001all right welcome everybody to the Board of Education meeting for Tuesday February 11th 2025 uh can we get our roll call and Declaration of for uh maybe hold on yes you can Vinnie here Bradley here Silva here curan here Stacy here kogle here Laman here miss here we're all here all here all right then if everybody could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by an invocation by Pastor William hail with St John's Lutheran Church i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for all gracious and loving Lord we come to you today this evening with hearts and mouths filled with Thanksgiving uh because you have done such a wonderful thing in this community you have
002raised up an army of men and women uh and given them the task the responsibility to use their talents to make this a better Community uh grant them wisdom as they deliberate this evening grant them courage to speak the truth that needs to be spoken but also grant them at at the end of the evening a spirit of unity that the decisions that emerge this evening will be ones that prosper and make this community a bright light uh for all to see um bless our children as they go through our system today to become wonderful young people as they emerge Lord I ask and pray all of this in the name of your glorious son our Lord amen am amen thank you thank you thank you Pastor okay up next is public comment I don't
003believe we have anything today and after that we get to get on to the fun stuff who's yeah uh Erica venny and Becky Bradley will be presenting some awards those are always fun oh going to give me a microphone okay hi everybody well this is a big mistake give it back all right she hand those out okay so we get to give out some band Awards which I'm thrilled about because I'm a band kid and Becky's really excited to do that as well so we're going to start off with are we doing V first I know you're in control so well we're do the kids first all right so can we have come up here with us is it Carisa Brent or Carissa Carisa great I had it right gr come on Miss Brent I'll
004read about you so Carisa is a junior student who plays the flute for the Granite City High School band and she's been named as a member of the IMA or ilmea Illinois music Education Association All State band which is fantastic and you performed on February 1st 2025 at the Poria Civic Center how was it it was good it was a great it was a great experience I remember I did I it was IMA back when I did it I don't know why they changed it but um it's so cool isn't it to get together with other musicians the school board is really proud of you obviously and we'd like to recognize you with this award to honor that uh we should probably have our band directors come on up too so you can be in
005it on the fun as well so hold on to that let's give Parisa a round of applause please yes stay we're going to do a picture so stay uh Bailey Hanks come on up Bailey is a senior student who plays the French hordon for the grandon City High School band and was named also as a member of Ila All State Orchestra and you performed also at the P Civic Center what' you think uh it was fun as always so I meant to ask you both is this your first time going second third third time time going first first time all right great so we're very proud of you [Applause] congratulations Adriana Ireland sorry pronunciation is really important to me so I want make sure I say your name correctly Adriana come on up Adriana is
006a junior student who plays the trumpet for the Granite City High School band and has been named a member of also ilmea honors All State band and you also performed at the Poria Civic Center what was your favorite piece you played um probably the Mambo we played Mambo all right great well congratulations thanks for representing us so all right Victoria Robinson come on up Victoria here we scooch down a little bit Victoria is a senior student and she plays euphonium for the grite City High School band and you were named also to the honors All State band for Ila congratulations what was the hardest part about the experience for you like the most challenging waking up early that's really hard yes how early did you have to wake up like 5 o' yeah those are
007wrestlers hours that's like really early yeah okay well congratulations thank you for representing and last but not least Alysa white come on up Alysa white is a junior student who plays the Bas clarinet for the grite City High School band and you are also named to the honors All State band what' you think it was fun how many times have you been in IMA this is my first time your first time how about you how many times have you been twice twice all right which was better The First Time The Second One Second all right did you meet any kids or other musicians from other districts that you became friends with while you were there no I mean it's kind of a high stress situation right like especially in the honors van because you're like
008that's hard right all right congratulations didn't all right so let's get together we'll take a picture band directors did you guys want to say anything about the experience much more eloquently than I did said okay good to Great Well time was had great okay let's get together we'll take a Qui guys scooted in there put ears up behind [Applause] J J stay up here for a second all right so now we get to honor a slightly older more mature band kid Miss J Brockman I don't know if you all know which is kind of a big deal so the Granite City High School assistant band director is this your third or fourth year with us fourth year so she received a great award from Eastern Illinois University for outstanding early career award which is a
009very cool award how does the a work are you nominated for it or do you nominate yourself uh you were nominated for it and I was uh nominated by students oh my gosh that's even better I love that maybe I should have read this some more because that's probably G to say that but we'll go okay this award recognizes an eiu Alum who graduated less than 5 years ago has demonstrated success as a new teacher and shows promise of being a leader in the field Jay completed her student teaching with us the spring of 2021 and is currently in her fourth year of teaching in gcsd9 she uses an extremely student- centered approach to teaching allowing her students to be involved in the decision-making process fostering collaboration and creating a highly productive team environment we
010are lucky to have such an incredible educator and overall good human being that's in italics in our district congratulations and thank you thank you hold on I got some questions I'm interviewing her hold on what do you love about being a band director in our district um well in my position I work with like seventh grade through senior year so this year's group of seniors I student taught when taught them when they were in eth grade which is really cool to see no literally watching them grow up that's awesome Mr Roberts why is she so amazing hly honestly yeah like she's great she's you're closest collator that's really great all the great things right awesome well we're very lucky and pleased to have you thank you all right now I'll do a picture here you
011take that back that was it right yeah [Applause] thank oh yeah yeah all right everybody and now we move on to the regular business so if you would like to leave you are more than welcome to we understand we get it yeah don't leave yeah there's people that actually believe that I know and as uh Eric Stacy said earlier his Chromebook battery has about six hours remaining on it so we'll try to keep it under that six hours oh wow that's um next let's go ahead and uh do the do we have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of the Board of Education held on January 14th 2025 second okay and roll call Bradley hi Silva hi curan I Stacy I kogle I linaman I Vinnie I okay next is consent
012agenda which 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 7 for individual discussion and consideration do we have a motion to approve second okay would you yeah before you do roll call I would just like to thank the Tyler timens Memorial Foundation they donated 30 bean bag chairs to the pray their Elementary uh education center and that was a value of $1,500 so thank you so much for thinking of our students and our staff squish mow yeah bean bag s bean bag that must mean something very important okay that's very important okay sorry I neglected to say that that is huge that I was not aware of that is a big
013thing my kids must be too old for that yes we have little ones that love my apologies but thank you very much I have dozens of those we'd also like to thank Mr Kevin nickel for donating sheet music and stage lighting equipment to the coolage junior high school band Department thank you for that uh Darlene Carmen she donated uh $1,000 to the coolage junior high band Department thank you for that as well and the family of uh Joan M mucho um they gave a monetary donation to the mville education center uh so thank you again for all these people that are thinking of our district when they're wanting to give their donations it's greatly appreciated and roll call Silva I curan I Stacy I kogle I lenman I Benny I Bradley I next we have
0148A resend retirements and resignations it's recommended the filing retirements and resignations listed below and on the gcsd9 website be rescinded so moved second okay roll call Curran hi Stacy hi kogle I linaman I Vinnie I Bradley I Silva I 8B retirements and resignations it's recommended the file in retirements and resignations listed below and on the gcsd9 website be accepted some move second okay roll call Stacy I kogle I linaman I Vinnie I Bradley I Silva I Curr I 8 C requests for leaves of absence it's recommended the filing request for leav of absences listed below and on the website be approved some move second roll call kogle I linman I Vinnie I Bradley I Silva I curent I Stacy I 8D requests for extensions to leaves of absence it's recommended the following request for extensions
015to leave the absences listed below and on the website be approved so moved second roll call linman I Vinnie I Bradley I Silva I curan I Stacy I no I okay 8e extracurricular resignations for the 2425 school year you've receiv received detailed information about this item the administration's prepared to make recommendations are hold for discussion executive session the gcsd9 administrations recommending the following extracurricular resignations for the 2425 school year listed below and on the website be accepted so move second roll call Vinnie I Bradley I Silva I curan I Stacy I kogle I lman I 8f extracurricular recommendations for the 2425 school year you've received detailed information about this item the administration prepared to make recommendations are hold for discussion executive session the gcsd9 administration is recommended the following extracurricular assignments for the 2425 school
016year listed below and on the website be approved so move second roll call Bradley I Silva hi Curran I Stacy I Noble I linaman I Vinnie I and just so everybody knows that's third quarter lunch duties at griggsby gifted coordinator assistant track coaches and baseball 8G extracurricular volunteers for the 2425 school year you see detailed information about this item the administration's prepared to make recommendations are hold for discussion and executive session the gcsd9 Administration has recommended the filing extracurricular volunteers for the 2425 school year listed below and on the website be approved so move second okay roll call Silva hi curan hi Stacy hi Nole I Laman I I don't know why I said that yeah okay Denny I hi fast sorry 8h discipline of employee you've receiv received detailed information about this item Administration
017prepared to make recommendations are hold for discussion executive session the gcsd9 administration requests the approval to hold the disciplinary action listed below approval is recommended so moved second okay roll call Curran I Stacy I kogle I linman I Vinny I Bradley I Silva I okay 8 I certified and classified substitutes yes it's recommended that the following applicants listed below and on the website be board approved as substitutes for the 2425 school year so move second roll call Stacy I kogle I lman I Benny I Bradley I Silva I Cen I all right thanks again substitutes um 8 J1 employment of Lake essc Administrative Assistant for the 2425 school year you've received detailed information about this item Administration is prepared to make recommendations a hope for discussion executive session the gcsd9 administration of inter interview committee
018consisting of Dr Adam Garrett Executive Director of Human Resources Dr David Keel Executive Director of Education operations and Stephanie schler human resource Specialists are recommending the employment of Stephanie Green as the lake e SS Administrative Assistant for the 2425 school year approval is recommended pinning the submission of the required paperwork second roll call kogle I linaman I Benny I Bradley I Silva I Ken hi Stacy hi 8 J2 employment of special education paraprofessional for the 2425 school year you've received detailed information about this item the administration's prepared to make recommendations or hold for discussion executive session the gcsd9 administration and interview committee consistent of Dr Adam Garrett Executive Director of Human Resources Mickey Watkins executive director of special education Anne Wilson Wilson Elementary education center principal and Pat Curry CO's Junior High School principal are
019recommending the employment of Brian mcellen as the special education professional for the 2425 school year approval is recommended pending the submission of the required paperwork second second okay roll call lman I Benny I Bradley I Silva I Curr I Stacy I Nole hi okay 10A the ratification of the mc2 solar agreement gcsd9 Administration request that the Board of Education approved to ratify the mc2 solar agreement for the 25 calendar year the signed agreement is below and the full document was sent to the board in a previous update approval is Rec recommended second okay Zach do you want to just real quickly say what this is I know we can you explain solar energy why we're doing it really is what it is yeah enter and then they give us these so we get those to
020our bill so then those energy credits they the Solar Company then bills us at 90% of what the credits we get so it saves us about 10% overall on whatever portion of the bill they cover so it's been fairly decent it's a little savings it's not a huge amount it's not Millions but it's a little bit at each building but it's also low like overhead for us you we're not investing a lot for yeah it it just reduc es power we're buying a lower rate of energy from from a solar Farmar Farm yeah thank you 22,000 a year yeah that's a rough estimate okay on sunny on in a sunny year not January and February yeah this isn't the stuff you see around our buildings good I mean I shouldn't say good but like that's
021what I was going to ask if the if the solar plates have to be local very local no these they just these can be anywhere okay okay roll call Denny I Bradley I Silva I curan I Stacy I Nole I lman I 10B after school tutoring program the gcsd9 administration requests permission to offer an after school tutoring program for the select number of students in grades kindergarten first and second grade the program will allow 25 students from each school to receive additional help with reading each building will have a coordinator and 5 to six teachers working with the students in small groups the program will begin March 3rd and end April 3rd transportation is provided some of the cost is paid via Grant funds so moved second any discussion it's a great program we do
022every year I love it yeah and we've already been doing this with older kids right right yeah um roll call Bradley I Silva I Cen first semester hi Stacy I Nole I linaman I Vinnie I okay 10 C swick Prather prek Kindergarten Center agreement the gcsd9 administration requests permission to approve the following agreement with Southwestern Illinois College this agreement allows swick the opportunity to work with Prather and griggsby prek programs as a practicum facility for their students swix students will be allowed to visit these programs and observe teacher and student interactions gaining knowledge about the prek program these are students showing an interest in this field of study approval is recommended so moved second roll call Silva I Curran I Stacy I noogle I linman I Vinny I Bradley I okay um 111a CEO student
023dis yes you've received detailed information about this item Administration prepared to make recommendations or hold for discussion in executive session the administration is recommending a one-year expulsion for student named under separate cover with Services if available so move second roll call Karan hi Stacy hi Nole hi linman hi Vinnie I Bradley I Silva I information that one first okay let do information um real quick we'll do 111b the Freedom of Information Act requests yes uh you've received so the Freedom of Information Act requests listed below in the gcsd9 website were handled by Administration okay and then uh for 111a we have a esgi report from Donna White welcome back [Applause] thanks so much for having me um it's actually not an esgi reply it's report about your students and um what is so far happening
024as we try to comply with the newest literacy mandates out of the state of Illinois so year and a half ago when I met some of you thank you I called my um presentation a path forward and I first to thank Don for taking on a project that started before he arrived here and um running with it even though he probably wers sometimes what we're hoping to achieve I want to thank Kristen who's had to make some hard calls because I'm a tough lady to work with I'm not related to anyone in this District I'm not friends with anyone in this District the decisions that I have to recommend and to say sometimes are not popular because they are based on what kids need and Kristen's had to make some of those hard calls and
025I thank you for having my back and um for following through on those and then I thank Jenifer who travels in and out of schools with me and I swear every time I'm here I think does she have espa uh ESP because before I ask her for it she's already done it and hands it to me and so um it's really made a difference in how fast things are moving here and I think you're going to see some of that so thank you to each of you I start with change because change you have a lot going on in this District you're going to be changing a whole lot this next year change is uncomfortable it's stressful and it's scary and I do a keynote on change around this country on National stages and I'm
026always shocked at how many people say to me I just want things to stay the same but if things stay the same you have to be 100% happy with the results you're getting and if you're not we have to change something so we're looking to flip this these feelings that go along with change into these that it can be invigorating exciting and it's needed if every child was succeeding we wouldn't change anything until that time we have to be open to changing things and in the end I love a a fellow presenter of mine on the road always used to love to say changes never B suffering will be optional and so we have to decide do we get dragged along or do we kind of embrace the change and hopefully move forward so as
027your state rolled out their comprehensive literacy plan I'm happy to say as I watched that originally they had thought about following New York's education plan being from New York at the time I've since moved to Georgia after my whole life in New York um just in time for a hurricane P to hit but um I am happy that they didn't do that that they actually took the time to say listen we need to set some guidelines and we need to make a rubric and we need to look at the things we're using in schools but not just cut you down to choose this or this and those are your only two options so I think that Illinois took their time they have some great things and and hopefully we can um ride on those great
028things but the things that we're looking at when you look at the Illinois prehensive literacy plan pheic awareness you've already addressed it the first year I was here we looked in the school we found all of Michael hager's work without a doubt love Michael worked with him on the road he passed away several years ago his work is still number one in this country for addressing deficits in phic Awareness you have that teachers are using that we're happy phonics you came all in on brainspring as your systematic explicit phonic system you did it before the state said you had to have one and so you're already sitting in a very good position to follow through that mandate and that part of the literacy plan and that's what we're going to focus on today because it's
029been such a huge part of how do you build the foundation of literacy within schools fluency I didn't think we were ready to get here I thought we'd need another 6 months at least I will tell you we're in and so fluency is something we are presently working on and we're going to describe a little of that to you when we get to the red and you cannot extend kids vocabulary and reading or ask for comprehension if I can't the words off the page the goal is to teach you to decode the words in the young grades and then make sure that you can understand what those words are saying to you that's a comprehensive reader so I know that maybe fourth fifth sixth seventh and high school teachers say well you're leaving me out
030if we build the house and we just go in and say we're starting on the roof at high school and we're going to add new windows but you never fix the foundation the house is going to keep falling down so yeah you start with the K the one the two and you really hit it hard so that no one else is going up through that not able to face the challenges of third and fourth grade most teachers above fourth grade especially are content teachers they're not reading teachers so if you come and you can't decode I don't really know what to do with you and that's not their fault they have heavy duty content to teach that's why we can't send them without those basic skills so yes we're going to continue to knock down
031and keep going but when I think of when your literacy plan came out you're ahead of many of these initiatives and that's a good place to be in in the state right now um writing coming back when you stopped testing writing in Illinois I was part of a presenting for Illinois ASC at the time the minute we stopped testing it it went by the wayside in schools unfortunately reading and writing are connected better reader better writer better writer better reader so bringing that back in and figuring out how to weave that and now your state recently added this piece of the oracy that's a neat it's now coming forward and saying listen in the prek programs I said you're going you're going to connect with um the college and they're going to come and see
032pre they're pushing more of oral language the ability to speak a full sentence before we ever say hey also start to read these words and so it's become a bigger deal for our special ed departments it's become a bigger deal at the Early Childhood level to ensure that language is built and the only thing that you don't do is to stare at a computer screen so we definitely see now a a big push with that so we've addressed these two exciting news I submitted four proposals of schools that I work with one out of Bakerfield California and three out of Illinois to esgi when they wanted to write a white paper they chose Granite City and you all graciously chose to be part of a white paper whose research said hey look at what you
033can do when you start to focus on the deficit kids had and so this is not your brand new data this is the data from last year that was placed into that white paper in the research um presented when you had already taken kids out of the 22 23 school year and doubled the number of kids that had production of sound so when you're looking at learning to read and alphabetic principles you can recognize a it's pretty much like recognizing that your first name is Jane you just recognize it it's not a value and application then you learn the sounds of those letters there's just 26 letters a person once said to me on the plane don't you think teachers have it made not knowing I was a teacher I said do you think so
034and he said yeah how hard can it be to teach some kid 26 letters H well there's a lot more to it see those 26 letters are the whole Foundation of learning to read and so that's second step is to hear those sounds the one that turns you into a reader is when you can create those sounds you see those letters you you know the rules and you can put them together and produce them so you made huge gains in the very first year that you undertook a brand new phonic system plus keeping track of that in a data system that you could make changes the next day that's the gift of educational software that guides instruction we were able ble to say tomorrow you can't do what you did today because we can see
035it's not working we need to do something different so very exciting that white paper hopefully was given to you and you got to preview it but it is exciting that it will go not National esgi is an international company it will be presented to all of um the people that work within that company but that data driven decision making you're um the gentleman that gave the uh yeah what's the word I'm looking for he said it's to come here and be honest and forthright with and that's what's going to happen as you look at data can't you gave me a T-shirt and it is one of my favorite sayings without data it's your opinion okay but if you can't show it to me and tell me that that child can't do it I don't believe
036you I need the data that proves to me you can't say well I feel like he doesn't nope your feelings don't come in with me I need to see the proof he said be honest and that's what data makes us it holds us accountable and it brings out a lot of honesty sometimes it hurts to look at some of it and know but knowing that you guys are all making that push to ensure that we're making decisions for kids based upon on credible reliable data that drives what can we change for these kids and you're going to see it in a minute we have a sense of urgency here you were way below the national average and so the sense of urgency is to get as many rising up as quickly as we can so
037to identify those skills in real time esgi allows us to progress monitor that and make immediate changes so let's look at some of the things going on in your school um Jen and I visited a school kindergarten a couple of weeks ago to know that 88% of your students have mastered at the Kindergarten Center production not just recognizing letters not just hearing the sound but actually being able to produce those sounds independently which will turn them into readers 88% of what they've been taught already that is pretty that is something to celebrate on top of that that that it's hard to go no one at home if you've raised a son a daughter you have grandchildren no one at home ever says okay I'm going to teach you about language okay so do you ever
038say to a small child this is a table okay say that back no you say this is a table honey say that then we bring you to school and some crazy teacher says now listen to me what's the word and the kids going I don't know what that word is this is where you have to start to break our language apart and look what they're doing they're putting it back together they're able to blend 55% of the kindergarteners are blending right now and we're only Midway through the year that's exciting this is probably my going into my favorite slide for years as I've traveled and worked with schools I've always thought when did title RTI mtss special education when did they become life sentences that people would say to me I'd say who's entitled this
039year the same kids that were in last year who's in special ed the same kids that were in last year that's not what those programs were set up to be you look and we know that research shows if you stay in those programs that 90% of you will still be in those programs come high school so how do we eliminate as many as we can pushing them out so mtss hug in your state I mean Illinois led the way for some of the other states modeled what that triangle would look like tier one is your most intensive um interventions that we can offer kids we're taking the best people we have in reading and we're putting you oneon-one or in a small group and we're hoping that we can pull you out and and get
040you to that tier two yes sorry I think you might have just misspoken but I just want to clarify your talking about tier three right a tier three I have my triangle I down thank you so that tier three is that intensive thank you intensive intervention so let's look at what kindergarten did just recently your kindergarten students and it's because we just there recently we able to report this in November you had 71 kids in tier three when we were there in January you had 38 left that meant you moved 33 kids out of red in into yellow let's move those yellow into green and so it was exciting to see but the best part of it is definitely the question at the bottom if you moved 33 kids what does that mean for us
041it means we can pick up 33 more that need our assistance we just couldn't get to them because we didn't have the Manpower so now you keep doing that it just is huge the success that you are seeing I want to share some good news from today's data meeting we were in marville and first grade teachers came in to share their data which by the way was pretty awesome data okay and their biggest problem at the end of the meeting and these are the problems I face when I'm in schools that are struggling people say to me can we make a small group because we're in first grade and kids don't know their letters Donna and I don't know how we're ever going to teach them their letters so can't we make more small groups
042of kids who practice their letters now what was today's discussion can we make small groups to practice fluency I said with a six-year-old and they said yes because they're reading Donna they've got this of course they're word to word there was one teacher that said well can he be like considered Beyond proficient I said we don't need him to be you know what we want every four first grade reader to be developing I'll be happy with a two she wants a five okay she wants him to be beyond that Beyond proficient but the reality was to hear them go back and forth and say I think we need an intervention group that helps them to sound more fluent and if we do that they'll be able to understand what they read better that was an
043exciting conversation to listen to and not a problem I see very often in a first grade discussion so that was good news you've moved kids you had many kids that in first grade were doing kindergarten skills and you still have some I'm not going to lie we have a long way to go we have some but when you're moving 90 kids from November to January out of layer one skills that are considered kindergarten and pushing them now you've got me within a half a year of being on grade level we can catch you up we can if we continue with the systems that are explicit systematic phonics and we hold people accountable for their data and so um it has been exciting the first two when I think of the fluency again I'd love to
044take credit but I can't I give Jen tasks and she comes through over and over I said it'd be great if we had passages that no child had ever read before that only contain the skills that we had taught them and asked them to read them she went into AI she not only got these pass created these passages in AI she even got pictures that match the passage which I'm not I'm not a huge AI person yet but I'm beginning to think I need to be so we have our own their greenet City passages they were developed by one of your own we went in we measured fluency Dr Tim rosinski I am privileged to be to call him a friend of mine he is the world's leading expert on fluency he helped me to
045build build the rubric that we could then say it's not about how many words you read per minute we've done that to kids for years okay I'm going to set the timer read as fast as you can these kids would be like okay go they wouldn't breathe they wouldn't stop at punctuation and then you'd ask them so what was that about I don't know we created a world full of word Chuckers Tim and I would have discussions on National presentations all the time about when is this world going to see that it's not about that number only when we're talking about fluency it involves your ability yes for automatic word recognition but you need things like rhyming and phrasing we were in the schools looking at how many of your kids already have proficiency level
046fluency skills in first grade I'm impressed I mean to don't forget there six they don't even know what expression means you say can you add some expression to that reading what's that but they have pieces of it that are picking them up so the rubrics are helping us to see more than a number there's lots of pieces you can read really slow as long as you understand it I'm still really happy so um we definitely have come a way we've had to eliminate some things and that's uncomfortable because if you were a teacher that always used a three queing system and I now tell you every bit of research out there says you cannot any longer do that with a child that that's why 68% of our nation's fourth graders don't read on grade level
047we've had to eliminate things and that can be uncomfortable please know my job as your consultant working for your children is to look at a library of leveled readers that you invested probably millions of dollars in and ask how do we revamp that so they're not leveled they're books and how do we reallocate those books to make sure that we have decodable readers when you're first learning to read and then we ensure that you have access to everything you want to read once those decodable so there's work to be done there um you have the embedded phonics I don't see any more of the Dr Ira and this District so all good news at what the state said was basically what we needed to also not only bring in but get rid of some of
048the things it's hard you'll find somebody you know that if you've had a pair of pajamas forever and you just don't want to let them go you have some teachers that don't want to let go but we're going to continue to show them why and and success breeds success when you see kids doing better you want to be part of that so I think we're well on our way this is the same slide I showed you a year and a half ago this is what your teacher said were areas of concern for them in this District we attacked the curriculum we went after finding systematic we have a a pheic awareness system in place we're building our fluency we still have work to do on the vocabulary comprehension but that was our first one the
049one we're after now is right here we're after the sorry the assessment and data yeah you have this one I haven't opened it I here yeah I'm even got now I'm losing my let's see if I it's still pretty bad but that's the piece we want to go after and so I'm trying to remember we started data meetings they started in November it's hard to put it up on the screen and have to own that you're not moving kids so how can we help how can we support you in making sure that every child moves so we started them I loved one of your principles today said in the second data meeting today was better it was less uncomfortable Donna they will continue to get less uncomfortable but we have to put it up there
050we have to hold ourselves accountable for that data next steps last slide I promise we continue with those data meetings we look for what's working what's not the use of fastbridge we identified it was not giving us what we needed to immediately change what was going on in classrooms You'll Always Find the weak lengths hopefully save your District some money and say that's not what our children need for us to push forward with them the level readers I spoke to we're on making a plan for how to reallocate all of those resources that are no longer considered best practice aligning your report cards is going to be a big one on evaluate your professional development I wish there was this was a gred city problem but it's not it's everywhere I work right now I'm
051tired as a teacher I have a family at home I don't want to come in the summer to your PD I don't want to stay after school and I don't want one more link that you want me to watch at 8 o'clock in the morning so how do we ensure our teachers have the best PD that we're offering them opportunities to learn about new things and I think you have a PD day tomorrow those matter we look and say how do we continue to make sure that staff is up to dat on what is best practice but I think your next step and this will all come down to your superintendent and other people that make those decisions you're probably at a place where you ought to think about Staffing in terms of having instructional
052coaches what that allows you to do I'm a consultant not an employee when I'm gone you still have people who say Hey listen we know the best practice let us come and model it for you let's push into a classroom so tomorrow I'll be modeling in in several classrooms you want to have that same Staffing type of thing so I know that Kristen is trying to be creative I hope Donnie you'll be open to listening to some of those ideas and then you find a person that kind of oversees that that knows data that's strong with data and communication skills and you say that mtss model works and we're going to continue to offer our our faculty that support that they need to figure out how do we get kids out of the tears it
053shouldn't be a life sentence to get extra support it should be we give you extra support and get you out of there so we can gather some more people some more kids that might need that so we have work to do but super proud of the work that they've done I'm excited for the kids I'm excited for the teachers there was a teacher I'm not going to lie she was a naysayer and she has found success and today her smile said it all when she said my kids are getting it Donna and they are flying success breeds success that's what we need to continue to ride on so I just wanted to update you thank you for your time I'm excited for your kids I'm excited for the district so thanks very much for letting
054me come and [Applause] share thank you Donna very much uh next we have our Illinois Association of school board liaison report from Board of Education Treasurer Linda canob uh we are Lorie s and I will be attending the uh next division meeting uh which will be in and that'll be our next opportunity to find out what is going on at iasb thank you all right thank you very much and I [Applause] and with that uh we do have some items to discuss in executive session uh the exceptions are noted under five ilcs 12202 open meetings tonight we have 2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body and 2c2 collective bargaining matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives do we have a motion to
055go into executive session so move second okay roll call Stacy I kogle I linaman I Benny I Bradley I Silva I curan I okay 651