5/28/24 District 97 BOE Live Stream (Part 1)

001feel like we're ready to start or all right uh okay thanks everybody for your patience uh we are going to call the meeting to order today is Tuesday May 28th 2024 7:17 p.m. an can you call the RO please sure Ro here her Johnson here Burns asslock here here here here meeting all right um we are going to start with public comment uh some of you know this already but we ask uh public comments are limited to 5 minutes if the time goes off while you're in the middle of a thought please finish your thought uh and then conclude um we'll call your name when your name is called please step up to the podium and state it again for the record and we request that speakers conduct themselves with respect and civility toward others

002and our first public commenter is Pam daffne [Applause] good evening my name is Pam GNE and I'm speaking as a member of the Opa we the collective Opa members of Brooks Middle School wish to make the following statement when you consider the Optics of our school district see us see us as the professional humans you hired and entrusted to support Student Success the key word in the previous sentence is humans extend grace to the humans who are teachers to our students and our community we are not robotic we are humans with feelings families and priorities there is a perception that teachers should contend with continued trauma repeated disrespect and negative behaviors all teachers have families many teachers have experienced trauma and repeated disrespect we need to be supported prior to last month's board meeting due

003to tremendous Community response regarding Staffing changes within 24 hours 17 newly posted positions were rescinded you listened to concerned parents and community members of District 97 and we hope you will listen to us too we hope that what we are sharing today will help the board to better understand what we experience on a daily basis and what Solutions we think will help we desire to work with the superintendent and with the elected School Board as a unified voice we do not want division we want unity in an attempt to unify us to work towards Collective efficacy we would like to share a few examples of some of the problems we encounter on a daily basis in our school buildings first chronic tardiness is a continued issue in our schools some students are consistent ly tardy

004by 10 to 15 minutes to each class period of their school day when they arrive to class they often have missed critical instruction and sometimes have even missed the beginning of an assignment or activity these students are not only disrupting their own learning but they are also disrupting the learning of their peers we currently have students who have hundreds of recorded tardies for the 2324 school year to our knowledge little or no intervention has taken place to address this issue are you Sabrina maio I sure am all right excellent go right ahead my name is Sabrina majio I a World Language teacher at Brooks middle school and I am speaking as a member of the OPA in continuation with the problems that PM was reading and problems we see on a daily basis in the

005middle schools physical altercations are common place throughout the school day we have students who have engaged engaged in multiple physical fights over the course of the school year to our knowledge little or no intervention has taken place to address this issue Administration response to student Behavior feels inconsistent when students do have consequences for behaviors their teachers are not often told additionally students who are removed from school as a part of the response to their behavior are sometimes listed as on vacation or mental health day in power school this leads to data that is not being recorded or reported accurately we cannot truly understand the scope of the issues we face if we are collecting inaccurate data another problem that we see on a daily basis is our class sizes our class sizes vary significantly and

006some of our classes especially electives and other non-core classes are cons consistently very large a class size of 30 is not conducive to learning of often times it is classes that provide co- teing or pushin services that are the largest general education students are jammed into these classes to keep special education numbers below the 30% limit just because something is legal does not make it what is best for our [Applause] St another problem is our current and proposed cell phone policy that needs to be re-evaluated away for the day whether that means it's in a student's backpack or in their locker is not working many students test many students test this policy throughout the course of a school year forcing te teachers to constantly address cell phone use and violations furthermore simply having their phone

007taken away and given back to them at 3:30 is not discouraging of this Behavior the policy states that after three violations a parent will be required to come to school to get the device back and to our knowledge this does not happen but it should another problem listed here that we see on a daily basis is that when teachers bring up these challenges or question policy we are labeled as complaining or difficult some feel they may later experience retal retaliation for voicing concerns there are far more members of our staff who feel this way yet are too afraid to be here or speak tonight Kelly bons my name is Kelly Belmont and I am speaking as a member of Opa we hope these examples help you to understand what happens in our buildings each and

008every school day we think it would help improve conditions at Brooks and Julian if the following ideas were considered one smaller and more consistent class size two student accountability with rules and consequences consequences that help to repair and strengthen our school Community three a consistent and comprehensive cell phone plan that actually makes sense four adding back a third assistant principal and moving back to grade level a five moving administrative staff including assistant principles and Student Success coaches to office spaces throughout the school building six redesigning our schedule in the following ways a daily physical education and movement for middle school [Applause] students B shorter class periods where we see students daily instead of every other [Applause] day C no more than three consecutive academic hours of coure classes before lunch D the elimination or redesign

009of academic Encore and sore as both classes leave students with too much idle time seven additional reading and math interventionists perhaps one per grade level to allow us to expand the number of students who receive tiered interventions eight District staff directly connected to the work at the middle schools should move their work into offices at Brooks and [Applause] juliia nine School leadership must be seen by parents students and teachers on a daily basis we are your stakeholders and we are often overlooked your visibility in our schools is crucial 10 formal curriculum adoptions for every core class that provide resources to assist in helping struggling Learners in the general education classroom and our mult multilingual students is necessary immediately 11 enforce the student code of conduct and handbook to accurately reflect behavioral consequences 12 bring back

010the honor role and the celebrations of academic success [Applause] we should not only celebrate Athletics celebrating Student Success drivve student motivation and self-esteem and it creates a positive classroom culture 13 and finally please support our incredible janitorial staff and maintenance teams to keep up with our physical School environment a clean School environment is a Paramount importance we believe in Collective efficacy and will use colle action to ensure we are heard thank you for considering our [Applause] comments Joel blacka [Applause] hi hi um I'm Joel blea a kindergarten teacher at Irving opta member and a parent of a sixth grader at Julian uh it was so great to see you Dr sha and many members of your administrative team along with uh board members Carney and herd Johnson at uh Irving last Tuesday afternoon for Q&A

011thank you for coming to hear from us I see these last few weeks as an inflection point where lots of passionate testimonials from community members could really lead to Greater collaboration between the district office parents and teachers and one thing I heard from Dr Shaw last week was was a desire to collaborate with teachers is imperative though that the foundation of this collaboration be built upon regular visits during the school day so that you can see us so you can see us doing the work that we love to do with children Dr sha you and your team will see students experiences firsthand and therefore be able to attach faces to the data that come to you at the district office I'd be thrilled to show you the great work we're doing in kindergarten I'd like

012to direct my comments tonight though on the needs for you to conduct these kind of visits specifically at our middle schools Julian school year come to a close with multiple holds and lockdowns due to student fights it's sadly become common place for us juli and parents to receive emails informing us of these incidents and how emergency vehicles have been dispatched to the school worse is the impact that it's having on the children I'll read to you from a text thread with my son and my wife from just this past Thursday a text he probably shouldn't have been sending because poliy um uh my son wrote we are on yet another hole we're at lunch and we had to go in from Recess because of it there's an ambulance and a fire truck outside I wrote

013are you safe he said yeah we're all fine it's over now my wife chimed in thanks for telling us honey hope everyone is okay he wrote it's all good we're used to it at this point and just tonight I learned from another d97 colleague and fellow sixth grade parent um that uh of this story her son was in the Julian Gym two weeks ago when an allout brawl broke out that was kids running through the Halls staff trying their best to chase them down and Corral it that led to the gym where this child was having gym class he witness students fighting teachers getting hit in the face all the while students are there filming the whole melee on their phones when my friend asked her son later that night about it he replied you

014know what they say Julian mom fire alarms fights and what the f is happening now everyone in this room can agree that we' got to do everything in our Collective power to keep our children from becoming desensitized to [Applause] violence uh I was glad to read in an email later that day from Principal Lee that quote District administ ministrators and staff will continue to be on site through the end of the school year to provide additional support and reinforce safety protocols however long-term Solutions are desperately needed spending more time in schools in order to collaborate with and listen to Middle School staff could provide those Solutions we heard powerful testimony two weeks ago from Katie Tron one of Julian's Student Success coaches she implored the district to bring back that third assistant principal and for

015more adults to work as Hall supervisors she told us that Julian currently employs just three Hall monitors for four floors and that those folks are routinely pulled from those duties to supervise lunch and recess leaving hallways widely unsupervised an assistant principal at each grade level which is how it used to be when my 15-year-old son was a student at Julian would allow administrators to build relationships with students and ensure that student behavior is addressed in a timely way grade level APS would meet their sixth graders and loop with them for their three years of Middle School additional Hall monitors and lunch supervisors will provide adequate supervision for kids during their most unstructured times of the day clearly we need change like this students and teachers need to feel safe our 10 schools across Oak Park

016are filled with awesome Educators like Miss Trin who have tons of great ideas to make all schools sing please come visit so we can Embark together on a future where Solutions are crafted with Educators expert Insight in the spirit of collaboration thank [Applause] you Hannah rudro hello again uh Hannah Buro proud Opa Union member it is once again that I approach this board and our Administration with a heavy heart simply put our middle schools are not safe recently I've had a conversation with my mother a retired Public School educator a former superintendent Dr Shaw and a principal of more than 30 years as well as my brother now a former public school teacher and administrator who has since left the public sector to serve as a school principal in the Illinois Department of youth corrections

017the conversation we had was about how worried my mother was about my brother being safe while serving in the correctional system my brother's response was that our family should be much more concerned about my wellbeing that he is safer working in a prison system than I am working in a public school he recalled the time while working in a public school as a Dean that he was followed home and threatened by by known gang members from the school he worked at there was Zero recourse for this Behavior the school did nothing to ensure that he and his family were safe there were no consequences and no accountability the students were simply allowed to be right back at the school while he and his family feared for their safety including his three young children this reminds

018me somewhat of things I see frequently at our own middle schools students engage in physical or verbal altercations and then are just sent back to class no consequences no accountability no real restorative practices furthermore if a a suspension does happen to occur attendance is often marked as vacation or mental health as was pre previously stated not ISS or OSS marking that there was an actual consequence why is this are we intentionally doing this to alter our reporting numbers to isby are we putting our proverbial head in the sand and just pretending we don't have an issue and how is it that we have colleagues that are sent home and placed on administrative leave while they are investigated for attempting to keep students safe for over 200 days this is madness students can assault each other

019and staff and go right back to class while the adults are disciplined and investigated what message is this sending to our students how does it look when staff is sent home but the instigators are allowed to stay please help this make some sense because to me it sounds sounds absurd do you know how this all feels for us in these in schools every day we don't feel safe making a simple decision or to hold a student accountable for fear for our own jobs I'd also like to point out that every single verbal and physical fight I've helped to investigate in my role as a school social worker can be tracked back to cell phone usage every single one whether it be in a group chat or on social media we know a way for the

020day might be great in theory but it's simply not working students especially adolescence do not have the self-discipline to follow this expectation studies show over and over again that removing cell phones from schools improves academic performance reduces bullying and improves students overall mental health and well-being students often as we've heard use their phones to send messages go on social media listen to music shop online do Tik toks and now posting filmed and scheduled fights where their peers then can go online and vote on who won as an example a teacher recently had students write down how many notifications they received in a one hour time span in this small class of only 20 students they collectively tallied notifications this is not healthy this is not okay one study found that it can take students up

021to 20 minutes to refocus after being distracted by their phone why have the adults failed to make zero cell phone use of policy in our schools why can't we like thousands of other districts globally invest in locking pouches like young so students can be focused on learning and engaging with each other appropriately and yes I've done the math it's about a $60,000 investment to implement this at our middle schools but aren't our kids worth it many of our students lack basic social and emotional skills and cell phones are not helping I urge you this board to please shut it down the adults need to step up and Lead as a board you are charged with creating and applying policy please act now this is your chance to be an agency for positive change and a

022huge step towards helping our students show up be present relocate your admin offices to schools get to know our students build relationships help us up just be present with us thank you [Applause] hello again my name is Adrian Court I am a nationally bored certified teacher and I am speaking as a member of the Oak Park Teachers Association I think it's important to start by sharing some positive experience for our students this school year every student had the opportunity at Julian Middle School to hear from 11 career Prof professionals at career exploration days an event planned by myself and the fabulous splet approximately 60 students grades 6 through 8 were exposed to a career in college readiness curriculum through advisory alongside the snap and read tool as part of my administrative internship map data from

023fall to winter of students participating in this cohort showed growth that 70% of the students met their winter growth Target and 55% of the students already met their spring growth Target in my seventh grade Electronics course students utilize the design process to create custom nightlights for over 70 kindergarteners in our community this highlights only some of the authentic learning opportunities created for Julian students this year and I feel honored to work alongside my amazing colleagues who are providing similar experiences for their [Applause] students unfortunately despite enriching curricular experiences we've seen an uptick in violence recording of fights voting on social media and scheduling a fights digitally amplifies the issue of violence in our buildings 5 weeks ago I witnessed a student assault a colleague of mine who was simply upholding the expectation that a student

024should be in class while a voluntary staff meeting was held there has still been no remedy nor recognition of the harm done the fight which occurred last Thursday delaying the start of career day had our entire school on hold for close to an hour and resulted in the injury of four staff members despite requests for direction regarding career day for Miss Bartlet and I no administrator came to speak with the 45 community members we had hosted in the comments and we as teachers had to continually advocate for next steps what is the plan to move our building forward when the hold was lifted the day was made worse by countless schoolwide pages to locate students whose parents came to pick them up early because they reported not feeling safe at school in addition to the

025uptick and violence the lack of locker usage by students creates additional safety concerns the locker bays and stairwells have become dumping grounds for student belongings tripping hazards coupled by the fact students prop doors open or text their friends to let them in the building has all staff concerned about the security of our building while we appreciate the staff listening session held last Monday that both Gavin and Nancy were at and the district administrators who have been present at Julian we have yet to see meaningful changes in systems at Julian this year or the posting of new positions to support next year our middle schools need one a clear and enforced cell phone policy that requires phones away for the school day during rotation one a career day we asked teachers to collect cell phones the

026students responded in our survey only five of them mentioned that this was difficult for them to do no one else mentioned cell phones in the career day survey our students can Thrive given systems and structures to support them an attendance report should be run in the sorry number two an attendance report should be run following the first 10 minutes of each class period an action to identify unvaried students who are previously marked present during the school day how can teachers support students in their academic growth if there are no policies to ensure students are going class how can we expect students to feel like they belong here at school if nothing happens with this data to support those emotional well-being of our students number three a return to three assistant principles in our Middle School

027one per grade level since pting three years ago we have had a turnover in this position yearly at Julian with our most recent person resigning before the school year even concluded number four an instructional coach to supports a vast number of non- tenure teachers within our building having this position creates a safe and collaborative space for new teachers to feel supported encourages their capacity to take risk as a means to grow their educational practice number five promotion from within and respect for the staff in our buildings last year when the decision was made to restructure the Middle School's 12 staff members would told they would have to reapply for jobs of the 12 displaced only three are still employed in District 97 we entered this school year with only one of six APS returning who

028then became our interim principal in part because we couldn't make a commitment as to which school they would be placed that qualified internal candidates applied for the four a vacant AP roles yet Ellis shows Julian's now resigned AP of culture in climate was deficient in her administrative endorsement how was this the best decision for our students our community is hurting I just ask that we again lean into teachers voices and create systems that will allow our students to feel safe engaged and my faith [Applause] Deborah Barry good evening to everybody I just want to say this real quick before I oh no let me just follow the I'm Deborah Barry resident of old park since 1992 32 and 1 12 years and I just want to say what I've heard is really really disturbing but

029I want to say this I have two daughters that MRI that matriculated through the Oak Park School System District 97 and 200 I'm here this evening said listen which I have to provide insight and hope to be part of the solution to change I was part of the spearheading committee for Project Unity and apple organizations they were created in the '90s many of them probably don't even know what that what I'm talking about but I want the board members and everyone in attendance tonight to know that what is happening at Julian Middle School is not normal it's not acceptable and it's deplorable I want to say that there are many students that are doing very well at the school and the teachers my head my heart goes out to them I know it's not an

030easy job nor for the principal or any other staff but I'm speaking of the continual violent fighting the verbal abuse and harassment from students male and female students calling African American students the nword this is terrible culture that has been happening in our schools 97 and 200 in a more but in a more aggressive way since 2012 in 2012 real quick I want to keep it going bullying bullying was happening my do my granddaughter my oldest granddaughter she was in a person she was a a Long Fellow and I remember my daughter and I sitting with the the principal who happened to be someone I went to high school with excellent excellent principal we sat down we talked about bullying uh my daughter and I created big poster boards that that were displayed in Long

031Fellow school about anti-bullying and I had suggestion that they you know just uh have someone come in have a a professional come in and talk to the students about bullying and what's acceptable and what's not acceptable and I don't know I I know some things were did happen they posted all the boards and they did have some type of uh communication with the children I guess it worked a little bit my grandbaby at that time she said no it really didn't help Grandma but this is a culture that started probably before 2012 so now what we are experiencing is just a rampage just it's more violent it's more aggressive it's more assertive and it's just unacceptable in 2012 okay my granddaughter experienced The Bullying she was trick related through the 97 and 200 now this

032culture of of bullying harassing fighting is Common Place it must and it has to stop o Park District staff must acknowledge that there is a serious problem stop tiptoeing around this unacceptable and cruel Behavior this culture of violence harassment and bullying this culture is not being aggressively and appropriately dealt with uh because it's still happening I'm hearing all the lockdowns which I heard a little of that for my granddaughters I have two granddaughters at Julian one at Long Fellow still and uh I'm like this has to stop now um this culture that is not being aggressively appropriately dealt with is causing mental health challenges for some students a dislike and disengagement for others board members parents faculty and staff we cannot go another day allowing out of contr control fights verbal harassment verbal abuse to

033be normal I'm here to help to offer assistance in whatever capacity needs to stop this culture of vience that is eating away at the Spirit and the Very being of a lot of our students finally the culture of this violent behavior is not conducive to learning and it takes away a great school experience I hear always it's boring always it's a fight always it's this and I'm like okay just stay focused ignore the bad people ignore the students it's just it's just and I'm hearing it so so very often so we have to act now no more putting this culture off I am ready to help start now we must change we must act children must know that violent violence harassment violent fights will not be tolerated discipline policies must be reviewed because they are

034not working parents and children must be held accountable for their children's actions District 97 owe it to our students to accept a peaceful and healthy I have two more senten learning environment that will help all of our students become just just have a a a a good experience at school my name is Deborah I'll um you need any help I'm more than a wall I mean [Applause] a all anything clire Brooks sorry I have to speak uh for my computer uh because we don't have paper at Julian for the last two weeks and I need the paper that I bought for a kids um okay hi I'm CL Brook uh I'm a member of opa Julian teacher Community member and an aunt of two current Lincoln lions and two more to come um I wanted

035to start out by explaining why I'm here tonight I'm here because I'm deeply committed to our middle school and our community as a whole my grandparents moved to Oak Park in 1958 and my family has been a part of the Oak Park Community ever since including my cousin who I didn't even know was going to be here Megan traffic um my sister is one of those people like miss Emily referenced at the board meeting last time that um worked really hard to get into Oak Park for our school systems I love working in our district bless you I feel proud that I work somewhere where I can have of a protect trans kids poster in my classroom I can talk about white fragility and other topics that are being banned in other states and I

036know that I can do this because this is something that our Community Values I love working here because of the people I work with I'm honored and humbled by the level of expertise that surrounds me every day watching what watching what John kuchi and Katie Leos did around introducing this book is anti-racist made me excited to create parallels in my classroom and watch the students grow as critical thinkers and questioning the world around them I love being a part of the ins soon to be the social science department as a whole who's committed to providing students with a curriculum that is culturally responsive and rigorous despite sweeping claims made during the previous board meeting about a lack of the as a cause for student failure or student Behavior I love living in the community that

037I teach no one can get that one but I'm the teacher that's going to come up to your family at fitzgeralds and have a chat I'm going to embarrass the heck out of any of my students I see in public I love that I'm getting to um teach multiple students from the same family I love working here and I want to continue to do so for a long time so the reason I wanted to mention all this is because I'm really really sad to see what's happened uh to our school district and I want better for my family my students and the community I was talking to a group of my friends this weekend and we were they were shocked about my experiences at Julian and couldn't understand how things could have gotten this bad

038because it's Oak Park I had to think about that and I realized that one of the reasons our schools isn't maybe working the way that it used to is because of our high teacher turnover things used to work because the teachers the experts were keeping things going and going well I shared this with Dr Shaw Gavin and Nancy and thanks again coming for coming to uh Julian last week but when I started in 2019 I couldn't believe it I really was like oh this is it um I joined an amazing group of sixth grade teachers who at the time had a total of 220 years of teaching experience together and 89 years of teaching um at Julian between all of them best for to this year eight of those teachers are gone two have moved

039grade levels of the eight teachers who left five were teachers of color and one was an lgbtq plus teacher none of them received exit interview all of them left either go to parallel level jobs chose to retire early because of working conditions and two were pushed out people didn't leave for biological reasons or even for better pay four of those people actually took a pay cut we are currently down 49 years of teaching experience and 29 years of institutional knowledge of Julian in the sixth grade we talk about equity and I don't think I need to um site it but our Equity policy talks about how are going to recruit employees support and retain racially and linguistically diverse cultural competent administrative instructional staff and support this is beautiful and wonderful in everything we should be

040doing but what is actually being done to rec recruit more teachers of color or retain our bipac staff uh what we need to do is talk all talk and no action sh to your point last board meeting where you wish we had more diversity in the union I can frankly say for everyone we do too um in the the Julian 2020 2021 school year 20 teachers left seven AP or support staff and countless Tas 27 uh I'm sorry 12 of those 27 people were either people of color or members of the lgbtq community this past year nine teachers have left how is this not a cost for concern no one has checked in on our school the data is right in front of us in the five essential survey results for these years we are

041not being listened to and that I think is actually I know my last last name is Brooks but I didn't know Brooks was actually going to pretty much take my whole thing uh but we are the experts we are the ones that know what to do we need to stop being um gaslit and not having actual [Applause] responses um to our concerns for example when we have um our meeting about safety and having people opening their doors like Adrian Court mentioned this was the response we received on a slideshow exterior doors must must remain locked at all times it should never be propped open visitors must enter only through the front door and must sign in at the office that's not a response that's not action what we already doing [Applause] so Aaron mcmanis Aaron

042mcmanis all [Applause] right hello there I wanted to say uh and start with a big breath of gratitude for the people who have dedicated their time and energy to making schools better for children especially our teachers we really appreciate you and we want to thank you for all you and here first and foremost I'm here first and foremost because as the parent of an Oak Park fifth grader who is about to start Middle School this is a really Grim situation the stuff that's been happening at Julian is beyond unacceptable but the rest of the district isn't nearly good enough either as a community member I want our schools to be great for all of our kids for our teachers and our staff there's a huge gap between where we are now and greatness we aren't

043even able to deliver basic safety we can't let this violence become normal I'm not here to deliver a list of things that need to change but I want to ask you if you're treating this like a transformation I firmly believe that transformational efforts are necessary for d97 it's not enough to make a few changes and release some policies most Transformations fail because they don't engage people it doesn't work to make a plan on paper send out a memo and hope that things change they won't we haven't caught up with the post-pandemic Mental Health crisis the pandemic isn't even over even beyond that so much is different now than it was just a few years ago not just for kids but for parents teachers staff and administrators for everyone the engagement and morale scores are terrible

044we're losing people in more ways than one we can't succeed if we can't engage the kids the kids can't learn if it's not safe to be at school teachers can't teach if it's not safe and we can't keep it safe if we don't have enough of the right people there this part is simple the process of just releasing Staffing plans and budgets at people is doomed to fail they're being felt as Spears they're being felt as Spears As Weapons as if this was an adversarial battle between admin and teachers and parents and admin this turns our children into the Battleground instead of supporting them they become the weapons and the targets we need to build mechanisms for communication collaboration and transformation we need to create systems that give people the ability to separate facts from

045weaponized fiction we need working groups with a specialized knowledge expertise resources and time to dedicate to solving the big problems within the schools what we do not need is dictatorial leadership in this community plenty of people do not respond well to being told what to do and it certainly doesn't go over well in par there's a famous quote by Lau that when the best leaders work is done the people say we did it ourselves we need to give the work over to the people we need ways to involve the community to involve the teachers the teachers union the staff admin parents and everyone who plays a role in our schools most especially the kids there's a list of needs that the teachers and parents have come up with and that should be supported at a

046minimum but it's only the beginning there's so much more that we can do we can give people roles in this transformation we can create part-time jobs for people in our community we need to quit Outsourcing our core functions and quit turning our tax dollars into corporate profits we need to roll up our sleeves and do the work together I'm not sure why the parent teacher committee for this board was disbanded disbanded or what the history is but as the board please get that committee back again with an expanded mandate you can ask that committee to host town halls and to issue surveys so that you as the board can gather better feedback and input not just be lectured at you can ask that the committee include representation from all key stakeholders you can Charter that

047committee to develop transformational goals at the district level to oversee the plans to meet those goals and to oversee the communications so that all stakeholders can understand their role within the education of our communities children so let's treat this transformation with the seriousness it deserves and shift away from dictatorial leadership styles and over to True collaboration let's engage everyone in meaningful ways so that we can make our schools safe places where kids and teachers can Thrive instead of being at combat we have the opportunity to work together with teachers and staff and admin and parents to make our schools great we need to collaborate on a transformation thank you again for all those who are working so hard for our kids we're here to support each other and teachers please know again that our community

048supports you thank [Applause] you Felix [Applause] AOS I don't really have a trans thing idea because everybody's been talking about middle school but Elementary School hi my name is fix leost and I'm a fifth grader at Lincoln Elementary now I may just be a kid but I have a voice and anyone's voice can be powerful I learned that this year because I used my voice this year as the student council president and this year myself and all the Lincoln students used our voices to help immigrant by raising $3,600 42 and donating it to the home to home school uh for the immigrants there creating a creating a schoolwide earthday event and a day of action and just recently celebrated veterans by writing nearly 300 letters that were just sent out uh to the veterans I

049know that there were also student council or student leadership teams at other elementary middle and middle schools and I bet they all do amazing work too because my parents work in a school at Oak Park I know that there is a lot going on and that's why we're all here I would like to ask uh any of the district employee or board members to please please reach out to kids like me and all the students so that we can all have a voice in of the in all of the upcoming decisions that affect me my peers and the teachers too we care a lot about this and all our voices are important lastly I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Miss Thompson and Miss Tyler for working with our student council this year thank

050you [Applause] Megan Jackson it's a tough act to follow okay good evening my name is Megan Jackson and I'm here to talk about why we need more co-taught classrooms in order to create a true feeling of belonging in for our neurode Divergent students and their families I believe that increasing Co talk classrooms would also address other current issues facing our district including the lack of physical safety at the middle schools and the need for additional support staff across all schools my husband and I deliberately chose to buy a house in South Oak Park because we believed it would be a place where our family would feel a sense of belonging you see it turns out I'm neuro Divergent and as an interracial couple with biracial children we hope that Oak Park was a place that

051would challenge the status quo my neighborhood and local school are littered with you matter and you belong science I wanted so badly for this to be a place that celebrates Divergence as much as it celebrates diversity I recently transitioned from Public School teaching to special education advocacy and have had the opportunity to support many families as they navigate our District's special education and mtss processes unfortunately I have now seen one too many instances of harm and wrongdoing to stay silent the bias against narrow Divergent people is pervasive and seems to be entrenched in our schools and in our community I've heard teachers say they wish that students with ADHD would just be more motivated because for some people if they can't see the disability they don't believe it exists there are non-speaking autistic students who

052go years without making progress because ultimately no one thinks they can students with anxiety and sensory processing disorders who are branded as behavior problems and isolated on a separate rug away from the rest of their class students who struggle for years without being able to read and spell whose parents are told the problem is that their children aren't coming to class ready to learn since for some reason we can't just say dyslexia parents who are called constantly to pick up their children because the school staff cannot support them and I've even had to listen to my own neighbors complain about neurodiverse children and realize they're talking about me too the good news is there is a solution increasing Co talk classrooms across the district would be a concrete action that aligns with the promise to

053utilize Universal Design for Learning having a special education teacher in the room all day ensures the level of support and expertise needed to make our general education classrooms a viable option for inclusion I heard that with this current wave of potential Cuts some of the few co-taught classrooms that currently exist may even be removed additionally I know of a school where the co-taught special education teacher is actually pulling students out of the classroom to ensure students in other classes are also receiving their resource minutes this is in complete opposition to the ethos of the co-op model and is also disingenuous to the parents who believe their child has a general and special education feature in the classroom we have incredible special education teachers in our district chills who are doing profound and impactful work every

054day with our most vulnerable students special education teachers have a unique lens with which to understand neurode Divergent students and we should be increasing their numbers in each School building through cop programming I can also speak from personal experience as a general education teacher that having another credential teacher in the room all day alleviates a tremendous amount of stress and pressure and makes the job have more fun if we really want to foster a community of belonging for all where diversity and Divergence are celebrated then we must confront our biases against neurodivergent people and listen when children and families tell us they are being mistreated in our schools too often I hear my neighbors say but I've only had positive experiences in the district shouldn't every family be entitled to this or is it simply

055a luxury and privilege for those who align with the status quo what saddens me the most is how often I get warned about retaliation that some sort of harm will come to me or my child or my family because I am advocating for all of our children to be treated with dignity and respect and encouraging their families to exercise their educational rights under the law there are neurodiverse families who are afraid that if if they speak out and share with our community the ways they are being harmed their children who are already struggling will bear the backlash I truly hope that Oak Park is not actually a place where the status quo is being upheld and those who diverge are punished I hope that we will learn to celebrate neurod Divergence rather than ignore or

056malign it it is time that District 97 live up to its Promises of equity inclusion and it can start by expanding cop programming our children's Futures depend on it thank you for your [Applause] time Stacy [Music] [Applause] belma my name is Dr Stacy Belmont and I have four children in d97 my wife is a teacher at Brooks Middle School however my words are my own and respons ility of them lies solely with me I'm also a clinical psychologist and I'm the founder and Clinical Director of the Belmont depression and anxiety Center in Chicago a practice that specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders and depression from adolescence through adulthood tonight is from those perspectives that I would like to share my thoughts regarding school safety the Mental Health crisis among adolescents and the well-being of

057our greatest asset our teachers many teachers have stood before you tonight to discuss school safety and the role of cell phones in the ongoing and worsening fight culture at both Julian and Brooks many of you are aware that both middle schools have social media channels that are dedicated to promoting and encouraging this culture within our schools and while it's not uncommon for teenagers who are full of raging hormones to engage in fighting behavior these platforms magnify and intensify those fights to situations that are completely out of control and are Beyond typical teenage Behavior I've worked in adolescent impatient settings with very disregulated children who often engaged in aggressive behaviors towards other kids as well as adults and from what I have viewed on these channels as well as the reports I hear from firsthand observers

058in the schools the environment in the middle schools is worse than anything I ever experienced on those Awards I'm concerned for the well-being of our children who are trying to learn Within These environments as well as for our teachers who are frequently intervening the almost daily fights their own physical and emotional safety and cell phones intensify the fighting culture at the schools making it an unsafe environment for our kids cell phones however are not just a contributor to decreased physical safety but they also negatively impact our kids emotional safety we're living in a world where our kids have never known a life without cell phones and yet research evidence on the impact of social media among adolescence is consistent in a recent review by NIH the National Institutes of Health the authors discussed a preponderance

059of evidence that pointed to direct links between social media use and depression anxiety increased risk for suicide and self harm behaviors and poor academic performance at the same time we're seeing the impacts of the co shut down on our children who are struggling rates of anxiety and depression among adolescents are substantially higher postco than they were pre pandemic there are now many reviews and meta analyses on the nah website as well as other academic journals that support this finding we're living through a mental health crisis among our youth so suffice it to say we have some big problems here and while none of us ask for this and we're not at fault for a global pandemic or a rapidly growing technological world not being at fault does not excuse us of the responsibility of mitigating

060its harmful [Applause] effect it is our Collective duty to enact both cell phone and behavioral policies that are consistently enforced and supported by the administration it is also imperative that as we do so we ensure that we have proper Staffing at our schools to support our kids as they learn to regulate their emotions manage conflict and ultimately learn the skills they will need to thrive for the rest of their lives this means Adam support roles in the schools people who will interact with the students on a daily basis this also means having enough in-house administrative Personnel to handle unsafe and unhealthy behaviors with clear and consistent expectations for behavior and enforc consequences for when behaviors are harmful to ones self or others and for us parents we're also not off the hook it's our job

061to support a reasonable behavioral code at home and to back up school staff that are both caring for our children on a daily basis and also theing to provide them with the skills they will need as they grow into adults our district has some of the most talented and highly educated teachers in the state and they are working in environments that are frankly untenable frequently risking their own personal safety without even having training in CPI it is our job to back them up and take them seriously if they ask for help at home with some of the behaviors they're witnessing and trying to manage in the schools our children will one day have consequences for their behaviors and if this isn't happening at home as well as at school they're going to have a rough

062transition into adulthood [Applause] we have the opportunity here to change the trajectory of our middle schools and ultimately that of the lives of our kids is to become adults in this world it's our Collective and arguably ethical responsibility to do so our children deserve to have learning and social environments where they feel safe are supported in making behavioral changes when they mess up and make mistakes are held accountable for their actions so that they learn from them and where they also receive quality academic instruction and our teachers need to feel safe in their working environment so they can be effective in their roles within this system so to the board I ask you to work on a unified behavioral code for both schools with clearly laid out expectations and consequences and to require administrative compliance

063with enforcement of the code I asked to I ask you to work with teachers to create a cell phone policy that will help promote a healthy learning and social en environment for our kids and to also require enforcement of that policy and I ask you to take the teachers requests and reports seriously as you help re-envision the structure and culture of our school [Applause] district k o'keef [Applause] okay I'm nervous here I'm used to talking in front of kids not adults but um hi my name is k o'keef I'm a sixth grade teacher at Julian um this is my e8th year in District 97 and my 20th year as an educator I live in the community both of my kids went to homes my son is a seventh grader at Brooks my daughter just finished

064her freshman year at OPA um I want to start by just saying I love being a teacher I love my fellow teachers at Julian I love my sixth graders and I appreciate the support I receive from their families um um and I agree with everything everyone has said about our schools being safer calling for APS for each grade phones being away um no one's talked about our kids having a better Greener safer outdoor place to SP uh to play but I thought someone would by now um the topic I want to talk with you about though is instructional time so as an LL teacher which I think is going to become language arts I don't know um I'm responsible for teaching all of the language arts writing speaking and listening reading information and Reading literature

065standards so it's over 40 of them plus many of them have substandards um I have too much to teach and too little time and I'm always searching for the most efficient way to teach something instead of the most engaging um it is I mean usually that would go together but um it's also frustrated year frustrating year after year to be presented with data that shows that too many of our students are not proficient at reading or writing according to the I at our recent super team meeting we were shown a slideshow that began with data comparing our District's elementary schools with the middle schools as well as comparing us with our peer districts now these peer districts weren't named but some of the data that was shared included um our students sense of belonging drops

066from 69% in grades 3 to 5 to 39% in grade 6 through 8 I test scores go from above 50% of students meeting and exceeding to uh in fifth grade to below 50% meeting and exceeding in sixth grade our test scores are the lowest of our peer districts in both sixth and seventh grades this is not the first time I have been presented with disappointing data in fact this has been the case for as many years as I've been a teacher at Julian two years ago they made the same comparison with peer districts but also followed up with a slide listing our salaries at the salaries of teachers in our peer districts I suppose to make the point that we don't deserve to be paid as well as we are well I happen to think

067one of the major reasons why we don't perform as well as our peer D districts in reading and writing is because students spend a lot less time in our middle schools learning these subjects a lot less time so I have a chart so it's not big enough but um basically we spend 185 minutes a week in language and literature class are students sixth grade through 8th grade in River Forest where my niece goes to school she's a sixth grader she spend 615 minutes a week in seventh and eighth grade in River Forest it goes down to 410 Elmhurst 375 Evon 450 lrange 420 the other lrange 450 440 and South furwind 400 in Forest Park I did not find a district that has as little amount of time being spent on the English language arts

068standards so that's you know Reading Writing Etc so I shared this information with Dr Lawrence a couple weeks ago and she told me that the schedule is not in her control and that I should volunteer to be on the schedule committee led by Dr Deon I reached out to Dr Deon and Dr Shaw and Dr Shaw ended up meeting with me we had a great meeting she seemed to agree that we need more time and suggested scheduling another meeting to discuss the subject so I'm bringing this information to you tonight because I want to make sure that all stakeholders are aware including board members and parents and other teachers frankly um so I think we should have language arts class every day for at least 70 minutes I think this would allow more time for

069reading fluency practice vocabulary and grammar these are essential components of liter literacy instruction that have been neglected for too long and I don't think we can afford to wait in the another year or two years for another schedule to get any reading support in our district students need to score below the 25th percentile nor lnn talked about this at the last meeting that means that students who consistently score between the 26th and 60th percentiles my child okay are not proficient readers or writers will never have the chance to catch up the students who arrive in sixth grade ready already reading and writing well continue to accept where could this time come from well there are two classes at Julian that have no standards and no curriculum advisory and sore which also both meet for 18

070185 minutes a week so I ask you to please encourage our Administration to revise the middle school schedule so we have 350 minutes of language arts per week 70 minutes a day as well as allocate the step the resources needed to staff this change Not only would more time in language arts benefit our students but reducing the total number of students that each language arts teacher sees would allow them to get to know students better give more timely feedback this is what all of our students need and deserve thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Stephanie Stewart I am a co-president of the oart Teachers Association today I'm speaking as an individual member of the OPA I'd like to start my comments today by sharing some of the amazing work that's happening in our

071middle schools and for a warning I'm at Brooks so it's going to lean a little bit heavy on Brooks but I'm going to tell you what I know first every day in our schools op members are creating and teaching curriculum and working with students every day to meet their academic needs and ensure their successes Oba members meet before and after school hours to tutor students provide retakes and quiet spaces they work with related services case managers and administration to ensure the physical and emotional needs of students are met every day in our schools opt members are coaching students in athletics competitions and bringing kids to state level competitions in things like cross country track and field Special Olympics and more Larry Grimaldi Tom Roco Kim beer for example brought a students to state for across

072country Brook stepik and Jen Doan brought students to state for track and field Andrew Seymour brought Brooks and Julian students to State and one in Ultimate Frisbee and all of the coaches for basketball and volleyball competed in conference competitions and all did very well every day in our schools opt members host clubs and extracurricular activities almost every day after school hours and promote Community through their activities and Cross grade levels Brian shiners and Tim Walsh brought team to the regional Battle of the botson W Susan Walsh and Blanca Martinez collected gift baskets and books with service Club Abby Burman and rainbow Revolution taught lessons to our students by proper pronoun usage speech team coaches Pam Gaffney Sarah peros John kuchi Jen baldasar John Beck Bill mlin and Bessie Santos brought students to competition and won

073like 10 times okay OBT members are winning Awards and accolades Nancy guino was recognized by the oprf day nursery and helica deante was one of the recipients of the Ia reg Weaver award Laura stamp won a full bright scholarship OPF recognizes a d97 teacher yearly through this basic award and the James gate scholarship we have over 100 national board certified teachers at both the elementary and middle school levels including the equivalencies and our related Services providers and an Opa member sits on the Executive Board of the Illinois Education Association every day in our schools optm members complete all of the non-teaching duties related to our jobs grading papers making phone calls replying to emails buying lunches for students providing incentives this list could go on and on and I think you get the point so

074why do I bring up these positive things teaching coaching extracurriculars Awards and non-teaching roles well it's twofold first and foremost we're human and we have this thing called negativity bias it's an evolutionary development where we tend to dwell on the negative more than positive because it keeps us safe second we know this thing in middle school is called PBIS and I think you do it at the elementary schools too yeah so PBIS says for every one negative thing there should be five positive interactions so there's five positive things of op some of the problems that come with this is that we as teachers are inundated with the negative and the negative is often loud and proud at some at the same time there's not a lot of praise for the work we do but most

075of us probably wouldn't want that praise anyway but at the end of every day if our Educators have a perception that nothing is being done to affect change to the negative we're going to dwell on it it is a fact that fighting has increased in our schools particularly in the middle schools it is a fact that teachers are on administrative absences for false accus ations made while they try to break up fights it is a fact that at least three incidents of educator injury have happened in our schools directly from breaking up fights or simply trying to do jobs like hallway supervision is the fact that false accus accusations have been made during public comment and on social media about our Educators without Corrections being made to protect our staff and it is a fact

076that we have a student and family handbook and a disal handbook that is rarely if ever enforced our perception is our reality and it will continue to be our reality until we either a change the reality or B begin to provide transparent and comprehensible communication about what actually is the reality and the statistics are growing between 97 and 2001 1.3 million acts of violence were committed against teachers between 2011 and 2012 9% of Educators across the country reported having been physically threatened and 5% having been physically attacked by 2014 that number skyrocketed to 80% of Educators across the country reporting having been quote victimized at school in June of 2021 33% of teachers surveyed reported they experienced at least one incident of verbal Andor threatening violence from students and 29% reported at least one incident

077from a parent or of a student 14% of teachers said they' had been victims of physical violence from students 18% of school psychologists and social workers 15% of school administrators and 22% of other school staff reported at least one violent incident by a student in 2023 a study by the school psychology found that violence against teacher is becoming a Public Health crisis that has devastating effects on school Personnel wellbe well-being health and retention as well as student educational outcomes I heard the buzzer um I don't have uh a wonderful conclusion to my comments and I didn't plan I I have lots of things to say um I don't know what the are right now to all the solutions that have been suggested by my colleagues but I do know that we opta myself and my

078colleagues would like to work with you opt is doing the work we do every day regardless of the circumstance and regardless of the barriers please work with [Applause] us Jessica Todd [Applause] hi I'm Jessica Todd just going to try to get through this without problem I have three kids in the district 97 um two of which are at Percy Julian middle school on Thursday May 23rd 2024 the school was put on hold at the end of the day parents were sent an email that stated that there was a student in need of support and that no other students were impacted by the situation this just simply is not a true statement my child has asked me to speak on her behalf today I've done this speech for her and she's approved um we've kept her

079story felt somewhat silent and we've decided today to make it much more public um she would like for me to share her story so that you can understand the impacts of theold on Thursday on her her story starts over a year ago I received this voicemail on February 24th 2023 I've had it saved in my phone since and I'm going to reread it to you good morning Miss Todd this is a CNA at Julian I'm calling you about your child she is fine however I wanted to inform you that unfortunately there was an altercation with another student and she was hit multiple times on the head head shoulder face and neck we noted mild swelling on her right eyebrow and red marks on her left shoulder and neck we kept her for 30 minutes to

080ice and observe her she was alert and oriented so we sent her back to class Miss Thomas our assistant principal will also be reaching out to you she's our principal for discipline if you have any questions my number is give the number thank you have a good day by the time Julian Middle School had called me my child had been physically assaulted in her classroom in front of her teacher she was walked out of the classroom side by side with the student who attacked her and was sent to the school nurse office where they treated her for her injuries I was not informed of my child's physical attack until after the school nurse's office deemed her fit to be put back into a classroom environment I would also like to note that no Administration met

081with her and she did not have any school social workers with hurt my child was not safe for months prior to my child being attacked I had fears that my child would be harmed on December 15th 2022 I first reached out to Julian Administration about my concerns about what my child was witnessing within the classroom I was also extremely concerned about what was being said to my child and how she was being treated over the course of two plus months I reached out to the school about what was happening to my child my child was told I'm going to throw a chair at you my child was told I'm going to slap you my child witness students locking the classroom door so that the teacher and other students couldn't re-enter the physical classroom my child

082was followed to the bathroom and had her feet kicked while she was in the stall I'd also like to say she was on a period at that time I mean it's just absolutely ridiculous that this happened to my female student my child was not safe after leaving the school office the day that my child was physically attacked I called a client to tell them why I hadn't been responding how I could not work and do my job during the call I learned that their child had also been hit by a student together we realized that our child had been attacked by the same student the same student my child was not safe their child was not safe our children were not safe Thursday May 23rd 2024 was not a good day for anybody at Percy

083Julian unfortunately there are various recordings of the Occurrence at the school that day unfortunately my daughter has seen a video of the fight she has seen a video of the same student the attack turn over a year ago hit yet another student another physical altercation I too have seen the video I now have seen the type of hitting and punching that my child received that day hitting and punching that I told my child she could not reciprocate at school hitting and punching that is repeatedly occurring in the school contrary to the email that person Percy Julian sent out to all of us parents on Thursday that's right my child was impacted she is not alone all students were impacted and continue to be impacted the students at Percy Julian's Middle School are not safe and

084frankly I don't feel safe I don't even want to come up here and share this but my daughter has asked me to she has asked the public to help what does it take what does it take Jamie Winchell hi my name is Jamie winel I'm an Opa member in the teacher light room at Julian Middle School my husband Ryan is an Opa member and a second grade teacher at long we have nine and 16 years in District 97 and we are both national board certified teachers we are o par residents and both of our boys have been holes Julian uh Long Fellow Julian and therapeutic basol students we are invested in our schools district 97 in Oak Park I would like to share my perspective about passes cell phones and safety at Julian I want

085an Administration to take action and make technical changes on these issues so that the next year is calmer safer and more organized we need a digital path system schoolwide I have been advocating for this for three and now four Julian administrations a digital pass system would put the hus on the students or reusing a pass there would be automatic passes for students to see a social worker or support Personnel the system can give us real time data um about how often students are requesting passes and for what reason all the adults in the building would be able to quickly check if a student has a pass the system can BL frequent flyers who tend to meet up in the hallways or bathrooms we could finally say goodbye to the reams of paper that are used

086for passes at Juliet 4,430 passes weekly and 35,4 2016 passes annually according to and she gave me permission to use her name seventh grader Lily zorts report in the March 9th 2023 jhawk Journal this includes the carbon happy passes that were instituted last school year again please do the research on digital pass systems and Implement an effective one for next year you need a school wide cellone plan a away for the day except that lunch 101 slogans and daily reminders on the announcements are not working because there are no consequences for violations during lockdowns I've had friends texting um me because their students are texting them with in distress about scary rumors that pick up traction because students are all texting each other without the constant distraction of phones I believe social communication and problem

087solving would improve as would engagement in academic content and commitment to our Julian Community there are middle schools that are adopting no phone policies each student has a pouch for their phone which can be magnetically locked and unlocked when they enter and leave the building a schoolwide cell phone plan that actually locks phones away for the day might be a culture shock but I believe it will increase unity and trust that Julian please do the research on schoolwide cell phone plans and Implement an effective one for next year we need real en forceable plans to keep juliun students and staff safe follow through and consequences for student fights are Mysteries to me why was there no follow through when a student left marks on my arm in October where is the repair to the harm

088done to my colleagues who have been physically assaulted this school year where's the concern and followup for my multiple trauma responses all documented because I have witnessed so much violence at Julian the scer the double trauma responses I experienced Thursday and I'm using trauma with a capital t as in diagnosed have continued into today and just happened again when that parent spoke we seem to be in reactionary mode considering regarding student aggression but I want us to be preventative and proactive we need a dean of discipline we need three APS we need more student facing professionals who can support us with the vast and social emotional needs of students at juling in please do the research on student and staff safety plans and Implement effective ones for next year digital pass passes cell phone plan

089and safety plans are administrator tasks these are technical changes I will be more than willing to help make these technical changes adaptive to jul thank you for listening we will make it to June 4th and I'm looking forward to next schol year [Applause] Dolan [Applause] Anderson um my name is danan Anderson and um our teachers have been doing so much for us I entered the building of when I first went to kindergarten Lincoln Elementary I walked through those doors knowing nothing about what would come but thanks to Mrs chis see help guide me my kindergarten teacher then my um first grade teacher who Miss Barker who is right there shout out to her and my second grade teacher Miss weatley who was here ber teacher Miss par who is not here I don't think Miss

090Miss um um Miss Myer and miss these are my teachers for for my for my years at LOL hearing these conversations I have been a little the teachers have not been getting that much respect as much as they should because without teachers we would not be where we are in society each childhood has at least multiple teachers that help guide them for their childhood without them most of you almost everyone here would not be here without teachers this is the only reason that we are here today is because we were educated by teachers so without the teachers it's just the fights it's not going good we need to help with everything we need attention towards this thank you [Applause] Katie [Applause] Hogan hi everyone my name is Katie thank you so much for the opportunity

091to speak to you it's good to see some familiar faces in the community um I have a sixth grader at Julian and a second grader at five I really want to speak also as an educator I'm finishing my 23rd year this week um and thank you so much I want to actually talk I had a speech I'm throwing it out uh I want to talk to the board about some questions I want Dr sha be able to answer for you one how has this happened how has the management of the adults that you hired to bring into this District so drastically not worked I'll give you an example of this Dr Deon very nice person I have sent him email after email after email about problems from the beginning of the year since the fall

092for example you can walk in as an adult into Julian's doors and walk around the entire building and no one stops you they don't have basic things up until recently visitors passes a secure perimeter on parent night which I know as a teacher in a school is one of a night that's great but also dangerous because sometimes you have really upset parents you have custodial issues not a single adult grieved us as parents as we walked into the building you all know that's not okay right so my question to Dr Shaw is like how are you managing the adults who are supposed to be managing the leaders of these buildings cuz something was really broken along the way and we hired you as a community member as somebody we trusted to lead this District but

093after the last board meeting especially listening to the comments there there were so many red flags that I heard we do not need PowerPoints we do not need Consultants things teachers are asking for are basic for God's sake this is what a leader says after that last board meeting you you don't have copy paper you will have it tomorrow the school is filthy the custodial heads and the people who work there should be in my office tomorrow figuring out how do we solve this for the rest of the day that's what a strong leader does in a district when you say something like I want to hear more student voice I love it I'm a Youth Development professional I teach at UIC we went to the same program but here's what I don't get you

094have the Panorama data right that we paid all this money to get you knew when you spoke at that board meeting what the numbers are I have them I want to say for the record here is our data right now these are our kids saying it to us right now the Panorama data shows that from the fall to the spring when kids were asked about the relationship with teachers it fell by four points I know as a professional in Panorama data we use it at my school too anything more than two points is statistically significant that's the best category the rest of the categories a sense of belonging and engagement a school climate they were also asked about student safety we were in the bottom 20% compared to the nation so this isn't saying like

095oh all middle schools are having this problem or this is a covid situation because you know and I can feel you listening to me now if this was not a specific School situation we would see those National numbers also drop but they're not so we're left with some really uncomfortable truths Dr Shan there have been a lot of mismanagement of adults andag it needs to be concrete actions it's sort of also ironic to me that in that speech after all these Brave passionate Educators spoke you pulled up a PowerPoint of a triangle of tier supports you know who needs tier three support honestly the superintendent's office the superintendent's office right now is dysfunctional nothing that we heard today we should leave as board members and community members and think we want to work together on

096this I'm pleading with you to say we need somebody who can do the job and if there isn't an autopsy done of what went wrong then that person isn't really serious about change what I heard about the statistics you know what that is that was I taught in CPS for 17 years it's called juicing the stats principes did it all the time so they wouldn't have to report true explosion numbers another issue I love that you brought in Miss schaer to help in the middle schools a retired uh assistant principal I spoke to her after the big fight and said what the heck is going on she said I haven't been able to even get into the PB Sy we have just started writing Behavior plans that's time B just one last comment tell me

097how we started writing Behavior plans on May 20th why do Shaw you need to apologize to these teachers and to the community for the mismanagement of adult and so just Dr Deon this is what we need to change yall are amazing the community stands with you we appreciate you we are not going to let you down [Applause] Karen vog so kind of hard to follow I was getting kind of emotional when um yeah anyway um actually I want I'm going to go off script just a little bit because actually I'm talking about something that's a little bit different than everyone but I think I feel like it's all connected but um fifth grade teacher at by school um resident of Oak Park and and you know I send the our fifth graders we send them

098off to the middle schools and you know it's always so hard to to do because it's hard to say goodbye to them um but I know that when we went over there when it was our turn to go over to visit the it's one of the highlights of the the kids are really excited we were greeted by one of those um fire alarms that somebody had pulled and we were out so we lost about 15 20 minutes of the presentation so the kids didn't even get to see um everything that they would normally see and there was a lot of there was a lot of chaos it was really kind of scary because we're out on the street we had to just keep walking and the kids did a great job and uh but it

099was really it was and then at the I want to say the Q&A part where the fifth graders get to ask the questions and one of our fifth graders I recall asked about wanted to know about the fights that they had heard about at Julian and it was really kind of shut down and not addressed and I realiz that maybe it would have been hard but um the way it was addressed was kind of dismissive and um I just wanted to kind of talk about that um I'm also talking about I came here to talk about um outdoor education and one of the things that I think they you're going to see that there's a a connectedness with actually everything that everybody has said here um whether it be about collaboration uh whether it be

100about voices being heard uh whether it be about uh connecting with nature whether it be about um disconnecting from technology and um also bringing Community together whether it be the community of um students a community of parents and community of teachers uh so for over 30 years outdoor education has been a part of d97 Upper Elementary School experience first in sixth grade and then after the Middle School's reform as sixth seventh and eighth grades it moved to fifth grade from school to school that outdoor educational experience has always varied some went for 3 days and two nights others went overnight well some did one day experience es some schools went in the fall While others went in the winter or spring schools traveled to Wisconsin Indiana While others stayed in Illinois then the pandemic hit

101and everything changed and understandably so we are well past the pandemic and Outdoor Ed as we've known it has slipped away from us but there are many teachers who would love to bring it back by school has been going to Camp Edward in East Troy Wisconsin for decades it is an old-fashioned YMCA Camp where students sleep in cabins do archery canoeing group initiatives Orient in pond mucking Marsh walks night hiking have campfires sing songs and tell stories although the activities are great the location beautiful and the food delicious it's the social emotional learning and connectedness to Nature and one another that are the most impactful students parents and teachers living eating and learning together forming bonds and building Community make it an invaluable experience we have found that going to Camp Edward is the highlight

102of the year for many fifth graders as well as the parent and teacher ship sherons for the past few years since the pandemic we have had three outdoor education experiences one here in Oak Park and two at Laredo ta although all were fun they cannot compare to a 3-day two night experience the format of a one-day experience does not allow for teachers to see every student engaged in activities nor does it provide the time to form long-lasting connections for both students parents and teachers alike connections to one another to Nature and away from technology and the structure of school and traditional academics allows students to explore a world many of them have never experienced before one of the arguments against reinstating the overnight experience we've been told was we want schools to have similar experiences

103well all schools are committed to an outdoor experience but what that looks like can vary from school to school just like other experiences and activities we are not cookie cutter schools each school has a culture and climate unique to its population staff and immediate Community by has a jazz band and a drama club and has for many years every school does not have that B has a zero waste lunch program not every school has that even special ed services vary from school to school another argument has been addressing students who reside at HS of a children's home B has had quite a few students from hch who have attended Camp Edwards pepsa provided a staff member as a chaperon just like students who have had a parent who had attended I can tell you that

104nothing beats seeing a struggling academic student shine as an Archer or see a mother overcome her fear of water to canoe with her daughter or witnessing family friendships from formed between parents those shared experiences become part of our classroom lore and then when the seniors from oprf come back to buy as they did on Friday last Friday the camp Edward stories are the ones that are shared again and again as one senior said and I quote Camp Edward is a core memory so please consider supporting overnight outdoor education experiences they not only enhance the learning of our fifth graders but contribute to and strengthen the district's vision of the portrait of an eth Creator thank [Applause] you Molly Greenwood [Applause] whan hi um my name is Molly green M whan I'm a Julian parent a

105parent and the president Theo um I just want to say before I start talking what I was planning to talk about tonight that I completely agree with everything that's been said about the Middle School situation and how really a cell phone policy that actually works is I think a critical first step in addressing the issues at the middle schools um at by we have learned that there are plans underway to transition from the current system of custodial Staffing not renewing the contract of the current custodial staff who are g97 employees but instead hiring an outside contractor I have ser serious concerns about this proposed change not only do I value the dedicated custodial staff of th and want them to keep their jobs but I also have concerns about having subcontractors in the schools our

106kids know the current custodians and trust them and the custodians know the kids and schools losing the permanent custodial staff would mean a great deal of institutional knowledge would also be lost along with the sense that the custodians are part of the school Community the current custodians know by School inside and out and work tirelessly to keep it running smoothly not only am I confident that I'm sending my children to a school that is clean and safe not but bye um but I know that whatever whenever the PTO is hosting an event at the school we can count on the custodians to help us track down equipment find the circuit breaker box when an outlet goes overloaded and then make suggestions about the best way to keep that from happening again our students know the

107custodial staff by name and regard them as kind helpful trusted adults the kids greet them in the morning make them thank you cards and respect them as an important part of the school Community the decision to move to a third party contractor would adversely affect the day-to-day operations at by as well as the sense of community that all by staff have worked hard to build I hope that you I hope that this plan is reconsidered and that the current custodial staff are retained as the valuable District employees they are thank [Applause] you just to clarify there is no plan to outsourc custodial staff I now I understand what the other person meant by Outsourcing and do the custodial staff know that I don't know why they would think there was okay there they were told

108by John palman last week that there was I so that maybe somebody can address that because they are all very concerned about their jobs [Applause] okay um John O'Brien [Applause] hi I'm John O'Brien science teacher over at julan opta member and father of three students at patch um how can we say our kids are safe when we uh when we know we are not at Percy Julian Middle School our highest performing students are black and Latino and Japanese and Indian and Pakistani and Euro descendants and lgbtq plus and Muslim and Jewish and Christian and Hindu and atheist they are creative and fun silly and annoying kind and complex Vigilant and La Fair irreverent and solemn they dedicate themselves to activities outside the classroom making music working in the theater honing athletic skills creating art they

109sell online volunteering for their science Extension Course in the morning helping us to uh ethically treat the sea urchins that we uh investigate um that we uh use for to study embryology the diversity of our kids uh in our school is at times breathtaking and the friend groups that form here are proof that our society has progressed mightily that the sacrifices of so many to create equity in our society were and are not in vain proof that a diverse culture enriches our lives but why is there not a clear bright line and unambiguous policy when it comes to students assaulting our staff this happens a lot yes the physical stuff happens every year the verbal stuff every day and the response is always veiled behind caring rhetoric Promises of future Clarity and utter inaction why

110all the mystery the handling of violence intimidation and destruction of property at large in our school is alarming and mysterious there is unequal and ineffectual discipline here rewrite burs which are required to get administrative attention to student Behavior rare is the follow-up Beyond an auto reply no details on restorative conversations or next steps deaded Gallows humor inhabits all discuss all discussions of student behavior and uh the response to it and many gave up writing burs years ago thoughts on the faral flushable discipline flow chart are replaced by what do I do when a kid decides to clobber me for asking him to go to class will I be put on on leave for 7 months for breaking up a fight and keeping a child from getting his head kicked in will my friend die of

111a stroke of a heart attack while being attacked by a child I hear teachers asking these questions out loud to themselves and others because nobody at the district or in the administration will answer them it's like the monologues of NPCs and video games pointless sad and solid istic locked in a lonely little bubble of futility and despair if our policies are reasonable and sound they won't wither under the light of day so why not be clear and honest about them nobody even knows what they are and this leads to chaos and nobody feeling safe detentions and suspensions are punitive constructs more in line with incarceration than with skill development which is what we are supposed to be all about so what's wrong with reflection developing emotional regulation conflict resolution strategies and making amends for mistakes

112life skills that make a huge difference regardless of academic facility forget forget doing out detentions and suspensions as dictated by a flowchart as one of our social workers put it in inconvenience the student long enough to make them think about how to do things better if suspensions are anti-e equity and they are then why the paralysis around alternative constructive responses that would be transparent to all of us why why did one kid get suspended for throwing a milk carton and two others get spoken to for violence intimidation and destruction of property and another get mental health days for assaulting a teacher a teacher who was then slandered in this room by the parent this is the standard of equity in Oak Park right now if you worry that making policy limits that Mak policy limits

113inclusion in equity not making policy hobbles both not calling out parents who slander us not having measures in place for fights we have to break up that can cost us our jobs not using the law or any other measure to defend us from assault and character assassination no real consequences for kids using technology to humiliate other kids or initiate brawls none of these incredibly important issues have been met with action or Clarity in our district for years and we seek both I am a public servant in Oak Park and a dad of three who will be going to Brooks my kids ask what's Brooks like I smile and tell the truth about the amazing colleagues I have down Washington Avenue the band program yamba the creative hilarious brilliant science teachers a rickety rope Bridge of

114truths over a howling Gulf of uncertainty for their safety uncertainty over how long the people over there will stay in place under the conditions of equity and safety in our district how am I supposed to answer my children fully and confidently when I don't even know what my own school's policies are where I work and all because the district Dithers and Opus skates behind a disintegrated papier-mâché mask of equity yes there are Behavior handbooks and discipline flowcharts and burs window dressing for the mysterious workings behind the doors to the principal's office in 260 Madison linoln said let them know the truth and the country is safe John you're out of time thank you give up something to work [Applause] all right that is public comment and takes us to superintendent's update so um [Music] you

115so I want to um start by acknowledging some Spirit of what I heard um you know I think um Joel you talked about an inflection point I think Joel's not here but you talked about an inflection point and a coming together um working with us Stephanie you said work with us um I want to acknowledge and thank you for those openings that I did hear throughout the uh comments tonight and in fact that those aren't just uh words since arriving here Larry Hannah and I when they were co-presidents met weekly in Hannah's office at 7 a.m. 6:00 a.m. was it 7 it was 7 a.m. was 7: a.m. in Hannah's office I remember it because one of the most calming places in the district and uh we'd take turns who would bring the pastries I

116would pick them up from Buzz Cafe I live near there she would sometimes pick them up from kbby coffee cuz she lives near there I'm sharing that because these aren't just ideas these were actual we weekly meetings where we would brainstorm on the Whiteboard what can we do differently for fifth to sixth grade transition for eighth to 9th grade transition how might we use this document from the National Education Association that talks about Union and administration partnership to transform the district then we put that on the Ed Council agenda and talk about it there and then we'd brainstorm and though and and we actually looked at the out of classroom teaching positions a year ago in April and had a conversation there what are these positions how might we better align them so this notion

117of working together coming together to figure these things out are so welcome I'm seeking that with Stephanie and Debbie we met every morning uh at 6 a.m. that's right 6:00 a.m. because that is the only time that worked for all of us and in that case only Debbie brought the baked goods but we met every morning and I have on my iPhone pictures of the Whiteboard there in the conference room we'd go in it was dark and um in in Lincoln we'd brainstorm what are some ways that the um the Nea the Ia equity and Justice leaders for uh justice work might be integrated and we actually then had speaker uh from the Ia come to Ed Council to help us think about that so thinking about how we come together to change our systems

118is so welcome and I was thinking after last uh board meeting where also we were together like this listening to a lot of different feedback and a lot of different emotions that sometimes things have to crack open for new things to grow and if that's what's happening I welcome that that we might actually move forward and so tonight what I'd like to do is to identify some of the themes we've heard and share what you need to know about us moving forward I want to talk about uh Community data and feedback and looking ahead to 3 to five years from now and as I do that I'm going to try to integrate some of the questions feedback and concerns we've heard in the last month and also tonight so let me start with this you

119know uh Community data and feedback back back in 2021 before I was hired since there's been calls actually um you know to question uh and I want to let you know like that those are things I those are this is very something I take very seriously like you I also want to be very good at my job I absolutely do so here's the thing this is what the um board um and like many boards the board hires a um group to do the search for the superintendence um and so before I was hired the board had hya the firm do a comprehensive study to find out and here's the next two slides I'm going to is the challenges um that there were focus groups interviews surveys major challenges and issues I'm going to there's two

120slides because there's 10 of them I want you to read these and listen and see how many of tonight's and previous comments connect so that's the first five here's the second five so when it came to the district I had like 30day n 60-day 90day 120 day 150 day reports on how it's going what I'm learning so this was back in August of 2022 I had a six the first 60-day superintendent update one of the things that I pointed out at that time and this is is a screenshot from that presentation was this fundamental dilemma this fundamental dilemma that overall there seems to be a perception and a feeling like overall what we offer to our community is relatively favorable and positive but there's also the understanding at the same moment that there are groups

121of of students who continue to be underserved by the district and the fact that these two things coexist is a fundamental dilemma something we really need to talk and think about as a community so in the report and I know this is difficult to read um this is a a full written report that was issued by hya after the surveys that they did what I want to point out here and the green and the red was uh colorcoded by the consulting company I added those yellow arrows because this is the disconnect so on the one hand the overall quality of education and the district that's that first line question four you can see is positively favor you know generally favorable and then you can see the next questions there are nine and 10 meeting the

122needs of exceptionally talented students meeting the needs of historically underrepresented students right above there meeting the needs of English language Learners today Megan talked about meeting the needs of neurodiverse students versus being status quo I I think we really really need to ask ourselves how and what we need to understand and unpack in our own Collective thinking about how we reconcile how we're overall doing great fine good yet at the same time knowing that we are underserving groups of kids historically how do we make sense of that and how might we need to reframe the work for ourselves in order to actually get to what we collectively want which is universal Student Success I put this up last time and this notion of achieving that community's vision of universal success is going to be an

123Adaptive challenge now that does not mean as um Jamie and others called for go this is ridiculous not even close you just heard from everybody safety answer them for two hours they talked about safety that was 80% of we heard you so what I was going to say is that as Jamie talked about there are certain pieces of the safety that are Technical and there are other pieces that were are adaptive and jam I really appreciate that you talked about how can we help because there's and you you made that reference to there's both aspects so it's not like it's just divided it one or the other sometimes things move you know from one to the other as well you know when we had the listening visit on Monday at Julian last week um one

124of the things that came up was that there were no protocol in place or not enough protocols for to making sure that um you know deliveries from outside door Dash deliveries what I found out at that meeting and I was kind of you know surprised and alarmed that people were being let in outside of coming into the front door and so one of the most immediate things was to get signs on all of the doors and to be clear to everyone that there should be only one entry and exit which is the the front door and that visitors must sign in that is a very basic safety expectation that needed to be put in place and as soon as we had that listening visit the next day those plans were put into place that's when

125it was shared um and uh I think uh Claire Brooks talked about this that was where it was shared at the staff meeting to say these expectations going forward are in place in addition it was shared that there was wasn't attendance being taken or if students were in the hallway the first solution to that is that we take attendance every period and students know we're going to take attendance so that's why that was the second slide in the Wednesday staff presentation because we do those are Technical Solutions and making sure that everyone's clear and we have those signs posted we're immediate safety responses again here I think uh it's important important you know when we talk about preventative things that is on the Adaptive side and they are always things that we have to do

126together it's about all of the adults getting in sync with each other and that was also discussed when we met with the staff at Julian one of the staff members said what we really need to do is get in a room with each other and talk to each other in a way that isn't happening yet and needs to and so I so appreciate the points of honesty and the courageous acts of speaking the truth and also opening the door to being solution oriented I thank those of you who reflect that because that's what's going to need be needed to get us to a different place here's what I want to share with you next back in 2019 that's 5 years ago this is an article that was in the Wednesday journal and I want to

127just pull out some pieces of this you can read the whole Journal article if you'd like I want to share with you some of the quotes here's what it said five years ago teachers at Oak Park District 97 middle schools have reached a troubling consensus about Julian and Brooks they're increasingly unsafe because of the bad behavior of some students with which often go wases unchecked here's another quote the teachers at the middle schools wrote that they've seen an increase in major fights and the general level of disrespect among students the culture at Julian is toxic wrote one teacher at the school here's a quote from a teacher about the administrators I'll let you read that yourself here's another one overall I think our standards are low and students are sinking to that wrote another Julian

128teacher the kids at the top are bored the kids near the bottom who are well behaved are ignored and the kids who are at risk learn that they can get away with a lot so if we think about five years after that and some of the public comments tonight as well as at the May 14th board meeting would overlap really pretty clearly with the sample quotes from from um this article and from the May 14 board meeting that some people referenced so May 14th 2019 there was a board meeting here where a lot of public comment was made and it happened to be actually exactly five years to the date I think there's something there for us to pause and think about and it's not about any one of us in the room because we

129may or may not have been here it is something larger than us as individuals and something that we're going to need to address collectively in a way we probably haven't worked together before excellent so if the key themes from 2019 and 2021 can be found in the same feedback from 2024 how are we not going to go in circles how are we going to make sure that our student outcome and experiences are very different 3 to 5 years from now some of the same people I read public comments from five years ago spoke on May 14th making very similar comments and not anyone individual can make the changes that are being called for but collectively we can do that if we decide that this is the time that we're going to do it absolutely yes

130so let's look ahead 3 to five years from now how do we get to a very different place we're going to have to we can't just paint over this stuff we have to redesign the system so that it works for all students it was never meant to do that it has segregation racial segregation in the room roots in the design of the system we're going to have to redesign the system that means we have to realign the resources we need to ask ourselves how is our time people money and Technology being used to make sure we get to Universal student outcomes and in order to do that we're going to learn and Lead together including with young people because the most powerful voices that we in the room today were actually the two young people

131that spoke and we need to figure out what new structures we can't just kind of find that wonderful we actually need to figure out what new structures are going to be created so there're systematic embedded student council District Council representative democracy for our students as well so let's take each one of these we're already on our pathway this is how we're organized we're not just organized like we were just a few modifications we are organized completely differently to do something completely different than we were doing 5 years ago that will will and can change how we look 3 to 5 years from now the big idea here is that the district must function based on the collective interests of the Oak Park Community that Community democratically elects the school board seated here democratically elects that

132that's important they're not appointed by some higher Governor they're democratically elected by the people of the community to represent the community they then have policy and they hire a superintendent what we are doing in our district that's different is we are for our strategic plan have are in the process of having a portrait of an Oak Park 8th grade graduate we had 20 plus engagements lots of opportunities we started with affinity groups so we made sure we heard from the people who historically have been under represented and then we had an engagement campaign and we're about to have a port pit of an Oak Park 8th grade graduate that is standards based here's what's different it goes across three different areas of work core instruction meaning what happens inside of schools as well as operational

133excellence meaning all the operational stuff that holds us together and that needs to be strong and then outside of school time Community Learning and entrepreneurialism thinking about what happens after school what are those part ships like Megan is here from the township how are we coordinating for out of school time and early childhood that's on the agenda for tonight so the idea is that the portrait of an Oak Park 8th grade graduate levels the playing field because not everything can happen inside of school the inequities and the injustices are they span Beyond school and so they need to be addressed by thinking about learning Beyond School school and so that's why we're designed to also look at how does how does the portrait actually live outside of school first where students and families have opportunities

134to make sure they meet or ACH exceed those competencies so that we can get to Universal Student Success so this is a very different way of Designing ourselves so that we can be designed for the future and again one thing still missing from here is where do Felix and Dolan where's the student structures how do they get represented here is something for us to think about I did put up this um triangle because anyone from the field of Education knows that this is a fundamental idea and Katie O'Keefe I so appreciated our meeting and the thoughtful um solutions that you brought forward this focus on core instructional time and standards based learning what's happening at the base of the pyramid and and Katie ask and Kate asking us to think about what's that instructional time

135for what's most important and how do teachers have access to all of the opportunities to present that robust core instruction to students are all the right ideas and so I appreciate Kate that you came forward with really great data analysis and solution solutions that we can move forward I thank you for that in tonight's presentation oh I I want also wanted to say this question of the cut scores which you also raised is important that there is a cardinality though the cut scores questions actually have to come after we address the core instruction questions that you also raised Kate because then we can talk about what the data says and where we move those otherwise we can talk for the next 3 to 5 years about moving the cut score numbers up and down and

136we're not going to get to the root cause and so this is where we need to start so tonight um later tonight um hopefully not too much later we will have a presentation on out of school time and as I said Megan is here because we also have a partnership agreement that goes back to this slide here we're thinking about in Community Learning and entrepreneurialism what are those out of school time opportunities that can level the playing field what's happening after school what's happening in the summer what's happening in the weekend what's happening in early childhood how are we using all of those spaces because only schools cannot do this work we are a key partner we have unbelievable expertise and we need Partnerships so this idea of aligning our resources I showed this image

137last time we can't be going all over the place we got to to start driving and Rowing in the same direction so I wanted to answer some of these questions that were also out here um one of the questions about the school sections was that we were showing it in the Aggregate and was that masking um some of the disaggregated data there is an every effort and every commitment to show you the data that um you know that we are able to show you and um you know uh make available so here's the thing on the side there you see 16- 24 those are our class size range and then the green bar show you how many Elementary classrooms we have across the district with that number of students projected for next year so what

138that means is we project that 34 of our sections next year will be at or below the size of 21 students per classroom and remember that that means that we can meet that 7030 ratio with at 21 students with three students having an IEP and providing that opportunity for inclusion so that's the data um that and this data um and other questions as we get them will be made available on the website that we've created called uh with a staffing website it's linked under Human Resources you can use that QR code it's easy to find if you you know um if you look under the human resources tab again wanting to make sure you have the data so that you understand what we're doing and why there was also questions about you know we think

139about our people resources what was pulled this is the what was pulled back but here's what was proposed currently these are this is a a visual that shows our full-time outof classroom teacher positions focused on academic intervention so this is the pool of positions that we were proposing to reallocate um in the uh in The Proposal that is not going forward but I think it's important to show it to you so I want you to be able to see what we were trying to ask questions about you can see for example that some schools have um more positions less positions at the middle school we have math interventionists but we don't at any of the elementary schools have math interventionists like likewise we have language arts Specialists but we don't at the middle school so

140the proposal was to reallocate this pool of resources and then to um uh have the schools School Improvement plans navigate what actually do we need do we actually need a math interventionist at school X instead of this position based on what we're looking at on our own data so that was the idea again not going forward not happening we can talk about different ways but we do need to have courageous discussions around aligning resources to get to our goals so another thing about time and people resources and I thank you uh Gavin for clarifying for the public comment there is no plan no plan never has been will not be to Outsource our partnership with SEIU and our custodians so just dispelling that myth right from the GetGo um as far as some of the

141questions that were raised before um already at work here um immediate cleaning of our uh team at Julian through the end of the year uh hiring campaigns to fill our districtwide vacancies and another area in which we need and will create systems expectations annual Cycles um so that we have stronger systems in this operational uh area under uh Dr Sheila Johnson who's our assistant superintendent finance and operations so um also in terms of tonight's presentation the teacher leader the stien and teacher leader roles is coming forward for board action um here is another place where we're working for that alignment of resources the new teacher leader there's new teacher leader role focused on the transition um from Early Childhood to kindergarten and increased alignment we'll be talking about in terms of school Improvement planning at

142the middle school so these are also resource alignments in terms of learning and leading together I'd put up this image uh last time this is important because um you know when we call for systems and structures that's exactly right um you know there are things when we're centralized it's really top down there are efficiencies there you know if you just have to command and get something done there's a problem with it however it's usually doesn't work when things are entirely centralized you're never going to get the right solution that way because you're not close to the ground when you're decentralized pluses and minuses it's a l Fair um you don't move systemically and you have less Synergy and you have you lose efficiencies of scale what we want to get to is that Synergy of

143distributed leadership and um and the the parent that spoke tonight about giving the work over to the people that's exactly right how do we actually do that what does that actually look like tonight we were scheduled to have here our uh building leadership teams present the their um School Improvement logic models that's actually how we can get to distributed leadership because as a district we say here's our goals and then as a school Improvement team that lives in the school every day the team decides how are you going to do do that and how are you going to use your resources to improve your school and then we are clear on the outcomes here's how all of the students need to get over the line as us as a district tight on the goal loose

144on the how and tight on the outcomes that's how we're trying to get to distributed leadership I also want to say that when we wanted there were some comments made tonight about students with a lot of tardies and the importance of Celebration I also want to encourage and um lift up the agency that teachers building leadership teams already have to do and practice these things as a team so if there needs to be a new way of looking at tties come together as a team and talk about that there are some things you know celebrations if there's a celebration and a a way that our our students accomplishments need to be lifted that's within your power as a building leadership team to say we want to do this differently I was at a school last

145week where they said that we used to have this wonderful kindergarten transition event these are things that you as a site as a building leadership team can bring forward with your own Vision you're the ones going to get that right balance we know we need to welcome our students but what does that look like we know we have this Panorama data we need to address but what does that look like the best solution are going to come from the school so tight on the goal loose on the how tight on the outcomes also questions been raised around Equity professional learning as we think about the kinds of PD in the past it has been historically kind of under teaching and learning this idea of of professional development that it's been episodic um maybe more focused

146on curricular needs often electronic there have been restorative um Justice training cohorts but it's been voluntary so as we think to the future we need the HR will um professional learning will be focused um in HR it'll be cross functional it's not that it doesn't include core instruction and teaching and learning but that's not exclusively the um uh focus of PD ongoing learning so how do we build learning strands job embedded so when we have a focus on our focal cohort students in that um School Improvement planning and as we think about families experiences students experiences we're actually learning as we're doing and we're doing the equity learning in practice multiple employee groups uh not only teachers but thinking about who needs to know what in person whenever possible and which key components are mandatory

147for different groups because no matter who you are if you're in District 97 here's some things you need to know so we've also been thinking about you know we've gotten um over a hundred let's talks and emails um in the past month about the um Staffing changes so again in the spirit of reflecting and thinking about how are we reaching everyone the majority of the um let's talks and emails were from d97 parents and our data indicates that we're less likely to hear from parents of students of color and from parents who of students receiving free and reduced lunch support so what you see there is the dark line is our district population and the yellow line is from whom we received the let's talks and the emails over the last month so again these

148are still important and valid perspectives and ones that we want to make sure inform our thinking but we also have to ask ourselves who are we not hearing from what are their perspectives and how are they also informing our decision making right this is uh This Is our commitment to the whole so um in terms of learning and leading together um tonight um we'll have an update on the Middle School redesign and there's a June 15am meeting we're very excited that 60 individuals have signed up uh to join Dr de Leon and the team um and the principles at the middle school the goal is to develop a proposal for my review and feedback regarding the implementation and Clarity of different uh safety and climate systems for next year and including cell phones uh which

149is a key part of what we'll be talked about and and acted upon um the skill Improvement logic models again that's a way we come together also Ed Council has uh done the work of um Pro providing revisions to the e-learning plan so that's also coming forward and as an example of using our participatory bodies to do important work that gets presented at the board table so it has multiple fingerprints on again and of course uh opportunities and I um to to meet um doing meet greet kind of next Edge feedback what do we need to be thinking about listening learning sessions thank you to the Ford who's been attending those there's uh community events we have a day in our village on June une 2 that we'll have a a tent there we also

150have a we'll have a table at the juneth event um we're attending PTO meetings against board members are attending those and ongoing opportunities for us to continue to learn and grow and do this work together um because that's how we're going to do it and so I also again want to thank you all of you that have stayed here the ones that have left um but shared their perspectives sometimes in a heated way sometimes in an open way but all of it is the way all of it is part of the way and I'm looking forward to that process thanks questions comments um Dr you thank you foration and um for listening to everyone and I know you've been on the talking I mean I think you made it to almost every school could find

151out um but I one of the things that was I thought was an interesting comment from the I think it was like the first comment was about block scheduling and rethinking block scheduling and advisory and sore um in particular being kind of two classes that don't and then don't have kind of I don't know standards I think was little distinction um and then also the idea of not kind of stacking for classes for kids so that they don't have to go back to back um to foure classes if you are going to have advisory in sore don't have them on the same day back to back and spread them out and so I know you're doing the redesign but I would I hope that those topics get in the mix um also kind of just

152redoing the schedule um then also I I do want to highlight I was here on May 14 2019 um and I remember that meeting pretty distinctly and I just want to say that I I remember listening to teachers and I remember the consistency but that night also about 15 students of color came in and talked about how they feel at the middle schools and so I I want to address the student the teachers concerns I think that's really important um and I also want to make sure that when we talk about student voice that we I mean those students that I mean I was just pulled up like the old minutes and there are some powerful statements like you said from people from our teaching team but also from our students of color and how

153they feel and I would be interested in how I know you brought up parents of color of students of color not participating as much in let's talk but also how the students feel I we don't I we haven't got much data about some of the you know fights and whether or not there's any particular um demographic involved or anything but I would want to make sure that this the that the concerns were hearing from those students as well um and then the other only other thing I will say about it is I understand that this is a safety like there's nothing more like important and feeling safe uh for our students and teachers um but we are talking about 11 to 13 year olds and I do remember like the super Predator language that came

154out like back I don't know the ' 80s to ' 90s um I think I think we we need everyone to feel safe but these are like kids and uh we are different than the high school and these are not you know 18-year-old grown men I mean I get my sixth grade is like 49 right like so I think that there's I think that the it it feels a little as a student as a parent of a biracial student who I don't know he's you know I I don't know if he falls into the category that someone well I do know because they use the word disrespect about you know when he's just trying to figure it out so I will I hope that we can like recognize that it's still 11 to 13 year

155olds and um they're learning and they're growing and um some of the language felt a little bit intense for that age group yeah I don't I think that um what you're what you're saying about how do we really Center I um the voices of students of color families of color students in general and students of color in particular I do think that in order to move past kind of performative um commitments not that like we're going to actually have to think about how to stand up some new structures that hardwire um student voice and student of color families of color voices into our decision making processes because um unless we do that it it it will always be a a a workaround you know and so I I think that is a design challenge for

156us and when I say that like um yeah the school system just isn't designed for that and often times when you even have this conversation let's say around curriculum or what around programming around voice it will often be well let's stand up a new group so that they can have this conversation over here but we'll still continue to run our dominant system and that will be a side project and at some point that's what I mean by we need to redesign it is we actually have to say whoo like okay how is what we're learning over here actually going to start to impact our core systems and that's what even at the bottom of the pyramid what is happening is that students of of color black and brown students in particular in our country are

157not receiving the opportunity for core learning using strategies curriculum methodologies culture context that accesses their Assets in a manner that's going to accelerate their growth we've got to change what we offer as the adults all of us in order for that to happen and when we do that through Universal Design and redesigning how we do instruction all kids are going to benefit many more students are going to benefit because when we learn to do that for and with our black and brown students and families we're going to create Pathways that then other students and families can access that also are not having the best experience right now and so I just um it's exciting to think about that and I I think these some of the things you're raising around the schedule is part of

158that because how do we make space and how do we make space for also that staff and coming together to learn to do this work so I wanted to say in terms of the schedule there was a lot of participatory work done to make the decision about IB because it wasn't just like oh let's we're done with IB because otherwise we could have had a room full of people saying you never asked us we did ask and the team did a very deliberate job of making sure we provided opportunities for feedback before making the decision to move away from that program then that opens up opportunities for us to say okay now what does it and can it look like and that's the question the team is engaged in and you're raising really important points

159as have teachers that have spoken tonight and I the only other point and John made it at the very end is um appreciative of him saying that you know ension isn't the answer but consequence there I mean there should be consequences appropriate for 11 to 13 year olds we shouldn't be hearing about kind of repeat you know the kids doing not learning from from what's Happening and I do think that um people knowing what to expect when they act a certain way is really important I think a lot of teachers said that I think that it consistency and um consequences don't have to be suspension they can be I think he use the word time for reflection time to learn and grow um and I thought that that um that comment about just kind of

160making sure though that there is some time that is dedicated for these kids that are learning to um to to really actually learn and Come Away with a new a new skill a new mindset a new behavior and it's not going to happen overnight it might not even happen the first time but um I I'm very empathetic and I strongly support the idea that even if it's restorative it's a consequence right like we are we not it's not about just um people having no kind of structure or rules around how you act in a community setting like a school jump off that like um I just want to really quick say first of all thank you um I think it takes a lot of C courage to talk about systems that not don't work and

161part of that sometimes is the people and the system and so I think um like really being honest about what's what's working and what's not working um you know as a parent who is about to have three people in the Middle School like I think the the banter and the stuff I heard last week did you know kind of concern me um but then I talked to my son and he said it's not I feel safe there are a couple of fights um every once in a while um but then today you know Aon MCM has came and he talked about aerial um this adversarial like um environment and that's what I felt tonight it didn't feel collaborative it didn't feel I mean there are a few people um who were like you know yes

162let's do this let's get this right but overall it just felt aerial to me um and it wasn't lost on me um some of the words and I wrote them down that described our youth and it it really bothered me aggressive violent deplorable unsafe more dangerous than a correctional facility bad people um trauma attacked almost daily fights aggression and these instigator these are all words these are deficit face language used to describe our young people the young people that have gone through as people say a pandemic I'm a geriatric Millennial I did not have social media and middle school but they're dealing with social media they're dealing with mental health issues so where's the grace for our students I support teachers my husband is getting his Masters to become a teacher special education teacher in

163d97 he now works at D200 so how are we going to fix the problem if we can't use used language that is collaborative language that is blaming um talked about new Divergence um we talked about behavioral problems students anxiety biases depression anxiety we talked about social media I think some of the adults need some uh some attention to social media and how they behave things they put on social media um we talked about feeling safe when they make a mistake we talked about managing conflict res against say we talked about salary comparison um so I just say all this to say like how are we make it stud as feel I went to Brooks when it was Emerson and I did not feel welcomed so I just don't I'm really struggling with like how we're

164saying let's work together let's be collaborative but then you're showing disrespect speaking of disrespect um l uh and I'm sorry I got to call it out but um we talk about respect and everything there was um a member of the audience Today l politely reached her hand out to get the paper and they dropped it like that in front of her they did this to her more than one yes L is a respected member of this community an employee and that should not be tolerated so I am going to call it out because that was disrespectful that was rude and this this is this is how you treat professionals I can imagine how some people are treating our students and I am just we talk about deplorable that was deplorable um P I appreciate you

165for what you're talking about in terms of either or I go by both thank you I apologize but you talked about that um the number of hours the yeah minutes um I have a student who is phenomenal at science and math at English I don't know what I'm going to do with that child so I agree with you but who else agrees who else wants to see more hours put into the curriculum who else wants more class time so I think that as we're talking about all these things we want to do like it can't just be one it can't just be you well it isn't just me I mean I've been trying to talk with as many people as I can I don't know who I I talked to I met with Dr Lawrence

166I met with Dr sha and I just wanted to bring it to the attention of more something Educators want yes we do I do I'm a math teacher I do okay teer I mean I just want to bring it up as a topic so that there's more conversation I'm glad you brought it up because that was something that I have been so was not wanted check out her kids teachers yeah the same person who said we're Outsourcing our custodial so I just say all that to say like I said um I'm a product of d97 product of D200 my husband has forever been in school to give his Masters um to be a special education teacher um so I support teachers with like the the young Prophet said there would be no us without you

167we support you but it has to be collaborative like attacking Dr sha does what attacking the does what attacking the administration does what so I'm all for collabor collaborative discussions someone reach out to me we're having coffee on Thursday about running for the board these are people who are willing to talk and listen like I said I'm so happy you brought that up cuz I was like I was like H did you hear what she saying like we're excited we want to do that hold us accountable but like disrespecting why a disrespect like these words we we're not doing anything with this can I disrespect no no no it was somebody else yall can go back and watch the video they know who they were I just what would you call what what atttitude would

168you use to describe the fights at Julian and the fights at Brooks what other adjective is there besides aggressive and violence children children children we are all aware they are children and we are in in the buildings every single day teaching them and nurturing them we're talking to the adults in the room when we use words like aggressive and violent but do you realize they're going to see this video you see their parents are going to see this video like that's what I'm saying like my son is 51 and he's 12 years old so I have to tell him every day be careful how you play because you're a big boy do you know how hard that is that is what I told my child about attack she is my size and the entire time

169I said if you turn you are going to get this turned on you so I train my child to sit there like this because she is also a very big child but my point is when we talk about our children in that way and then they watch their teachers talk about them in that way we can talk about behavioral problems without this language that's what I'm saying I'm Sor it's okay I think this is a conversation that merits a lot more conversation and problem solving I don't think we're going to wrestle it down tonight but I appreciate your thoughts I appreciate the input and I know jun's been waiting patiently to offer in so literacy in I was going to be like yes literacy more literacy um no uh I no I do believe in

170that but um I appreciate Sheree because I get real hot tempered and she likes to take the tone take it down so that's good um one of the things I was in talking to Dr Shaw about was uh my daughter who by the way is tardy every day we live two blacks from Brooks and I wish you would punish her CU I am screaming at her every day to get out the door so it's like the library fines like when they stop taking away the fines at the library it's like could you please punish me and make me take anyhow so I believe Charis is an issue and I am working at my hardest but the other thing I was thinking about in terms of um one thing that worked really well for my daughter

171last year and she didn't do this year but that would be interesting for thinking about for Sor and those advisory spaces that she did girls on the rise and they do talk a lot about emotions and emotional regulation which she still struggles with um and for whatever reason we didn't sign up this year I think because I dropped the ball but I think about for kids like I too was also kind of triggered by the way some of the kids were talked about um and similar to Sheree I have a 14-year-old who's six who's over 6 feet tall um and he just gra he's about to graduate 8ighth grade by daughter is also similarly not quite that tall but similarly tall and I think about particularly for black kids the adultification that happens for for

172teenagers and how their seen is bigger and more aggressive and the words that are used and so I don't think it's to say that you believe that kids are scary but I think these are messages that kids get these are messages that put into social media um you know I taught in a high school where on the west side where we had fights a lot and and like in the school I felt safe I didn't feel safe necessarily going in my car in the parking lot um and so I understand like what it means when you talk about not feeling safe but I also had to prompt myself all the time that these are kids and like so I I really appreciate the comments about not just being punitive and having consequences with a really

173negative connotation but really thinking about what do we need to give these kids who I mean I teach teachers and they've so many of them talked about like the pandemic broke these kids and this is not to say they're broke because that implies a certain level of permanence but there are some serious issues kids are struggling with and they're not getting at home because some people are coming from homes that were also broken by the pandemic and all these other things and so we have to figure out like I wish I had heard more people ask for like social workers and counselors and therapists and less for Hall monitors because what we're seeing then is a reaction against behaviors that are starting in inside with kids and like even for some of the the whole

174that have been happenening it's to prevent kids from hurting themselves or others like it's I really like it's just it's just a lot and um I want the middle school to be a place I mean you could not pay me enough to go back to Middle School honestly it was a horrific part of my childhood like I dealt with so much racial stuff and there are kids who are dealing with the same things right and they don't have not that I came well equipped to a lot of emotional issues but or like skills but like I had more than some of these kids do and I wasn't taught to be VI except with my siblings different story um and so I think we have to think about like what are the ways that we can

175provide support I think the other part that I think the district is struggling with and that the board is struggling with is like everybody wants more resources but nobody's going to pay more taxes right and so how do we re some people might pay more taxes we can't make you pay more taxes oh right I mean there's there's a legal limit but but I think like you know we are also looking to how do we figure out how to reapportion where things are and and so like I'm probably going to regret this but like my school year has ended so I will open like if people are interested in having coffee with me and talking to me about stuff in like a collaborative constructive manner I am more than happy I work with teachers I

176I was a high school teacher myself like I believe in this District I I believe in this community as much as it drives me crazy and I totally believe we should all get off social media it's not helpful for anyone um but I also feel like like Oak Park has a lot of potential but there's also a lot of voices and sometimes we get caught up in our own frustrations with each other and like we end up just feeding off that negative energy um and so I really do want us to think about and now I'm speechifying I'm sorry I was just going to give comments but I really do want folks to feel like we are here to like listen to you I mean I think that board meeting four years ago was like

177our first board meeting as an elected so it was crazy walking in um and so it's it's it's kind of I really appreciate you bringing that back CU it's like oh here we are again four years later or five years later and so you know we don't want that to be we don't want to keep coming back to these Cycles right and so we do we do want to hear from all of you um and figure out a way forward that's not just about because I think some people just got up there and send a lot of platitudes about like we believe in teachers and do this but it's like what does that mean like we need you to tell us specific Bally what it is that you need from us and to come with

178what's that they said listen to us yeah but but like what is that like what does that mean like so I'm I'm saying right now like call me for coffee send me an email whatever like I'm around this summer um but you know like it's you know I also you know I teach at night because I work with teacher you know there's all these things and so we also I'm going to shut up cuz G's giving me the evil eye but I'm just saying there was no evil eye I'm just hoping to get too resting evil eye face and I do have one quick sorry but I'll keep it really super quick you could go after me oh you were gonna go I thought you were G to move as long no um I just

179I want to um I also appreciate folks coming out I appreciate folks coming out two weeks ago and I appreciated the meetings that Irving and Julian that I was able to attend and I've heard that the other ones have been um Illuminating as well and one of the things I want to lift up that has kind of come up to some degree is and I think this was sort of named explicitly in our Irving meeting was just that we don't currently have the communication structures to create the kinds of Engagement that we're talking about like Katie you saying like I didn't know where to go to talk to people about curriculum and we had people raise things that Irving that was like I I don't know who to talk to about this or I send

180things to let's talk but I don't know what happened from there and I will say like I'm a Julian parent and I learned two weeks ago how big of an issue cell phones were for teachers a Julian like I honestly did not know that until two weeks ago and I don't I don't think we all realized I mean maybe we knew to some degree that there were dissatisfactions with it but I think the degree of um impact was not widely known we found out here we are you know in a week or so having a meeting like my expectation is that by the start of the next school year like we're going to have a plan in place that's been developed collaboratively that will maybe it'll have to get iterated along the way maybe it

181won't be perfect but it'll at least be an approach to cell phones and so one of the things Dr sh and I talked about after the Irving meeting a little bit is um this idea of like can we sort of map out the existing Communications Pathways and figure out where things just don't exist like there are all these important conversations that ought to be happening this kind of Engagement that we're getting now around um crises that we ought to figure out how to do in a more um kind of routine way and in a way that we can one both sort of co-create solutions but to just not let stuff Fester so much before um it gets addressed and so um I think a lot of the specific issues like some of them are technical

182I think we can I don't think the cell phone thing should take has a long time to solve that's my opinion maybe I'm just naive about it some of them I think are more challenging but I do think that for the more challenging ones like if we don't figure out the communication structures first like we're just we're not going to make the progress that we need to make and I think we could talk at nauseum tonight about how we understand the the discipline issues ETC but I do think we need to figure out how to have sustained engagement and I know that's it's a priority for us to try to figure out how to do that more effectively just seg weighing off of that I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you

183to Dr Shaw on this because there's a real opportunity with something like this to just build a wall and just say we're the admin this is how we're doing this we're not going to talk to anybody because it's sometimes the easier solution but it never works and I appreciate that you have recognized like your reaction to the last meeting was to be out in the schools was to increase communication and increase talking to people because there are going to be hard convers ation I mean the points that sh and Jung both brought up and Holly as well like those are conversations that have to be had and they're hard they're not easy conversations and if we're going to be making any changes to all these data that we keep bringing up again and again we

184still have an opportunity gab we still have students who aren't being represented and listened to or who don't feel like they belong these conversations have to happen and I appreciate that even though they are hard and even though they can get heated that the reaction is to actually say we need more conversations we need to bring students in we need to identify the spaces where teachers have a space to come in and talk to make sure that all teachers know about that you know building leadership teams bringing I mean there's you've mentioned tonight several spaces where teachers are brought in last week right after everybody left we had a lovely presentation on literacy with 40 teachers working together with admin on a component so making sure that we're all aware of these spaces where communication

185is happening and as Gavin just mentioned mapping it out so that people understand where that is I really because I really appreciate that that is the direction we're taking this and I think it is so critical to actually making the district a better space for our students so thank you and I want to say real quickly Dr sha I appreciate what you how you were welcoming us to meet again and and Tackle you know because I heard a lot about what's going on a lot of negative stuff they may not like the way that it was expressed but it's a reality so we're here to say hey this is a reality we I I've been in over for two years I love my community I and I want my children all of our children to

186enjoy their educational experience so we do need to talk I need to find out the day all the dates that you're going to be meeting cuz I want to be there thank you thank you um are we moving to celebrations now can I make a oh yeah I'm sorry go right ahead so there's a lot of communication that needs to happen this is not the best Forum because we talk each other you talk at us for public comment and there's a lot of really valuable information particularly last week and this week and I take notes but then we talk at you and so that isn't collaborative and it it doesn't allow for a dialogue we don't have to agree there's a lot of passion and I appreciate the passion I don't appreciate the rudess we're

187asking kids to self-regulate and there are some adults in the the room who were not doing that if you don't like what Dr sha says at the begin beginning of her presentation you may stand up and walk out that is your right as a human being in this country but to interrupt her con her presentation was not okay to rudely hand your paper to L was also not okay so we have to lead by example about how we're going to behave model that behavior for our students and if I'm speaking to you I'm speaking to you if I'm not speaking to you I'm not speaking to you you know who you are so Dr sha so back to the communication piece somebody mentioned a parent teacher committee that I'm unfamiliar with and if it needs

188if it could be resurrected parent teacher committee someone I don't know someone mentioned a97 website there's three committees one is facilities related one is a different one and then the parent teach the parent one there's no membership on it the other two have membership we have a we have a p yeah but that is our regular meeting potentially anyway that committee I don't know what it's called and then I know you you engage Ed Council for um it was in your presentation for e-learning thank you e-learning but and it was mentioned at at the Irving meeting let's engage Ed Council different L than we than we have and and that's an potential Avenue for for this dialogue it's really important the cell phone issue I have two students at D200 one just graduated they have

189the phone home and it has a number on it and you walk in the classroom and you put your phone in if we adopt something similar then it's pretty easy for our d97 students to transition to D200 because they already are used to the cell phone policy that's just one idea but I I completely understand the impact of those cell phones and it make and it's your ability to teach their ability to have um their attention bans and also the safety issue especially when you can schedule a fight which wow okay like we couldn't do that you either there for the fight or you um I loved we talk about peer data all the time I appreciated you is Kate still here you give me and I like that you put it in a CFT

190or a bar you help me do that I'm not capable of that it's fantastic because that's hardcore information perhaps that's why our students are performing the way that we want them to there's a lot of things that we need to fix but perhaps reading minutes is one of those things we can fix I want to see how we compare to math minutes I think that's really interesting and maybe we're getting at the core of an issue but I like that you brought it up you sparked your conversation that's collaboration it was done really really well you you weren't yelling at us um we weren't yelling at you like we can have these to conversations these dialogues and even with passion but we got to be respectful of our of our leadership of each other that's

191just we can't expect our kids to do it if we're not to I'm going to stop lecturing about that um something else the other thing I think we all need to be aware of is the level of misinformation that comes out the custodial thing I was like where's where's that coming from I don't know anything about that and granted just because we're on the board does not mean information comes to us and drugs it does not um but there were a few comments last week a few comments this week that were just complete misinformation but the more dialogue we have the less of the opportunity for that to happen so I really do similar to Jung I have a little bit of time off and I welcome to have coffee with folks I want to

192hear your perspectives I want to come to Solutions because I think we all in this room care about our students and we all work really hard and we all respect one another's professions and as I love teachers JN I'll explain to you what that means but but I appreciate what you guys do I think we need to do it differently because our kids aren't where we want them to be um and I'm done because I don't remember what else I Wasing um whatever question I did have a few more questions after shot but I can't remember them right now I WR down so I'll put them in an email y problem [Applause] thanks are there people here they're not oh okay all right um so what is that you okay okay all right um hey

193we wanted to do some celebration um um we got a lot to celebrate and some of the people we're celebrating are even in the room so um these are our celebrations um first of all uh you know we had um staff appreciation week we had a lot of joy around the district our pto's principles coming together to really uh celebrate staff we also had um uh yeah a positive comings together and recognition of all of our employees we have Team culture funds for the first time this year where each principal as well as central office uses those funds um to build an inclusive culture and so um there were a lot of pictures of joy around the district um also we have annual recognitions that happen this time of year so these are three uh

194areas um you want to talk about so first of all I think we have aretta is in the [Applause] room so it is Christine is in the room [Music] Dr and so these are um d97 staff members who were recognized for um with those who Excel award so we're really excited and um congratulate each of them for this accomplishment we also have new national board teachers so take a look at this list there's two lists here um on the left are new national board teachers that have just joined the ranks of that recognition and then in order to um continue the certification national board teachers need to undergo a proc process a rigorous renewal process and so here's our list and so we want to congratulate uh them for continuing that that celebration congratulations and

195then um oh we had um this whole room looked a little different a few hours ago we had balloons and celebration um you know banners and all of these tables were covered with tablecloth and shiny things um and here's who we were um celebrating we had a a retirement reception here and I want to acknowledge L uh also for her uh getting that going as well as the team that worked with her um so let me see if I can get this video going oh Michael okay that's keep on doing what Michael does take a look at this uh few minutes video [Music] not seven [Music] for [Music] two years thank you to our return like to acknowledge uh our Dynamic um uh Amanda Sig freed and Rebecca B for putting that together thanks to

196[Applause] them Amanda likes it when we clap for her um okay so for those scoring at home we are shifting the agenda around a little bit um are we doing the township of Park you Services I Ral next okay come on up I'm GNA actually um yes come on up yeah thank you for waiting patiently welcome if you'd like to introduce yourself welcome you uh to to present about the the thank you I'm Megan trapano I'm the director of Youth and Family Services for Oak Park Township this is Laura de hi I'm the youth program manager for o Park Township and we apologize Dominique Hickman our assistant director is home with a sick child so she cannot make it tonight o we didn't give you all the tools you needed and we'll be very quickly

197we'll be very quick I promise so I just wanted to give a brief history of the youth engagement program it formerly known as youth interventionist program uh we changed the name to youth engagement program based on feedback from our Community Partners the kids and families we were working with um it started um to address youth gang involvement in the early '90s um um and substance abuse and violence in the communities that's what was going on in the communities in the early 90s um we shifted focus in 2019 um to become more focused on youth mental health because that was the needs of the community then um so we hired all Master's level social workers and I provided all clinical supervision to that program so people could get their license uh clinical social work um we

198changed the youth engagement program to be more in sync with the services we currently provide which is free mental health counseling to youth in the communities so for you teachers in the room um my staff are in the schools with you guys every single day during the school year we're at the schools at District 97 and at District 200 um our current staff are Laura who's also an LCSW and she's also been with us since 2019 her working her way up to program manager we have Sophia Fernandez she's an MSW um she's waiting on state approval to take her licensing exam which is wonderful she's also bilingual um this year in one day we received 22 referrals just from District 97 for kids who needed bilingual services so um she's the only free bilingual therapist

199in this community I just want to stress that for anybody and she only sees kids so she's been very busy we also have Marty arada um who's also a master's level social worker and she has six months left of her clinical supervision left before she can take her test and we also take um advanc standing or second year mssw interance as well to our program every year so these are the people that you guys will have working with your kids um we uh our fiscal year is different than the school calendar year so it starts April 1st so from April 1st 2023 till March 31st 2024 these were our annual statistics we had 95 total unique youth clients that's 95 kids who were seen during that year 58 of those 95 kids were District 97

200students we had 104 total referrals as you can see that most of them were for uh crisis and Trauma anxiety and depression behavioral issues and then mentoring it's just a small section of our program that's for kids who don't need the individual mental health counseling um that's an 8 to 12E curriculum that focuses on Executive functioning skills life skills communication skills advocacy we had 40 total discharges um most of our youth met their goals in our program which is great that means they were successfully discharged and of course we had kids who referred out because they needed more intensive Services we of course had kids or parents who refuse Services um and or moved out of the area and unfortunately we did have one student who uh was deceased this year Laura is going to

201kind of go over what um as of May 21st what our current District 97 case so currently we have 48 uh youth on our case load obviously it's towards the end of the year so we have a lot of our youth that are kind of finishing up they're meeting their goals and maybe ending services for the summer but we do continue to see youth all year round um So currently we have 48 total youth on our case load 30 of those are district 97 youth um that is like the school breakdown so again we have eight at Brooks 10 at Julian one at hatch two students at holes seven at Irving one at man and one at odier um but we work with all district 97 um schools and we currently have six um pending

202referrals for district 97s students that is just kind of waiting the intake process um starting services pretty soon um this summer and for those pendy referrals again those are three of them are for crisis and Trauma um one of them is for anxiety and depression and two of them are for mentoring which again is just more of some added support um not necessarily mental health support but just added um guidance whether it's you know problem solving executive functioning decision- making and just having someone kind of check in with them um we also do other work with District 97 outside of the individual Mental Health Services we provide for kids um so we're at all the yearly back to school nights at Julian and Brooks middle schools every single year um our actually our whole department

203is there because as somebody mentioned girls in the rise side also is in the youth and the family services department that team is there as well um we attend at least one to four uh District 97 staff collaboration meetings per year that's outside of the normal collaborations so we are constantly talking to prin building principles School social workers the Student Success coaches the aps um about kids uh daily um but we also have also big staff meetings as well a couple of times a year meeting with the different teams um as needed in the schools as well um we also um this IG also covers the other Taxi bodies in Oak Park and River Forest so we also meet with the park district in the Oak Park Public Library around issues that involve Middle School

204youth so kids who are going to the libraries or to the parks after school maybe sometimes they're displaying inappropriate behaviors um and we collaborate with um those taxing bodies on ways to address the behavior and how we can all work together making sure we're on the same page heard a lot about communication always key making sure that all the taxi bodies are communicating together and addressing the issues in the same way and using shared language is very important that's all had to keep it quick nice any questions what are just for our list public what are the Avenues with which students get referred to in the first place so anyone can refer a students so our referral form is on our website but a lot of our students are referred through the School's staff um

205we have great Report with a lot of the school staff the social work team Student Success team the administration um and teachers as well so um all they need is just to refer um is just our referral form and if they don't have that they can just contact us we can send that or even do it over the phone so once we get the form is pretty basic it's just you know looking I kind of identifying a primary concern whether it's an anxiety depression crisis or trauma behavioral issues ETC and then um just the school information the parents information and then just the reason for referral but we also take Anonymous referral so if there's anyone who doesn't necessarily feel comfortable saying that they are referring we can um take that appropriately and you know

206contact the families just to address concerns and we provide support we needed you mentioned that one of the people on your team was the only free bilingual therapist are all the services free yes and do you have to is there I I just don't I feel like I should know this but is there a financial criteria then to qualify no and seeing these students you're doing this out after school no everything so during the school day and after school so primarily out of our staff when they're in District 97 meeting during the lunch periods ADV time store time um and then our offices after school we also were able to go into the homes as well so we really try and make it accessible we're going to the libraries you know different places in the

207community so was we want to bring the services to them so parents don't have to worry about Transportation or any of them those issues thank you can I ask a question do you guys have the staff and numbers available to support however many requests come your way right so right now you're saying I don't remember what the stat is it's x amount of people you can take in anybody that is recommended to you or do you guys get to a point where you don't have the Staffing to handle this I'm just saying because like mental health health services in general are very hard to find you know you'll reach out to people we don't have opening in our case load and things like that is that something that happens because it seems like you guys

208are part of the solution potentially but if if teachers don't know about it or if there's a a maximum capacity I guess that's just what I'm sitting here as a parent wondering seems like this is something I've never even heard of and it sounds amazing um help everybody that needs help what a great idea that would be we do ages kindergarten through senior year of high school so that helps it's only youth Focus um and there is no weight list uh yeah that's what I was CU yeah and um because our the goal is to be shortterm obviously we have youth who stay with us for a couple of years but the goal is to really be shortterm um and if we're identifying right away that a child or family has more significant needs um

209then we are working we are doing the work in by we I mean them they uh they're working with the family to identify the appropriate steps and getting them to the right place so basically like doing more than just a warm handoff like making those calls for the family finding out what the weightless are doing we actually do um weightless uh supplements so if like a child is on the weight list that thrive for a couple of months we can meet with them in the interim and then we transition them to thrive when their spot opens up so that's part of our program and our services that we do too and we would do that for any like private practice or anything like that we always want to have the families knowwhere to go so

210we want to be able to be that middle ground if our services aren't appropriate we're going to help you find that thaten that's teachers and administrators know about this yes and you said you had 10 counselors at Julian no but there's only three of them there's only three of them there's only three of them and they're licensed yep yes so they're uh social workers yes and you had three so no can I encourage folks to reach out to them if they have questions about the program yeah thank you it's it's okay um any other questions okay thank you both for coming thanks for staying right so um okay so next we're going to do the consent agenda I Board of Education approved the consent agenda as presented second that's you Nancy sorry I'm so sorry

211what was the we're voting onent agenda sorry yes thank you yes ABS Spock yes Kim yes Johnson yes more yes motion pass great and then we're going to go to 7.2.1 school year 25 Opa stien teacher leadership roles committee recommendation yeah and so I'm going to invite up uh Patrick Robinson and uh Luis Delon Natasha Campbell tomov and uh we have two Opa members that also serve on the rolles committee but I don't think they're here today um so team will be presenting on behalf of the groups so uh the board saw this presentation but this is when the power went out um last time and the screens went up and so and there's just some additional information based on questions that have been asked so go ahead and get started here first we get

212make sure Patrick has a chair I can just stand all right and there's a Clipper for you right there all right so um so ditto from last time the teacher s and rolls and Dr Shaw the big idea yep the big idea is that we we do have some additions based on last or questions last time okay do again and so in addition to the three of us we also had two um Opa members and so we had Gabby and Fernando that worked with us as we went through the changes and additions to um last year's teacher leader roles so so we're going to go through the agenda pretty quickly but pretty much identifying and reviewing um the the additions and emphasizing the questions um from last week so in regard to our transformational goals

213the school-based teams will work collaboratively using the logic models to demonstrate how effective instructional practices come together using the following Concepts the Danielson framework for teaching the culturally responsive teaching and leading standards Universal Design for Learning Competency Based education and um Collective teacher efficacy the transformation Theory guiding these efforts is that if we can um change adult practices to support Student Success in our current focal student cohort we will meet short medium and long-term outcomes for all students with that in mind we really want wanted to focus on this particular goal um with these purposes so for here we want to um these roles are really geared to there were lots of questions when we were talking about the um initial additional positions or the change in positions that we had rolled out is how

214are these um positions one going to help with the supporting the teachers but then also um how are they going to help with um helping with student achievement so we really wanted to um emphasize the teacher support pieces and I wanted to point out the professional growth and Leadership Pathways that was a really big piece um probably about um I want to say like sixish years ago um and there were there's a lot of research put behind it and um we had developed a lot of information behind it there was a presentation given to the board about the professional growth leadership pathway so we kind of pulled some of that out and wanted to make sure that we really brought that back to the Forefront and then some more additional information about the student achievement

215and how these leadership um pieces would um address the student achievement piece so um additionally we've been talking a lot about just making sure that we could demonstrate how the impact would be measured and so this year we added this piece about visible work products that the teacher leaders would produce we also didn't we also wanted to make sure that we were not asking the teacher leaders to produce um busy work or add anything additional that they weren't already doing so these visible work products um are things that they are already doing once they're in these roles so we provided examples um so they could be anything from their instructional coaching Cycles to agendas to um support plans that they're creating so things that they're doing in the work um related to their roles that

216they take on and then they would produce them at each trimester for their supervisor their principal um whoever they're working collaboratively with in these spaces and so those would be part of their um quote unquote evaluation um to demonstrate how they're being impactful in that role questions about this piece okay thank you so one of the pieces that we added to the presentation well this was just the purpose of the teacher um leadership roles committee for us to come together really just to talk about and develop the roles description for each of the positions to really create how the application process and timeline in which we'll go over at the end of the presentation to talk about how um the schools will monitor the impact that Sasha just got done talk talking about and then

217really kind of making a recommendation around how we are making sure that these roles um are staggered and that we don't have the same individuals year after year serving in these roles and that we have access across the board for new teachers to kind of serve into these roles so something new that we added for um tonight is really just kind of giving a breakdown of the roles and changes that were made this year compared to last year and so over the next few slides I will take the time to kind of break that down so for this year um the roles that are staying the same there are 15 teacher leadership roles that are remaining the same so in the First Column these are the list of the roles that are remaining the same

218the middle column are just the list of the individuals and the number of individuals serving in that role Ro and then the um the stien amount for that role so for example the very first one the prek to EC to fifth grade um Team lead that's your building leadership team so across the elementary school team there are 51 Opa individuals serving in that position and for serving in that leadership role they received 4500 um in the stien for that year and so these 15 position I are remaining the same across the board and we've created visual um visible work products that each of these individuals serving in these roles will have to submit to show their impact on that position so when we talk about things that are changing for this year there are six

219roles that we have changed so the first three are things that we have modified the bottom three are new um roles that we've created this year and so I can explain the first one um Louise is going to spend more time explaining some of the Transitions and shifts that have been made in the Middle School to some of those roles for the Middle School um last year there were two um mtssb teams that were doing separate works and so instead of having them doing separate things we decided to bring those teams together and having them actually work together but then bringing that team together and having them also work with the building leadership team so instead of having things happen in isolation throughout the building power teams talking to one another in the building and

220so that's one of the changes with the first one so taking two teams and then actually combining that team together so they're actually doing the same work but also they're taking a time to connect with the building leadership team to talk about the schoolwide data regarding um culture and climate and actually get feedback from bu um from the grade level teams and talk about next steps um and then at the bottom um Dr de Dr Delon will talk about the uh Middle School Transitions and then the bottom three we have the instructional coach League that person will be responsible for kind of guiding the team of instructional coaches throughout the district and then we have the Middle School udl um teacher lead and then the portrait Early Learning engagement leadership uh teacher lead there's one

221individual from each of the building and that team will be led by Dr Lon and Amanda um um for next year is the instructional coach team lead also an instructional coach yes um yes so and so okay going I'm sorry so that you want more explanation about that role well just because this is this is the first slide I think that's different right that's selling us new information so no I don't I just had a question because um I would imagine going to the 10 schools and doing your full-time job the the travel time I was a little concerned about for the instructional lead yeah if you're the lead and you're a full-time coach and it's tough to drive like so they're not going to driving around to them um to the school so their

222role is to kind of they have their monthly or their weekly monthly team meetings this person is responsible for the creation of the team agendas this person is also the liazon between the team and also core instruction so it's kind of like if you think of the department lead it's the chair right it's the chair for that team okay thank you any other questions before I pass it on so and then all together I'm sorry sorry sorry there's just one udl leader for both middle schools yes okay well that's what we me uh the middle school udl teacher leader Sun new position as you heard today uh they saw gaps regarding about really going into developing like finding out the ways that we can be more cohesive in our in some areas such as the

223advisory areas some of the pieces so this will be a great position to set up for that thinking about systems between both middle schools so this individual definitely is going to be supporting uh the middle schools like systems in the sense of really the development of with the teams alongside with the teams so is that person going between the Middle Schools yes we want to be like after after after hours it's not what it's not it's not in the day this is like a it's going above and beyond right so they're going to be a teacher and then they're going to have this leadership role that is going to be after hour this this uh this meetings that they happen uh before school and after school okay uh between teams and this individual also will

224be supporting uh and pushing in as a chair to support the development of systems within the teams okay and with that and then the next slide just talks about all together there are 21 roles 28 individuals serving in the role and then the total amount for the stiens for sy25 how does that compare to sy24 um I believe it's a little bit lower thought we were in the same bar I just wanted it's it's in the same barall I think it's a little bit over I think it's like I think it's like 7,000 over I stand correct yeah almost didn't say anything kind of debated thank you no problem any other questions oh wait do you have more slides yes so we done about yeah no I saw the total number and I was like

225done so this is actually thean like system that we have this year about all these committees or teachers stiens and roles that they actually currently in our in our system so as you can see uh uh there's a lot of really great work happening a really focus group a focus group happening with it and that way that can be very complex sometimes because then how do you bring that that idea as was mentioning earlier about the the centralized work to the to the distributed where you know how how you support that operational like connection to make sure that we are aligning aligning the work so has some Synergy of the work that happen how do we align to that so that's one of the pieces that that we took as a task as we work

226with the committee and then also uh we were able to come up with an idea and really clustering integrating some of these ones into have a more clear and Collective work to make sure that that we have that momentum and that Synergy in our middle schools so we went from having all these all these roles to have like uh these uh two big pieces major pieces so this one right here uh I want to exe exemplify the idea of having the opportunity for the Department Department Department leads Department chairs who are the people representing the department the content the experts that they work with the teachers uh in making those decisions about curriculum about that tier one level instruction and quality of instruction and then we had before like another group working the SE the

227school Improvement plan so that by bringing them together and actually working together and having that opportunity where these apartment chairs actually are able to Fed into the development of the laric model School Improvement plan it makes sense you know in the idea of really that's part of the leadership working together um as you can see as well right here we have uh Brooks Julian and the Departments also working together as a whole group Middle School System supporting each other they meet monthly as department and department meetings across both middle schools and they talk about instruction about those learning experiences for those students so we the opportunity even about going taking the step into um really grasping the how is my my contribution to the school Improvement plan my laric model and how do we have

228tojust along the way having that opportunity to really work within that part of of of the structure I think we see that as a benefit and that we are going to try this next schol year so then with that we also we have that opportunity in our systems where there are in our in our um in our grade levels in our grade levels we have uh uh teacher collaboration where they get together as a great level teams and they talk as well about that tier one instruction as a team about what kind of strategies you using in your math content in your science content across subjects and then we making the decisions about learning from each other collectively about what things are working for for students and what things might not be working that we

229need to probably solve as as a tier one level and we have the opportunity as well as a as a team as well to see okay when things are not working at tier one level what some of the problem solving that we can do as a tier two or a tier three level so it's a more comprehensive team coming together really actually is an opportunity as well to bring the mtssa that we call mtssa for academic and mtssb for Behavior this is all together why because we want to see the child as a whole um because what is the function of that that behavior of that outcome is that behavior or is that academic and that where we need to uh to engage with each other as as a group try to figure out what

230some of the moves that we need to do to improve those learning experiences for the students so as a full system you can see this is all together we have uh all our middle schools together uh working together that consistency and then we have the opportunity of the udl director alongside with the udl uh stien uh position that we talk about supporting the development in into our systems in each Middle School but also in the leadership uh process that happens in in the middle school so we're looking not only about uh engaging with each other and really developing but also we're thinking about how we can operate this in an efficient way where we can support each other's work and be actually everybody poined to the same nth to the same point and how do

231we work together to achieve that to to Che the work that that we want and the outcomes that we're looking for um and then with that I just uh bring it back forward the timeline about where we are right now in the process uh pending to to your decision about about this proposal and if that were to move forward the uh the position will be posted and there is an application period that we have principles make the completion of the of the role selections of the staff that participates and then with that they finalize the roles and the future goals are communicated to staff members as part of our process that we do every year um thank you and open for questions now you're done I have some questions so this is some new information

232that we had had a chance to process um so I'm curious we've been hearing tonight a lot about um the need for a third AP in the middle schools you've been hearing a little bit about discipline so um is is that a discussion that's going to be had are those positions going to be added um and then also it feels like to not have reviewed the logic models for hatch Holmes or Whittier um and then to make this proposal just seems a little like we're putting a cart before the horce um because I would love to see some Collective data to say like this is what we heard from the logic models but we're missing three of eight elementary schools yep um those three schools you're right uh we're going to present tonight in fact

233uh at this point they're we're going to probably have to move them to June 11th and so uh Sheree I think that makes a lot of sense what you said we will time it out differently next year this is also like as late as we can go because these positions need to be posted by tomorrow so that teachers can apply and that process can happen um before the end of the school year so the truth is that uh all of the timing is a little bit too late um what we can make sure happens next year is that those logic model presentations happen before you need to take action on the teacher leader roles and we can also I I don't know that you know we can also be deliberate to map backwards here's what

234you heard from the logic models and here's how the teacher leader roles are mapping back to that I think broadly we can say that they do right now and and Louise Patrick Natasha jump in because we're talking about school Improvement broadly but I do think your point is really well taken there may be opportunities to be more differentiated even in these teacher leader roles um than is currently the case I I will say that one of the things I liked about it is that it does create discussion in cross pollination across schools and I would be worried that if we differentiate too much that it's we're going to lose the collective discussion around that so take that for whatever it's worth obviously it's not my choice to make but one of the things I appreciated

235about this versus some of the past iterations of it is that there does seem to be sort of a one I mean I appreciated the collaborative process that went into developing the system but it all also did seem to be clearly connected to what we were doing at the school level Broad Le felt less um kind of episodic in some ways if that's the right word but anyway you had more questions go ahead no that's my only question just like are we going to address the third AP that people have been talking about and the someone to handle disci I think that's some longer term conversation about whether that's what we need well those are salary position job so what I appreciate is and I'm jumping in here anybody I remember this discussion a year

236ago was it a year ago two years ago where we had this oh okay we had the teacher we had the discussion about teacher stiens and it was this is what we've always done so this is what we're going to do and it's a significant amount of money and we didn't necessarily know what those roles were what the outcomes were what impact they were having that has been clearly defined there are roles there are outcomes and expectations and I appreciate you guys um for staying along that path because those even though it it seems small now because we're used to it but those are the things that are going to help get us where we need to be so thank you thank you for the the sharp questions too and the sharper ones that were

237still to come any other questions or comments go ahead oh no I was going to move I was ready all right I'm I'm ready for you to Mo I was ready that was me say I move that board of education approve the is it coming anyway the I thought it Wasing there the S positions as presented um on May 14th um and may 2th the read Elementary School District 97 mooved to approve the sy25 OPA leadership roles committee recommendation the amount of $637,000 $637,500 second Johnson yes yes yes yesy yes all right we're going to do 7.2.2 next memorandum of understanding with service employees International Union SEIU time and attendance so this is uh anou uh as we prepare for um the electronic time sheets and timekeeping process and so uh Dr Sheila Johnson has

238worked with the SEIU on this and uh she and John palman are available to answer any questions that the board might have or they could just kind of do a laugh and go right questions no questions okay thank you didn't feel good at stretch I want got to get those steps in I moved that the Board of Education of Oak Park Elementary School District 97 moves to approve Thea agreement with seu for purposes of time second yes yes all right um discussion item 8.1.1 out of school time update that's right um on the board chart you saw the Community Learning and entrepreneurial entrepreneurialism so Dr ebony is coming up as our chief learning Innovation officer to present uh an out of school time update here's the clicker okay good evening um so really excited to

239give um it will be a quick out of school time program yes so again I just shared it when she was coming up that this is the idea that we also need to start to build out how we extend the reach of the school um district and so you're going to see some great things happening in that space um so it is just me tonight and I wanted to know for those who are not here um but are clearly represented have a huge thank you to all our club music program sponsors our cast and Bravo teams and coaches and coordinators District leaders Our Community Partners who are key in all this work school and District level administrative admin um support our data analytics Guru Anna who helped me with the data our Communications team who

240gets the word about out about all these wonderful things our ptos who are great partners and most of all our student athletes musicians dancers Club participants innovators and their families who support their participation and this is just a picture of the newly formed Double Dash club which will get to you in just a moment um so I plan to talk to you quickly tonight about four big ideas or buckets in that fulltime space so clubs activities and just music programs sponsored by the district field trips our Early Child collaboration and um our Community Partnerships so just some fun facts about our now um that picture at the top is actually the lunch trays um which is completely student Le and obviously supported to by an adult but I really believe that they are going to

241save the world and so excited to be in their space for just a moment but we have 14 districts afforded extracurricular club sports and music programs across the district and they are present in every school so every school has at least one and of that 114 um over 1500 kids um our students are participating in a club music program for sport I also wanted to just highlight of our new plug um so what you'll see again you just saw um the ladies or our students um completing the double dutch that's new at holes this year um in the middle new to Julian this year um is the black Su Union and they actually single-handedly um supported and put on the February black history month program so that is them and then lastly the word ofier

242wild cat wild cat dance team just had their first performance um last week but I also want to highlight all the rest of our other clubs again the lunch Chase newspaper club and we have a Star Wars Social Club so you get a photo of the Star Wars Social Club that's my what is the lunch TR what is the lunch Trad the world is said yes um so they um a student as she's in eth grade now really saw an issue with around issues of sustainability um they started with just kind of wanting to make a better lunch um I think in the middle schools but have also now moved on to these really kind of cool things around how do we compost and and how do we take those great lessons we learned from

243bu to make sure that we're actually think thinking about um how to recycle and be really clear about three of them actually presented at the board last year they were the ones who had done like a student project around like more locally sourced like healthy food options for the district I the lunch Tri they I think that came after that but they've continued to meet and and talk about we're actually meeting with them tomorrow um propose different and better food I think there's a broad consensus around that but yes that was part of their approach and they've also done a great job of session planning so even though the leaders are in e8th grade they have sixth graders who are coming up the pipeline to make sure that again um so what was really interesting

244to I think to all of us is making sure that um as we're thinking about Club participation that our demographics kind of live and breathe in that club space and what we're finding is overall in terms of Club participants that um they do mirror our gender demographics and also our raal ethnic demographics um where we're slightly less likely to um kind of hit the mark with that the students of the aups our English Learners and those students eligible for free and reduced lunch so that's our area of opportunity um as we move forward into next year um so kind of for our next is how can we continue to Cent our student leadership in out a school time program I think our sponsors do a wonderful job and making sure this to this lead um

245also helping we align our extracurricular programming to the portrait and then um how can we continue to streamline processes to privilege um the promises of our Equity policy and make sure that we're thinking about all those spes field trips um so this year we held 260 um off-campus learning experiences better known as field triops um as of the time that I finished this which was about a week ago um of those four were out of state field trips um and then just wanted to talk about DC a little bit because I know we've had conversation about that so I wanted to Circle back um now that we've completed the DC trip we found out that 55% of the students um in the e8th grade class across Jan of BRS actually participated um of that 55%

246this end this is an actual number 62 students were supported um in alignment with our board ecy policy 624 um so um the district spons to the e8th grade fill Tri Wasington for this is only the second year in the row previously had been um kind of move through the process privately and we wanted to also look at kind of the demographics here um so what you'll see is actual numbers so the yellow bar which should be actually darker than that sorry about that is the eighth grade class so total number of students in the eighth grade class and this is race and ethnicity data and then those number total number of students who went to DC um and what we noted was that even though kind of um the demographic participation was pretty close

247to what would typically happen we still have 45% of our students who did not participate um at all and this also is shown here so again um we reduce lunch status we have again the district numbers in terms of eth grade class and then those who went um to Washington DC can you say what what is p oh they paid in paid lunch for their oh okay y so this is just free reduced L status so it's either free reduced or um got it okay and then um finally for IEP status and this is an area of opportunity um as well I'm confused are these raw numbers these are raw numbers so wouldn't it make more sense to have it be proportional so we we have those too I just have to unhide them um

248but we wanted to show I don't know if B if you can go I can maybe un hiide them really quickly yeah absolutely the percentage numbers like percentage Yeah the raw numbers don't really make any sense to me well we you know what we wanted to what what gets let's let's look at these and then we can tell you what we were thinking yeah that's okay I know the colors are hard to see on the projection thing yeah I didn't fix this yeah and then there's one more yeah so that's race ethnicity we can maybe make that one larger yeah so what you'll see is this is um of those who went on the trip the percentage of those students who um had free lunch status versus those who had paid and there are three

249different colors the darker one is those who went on washing to Washington DC the other one is the district percentage of students with three reduced lunch and finally the eighth grade class the percentage of students who um in the eighth grade class across and Julian present with three and reduced lunch so we've done it both ways and this kind of shows that in terms of CH participants we are pretty close to our district and e8th grade class demographics but in terms of the sheer number of students who went um again we have just that 55% of students who participated and I think we can go to there you go thanks race ethic City we'll see we're seeing about the same thing so again Washington DC it's kind that color is furthest to your um left

250than the district in the e8th grade class so these are your percentages um but the insize I think was important just to um just so you know in terms of number because showing it this way was masking the fact go to the I 45% that's what we were trying to do both but you're right you lose something the the R numbers are kind of like do we have any understanding of for the 45% of students that didn't go why they didn't go yep so we did do a survey um of both so I'll talk about that so um go back to it was too educational they did that's my my son heard it's jam-pack there's not enough downtime all right so that takes care of 0.004% no no no I think that's a common thre

251it was it's too educational too education it's not there's not they wanted a party atmosphere and it's kind of educational how about we hear what let's just go sorry I like my N1 data um so we did uh I always survey all those who went on the trip is a student um Family parents and also our staff and so in general we just had to read it from 1 to 5 and this is similar to the number that we saw last year in terms of um there is some satisfaction obviously some dissatisfaction but um for the most part we're seeing numbers in the fls time and how many people took the survey three oh sorry um I think there areund and some OD so not the total 300 one um and then I just pulled

252a couple of samples around what worked well so some like the group um the fact that it was organized the airport and travel um some like the food you'll see some also didn't like the food um because when we ask the same question um what could we do better um yeah there was food I think love that um just the roommate selection um they mentioned fun fundraising that the price was high that there's some communication things we need to work on so and to many activities not having to write down things a lot yeah that goes with so there is a lot going on that day or during the whole trip um and then we also asked um parents who didn't go what were the barriers um to a your child attending um the field

253trip in Washington DC and so the two biggest um responses we got were around the trip being too expensive and then that my child was just not interested in the the trip or the itinerary what what are the two there were concerns you know what the the rest of those sentences is that there were conern were concerns with oh these are just when people had in I can give you that that's just when people were able to um answer individual questions but I can get that to you okay and so just things that we're thinking about in terms of next is there a way because I think the trip expense at um the $1700 to think about like locations that are reasonbly accessible ourr Transportation um given that the wasn't a choice of the student

254deserve way we can offer some student Choice was in agency but maybe having classes vote and also just giving families more time to think through um how to you know prepare for the trip um I know that we've got the it's on Deck to do it in the fall and that's kind of already ship has sailed or no no it has not yet okay so when would you I just just talk thinking about your timeline when does that need to be decided soon next year okay all right just looking at that time May nervous so I think we just needed to I was trying to for the calendar to for sure shake out um and so that would be kind of our trigger but I do want to this summer go ahead and and we've

255already started PR we already talked about what this could look like with our building principles um and so they they've both weighed in along with the folks who are on the trip leads and Co leads um so we're thinking about it but just want to make sure we have that and all so we can make sure that we're minimizing the amount of instructional time that is lost perhaps given that trip but we want to make sure we get the calendar um oh can I can I ask sorry do how much did it cost the district this year about $89,000 um based on the 62 students but that's not including we had about 36 chaperon um that we but we always have chaperon that were like mostly District staff um just for safety reasons so and

256we paid for them yes so teachers get paid $150 per night and then um our TA staff and then we pay like their air travel and yeah so actually um clst pays for that okay so the 80 is the sorry were you saying the 89 is everything P scholarship yeah it's part of what we PA this the bulk of what we paid in terms of direct student scholarship and Al wanted to acknowledge the township because they also offered $300 per students to help defay the cost and and and all the PTO who did some great fundraising around this so we were not alone in supporting this cost um and but that is what the final so like roughly like 100,000 or 110 or yeah and do you have a sense of if we increased attendance

257to capture more of the free and reduced students like what that would take the price tag up to I think original price tag was like 220 60 and if all of the students that qualify for free and reduced lunch yeah we presented that back in the fall and I think that's right it was something around upwards of 200,000 okay has there been any more ongoing discussion about whether this is something want to continue to pursue like well that's what they were just saying yeah is that's the next discussion yeah but it sounds like we're going to kick going um actually no I think thinking about what other options there are is actually H was just ask me whether they had already committed to next year the answer is no but then I it sound but

258then it sounded like we were talking about scheduling so it sounded like we were tentatively already moving forward so I just want to clarification I mean idea driving is really interesting I think we talked about you said the idea of driving is interesting like like because you could go to something I mean I don't know you go to the underground you could go to Ohio for example right under go like that you can just add in multiple City stops it just changes the trip m it's not a I mean it's you know go I think you mentioned go to Detroit right like I mean go you know there's other cities that are close enough to drive I think the other oh I see what you mean instead of DC yes I'm with you I thought

259you meant the idea of driving to DC no no no the idea of changing the expense by changing to a city within five or six hour drives and taking advantage of all the things cities have to offer um I will say though that like DC has one of the reasons you pack it is because that's how you keep behavior in line right you you can't have a lot of downtime and have kids in a 300 kids right so I think the one of the reasons you pack it and people are like it was too busy I'm like well that is why it is successful because you can't have a lot of down time you got to keep everybody kind of going and and very tired right and it's hard to find a city where I

260think other another city that would could replicate the amount of things you need to be able to do it's almost like that's why I said Ohio you Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can you stop at the Underground Railroad there's like if you do a baseball game I don't know whatever you choose but you got to find a place that you can spend three days or two days or whatever and have plenty to do um and some you know whatever yeah I think that's right one of the things we learned is that um as we think about you kind of strategically using our funds for students that receive uh free and reduced lunch that or title one uh supports um if we use the dollars within the state of Illinois we can actually use those

261title one1 dollars to subsidize the students participation so that becomes can you do partial in illo I mean like for example we talk about sustainability you go to star rock right like or like go to a state park right and do some sort of outdoor we just heard about outdoor education kind of changing you go to a state park in the Illinois and then you leave the state and do something you get to use the title one on the state of Illinois Park oh I don't know about that we can find out we can find out so is is is the is the thinking that at some point in the near future you'll come back to us with like an idea for what you want to do in the coming school year absolutely so um

262we would say by the Fall um well that's yeah that's why I'm so so this conversation will continue at another Point okay yeah these are just kind of things that we're thinking about as back on the data um should probably GE to our youngest citizens um so we also just wanted to highlight um and this is a picture from um the BL kindergarden which is always a good time um that we've done some really great work at the collab um we did establish this year a new ad committee um with the focus on equal Early Learning outcomes which has been a great experience um just to connect with everyone one on the tri agency um more representation kind of thing through that together um we also that interesting number from our 2020 sentence cus there

263are 3,748 students or children um two IND students under the age of five in h Park um and there was one bom Cannon and that's a picture one very popular bom Cannon and if you go back I'll share a little tip on that picture that is all of our pto's uh that were in that picture last um and I do not recommend is that you yeah and ncy I'm just letting you know I do not recommend kneeling down in white pants like that was not a good idea it was a beautiful day yeah it was a great day a great PTO and principal um and teachers out there is awesome yes and so we want to continue to keep that momentum going about thinking about how we can continue to partner around our village Equity

264wide Equity goals Village Wide Equity goals um how we can start to refine those metrics um I think we have upcoming hopefully with a collab a deep dive or hackathon which will be tons of fun um with their data folks to Think Through what that means for earliest Learners um and then speaking to our teacher leadership role conversation a few minutes ago how can we really harness the power of those amazing teachers um in this space as we think about our port and finally um just wanted to highlight Our Community Partnerships all of them are not highlighted here there's so many and we are so blessed to have a great um community that really has an interest a vested interest in schools um but just wanted to highlight a couple of expansions that happened so

265we did have one new District spring break program um this year or District supported rather um and obviously at each school there are Community Partners so all schools have some sort of connection with one of our partners and there are four program expansions we we're going to talk about in just a few minutes um so just wanted to highlight a couple of this is actually not new um our Park District we partner with them to offer summer camp Partners summer camps um to students who receive PR reduc lunch so we're excited about that happening um o Park Ed Foundation um also went to the after school space and created a wonderful program um at by so excited about the work they're doing there Friday night place um actually sponsored the spring break Camp opportunity at

266Triton so had a great turnout there um and lots of excitement around that the township um that you just heard from the girls on The Rise program actually expanded to um elementary school so wer school had their first grills on the rise experience this year and will continue to expand hopefully yamba um is actually supporting in our student transition and youth leadership development goals around offering um summer programs for incoming sixth graders as well as incoming freshman I'm so excited about those programs this the first time that y has on a sum program um and focus on Transitions and that'll happen in July this is their um graduation from Brooks this year [Music] you guys round of appuse you guys and that's from our newest partner Chicago West Community Music Center that was the um

267history of the Blues presentation so they have done presentations at every Elementary School and also at the middle schools and it's either been the sounds of Brazil Europe mus and war hero the history of the Blues which is so important it's so connected to Chicago um and also the drums of the diaspora so really excited about old Partnerships and new um and the way that that's playing out in all of our schools and finally um thinking about our Community Partners in general we just want to make sure that we're thinking about supporting them as we develop learning experiences line to the portrait and thinking about what metrics that might mean program atic and we've also been able to partner with our stakeholders and Community Partners on a regular CES this year so I want to

268make sure that we continue that and finally I just want to end with a couple plugs so um on June 1st which is a Saturday um obviously but the just um finished with the Chicago West Community Music Center they are having a day of world music in schille park so hope everyone can come out and join 1 two three and then June 15th the juneth Freedom Day juneth celebration um with the village so I'm really excited about what's coming up any questions so one quick question on that just related to the juneth piece we've already mentioned D our village on the second is there a time frame for the board to participate in that it was in L's report it's 11 13 130 to there's two ships no no that was that was yeah so

269Dan our village yes we already have the times for that I was wondering they mentioned earlier tonight juneth so I was just wondering if there was just so we can kind of get it on our calendars if there's not so I don't know that they for um for participation I thought they mentioned that but that feel free to tell us yep so we just signed up for a booth last week and so uh we can follow up and find out what the times are and send out another uh sign up so we can include that in the weekly any other questions thank you thank you all right uh next we have .2 press plus issue 113 policy updates all right so we have uh L boo coming up director superintendent's office who's going to present

270this de [Applause] okay so um as most of you may know um quarterly we come forward with uh press plus updates tonight we're going to have a a highlight overview first read for uh press plus policy 113 so the big idea here is if want make sure that uh we get this meeting done before midnight absolutely I blowing so uh yeah tonight um some of the people who are uh supported here tonight in this process but it is also representative of all of our senior leaders across the district as they all review this they look a little unsure about so tonight just hang out there we're gonna briefly go over uh the process for review and adoption um the categories tonight that we're going to um highlight and um just some notes on changes that

271um will be reflected in language uh um updates that are coming forward and then next steps so as far as the timeline is concerned um quarterly we receive from iasb press plus um our policy service provider uh suggested updates um for our school district they um support us in maintaining our policy manual and as part of that process um once that information is received um I in the administrative team unpack these suggested updates and we vet these um in comparison to what our current language is um aligned with um our Illinois school code and also the direction that the district is taking so then that information is shared with our policy committee which consists of uh two board members uh board members Spurlock and board member Verns and they review this for the input um

272and review that our administrative team provides once this happens uh we come to a public reading or a highlighted update to the board an open session to let you know um where we are related to the changes for uh pending changes to our language in our policies and then ultimately uh we come forward at a subsequent meeting for Action so tonight to quickly summarize there were a total of 29 updates in our issue 113 those are broken down into two subcategories one where there is minor language and legal citation changes these typically happen quite often as school code changes and uh legal citations for uh policy references change those updates come forward to us in a courtly basis also for some of our uh highlighted changes tonight um some of those are some policy uh

273new language ads and rereads of what our uh original policies had so for purposes tonight um policy 460 purchases and contracts um there are a few updates here that will be different um from what our current policy looks like some of those updates include response to Illinois school code around design Bill contracts that must comply with uh the Illinois state code also any new contracts for the district administered assessments must comply with said school code in accordance with this school code employees with direct contact must have completed an employee history review um this is a slightly scaled back process from our criminal history review but any contractor on our site that could potentially be in proximity of our students would need to go through um a EHR review um and also um different in this

274policy moving forward all contracts for supplies materials and works purchased are subjected of course to competitive bid um but this ceiling has been increased by 10K um originally in our current policy it states 25k for bid uh now now uh we are looking to adopt language that increases this to 35 so for policy 530 hiring process and criteria this mimics some of the information that I just shared around the contractor of responsibilities that we have for employment history review um so the board president will keep uh any conviction records confidential only share with the superintendent what does that what does that mean exactly so that means when we do a CU I don't have any of those records that is true they are housed in HR but you have access to them Gavin even if

275you don't know you do um so um again as part of our hiring criteria we do an extensive background check um this also includes this employment history review um and and we just also talk about natas you will talk about the second yes so the employment history review is the faith law that came out um last year in regard to um B uh grooming is basically what it's about and so really what these are really doing is kind of clarifying um that it's not necessarily just direct contact it can be proximity um and so the previous slide really talked about contractors a lot of times who would say well they they're working outside or they're you know not in particular areas but then what we would find is that we would have people in our

276buildings or you know something would go wrong inside and then they would be inside in particular areas or what have you and so now they're saying well maybe we need to be doing more across the board or what have you and so they're they're just saying throughout make sure that if you have people that may come into contact that this is within your your um whether it's in your contract that someone is doing this review and that you have access to these files um so for policy 5250 leaves of absence um new language has been added in response to um the uh Economic Security and safety act which includes um districts who employ uh employees over 2 50 or more are entitled to um unpaid leave for instances where their child unfortunately was uh there

277has experienced loss of a child due to Suicide or homicide so this is in direct response to this act so for policy 660 curriculum content um this is in response to um upd dated school code where we are adding new language to section 12 of this policy um for instruction in events of the Native American experience and Native American history to include contributions um to economic cultural social and political development so our curriculum department is already underway with how to implement these this new language check um policy 6230 um in our press plus issue uh 112 when we came forward with this with um the previous uh Louise Rodriguez um we discussed adopting the American Library Association Bill of Rights um so in that adoption we are required to have a resource objection form for

278any complaints um by our parents and Guardians regarding um what's housed in our library media centers for resources um and we're also uh responsible for establishing um an objection process review um which would directly respond to anyone who completes a form so uh again our curriculum department is underway with creating this objection form and making sure that we have this clearly accessible on our website and our media teacher librarian sites so that in the event someone has an objection to something um they have the process to complete and we have a review process to respond and will we see that review process in advance not going to speak for everyone but pretty sure we're not Banning books around here yes we could definitely once the uh teaching and learning Department comes up with that process

279we can bring it back here and just like give you an update can we also make sure that if someone does decide that they want to register an objection that they have a d97 student because in Florida there were folks who were living in the community making objections to folks schools and they didn't even have children in the school so I'm not sure where the harm was well it says they're parents and guardians but it doesn't say of d97 students so maybe we can clarifying that Fitness that's a good call out I would also be curious to know I'm looking at the Bill of Rights right now but I don't see anything about like a review process I see mostly language about like all backgrounds and Views Etc should be represented in libraries so I'd

280be curious if you guys know where where that recommendation comes from or I think it might be part of school code but we can double check okay we yeah thank you okay so couple things under um this policy um for 7190 student behavior um the first section is information that um our technology team will be coming forward with in Greater detail but for now um um there is additional language around usage of AI generated work in place of original work unless otherwise authorized by staff or teachers and then there's a second portion of this that we are um as an administrative team um not intending to adopt um we have reviewed it um it talks about updated language around building reporting to local law enforcement and involvement when set reporting takes place when we wait

281in as policy committee we also agree with that I I had an AI thought though just now just about some of the AI being used as even with like kids as young as our schools um to like exploit girls especially and I wonder if it's worth it to include that in the student conduct about or if it's already covered can we just make sure that that kind of use of AI is already covered because I said sending a a photograph of a child who's in any sort of not dressed right is illegal but sending an aiic created photograph right that's where it's like so I would be curious about putting thinking about that how you have that up there I feel like I just saw that somewhere I was in a there was a big

282New York Times article that was referring to some of it but you mean the policy yeah like I I feel like I saw when I was looking at some leg lative stuff coming up through the pipes in Illinois well as long as we're reviewing the student Behavior though I think we have an option to add language if we wanted to include student conduct around that like under cyber bullying cyber something like that but just to make sure that our language covers AI generated images not just because it's not even girl specific well no it isn't I'm just saying it's been common it's been commonly used even students as young as our I apparently according to our student conduct code you can't have a pager in [Laughter] school they're coming back I think I heard I

283heard can you put that in the phone yeah right um so for policy 7 7270 um administering medicine to students um there's new language where school districts must maintain a supply of opioid pens in the event of um a um medical emergency um and also the district must Supply um an undesignated amount of oxygen tanks when available umry as a requirement for any school district that maintains uh special education uh facilities or support um there's also embedded in this policy a void um policy which allows the district to avoid the language whenever the superintendent or the deser me is unable to obtain um due to supply shortages um any reasonable uh efforts to keep the supply of said items but but both of them don't designate what how much you have to have they do

284not designate how much you have to have they designate that if it cannot um if someone can't uh you can't meet the undesignated amount correct so if you were to say our amount is zero well and this says facilities I read it as facilities but you just said support so we don't have special education like a whole school that's dedicated for therapeutic dat schore something like that so does that mean that we don't have to have oxygen tanks because it doesn't even apply to us districts that maintain special educational facility so I I read through these and I didn't notice it until now that it's up there I was like wa a second that might not be us that's a good question yeah we will probably need to check um I know that um I

285believe do we still have um um facilities at Brooks that handle our um our most fragile students um I think the the question probably would be what is facility purposes of is a facil is building absolutely we will find that out and so finally next steps um as we presented the highlighted edit tonight um presented for recommended uh action next up at our June 11th meeting um we will come forward with some response to some of these questions you had tonight um but also We'll be asking to adopt um the policies that um we are moving forward with press plus and those will be outlined in the June 11th Court meeting for Action uh under consent but we'll pull them out so that we can further discuss uh the questions you have just to clarify

286all of these updates are required by law yes not all of them they're not they're in response to school code changes right but like for example we said we're not going to recommend some of them because we don't have to adopt them we're required to address address them in some shap yeah what does that mean to show that we actually reviewed them so there's a review process so you don't have to actually adopt everything that is recommended by the no I I understand the difference between recommended and required my understanding is they were all required because because when I asked that I was like because sometimes we get them and you could do this if you wanted you have discretion and sometimes the law has changed you need to update your policy to reflect a

287change in law and my understanding was these are all the law has changed I think it depends on which ones depending on so like the Faith's law so Faith's law has been adopted by it's in school code you just have to figure out how you are implementing it right and so depending on the wording of you know our policy we just have to figure out the wording so we have to review to figure out which wording we're going to go with so I think right now we just have to figure out the wording is what we're figuring out so the things that are there the content has to be there but the wording of the policy how we I'm just trying to get at whether there are some where the content doesn't even have like

2887.19 we you guys said you're not recommending that we adopt correct so if you're not recommending that we adopt something that's in the the press for which one was 719 that's the one with um it's the discipline one not the one with the AI the one below it was about reporting to authorities that one so the under disciplinary measures so that one's discretionary so there is guidance through press plus that lets the school district know the amount of discretion they have with adopting certain language some districts are more Progressive than others I get it I'm just asking if this particular we have to figure out how far we can go with that okay that's the difference okay so we have to have that it's just how far can we go I would be interested to

289see the language of that one in particular absolutely thank you and I don't I up to you Holly I mean some of these I feel like you could just email us answers whether we need to P totally email fine and everybody hasn't seen the PO copy that you sent to Colleen and I it was linked in the Friday update yes the presentation I have it's Pages this one is interesting and there's one other one that you don't have to thank you all right thank you okay um 9.2 Middle School redesign update so uh lison is going to come up we going to just uh do a very quick uh update here here of because we are looking to a journ before midnight um so we're going to skip some pieces of this and just go

290to the highlights here L yeah definitely OV along well um it's also in this this conversation I think it's important to highlight some of the work that is happening right now Y and that's one of the pieces that that we want to share with you so as the title uh mentions is alignment and redes ass signing because there's some alignment that needs to happen between both middle schools and then we that also thinking ahead how do we redesign those experiences you know mle schools so that's IDE so you know my colleagues uh as you can see working with the administration but also with our teams uh Mr filipovski uh has been already like involved into this processes and really working together so some of the topics that I'm going to be uh uh about and

291then as we go into it the alignment of the master schedule that's one of the pieces as as you are going to see a little adjustments there where we're trying to see the each Middle School had a different um uh some discrepancies on the courses that they were offering and some of the access that they were having so with that is the this year about bringing them together in the same level and then with that opportunity to really engage with each other to think about how things should be looking for us so uh um so that's pretty much the overview uh we want to align those key structures between uh brookson and Julia to ensure the Baseline consistency between our instructional systems so we are uh have begin the alignment by doing analysis of what

292is being offer how things are recorded what some of the pieces that we have you know master schedule in our systems power school and with that we want to uh bring them as close as possible with disrupting as much but then we got the opportunity to engage with each other this year into the thinking and redesigning how how it looks next school year so some background about the master schedule where we why why where are why we are where we are right now so before Co we had all nine periods that were going sequential every day we had all all periods or nine periods and then with that during the pandemic that was a move or decision made moving into the block scheduling as we have exited the pmia we haven't actually like we have

293to reexamine if this is actually the the structure that we want to continue using and with that as we were doing that that also allow us to discover some pieces that they were uh there some discrepancies and we had the opportunity for us to review building Master schedule what are we looking for the future alongside as we engage with our families and students and staff so this is some some some examples of barriers that we have in the master schedule plus and Deltas uh positive things in a in a PL schedule is that provides opportunity for in dep learning as you have the time flexibility with it then also with that at time allows you for that flexibility of methods of teaching that you can do and then because you have less less uh periods

294of the day there's less transition time so that means that you're saving time during the day because there's less less movement of students between classes uh some of the uh challenges is the loss of cont uh continuity like in sense like if you miss a day you're missing a big chunk of content uh the lengthy of the periods can be challenge especially for students uh who are developmentally like growing exponentially that have can be hard to be seen that for a long period of time um then the program requirement Al the programming requirement need sometimes can liit the the flexibility of the master schedule how things they are they aligned or they are buil they're puzzle in uh such as uh single classes that need to be given for example like a um when we

295had the Abid I'm sorry not AB like I I course of courses there were some requirements that need to be taken so that provides some restraints about how you can POS the master schedule and then with that also there can be some limited in the access of students choices as this is a big puzzle of how you you put together like master schedule how things flow from one period to the next so uh with that uh we are uh looking into this year bringing that consistency and Equitable operation of those systems we that we were able to uh review our our Bel schedules so I gain some alignment in the Bel schedule between Brooks and Julian then also uh thinking about the the opportunity to resign for universal access and cultural linguistical learning space for

296students that's something that is in our mind as we were doing this analysis so as we went through that we noticed that there were some difference in schedules and courses names uh with that there were some inconsistency and some of the courses they were offering so this is uh not the final data but this is something that that that shows like some of these misalignment courses that that we have and some of the alignment courses we had even some additional courses that they were created they were not being used so with that we have been cleaning our system and then with that we are reducing reducing the misalignment between schools but also we're cleaning cleaning the the uh the way that the courses are labeled and the way that the access is given so um

297with that we have as was mentioned today tonight about the internal a that we do did about the IV program and with that also we were able to align the course's name to the is courses name that we need to provide to the state so that was a lot of work uh could for our is Department as well that work very hard on this then with that also we are uh posing the elimination of CC and J days beginning of this next school year my son's going to be very happy about that he hates J days just for the record but doesn't that mean that but are those the days of every class yes okay and that would be like one of the pieces that has been a challenge in in the sense of really

298uh many many uh uh we have we're looking about attendance data sta students there's many pieces right there and there but I guess if you're not going to have if we're going to try to get away from block schedules but we don't want to have C days what's the what's the alternative you don't have block you don't have very class correct so one of the pie you have like a flex schedule where actually you have doesn't need to be really equal equalized to a certain amount it could be like some some creativity within how we build it and we can have some days that you're doing some things things and that's work that we want to do alongside with our staff making those decisions and then also with our students and families along the way

299so that would be something that actually I know that uh uh for next school year to be able to align some of the opportunities that we have right now to bring that consistency between both mle schools and then from there we can also look into how we want the master schedule to look in the following year so as as we go and think about next school year uh this yeah obviously the next this next school year probably I will we or middle school team will be uh uh bringing you updates about the work about what we're thinking so you you inform on the process about what the direction that we're going and also for to get feedback from you so based on that last slide I apologize we're not questions yet but I just want

300to clarify because because it said eliminating like definitively C&J days are you considering eliminating those or has has are those still underation so eliminating C and J this will be actually beneficial to make it more it's happening so is it just I don't want my kids get really excited about that and then have to pull it back well then you're going to have kids that are disappointed like Wednesday is the day that I know that M knows that he gets all his classes right like eliminating it and not adjusting block schedule feels a sorry well but I mean not doing that at the same time feels a little so one of the challenges that we have is or uh because of the N the N classes in in that day there are very short amount

301of periods like 34 minutes you take by time that they get the sine and everything you are five minutes there then get so really is very short amount of time so that's where we want to be creative and Innovative in how we might be able to expand some of the time and maybe reducing some other periods that might not be as and could that happen before next year or is next year just going to be block schedule every day I think it's block schedule yes and that and we've consulted with we've collaborated on that decision well that's we can talk about it yeah follow off on that so there the ability to build in more reading minutes into the schedule I think those are bigger questions I don't think we're going to so we are

302eliminating to day but then you said we're still trying to figure out what that looks like now the overall change like do we get rid of block scheduling is not going to be resolved for the fall that is a discussion the starting the school year app so it's on we're adding another block scheduled day those those big those big uh decisions also have impact in Staffing in in the way that that that amount of features that you need in the sense you also how things fle together to build like the the full mass schedule so it's not that it it it sounds like what Louise said was it's not that it's all just goes to block there's also some ability to be able to have some more flexibility even even with eliminating the J days

303what what can you give an example of what that will look like could look like well uh we're working right now with the with with the principles and really cleaning up the schedules the actually sorry the courses and really figure that out about how to build the the design of of the build of how they can look like but one of the some of the Fig that we got from our parents is that that the families that say see J confusing to follow up is a day or b day or C day or J day so those only pieces that that you have heard that from community that keep like uh block block schedules like a a a a where did we have an opportunity to provide that feedback as a parent I think we

304need to continue the collect more feedback from everybody where did you hear and where did you hear the feedback about the J days and C days principles or were there's specific places where you heard yeah from from principles for the most for the most part and then also by when we have engag with parents in the for trade of the graduate talking about some of the complexities about middle school and understanding those days and keeping up with the schedule has been a challenge so I would be curious if parents would answer the question the same or people would answer the question the same if they were asked do you like CJ C&J days the answer might be no do you like the variety of having that kind of a full day though or or the

305alternative of just block days only as the schedule like I given the alternative um it feels a little bit Yeah is it and I guess I'm wondering it it sounded like it's not those two dichotomies of these 34 Minute C or J days or total block scheduling that there might be some kind of hybrid is that right or some other kinds of the sign of schedule that we need to SP some time on it and we need grow behind but what I hear you say is that we we should be asking for more feedback in making more decisions yeah and also block scheduling is really really not good and now we're going to add another day of it well I think what we're hearing is we're not necessarily going to add another day of it

306that but that no I don't think WEA said we're not changing any other part of the schedule until 2526 that's what we want the only is is the expectation that C and J days will be block schedule days