciate Chris McCulla um doing hot dogs for everyone too. Throw that out. So, it's very nice. So, I'm looking forward to the next one. Thank you both. Um 112D multi-grade level schools committee update from uh Erica Benny and Becky Brand. We did a survey too not to be done. Um, so we've surveyed district staff that includes teachers, administrators, and other staff because we wanted to make sure everyone had some input in this. So the only identifying factor and that was are you an administrator, are you a teacher or are you other staff, not administrator or teacher? We kept the rest strictly anonymous. Becky and I are the only ones that have access to this and I turned off I know Google really well, so I assure you
051it's all very private. Um, we have 199 responses in a oneweek period, which I think is pretty great actually. Um, there's probably a targeted audience on this. For example, my husband, I know for a fact, did not take the survey because he's a high school teacher and he's like, "Whatever." You know, not to say that not all high school people did that, but I think, you know, if you consider if you narrow down some populations that it would affect more than others, this is a really great response rate. And we haven't had a chance to process all the data yet because we have a combination of you know some liker skill kind of pieces and then also some open-ended questions so that way we weren't trying to restrict too much how people would respond. So
052um we have a long train ride to Chicago and back. So we'll be spending some time together in Chicago um going through some pieces and then here's where we're going to start taking kind of a a multi-level approach. not multi level like multi-grade level but we're going to process this data share it with district administration start discussing what are possibilities and then also Mrs. Bradley and I are already starting to work toward how can we open up to the general public to families in the general public without it being a free-for-all because we don't want to ever present anything to you that's not possible and we don't want you to be like hey guys sky's is the limit because realistically some things will be possible and some will not and we're looking on what is
053actionable and sustainable. So, in concert with district administration, we're piecing together those and looking how we could roll that out in some formats, social media, probably a town hall of some sort, and then also, of course, some survey data for families to provide feedback as well. So, we're still moving along. Sounds good. Thank you both very much. Um, with that, we got to kick some people out going into executive session. Um, exceptions under five 120 open meetings and we are going in for uh 2C1 employment, 2C9 uh student disciplinary matters and 2C8 student. So, do we have a motion to go through? Roll call. Roll call. I silva. Hi. Bradley. Hi. Stacy. Hi. Current. Hi. No. Hi. Hi. Okay. pressure.