001one, and I'm reconvening to open session and calling to order the regular Board of Education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday, May 4th, 2026. Michelle, will you please call the roll? Ms. Fosdick. Here. Ms. Grover. Present. Ms. Demming. Present. >> Mr. Carubis. Here. Ms. Gantz. Here. And Mr. Rising. >> Here. We have a quorum. Mr. Carubis, will you lead us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, May 18th, 2026. We have some board salutes. Ms. Deming, will you start us off? Sure. District 204 German language high school students earned 33 medals on National German exam.
002The board salutes District 204 German language high school students who earned 33 medals on the National German exam. Representing Metea Valley, Neuqua Valley, and Waubonsie Valley, 78 students competed in this event sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German. Overall, the students secured 13 gold, five silver, and 15 bronze medals alongside 23 certificates of achievement. Elizabeth Riggs earned a scholarship to the Concordia Language Villages, and Ojas Sasankan won one of only two US nominations to compete in the International German Olympics in Germany this July. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> Miss Grover? Corporate sponsored National Merit Scholarship winner. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation released the names of the first group of winners in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarships program. Approximately 700 distinguished high school seniors have won corporate sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards financed by
003about 115 corporations, company foundations, and other business organizations. Among this year's winners is Viraj Vyas from Metea Valley High School. Congratulations, Viraj, on your achievement. >> [applause] >> Next, we will uh board members against and rising celebrate with us uh some of our grow your own student Absolutely. Grow your own teacher program. The board salutes the District 204 seniors in the grow your own teacher program who have dedicated themselves to becoming the next generation of educators. The program is a cohort of over 100 high school students who participate in engaging in real-world experiences to prepare them for a potential career in education. The program is open to any high school student interested in an education-related career. Our goal is to foster a passion for education and encourage these students to return to become teachers at
004Indian Prairie School District 204. We would like to recognize all of our seniors in the program. To begin, we'd like those who are with us this evening to come forward to the microphone. We would love for you to state your name and the college or university you plan to attend this fall. Please remain at the front after you speak so we can conclude with a group photo. My name is Lucy Yuen. I will be attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this fall. Excellent. >> [applause] >> My name is Haley Petrick and I will be attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio this fall. Excellent. [applause] My name is Lily Thorsen and I'll be attending North Central College this fall. >> [applause] >> We will read the names of the students who were unable to join us
005tonight to honor their hard work and commitment. Okay, so you're going to be standing there for a while cuz I got I got I got I got a lot of names to read. >> [clears throat] >> Uh the other students who weren't able to join us, but are also recognized uh Sarah Abu Kadra, uh Saknish Amatul, Grant Bowie, Taylor Bright, Taylor Cockins, Monica Carrera, Ellie Carroll, Gianna Zwick, Julia Darnell, Earl Dommer, uh Brenna or Brina Morillo, Lilly uh Layla Gaffney, Pamela Garcia, Piper Glass, Jasper How do you say that? Guadarrama. I got Guadarrama. Thank you. Uh uh Bright Hutera, Grayson Awizack, uh Clarice Kolberg, Tyler Klinicki, uh Kashika Kamal, Ellie Maher, halfway done, Giselle Navrati, Olga Pablo, Amira Patel, Michaela Pauldine, Abigail Schultz, Emily Schnell, Anna Schwegler, Grace Sims, Massim Tamborrino, Noah Telts, Aaron Ulger,
006Justin Upton, Ian Van Horn, Dari Ward, Ellie West, and Gabby Wolvertin. Hold on. Good job. >> [applause] >> All right, you guys. I'm just taking Yeah. It's picture time now. With you in the center because we're really people see us. Thank you, thank you. >> I just want to say one thing about the Grow Your Own program. These we have about 40 students who have gone through the program and are graduating this year and going off to school. Many of whom will plan on becoming teachers. Some may not, but that doesn't matter. What they've done is they they have the dedication to this program, a commitment to learning about what it is to become a teacher, and about whom we should be very proud of all of them. Great job to all of them. Next
007we'll have our student representative report from Kylie Tran from Neuqua Valley High School. Good evening. My name is Kylie Tran and I'm proud to serve as the student representative for Neuqua Valley. I'm excited to share all that our school has been up to since my last board meeting. Senior Spectacular and Prom truly marked the beginning of the end for the class of 2026. Both nights were unforgettable from the character artists at Senior Spectacular to the energy at the dance floor at Prom, but didn't really beat Homecoming. To celebrate these final moments, our student council has also introduced a senior ABC countdown bringing creativity and school spirit to each day until the last day of school for seniors. Last Friday we actually had decision day and then we had paw prints to put up like where
008all the seniors were going and that was a really bittersweet moment. Since the spring musical reveal last year, I've been looking forward to Mamma Mia and I had the opportunity to attend the Friday night show which was sold out in addition to the Saturday night show. It was so good and the talent and quality of the production made me feel like I was actually on Broadway. Since the beginning of April, construction has also been underway. The only change I've had to make to my daily school routine is leaving 5 minutes early to beat the morning traffic. Our school administration had done has done a great job keeping us well informed with weekly updates and there's been minimal disturbances to our school day. According to our principal Dr. Fear, we have even we're even ahead of
009schedule. Last week our school also hosted Neqwa honors and as a recipient, it was especially meaningful to read the personal messages from teachers who had nominated me. Moments like these highlight the strong connections between the students and faculty at Neqwa because we are truly a community. As we enter the month of May, we are also approaching the busiest times of the year. Spring sports seasons are wrapping up including senior nights that celebrate our student athletes. At the same time, AP testing has begun and I actually took my AP biology exam this morning. Although this time of year is stressful, I always feel supported by all the resources that our school provides. Finally, seniors will soon celebrate senior sunrise, senior awards, senior brunch, and of course, graduation. Thank you for your time this evening and for
010the last time ever, go Wildcats. >> [applause] >> Where are you going to Are you going off to school afterwards? Yes. Where are you going? >> Yes. Um I'm going to Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for their BS/MD program. Good luck. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Next up, we have our student advisory board presentation. >> Okay. Good evening Board of Education, Dr. uh Tally. Thank you for allowing this opportunity to give you an update on our work this year. The Student Advisory Board is in its fourth year, if you can believe that. And this is not working. Should I try to click this? Okay. Just as a reminder, the Student Advisory Board serves as a liaison between the student body and the Board of Education. Um they represent student
011interests, and they try to give you a on-the-ground perspective of things that are happening in their schools and how decisions you make here impact the greater student body. Okay. We have some transitions, and this is all always a bittersweet portion for me cuz I have to say farewell and thank you to the senior members. And uh it's also a beautiful thing cuz we get to welcome our new members. So, I want to start with um recognizing our seniors. Seniors, as your names are called, please stand, and I do ask the audience to hold your applause until we finish with all the names. We have Zamaya Brandon, Grace Dewan, Daphne Arturklar, Sparsh Gautam, Jasmine Hudomale, Sarayu Madala, Ashira Tummapalli, and Morgan Suncherie. >> [applause] >> Thank you all for your service, and I do want to
012point out that Sarayu has actually served for 3 years as the executive uh officer on the board, so thank you for that. >> [laughter] >> Thank you, seniors. Um the seniors received their awards before this when we had our own meeting. And I want to welcome our new members. New members, when your name is called, please stand. These members will be able to take the oath in the fall when the new school year begins, but for tonight, just recognition. Harleen Marshall Zoe Thakkar Smrithi Chavvakula Ariana Hosadurga Mishka Hota Adam Kasane Kasane Shrithi Saravanan and Krish Patel Welcome to the board. >> [applause] [applause] >> And we also want to recognize our continuing members. These members are going into their second or their third year of service on the student advisory board. Sahil Rizvi, he's an
013executive officer for next year and he had to leave to uh study for his AP chemistry test. Ojas Sachin Please stand if you're here. Zara Ahmad Rayash Bhagat Aliza Fawad Idant Rajan Jay Akbari Nandini I'm sorry, I can't see from here. Shakraborty and Rukia Muhammad Arouse who is also an executive officer. I should have mentioned that Idant is also an executive officer for next year. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> I'm now going to turn it over to our current executive officers who are going to discuss our impact. Hi, everyone. Um it's Sarayu. So, one of the things that you probably heard a lot about, I mean, we started this program last year is in-depth and not. So, essentially, one of the things that we started was this program because we saw a lot of issues in
014our school bathrooms. Um a lot of students that we've talked to, and I think the general consensus of the three valley schools is that the school bathrooms feel very unsafe because of particularly vaping. And for a lot of for every single year that I've been on this board, we've talked about how do we reduce vaping? And I'm really happy to say that this year that finally happened. So, in in So, we had we came up with in-depth and not last year. So, because of this issue, we were researching different types of programs and different types of ways that we would be able to reduce vaping. And what we came up with was an alternative to suspensions in school suspensions, any type of suspensions. And essentially, how that works is we have we have something called
015in-depth. And what in-depth is is one facilitator will work with six to 10 students over four weeks. So, there are So, these sessions essentially go over why are we vaping? What are coping mechanisms and these type of strategies to help someone stop the behavior. Because one of the issues with in-school suspensions was the fact of the reoccurrence rates. We would have the same students uh actually commit commit these um commit these offenses again and again. So, one of the main goals was once someone has a certain offense to stop that behavior. And this program has been able to do that. So, um basically, what happened this year is we were able to actually get this to Waubonsie. So, in Waubonsie, they implemented the program after we had a meeting with all the principals and some
016of you guys as well. So, during this meeting, we talked about some of the logistical issues, some of the things that we need to work on, and we were able to actually implement the program last semester, and we have a little bit of the data for you of how this has decreased. So, out of uh last year we had 45 total tobacco and drug offenses. This year we have 30 offenses and 23 of those offenses with 28 students total were able to go through this program and we're seeing a lot of good change that's starting with behavior and of course while this program continues throughout several years, throughout several semesters, we'll be able to see a greater impact, but for now it's working very, very well. Essentially, again, as I've said before, we're looking at
017stopping the the behavior, not just punishing a student for doing a certain activity. So, that's what I have for you. Personally, I'm really, really excited about this. It feels really good as a senior leaving to know that we were able to do something. So, I'm really, really excited about it. I just wanted to add on >> [clears throat] >> about this successful program. So, I go to Abante Valley High School and this year definitely something that they've taken very seriously is bathroom passes and we obviously know it is because of the vaping issue. And honestly, I would say had it has been pretty successful. They're very strict on the people that can go and their goal is not to just prevent people from going to the bathroom. It is just to create a safer environment
018to see who's going to the bathroom and maybe suspecting on who might be vaping in the bathroom. Not to just penalize them and like kick them out of the school or anything, but to really focus on the students who do need the direct support. Okay, so the next steps is counselors are going to start doing additional training to obviously learn more about this problem because in order for our students to get the correct support they need, the counselors need to be more educated on the topic. So, obviously there has been a lot of good outcomes with this situation. The counselors also reported that most students are surprised at how many chemicals are in vapes. Majority of students that are vaping obviously cannot name one chemical that is in their body, obviously, especially in that vape.
019And also, majority of the students can say that they vape because other kids are vaping around them and it's just straight from peer pressure or they just don't want to be left out. So, yeah, um, students enjoyed the way that they were taught about vaping as opposed to it being in a lecture style. Kids don't want to be lectured because then they're going to be looked at as if what they're doing is wrong, which obviously it is wrong. They're going to be looked at as like if they're a mistake honest in like that type of way. So, if they um, are more supported, they're going to actually be willing to change instead of just being lectured and being like, "Well, maybe I'm just going to keep doing it because you guys like aren't really looking
020at me in like a human way, if that makes sense." So, now onto the Belonging Project. So, this is a big project that we have been working on all year. And the most important part about this project was to listen to the student body. The district does a lot for the students, but when it comes to belonging, it's really the student body that's being welcoming towards each other. So, how we really figured this out was during board meetings, we would have Oh, sorry. During board meetings, we would have conversations and kind of I wouldn't say fun game I would say fun games, just kind of brainstorming fun ideas of like, "What are the main issues in our school?" And from all of our perspectives that we learned about and that what we've shared about, we
021have come up with a website. And we started just focusing on how maybe in order for kids to get closer together, we should talk about clubs because in order for kids to learn about each other and learn to get with one another, clubs are a very amazing way to do that. Yes. So, with that, uh, we decided to make a belongingness app. And we did this because, um, we realized that each school had their own designated activities website, but we realized that doesn't really give students a really depth and like envision of what they could be doing in those clubs. It kind of just talks about the overall description, but it isn't it doesn't talk about how I guess they would be able to be in that club and like how competitive that club is
022or um if they would necessarily fit. So, this app is a survey that students will take and it matches them based on their answers um to a club or activity based on their interest. And the questions are something like, do you want to do something more competitive? Um are you interested in leadership opportunities, stuff like that. And based on their answers, they will get a percentage of which clubs they're most likely to be um enjoy enjoy doing. Um and we decided to do this project because like I said, there are so many clubs and activities available available for students, um but some find it challenging to select one and take the very first steps in joining. Um this app takes guesswork out of the choosing and and lets students take the first step. Um and
023to answer the question, how does this help with belonging? Within the school environment, students' belonging is the sense of connection, acceptance, and inclusion that students feel with their teachers, school staff, and peers. And being a part of a club or activity fosters that sense of connection and provides another trusted adult for that a student acts outside of the classroom. And it also provides a friend group and a sense of purpose for students. And moving on with the status of the app right now. So, one of the one of the officers for um student advisory board who's here, his name is Adont. He's really been like the whole brains of this activity um because he has this he's been doing so much for this. He created a prototype of the app and he actually presented presented
024it to the board and um it basically kind of shows like the overall gist of it and how students will um connect their interest to the app. And he went ahead and took the initiative of going to our IT department and also meeting with the activities director um and kind of got approval from them to set this up. And he said earlier today that it should be up and running by the like beginning of the next school year. Um but yeah, so So, been really doing that and so far it looks really good from what I've seen. Um but yeah, so so far, hopefully next year we'll have this app, but it's looking pretty good. And we also said in the board um that each school will have their designated activities um like keep updating
025um with these um board member. But the only issue right now is the longevity of it because once a don't graduates, we still need someone who can run and update the app. Um so, that's our only issue right now as far as that, but so far it looks so good. Um so, one of the things that we're ending off with is just thank you. I know this is my fourth meeting. This is the fourth year that I've been at this meeting. So, it's it's really emotional, I guess. I was talking to this about with Dr. Howard when we were planning out the entire presentation. What should I talk about? And honestly, like just the memories that I've made, I've learned so much. Hopefully, like there was some impact that was made. I remember going to
026Chicago as a tiny like little sophomore for the IASB meeting and learning so much. There were so many new faces. I was with Victoria, Dr. Howard, and I was just like I guess learning more about how does the school even work? And it feels really, really good to be able to say that um all of us here were able to be a part of that, and I want to say thank you to every single one of you for shaping so much of my high school experience. I loved every second, so thank you. I also want to share my appreciation. I remember at the end of freshman year when I was walking into the board this office, and I was so nervous for my interview. And I walk in, and there are other students that are
027interviewing me, and they were like all professional, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, like this is crazy." And ever since then, it's been obviously very professional, but it's just like I'm very grateful that this district offers such a crazy opportunity. And I'm just like looking back at like my baby self freshman year, and I'm like, she just walked into that little office, and she like I don't even think I was wearing the right clothes. I think I had like a messy bun on I had a messy bun and I had leggings. It was just and I learned a lot. I learned a lot from that year, but um I'm just really grateful that the district offers such an amazing opportunity for our students. I'll also share my gratitude. Um kind of similar to Jasmine,
028when I first came to the my first board meeting as like a new inductee, I was very intimidated just sitting in front of you all. Um but I kind of realized working with everyone and with the board, I think it's not really necessarily something to be intimidated by. It's we're all having our voice to speak up in front of people who are very influential in our district. Um and I'm so glad and grateful to have this opportunity to be in front of you all and speak out about students. >> [applause] >> We have one more thing for you, if that's okay. So, one of our new members attended the ISBE Summit Student Summit with Dr. Tally. I think it was a couple of months ago. And she's been invited to come speak and share her
029experience with you, if that's okay. Smriti? As she comes to the to the table, um it was an opportunity across the state for certain students to participate with um ISBE and Dr. Sanders, our state superintendent, was there and they were all engaged in various um modules. And so, um Smriti was uh so excited to go and afterwards. So, please tell us what you learned. Um yeah, so I'm a sophomore at Metea Valley High School. Um my name is Smriti and I recently did attend the ISBE um Student Leadership Summit. Um and I just I don't think I've ever had an opportunity like this to kind of just go and meet other schools from all across Illinois. Obviously, over here we can meet schools like, you know, and from other districts, maybe like Naperville Central, Plainfield
030North. We can those are within our range, but you know, we don't usually get to meet those schools from uh Lake Zurich and O'Fallon more on the Missouri side of the state. And so, it was really interesting to go and see all these different people and their different perspectives on every one of the four topics that we discussed. Um I do think I saw some really interesting ideas. I saw some very um some really unique ideas, honestly. And I think that implementing some of those or even just thinking about some of those could really help our school district. Um we talked about four main topics. Um and out of those, three of those topics I believe that District 204 in general does a phenomenal job with, um just based off of everything I heard from
031the summit. And then one of those I do feel is kind of an issue throughout all of the state of Illinois just in general. And I will go more in depth on that later. Um but the first topic that we had a talk about was um college and career readiness. I do think that college and career readiness as a whole, we do a really good job with it. We offer so many different programs. We offer engineering and technology. Um I didn't really see too much, you know, too many other perspectives on that. I do realize how lucky we are to be able to offer some of these programs because some of the people there were like, "What is a woodworking class?" And we had to explain to them what a woodworking class was. And they
032didn't they didn't offer computer science classes. They didn't have any labs. And I thought we're, you know, it just kind of opened my eyes to a whole new perspective as to like, "Oh my god, we're so lucky to have all of these classes with us." Um and so I do think that we do a really great job with college and career readiness. We have amazing counselors that allow us to ask all of the questions that we want and to um help us with, you know, college apps or school decisions, anything like that. We have so many people that we can rely on. And so, I think we do a great job with that. Um the second topic that was discussed was AI and technology. Um one thing that came to light in this particular discussion
033was that policies on AI are slightly vague. Um, many people because AI is such a new thing, we're not completely AI literate in it. And so for those kind of, you know, incoming freshman, for example, one of the solutions that they proposed was um, and I believe this was Lake Zurich. Uh, before all incoming freshman come in, they have them take a mandatory AI literacy course. It's just it's 30 minutes a day, videos on AI, what Lake Zurich expects of their students in using AI. Um, and I think that that was a really good idea because it makes AI policies clear, it makes um, students understand when to use AI, it makes students understand how AI can be used, what to use it for, um, where to use it and why to use it. And
034I do think that all of those were very valuable, um, especially for those who aren't very familiar with it, you know, using AI can be a little bit difficult, um, and so I do think that it was a wonderful thing for them to be able to implement that. Um, I do think that's something we can look into because it's such a simple thing, but it's such an effective thing. Um, and so I do I did like that one particular policy. Overall, I do think our phone policy is good. All technology policies are good just because, you know, I heard about a lot of other districts using the phone pockets, the bell-to-bell no cell, um, that policy in particular, I did really like it just considering what I heard a lot of other schools are having
035cheating problems with their phones. I don't see as much of that anymore. And so I do think we do a really great job with AI and technology. Um, the third topic was access and equity. Um, I do think overall district 204 is definitely a more diverse district, and so I don't think we have as many problems with this. Um, I heard a lot of problems about uh, racism from teachers, which was surprisingly prevalent, um, but I don't think we have as many problems with that. Obviously, I cannot speak for Neuqua and Waubonsie, um, but I know that at Metea, we do have um, so many wonderful um, areas where students can go to um, you know, and get involved with their community. I know that um, we have so many areas where students can find
036help and find access to different resources, whether it be for school or home, academics, extracurriculars, anything that they like to do. We have many policies on that, and so I do think that it's very helpful, and I do think that we do a wonderful job with it. The fourth and final topic that we had was chronic absenteeism, which this one was the definitely the most talked about discussion. Many, many schools throughout the district have or throughout the state have so many problems with this, and you know, a lot of the There was a survey conducted in the O'Fallon Township, I believe. And you know, they kind of asked, "Why is there not an incentive to come to class? What is preventing these students from coming to class? If you know, what what really is the
037problem here? Why is there such a huge issue with people actually being able to attend those classes?" And the survey showed that most students choose to skip class because either the class or the teacher doesn't actually do their best to teach the class, or because they were looked down upon within the class. Those issues aren't commonly spoken about just because there aren't many places to voice those concerns. Mental health days was a common one, you know, a lot of students say, "Oh, I need to take a mental health day here." And yes, while that excuse can be overused, unfortunately, it was found that many teachers and staff members in general were looking down upon the use of mental health. You know, there are a lot of staff members, apparently, who are saying, "You know, mental
038health days shouldn't be a thing. You don't need those. We give you enough of those in school." But I don't think we really do just because they're not implemented in school enough. And so that was one solution that a particular school district, maybe it was Glenwood School District, they had implemented a policy of schools are getting one mental health day a month within the school. So all students still get to come to school, and but it within their classes, they have the opportunity to either seek help from a counselor, they have the opportunity to do work, or they have the opportunity to socialize. That being said, going to school is not It shouldn't be a chore. Um and so with these mental health days once a month without the burden of having to work or
039having to listen to a teacher go on about polars and vectors and English and chemistry and physics. Without that work, you know, it's really nice to be able to have that. And the school that implemented this last year saw a huge increase or a huge decrease in the amount of students who were um you know, experiencing chronic absenteeism. And so I do think that it has been proven to work. I do think it's something we could consider. Um the other issue that we found was that doctor's note status was becoming way too common between students. Um and obviously there are certain students, you know, they can't maybe see a doctor every time, maybe they just can't afford to go, maybe they don't have the time to go. Um but instead of doctor's note status, what
040they had started doing was red light, green light, yellow light status, where students, you know, because so many students were um missing important tests and standardized testing and all those important things, they had a system. It was an AI system actually, where the student inputs their schedule, the teachers input what they're doing for the week, and the students also input their homework and everything that they have to do, and the system will tell them whether it is a green light day, which is a day where they don't have any tests or they they don't necessarily have any assignments due or they haven't missed they can miss another school day essentially. The yellow light the yellow light tells them that maybe the school system or maybe that um you know, they have something important going on
041that day, maybe they're going to miss, you know, this test that day, but maybe you can make it up, etc. And finally, the red light tells them, okay, this is like, for example, a standardized testing day. It's going to be really bad if you miss this. It's going to be really hard to make it up. You're going to have to do this, this, and that to make this up." And they also saw a huge increase in the amount of students who came to school on those days. So, they didn't have to make up as much standardized testing. So, I do think chronic absenteeism in particular is a um is an issue that is super hard to deal with just because every student has their own thought process. Every student has um different expectations at home
042about school and attendance and, you know, mental health days and all these different types of things. But I do think implementing one consistent policy throughout the entire district for every student so that they understand what um the problem with their absence is going to be will be extremely helpful helpful for just the entire student population in general. Um that is all I have to say. Thank you. Any questions? >> [applause] >> Thank you, Dr. Howard and your student um board representatives here, your executive officers. I know as a board we really appreciate the innovation, the ideas, the engagement, and the perspectives that you share with us to help us be better at our jobs. Um in addition to with your current projects making the lives of your fellow students better. Um so, thank you for
043that. >> [applause] >> Next, we have our school spotlight. And our school spotlight this evening is from Hill Middle School presented by Leslie Mitchell, Claudia Parker, and May Maximu. >> Good evening. I'm Leslie Mitchell, principal of Hill Middle School, and this is Claudia Parker and Amy Maximue. And they're going to start by introducing a really awesome idea that they brought to me this fall. So, over the summer I had taken a class called called School of Character, and initially when I took the class it was just a class. But, by the end of the class, our final project was to go through these 11 principles of becoming a School of Character. And after doing my final project where you spelled out what you're doing in your school to meet each of the criteria in those
044principles, I kind of thought, "Well, doesn't everybody already do this?" Cuz I've been at Hill for 27 years, and it's kind of our Hill way. So, I approached Claudia in the fall and said, "Hey, I got a crazy idea, but you can apply to be a School of Character. Would you like to do this with me?" And she, of course, is always supportive of me. So, we walked into Leslie's office, and I don't even think we got the whole conversation out. She's like, "We're in. We're doing it." And so, we began our our journey in like October, maybe September. I can barely Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there were three about three parts, but long parts to this process. So, the application in having to kind of detail Hill Middle School's progress towards these comprehensive comprehensive
045framework of 11 principles was a lot of work. So, we had to kind of draw upon lots of staff members to get this work done and then we were able to submit the application in I believe it was November. Um and then we found out that we passed the expert reader approval stage. So we were really excited about that. Um it's a rigorous expert reader phase and they provided us with a lot of feedback and that led us to the next step which is the site visit. So we did a very long like 3 to 4 hour zoom visit with um the readers and the um staff at the program. So we had parents um interviewed, we had students interviewed, community members and of course staff. And it and administration. And so then we just
046kind of had to wait um for the results to see if we became a school of character. So um they follow this very elaborate rubric and um your goal is to get 3.3 and we got a 2.8. Um but we had a lot of strengths. Um what I really appreciated was the feedback on where we can improve because um following our CPR values in our school, resilience, we are going to bounce back and we're going to build upon that. Um but overall our strengths that they really honed in on are our CPR community purpose resilience values and the fact that we don't just tell the kids in the beginning of the year and then at the end of the year we remind them it's throughout our entire day every day. We are constantly reminding them
047of the values and what it means to be a community and what it means to be resilient and what's your purpose at school and how to just be a good person and why is that important. Um in the interviews with the parents and the students, I loved reading the feedback. She gave specific quotes that the students felt they could go to any adult. They have a trusted adult in the building, which makes us feel great. They love that they see us outside of the classroom. We're at their concerts, we're at their musicals, and you know, they feel like we care about them, which means a lot because it's more about just what you're learning in the classroom and a textbook. It's about how you're feeling when you leave. Um so that that meant a lot
048to to us. Um and you know, that's a huge strength that I think would be great. We have a lot of leadership um opportunities for our kids. Um how we connect with the community, all of our clubs and our Builders Club, they do a great job of the community service piece, so they were really excited about that. Um but it was really about like I said, it was almost like well, we do this all the time. You know, isn't this normal? But after going through what some of the rubrics they've, you know, mentioned in my class, it's it's not normal, so it was kind of nice to be validated that we're on the right path. Some of the things that they wanted us to work on uh is really just a shift in thinking. So
049our kids are very motivated to work for things, and with the School of Character, they want kids to move beyond that. They want them to just be good kids, to be good people, and good human beings, not because they're working towards a reward. So what looking at that shift will be one of the things that we work on as we continue in this process. And then our CPR, our building really rallied around the CPR, community purpose, and resilience. But one of the things that they pointed out, it's kind of like a little play on words, they wanted to see well, how are you teaching community? What virtues are you looking at? So they want that they felt that the shift should be to look at intel or intellectual curiosity, look at that moral empathy, and
050how are you getting to community? They looked at those as outcomes rather than what she would rally around. So we have a great foundation for that with community purpose and resilience, but as they were looking at they're like, well, resilience is one of the things we want to see in students, but how are you directly teaching how kids form and rally become a community. How do you teach purpose? And we do that every day. We just need to spend a little more time and pinpoint and see while we do this, now let's get it in writing. Let's really showcase what we do. So, we're not done. We are going to reapply next year. So, hopefully we'll be sitting here again and sharing that we are a national school of character. Um but the we have
051some steps. So, we're going to be updating our SIP plan. We have very specific things that they have given us feedback on and we're going to incorporate that with measurable school-wide character goals um that align with those 11 principles within our SIP plan. Um and we're going to elevate student voice. This is a has been a really great opportunity. Hill Middle School has had some instability and um this is a great opportunity for us to showcase uh that we are an amazing school. And Amy mentioned that the kids really love the adults in the building. I've been at multiple schools in this district and these kids really love the adults in this building. In fact, I have a 17-year-old daughter who came to visit me at school and she said, "It's so weird how these
052kids just love you guys so much." Um and I'm I'm like, "Is that really so weird?" But I mean, they just really do love their adults. Um so, our our next step um is to elevate the student voice and make sure that they are part of a leadership group. So, we'll we will be implementing that next year. And then our final step um we will be reapplying. Um and hopefully we will be a national school of character. Yep. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Board members? Mark, I saw you about to speak. No? Okay. I just want to say um it's really exciting that you're already so close. It just means already been doing the great work. Um but it also says a lot that you were taking their feedback and wanting that self-reflection piece of
053how we can continue to grow. And I think it's a really great example of how in our district and specifically in Hill, we always want to be better. Always want to do better for the kids. So, thank you for your commitment to that and for your commitment to Hill. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. It is now time for public comment and 60 minutes is allowed for public comment. Each person is limited to 3 minutes. When addressing the board, we ask that you respect the confidentiality and safety of our students and school district personnel. We also ask that those addressing the board be cognizant that this is an open meeting and available to all age groups. And as such, ask that you consider who the audience members are this evening and
054keep comments age-appropriate. Public comment represents the voice and opinion of the speaker. There will be no feedback from the board members during the meeting, but a follow-up will be provided by an administrator as appropriate. Although this is not required, it is helpful for the board to know whether the comments and concerns we hear are being raised by residents. So, we ask that you state if you live in the district and if you currently have children in our schools. We have nine public speakers this evening and the first public speaker is Ashley Pennick. Uh to state the record, I don't have any kids in 204. Um but good evening. I'm Ashley Pennick. I would first like to thank Justin Krubis for his service in the Indian Prairie School Board. I also, like Mr. Krubis, am a
055graduate of Waubonsie Valley High School, class of 1997. Coincidentally, the last class where there were no other high schools in operation. I would like to thank or wish Mr. Kroubetz with his future plans. I am currently a Naperville resident who lives in the district. I am also a member of our group called Affordable Naperville. Affordable Naperville is an independent and growing group of residents focused on a single pressing issue, the rising cost of living in our community. We are particularly concerned about those least able to absorb increasing costs, families of mixed incomes, young households and small businesses. Our mission is twofold. First, we advocate for affordability to be a central consideration in major procurement and taxation decisions made by local government local governing bodies, especially those related to property taxes and energy procurement, because these
056choices have lasting financial impacts on every resident. Second, [snorts] we aim to inform and engage the public with objective research-based analysis grounded in sound economics and data. We seek to bring clarity and balance to decisions that are often dominated by special interests or receive too little attention. To support this work, we have launched a website, published regular newsletters, maintain a Facebook presence, and participate in Naperville City Council and Public Utility Board meetings. We have also begun reviewing District 204's expenditures and are concerned about the approximately 45% increase per pupil since spending since 2019. We will continue analyzing this trend and plan to share a more comprehensive review in the near future. Our website is affordableaurorail.com a f f o r d a b l e n a p e r v i l l e
057.com. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Tammy Kurth. Both Both my kids are Waubonsie Valley graduates and I've been a district resident since 1992. My name is Tammy Kurth. I am recovering from a traumatic brain injury, so I may need to pause briefly if I lose my my place. I'm a school counselor with over 20 years in this district. District 204 emphasizes values such as belonging, better together, and see something, say something. However, since November 2024, I've experienced intimidation, exclusion, and retaliation from a building administrator. I reported my concerns to my direct supervisor, building principal, union president, and the assistant superintendent of high schools. I also attempted to meet with the superintendent. In late January 25, I again reported my concerns to my supervisor. I was assured the
058principal had been informed. Nearly a month later on February 25, he stated that those concerns had not been communicated to him. Following my repeated complaints, my assigned student caseload was changed to ms.rat Miz Rat by my overseeing administrator and direct supervisor, which is one example of why I remain concerned about retaliation. In December, at the encouragement of district administration and union leadership. I filed a harassment complaint with HR. After 3 and 1/2 months, the complaint was closed as unfounded, but I have serious concerns about the process and its findings. To my knowledge, key witnesses that I identified were not contacted. The complaint process at both the building and district levels has failed to provide the support and accountability I have a right to expect. During my medical leave, my two direct supervisors greeted other staff
059members at a professional community event, but did not acknowledge me. After more than a year without contact from them, either of them, this reinforced my concern that the same pattern of exclusion remains unresolved. My experience does not align with the Board of Education's policy that, quote, the workplace is expected to be respectful and free from unlawful discrimination, including harassment, end quote. I requested a transfer to another building because of continued concerns about my work environment. In December, the high school superintendent verbally assured me that the transfer would be granted. My request was denied in March, despite the availability of two counseling positions for the following school year. Instead of addressing the administration's, excuse me, the administrators' repeated patterns, their response has been to focus on me rather than the issue at hand. The district has
060left me assigned to the same environment I reported with the same unresolved conditions. I have lost confidence in their ability to provide appropriate support or ensure a professional work environment, and I'm now expected to rely on them on the exact team to support my transition back. It is deeply concerning that after repeatedly raising issues, I am now left to bring them directly to the board because they remain unresolved and continue on unchecked. They were raised with my direct supervisor, building principal, >> Ms. Vazquez, the speaker's time has ended. >> assistant superintendent of high schools, CHRO, and union leadership. My concerns are not isolated. They reflect issues raised over time by staff in the same building regarding similar conduct by the same administrator. This represents a broader failure of accountability across multiple levels of leadership. >>
061[applause] >> Our next speaker is Tara Bell. Good evening members of the board, Dr. Tally, 204 colleagues, students, and families. My name is Tara Bell and I've worked in Indian Prairie for the past decade. I do not live in the district and I do not have any enrolled children. I currently support grants here at the district office. I've never registered for 204 public comment before, but felt compelled to do so tonight because I wanted to talk about the impact Dr. Tally's leadership has had on my practice as an Indian Prairie educator. Prior to working here, I worked for the state where I traveled throughout Illinois observing programs and meeting superintendents. In all that time, I never met a superintendent like Dr. Tally. Dr. Tally is the mental health superintendent, but I would argue that his
062superintendency has been nothing short of a master class in addressing unmet needs through entrepreneurial leadership. As someone who worked in title one and turnaround schools, I can state with certitude that leadership matters. Dr. Tally's superintendency is an exemplar case study in entrepreneurial leadership and how competitive grant funding can be leveraged to operationalize equity and innovation. While many educational leaders often focus on constraints, "We can't do this because we only have Y." or "Let's revisit that next year." Dr. Tally consistently focuses on possibilities and what we can do now. His trademark brainstorming phrase, "What if?" and I'm making this up, has become the starting point for millions of dollars in competitive grant funding for our district. As Dr. Tally knows well, the ability to get competitive grants over the finish line requires skill, frequent pivots, and
063late-night edits. Having the superintendent fully engaged in this process, I'm convinced, is the difference-maker between districts that talk about getting grants and districts like us that actually win them. Dr. Tally's drive to eliminate barriers and address unmet needs led to the creation of what I believe is the hallmark of his superintendency, a construct in the business world known as a project management office, or PMO. Dr. Tally's PMO consists of an impressive portfolio of 10 grant-funded projects totaling $5,927,419 in competitive funds, not formula grants like Title or IDEA. Interestingly, it also includes a franchise as the CARES after-school mental health program has since been replicated in 20 other school districts, bringing in an additional $4.6 million in grant funding for youth mental health in Illinois. A $10.5 million PMO in K-12 education is rare, and the
064fact that it literally functions as a profit center, paying for itself and offsetting any ancillary expenses through indirect funds, is exceptionally rare. My three colleagues and I are proud to share with the board and community tonight and five colleagues at the board meeting next in 2 weeks the impact of these 10 projects, including total dollars received, number of lives impacted, and their catchy names, most of which Dr. Tally invented and Lisa Berry's team elevated with professional branding. Leadership matters. Please join us as we express gratitude to Dr. Tally for his. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Our next speaker is Charmaine Joiner. >> Good evening board members, Dr. Tally, 204 colleagues, students and families. My name is Charmonique Joiner and I've worked in Indian Prairie for 21 years. I do not live in the district and
065my children do not attend the district. I currently work at the CEC as the literacy coordinator. I have never registered for 204 public comment before but felt compelled to do so tonight because I wanted to talk about the impact Dr. Tally's leadership has had on my practice as an Indian Prairie educator. I am proud to join my colleagues tonight to shine a light on Dr. Tally's service to others to share and to share Dr. Tally's impact on students and families in a project I led called Starbooks. Starbooks is a grant funded cafe inspired before school club I created with the support of Dr. Tally to address unmet needs in our title one buildings. This club utilized literature authored by diverse individuals paired with hands-on activities to engage elementary students. Without a single local dollar, 23
066students across grades one through five at Longwood Elementary benefited from the initial pilot last year. We met for 75 minutes before school one day a week for 30 weeks. Starbooks emphasized student collaboration, encouraged critical thinking skills and the literature utilized was chosen to foster a love for reading while instilling upon students to take pride in who they are. Since this was a cafe inspired club, tablecloths and flowers were used to enhance the classroom space. To make things fun, students and myself wore personalized barista aprons. As a culminating activity, Dr. Tally suggested we take the students to visit a public library and a real Starbucks which we did last May. Dr. Tally's impact was evident at early as he quickly became a beloved guest barista. Students even asked me to get them his own green barista
067aprons to match theirs. During the club field trip, Dr. Tally surprised students by stopping by to be the mystery reader. When students saw him, they ran toward him eager to share books that they were taking home. During our picnic lunch on the library hill, he sat down with students in the grass with his suit and apron on and read them his favorite book. This level of superintendent engagement is distinguishing is a distinguishing strength and sends a powerful message to students and families that you matter. As we all know, Dr. Talley loves impact data. It is my pleasure to share that 100% of family survey indicated that Start Books was one of the best parts of their child's day. When asked why, most families said the club improved students' attitudes towards school and increased academic achievement.
068This is supported by the spring 2025 I-Ready reading diagnostic growth report where club participants had literacy growth ranging from 11 to 83%. Start Books would not have been possible without Dr. Talley's entrepreneurial leadership and guidance. As our superintendent, Dr. Talley cleared the path for successful project implementation, visit the students and staff, and even helped me to edit my proposal about the project for my presentation at the Illinois Literacy Conference last spring. Dr. Talley's involvement in Start Books provided authenticity and it was a difference maker. Leadership matters. Please join me as I express gratitude to Dr. Talley for his Thank you. Good evening, board members, Dr. Talley, 204 colleagues, students, and families. My name is Aaron Miller and I have worked in Indian Prairie for 22 of my 26 years at the middle school level. I
069currently teach science at Scullen Middle School and my wife is also a 204 educator. We do not have children in the district as well. I have never registered for the 204 public comment before, but felt compelled to do so tonight because I wanted to talk about the impact Dr. Talley's leadership has had on my practice as an Indian Prairie educator. I'm proud to join my colleagues tonight to shine a light on Dr. Talley's service to others and share Dr. Talley's impact on students and families in a project I led with my colleague Sharmanique called Apples. Apples, which was named by Dr. Talley, stands for accelerate pupil participation in literacy, enrichment, and STEM. It was a first of its kind grant-funded after-school program that provided no-cost enrichment, making the return to instruction more supportive for students
070who were struggling post-pandemic. The board and community should be proud that this program was made possible by a competitive grant awarded to Indian Prairie called CURES, totaling $500,000. Without a single local dollar, 1,312 K-5 students from Brookdale, Kolmar, Gombert, McCarthy, and Welch benefited from Apples over 3 years. Shout-out to Ron Johnson, Carol Canada, and Alicia Clayton for who made no-cost snacks and bus rides home for all students possible. Apples operated 1 day per week from 3:35 to 5:00 p.m. alternating between STEM and literacy programming. The program reflects the district's intentional expansion of equitable learning opportunities. Apples utilized enrichment activities from National Inventors Hall of Fame and Chicago-based Junior Great Books to build critical thinking through high-quality STEM experiences and great works of literature. Aligned with Dr. Talley's vision, Apples made reading and learning fun for
071all students. As we all know, Dr. Talley loves impact data. It is my pleasure to share that Apples worked. Pre- and post-assessment data demonstrated growth across all grade levels of participant students. Kindergarten increased from 25.8% to 56.5% on the pre and post test. That's a positive 30.7% percentage points. Gains in first grade were 23.1% points and fifth grade was 21.4% points. All other grades improved by 15 to 18.1% points. Apples would not have been possible without Dr. Tally's entrepreneurial leadership and guidance. As our superintendent Dr. Tally cleared the path for successful project implementation and he, Dr. Lee, Mrs. Rosenblum, even attended project meetings to thank principals and building staff for their efforts. Dr. Tally's involvement in Apples provide provided authenticity and was the difference maker. Leadership matters. Please join me as I express gratitude to
072Dr. Tally for his. Thank you. Our next speaker is Elizabeth Coletta. Good evening, board members, Dr. Tally, District 204 colleagues, students, and families. My name is Liz Coletta and I have had the privilege of serving in Indian Prairie for 29 years. I currently teach science at Still Middle School and have previously worked here at the CEC and the STEM School. I do not live in the district or have students attending district schools. I have never signed up for public comment before, but I felt compelled to do so tonight. I am proud to join my colleagues in recognizing Dr. Tally's service to others and to share his impact on students and families through a project I led this past summer called SELF Summer Camp. SELF, a name given by Dr. Tally, stands for STEM Enrichment Learning
073and Film. It was a first of its kind grant-funded 3-week full-day summer program offered at no cost to families. By combining four grants totaling $198,768, the program served 315 kindergarten through fifth grade students from Brookdale, Georgetown, and Longwood without the use of any local funds. Held Monday through Thursday at Hill Middle School, students engaged in hands-on STEM learning through Camp Invention, explored fine arts and filmmaking with the Aurora nonprofit Frame, and built social-emotional skills alongside mentors from African American Men of Unity. A highlight of the program was our third through fifth grade students creating original short films, which were later showcased at the City of Lights Film Festival in Aurora this past September. A unique and meaningful component of SELF Summer Camp was the inclusion of Friday field trips for students and a family member
074at no cost. Families visited the Brookfield Zoo, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the DuPage Children's Museum. In total, 245 participants attended the zoo, 180 attended the Museum of Science and Industry, and 130 attended the DuPage Children's Museum. These field experiences removed common barriers such as cost and transportation and created opportunities for families for family connection and community engagement, something Dr. Tally deeply values. SELF Summer Camp would not have been possible without Dr. Tally's entrepreneurial leadership and vision. As Superintendent, Dr. Tally helped bring this program to life not only by shaping its vision and guiding its design, but also by taking time to visit with students and staff throughout the summer. His presence brought authenticity and made a meaningful impact. I would also like to recognize Laura Rosenbloom for her consistent support and daily
075visits. The principals of Brookdale, Georgetown, and Longwood for their partnership and support of students and families, and Ron Johnson and Alicia Clayton for securing no-cost transportation for families. This work reflects the power of strong leadership and collaboration. Leadership matters. Please join me in expressing gratitude to Dr. Telly for his leadership and support. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Our next speaker is Rhonda Jenkins. Good evening. My name [clears throat] is Rhonda Jenkins. I'm the LMC director at Kendall Elementary School, and I want to tell you about a very exciting program that we had at the beginning at the beginning of February, February 2nd through the 13th. It was run by a company called Books Are Fun. It was called a book blast, and it like I said, it lasted 2 weeks. On the first day, children
076went home with a treasure map, and the goal of the family was to invite 10 people so that they could help us reach our goal of books in the hands of children's home libraries. So, as it turned out, after the 2 weeks, we we earned donated anyway $3.30 less than $30,000 for books for my school, for my children, and every cent of that went to the children's books. Participation or not, every child went home with a book. Some with as many as 10. They also gave to us because of the goal that we reached and surpassed 59% of our population participated. Um 10 books were given to every teacher. 70 books to the library plus $2,000 for me to spend for books in the library. Uh it was just an amazing program. Two teachers won
077$200 bonuses at their their store. 12 got $100 bonuses. There were gifts what I'm wearing shoulder? The shoulder um turtle. And there was also a bouncy ball for the kids that just sent in the 10 names. So, we had 362 of these packages that were gifts. No cost to the school at all for this program. Um every cent, like I said, went to books for um and on our book delivery day, 2,181 books arrived organized perfectly by this company. It was just an awesome experience. The kids were so excited. They wore these turtles on their shoulders all the time. Uh the teachers put them as mascots in their classroom. Um it was just epic. One of the things that they also had were three other participation gifts. Um one was a treasure chest with actual
078$15 in three of them. And then one final epic one that had backpacks and blankets and all kinds of things in them. One student won that. Um The company was so impressed with my energy, which, you know, I got a little bit of that. Um that I was in Texas and I did I gave um a presentation at the Texas Library Association. And they were vendors there, so they asked me if they could um sponsor me. They paid for my flight. They also gave me $2,000 more to spend on books as I stood at their vendor location to help encourage other librarians there to get on board because this was an amazing program that um I would love to be able to do next year, but I won't be able to. So, anyway, that's all
079I wanted to share because it was an outstanding program. It was endorsed by the Illinois Principal Association, so that's what encouraged me to also take a part. And the children were funny because they go, "Oh, it's a scam. It's got to be a scam." It's like, "It's not a scam. First off, I'm Miss Jenkins. Do you think I would be scamming you? Okay? Not going to happen." So, anyway, thank you for your time. >> [applause] >> Our next speaker is Phil McAllister. Everybody, thanks for letting me come talk to you tonight. Um you guys should all have a report that I emailed you guys uh Friday about the curriculum for social studies. Uh just to be very clear, I don't have any sort of axe to grind here. I'm not just some angry dad. That
080report was carefully cited, researched. The whole goal there is to outline the Illinois state standards for curriculum and to show how this curriculum simply doesn't meet them, okay? So, I'm not trying to, you know, get anybody angry or anything like that, but state standard, pulled directly from it, gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views, construct arguments and counter claims using evidence to help talk about these issues, right? That's what the state says we need to do in social studies. Well, I got got a chance to review the curriculum and, you know, just time and time again over multiple topics, it shows sort of one ideological bent um that happens to kind of be consistent throughout. It's sort of like this oppressor versus oppressed mentality, kind of always painting all of
081history in this negative light where there was all these bad things that were happening. Uh a couple of the more egregious examples, you know, they talk about the in in income gap, Asian Americans and white Americans earning a lot more than um you know, uh Hispanic or for Americans. While that is technically true from a data standpoint, what's also true is that Nigerian Americans with black skin out-earn white Americans. Now, wouldn't that be a really cool thing for the kids to be able to talk about and have a really good robust conversation about, "Hey, here's what's going on in our country and here's some interesting facts that that balance that out, right?" Uh another one in the gender wage gap uh talks about 82 cents on the dollar being the gender wage gap. Well, that
082one was actually debunked by a female Harvard economist who showed that all of that wage gap had nothing to do with discrimination, but just choices that females were making on the type of jobs that they wanted to pursue. So again, it'd be great to just have be able to have that conversation and and maybe show that this is this is a great place to live and and women get to choose where they work and people can earn great money when they come here and it's not always about sort of this oppressed mentality, right? I'm not saying that should be all that's taught, but that's how we would balance this and meet the state standard a little bit better. Um another one talks about, you know, western countries have enough money and food so that nobody
083needs to go hungry, yet people are going hungry around the world. Again, what's true is that in 1820 something like 80% of the global population was desperately poor and now it's like 10 to 20% and even since 1990 about a billion people have been lifted out of poverty by China and India taking on sort of a free market more capitalist approach to their global trade. If that were mentioned in the curriculum, that'd be a really great way to kind of again understand, well, what's the driving factor that's actually creating prosperity and, you know, rather than being some sort of major problem that needs to be corrected by, you know, government policy or that people are being evil. So that's my goal for this whole thing. There's a lot more examples that I'd love to talk
084to you guys about if I have time. I'm probably running pretty close to my time here. Um just want you to know where I'm coming from. I think we can do better. We could be really great educators that actually meet this standard well, challenge kids to actually see all the sides, but this curriculum just simply doesn't do it. So if any of you would love to grab a coffee or I'd buy you breakfast, talk about it more, anything like that, I could find a champion in one of you guys to help push this a little bit, I'd love to sort of make that happen and and make a change here. So, thank you all very much for your time. Our last public speaker is Ishmael Elliott. Um good evening board members. My name is Ishmael
085Elliott. I'm a senior from Waubonsie Valley and today I've decided to make a public comment specifically for my government class as a project. But for the last 12 years I've been in this district from Georgetown Elementary up to Waubonsie and I've learned many things from my experiences as being a student in all these schools. I've done football, basketball, track and field and I've also done band from 8th to 12th grade. So, I feel confident that I've gotten a proper overall look from within the district not only as a student but as a student athlete and a music orientated student. So, my main point on what I want to talk about today is the ongoing issue at Waubonsie Valley. Now, I want to mention that we're under we're going we're undergoing a major revenue my bad.
086A major renovation project which involves tearing down the existing field and our stadium and replacing with a turf field. This would also mean that we would have to interfere with the track. Now, track and field is very very is valued very highly with me. Even though I'm primarily a jumper who doesn't use the track as much but I mean even last year I got I was able to compete at the state competition and I even finished 14th in the state for high jump as a junior which is a great accomplishment for me. So, um and even while just that I mean it's it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to for um you to be able to reach out to recruiting coaches to be able to highlight you as an interest. I mean I even got my first
087track and field offer just from competing at the state meet. So, due to construction of the stadium happening during our season, we are only able to use about two full weeks of our own track before construction took over. So, what are we doing now? We use the parking lot in the lacrosse practice field to do our workouts. Thank goodness we have opportunities at at Metea and Neuqua to practice, but unfortunately under the rules of the IHSA, we cannot practice on the same area as them because it counts as a scrimmage, which is against the rules. Now, as someone whose event is so technical and involves a lot of repetition and practice, these changes have impacted me drastically. It's not only me, but other jumpers who are my teammates have also felt the same changes to
088their performances because they get maybe two days out of the whole week to properly practice on our jumps if we are lucky. To reinstate my point, I want I want you guys to understand that well, to mainly take into consideration when you guys discuss these type of events. Sure, things like this can be hard, but I as a student athlete shouldn't have to worry about my chance at competing at the top level once again all because I usually get one good practice during the whole week. So, mainly in conclusion, I want us to remember that our journey together is just beginning even though mine is ending unfortunately, but the challenges that we face are real, so are the opportunities that lie ahead. So, I mean, I'm a I'm a pretty good high jumper, so if
089you want to catch me at like my next meet, I mean, I'll prove to you. But, thank you, that's all. We now move to our consent agenda and superintendent report. We will start with the superintendent report. Thank you, Ms. Fostik, members of the Board of Education, Indian Prairie community. I want to start by comments by thanking all volunteers who have given their time and energy to our students and schools over this school year. April 19th through the 25th was National Volunteer Appreciation Week, and it is important that we recognize the great work that our volunteers provide to our students and staff. At the next Board of Ed meeting, I will provide you with some specific numbers related to the hours our volunteers have given us over the year. This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. I
090want to say to all of our teachers how grateful we are for what they do day in and day out. The daily life of a of a teacher is very complex with multiple layers. Thousands of decisions are made each day a teacher works in his or her classroom. From helping students learn academically and helping our students grow and develop socially and emotionally, there are a myriad of things that teachers do each day to ensure the success of our students. I put our teachers up against any in the state and the nation. I have seen our teachers in person and I'm inspired by what they do. Thank you. National School Nurses Day is May 6th. Our nurses support our students in their physical health and support their emotional health. We have a cadre of nurses who
091demonstrate daily a commitment to our children and to each other. When our children are hurt, our nurses help mend them. When our children are not feeling well, our nurses provide a steady hand to help them feel better. Their work sometimes goes unseen, but it is so vital. I thank all of our health care nurse workers in our schools for the service they provide to our students and our families. May is Asian American Pacific Islander Month. It's the time when we celebrate the contributions made by Asian Americans in our country and for the world. May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. Um I'm As a district, we have continued our support for mental health through the work done in the schools and the mental health clinics we have established. I remind our families that they may
092now register their children for next school year. Our online registration module opened on Friday. Registering your children sooner rather than later helps us understand how many students will be in our schools next year. Those numbers directly impact our need to hire or not hire teachers. The sooner we know our numbers, the sooner we can react and respond by hiring teachers if necessary. I have learned that as of today 10% of the families have already registered um since Friday when the portal opened. Indian Prairie School District was recently awarded the Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025 by the Association of School Business Officials International. I congratulate Mr. Matt Shipley, our Chief School Business Officer, and Mr. Doug Wylie, our Comptroller, for all and all the people who work
093in our business office who helped to make this happen. Finally, I am going to distribute to some of our board members tonight some pins that they can wear. The Illinois Association of School Board recognizes board members for the time and effort they devote to learning and leadership activities provided by the association, as well as for service to the public education community. Tonight I will give the Board of Ed members lapel pins that reflect certificates they have been given to the members in the past couple of years. And Ms. Fostik, I will turn this back over to you. Thank you. Next we move to our consent agenda items. I need a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through T. I move that the Board of Education approve consent agenda items D through T
094as presented. Any discussion? Michelle, please call the roll. Ms. Gantz? Yes. Ms. Grover? Yes. Ms. Fostik? Yes. Mr. Kroubetz? Yes. Mr. Rising? >> Yes. And Ms. Demis? Aye. Next we move to our action items. I need a motion and a second to approve the high school textbook adoption as presented. I move that the Board of Education approve the high school textbook adoption as presented. Second. Any discussion? Michelle, will you please call the roll? Ms. Deming? Aye. Ms. Gantz? Yes. Ms. Grover? Yes. Mr. Rising? Yes. Ms. Fostik? Yes. Mr. Kurubis? Yes. Motion passes. I need a motion and a second to approve the negotiated IPEA contract as presented. I move that the Board of Education approve the negotiated IPEA contract as presented. Second. Any discussion? I want to take this moment to share that this contract
095uh represents a lot of time and effort. Um we appreciate the coming together of both sides. That's reflective of our positive and ongoing relationship um with our staff. Um Michelle, will you please call the roll? Mr. Rising? Yes. Ms. Deming? Aye. Ms. Grover? Mr. Kurubis? Yes. Ms. Fostik? Yes. Ms. Gantz? Yes. The motion passes. We will now have a presentation from Dr. Lewis Lee, Brad Holman, Patrick Rowley, and Kathy Miller of the Office of Assessment for the Grading Pilot Update. Well, uh my colleagues are coming up here. Uh want to say good evening, Board members. Uh Dr. Tally, uh we are pleased to be back before you to present an update um regarding our formative summative assessment grading pilot. Joining me tonight to share in this update is Kathy Malone, who is a math teacher
096at Skillin Middle School. Um Mr. Patrick Riley, who is the principal of Gregory Middle School. And then Mr. Brad Hillman, uh the assistant superintendent for middle schools. We gave this presentation almost a year ago, July, uh just seems like a 10 months ago. And uh really what this presentation I think you'll find tonight is really I think the theme that's been talked about tonight, uh student voice. Uh we've heard all about elevating student voice tonight. And I think this is the first time in a um substantive way that we've actually uh elevated student voice on something as important to them, uh and and our teachers, uh and all of us is how they actually show um and earn mastery in the classroom. And so uh as we go through this, that student voice is going
097to be such a powerful piece that comes out of this, uh that we are really excited to uh walk through the results uh and present that it and help it inform any future practices or policy. Uh speaking of the outline, uh we're going to uh lean into our portrait of a graduate learning framework as a reminder of what this uh really entails. Uh we'll talk a little bit about the grading steering committee, just as a reminder. Uh and we'll talk specifically about the work uh that has been done with the formative summative subcommittee uh under their leadership. And then we'll jump right in into those fall pilot survey results, and then end with a potential uh timeline of implementation. So, um we are fast approaching the fifth and final year of our current strategic plan
098and this pilot focuses on one of those four priorities, which is the student development piece. And there are strategies outlined uh specific to that focus on student development. And one of those main ones is really the equity um of this, the achievement and through the eyes of a students and how they're engaged uh with uh not only each other, but also the educator in the classroom. We presented uh and this board adopted a resolution and um synonymous with the Vision 2030 project uh presented by Illinois State Board of Education. And again, uh the work that you're going to hear tonight, just as a reminder, really looks at uh the meaningful assessments piece of that Vision 2030 work. A big piece of what we are uh doing all has to do with our integrated multi-tiered systems
099of support model. Outlining in that model, everything's connected to our Portrait of a Graduate competencies. And in that learning framework, anything that speaks to how we are educating students in the classroom, more specifically, uh how how grades are given and earned by our students is really at the heart of how we can continue to support them uh at different uh tiers of of support. Our vision statement, just a reminder, as you see those words on the screen are not just words, but we want to make them actionable. And it's through some of this discussion that we're having tonight where some of those words become alive. And then the whole reason of why. Why are we doing this work in the first place? And it's really to make sure that grades are equitable, consistent, and measured
100through that lens of standards, academic growth, uh achievement, and our SEL work. I think this piece of it everything that we hear tonight, we really want to center upon the why of why we're doing this work in the first place. With that being said, again, this is committee work. Our grading steering committee is made up of an equal number of administrators and educators. We talked about a little bit the partnership that we enjoy with our association and this partnership that we also enjoy with them as well. And so, all of the recommendations that we bring before you come from a group of educators and administrators that are working diligently to make sure that we are effective change for for the good of all of our students. That grading steering committee is overseeing seven different subcommittees.
101And tonight is just about one of them. We do have work that bleeds over into the other seven subcommittees. And all that tells us is that we're on the right path. Because if they were all separate with not one thing pulling on the other, then we're doing something that's wrong. And so, tonight really just are focusing in on that formative summative subcommittee, which that subcommittee is primarily made up of educators. It involves a member of the grading steering committee, but these subcommittees are primarily educators who are doing the research, who are coming back and making, you know, showing showcasing the outcome of the work. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Hillman in a moment just as a reminder to talk about what's the systemic way in which they're approaching this work work on
102the subcommittee as we start to get ready to go through the results. Thank you, Dr. Lee. >> [clears throat] >> Hello, everyone. All right. So, as Dr. Lee communicated, each each K-12 committee was co-facilitated by a teacher and also by an administrator, engaged in a structured review to learn and then develop recommendations. The process included researching equitable grading practices, using local and state and national data, reviewing examples that were from both District 204 and surrounding school districts such as Naperville 203, Plainfield, Oswego, collaborating across grade levels with teachers throughout the K-12 already implementing equitable grading practices, engaging in professional dialogue to determine which recommendations best align with our district's mission and vision. Submitting a unified recommendation to the grading steering steering committee for review and consideration. This thoughtful and inclusive process ensured that recommendations are
103both research-based and responsive to the needs of our students and our community. It worked. All right. So, formative assessments and summative assessments, this slide kind of gives you an idea of how to think about each of those two types of assessments. Formative assessments refer to a range of evaluation processes used by educators to monitor and then support student learning. It's intended to provide ongoing feedback that takes place on a consistent and regular basis to assist both teachers and students to be able to see where do they need to grow and where they are already doing really really well. Examples of things like that include quizzes, entrance and exit slips, self-assessments, and then obviously discussions that take place in the classroom. Summative is meant to be that culminating evaluation about we studied a unit of topic
104and it's now time to really decide how much do you really have you learned and internalized about that content and that skill. It's that end of unit assessment. They are designed um and they reflect a student's overall achievement. Think of the unit test, a final exam, a major product, Socratic seminar, essays, things that are kind of at the very end of a unit of learning. Now, for reviewing summative and formative assessments as part of this process, they began to look at the six topics that are listed up there on the screen for you. Equity-based grading is the weighting This weighting is intended to promote equality by ensuring that grades primarily reflect a student's mastery of content and skill rather than factors such as behavior or homework completion. This aligns with the district's commitment to equitable
105grading practices as emphasized in the formative and summative assessment committee recommendations. A focus on mastery reduces the impact of external factors that may disproportionately affect certain student populations, such as varying levels of support at home or differences in learning pace. Proficiency-based feedback is listed there by emphasizing summative assessments which measure mastery. This practice provides clear feedback on each student's proficiency level, allowing for a more accurate representation of what a student has learned and retained. Targeted instruction. This clarity in proficiency levels allows teachers to better address the specific needs of each student, differentiating instruction and providing support where it is needed most. This approach enables teachers to use assessment data to inform their instructional decisions and better support student learning. Aligning with learning outcomes. This approach aligns grading more closely with the district's focus on learning
106outcomes for all students. By prioritizing summative assessments, the emphasis is placed on knowledge and skills students are expected to demonstrate. Consistency and transparency. This recommendation supports greater consistency and transparency in grading practices across classrooms and schools. When grades are primarily based on mastery, it becomes easier for students and parents and other stakeholders to understand what the grade actually represents. And finally, a preparation for future learning. A focus on mastery prepares students for future academic challenges and real-world expectations, where the ability to demonstrate competence is paramount. Now, what is this going to look like for us? Our goal for 2027 is that by the 2027-28 school year, every middle school classroom will operate using a unified, district-wide formative and summative assessment gradebook model. What we mean by this is that we want to shift our grading
107practices to reflect actual learning. So, when you see a percentage, when you see a grade, it's a representation of learning. And we're removing the behavioral biases from academic scores that we feel create and this would create a fair and equitable measure of true student knowledge. Now, the grading vision that's up there on the board talks a little bit about what does that percentage look like between um summative and formative. We're going to get into that in a little bit more detail and then we're going to come back to that at the very end of the presentation and discuss that about what that's going to look like and how we're going to get to that. But as Dr. Lee started our night, we really talked about that pilot program that got us into this particular place
108and what does that look like? And so we want to really do is focus in on some of that that that macro view of looking at student voice. And again, as Dr. Dr. Lee referenced when we started, we had over 1,100 student voices that were factored into this um presentation that you were going to be hearing a little bit more about here in the future. Ultimately, there were three major summaries that came from that data. Maybe. There we go. One, operational clarity. By that, we mean that students fundamentally understood the mechanisms or the mechanics that were associated with how it was that their final grades were going to be calculated. Which I think is a huge step to be able to really know how it is that my grade is going to be figured by
109a teacher and not just there's some random points that is accumulated over the course of a of a semester. The second piece that we really wanted to take away is that there was sustained motivation. Despite low point values when it came to that formative assessment component, students were still trying their best on practice work while strategically increasing study time for final exams. And then the last piece, which I find fascinating. 52% of our kids said, okay, yeah, that's fine. I know how I know how it is that we're determining the grade. I I'm still motivated to be able to do well. But we still think that the grade and how we come up with it is only 52% said that it's inherently fair. And so some of that reveals a little bit of a disconnect
110between the rules and how it is that it really supports them moving forward. And that's something that our educators who are in the building are going to begin talking about and it's going to lead us into that final part when we start talking about what is the actual percentage going to be, or breakdown between um formative and summative assessments. I'm going to turn this over now to Patrick. Thank you, Mr. Hillman. Uh taking a look, we're going to try to break down some of those themes and look at some of the actual data that came from, as Dr. Lee said, the teacher voice and the student voices they were surveyed throughout the year. Uh and the first thing we want to look at is just clarity. So, when we talk to our students, we want
111to eliminate as much as possible uh surprise grading. And I can think of back in the day when we got our report cards, and that was typically the first time that we would hear about the actual marks. Um we really talk at the building level of the purpose of a grade, and really that is a communication tool. And we want to make sure that we are communicating often uh to our public, to our parents, and our students about what their grades are, and what those grades actually mean, and what it represents in terms of their learning. Um so, the first data point there, uh looking at about 75% three out of four students uh understand how their grade is calculated in terms of the percentage split. Um so, students know why tests as summative tests,
112a culminating activity, is weighted more than some of the initial attempts at homework and practice. Um and then we want to make sure that the students know and can tell which is which. Our focus really is on theme one is this logistic side. So, we want to make sure that we are over-communicating, and we were pleased to hear that most of our students understand what this percentage split looks like. Um and that they they often see this. So, from a practical standpoint, our students and our parents have 24/7 access to grade books and updated grades in the moment um as soon as teachers enter them. And we have focused a lot on uh naming conventions with assignments. So, as a student, if I were to go into my student view, I can see today's [snorts]
113math lesson, I can see what I earned in the point total, and then my teacher is marking that as either a formative or summative assessment. So, I know on the spot what my day-to-day assignments and activities look like. Um so, that's helpful for students, and that is also reflected in our parent view, so parents can see that. So, really focused on clarity to begin and and understanding that foundational um have a foundational understanding of our our percentage splits. Our second theme um as Mr. Hillman talked about was looking at student motivation. So, when we look at the two bookend data pieces that are on here, it's a pretty cool story to think when we have kids that are upwards of 80% that are intrinsically motivated. And I can speak uh from a middle school standpoint,
114intrinsic motivations for grades isn't always uh the number one theme that we see emerging from our 13- and 14-year-olds. Um so, it's really neat to see that when they're surveyed and they have that voice, they understand that even though these point values on some of these formative assessments um are lower than their their culminating activities, they still want to do their best. I think this is a huge nod to the effectiveness of our educators. Um we have incredibly engaging and talented teachers that don't undersell or oversell any given assignment. They understand that what we are doing at a given time in our classroom is really, really important, and our students recognize that. On the flip side, if you look at that 78.6%, our students still realize that those tests mean something. Um so, when it
115comes to uh nightly activities and studying, uh they are aware that bigger tests and bigger point values do have more of an impact on their grades. The interesting piece is that middle, that that feedback loop. So, about 65% of our kids uh report out that they are actively using feedback for uh corrections. They're actively using feedback tied to their grades. Um homework always draws an interesting debate when it comes to when it comes to teaching and when it comes to learning. Uh research will show us that homework is most effective when it is tied to specific and personalized feedback to our students. Uh we realize that we need our students to be an active voice in that. So, students uh we're working more and more with data talk. So, kids know how to talk about
116their achievement data and that they know how to action plan what those next steps look like. Um so, while that's a a little bit lower, um we do feel like that's a a real big opportunity for us. Um this falls in as Dr. Lee talked about some of these pieces starting to overlap. Um this falls into some of the other subcommittee work when we talk about reassessments and some of the other things that are happening. Um I think that will really allow this to rise up and and see some increase in our students that are using that. Um but it definitely is an opportunity for us to dig in a little bit deeper with our students. Uh looking at theme three, uh looking at the the low stakes, about 60% of our students surveyed that
117they are feeling less stressed. So, I know that our district kicked off the year with Dr. Doug Bolton. Um he really did a great job talking about the pressures of school um and and the pressures of such an academically talented district uh such as ours. Um but our kids are seeing less stress when it comes to uh their their holistic picture of their education. So, when they're looking at some of these assignments that are of lesser point values, um that takes a little bit of weight off their shoulders. I think it speaks to the growth mindset that is a huge focus of our our staff and our students that they really know that again they really want to grow and and do the best they can for their standards. So they are willing to put
118in that work regardless of of a point total. Which brings us to as Mr. Hillman said our our lowest data point. I'm going to frame it as our biggest opportunity. So we have just over half of our students when we talk about their grades looking at the accuracy and fairness in terms of a percentage split between summative and formative assessments. I think it's really important to know that this is a baseline data point. We have not surveyed students so we don't have a comparative data point to say how or to see how students felt in a traditional point accumulation system. This is one of the first times that we surveyed our students in terms of grading systems. It's a great data point to have. I think that we can pull a lot from it. And
119I think it sets us up as we invest more and more into that student voice to be able to talk with our kids to see exactly what is meant by these pieces. I am happy and I would like to share a couple hypotheses that I have from a building perspective on why some of these numbers might be a little bit lower than the 75s and the 80% that we've seen in some of the other data points. So in terms of accuracy, I know that in having conversations with students in my building and having conversations with teachers, there are some students who possibly feel that um the introduction to a new topic or as they get accustomed to middle school, if there are early struggles that may not their grades may not Excuse me, they may
120not feel their grade accurately is portraying what they understand. So if I have a test a summative assignment, I may not have another summative for three or four weeks after that. And if my learning is happening, I'm growing as a student, but my grade my gradebook would reflect that 80 70 80% for my first assessment. So, sometimes our students are living in the moment, but our summative assessments are not. There might be a a longer time span in between. We do have students, as we know, that have test anxiety. Um our students have bad days just like we do, and there are a lot of other external factors that could impact uh me on one of those summative assessment days. Um so, really our students sometimes feel or or might feel like they have this
121one shot at uh this summative assessment. And again, as we filter in some of these other subcommittees with reassessment and and feedback, I think that will be alleviated. But when we look at terms of accuracy and in the feedback we're getting from students, um I think that they're they might feel like they are learning. They might believe that they're they're having those uh concepts mastered or they're able to demonstrate profession proficiency. And then when we get to our summatives and we look at summative design, um some of those analytical skills and application skills that usually come with a larger summative assignment, um sometimes that is a little bit of the accuracy discrepancy that we might see. Um in terms of fairness, um although students are motivated and they are engaged in some of those smaller
122point value formative assignments, um sometimes it might feel like all of that work and it's it's not really taken a dent into my overall grade. So, if it's only 20 or 30% or whatever that percentage might be, um our kids are working real hard, but that doesn't always play out in terms of an immediate grade or or an improvement in an immediate grade until that next summative comes. Um we are working to unify this. So in terms of of fairness and equity, um this is a growth year for us. We are trying to streamline and unify these practices. So again, confident that that will come as we put more and more emphasis on these data points. These next few slides just take a look broken down by the three middle schools that piloted this. Again,
123while there is room for growth, I think there's certainly is room for celebration. And when we look at our kids, um what they are investing into their own education, we do see that a significant amount find that our systems are fair. They find that our system their their their knowledge about it, they're clear about what their expectations are. Um and we can see that through uh when we break down by by school. Um these are some of the statements that were asked on the survey. So, understanding how grades are calculated, that seems pretty straightforward. If you look at that column on the right, four out of five um our kids are understanding the calculation that goes into their grade. Um but really what it comes down to, it's not the logistical side, it's more of
124that philosophical side. And and and really taking a look at what my assignments are and how that grade translates to our gradebook. With that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Kathy. Thank you. Um I'm Kathy Malone as stated. I'm a um middle school math teacher, sixth grade. Um so um teachers were also asked for their input um on how this is going. Teachers who piloted um the either the 80/20 or the 90/10. Um and so these actually are our teammates of mine as well as myself. Um I swear I did not influence them to and this comes from them. Um although my team has had conversations over the years about this um as well as the sixth grade staff. Um, but, um, one of the things, one of the themes that comes
125across is that, um, it reflects that the students' grade currently reflects what they have learned. Um, they don't necessarily believe that, as some of that data showed, but the teachers believe, um, that it is reflecting what they have learned, not just completion of tasks. Um, they can prioritize their efforts while using formatives to help build mastery. And so, a lot of conversation is had at especially at sixth grade, where it is a very different system than elementary, of how does their grade work? What's important to put time and effort to? Yes, you might not have done as well on this formative as you had hoped, but how is that going to help you when it comes time for that summative? What can you walk away with? What can you learn from this? In order to,
126um, continue on that spectrum towards that learning in that summative. Um, uh, more uh, Tara said that more equitable grades are not impacted by homework completion, and as we know, what goes on in the home, or what doesn't go on in the home, is really out of control, often not just of the teachers, but of the students themselves. Um, and so, some students get help with their homework, a significant amount of help, um, and should that count for them, um, for students who don't have that support at home, um, but are still working hard. Um, the grades that we're working towards are reflective of what they've truly grasped and learned. Um, I kind of focused on it something a little bit different there. I'm freed from being a homework chaser. I do still enter grade
127homework grades into the grade book, cuz that's, um, knowledge for parents, and it's knowledge for students. So, when I have a conversation, no, and the students will ask me, "Will will this affect my grade?" Well, no, it won't, actually, directly, but indirectly, if you continue to not do homework, you're not going to be prepared for those math tests. Um so, uh, um clearly defining the grade weights have given students then transparency. I Every time I say there's going to be assessment, their first question is this is a formative or is it a summative? They understand what they mean, and they know that that has an impact on their effort um because it has a bigger impact on their grade. This one? Yeah, it's doing this. Um so, um uh back to those same um targets
128that were put there. Um students um as stated, I like that I can mess up on homework and learn from it without ruining it. But then we go to that bottom, I'm stressful knowing that almost my entire grade comes down to just a few big tests. So, some stress alleviation, but some increased stress for that summative. Um although I I do feel like that is more reflective of college, of other places. Um I mean, you you you know, you probably had took taken a college class where that kid doesn't show up until the last day. You have no idea what their results are, but you're like where are they in comparison to me who has showed up every class period? Um so, so it is um stressful Yes, it is stressful, but if we can
129learn and teach them, as you said, frame them, have that education of students of how that grade works, then I think they're going to understand. And yes, I think summatives will always be stressful. They were when it was traditional, they will be till the end of time. Um but, can we help them understand how that's going to reflect what they're learning and get them to where they want to go, not just in sixth grade, but how each of these um grade levels build on each other? Gregory, did you want to cover that? Gregory? Sure. Just speaking a little bit to assessments. I think the next phase of this and and part of the conversations we've started to we've started this year is really talking about just assessment literacy. So, as our teachers design this and
130we hear assessments and sometimes our brains go to test. Um but that's not always what an assessment looks like. So, we really focus on mirroring what our assignments, what our classroom experiences are. Um and we we want those to reflect a similar learning experience that our students will engage with with a summative assessment. So, we do focus a lot on collaborative learning. We really really stress uh peer-to-peer discourse, questioning, um looking for errors and explaining why something is right or why something is wrong. And we do that within the safety of a classroom with teachers facilitating that, with prompting and giving that immediate feedback to our students. Um so, our assessments look in the day-to-day, we are talk when we talk formative assessments, uh we're talking assessments as a means of learning. Um so, our
131kids are getting exposed to that and and they're doing a lot with each other and with our teacher. And then when we talk summatives, our summatives are an assessment of our learning. So, once a kids have had the opportunity to internalize all that information, they then have the opportunity to show that they've mastered that. Um looking to see how that transfers from course to course or topic to topic. So, uh a lot again, a lot of these I know we've said it kind of layer in with each other, but really want to make sure that we are clear with our students and making sure that our our day-to-day experiences really reflect what those summatives will look like. And and in the ideal classroom, formatives are very much reflective of what that summative is going to
132be. Um so, uh these comments are from Skoll and students. Um, and it those first two comments kind of support what it said with they understand the process, they understand um, how their grade is calculated, but then again we see that bottom part of that fairness. I if I have a bad day on a test, my whole quarter grade drops and I cannot fix it. Um, that's that I would say is not completely accurate that if they fail one test, they can't recover from it. Um, but that will lead into our other um, subcommittees as well. Um, the uh, part of it is that that preparation um, for assessments. Some students come in very well prepared and if that help happens to them where they have that low lower grade, they're really going to feel
133that. You might have another student who put very little time and effort to it and they they pretty much got there, but they want that better grade, um, and so they want that opportunity. I believe here is where we're also going to have to have a lot of um, preparation and discussions and conversations and training for our teachers. Um, we have a lot of veteran teachers, um, and I'm one of them. I you know, I've been in this district, um, this is my 27th year in the or 28th year in the district, but my 38th year overall teaching. Um, so I've I've grown a lot over this. Skyland started having these discussions probably about seven or eight years ago. Um, so when I've had conversations on our grading committee even, um, there's some high school
134teachers that we had these conversations with an 80/20 and the 90/10, they're panicking. That they well, these kids are super nice and we don't want them to fail and I understand where you're coming from. I was there a few years ago. Um, but we're going to have to have those conversations cuz there's others too that would say, well, if they're not ready for the test, that's it, you know, there there is no, you know, we don't get retakes in life, which is not accurate. There's all sorts of opportunities in life for retakes. Um but there's that emphasis on the practice piece, too. It's interesting how they can understand how it is important to go to soccer practice every day and swim practice every day and how that's going to make them better in their games
135and their meets and everything else. Um so we have to figure out how to communicate that with their education. The day-to-day is really where you're putting that work in and that's where it should pay off is that end game. And then finally we have still middle school who I believe it's a little bit um earlier in the process, you know, a little bit farther behind Gregory and Scollan as far as where they've started with this, but I love that they jumped right in and were willing to give this uh a shot. Oh, did I not advance it? Thank you. There. Thank you. Um it uh I still do the practice, so that's that understanding of the process that that's going to help them with that end game. Um but then that fairness um and that
136pressure is what we saw with that data as well with that um 52% uh or so where they don't see it as being fair. So again, I think that's going to take a lot of education for our students, but also our staff as well as we move forward um to that 2027-28 pilot year. Um and I know that our middle schools are in different places. Um I was when we first started this um in our subcommittees um we had uh even a larger teacher voice than in the steering committee um and some of our middle schools were, you know, a few years into this process with 70/30 at least, so that 80 80/20 was not a big leap, but there were some middle schools that had zero weighted grading whatsoever. All of it was total
137points. So there they're going to be some needing a little bit more hand-holding and and that, but um it's definitely worth the time and effort um to make our grades uh student grades reflective of what they're learning and not our own biases as we judge maybe their work habits or other things that occur. So, um as we as Brad stated before, um we our pilot was at the either 90/10 or 80/20. Um and I will say that 90/10 really came a lot from our subcommittee from the high school teachers on it. Um they're the ones that really pushed it and and some of them stated if I could have it 100% I'd have it 100%. Um there were some that, you know, wanted to go there. Um uh I and the uh many of the
138middle school teachers were at that 80/20. Um so, in order to kind of bridge that gap of where we've had peop- different schools in different um levels at different places, um we are discussing that do we adjust that model to the 70/30? Um and will that be a minimum um where teachers that are at that 80/20 or 90/10 can still go there. Um and that 70/30 is that minimum to try to make that grade reflective of their um learning and their understanding. Um and then uh discussion point two is we unders- we're hearing that fairness. We're hearing that pressure of, "Hey, if I have a bad day or if I didn't, you know, do well on this, um I cannot recover." And that leads into our retakes, uh which we've already begun to make progress
139on that within the subcommittee as well as the steering committee um as we move forward in that because that that is high stakes and it is it is pressure. Can advance it. So, um this is where we're at. If you look at that road map, we we had a road map that we presented last July. Wanted to update it a little bit. Uh we were successful in the pilot launch. We're are in between uh where we've just presented that data. Uh the next step in this, um as you've heard uh a little bit from Kathy just talked about, what is that sweet spot? What what are Where are we going to land on that? A lot of that is going to be through the work of some of our other subcommittees, which the you know,
140the reassessment will be back here in July actually to present to you uh some work that's that's uh being done there. And then we want to start with integration. And what we mean by integration is that everyone has an opportunity at the middle school level at all seven to start to integrate this um into their their grade book. And it gives them an opportunity to, as Kathy talked about, start to test it out, learn. Um we'll be offering PD for it ongoing. And then implementation is fully that every all as the uh Mr. Hillman said, every single classroom at our middle school is implement implementing this in a consistent and equitable way. And remember that that speaks to our why. Why are we doing this? Consistency and equity. Want to leave you with two final
141data points before we take questions and comments. 200 and 780. That equitable piece, we had one student provide us an open-ended answer of just under 800 words, uh which fills a page, okay? So, to to to to Kathy's point and and and uh Patrick's point, these students are taking this seriously and they want their voices heard. Uh and then the second piece, 200, um you know, uh our chief technology officer Rod Mack gave us this data point. He said there's over 200 grade books that we have currently. Uh Dr. Tally, I don't know if there's over 200 ways to make a cake. And so, you know, I I I And so, that being said, uh we wouldn't expect our students to have 200 different ways in which they can um you know uh have a
142grade that's a success for them. Uh so with that um we'll take uh questions and comments that I'm sure you have and uh we're we're anxious to to hear them. All right, we'll start with Ms. Deming. Thank you for continuing to keep us updated and coming back uh with uh with additional with additional data. Um the first one that that kind of hit me um slide 18 and as we talked about uh the percentage talking about feeling less stressed learning something new because practice work doesn't count for as many points. Um so important for our students to have an open um you know, being willing to and and not so fearful that they can't learn. So, that was certainly a positive that I walked away um from with that. Hopefully more and more will will
143feel less stressed, but um you know, certainly it's it's such a different way to think about um this. So, you know, one of the things as we move forward, presentation here, is there a plan for us to do um presentations for parents? Have we begun to let parents know where we're headed with this or thinking about and individual school presentations um through as we move forward? I'll let uh maybe talk a little bit about um Pat or Kathy what you've already done over the years uh or what's been done and then I can come back and share a little bit about what we're thinking about as well. Uh we have not in terms of a an 80/20 conversation had explicit conversations, but I do we have a group of parents that we meet and we
144talk about student experience and we talk about open communication and transparency and these conversations have come up through that lens. So, about how parents can access grades, certainly about what reassessment looks like in terms of the impact that it has and then when we look at the nuances of those different grade books. I know there was actually parents that brought to our attention the way certain thing it was a technical I'll call it a glitch and I know that's not the right term for it. But it was a way that something was named and associated in a grade book that was really not allowing a student to have a ended up being an A minus in the student their grade was reflected as a C. So our parents are aware of it. We were able
145to address it and fix it right away. So not necessarily in terms of sub committee language, but we do have parents that we meet with and we do talk about grading. We do talk about how to access parent view. We talk about what assignments are, what they mean. I think one of the the coolest things we've seen from kind of a boots on the ground is talking about what actually should go into a formative assignment. What does an exit slip what does it mean? What data as a teacher should I be pulling that to drive my instruction the next day? So it falls into the 80/20 discussion, but really looking at what are meaningful assessments and and then communicating that out to our parents. Certainly there are some students who are being very insightful with
146this as you talk about a student sharing a one-page uh summative on on summative and formative. How are we how are we hearing um are we doing committees at all with students? I I know it can be a little Yeah. It be difficult or difficult to to bring um their voice, but their voice is so so critical and so important. I don't know from an eighth grade level is is that where we see more of um input that that you think you'll have or what's the thought process from the student voice continued to be continuing to be part of this? I think this definitely gives us that springboard into that next level of discussion. So now we've heard initially what students are thinking. And again, a couple of those slides we we put our best
147guess as to why things might seem unfair knowing that while we did have close to 1,200 students, um there's so many other voices out there. So I think as we look into building next steps for next year, um from that building level we can start to pull in some of our student councils, our parent or excuse me, our principal advisory teams that are made up of multi-grade students to really have this as a topic that we can discuss with them. And then my last question and maybe this is just inherent and maybe everyone has that automatic assumption and maybe this is what you're saying, but is the idea for us to have that same summative at Gregory that he'll that everybody will have that exact same sum- summative for each particular unit. Okay. That that
148is already occurring um in the math department um middle school. We have a pair assessment access to it. So all sixth graders who are in regular math take the same unit test for every unit. >> Okay, I wasn't sure that was occurring at the middle school. I knew the high school that was the goal, but okay. And then and then even like at my building um departments we as a team as as departments, we even though we're not departmentalized, we uh the the sixth grade math teachers we plan the formatives by looking at the summatives. What do we need to make sure? So, there's that planning. Um and I'll address your other two questions really quickly. Um our team um had three out of the five of us um pilot this. Um and so, we
149definitely address that at at curriculum night with the parent. >> Okay. Um and they and we let them know that there will be variation within it this year. We're piloting this. Um so, we welcome feedback and and and that and so, we were very distinct about that. And our other two are we're still at that 70/30. So, it was very close. Um and then in terms of student voice, we don't have any formal you know, feedback either, but I can tell you my students are becoming more advocates of themselves. Before, I used to get more parent emails about why is my child's grade like this? I get I first of all, I get rarely those types of questions anymore. Why is my child's grade like this? Um but the students themselves today, I entered a
150summative task. I do both tests as well as tasks for my um eighth-grade PA this week. And and one of my students came up and said, "Ms. Malone, you entered the grades and my my percentage hasn't changed at all. Can we take a look at that because I feel like that was" And so, sometimes we have to talk about how, you know, within that category, did your was that close to your average or not? So, the students are advocating more for themselves and are feeling comfortable with that. Thank you. Um Ms. Grover. So, I really appreciate um this presentation. You know, during COVID, we were focused on learning and there was a policy that your grade could not um go like it it could not go reverse. And so, I appreciate that your focus is
151on learning and you're talking about that child who does bomb the test because some children everybody learns in a different capacity, too. Not everyone is a good written test taker. They might be good at Socratic seminars, but not when it comes to taking English test per se. So, my comment is just that I appreciate this and I appreciate that you are thinking of everything. You have different subcommittees on different topics. So, thank you for this presentation. Mr. Kurbis. Um let's see. So, back when I was at Waubonsie, there was a teacher, Mr. Yanish, taught me math. And we're all struggling to try to get like A++ extra credit. And he put us aside and said, "Look, you're not all going to Harvard. Some of these grades don't matter. It's what you learn." And that was
152way back in the day. And we didn't have, you know, extensive system. So, I think part of this is we've all been struggling with it and I've been doing it for struggling with for decades. Um I'm stru You know, you you might not look at it like this, but this is a lot of work. Unified grading across the district, across multiple schools, like just push the button and make that happen. That's a huge lift. And uh and then coming back and trying to make sure that that's done with fidelity and it's a stomach, so there's like the did we do it right period? So, this is a huge lift. Um I look forward to reading about it being done later. You guys being successful on it. I am struggling with some of the the terminology
153and I hope it's just the lawyer in me coming out. But we're talking about like stress reduction. But there's also like healthy stress, right? Like the muscle grows when it's under Um so it you know, there's a there's a spectrum there to to to to try to make it happen. Um And then I struggle a lot with this uh the use of fairness. Very subjective. Um you know, what tastes good to me might not taste good to you. Uh so I I'm looking at that like man, we got to flush that out a little bit more. Is it the procedure? The grade book wasn't entered right. Or is it like substantive? Like I learned it, but it's A is not an A because I didn't learn it. So um Or is it some bias impartial
154aspect to it? So I think flushing out that fairness um would give you more robust useful data and you might already have it. You might already asked about it. But I'm struggling when I when I see the word fair and somebody gets to vote on it and it's 50/50, I'm like, okay, yeah. Um And then the same thing with the grades. Like the people that got A's are probably like, yeah, that's fair. That's what I And And the B's are like kind of fair. You know, you could just keep going down. And so I you know, you got to flush that out a little bit more to kind of make it more useful, I think. Um And then I could see two other areas I see having being kind of problematic is you know, we
155had the student speaker up there talk about student attendance. And if we take away participation I why do I go to class anymore? Just wait for the tests. Um so we still have to you know, figure out a way to to balance that where you motivate people to come. Uh and you you were talking about the you know, the soccer player. Well, sometimes if they don't show up to practice, they're not going to be put on the team. And so, it you know, you got to you can't even get a shot at the test if you're not coming. Um, so there's you know, there's different ways to verb it, but there's a balancing test where okay, I'm not grading you on attendance, but I'm going to grade you on attendance. And you mentioned about I
156enter the stuff, but it doesn't count. So, I could see that. And then I think we also need to consider like you know, if we if we say you can take retests. Well, then the first test is going to be my practice test. And how many do I get? And there's always going to be people that try to take it to the extreme. And so, um I know and that goes back to my point about this being a massive lift and you guys got a long way to go. And I um you know, I'd look forward to you guys doing it successfully, but man, to try to do that systemically across middle schools um and then you know, make it so that the students and the parents and the community understands it without pushing back
157to you saying, "This this isn't fair." You know, and so you could see it coming back the other way. So, best of luck to you. Ms. Gaines. I want to thank all of you for the work that you've put in already and that you will continue to be putting into this. As board member Curbishley stated, it is quite a lift. So, I know it is a journey. I I just have a few questions. Um, and I I do want to speak to something where as you were talking about there were some teachers that want 100%, you know, some of whether they were joking or not. Um, my son who is currently a junior in college, when he was in high school, He had a science teacher where they had three tests and that was the
158entire grade. No homework, no participation. Um and so my my very high-achieving son ended up with a grade that he never thought he would get in a class because one of the tests he was absent for a few days as part of. So I have to go to when you're talking about with slide 27 um the discussion points of the waiting balance and grace and mastery. I I have to thank you so much for that because and I want to make sure the community knows that's not what you guys are talking about what this teacher did. That is not at all what the summative formative model is. I I think obviously though that's probably a concern um some parents will have, but I like that you're looking at possibly a 70/30 model. Um I know
159you indicated the 90/10 was popular with high schools. Was that More popular. More popular with high schools than Yeah, to be um I mean we haven't officially done a pilot. We have This is occurring. I probably should >> kind of throwing it out there. >> throughout. Yeah. And so I think um we I'm sure we do have some pockets that that are doing that. Right. Of course. Yes. They are. That's true. They they just started years ahead of I guess the game. So um and then I was just wondering with the three middle schools that you have piloting it, how did you come to decide on those three specifically? Um thanks for the question. We really um two of them have been doing them a while. Uh Gregory Middle School, I believe this was your
160sixth or seventh year. I want to say seventh. Yeah, and I can let Mr. Hillman talk about the history of that. Okay. Uh and then Scullin's been doing it this will be your fourth year. Longer. This have been at 30 longer. Okay. And then still, um, this they, um, under the leadership of their principal, um, Mrs. Cornish, uh, they have been doing some, um, building level work already. So, they wanted to jump in jump in on this. But, uh, Mr. Hillman. So, some of the history behind Gregory looking at this actually came out of Project Arrow. From the standpoint of wanting to understand, um, homework and homework assignment. And then how does that actually impact your grade? So, for other words, just because of an PA, should I end up having to have 13 hours
161of homework a night versus two? Yeah. Um, and trying to balance that. Maybe 13's an extreme. But, the idea was >> Not always. >> [laughter] >> But, was just trying to look at how is it that we're determining a student grade? And so, that led to a whole bunch of other questions which led to some evolution and starting to look at grading practices both in the building, um, not just in PA in general, but looking at grading practices and saying, "Do we really actually understand how important a test is in our gradebook and how big of an impact it has?" For some teachers, a test is huge. They don't even know it's huge. But, when they go back and look at the math, if they ever go back and look at it, they realize, "Wow,
162that one test had a significant impact on on a student's grade." Where others who don't give a ton of, uh, give a lot of homework, make tests very small, it's not very consequential, but they never had a conversation around this. So, that was the organic evolution. And then with, um, Mrs. Mitchell moving from Gregory over to Skillman taking some of those conversations over there, that's how you're looking at some of the evolutionary components to it. Okay. No, thank you honestly for for explaining it like that cuz that makes a lot of sense. And thank you for all the work you you've done ahead of time. And I do love the idea of unified grading systems throughout everything. Um just one last thing as we're talking about the implementation road map. So, we're looking in August
163to have all of the middle schools starting to use it. Bless you. >> Yes, we've had conversations with building leaders and I want to be clear it doesn't we don't expect nor are we requiring every single classroom in all seven. But, we will have what we would call early adopters throughout the seven, continue to expand this, continue to collect data, continue to offer professional development and make it clear to all educators this this is the road while recognizing this is a a huge lift with with continued conversation and feedback. Absolutely. And then so some will some be doing then the the 80/20, some will do the 70/30. I would imagine. We're not going to um restrict it because it's just going to be another data point for us that will help us make make that
164overall determination. The goal would be though to be consistent among the seven with with some final percentage. Right. Okay. No, that that makes sense in giving some power, you know, to the staff as well to decide what they're comfortable with. I I definitely appreciate all of that. And then with the expanded pilot are we talking about high schools at that point or no? Is that for Yeah, so um this is kind of bleeding into other subcommittee work. We'll we'll be back before the board in July to talk about some actual retake work that's been taking place at the high school. And not giving away too much, but there will be something that the high schools will be doing this fall as well and it will lead to sort of a flip-flopping of each other to
165to keep this lift going. So, Okay. the short answer to your question is eventually. Stay tuned. Yeah, stay [laughter] tuned. I like that. You're building anticipation. So, people watch our meetings over the summer, too. Thank you again. >> [laughter] >> Mr. Rising. We're going to be here for another 15-20 minutes. Um I first want to start out with saying that I am very appreciative of this work that you all did. The time that you took to look into this. Um the background to make sure you were doing it thoughtfully. With that said, I inherently disagree with this path that we're taking as a district. Um I am not an educator, nor do I pretend to be, and I know my lane, right? So, I am coming this purely from a parent standpoint, and from doing
166about 3 days of research on this. I've looked at the Harvard study, the Virginia study, the Stanford study. I've looked at districts across the country that have done this work. Um you lean very heavily into students and how they felt. Motivation, less stress. Our job as a district is to make sure our students are learning. Um I appreciate the words of using equity and equality, but those are also feel-good words to me because students learn differently. All students. I'll give you example, my two daughters, who college graduates, very successful. One was a very good incredible test taker, hated doing homework. One was awful at tests, and homework saved her butt. Our job as a district is not only to make sure their students are successful academically, but also our job as a district and as
167parents are to ensure that our students are responsible and accountable. And so, you know, I I think this is my first time in 25 years as a parent in the district and my 15 years as a board member as a board member that I've that I've heard for the first time that our students didn't understand how grading works. Um I've never heard that. There is clear rubric and if the students don't understand, they should ask the teacher. Um because it's pretty much set out the way teachers say, this test is worth so much and this test is worth so much and homework is worth so much. So, I'm concerned because when we use that word equitable, I'm not sure this is equitable because we are putting more on that summative piece. We are putting more
168on that testing piece. Um to me this is putting more pressure on the testing piece. And so, you know, I guess going forward, I mean, if homework is carrying a little weight, um you know, I I want to understand what evidence going forward and not survey data from our students about, you know, big surprise they don't want homework. I'm just saying. Um or they don't think it's fair. Um but I want to I want to understand that with this new model, we are still engaging students at a high level. Um because if we're eliminating the homework piece of it and hoping that that's motivating them to learn or still stay engaged, okay, then how are we monitoring that? How are we measuring that piece? Because what I'm going to be asking for a year from
169now is what data do we look at? So, what data and grading outcomes, what did they look like prior to implementation? And what did the outcomes look like after this implementation? Um because I want to know that there we said we we want to ensure our students are actually learning. Well, then show me the data of that claim. Show me the data that that that that actually worked. Um because to me if students aren't practicing with the homework I question if they're learning um the material. And yes, if we as parents or we as teachers have to encourage them to do homework to learn well, where So, we're saying please do the homework cuz it's going to help you learn, but they're the homework's not counting for anything. It's going to take a special kind
170of student to still keep up that motivation to make sure they're doing the homework. You would think most students would, but I question that. Um the second data point is I want to understand a year from now is what specific student outcome metrics um will define whether this pilot is successful. Um and then also what evidence will tell us if this is not working. Um you know, again, as I I said, I appreciate the work uh but I want a clear baseline, of where we've been um ongoing data tied to academic performance um and improve learning at the end of the day. Um again, we said motivation, less stress, you know, I view this personally and I don't get me wrong. I hope he's extremely successful and I hope you're saying Rising, you were totally
171wrong, you know, and look at how great this is working. But I I feel like we're creating less motivation for our students and I feel like we're creating more stress on the whole on the on the testing piece. Um because we want to ensure that they're accountable and responsible while they're learning the skills, while they're in K-12, before they go away to college. Cuz the Cuz when they get away to college, they're going to have to do that homework and and and and so I I question that. So, one final thing, all the research I did, and I'm just letting you know because if you can show me data on this, that's great. Um but I've seen no evidence that's this raises standard I test scores, this this model. I've seen no evidence improves long-term
172academic outcomes. I've seen no evidence it closes achievement gaps. And I see no no no data that improves college readiness. Um I've looked at districts like Palo Alto, um districts in North Carolina. There was two districts in North Carolina that actually tried putting in this in place and they reversed it because it was so hard from an implementation standpoint. Um So again, I hope it's extremely successful. Um I hope we just kick butt at it and prove everybody wrong. Um but um I'll be asking for the data a year from now, but again, thank you for all the work that you put into this, truly. And And good luck and I and I I one final thing I want to say in case our staff is listening or teachers are listening, I I want them
173to embrace this because I want us to be a trailblazer like I know we can be. And I know our staff, Dr. said it earlier, I'll put our staff up against anybody in the country. And trust me, I've talked to more than thousands of districts across the country and we've got incredible staff. So, I hope our teachers embrace this. I hope our students embrace this and I hope we have incredible outcomes. But, thank you so much. Mr. Rising, I have a question or two for you. When you said that you looked at programs in North Carolina and Palo Alto, what programs were you examining? The the same type of system that we're putting in place with grading where it's more formative summative. Was it about coming up with um a certain criteria by which across
174the district you would have the same formative number and summative number or not? Because I the reason I want to say bring that up is one of the reasons we were doing this and this goes through the equitable piece. >> Yeah. It's to ensure across our district >> [snorts] >> we are singing the same song with regards to >> I love that. And so therefore, I think that's an important aspect of what we're doing here. >> Yeah. Um summative and formative, I can tell you in a prior life of mine, um we did this back in 2005. And that's been going on very in a district of of 200 schools. Yeah. And so, it I think the most important part is to ensure that every student across the district, whether you're in school A, school
175B, school C, you are getting the same formative and summative percentages. That's the first thing we've got to address. >> Yeah. And there was a lot of stagnation or people not embracing it in a lot of those districts that have failed or not got the results that they wanted to. But But I haven't seen what I looked for. If you can share with me those studies, I would love to read them. Yeah, I'll show you the >> want to make sure that they are I'd like to read them. But and with regards to homework, there are there is a plethora of data out there for against and for homework. It's the same thing as with class size. >> Yeah, I know the arguments, yeah. >> Um with regards to whether and so I think we
176have to understand that there's there is a lot that's available for us to read and examine. And so I think we have to be careful about what we put out there to ensure that we're getting the right information. >> Well, I and And then the last thing the last thing I will say to Mr. Corubus is that yes, it does take a while for this to happen. I said to Dr. Lee when we first started this, this is a 3 to 5-year program. Not something that happens overnight. Grading and reporting is difficult. It's long, it's arduous, but it's necessary. And I'm done. >> And I looked at the homework studies, too, and that data's kind of all over as far as benefits, positives, negatives, that type of thing as well. So, yeah, thanks. Thank you
177for your work on this. Um somebody who's had to construct my own grading structures, [laughter] uh I appreciate this. I also want to raise what is an important point for me even to remind myself, which is that whatever your percentage breakdown, 70/30, 90/10, um it doesn't necessarily mean that there are only three exams that make up that 90%. You could have 25 that make up that, right? It doesn't necessarily limit that it is broken down, right? They are bigger projects, but but I think often times it seems um that we think of those as like your your final exam is worth 70% of your grade. Um and that may be true in some college courses, but I don't think that's by and large what we're talking about here for middle school. Um so it there
178are more moving pieces in those weighted sections, so it's for me that's important to remember. Um I just had two brief questions. The first is um is it was there any discussion of a since we're going to undertake this this big project, was there any discussion of it being a graduated system whereas we introduce those sixth graders who are learning a new system of grading all together with a 60/40? And maybe, you know, across sixth graders we do that and then seventh grade we change that percentage a little bit. So but by the time they get to high school, they've learned the stepping stone process. Yeah, I I was at uh Mr. Hillman's principal meeting and that was actually one of the the things that came up. Mr. Raleigh could probably um talk about that
179with his colleagues. So I there's a lot. Uh I I will tell you that um helping to lead a grading committee of seven subcommittees has been joyful. >> [laughter] >> Uh as to Dr. Tally's point, this this is a strong uh area of just belief, research on all over for teachers uh and and everyone. And everyone has their um their go-to um article, s- data study, and this is very personal uh for a lot of educators, so There was a lot of passionate talk in our committee and both the subcommittees as well as the steering committee. So, yeah. Grades are emotional across the board. Absolutely. >> For everyone involved. Um my only other question was whether you've noticed any differences across the subject areas across the great divide of humanities versus STEM classes for example.
180Yeah, you know, this is I do want to share that I think you know, maybe we haven't brought this out but this is already happening. It's been happening at so many different levels. You look at for example the high schools uh you know, and you think about how some of those assessments are designed. There are teachers earlier adopters who have been very um you know, consistent in this. There are buildings building teams who have done research on their own and said, "Hey, this is direction we're going." And again, the piece is just the consistency for the student because I think all of us have been in the parent teacher conference where the parent has said, "So if my student my son or daughter had just done their homework, they would have gotten A because the
181summative they demonstrated that they got the A but because they didn't do the behavior in the homework, they they're not getting the A." And those are uncomfortable because I I've never had a response to that parent about why that mastery that grade didn't happen. So some of those are those conversations these are you know, uncovering as well. Yeah. Well, I appreciate all the effort and time that's gone into looking at whether and how this will work in District 204. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. We will now feel like we need a seventh inning stretch. If anybody wants to stand up for just a moment. Do a little yoga. Uh-huh. Little yoga, yep. We'll now have a presentation from Dr. Nadanacher and Brian Jovanini regarding artificial intelligence in Indian Prairie 204. 5
182minutes, Brian. >> You don't have to worry about me or Dr. Jar, we got this. I did not. I worked with them though. He's one of my favorites. Uh good evening board, uh Dr. Sally, colleagues. Um tonight we're sharing an update on our artificial intelligence uh work in 204. I want to start by thanking the AI task force, um instructional tech staff, teachers, administrators, and so many leaders who have helped shape this work. This is not one person's project and it's not just a technology project. AI touches on instruction, equity, privacy, assessment, the future skills our students need, and so much more. For the last 2 years, much of the work was exploratory. We introduced the AI landscape, formed the AI task force, and identified early next steps. This year, the work has moved into
183intentional implementation. We now have clear values-based stance, the AI in 204 website, the AI playbook, and student-facing guidance, and adult capacity building. The point is not that we have more AI resources, the point is that the work is becoming more coherent. When generative AI first emerged, the question was practical. Should these tools be blocked or unblocked? And I would tell a story, but I'm short on time, but I think we might had a crisis meeting or something, and then >> We did, right here. Right here. And then as we're walking out, somebody said, uh you know, kids are using chat GPT in class. Should we just go ahead and block it? And it could have just ended there. The question It could have just been a decision, block it, let's move on, we'll think about
184this later. Um but that's not what happened. Um the question mattered, but it was too small. A block or unblock decision only answers access. It does not answer learning. We had to think about equity, authorship, privacy, bias, verification, and so much more. This is This is why this became a district responsibility, not just a tech setting you turn on or off. One of the strongest conclusions we reached is that AI does not make our portrait of a graduate less relevant. It makes it more relevant. AI changes access to information. Students can generate ideas, text, explanations, and images quickly, but that that that does not replace human capacity. Students still need flexibility, communication, creativity, citizenship, critical thinking, problem-solving, and resilience. In an AI-rich world, those skills matter even more. We're seeing the same thing outside of
185our district. The World Economic Forum continues to point to both technical fluency and deeply human skills, analytical thinking, creativity, etc. The OECD makes a similar point in education. AI can support learning when guided by clear teaching principles. Without that guidance, students can produce better-looking work without deeper learning. This is exactly what we're trying to protect against. Our belief statement anchors our work. It commits us to using AI ethically, responsibly, and in alignment with our portrait of a graduate. The most important phrase for us is that AI should enhance, not replace, human connection. That's our guardrail. AI should not replace teachers, student thinking, or the learning we're trying to build. The AI in 204 website makes our stance public. Families should not have to guess what the district believes, staff should not have to create different
186interpretations building by building, and students should not receive mixed messages. This site clarifies what we believe, how AI connects to the portrait of a graduate, and why judgment matters, and why privacy, transparency, bias, and verification matter. It's more than a resource page, it's a public-facing statement of how we intend to lead through this change. The website gives our public-facing vision, then we have a playbook that gives our core framework, and then student, staff, and family guidance translates that framework into practical use. Again, we're not just making a collection of AI resources, we're creating a coherent guidance system. And I think the groundbreaking shift that really the AI task force thought um deeply about is that a lot of the AI conversations start with permission. Is it allowed? Is this cheating? Should it be blocked? Those
187questions matter, but they're not enough. Our framework starts with the learning goal. The better question is, what thinking does this task require? What role, if any, should AI play? The shift moves us from managing use to building judgment, from tool access to learning purpose, and from compliance to student ownership. The AI playbook is the heart of this work. Again, it's not a tool guide, it's a learning framework. The playbook helps us ask, what skill is this task designed to build? What thinking must remain deeply human? When can AI support? When can AI extend? And how will students explain, verify, and own their own final work? That connects directly to our portrait of a graduate. Critical thinking is asking what thinking must remain human. Communication and citizenship show up when students explain, verify, and own their
188own work. Creativity and innovation show up when the students explore and test possibilities and ideas. I want to pause for a second on the word partnership because I know it can raise questions. We don't mean that AI is equal to the student or teacher. We mean the role of AI has to be intentionally defined. A simple comparison is to the calculator. Sometimes a calculator should not be used because students need to build number sense or show the process independently. Other times a calculator is appropriate, but the goal is modeling, data analysis, or applying a concept. AI requires that same intentional decision-making, but at a higher level. Sometimes there is no AI. Sometimes AI supports work that's already been started. Sometimes AI helps students explore their ideas or test their thinking. In every case, the student
189remains the thinker, the verifier, the decision-maker, and the owner of the final work. And then I'd like just for a moment to touch on some of the capacity building we've been doing as a district. Um guidance alone isn't enough. Leaders need capacity to understand the work, use tools responsibly, and model good judgment. So, through General Assembly, we moved from theory to practice. Administrator confidence in using AI grew from 4.8 to 7.96 out of 10 after a few sessions. This tells us that the work that we were doing built readiness, not just awareness. And then we also extended this um work to the CEC teams and district support staff. That matters because many of the support teams handle sensitive sensitive student, staff, and operational information. So, the work could not simply be here are some AI
190tools. It had to be about secure, responsible, role-specific use. If AI helps staff draft, to organize, or analyze more efficiently, that can create more time for direct student support, problem-solving, and service to schools. Again, the theme wasn't tool adoption, it's intentional capacity building. I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about some of our learning progression and what that looks like. Uh some of our partners in this work are The first one is Google. Google is our recommended generative AI resource and platform for a number of reasons. And number one, we are a Google district, we have a strong ecosystem around Google, Google Drive, Gmail, all the things that fall underneath Google. In addition, uh Google Education has some really strong safeguards in comparison to other generative AI, so that's one of the reasons
191why Google is a really good partner and continuously provide us updates on the resources available. The second one is industry partners, constantly learning in what's happening past uh college as we prepare our students for careers, and learning what's happening out in the workforce is really important to us as we consider the scope and sequence as we're preparing for uh students for future careers. The third one is Digital Promise, which we are part of the League of Innovative Schools. Had a number of opportunities to engage in workshops, professional learning uh through Digital Promise directly related to AI literacy. The great partnership of with Digital Promise is it is a national focus, so we're learning with colleagues from Florida to Washington to California, and we have a really strong um national presence to see what's happening not
192only in Illinois but across the country. In addition, we have partnered with Digital Promise on a number of grants, and those grants are focused on computational thinking, AI literacy, and then this uh summer we're engaging in a data science one that's all connected to AI literacy and continue to work across the district. And the last one are solution providers, how are they integrating AI into the digital resources that we uh buy, and how are they providing supports for our students to enhance learning in all of our disciplines? So, how do we continue to bring that learning to our staff uh in addition to things that were already mentioned. Our innovation innovation ambassadors have shared professional learning and board on boarded our staff. We continue to share monthly updates, little tips and tricks related to AI
193literacy or AI integration from a professional and personal lens. We've shared professional learning with general assembly, which is our building leadership, and we continue to offer summer courses, some of them being asynchronous, where our staff can engage at their space, at their time, and at the place in which they find that learning can be valuable to them. But some of our best learning is obviously just in the halls and our professional learning teams and learning what other people are doing and what that can look like in my classroom. So, what does it actually look like from the student perspective? We talked a little bit about the staff perspective. So, our students, our scope and sequence looks like this. At elementary school, we continue to focus on our digital literacy, digital citizenship, and media literacy, which
194we have done for a number of years, which is led by our LMC directors. They do an outstanding job of delivering these lessons that are K through 5, and that's a really strong foundational component. And we continue to emphasize that in our work with with digital promise as well. They've done some research on this and continue to focus on that as a building block for AI literacy. In addition, at the upper grade levels, we're starting to look at some dedicated AI lessons and leveraging some of the resources that we will have available for our elementary school students. As you move on to middle school, this is where we continue to highlight digital citizenship in our achieve classes. Then also now we start to target a little bit more about AI within what is AI, using
195it, and creating it in our in our instructional technology classes. And they lead that scope and sequence and helping us partner with our core classrooms. And the final one is high school, which is a little bit more departmental based. Some things that we're moving towards to be be intentional next year is providing some curriculum onboarding so that our teams who go through curriculum writing can start to add in some AI components within their discipline that directly align to what they're doing in their classrooms and continue to provide supports that to buildings as needed. We have a really strong partnership with our high school instructional technology team as well as our assistant principals and continue to conversations on how we can support their buildings in this transition. or implementation. So a quick glance at what this
196looks like in actual practice. This is an example of an elementary school lesson focusing on media literacy and information literacy. Uh this is a uh from digital um Common Sense Media which has a really strong digital citizenship scope and sequence that we use K through 5. And this lesson just talks about how images can be altered and what are the critical thinking skills to analyze that that we've all talked about. At the middle school level, two quick examples. This is the first lesson that um our students do in Essential Tech. Really starting to look at machine learning and how do computers use uh data to make predictions. This next one is about AI in our world uh leveraging some of the languages that we had just talked about. Now, this is actually a new one
197and this is from aiedu.org which has provided some really short um task-oriented to get students thinking about what this looks like in their world and concepts, but also allows us to highlight that language that we talked about the independent supportive and collaborative as they think about it in their other classes. And then our high school example, this came out of our task force work uh and a curriculum conversation uh with a team that was there from our the following week doing some curriculum kind of just revisions and looking at what that looks like. Um business management has a has used the Open uh Stacks textbook which is a free resource that can be embedded directly into a Notebook LM and this is a great activity for them to onboard to Notebook LM, get them using
198it, and having a project to kind of get them thinking about what it looks like in their discipline, and to use the resources available in their class. So, what do the AI resources actually look like for our students next year? At the high school level, the first three are going to be Google products. So, Gemini if is going to be your generative AI chatbot, similar to ChatGPT or others. Notebook LM is going to be very targeted based on the resources and Google Gems. Notebook LM and Google Gems can be directly integrated into Google Classroom, so students can share those assignments directly with students. And then Canva and Canva and Adobe are resources that are available K through 12th grade. And our teacher toolkit, we know that this also comes with ensuring that our teachers are
199supported in what's happening in the classroom. There's sometimes when there's independent activities, and there shouldn't be that tech or any tech assistance. So, some of the things that can help our teachers with that. The first one is Securely Classroom, allows teachers to block or allow only certain websites. It allows teachers to monitor kind of what's happening based on the what's happening in the classroom, and they can also screen lock if they need students' attention. The second one is our assessment suite. Aware Assessment is our Kiosk app, which provides a lockdown experience where students cannot go outside of that app experience, so they can't go to other websites or anything else. So, it is lockdown to what's happening in that assessment. Live Class Board, teachers can analyze what's happening in their test in the moment. And
200then the last one, Aware Assessment has an ability to generate AI questions that are directly related to standards or unit objectives. And then also dynamic parameters is a nice feature, which allows a teacher to write a question, but the assessment platform, Aware Assessment, will change some of the numbers or concepts within there. So, it's we're still testing the same skill, but allowing each student within that's sitting around it has a different question, per se, but still assessing that same skill. So, what's next? Continue looking at refining guidance, continuing our professional learning, trying to provide some family guidance as well through this landscape that and continuing to align our AI literacy with portrait of a graduate. And as mentioned earlier, this work is a takes a team, takes an effort. A huge shout-out to a lot
201of people on this, including Tanya Brooker on our team, our high school instructional technology assistant principals, and ELA department chairs who have really good thoughtful conversations in what this looks like at the high school level, and then our middle school instructional technology and LMC directors who are on the front lines delivering the scope and sequence for our students, and we could not do this without them. And of course, tech services is a strong partner that we constantly meet with to make sure that we are providing a safe experience a safe experience for our students, ensuring that their data is protected, and making sure they have the resources that they need. So, thank you for allowing us to share a quick update. More than happy to answer any questions. I'm just going to open the floor.
202Yeah, go ahead. I got a quick question. So, you know, students are concerned sometimes because the teachers will say we're going to use an AI detector to make sure that your work is your work, and sometimes AI detectors can have false positives. So, what advice do you have for students, um, you know, who get flagged and it is their own work? So, this is a uh so, we so, some of the resources that we have available are some of the things that we mentioned. So, we recommend kind of using those resources that we have that we've kind of published and available to our staff. Uh some of those other ones are uh not ones that necessarily that we recommend, so we try and have our staff connected to these as much as possible, and we
203try and share that as much as we can. There are a number of different avenues uh with our uh building leadership as well as teaching staff. There are monthly updates to make sure that we're kind of using some of these resources that we vetted, looked at, and um evaluated. Yeah, we we do not um endorse AI detection tools, or we don't purchase them or use them. We know that they can have a lot of false positives, and uh we'd rather again be human-centered in relationships and have a talk like, "Hey Brian, uh your doc was blank for 6 days, and then in 3 seconds it uh generated uh five pages in there." And then they'll say, "Well, that's cuz I like to use Microsoft Word and then paste it in." And that's a conversation you
204can have. We would prefer to have those conversations than to say, "Hey, gotcha. This looks 68% AI generated." So, that's um Again, I think some of this is still a reaction to how things are going, and just some of the feelings that we might have around learning, and really wanting to preserve student learning. So, I think it might come out of a good place with educators. Like, I I want you to do your work. I want you to build this skill. Um but that's not the direction we uh would encourage our educators to go with AI detection tools. Is that Thanks. Uh one comment and then a question. Uh So, when Natasha and I were at the National COSCO School Board Conference, um kudos to you, Dr. Najjar, uh because in a couple companies and
205a couple presentations, people had found our genre of AI policy and were kind of raving about it, and said it's one of the best ones they've seen out there. So, just wanted to give you a compliment at the district level, um that that has been noticed across the country. Our policy on AI. Uh question I have not really worried with our when it comes to our students in in AI. Um it's more on the the teacher or the staff piece. Uh and I know you touched a lot on it, but are we constantly trying to give our teachers professional development on this? I guess the first thing because I would assume and I saw some tasks or lessons that you had for AI for teachers, but I'm assuming we would like to get to a
206place eventually with our teachers where there's kind of like this this best practices of what they should be doing on a daily basis, not even scope sequence or or subject area, but it's like how are you embedding AI in your classroom? And here's how it looks. So I mean is that kind of where we would eventually ultimately like to get of what best practice looks of using AI with their students at the different levels, elementary, middle, and high school? I think you [snorts] nailed it. It's it's a tool in our teachers' toolbox. What is the lesson outcome that they're trying to accomplish and that is a resource that is available to them. And there's some really good ideas being generated across our teachers across the nation about how they can use that for um uh
207within their instructional design base what on what they're trying to accomplish. Yes. >> leaving it up to them in some capacity, right? Yeah. Some capacity. I think that's where some of the it comes through the um student outcomes are pretty clear K8. And then as we work a little bit more intentionally at high school, how can that look in a more uh content specific course or classroom? Okay. Yeah, def- definitely I think the the professional learning is is ongoing. And then also um we're big fans of also trying not to overwhelm teachers, being sensitive to the the the task that I think the best people on the planet do every day. And um so how do how are we using our current tools like Google Classroom and the AI built into that, peer assessment and
208the AI built into that, to seamlessly integrate AI into what they're doing versus just here's another tool, learn this, learn this, and overwhelming people. So I think and that's a lot of the work, if I can speak for um some people in the district, just further align aligning and simplifying as much as we can um and in the AI realm also. Good points. Thanks. Quick comment, just thank you so much for being um being willing to, you know, take leadership position and move forward and not put our heads in sands cuz as many there are many people um in school districts who are seriously taking a look, but there's some who are still um just shying away and um and we have to be sure that we're helping to prep our students as well as
209our staff the right ways to um you know, to use AI. Um the I think the uh calculator analogy is a great one and hopefully can help uh our staff our our our people understand why AI is so important important for us to make sure that we embrace so that we can show our students and staff how to use it in the right manner. So. I appreciate how much energy you're putting into helping people learn about it. Um because I think there's at least for those of us who are over the hill of the technological and intuitiveness, um the knee-jerk reaction is often like it must be bad. Um at least that was my experience as a teacher. Right? The first time it was showing up in my classroom, it was no, I don't want
210it. I don't want it. And having the resources and opportunity to say, this is actually how it can be used as a tool and in fact, instead of shying away from it altogether, here's a lesson we can do with it. And here's teaching when it's appropriate to use and when it isn't and in which ways it can enhance, you know, a student's writing, for example, um and when it shouldn't be, when it really needs to just come from their own mind. So, I really appreciate this. This is a personal This is a personal one for me as a writing teacher. Um and the other point I wanted to touch on was Dr. Najjar talking about better creating better-looking work. And that is the trick in getting our students to understand the difference between actual quality
211work and better-looking work as an important differentiation. Um my only other ask is have we considered at some point, cuz we have this um very thoughtfully laid out in a policy, offering small workshops or parent universities so that parents can learn more about it, because it's sometimes, right, another parent fear of how students can be um appropriately using something. Is that something that we've considered? That's a great question. Uh we just had a parent university led by uh Brooke. Really? I did I just miss it? Yeah. I'm sorry that I just missed it. It might be on the website soon. Um uh it's it I think it was really well done. A lot of different perspectives there. Um we pulled a lot of different people and got some of their thoughts. A former a recent
212Nequa grad who uses AI in his job and um some people from Google and some people from Digital um Promise. Um and also a couple of teachers. So, um uh yes, we want to continue to ensure that everyone is is on board on our AI ipsd.org/ai. We have a parent guide on there, but we also want to make it real for people and allow them to ask questions. So, we hope to keep engaging the community um in this work, for sure. Wonderful. Well, I'm going to have to seek it out. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Um where Is that what that is? Um now for the legislative advocacy and Board of Education updates, do we have any? No, I need a motion and a second to adjourn. >> Motion to adjourn. Second. All
213in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned.