001it is now 7 p.m and I am reconvening to open session and calling to order the regular Board of Education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday September 12 2022. Michelle will you please call the rule miss fostick here Miss Jane here Mr carubis here Mr Rising here Miss Donahue here miss Deming present and Miss Grover we have a quorum Miss fostick will you lead us in the pledge [Music] foreign board meeting will be held on Monday September 26th so we have one board salute Miss Grover District 204 high school students Provide support to students in need the board salutes three District 204 high school students for providing support to students in need waubonsee Valley seniors Ryan Lee and Drew Taylor collected school supplies and gift cards for their former School White Eagle
002Elementary and neuqua Valley Junior Neil venkatesh collected school supplies during his summer break for District 204 students in need thank you Ryan Drew and Neil for your contributions to support your fellow students in our community foreign [Applause] Valley High School welcome all right now hello oh there we go good evening everyone my name is sad krishi and I'm the executive board class representative for the class of 2023 and I'm very excited to join you all tonight excuse me freshman orientation went off without a hitch over 600 freshmen entered the halls of Mattia Valley and learned where they will be for the next four years mathia life leaders have been working hard with presenting weekly SEL lessons these lessons will continue throughout the first semester students from the principal Advisory Board volunteered at the back to
003school bash at Martin Luther King Park where school supplies shoes clothes and haircuts were provided to students that needed them to have a successful school year Matia Valley student government will be hosting an out of this world themed homecoming that will take place on September 24th the week leading up to homecoming will be packed with fun activities such as t-shirt dyeing pie your teacher in the face and chalk the walk the week will also be kicked off the week will also be kicked off with a pep assembly where Matthias acapella groups Apollo and Muses will be performing the end of the week will conclude with another pep assembly hosted by the MC's masters of ceremonies which will include games and performances from the dance team cheer team and orcasus dance team Matia theater just started
004rehearsals for radium girls a dramatic and historical show based on a very true and unfortunate story and VHS theater is also introducing another fall show for the first time ever Jack and the magic bean the play is based on a comedic retelling of an old fairy tale the theater Department cannot wait to show to see the success of the introduction of their new children's show and take on their own historical piece the marching band participated in the Labor Day Parade that took place on September 5th and spread Matia music throughout the streets of downtown Naperville keep up the good work music Mustangs Matia Valley hosted athletic camps over the summer this enabled Mustangs that have not tried a sport yet to get their foot in the door and try a new sport Matia Valley hosted
005their very first home football game of the season against Belleville East with a packed student section ready to cheer on the football team saw Mr Rising there all fall sports are are starting this season with high hopes and with the intention to crushing the competition I'm sure I missed some events so you're just gonna have to stop by our trophy cases to see all the awards and wins our hard-working Mustangs have earned that's all up for the August sport report or September report excuse me thanks everyone stay safe and as always go go Mustangs thank you it is now time for public comment and 60 Minutes is allowed for public comment each person is limited to three minutes when addressing the board we ask that you respect the confidentiality and safety of our students and
006School District Personnel we also ask that those addressing the board be cognizant that this is an open meeting and is available to all age groups and as such as that you consider who the audience members are this evening and keep 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 follow-up May 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 your state if you live in the district and if you currently have children in our schools we have eight speakers tonight and the first speaker is Sunil Mariana welcome good evening everyone
007thanks for this opportunity once again I live in the Eagle Point neighborhood and my son goes to still middle school he's a seventh grader I'm here to talk about the bus transportation issue that uh we are going to be facing from the upcoming year so we had submitted a request of uh to the Aurora Police Department regarding the first information uh rights you know the request asking for the number of incidents that happened so far this year on that Montgomery Road because every once in a while we can hear the police sirens happening and so we submitted the request they gave us the details that complete numbers and to summarize this year so far there have been 34 police recorded incidents that happened involving vehicles this is on the stretch of Montgomery Road from the
008Norman town until that White Eagle Drive that section pulling this down when we say 34 so far it comes to roughly about four incidents in a month and that's about one every week the very Crux of the reason why any of these incidents happen is the carelessness or the impatience of a driver who is involved in the vehicle if this is why what is resulting with the care lessons and impatience of X number of divers who have been driving in the street come next year the buses are not there you're throwing another bigger chunk of children who are equally going to be careless and impatient what is the outcome of this any one incident that goes involved any one student there is only going to be a single resonating voice if only the bus was
009there that is what I want to avoid and bring it to your notice because there is still something that the board can decide and do doing an assessment and providing the tomb to additional justification points and getting an exemption for the neighborhoods living in the south of Montgomery Road thank you thank you thank you foreign Smith good evening I'm here to talk about the inequities of the 204 School District toward our title elementary schools and the subdivisions where they are um if you have to take a look at the busing situation every single subdivision where an aurora title School is located is denied busing to at least one of their schools even though other subdivisions who also are less than 1.5 miles and have similar hazards are given bussing let's take the example of where
010Georgetown is located the Georgetown subdivision and the subdivision where McCarty is located do not receive busing to a bonsai Valley high school because they are less than 1.5 miles and because their traffic hazards are not considered high enough in order to Warrant busing yet the neighborhood or the subdivision of Oakhurst that is south of McCoy is less than 1.5 miles and don't even have to cross the intersection because they can use the park district bridge and Park District path yet they are given busing and the park district bridge and path is around the district uses because that's how gombert elementary students get to gombert elementary school and one of the routes they would take to walk to Fisher if you go a little bit up the street Stonebridge is right across the street from Matia
011Valley High School they are less than 1.5 miles from Atia Valley High School they have one intersection across Eola which is the same intersection that McCarty and Georgetown both cross yet Stonebridge receives busing to Matia Valley High School if you go over to the south end of the district Ashbury is less than 1.5 miles to neuqua Valley High School they get passing even though they cross Brook Road which is not as large of a hazard as either Ogden or Eola if we now go to our middle schools as you know if we've been talking about gombert is denied the subdivision where gambert is which is an aurora title school it's denied busing to Fisher Elementary even though the subdivision to our West is granted busing they put a crossing guard there to lower the hazard
012but it only lowered the hazard for us the hazard for the other subdivision hasn't been done in over 10 years they are granted busing we are denied if you go to the other side of the district Breckenridge is less than 1.5 miles from Gregory Middle School their Hazard reading hasn't been done since I was a middle schooler at Gregory Middle School which was in 1991. they received by saying to Gregory Middle School why do you go as we know receives busing to Stell for this year thank you very much next next speaker is David kalini Elena David here go ahead yeah um uh I would like to uh thank the board president uh and the board members and superintendent Talley for giving me this time my name is David Kalina I'm a Project Arrow teacher
013at Georgetown Elementary a former member of the strategic planning team as well as a writer of District 204's math curriculum I am also a stroke survivor so please bear with me on the timing I will so I frequently run over my tongue and have to reorganize my thoughts and they're not all out here the one area I want to focus on with the strategic planning is Priority One objective 2 strategy two that says review the current curriculum through the lens of student achievement and equity and student engagement and adjust accordingly I would make the argument that our math resource at the elementary level is not meeting the needs of our students we have used it for seven years especially in this post-pandemic environment it does not have the area the the resources to either reach
014the enrichment level for those kids who need it or for the Readiness or the ones who are struggling and I can provide data with that later that this adjusts accordingly is too nebulous there needs to be a route where the teachers are brought into the decisions that are being made please don't just make the change without as we used to do bring in representatives from all the schools to evaluate those resources and see how we can meet the needs of our students in such a way to truly get them to that meet their their greatest potential because our resource is not doing that right now over thank you for your time and I probably went over but thank you for not thank you very much next speaker is Veronica Andrade good evening members of the
015board my name is Veronica Andrade I have three children allatini camper Elementary and this is the third board meeting where I stand with fellow gamber attendance area families to speak out of the safety dangers and Equity disparities the result result from refusing to buy Scarborough area family sufficient Middle School the district is obligated to make Equitable decisions to all the students in 204 whether they live in a fluent subdivisions or subdivisions that feed into Title 1 schools when it comes to learning and bus transportation currently this district is busing students to schools when those students do not meet the criteria to receive busing this year the district is only making gambert area families adhered to this busing criteria that is inequitable Ron Johnson says that the district will be reviewing other areas focusing on high
016school students in the next few years to determine if those students meet the busing criteria Ron Johnson also stated the work involved in redoing these hazards for all district neighborhoods was labor intensive yet it took the district less than six months to determine that the gombert area neighborhoods did not meet the criteria and after doing our own research as Ron Johnson suggested in a matter of few days using the district's own transportation tracker we were able to pinpoint multiple subdivisions and addresses that are okay to write that do not meet the busing criteria until the district holds all students to the busing criteria to their designated schools it is inequitable and discriminatory to make blessing criteria only apply to the gamber area families and similar families within our district thank you thank you the next
017speaker is Vanessa Sanchez good evening thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak my name is Vanessa I am the parent of two kids in the district one is a junior at wabonsi and one is a fourth grader at gambert I live in the Colony Lakes subdivision right off of Eola this is a third meeting also that I'm coming to and I didn't prepare anything formally but I feel like everyone has gone over a number of Statistics numerous reasons hazards and I feel like it's falling on deaf ears I feel like no one is responding this is a school board where we're supposed to bring concerns to and no matter what facts or inequities were putting or bringing up to the board nothing is happening and I feel like we are beating a dead
018horse but we'll continue to show up I'm a nurse every day I either go down Eola or Montgomery those are my only two routes and I will tell you since the school started the number of kids that I see walking to the middle school late every day at least one if not two today on Montgomery Road going east in between Eola and Norman Town it was eight o'clock in the morning there was what I can only imagine is a middle school her in the rain kneeling down his bicycle with it turned upside down because the bicycle chain had fallen off and the problem and the sad thing was is I couldn't even pull over to help him because there's no safe way to pull over there is no Side Road nobody could help him and
019we're doing a lot of facts but like there has to be a point where Common Sense takes over and I know that this board and there are other people besides we don't have we don't have the power to change we're just here bringing up matters but I feel like the board of the school should have the power to listen and to make changes I mean that's what we're all here for we're all here for the kids and to be quite honest I'm tired of seeing the kids that are walking late because it's the same kids every day it's not different ones it's the same and so this is on a rainy day where it's 60. imagine when it starts snowing it's just not fair it's inequitable and I would please please really consider reinstating bus
020service because the situation is only going to get worse with the weather and honestly nobody wants kids to be truant late it doesn't help their education we just want them to get to school to have a safe place to do it and for them to be to school on time so they can learn that's what everybody wants thank you thank you the next the next speaker is Kim Jensen hello we have raised three children in District 204 and our youngest has one year left at Matia Valley the DuPage Policy Journal is a free newspaper publication that contains Vital Information that Illinois residents need to know about local government policy laws and practices that are being implemented or allowed under our noses largely without our knowledge it's information that the mainstream media withholds because they know
021it will cause an uproar of dissent if we know about it the latest issue of the DuPage Policy Journal was a special sex education Edition it revealed shocking examples of actual sexual indoctrination cases that are happening in our local schools and libraries some examples are tampons and boys bathrooms for cross-dressing girls a teacher encouraging the third grade boys in his class to polish their fingernails and students to change their pronouns and gender an upcoming October 11th drag queen bingo event at Downers Grove library library that includes a drag performance most shocking is a book called genderqueer in some libraries which is a cartoon story pornography book that graphically depicts two high school boys engaged in oral sex and their private parts are not covered this is all approved by Governor pritzker instead of leaving these
022topics to be discussed and decided at home with parents and Guardians he already signed a bill into law called Senate Bill 818 which establishes a new controversial sex education curriculum for grades K-12 the stated reason for this curriculum is so the indoctrination can happen before heterosexual values and assumptions can become more deeply ingrained and take root in them kindergartners need to learn that they shouldn't automatically accept the gender they were born with third graders will learn how to take hormone blockers to change from a boy to a girl or vice versa 6th through 12th graders will learn how to perform anal and oral sex withdrawal condom wearing and pregnancy options including abortion teachers will also be required to affirm students non-traditional identities such as allowing them to come to school dressed as cats or dogs
023wearing full head to toe animal costumes this is in this bill all girls bathrooms have been banned by governor pritzker the pritzker family has donated millions and millions of dollars and that have gone to programs that partner with public school districts including the Naperville to promote the myth of biological sex providing artificial penis Packers female chest binders stand to pee devices for minors and lgbtq friendly sex toy shops for teens 27-42 DuPage school districts have already opted out of this curriculum but as of the publication of this paper districts 203 and 204 have not responded I am begging this school board to vote to opt out of this sex ed curriculum or you will disenfranchise the vast majority of your population which supports education but not indoctrination if you do not opt out I encourage
024all parents to choose alternative education for their children such as homeschooling or private school and check out www.dupagepolicyjournal.com thank you thank you the next speaker is Mahindra basarati hi good evening I live in Eagle Point subdivision I have a daughter that goes to still Middle School uh this I'm here for the bus transportation that for the coming years uh thank you for allowing the giving us the bus for this year but here we're talking about the safety concerns and other concerns that all the parents are talking about um so we have been getting this bus for last 20 years that I mentioned 20-25 years I don't know what changed it suddenly now you you know you guys are planning to stop the bus you know does not make sense as other parents said year by
025year um or month by month you know there is more traffic and more accidents you know I don't know what why it now it's suddenly um you know it's the decision to stop the bus that does not make sense again you know with it's a small subdivision you know some some kids and houses are within one point five miles and one is um some is more than 1.5 miles so you know some some kids will get the bus some kids don't get the bus you know even though they're in the same subdivision you know even neighbors one neighbor will get the bus one neighbor doesn't don't get the bus you know if the bus is coming to the subdivision one bus is enough you know right you know just take the all the kids and
026go um you know that is the safety concern you know um that all the parents have talked about then I'll just focus on the EEG as well you know I think I mentioned same thing last time also you know environment right you know if you stop the bus all the 40 kids or 50 kids needs to go buy cars if the kids have you know parents have have the cars they can take but most of the parents you know Chicago area it's a joke to um people to you know in the winter who will walk and who will um uh um you know bike unless you know if they have the financial problems the parents don't have the cars and cannot drop you know that's again the problem so most of the parents will drop
027the drop the kids in the you know buy cars and it's a pollution and it will add the carbon footprint and that is why I think we need to you know promote the bus public transportation for everybody and then the social impacts you know kids who takes the bus you know they will have the better friends and better social skills and better mental health um you know that is the social impact again you know working parents if the two parents or one parent is working it is very stressful for the parents to draw you know drop the uh you know they have a responsibility through obligation to drop the kids to school you know if they have two or three kids you know they have to drop to elementary school they have to drop to
028um you know middle school or High School depends on where they live and it's it will it's a stressful for the parents to take care of the transportation if we can give them the public transportation option for everybody in the in the subdiv in in the School District 204 um you know irrespective of it is one mile or 1.5 mile you know it it helps the parents you know happy Parents healthy parents and productive Community you know it will attract the more more working parents to the parents to the sub in our 204 district school district so you know um that is you know as a 204 I think we have all the resources you know we can make Miss Donahue the speaker time has ended thank you very much and the last speaker of
029Samir I'm a car good evening everybody uh I'm also like my two fellow speakers who went ahead of me a resident of the Eagle Point subdivision I have two daughters one is a senior at wabansi the other is a Middle School seventh grader and I'm also here to talk along the same lines about the bus transportation for the subdivision I won't go into too many details they've already talked about it I'm just here to voice an addition an additional voice of concern for the lack of bus transportation for the upcoming years for the school uh for for the subdivision we have talked about safety we talked about weather related social impacts Etc so I just think the board should really consider the request from the members of the subdivision thank you so much thank you
030[Applause] foreign we now move to our consent agenda and superintendent report we will start with the superintendent report Dr Talley thank you Miss Donahue members of the board of education at Indian Prairie Community we have completed three weeks of school and this beginning has been outstanding from many perspectives Athletics has started Book Fairs are in place volunteers are in school curriculum nights have been held we've had only one day of indoor recess so it has been a good beginning to the school year we're very happy about how the year has progressed the district's theme this year is community as a community we are stronger together than individually reflecting that Community Spirit I'd like to mention a teacher and what she did to support her school community three of the four supported Ed teachers were absent
031for a few days from May Watts Miss Mary Pat Gerber one of the four supported Ed teachers designed schedules for all of the Tas and related service providers to ensure that the safety needs of the students were met she met with the whole team before school started Miss gerbern responding to a congratulatory email said quote we are a community and a team at May Watts all capital we got this this is an example I share it's just one of many being done in our schools our staff all of them are wonderful it is a community that makes it all work on Thursday of last week we held our first Parent Academy focused on Safety and Security I want to thank Mr Ron Wilke school safety security and emergency preparedness coordinator for helping to put together
032the event I also want to thank the representatives from the Naperville Police Department and the Aurora Police Department for participating the event was taped and is now available on our website for those who were not in attendance ippc has started its annual coat drive for the last several years ippc has held this coat drive accepting new and gently used clean winter coats and accessories to include boots snow pants hats scarves and mittens families who have have a need can contact their school social worker to ensure that any needs are met well I'll turn it back to you mastani okay next we move to our consent agenda items I need a motion and a second for approval of consent agenda items D through G this is Allison fostick I moved to the Board of Education approved
033consent agenda items D through G as presented second any discussion Michelle will you please call liberal Mr carubis yes Miss vosdick yes Mr Rising yes Miss Jane yes Miss Deming Miss Donahue yes and Miss Grover yes emotion passes and I want to offer my congratulations to all of the hard work that went into um the Strategic plan which was part of the consent agenda we discussed it at our last meeting so um thank you to all it was a big effort from many many people in The District administration teacher students community members and uh I think it's a outstanding piece of work for our district so thank you okay now we will have a presentation from Doug carius and Grant Sarah regarding the health education great welcome named Dr Talley Board of Education members and
034Community I am joined this evening by Grant SAR who is our director of elective curriculum and we just wanted to provide an update and some information to the Board of Education there's been a lot of information out there about sex education and that falls within our health education and we just wanted to provide information to the board of education and hopefully be able to answer any questions related to that [Music] um sorry went too far all right uh the purpose of this evening is just to provide an overview of the legislative mandates uh Senate Bill 818 and Public Act 102-0522 summarize comprehensive personal health and safety and sexual health education in Indian parade 204 review the new Illinois comprehensive sexual education topic strands and review our current notification and opt out policies in August of
0352021 uh Illinois passed the keeping youth safe and healthy act which is Senate Bill 818 Public Act 1020522 is signed into law within August 1st 2022 deadline for ISB adoption of learning standards in January of 2022 Illinois State Board of Education releases its initial frequently asked questions document is in July of 2022 uh isbe adopts the national sex education standards as the new Illinois learning standards for sexual health education effective July 13 2022 alignment of sexual health education curriculum and instruction to the new learning Illinois standards is effective immediately and then in June and July 2022 Indian preschool district code 4 we initiate just a review of mandates and curriculum um this was one of the you know we always get information on new school laws and so this was something that came out from
036the Illinois Association of school boards their summary which states the ACT requires school districts that deliver comprehensive sexual health education to utilize the standards-based sex education course for sixth through 12th grade they may provide age and developmentally appropriate consent to education for kindergarten through fifth grade students it also includes School disclosure parental requests and notice of the program and allow school districts to collaborate with public health departments to identify a point of contact for inquiries and comments about course instruction and materials and we've tried to gather more information about this reaching out to our regional Office of Education trying to get guidance on what this means since we have in the past uh provided um uh course uh parts of sex education within health education and trying to get clarification of what does this mean
037per grade level where does this fall in and we do find that there's a lot of vagueness around that and are still trying to get clarification from some of those that we are working with um with that I'm going to turn it over to Grant to talk a little bit about just the mandates the kind of the definitions the alignments those types of information thank you Doug so uh let's take a little time to talk about some of the things that we know um uh is in the Mandate the first thing are some definitions uh with the new legislation the term is this working oh I'm hearing myself a little bit hello all right I'll try to get really in there um the term family life and sex education has now been broken into two
038uh two headings in in the definitions comprehensive personal health and safety education and this is the term used for instruction pre-k5 and comprehensive sexual health education the term used for grades 6 through 12. so the act of fines comprehensive personal health and safety education and comprehensive sexual health education is age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate education that aligns with the national sex ed standards and the strands that are associated with it one thing that we know is that of course with all of our curriculum we can select our resources and our curricular materials and the ability for us to do that Still Remains so we have uh control over the resources and how we go about that selection process however those adoptions may not interfere with the course alignment to the personal health and safety education and
039comprehensive sexual education learning standards and and finally the legislation stipulates that we cannot adapt or change those standards in any way that would conflict with the legislation and the mandate so we'll talk a little bit about how we arrived at the new Illinois learning standards through the evolution of the national sex education standards uh the first version uh from 2012 had the topic strands in the left-hand column healthy relationships has been edited slightly in the 2020 topic strands is now titled consent and healthy relationships and this change is intended to emphasize the concept the concept of consent and the idea of bodily autonomy in an effort to keep students safe from Child predators and this really complements the Aaron's law instruction it also helps lay the groundwork for a better understanding of sexual relationships later
040on in life puberty and Adolescent development becomes puberty oh excuse me anatomy and physiology stays the same across the board puberty and Adolescent development uh we have the word sexual added so it becomes puberty and Adolescent sexual development the intent here in adding the word sexual was so that this strand can focus solely on adolescent sexual development and not all the other aspects of adolescent development the identity strand from 2012 is now broken into two strands at gender identity and expression and sexual orientation and identity so the creation of these two topic strands the breaking into two reflects that these are two unique areas of identity and shouldn't be conflated with each other the next area takes those four topics and combines them into an umbrella term called Sexual Health to better reflect the overlap
041and Knowledge and Skills necessary for the prevention care and treatment of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and finally personal safety has now become interpersonal violence and this is to better reflect a variety of violence that may occur in a variety of relationships so Illinois has adopted the new revised national sex education standards and those topic strands and so these are the topic strands we have from the updated updated set of standards and on the right you can see here really one of the core intenses the core core intents of the legislation is that the course material and instruction shall be inclusive and sensitive to the needs of students based on their status as pregnant or parenting living with STIs including HIV sexually active asexual or intersex or based on their gender gender identity gender expression
042sexual orientation sexual behavior or disability so we came together over the summer a team of high school health teachers and a team of middle school health teachers to take a look at the legislation to take a look at these new standards and to talk about our current practice we also talked a little bit about what our current alignment looks like and what it could look like so our current practice is that in grade five we have instruction in a one day approximately one hour growth and development presentation that includes anatomy and physiology puberty reproduction and pregnancy in grades six through eight students get one quarter of health education each of those years and in the sixth and seventh grades the current sex education unit is approximately weak and in eighth grade it is two weeks
043and topics currently include five of the topic strands with the exception of gender identity and expression and sexual orientation and identity and in high school all of our students have health education sophomore year as part of their PE rotation and then we have an elective class called Advanced Health grades available to students in grades 11 and 12. uh in the required sophomore health class there's approximately three weeks of sexual health education and in our conversations we are currently covering all the topic strands in both our sophomore Health sexual health education unit and our Advanced Health class so on the next slide you can see that all summarized for you with the new topic strands and where we're at in each particular grade level and you can see the progression of how we advance through those
044various topics so that's where we sit with our current curriculum the other part of this that we wanted to talk about is just our notification in opt-out policies so parent notification and opt out which the current practice will continue which is notice will be sent home to parent to Guardians at least two weeks prior to instruction notice shall include the anticipated schedule of instruction available parent resources how parents or Guardians can ask questions about the instruction and how to opt students out of the instruction a parent or Guardian May request that their child be exempt from the comprehensive sexual health unit in accordance with board policy 6260. so those are requirements and what our current practice has been um and continue will continue to be which is to notify and provide that opportunity for opt-out
045if requested so with that [Music] um we wanted to be able to answer any questions that the Board of Education may have thank you Mr Rising uh if you could go to slide 10. um okay uh so here's my question the first question is grade five it says that there is one day currently that we teach sex ed that focuses on Anatomy physiology puberty reproduction and pregnancy is anything changing from the way we are currently doing things to the Future no we have no plan to make any changes this year thanks do we currently teach sex ed in grades k-4 in our district no thank you um grades six and seven we teach one week of sex ed in grades six and seven and two weeks eighth grade um do we have any plans to
046change our current practice from the way we're doing things right now but we don't okay thanks um in grade 10 do we have any plans to change our current practice in sex ed or the way we're currently doing it right now we don't the only thing we may do there is Talk Amongst the faculty of the three buildings and make sure that the current content is aligned okay so no new additional content okay cool um and the way that I understood what the state put forward is that individual districts always have the flexibility to determine the curriculum that they feel is right for their particular District did I did I interpret that the right way yes there are only only a few mandates that are required of us there is no time mandate or grade
047level mandate for K-5 and there's a one one semester grades six through eight amount of time that needs to be spent on health education and the same for high school other than that we have the latitude to go wherever we want and I think people are focusing zeroing in on that sex part of health education it is far more than sex education there is a large in fact I would venture to say the majority of that area that we've been doing at a district for the last 30 years has focused even more on that Health part correct I mean it really I mean okay um and Doug Doug I found the answer to our question in our area in DuPage County um sex ed or health Ed has been taught in public schools since 1974.
048so it has been close to well almost 50 years 48 years and then if you go to slide 13 just to reiterate I know you just went over this but all parents at all grades where sex health is being taught so essentially fifth through 10th we'll get a notification and they can choose to opt out their students correct they will get a notification at least two weeks before and have and would be able to opt out of those okay they can ask questions to their school of hey what's being taught you know and we've done that in the past so we notify and then give them the opportunity to opt out you are opting out of sex education so you're not opting out of certain parts of sex education gotcha okay so if like if
049it's three weeks long at uh for tenth grade you're opting out of all three weeks correct okay all right that's the only questions I had thank you so really you're not asking for anything because we're maintaining our current practice correct correct okay it's Jane thank you um can we go to Slide Five okay maybe it wasn't five sorry can we go to slide seven yes so um when you were discussing the 2012 versus the 2020 this was for pre-k through 12 correct those were the national sex ed standards yes from 2012 right to 2020. okay great and can we go to slide 11. I really like this slide a lot because I think it helps visualize everything that you talked about in terms of all the categories that will be addressed the the only box
050that are not checked is that Middle School gender identity and expression and sexual orientation and identity which is new and we're saying that we're we have not we don't have Clarity on what that means we're showing you here what our current practice has been um and to our best estimates is at least five to six years this is what we've been providing in the sex education area but at some point we will have to integrate those two empty boxes in the Middle School well they're that's so right now we're seeking clarification on that area because um you know if you're doing comprehensive sex education like um that's what it would be considered a 10th grade because you're hitting all um seven strands when you're looking at Middle School um so right now the clarification is
051school districts are not required to provide sex education if you do provide sex education does it have to be comprehensive and that's where we're getting the clarification on and what does that mean does that mean you have to do it at every grade level then so remember there's in Illinois one of the challenges is you have K-8 districts you have high school districts you have unit districts and so for a high school district and many of them that have been doing comprehensive sex education you know in high school um you know many of them are like we're going to continue doing what we're doing which is providing um comprehensive um sex health education unit districts find themselves in a little bit of a challenging situation because if you've been providing comprehensive at 10th grade what
052does that mean for sixth through eighth grade in that area and not and then and you saw that part I think with the May under the ISB the Illinois Associated School Board a summary where it also said you may provide it at K-5 and stuff so you know it's it's definitely a challenge for unit districts to interpret um what their um suggesting with the new mandates I hope I clarified yeah I think that's really helpful because you know it's one thing to have a policy written out it's another thing to operationalize it which is what you guys are trying to explain to us so eloquently and I really appreciate this Visual and also the explanation about clarification on the timing of when those topics might be introduced um the last question I have is do
053we see any changes being made well I think Mr Rising just asked us between Pre-K and fourth grade or fifth grade there's really no changes to what to what we're doing or talking about in this presentation we haven't suggested any changes for this school year we're meeting with staff just like we always do to review our curriculum and we would if if there were any changes to be made we would come back to the board and bring those changes to the Board of Education great thank you Miss Grover I just have a couple of questions could you speak to what instructions are being given to K through four as in as in what the personal and safety I think it was health and safety they're learning do you do you have some idea what they're
054learning in K through four so uh with so personal health and safety that is the the umbrella term then for health and sex ed you know as we know it so at this point uh at this point in pre-k through fourth grade we do have various Health topics as Mr Rising said that aren't Associated at all with sex ed that are happening as well as safety uh avoidance of accidents things like that that we do have throughout our typically PE curriculum great and that's what I was trying to get at um the only thing we're really doing is Aaron's law which is mandated right but there's no sex that taught to K through four correct and then the other thing um you had mentioned we have control over those resources that we are teaching that's
055right and parents are able to see the instructions prior to opting out or going with the program correctly yeah and that's been a process we've been going through in fifth grade there were information evenings hosted uh in opportunities for parents to review the materials and ask questions and then opt out as a result of that so that will continue thank you The Stumbling thank you um just a couple questions you know I understand we have to go we needed to have this presentation but Kenyan I just kind of want to make sure that I have it restated um sbo18 for us what does that mean from a for us for this year and our students at k-4 middle and high school are there any changes I know we've we've been asking this but no for
056this year the only changes that you know we've seen is just making sure that we have consistency of what's being done like at the high school level we're trying to make sure that the experience that you would have at Matia would be the same as the experience you have at neuqua and wabanzi I think over time you do see some challenges there especially in a large district and so we're just making sure that we have consistency there and that consistency for this upcoming school year should be it's based on what was taught and what's been taught in in our past years is that correct correct and um again I wanted to look at slide slide 11. like Miss chain did um and when I look at the middle school and grade five on gender identity
057and expression sexual orientation and identity there is no discussion at those levels regarding those topics correct those are not um part of our curriculum um uh strands at those grade levels and so those shouldn't be associated with instructional materials at those grade levels okay from a standpoint I know you educated there's clarification that you're that you're seeking is that clarification to be um would it be effective or is that regarding this year's topics of Education or would that be for next year you know um for us to be looking at what clarification we would need moving forward in general that's um we weren't this is pretty latent in the face to try to make changes for this school year and as I said there's quite a bit of clarification we would still like to have
058on this topic as I said it it doesn't have amount of time it doesn't have anything regarding um you know specific grade levels and what you know for instance like if you're doing it something at sixth grade would you have to incorporate all strands at that level like that's important information for us to know um before we move forward at all on any and get clarification from this state on um you know what they're implying by required and then they chose to adopt the national sex education standards and what would that mean um for school districts on those standards not just the strands thank you and then finally um I just want to be sure I understand that parents have the addition have the opportunity to opt out of any particular strand regarding this regarding
059these topics and it would be the entire if it's a one week or one day or three week at the high school and that's the same of what we've that has been our practice yes thank you Miss fostick thank you for the presentation I don't have any questions about our current health education practices as a board member and as a parent who has had now two children go through all of the health education we have in our district um I've been pleased with it thank you Mr krubus I'd like to thank Miss bosdick for her brevity um I'm going to take a different uh take on the questions um I was looking at the act that we've been discussing here and there was some discussion about us having our the ability as a school district
060to adopt um curriculum that meets the specific needs of our community but the ACT does go on to say that all instruction and material may not conflict with the ACT so although we may adopt curriculum that meets the specific needs of our community any material that we use must comply with the act so it's it's not a distinction may not conflict is that what I said yeah so I think that's an important important to distinction for us to all recognize um I do want to discuss the policies briefly I mean we mentioned them in the beginning of our presentation and I do appreciate you always doing that um but these policies that we reference are freely available on our website under board policy and board policy 2 colon 260. is the one that deals with
061instructional material and the board is the entity that should be approving all the instructional material in the district and so I know we're focused currently on the health portion but I want to make sure that we all recognize that we we are approving the instructional material obviously there's some um bumpers and constraints on it but it is important I think we as a board in a district need to develop a process that is um more coherent with the board approving instructional material and the same goes for curriculum and I know the prior superintendent wanted to address this and we've been dealing with a lot of emergencies recently and we've been dealing with a lot of mandates uh recall going through Springfield mandated curriculum changes with the science and so I think we as a board
062in a district need to um look at the opportunity of looking at curriculum Development Across The District and it's a big lift and we might not have all the resources to fully do it currently and there's time limitations but I think uh this will help us be proactive in in responding to some of the mandates you kind of need to measure where you're at across the system and doing that on the curriculum side and the instructional material side I think will allow us all to function at a higher level once again the policy 6 colon 40 that you referenced in the slide that talks about the school board adopting any curriculum in the district so we need to all make sure that the board is the entity that is responsible for that and we can
063discuss ways to do that um do we want to have a board calendar pick different curriculum add it to the calendar at certain time do we want a curriculum committee but the policy talks about upon recommendation from the superintendent so I I and I know that the presentation was about health and not about globally looking at the system but as a board member we're supposed to take the 30 000 foot View and this might be 50 000 but um I think that those key areas will let us function better and then the grievance policy and that is the two colon 260. a student parent and I I paraphrase it a student or parent having a complaint regarding any one of the following areas including curriculum instructional material you're a program or a program can file
064a complaint if they disagree with what's going on they might not get the answer that they desire but there's a process there's a procedure there's a policy that deals with any complaints regarding curriculum and instructional material so I think there is some uh processes and ramps to deal with some of these issues that's it no questions thanks uh just a comment uh regarding that so um in our strategic plan we do have in there about a curriculum review cycle and so this summer with the curriculum instruction team we have started to have conversations about what that's going to look like for many years the district was focused on growth and making sure that there were enough seats for students as we tried to deal with that growth and then uh you know towards the end
065of well sometime between 2008 2010 I believe is when we also made significant cuts which also had an impact on our um you know curriculum review uh processes at that time so one of the first steps we've been working on right now is actually trying to do a look back uh what has been adopted and when what's been formally adopted uh and our first step is trying to look back at the last 15 years to see what has been done uh which will help us focus on what that path looks like moving forward getting to a part we where we do have a regular review of our curriculum including instructional materials associated with those things we will see different challenges especially with our multi-tiered systems of support and what's you know tier one versus tier
066two versus tier three and all those interventions so it um you know there's going to be definitely challenges associated with in hoping that we don't get stagnant either at a point where we're not providing some of those best resources to meet students needs and and help support as many students as possible still no further questions okay thank you so thank you to everyone for your comments and questions and Mr krubus I have noted your thoughts about curriculum and instructional materials and the boards role so it's something that we will work further in the future I do think that there is a lot of vagueness and uh the different bills that we talked about tonight that um we will have more and more discussions about this I think the bottom line here is we're not changing
067anything this year I do always see isbe iisb also always pursuing local control on different topics so I will assume that they will continue to allow us to have local control over what resources we use as long as it is not in a conflict with the national rules I also um think that um we haven't changed our sex ed Health Ed curriculum in many years is that correct yeah I'm not sure the last time it was changed so we're trying we continue to try to investigate to look at um uh grants been in this position for a few years prior to that Brian was in that position and that wasn't under him either so I'm trying it's been a significant amount of time since the last major revision right the curriculum so if people are
068thinking that we're changing a bunch of stuff the last few years we haven't no um so I think that's important for the public to know and um you know it's an important area for our students across the different grade levels and um we'll continue to make sure that we are properly um supporting the needs in this area of sex ed and health education so thank you so much all right our last area is legislative advocacy and Board of Education update does anyone have any items to discuss we're gonna or can I say something before you yeah say the thing that um I just wanted to make the board aware that I'll be attending the next Linda meeting because Lori can't make it so I'll report back on what takes place at that meeting but I
069just want you to all know that I'll be attending that in absence of Lori can't be there on Friday this Friday and it's the first meeting of the Year 23rd right 20th oh is it oh yeah okay yeah and um it's in person for the first time in over a year or two years so that will be interesting so thank you for agreeing to attend that look forward to hearing what's on the legislative agendas in the state and just for our community because I just said lead right lend is the legislative education Network for DuPage County that's kind of our our lobbying group for DuPage County school districts right they look at actions that are going on in Springfield and across the state related to education and help us understand what they are and also
070help create positions from the area I think that um I don't have any other items in this area and uh I need a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn yeah desserts all in favor thank you virgin