001Now 700 p.m. 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, January 12th, 2026. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Grover >> here. >> Mr. Rising, >> here. Miss Deming, >> Mr. Kurubas >> here, >> Miss Gint >> here, >> Miss Donahghue >> here, >> and Miss Fostic >> here. >> We have a quorum. Miss Basic, will you lead us in the pledge? >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, January 26th. We have one board salute tonight, Mr. Rising. Sorry, wasn't ready to go. Uh, district 204 students
002earn Microsoft user specialist certification. The board salutes Matia Valley High School business department for the success of 42 students who earned their Microsoft user specialist certification and Microsoft Excel during the first semester. This industry recognized certification helps students build real world workplace skills and prepares them for future success. Congratulations to the students and business department for their achievements. >> Let's have an applause for that accomplishment. All right, next up is our student representative report by Soha Panchal from Matia Valley High School. Good evening everyone. As you know, my name is So Panchchal and I'm the executive board representative for Matia Valley High School. And as always, it is an honor for me to be here with you all today. First, I would like to start off with our general updates. We look forward to hosting
003our incoming freshman class of 2030 on Wednesday evening for 8th grade open house. We hosted our annual elective fair last week. Our speech team has been having another amazing season this year as well. And we're also hosting our sectionals at MB this season. Now, sadly, we start interviews on Friday seeking the replacement of Mr. Bucker as our principal as he is transitioning to Crystal Lake South in July. Now for our very short athletics part, we hosted our annual Special Olympics versus Steps and the Bears won against the Packers. Now for our fine arts. Congratulations to our MV Allstate musicians who will be traveling to Poria at the end of January to perform in the Illinois Music Educator Conference. All State Choir, Orchestra, and vocal jazz ensembles. Now, Collage was outstanding this year as always. And
004lastly, Orchestas is almost ready for their season showcase at the end of the month. And we're working very hard on our dances, including their partner student dance and their parent dance. Now, that's a wrap for our report this evening. Thank you all for your time, and I look forward to updating you all on the great things at Matia Valley in the future. Go Mustangs. >> Thank you. Okay, next is our school spotlight and tonight it is Fiser Middle School. We have Kevin Schneaval, a Courtney Defor and Chris Melvo. All right, good evening and thank you for the opportunity tonight. We're going to start with what we started with three years ago when the three of us got there, and that was the basics of school culture and school identity. Um, and at Fiser, we call
005that falcon pride. And when we first got there, we listened to our leadership team and asked them, you know, what do students and staff need and what is the school that we want? And um, kids and teachers and families deserve. We also um incorporated our feeders. So by that I mean um the elementary schools that come our way each of them uh we incorporated one of their B statements as well. So what we mean by pride at Fiser is our four B statements or core values um be safe, be kind, be ready and be one. And um that is our foundational base. And um I'm going to pass the baton to our assistant principles to talk about one of the key strategies in which we use to achieve Falcon Pride. >> So restorative practices are
006essential at Fiser Middle School for creating a safe, respectful, and inclusive learning and community for all of our students so that they feel heard and valued. By focusing on relationships, accountability, and growth, these practices allow for our students to um take accountability, learn mistakes, repair the harm, and then develop those really important and essential skills of empathy and um problem solving. And so restorative practices also strengthen that that relationship, that trust between our staff and our students and reduce our repeat behaviors as well as support that and strengthen our climate and our culture that we have on belonging, which is our theme at Fiser this year. And Students belong, they thrive, and when they thrive, they succeed. And that's what we want for our students at Fiser. So, like Mr. Schnabble shared, three years ago,
007we joined forces over at Fiser together, learned, observed, interacted with our students, our staff, and our community. And one of the takeaways was restorative practices. And so, we knew that was important and that was something that we needed to prioritize. And so, we're going to share with you today is just our three-year timeline so far when we started to where we are. where we hope to be with restorative practices. Oh jeez. So our first year together 23 24 we really made a point to um learn and understand what restorative practices are. At the time we had three social emotional coaches who um really kind of took the lead on restorative practices and gave us the opportunity to um kind of witness them in action and that kind of helped prompt us a little bit on
008how we can continue to incorporate restorative practices even at the admin level. um classroom implementation of restorative practices in partnership with teachers who also experienced and became more comfortable with those practices. As well as we ventured into 2024 2025, we continued that professional development at our institute days and at our school improvements on restorative practices. This time increasing modeling and hands-on experiences so that our students could hear or not our students but our teachers could hear um and see what those look like. Um administration also continued to utilize that part of our exclusionary process. So as students return from exclusionary, that is part of their return um with their permission as well as with their parents. Um classroom imple implementation of restorative practices in collaboration with teachers who are definitely experienced and confident in this
009area. And then we also have an amazing equity ambassador and restorative practices trainer, one of 15 in the district, uh, Gigi Trzinski, and she's really kind of taken the lead on restorative practices at Fiser, and we are truly grateful for for the work and the leadership that she has provided Fischer and the staff there. >> Okay, so we year three, sorry, my apologies. This is year three as admin team and year three of us in our sort of practices journey. And so when we look at this current year um again when we first started we had threeCL coaches now we have zero. However um through the work of the equity team and um Fiser we are able to use Shrezinski to actually train some of our teachers to become restorative gurus essentially. And so um
010there we have a restorative team where they um have those restorative conversations. And so again we were able to utilize our student support to leverage that. Um, again, yes, we decreased from three three SEO coaches to zero. We're able to counter that by now we're training our staff to have those conversations. So, again, um, leveraging those relationships and again, we want to make sure that um, our teachers are know how to have these conversations. We are still using um, we're intentional with designing professional development centered around resto practice. Like today, we had a SIP day. We carved out 40 minutes to continue these discussions, right? Again, we don't want um we want to continue the momentum that we built since our first year and so we want to address all stakeholders, students, staff and also
011parents as well. Um we kind of have a Fiser parent university where we had a discussion over um restoative practices. So again, how can we make sure that we address all key stakeholders because resto practices is important and we want to make sure that we increase that awareness with everyone. Um and then going into uh 26 27 and beyond just continuing to have those profession development discussions and make sure that we are implementing everything with fidelity. So again we are starting with that big momentum from year one to year two to year three. So just being consistent and providing resources for everyone to be successful. So, in summary, what we're most proud of be besides the students, staff, and families at Fiser is is Falcon Pride. And um now we're connecting the dots um with
012restorative practices. And it's all about um trusting relationships between students and staff, teachable moments um upon reflection, emphasizing reflection, and um student accountability and student growth. And Of course, as Courtney mentioned, the theme of this year, all this ties right into uh creating a sense of belonging. >> Thank you so much. Our um board year or so ago all went through restorative practices to understand more about what that was about and how helpful and powerful that can be with um different techniques especially when someone re-enters back into the school. Um so thank you for that and for this um theme of belonging that is so critical and um needed with all of our students. So thank you so much for all your work. >> Thank you. >> Okay. We now move to our consent agenda.
013Oh, we have no public comment tonight. Um we move to our consent agenda. is superintendent report. >> Oh, consent agenda and superintendent report. And we will start with our superintendent report. >> He is very anxious to give his report. Miss Donahghue, members of the board of education, Indian Prairie community, I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season and 2026 has started off in a positive, beneficial way for you. District 204 and CLA is collaborating with Neapville 203, Asiggo District 308 and East Aurora District 131 to hold our fourth annual mental health and uh and wellness symposium on March 7th from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Matia Valley High School. A keynote session will be co-presented by Dr. Dr. John Duffy, author of Rescuing Our Sons, and Miss Kathy Cassani Adams, author of
014Restoring Our Girls. This year, for the very first time, we will have a student keynote presented by Eddie Sloowski. The symposium will again include breakout sessions for adults and middle school and high school students, a community resource fair, and a book fair. Complimentary lunch will be provided for all attendees. Child care will be provided at no charge for children ages 3 to 10. Registration will open next week. We have seen increasing interest in our symposium. The first year we had approximately 120 participants. Last year we had approximately 600 participants. We look forward to seeing you at the event. I'm happy to announce that IPF in support of the robotics program recently received a grant from International Motors which is headquartered in Lyall for $28,180. It is potentially it is potentially renewable for two more years.
015This is to support new teams at the five elementary schools that currently have no robotics clubs. May Watts, Brooks, STEK, Graham, and Patterson. IPF also received a $9,000 quality of life grant from the city of Aurora to support our kids essential fund. So, we're very happy about those two grants IPF received. And those are my comments for tonight. Miss Donghue, I'll I'll turn it back over to you. >> Okay. I now need a motion for approval of consent agenda items D through L. I move that the board of education approve consent agenda items D through L as presented. >> A second. >> Is there any discussion? >> Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Gins, >> yes. >> Miss Fostic, >> yes. >> Miss Donahghue, >> yes. >> Miss Grover, >> yes.
016>> Mr. Kubis, >> yes. >> Miss Deming, >> and Mr. Rising, >> yes. >> The motion passes. Next up, I need a motion to approve the adoption of the proposed new textbook for the high school business law course. I move that the board of education approve the adoption of the proposed new textbook for the high school business law course as presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Gent, >> yes. >> Mr. Rising, >> yes. >> Miss Grover, >> yes. >> Miss Donahghue, >> yes. >> Mr. Kurubis, >> yes. >> Miss Demi, >> and Miss Fostic? >> Yes. >> The motion passes. I need a motion now to approve the adoption and implementation of the middle school project lead the way gateway course flight in space to
017expand student access to highquality STEM education and prepare them for future career pathways. >> I move that the board approve the middle school project middle school project as presented. >> A second. >> Any discussion? Okay, Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Deming, >> Miss Fazdik, >> yes. >> Mr. Rising, >> yes. >> Miss Gent, >> yes. >> Mr. Kurubis, >> yes. >> Miss Donahghue, >> yes. >> And Miss Grover, >> yes. >> The motion passes. I now need a motion to approve the addition of the new 7th grade exploratory course design and discovery as part of our strategic initiative to enhance innovation projectbased learning opportunities at the middle school level. I move that the board approve the middle school design and discovery course. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Okay. Michelle, will
018you please call the role? >> Miss Grover? >> Yes. >> Mr. Rising? >> Yes. >> Miss Gint? >> Yes. >> Miss Donahghue? >> Yes. >> Miss Fostic? >> Yes. >> Mr. Kurubus? >> Yes. >> And Miss Demi? >> The motion passes. Okay. We now will have our presentation from Dr. Barbie Chisum. Miss Christy Diamond, Miss Shannon Grievous, um about middle school social studies curriculum. >> Thank you, board members. And thank you board members and thank you um Christie and Shannon for dedicating your time this evening to present the work uh that our committee has been doing for the board's consideration. So the purpose of our presentation today is two parts. to discuss our curriculum revision and proposed resource adoption um and to provide information on those proposals for the 2627 school year. This is in
019alignment with our board policies on curriculum development and resource adoption. Um primary alignment of this work is priority one objective two providing all students with high quality curriculum and instruction to meet or exceed standards. Also our work is aligned to priority one objective one and priority two objective two um relating to providing students equitable experiences um and creating professional development opportunities for our staff. This slide just reviews our general process for course updates. Um so we prioritize courses um within the district curriculum and instruction team and work with building leadership, our teacher leaders uh on the curriculum teams. During our work, our main priorities are aligning with state standards and mandates, ensuring that we're aligned with evidence-based practices, alignment both across schools and between levels, um student achievement outcomes, and also alignment to the board
020of education goals, our strategic plan, equity plan, and of course our of a graduate framework. Uh this is a visual a big picture of what it looks like and I'll speak a little bit more about how this process came to be. Uh during the revision process in general we begin with a needs assessment design and develop our plan for moving forward pilot and implement and then review our work to decide you know what adjustments are needed. And I promise I won't talk the whole time. You'll get to hear So this uh timeline just out lays out how this work has unfolded for the social studies revision for middle school. Um, we began all the way back in the spring of 2024 with our needs assessment and our work has continued and brought us um to
021where we are today. Um, with our um we did our needs assessment and then uh we did a lot of work last year uh establishing our criteria, developing our scope and sequence and identifying a resource for pilot uh that we've been piloting in the fall. Uh we are presenting that work today with the idea that we are going to be able to provide additional professional development at our countywide institute day in February and to be able to continue developing uh teacher capacity with being ready for full launch uh in the fall. So the needs assessment was the first step in this process. Um and the needs assessment encompasses a lot of different pieces. When I first started, um, one of the first conversations that I had with a teacher was about social studies and some
022of the challenges that they found working with our existing, um, social studies curriculum. So during my time as I visited classrooms and spoke with teachers and administrators, I wanted to learn a little bit more about where those challenges came from and how we that might inform our work moving forward. So one of the major challenges with social studies at the middle school level, it is related to our middle school teaming structure. Um our teaming provides uh a lot of is student centered and is appropriate for the middle school model, but it does create uh social studies as as our swing course. So for many of our teachers, social studies is not their primary area of expertise. It is a secondary area of expertise. And so a lot of our teachers were asking for more resources
023to help support them in teaching social studies effectively. Our most recent curriculum adoption did not include a core resource. And that was something that many of our teachers felt were were lacking and didn't feel supported as they were working through that. And so that was one of the main priorities uh that that drove us through the work. So then we did a survey of both teachers and students to identify what are the components of our curriculum that are really working right now that we want to make sure that we hold as part of our process as well as our opportunities for moving forward. So the big pieces that uh came out from both our teachers and our students is that our students found a lot of the the the learning relevant and we want to
024make sure that we we keep that so they see themselves in their social studies learning. We also have a balance between both more local United States and global studies. So we wanted to maintain that. Uh our existing curriculum was very inquiry focused and provided a lot of flexibility for teachers to adapt uh to meet individual student needs. So we want to make sure that we um maintain those pieces and then we're also listening to the needs and opportunities for change. So, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of teachers were asking for additional resources to help support them. Uh, so when they're making modifications and adjustments, they're not doing so in a vacuum. There's a lot of resources to draw from, uh, to move forward. Um, teachers were also looking for more um, interactive discussion-based activities
025to help increase student engagement. Um, they're also looking for more knowledge building to support the inquiry process. So our existing curriculum is very inquiry forward. Um but what we wanted more of is more of that that base of knowledge to make that inquiry meaningful for our students. We are also looking for greater cohesion and alignment um and a need for clearer objectives and outcomes. So our big themes is having more of a balance between inquiry and knowledge building um and that is in alignment with our our high school. So then if we can strengthen our students foundation of knowledge, it helps support them in a deeper level of inquiry when they reach the high school. So from the needs assessment uh the next work was to go through our scope and sequence and identify uh
026where we want to go. So it is provides a lot of flexibility in middle school social studies of identifying specific courses and focus areas. Um however as you are aware there are also a lot of instructional mandates uh related to social studies and so we are looking to try to make sure we can address all of those in a way that makes sense. So we are proposing a new scope and sequence shift um in which in sixth grade we'll be focusing on world geography and culture and then seventh grade we'll um focus on early US history and eighth grade later US history. We'll talk a little bit more about the rationale and what those are going to look like. So one of the big takeaways uh the team spent a lot of time analyzing um
027the mandates the in and the instructional standards. Uh I think we dedicated a day and a half to this um just full day just digging in mapping out different options and one of the big needs is the need for more US history driven by the instructional mandates. um almost all of our instructional mandates in our existing curriculum are being u met in eighth grade which is makes it difficult for our eighth graders to have a cohesive learning experience. Um, and I included a couple of the mandates, you know, where, you know, the teaching of history shall include the study of the role and contributions of um, African-Americans and other ethnic groups, including, and then I'm not going to read them all for you, but you can see um, how the state identifies all of these
028different um, groups to be included in the study of US history. And so we want to make sure that we are able to address those meaningfully. So our proposed revision does distribute these among seventh and eighth grade and so seventh and eighth grade will address the majority of the mandates and then sixth grade uh will provide more of that global perspective. Uh one of the big challenges was to decide what to do with uh ancient history as was our previous focus of sixth grade. Uh it was a very we um discussed a lot of different possible models um and we mapped the standards and mandates through them and we um arrived at the conclusion that world geography is a better fit for our student needs and aligning to um the instructional pieces. So the world
029geography will include uh both the study of cultures in the context of geography and uh the historical context as well. So we are not completely losing that world history piece of it. Um but it is more more expansive and this will help provide a foundational background for our students as they're transitioning into nth grade uh for human geography. Um, and so we wanted to also the other one of the other factors was to have a middle school course that isn't strictly focused on history because social studies encompasses more than history. Um, and our learning standards are history, geography, economics, civics, as well as inquiry standards. And we felt that by providing a geography course at sixth grade would help us stress those better. So within our shifts um our sixth grade the focus is on
030world geography and culture but we also have the opportunity to embed world history and economics within that um seventh grade early US history has a natural partnership to civics and the founding of our country um and economics and eighth grade but later US history also has embedded civics and economics. So this is not a typical pathway by many um districts. Uh however, it was I'm confident in the work of the team and that this is the right path for um Indian Prairie for our teachers and our students. So from this um so we determined our scope and sequence and then we wanted to make sure that we identified a resource that allowed us to do more of this embedded work instead of isolated history but how do we embed civics? How do we embed economics
031when we study geography? How do we embed history and culture and economics as well? Um and so that was what we were looking for in um our resource. We identified uh the a core resource for pilot uh TCI which is also is currently our K5 social studies resource. They're using it in the elementary schools and our needs assessment really drove the interest um of our teachers. So we selected TCI um because it does provide a balance of that inquiry and knowledge building. There are also a wealth of resources within it to help support engaging learning and it did provide that integration of um civics and economics and history for our geography. Initially I was hoping to get about 45 teachers for the pilot. Um I had 138 social studies teachers and three of our multilingual
032teachers sign on for the pilot. Uh it seemed that once people heard about it, they were eager to get started. Um and I'm sure they can teachers can speak a little bit to to the interest of that. And it was it was really hard for me to say no because this is this was this told me that this was really meeting a need for our teachers. And so we were able to expand the pilot um to really just get our hands in and start to to figure it out. Um, so we did include standard PA courses and our some of our multilingual courses as well in the pilot. Uh, throughout the fall, we've had ongoing professional development with a launch at institute day. And then um during our district PD Wednesdays, we are providing time
033for teachers to collaborate and work through some of the challenges inherent within a pilot. So the TCI resource uh there are three titles. Uh sixth grade is geography alive. Uh seventh grade is history alive, the United States through industrialism and eighth grade with uh the United States through modern times. Um sixth grade is piloting three units of the foundational geographers world unit uh Canada and the United States and Latin America and then from there um the other units travel around the world. Um, this is a great way to kind of start out the year starting with where we are now and then how do we expand our our lens. Uh, seventh grade starts with the foundations of history um, America before and after the revolution and getting into revolution in the colonies. um with our
034eighth grade sorry um focusing on the forming a new nation and then uh kind of skipping ahead a little bit to uh the union challenge which is uh the precursor to the civil war. There are some extra um because we're the with the shift of the scope and sequence we had to create some additional uh units for eighth grade to make sure that our students were prepared um in the pilot. Our PA courses the same scope and sequence. Um, and the TCI resource has uh additional enrichment inquiry already built in it to provide some additional support for our PA teachers. Um, so we started the pilot in the fall and then at the beginning of December, um, you know, we've been doing some more informal check-ins, but we did, uh, a formal survey of both
035our students and our teachers. And um I'm going to let them tell a little bit about the the feedback and some of the findings. >> Sure. Um I'm Christy Diamond. Um I teach eighth grade social studies, PA social studies, currently at Fiser Middle School. Um and so I had the benefit of seeing my colleagues prior to this presentation. Um and this is my third year in district with this building and first year with this curriculum. So by comparison, I'm really seeing the cohesion and chronological structure as a benefit to our students. Inquiry of course with PA students is a benefit and that's not something that we're losing with this new curriculum, but we are able to enhance with the background building that we are giving our students through this curriculum. It's truly much more robust
036giving them a timelined experience of American history rather than a thematic view. We found that our students don't have enough historical knowledge that they are bringing into the classroom either from their own learning or connection to prior learning experiences to have those inquiry discussions yet. However, after completing a TCI unit and building that background and evaluating some of these key key themes, um, like equity and fairness and looking at, um, I would say our political foundations, they're able to start building those connections and bridges that we want to see them bring as they become high school students. So, I feel that that cohesion has really been a strength. And then for our students that are still navigating what that chronological structure looks like, this is something that's really new to them. And so we've seen
037the textbook be a benefit because they can always go back and reaccess that material, reaccess, review um content. There are video lessons, there's text lessons. So there are multimodal ways that they can access a lesson either in the classroom or outside of the classroom to attend to their own learning. and we've felt that that's a benefit as well, especially when students do need that um relearning moment. So, I think that that has not only helped teachers build a more cohesive curriculum this year, but has helped students find their place in history and start piecing some of these things that are mentioned in their world all the time and start bringing them together in a more meaningful way. Hi, I'm Shannon Grievous and I teach uh sixth grade social studies and ELA as well as PA
038social studies at Still Middle School. Uh this is my fifth year in the district, fourth year at Still and I'm going to talk a little bit about how the students have reacted to this new pilot. Um they since a lot of my students have had TCI in elementary school, it seemed to be a very smooth and seamless transition going from fifth grade to sixth grade, at least most of the students if they remembered what they did last year. And so that allowed me to um introduce the new curriculum at ease and um allowed me to just jump right on into the curriculum um instead of teaching the students to um learn the platform and learn the book in itself. Um so the students were very excited about that. Um and they were very excited to
039be part of this pilot and something new that they um were gaining this brand new knowledge about. Some of the um outcomes that we got from the um surveys that we had administered to our students um came from different backgrounds depending on where they were coming from. um from sixth and seventh and eighth grade. Um, as you can see on your slide, um, some of the eighth graders were excited that, um, they were able to engage in more, um, different roleplaying activities and bringing out, um, more, um, information with using their textbooks and using their um, online versions, putting piecing it all together because it's all one big unit. Um, instead of just having curriculum that might have been in different bits and pieces from before. Um, so as one student said, when we had
040the constitutional convention in class and we had all of our roles to act out, it was really fun playing a character and I learned about all the difficulties these people went through. So they had a real life experience and feeling about that. So it drove that personal in um connection to the historical people and connections to historical past in real life. Um some of the sixth graders and perhaps some of the seventh graders talked about the indigenous peoples um because not just the sixth grade classes but the seventh grade classes also talk about indigenous peoples and indigenous groups at the same time. And so that connection between the grade levels as well um gives that deeper connections when they go from one grade level to another grade level um too. So another um feedback was
041that they learned about the different indigenous groups um and it was very informational. Um that also um run remains home to being a student here at Indian Prairie School District and in my classroom I make sure that hey this is part of where you're at. This is part of our foundation in our school district. Another um uh student um feedback was the class discussions and they loved those class discussions and the review that they have because they can use that with talking with their peers and talking with their teachers and they can see that evidence in the book and they can see that evidence online. Um and that allowed them to retain that knowledge that they gained. Um and then the final um piece that um we have found for um student uh evidence was
042that their lessons in the videos which there are a lot of material in DCI um helped them learn a lot better because they're very engaging lessons and um they also let them um experience real life um visuals that they might not be able to See, um, you might have students that haven't been outside of Illinois, but they've seen videos of Arizona. They've seen pictures of Hawaii, and they may have never seen that before again. So, our students are extremely excited about this um this this these books and this resource and our curriculum that we have provided for them in the short couple months that we have shown them. and they have shown that they are really receptive of this curriculum so far. >> So our recommendation um is to move forward with our curriculum revision
043um and these would be the recommended social studies unit sixth grade with a focus on geography. Uh it would include the three pilot units and then move into to Europe and Russia, Africa, Southwest and Central Asia, Monsoon Asia, and then Oceanana and Antarctica with world history embedded within all of those units. Um, seventh grade moving forward with US history 1 um with the um the three pilot units and then moving into the formation of a new nation, the launch of a new republic and an expanding nation. Um our eighth grade uh for US history two would focus on ex the expanding nation America in the mid 1800s which we did not have an opportunity to pilot as we're working on you know creating a more cohesive u historical sequence for our students um but then
044the union moving into the union challenge with the civil war uh migration industry the emergence of a modern nation and world war ii um and um moving into modern America we are also proposing shifting right now financial litery is part of the seventh grade curriculum and that would shift as a standalone unit into the eighth grade curriculum um where our students are perhaps more more ready to think about being financially literate. Um and this allows um our seventh and eighth grade to address the majority of the instructional mandates while sixth grade provides that relevant and and you know within the context of history more expansive than even our our ancient history uh previously did. our PA and um our project arrow and our multilingual social studies would follow the same units and be able to
045leverage the supports within TCI to um to be a better fit for those courses. Our recommended resources are the ones that I uh shared earlier through uh teachers curriculum institute TCI. uh we would be purchasing a six-year digital license as well as print student textbooks and teachers editions. Um and the total cost for six years would be 650,000. So next steps is that I request that all the course curriculum changes be open for comments until the next board of education meeting. Um, at that time I request approval of curriculum changes for middle school social studies courses, sixth through 8th grade at the January 26 board of education meeting. Uh, the resources presented will be available for review here at the CEC and uh, request approval of the proposed resources at that meeting as well. Uh
046pending approval, we'll continue our ongoing professional development and collaboration including uh professional development at the February institute day. So thank you. There are any questions or either Thank you. Um we'll start with maybe Miss Gunce. Do you have any questions? Um, I just I had one, but I do want to start by thanking you guys so much honestly for the clear thought that's been put into all of this and the care and the time and obviously hearing that staff felt like they weren't necessarily being heard. None of us want to hear that, you know. So, thank you for taking that and running with it really to turn into this. The the only question I I had was I know you mentioned that no school districts in the area are doing something similar, but have you
047seen examples of it in other school districts where you've seen it fully implemented and get maybe an idea of beyond, you know, our pilot program. Um, prior to my experience in this district, I spent nine years in Planefield and we had a similar curriculum map. Okay. In terms of our scope and sequence at each grade level. Sixth grade was a blend of world history and ancient civilizations and that was um, I would say more on teacher discretion. The framework was the world geography and teachers added in those ancient civilization activities um, per the interest of their students. >> Okay. um seventh grade took on the first component of US history and then eighth grade took on the second component. So I had the fortunate experience of bringing that into the beginning of this pilot. >>
048Um and then I believe we also looked at the work of district 203 and neighboring school districts that had maybe not exactly the same sixth grade curriculum but comparable seventh and eighth grade curriculums again to address those standards. >> Perfect. No, thank you so much. And honestly, all of this is, I think, very exciting. And for anyone that has students in the district or had can see really the benefit of human geography is not an easy class freshman year, that's for sure. So, I I can see already how they're getting really prepared for it in middle school. So, thank you again for everything that you guys have done. M Grover. Hi. Um, I echo Miss Gent's um, you know, appreciation for you guys talking to the teachers, talking to the students, what works, and putting
049the time and effort you put into this curriculum. My question is, I was looking at what you mentioned you currently have, which is grade six, world history, grade seven is geography and global studies, and then grade eight is US history. And I'm aligning it with high school because in high school you can choose world history. Um there's um human geography, social study, then there's social issues and then of course US history. My question is US history in high school is one year and then one year is world geography and then one year is um is world history and in this um discussion or this proposal it's two years of US history and only one year given to like world culture and can you just talk about that a little bit? Yeah. And I think that
050that was um that was a a challenging conversation. We looked at a lot of different models. It was it was really hard to say that we have a lot of um belief in we want to make sure that we're not just thinking about US history >> because social studies is more than just what happens in the United States. Um however when we were looking at different models our students in middle school don't have enough foundational knowledge of US history to be able to engage in th those inquiry without that that strong foundation. And so that is why um we looked at the instructional mandates and in order to really address all of those it truly does take two years um to do so meaningfully. We could choose to check boxes and say yes, we talked
051about this group today, we talked about this group tomorrow, we we did everything, but we wanted to make it meaningful and purposeful for our students. Um, and so that's why we decided that the two years was would be a better foundation. Um, and then once they get into high school, um, they can really take that foundation and then dive more fully into the inquiry, uh, le instruction that happens there. >> Great. I really appreciate that. Thank you for that answer. Thanks. >> Yeah. >> Oh, I would say in adding to your answer as well in the seventh grade curriculum because the constitution and those founding documents are such a large component of that history that's really built in as I would say almost a quarter or more of civics. So in terms of the US
052history looking at it from a year's lens is really probably less accurate. It's more of I would say a semester or a semester in a few weeks of US history and then a significant portion of government and politics and building that foundation within the document and the government structure and how the government works. So that way then eighth grade can take that foundation and analyze it and how people interact within the constitution and how the marginalized groups and all the groups that we have been asked to focus on as part of these mandates, how they interact within our constitutional system and find their place in the United States as well. So I would say that is our then tiein to civics as a portion of eth grade. So we're probably hitting a full year of
053true US history. but then diving into again an additional year of um of government studies >> as well. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Kurubis. Great work. I'm glad we're updating this um page slide 16. This is really just a comment um because I fully trust your work and where we're heading. Um I found it interesting that the six uh grade geography is divided in both countries sometimes by continents sometimes >> by culture with the Latin America and then by climate with the monsoon Asia. I was not familiar with that term so that uh wasn't educational for me but I I trust that there's rhyme and reason to why you're doing that. um to make it as efficient as possible. But I'm I'm I'm glad that uh that we're doing it that way. It was uh
054it was very interesting interesting to me. So thanks. The other uh component and this is really for administration and this is page 18 is that um and I didn't ask this before the meeting so I'd like maybe a response afterwards is kind of what's our communication plan um when we do curriculum changes or resource adoptions. So, not everybody watches the board meetings or comes to the board meetings, right? So, how do we inform our um community uh students, parents that we're making this change and that the resources will be available? >> That's it. Thanks, >> Miss Dumming. Um, thank you so much and I did not ask this particular question beforehand a little bit. Um, on uh, board member Kurubis, can you remind me how often do we look at curriculum at the middle school
055level? So, the review cycle is typically five years. Um, I will say social studies be based on the needs assessment. um social studies was moved up a year and some other projects were shifted to make room for it. I think this I hats off because I think this makes sense in light of what's been done at the elementary school level just to um you know not too relatively long ago that it makes so much sense to to take a look um from a social study standpoint for the middle school level. Um since we had you had so many people that wanted to volunteer many so many teachers how did you how did they work this? Did were they doing sort of duel with what they're using now? H how did it can you share a
056little bit about how the process worked? >> Yeah. So again, as I mentioned, there was a lot of interest. My initial plan was to pilot with our curriculum team with maybe a teaching partner. Um but again when we when you go back to the middle school structure, a lot of even our curriculum team, you know, the individuals most passionate about social studies, many of them only teach one social studies. And so in order to really have that collaboration, you need to make a pilot successful. Uh they were able to work together in teams to pilot the curriculum. So they did pilot this uh curriculum and did not use our existing curriculum for the beginning of the school year. >> Okay. Um so the process how do we ensure um do we have to get approval
057from the state and again I didn't ask this so this may be more of an administrative question but do we need approval from the state to ensure that we're meeting the standards and the benchmarks that the state sets when we're implementing new curriculum um how do we ensure that that happens? >> So in terms of social studies at middle school there's flexibility within you know with the course design uh we are audited um by we we participated in an audit of our curriculum last year to ensure that we were addressing all of the standards and instructional mandates. So I'm not sure of the exact cycle of the audit but I do know that that's part of the process. >> Okay, perfect. And then slide 17, we mentioned textbooks, print test textbooks. Is that what can
058you share? Are we going to bring in physical textbooks? Will each student has a physical textbook as well or Yes. And then access digitally? >> Yes. So, um, one of the big pieces of feedback, uh, that we're finding at the middle school level is we do really need that blend of digital and print. Um, sometimes print is the way to go and sometimes digital, we need that that dynamic, but sometimes our our middle school students need a screen break and they need to read from a page and write on a piece of paper. Um, so that was something that was really important. We did I did look at the possibility of doing class sets of student textbooks instead of onetoone. However, because of our middle school schedule and having um a lot of single uh
059social studies courses, it really didn't make that much sense. And there's a strong possibility that I would have to be going back to TCI to buy additional textbooks uh at a not as a discounted rate. So, >> I really I I love the the idea of that um of that. >> Excited about it. >> We are very excited about having a print resource. You mean not just giving them digital access? Oh my goodness. >> We love the option, but we love a print resource. >> Sure. >> Thank you. I think this is um this is great work and it's really nice to hear some of the student reaction to some of the things that have already for those that have already had a chance to try it. So, thank you. >> I I loved the
060student quote talking about the constitutional convention. I don't remember the last time I heard a middle schooler excited to learn about the constitutional convention. So, Miss Bazdik, >> I'm gonna start by saying anytime you say constitutional convention, all I can hear is the Hamilton lyric. The back of my head is just playing constantly. Um, thank you obviously for all the work on this and it sounds like the teachers were really ready for a change. >> Um, which is great. I have two um questions that um I don't need an answer on right now, but My first is were there any vertical discussions with high school teachers about what they were seeing that students need to come into high school better prepared to do in social studies work especially that first year right because they the
061only option first year is human geography right so they're getting two hard year two hard-hitting years of US history and then they're going back to essentially kind of more of what they learned in sixth grade right that at least that focus so how what kind of conversations have you had with about that >> uh so pretty early on in this process process. I've met uh with our high school department chairs to start to have some of those those pieces. We want to make sure that what we're doing makes sense, you know, as students progress through Indian Prairie. Uh so they've been great thought partners and helped um helped guide the work with that. And then it's also been great to collaborate with and to see some of the way, you know, some of the projects
062that they're doing. It's also informing some of the work that they're doing at the high school level. And so now they know, you know, our students are going to be coming in with a different level of history. So what can we do with that? You know, what how can we how can we push it even further? So yes, we we did have some opportunities to collaborate as part of the process. So >> thank you. Um, is there any concern, I realize it sounds kind of silly and it probably is irrelevant given the state standards that we have to meet um, of students being a little oversaturated by US history and the interest level at this point because when they get to high school, right, they know they're going to have had these two good full
063years of US history and civics and government and then like we got another required US history year. Like we got a lot going on. Not to say there's not plenty of material for us to learn and dig deeper into, but is has there any been any concern about that or is that just a >> Yeah. Yeah, we definitely had those those conversations uh both, you know, with in the middle school. >> It got very heated in our team discussions. Um but I think also I I teach two sections of language arts and a section of social studies. And I think one of the the things that we forget in looking at individual individual curriculums is that our students are seeing content throughout the day and that in order to attend to a majority of our
064ELA curriculum, they also need to have a foundational knowledge of history. So seventh grade just read Brown Girl Dreaming and ELA, but they haven't had a background of segregation yet. So we're still missing some significant components of history to help them attend to ELA that we We we need to kind of also acknowledge their whole picture of yes it is a lot of history but they're seeing history in different places and if they're not seeing history in their social media feeds and they're not seeing social med or they're not seeing history in their home discussions or they're not seeing history in a historical fiction novel that they pick up in the LMC then we are their access point. So, we need to make sure that they're getting a great source, quality information at their access
065point. And if they get it more than once, then they're getting it more than once, but they're at least getting it. >> Okay. >> And and I will also say some of those concerns that came out, and there were really great conversations um like you described them here, there were there were really great professional dialogues for passionate educators and um trying to reach consensus on this. And that was part of what drove us to this specific resource is because we wanted to make sure we're not just delivering history. We're not just marching through time. It's, you know, where's the context? Where's the inquiry? Um, the essential questions and embedding the civics and economics to really make it not just this is the timeline, these are the dates, these are the people, let's let's assess and
066move on. make sure you remember the next group of people and timelines, but that it really is a story and and that's what we're we're studying. >> Well, thank you for that additional background info because we get the finished product, but we're not part of those conversations. So, I really appreciate you being able to share that. Um, my last question just came to me during this presentation basically just because of how slide 16 looks where seventh grade is US history 1 and eighth grade is US history 2. We had there's been no conversation or possibility of this being a high school credit situation like it would be for language because it's not the same course. Correct. Okay. I just want to clarify that because I know we've had that with language coming up. Um actually
067the next this seventh grade class or next seventh grade class that will start that potential >> World language. Yes. So I just want to make sure it's not the same course. So that's not okay. Thank you very much >> Mr. Rising. You can keep it on the 16 uh because I'm eventually gonna ask you a question. The >> the Thank you, by the way, and please express our thanks to all the 138 teachers that >> wanted to give their input. Um it's my knowledge that the last time they really set the learning standards for middle school social studies like 2016, 2017, right? Is that about right? I mean they've updated it with financial literacy stuff but those standards are still from like 161 17 that they've constantly tweaked a little bit here and there. >>
068Okay. Uh, so what I would say to Miss Grover asked it, Miss Fostic, just kind of give you an idea of my knowledge and I don't want to get too much in the weeds, but my knowledge of curriculum and the standards like don't get hung up on geography, US history 1, US history 2, because the way the standards are outlined, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's different strands within social studies. So there's your civic strand, there's your geography, geography strand, economics, history, and now financial literacy. So they're calling it geography, US history, US history too, but they're aligning to those strands and then the standard within those strands. >> So in other words, one of the strands for civics, for seventh grade history is explain the origins and functions and structure of government with
069reference to the US constitution, Illinois constitution, other systems of government. So they teach to that standard in that strand for civics, for seventh grade, for social studies. >> Did I do good on that? >> Yes. >> Nice. Okay. >> Uh Okay. So help me now help me since I got that part right, which I'm totally psyched about. Uh >> help me understand the process here then. And I thank you for the timeline, but but this is kind of where my question is. So when you started doing this, you looked at the standards, right? You looked at our current scope and sequence. >> Yes. >> Okay, we're out of whack, right? So, okay, we need to redesign this. >> How can we create new scope and sequence as it aligns the standards for each grade level
070for each one of those areas that I talked about from there? This is my big question because this is why I think we got 138 people that showed up. When I hear you say resources for teaching, >> it's because maybe our teachers because social studies wasn't their first maybe course certified course that they're certified in that they were looking for more instructional resources, instructional practice resources. In other words, >> it's one thing the scope and sequence is the what you're teaching. the instructional practices is the how you're teaching. So my guess is that we kind of built up those instructional practices as far as the methods, strategies, and activities that they're doing now. Do we build that up better to give them those resources? Is that a lot of the work what we did? Because
071it seems like the scope and sequence was kind of almost the easy part. not so much. But but it was like, okay, now let's get our teachers the resources that they need to actually teach this stuff. And here's my question. Do we develop that a lot on our own or do we kind of lean into the curriculum as well as what they have or is it a combination of both? That's my big question is around the instructional practices piece. So the one of the reasons why uh the team felt really strongly about moving forward with TCI is because there are a lot of instructional practices resources embedded within um in a way that supports really high engagement >> but flexibility. So every lesson is designed to be could be implemented there's three different pathways a
072teacher could literally just take it up and um there's a class uh activity lesson. There's a more traditional reading and notes and then there's a video-based uh activity. So, there's multiple ways to that are already embedded within the program. And then, of course, our teachers will continue to layer in additional pieces um you know, as to meet their their student needs. But that was one of the things that we really wanted in a resource, >> especially because our teachers don't all have a lot of time to go hunting those down, right? for social studies. >> Give me the stuff I need to teach it so I can better prepare and I don't have to dig around and find those >> instructional practices or activities or whatever it is. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's wonderful.
073Thanks. That's all I had. >> Okay. Thank you. That was like the world's longest question. Um, so one thing I thought I was thinking while I was sitting here is um you use the word inquiry a lot. So this is kind of a high level question and I was thinking you know do does our audience the ones that do watch board meetings understand what inquiry is. So I thought maybe I would ask you to explain that concept just a little bit so they understand how how we're teaching social studies. >> Sure. I mean inquiry is um >> Do you want me to go? >> Yeah, sure. >> Okay. Um, so I would say I'm I'm in the planning process for looking at my next unit. And so in eighth grade social studies, we're transitioning from
074the Civil War and reconstruction and into industrialization. So the inquiry unit that is proposed by TCI is actually really great and very relevant both to the industrializing nation in the 1800s and relates really nicely to today. So it's a basis of questions where students can take evidence from their classroom activities, reading, videos, however the teacher has presented those lessons um and extension materials. The students collect that information and then they seek to answer those questions throughout that process. So it's something that can be done either as a summitative assessment at the end of a unit or it's something that can be done throughout the unit and then teachers at varying levels can build either a very scaffolded structure to develop that inquiry or they can make it a very challenging structure for your highest level
075students. So, this next inquiry asks about equity for um Native Americans as settlers move west and how does racism and equity impact those groups? How do um immigrants find their way in a changing United States as many people are moving from Europe into the United States? And then they extend that question and how does that possibly relate to immigration today? And I know that's at the forefront of many people's minds. And then how has the constitution adapted in order to meet the needs of citizens in a growing nation? And then on top of that, how is economy impacted in that growing nation. So these are some really big questions that we're asking our students and then breaking it down systematically throughout that unit in order to help them build not just connections historically, but build
076connections currently. I think that's uh very powerful as opposed to like just memorizing dates and names or whatever that maybe was the traditional long ago like when I was in a student in high school or whatever that we learned. So, um thank you for that. I just I thought the audience might need a refresher on that. Um, I actually was in Still Middle School this week, um, subbing and I was in a social studies class with seventh grade and the teacher mentioned that they were in the pilot. And so I I asked and um, she had very consistent comments with what I heard tonight about the resources and the importance of having a volume of um, choices that they could use to adapt to the student needs and things. So she seemed very pleased with,
077you know, having this new um opportunity for to try this um new um set of materials and it was kind of interesting sitting in there listening to what was being presented and things. So I was like, "Wow, that worked out the timing here." Um I do have a question though. So after I was thinking through that on page eight. So um if they were in the pilot and they were in seventh grade, right? >> Do those seventh graders because in the old way they would get world geography and culture did how do they get that now? Do they just don't get it because of the restructure or >> Yeah. So they in the transition year, yes, they would that group of students um would not receive that. However, that that transition has been a big
078part of our curriculum conversations and just making sure that we are being mindful. We know what our student how our students are transitioning from a previous curriculum into our new. what are some of the the units that might exist for a year uh that don't aren't necessarily going to be permanent but that we want to make sure that we embed so that we provide a cohesive learning experience for our students. >> You know, it just struck me and I'm thinking through that I'm like interesting. >> Well, thank you so much for all your work. I know this is always it might look kind of uh that simple thing that you know let's go change the curriculum, but it's like massive. We're like the Queen Mary of of boats or whatever trying to get everybody to
079turn the same direction and adopt something new and study all the things you study prior to even trying it with people. But yeah, it was very significant to hear how many people wanted to be in the trial. So, so thank you. Thank you. >> A lot of the credit for that goes to the uh curriculum team leaders, you know, that are supporting all of you know their their colleagues in their buildings and and advocating. Thank you. >> You >> okay? Legislative advocacy and board of education update. Does anyone have any items? Okay, then I need a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? Okay.