Mahomet-Seymour Board of Education Study Session11-2-20

001everybody it is good to have everyone with us tonight um we are live on our YouTube channel so welcome to those in the community that are listening in tonight we've got uh three board members on WebEx um and WebEx is live out so uh this is a study session of muhamad Simo Board of Education like to call to order 701 p.m. on Monday November 2nd at this time I'd like to remind everyone attending in person to please sign in and silence their cell phones i' would like to remind our visitors that in order to facilitate an effective meeting we ask those who wish to make public comments to please read the guidelines found of the table outside the door complete the attached public participation form and get those to Dawn um and I've got one

002right now okay very good uh roll call please Giles here ke here Henri here Schultz here Larson here Hennessy here mome here let's stand for the pledge please I pledge ALG to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and jusice for all okay board members you've had a chance to look at the agenda um is there a motion to approve the agenda as it's presented so movedon lson is our second second okay discussion on the agenda I sorry this is me again I still would like to see covid as a standing agenda item on all of our agendas moving forward I feel like this pandemic has uh still taking a lot of our time and a lot of our focus and our

003efforts and I think it warrants its own agenda item on these moving forward okay all right thank you for that we'll take that into consideration move forward uh can we have a vote on the agenda please Larson yes Henri yes Giles yes Hennessy yes Keith yes Schultz yes mome yes um tonight before we start um I wanted to say just a word um and our thoughts go out to the Mount Zion School District um last week their board president uh Mr Todd Gardner passed away unexpected edly um Mount Zion has had a great history of friendship and cooperation with that District even before they were part of our conference uh we did a lot of things with that particular district and then of course the last several years we've all been part of the Apollo

004together and uh we were saddened to get that news that Mr Gardner had unexpectedly passed and certainly our thoughts and prayers are with his family and the folks in Mount Zion um we'll do public comment in just a minute um but before we get into public comment it's good to have a special guest with us tonight Senator Chap and Rose is here and we're going to give him just a couple minutes right up front and I respect for his time thank you for being here thanks chairman appreciate it thanks board members and super all um so I have followed from a 5,000 foot view some of the interactions between the village and the school board over the last several months and year and I was really encouraged and I want to say a big thanks

005to the board members here uh on the outset for the good cooperation that happened with the um intergovermental agreement on the use of space and some of the things that the village uh will be able to use and you guys hopefully will find benefit in as well I I really appreciate that as a good step forward um and I think I need to say thanks first I am also want to share my my concern that there doesn't seem to be going forward a a plan well there isn't because the vote was against it for some sort of plan with 13 acres in the village now it's not mine to say what that plan is that's up to you all um but here's what I know and as B state senator and as a taxpayer in

006this district with four kids in the schools I know that we're stronger together and I know that you can do more when everyone's cooperating together and I spoke to the mayor Adam over for be in my garage last week just to see you know from his perspective if the doors still open um I think the village is very much um done with this but if somehow this group would get together quickly and decide they want to re-engage I don't think the do completely closed and and I guess let me just tell you this why I think this there are Grant programs that the village can apply for that schools can't and if your long-term goal here as a board is to build a new school whatever school that is or wherever that school may be

007you're going to ask the local taxpayers to pay for that school if you could take three to five million of that off of the local taxpayers and put it on the state or federal taxpayers why wouldn't you do that but that requires cooperation and I made a list here of just grant programs I'm not going to bore you but the oslad program that this the city can qualify for the you can is 750,000 osra acquisition projects $400,000 for actual um development of renovation Projects Park grants up to $2.5 million uh Park grants can be for buildings I'm not here to suggest what your goals are or what your needs are you all know that and you all canci what I'm here to suggest is why on Earth would we as local taxpayers want to put

008this cost on the property taxes if we could find a place to do it on state or federal Grant programs um oad Parks uh itep even which is transportation Improvement program um that's you know bike trails to schools there's all kinds of things you can do here um sewer um Community Development Brock Grant $550,000 for water and sewer projects again that's not something the school board can apply for it's something the village would apply for but it would involve all of you guys agreeing on what it is you want to do for the future of this community um we've got I've got a $750,000 grant that was coming to the Village uh from the state to help offset the cost of 13 acres and maybe do some improvements at 13 acres which which ultimately through

009a community through a through an agreement with you all could be good for everyone again I'm not here to tell you what's good for the school nor more am I here to tell you what's good for the village but I am here to tell you that if people would sit down long enough to work with each other we can do something awesome for this community but if everyone's going to keep going in Corners it doesn't matter and and and this is where I'll take my state sen had to often dispens the reading of all the grant programs the fact that I'm now being asked to take state tax well actually I'm going to put my state hat back on the fact that I'm now being asked as a state senator to exp spend State taxpayer

010dollars to buy ground that already exists in the village of 13 acres really ticks me off I've got 10 counties of communities 200 plus Mayors okay and we're supposed to go spend precious State taxpayer dollars buying ground that already exists in Mohamed what's the mayor of Vel think about that what's the mayor of Shel will think about that what's the mayor of Paris think about that I'll tell you what I think about it think it's a waste of money and the Bing you better spend our community so um I'm I'm here to urge respectfully everybody on this board to just go in a room and figure it out take us all out you know and just fig figured out because you're about to embark on a quest where you're taking anywhere from3 to5 million in

011potential grants off the table that you're eventually not tomorrow not next week not next year but some point time in the next decade you're going to come back and ask the property taxpayers of this town to pay for I don't understand that and so um to the extent we've all been very busy and we've all been challenged by all the other things that are going on right now I get it but um you I talked to Sean on the way here today and you know Village is frustrated but you know the doors cracked open if this if this board wants to do something in the next month you know he's not going to say no to the conversation what you guys do is up to you that's what you were elected to do I'm just

012tell here to tell you that I think it's crazy for this town to walk away from millions of potential grants that you're going to come back and ask for from the state you know on local property taxpayer dollars and it also makes it very hard for me to do the rest of my job on the state side because that's very competitive for that those grants and now now I'm being asked to pay for something twice and that's that's a difficult place for me to be in so with that I have any anybody have any questions said my pie any questions for J was here I give it list of all these grants if you want them to I would I would like to see them thank you Jacob yeah and some of these you'll see

013on this list I mean some were like sa rout of school that's definitely something that school dist are could apply for but some of them like the water and sewer programs that's going to go through the Village um you know the park Grant which is 2 and half million for for for physical construction that's going to go through the village so you know if if again let me be clear too like ozac which is a 700 it's 400 for non-development 750,000 for acquisition and they all require match oad you can actually get multiple times so if you were to take a a space and say you want to chunk off this area for for phase development over a period of 5 to 10 years you could get multiple grants don't expect one every year but

014you know it' be reasonable to get one every 3 to four years well that's you know million and a half $800,000 million half dollars every 3 to four years over 3 to four years so again um you know there's there is easily $3 to5 million out there that that you all could potentially get through cooperation Village and I just um I think everybody just needs to go in a room and figure it out that's my opinion thanks thank you thank you thanks chapen I I do agree I hope that um the leaderships of our boards will make that happen all right public comment we have one member of the public who's asked to speak and that is Christina heimall Christina you got up to five minutes if you need that my name is Christin Hall

015I am a staff member at the junior high school I have two um in-person students in the district who as far as I know they're healthy so um they can do that in person uh when Dr Hall came to back to moham Seymour as superintendent she spoke to the staff about all of the students in our district were our students this really stuck with me all of these kids are our students it still appalls me how swiftly and easily you wanted to hand off some of our students to an Outsource company these are our students these students would not have been able to get any help from Muhammad Seno teachers why are they so easily thrown by the wayside people moved to this District because of our schools and because of our teachers it frightens

016me that you were going to give them away so easily every parent in this District should be frightened because by that because one day their child could be next it also STS me that you were willing to spend $250,000 to do so where were we going to get this money as far as I know we don't have a stock pile of funds behinder so we the taxpayers would have had to put the bill you sit there six feet apart every meeting and tell our students they don't get the same amount of distance you tell me I'm not going to get the same amount of distance you say students will be fine but we don't just have most students we have all students our students come in different shapes sizes colors abilities and medical conditions you

017are responsible for responsible for protecting all of our students when you decided to have all inperson Learners return in January you are telling students with underlying conditions that they're not worth the effort to keep them safe you're telling them to stay home you are not protecting all of the students you're also neglecting to tell parents that there will be absolutely no social distancing right now there is not 6 feet of social distancing in the hallways how do I know I walk the hallways with these students every day when all inperson students return students will be shoulder-to-shoulder in the hallways parents deserve to know this parents also deserve to know how close their children will be in the classroom they will definitely be closer than 6 feet most Junior High classroom will more than likely be

018closer than 3 feet I want to thank the board members that have visited the schools and have seen the tight quarters that we have in our buildings if you haven't visited the schools lately please do so earlier this year some board members said that most kids will be fine if they have free feed of social distancing we're not even going to have three feet what do you say to that do you think most kids will be safe with that do you think all kids will be safe you're essentially saying that all of our students don't matter you use the DF list to justify throwing all the students back into the covid crock poot but did you know that the schools are working on this the junior high is set up a study hall in the

019morning for struggling students the teachers are more than willing to go to the gym and help out these students unfortunately this was only set up a week or two before the end of the first quarter so their grades weren't didn't go out much but we're working on it you've said that covid-19 isn't going away anytime soon so we need to learn to live with it what do you think we're doing right now we're doing that what you meant was that it wasn't going away so we should just go back to normal anyway well guess what the pandemic isn't over just because we're over it even when we return to full in person school will not be normal you need to listen to the teachers keep the hybrid instruction and keep all of our students safe

020thank you and Don that's all we have I don't know any all right okay so the U First first item of business is community engagement board charge Dr H okay this item was um tabled or postponed from um our meeting two weeks ago so it's being brought back had a couple of um discussions about this um on September 21st and again on October 5th and um board members have had the chance to provide feedback on the board charge so this is just being brought back this evening for Action um I do want to point out that um on the document that uh the charge uh from the board for the community engagement um her a suggestion from Mr Giles we did um include item number five which says involve the community in planning for the

021future of the Muhammad sour Community Schools which may include options to build in ways that require a tax referendum and I think the feeling behind that was just to be very specific and and very upfront with um one of the ways that this one of the pathways that this community engagement initiative could could go so um we have Rod Wright here um from creative Entourage to answer any additional questions so I will um refer to the board and recommend that this be approved so we can move ahead R how are you good must be on mute can you hear me okay yeah good to have you and Damien with us tonight does anyone have any questions for Rod or Damen or comments in general um I have a question but I don't know if it's

022before we talk about it but we had talked about the interested parties and the different connections of people that we would have and I wanted to know when the timeline I guess that might be an after we decide whether we're going to do it question I'm thinking about it I'm just the one thing that's really resonated with me in having some of the community engagement is the different parties of community engagement that are have come and expressed the different things that they have that would be complimentary to our um engaging everyone as a whole so I just want to make sure that when we if we move forward with that that we do consider some of those things and how we would come up that as a board so that that might be an after

023we talk about a question Dr Hall just a a question in point of reference when we talked about Community engagement previously last winter maybe even uh I had the sense that those were broader engagements uh we got some feedback gotten some prices that were pretty pretty pretty high uh then Co hit and we didn't do anything and so forth so how does this board charge differ from what we had put forth uh last winter or spring great question so what what's in front of the board this evening um for potential approval is is really much more specific than um the request for proposals that we put out actually on February 7 of um 20 2020 seems like a lot longer ago than that so um this has been very much more kind of narrowly focused

024and funnel down to focus on a long-term facilities plan um with some very specific deliverables at um and and you know a road map if you will to um guide us through the the formation of a long-term facilities plan um you focus on the ultimate I guess endgame of uh potential referendum the RFP that we had put out previously was much more General Broad in nature and um we did get back two proposals we actually receiv received those the due date was March 9th um got those handed them out to the board that evening and then of course a couple days later um we shut everything down and understandably I believe that then Revisited the topic in June or July and um at at that point you know those that are those rfps were not

025the direction that the board wanted to go so as an example um you know the the the desired outcomes of what what we asked for back in early 2020 much more broad create an opportunity to listen and learn jointly develop a board community and uh vision and strategic plan for the future that is reflective of an alignment of values between board staff and Community um coordination of resources for a strategic plan a process to support Board of Education and Community interaction that ensures diverse voices are heard and an assessment of expectations from stakeholders as well as learning about possible areas of improvement and areas of strength so while those components are wonderful and that's great um they were very broad um um broad goals so this is much more focused um we got um a

026proposal two proposals one had a priz tag of 69700 um and the other one was 56250 and so um that's the background on that thank you question I have some I have some concerns how is it that we have a project with a $60,000 plus price tag that we don't have to send out to bid what very concerned that we are not following the appropriate rules associated with going out to bid on these high ticket items Professional Services Professional Services that don't fall under that bidding guideline Professional Services do not fall under we don't have any bidding requirements for a $60,000 plus price tag for Professional Services that is my understanding yes correct much like an architect you don't have to bid that and if I can add to that just in terms of the

027pricing when we bid on the on the RFP that went out earlier in the year our submission and I'm assuming no one else's submission included any of the architectural work and we in fact if I remember right it put in our response that in addition to paying our firm for doing the community engagement and Communications work that the district would have to retain the services of an architect and use their existing architect to provide a lot of the information needed for the program kind of the data that the community participants would would process uh so so the amount that you're looking at now uh you know that the the work that that Damian's firm is doing is all on the architectural side of it and and the community engagement piece that we had in essence

028be something in excess of $50,000 for is being provided for uh you know under their contract so I just wanted to kind of make sure that we understood apples and apples on on the cost now to what it would have been in the spring uh again in addition to you know if our bed or somebody else's had been accepted you still would have been looking at you know paying some amount of money for the support that would come from the architectural services if that's clear but but this has a $60,000 price tag that does include architectural services correct correct this is this is an Allin um and actually the way that it's been outlined is uh for us to keep track of the time we've estimated that kind of Allin um efforts if you will

029um but yeah and back to what Max and Lindsay had referenced Professional Services are actually not uh cannot legally be bid in the state of Illinois um they they fall outside of that in procurement laws did you say something else I didn't hear Megan did you say something else I didn't hear you I saw your mouth moved but I didn't hear you I just said okay thanks okay sorry um I do have just some general concerns uh I feel like there's a pattern going on here with the board that kind of removes the board from what I would consider board work um we've passed some resolutions over the last few months that give the superintendent the authority to make most of the decisions moving forward with respect to school plans and planning um we just

030voted to give Max and Lindsay and our attorney complete control and authority over discussions with the village regarding Conway Farms although I don't believe that that actually passed because it didn't have a two-thirds majority but that's still to be discussed later um we're talking about removing the board from discussions with the Union um we've removed covid from the agendas um and now we're talking about removing the board from the facilities and long-terms planning um I think that I think that the proposal in front of us is a good proposal but I don't think we're there yet I think there are steps that need to be taken by this board in terms of assessing needs and prioritizing goals um last few meetings we've had community members come with areas of expertise and ask us to slow

031down to pause to take a moment to do some of our due diligence I believe they've met with all of the board members independently too to have those types of conversations and this board did not take heed of any of that advice or any of those thoughts and voted through um um despite that expertise coming to us I have no real confidence that we are going to um change that behavioral pattern of separating the board from the work of the board and then coming back and having uh any success with adopting plans that we had no real say in prioritizing or and I just have no idea how we're going to now uh take the recommendations of the community when we have just in the very recent past had community members come and ask us

032to slow down with areas of expertise tell us that we need to take a moment and we completely disregarded that advice and voted through uh legal documents that now we're we have very little wiggle room on I have concerns that this is a little bit cart before the horse and um despite the fact that I think the proposal is a good proposal I don't think we're at that stage yet I think the Board needs to do some board work and I can't quite understand why we seem to be in this pattern of the board separating out work that the board should be doing from actually doing the work and assigning it to individual people or individual committees um I just don't have any level of comfort with this process being successful if we continue to

033do that I I if if I could comment on that and and and I I just want to emphasize that that nothing in the program that we're envisioning is meant to cut the board out of the process by any stretch the imagination in fact the first step of this is a board charge uh as as we talked uh you know when we've presented how the program would work uh we're wanting two board Le ason to the facilitating team which is kind of the group that that organizes the process that group will have some Citizen co-chairs and we will be encouraging them to make regular reports to Board of Education meeting and having a lot of two-way communic uh and then at the end you know like any other committee you know there will be a

034final report to the board and and it's kind of up to the board what it wants to do with that the board has ultimate Authority about implementation of the plan uh you know I've worked on a lot of these programs over the years and I know that that that they work best in terms of there actually being implementation of a long range facility plan when the community and the board and the leadership of the district are all kind of on the same page at the end of the day on on what goes forward and and I think more than anything else that's what we want to try to happen in this process where we get a lot of community input on what a plan could look like report that input to the board report what

035we hear to the board but at the end of the day I said kind of kind of make sure that we're all aligned on kind of what's the step best way to move forward on a facility Improvement plan uh can I guarantee that's going to happen of course not but but we've had a lot of experience doing programs where that is the outcome and and that's certainly what our hope would be in your school district but but I would encourage all board members to attend all meetings if they want to uh we mentioned in another school district even though we had two boardly on to the facilitation team uh all seven board me Members attended those meetings uh you know and they become a really good environment in which to share and talk and discuss

036and debate and Hammer up what improvements are needed so I would encourage every board member to do that I think you'll find the facilitation team meetings more interesting even than the community engagement sessions that are going to be the Big Y all come meetings that I hope we can have in some kind of Co World I'll just so is there any reent go ahead Max Megan there was a lot that you said in your statement and I I'm not going to sit here and argue with you except to say that I disagree with a with the vast portion of what you just said I think it's important we get the community on board and and get a feel for where the community is with us we we can sit here here and and make plans

037all day uh but if there's no Community Support community and Community doesn't see the need for what we're trying to do is pretty pointless we need to know where the community is at in fact you know a couple months ago in a meeting I remember hearing um basically the accusation that we kind of made decisions that not really involved the community um and now I'm hearing that we shouldn't be involving the community that because we're not ready to do that um so I find all that just a little confusing it seems to be a different argument to me based on a different day and a different time uh but I I'm confident um that our community has a lot of interest in in where we're headed down the road with facilities I'm confident they've got

038a lot of ideas and frankly we need their input and we need to see where they're at I'm sorry just to clarify I did not suggest that the community does not need to be involved I have been very clear on that all along that the community absolutely has to be involved my concern is that the board has some work to do beforeand I don't know how to give a clear charge to this committee when the board has not done the front-end work when it comes to needs assessment and prioritization there's nothing tangible to hand off to this committee I think needs assessment is one of the things we want the community to work through is it not Rob is that not part of the deal here I'm sorry I said needs assessment that's that's a

039part of this process right correct yes thank youor oh ahead Callie no no you can go Ken it's fine can someone explain how uh a committee of community members is going to be more effective at developing A needs assessment than um say the board or our staff I I I think that in my mind is kind of not the right question uh and I want to go back to what I said earlier uh you know without question Damian and his team and three or four people could go into a room and meet for three or four months and put together a facility Improvement plan uh but but the issue is you know the degree to which the community feels as though it had input into that plan and the degree to which the community I

040I talked about alignment uh shares priorities and shares viewpoints on on what what that plan should be be uh you know I suppose if if if you know the board was kind of public bamned and didn't have to put something on the ballot uh you know engaging the community in the way that I'm talking about wouldn't be necessary but I think there is value to getting Community input along the way and developing the plan and then two in Illinois like a number of other states that we work on community's got to give you permission to do it uh you know it's going to cost money to improve the facilities and and they either get to weigh in now or they get to weigh in on Election Day and my experience has been it's better to

041let them weigh in before election day and make sure that as I talked earlier that alignment exists uh so so that's kind of the idea behind the program where where you know we get input from a lot of different directions and then at the end of the game uh reach some kind of consensus throughout the district on what that plan should look like so I'm talking about the needs assessment and I consider that to be distinct from the actual facilties plan so I want to make sure that we're not we're not combining those um accidentally and I can't understand how a Community member um has some um more in-depth knowledge than our staff members when it comes to understanding what our current needs are or even projecting what our current or what our future needs

042will be that's what I'm talking about that and that seems like the first step in this process you know before we talk about what we want to build we need to talk about what we need you know the Public's got to be involved in that or they don't understand the need parents teachers business owners you've said board member looking as a whole and I can I can speak one point to that as well as as a District's architect we have a pretty good starting understanding of the physical needs just relative to Dollars to keep the facilities up and you know um updated over the next 20 to 30 years that'll be a piece of it the functional um needs also will be something that we we give a baseline through that through initial conversations with

043building level administrators to understand functionally how that's happening um the the piece where it becomes community-led is when they've got a baseline of understanding of of facts of what is occurring in buildings or what can't occur and what systems need replaced or updated then that's the point where they start to prioritize what are the directions that the district that they see as a community member that the district should go so Ken I think to answer your question setting that kind of Baseline understanding that is something that we would be doing to give essentially as a piece of homework if you will to hand over to that uh facilitation team as a baseline piece of information similar to um uh enrollment Trends or or other you know just kind of factual Baseline items I think I

044I was going to say depending upon facilitating team decisions a lot of that need assessment at the community engagement uh meetings can be provided by staff we have done a lot of programs where we've invited District leadership teachers to talk to the community group about about challenges they may have during the day that that when you walk through the building at night you don't necessarily see we've even organized tours of buildings guided tours of buildings so people in the community can get their their head wrapped around you know what why there is a need for a facility Improvement plant because one thing is certain if the community doesn't understand that there's needs chances of passing anything are about zero that's step number one in the process is is having kind of a widespread understanding that

045there's challenges that need to be addressed and once that understanding is there the next step then becomes what's the best answer to those challenges uh you know because there may maybe several to choose from and and uh a former employee of ours A good friend of mine Dan burns like to talk about this being a discovery process and that that in part is what community engagement is it's a discovery process for the the community to to understand a lot of stuff that that the seven of you on the board already know but the community needs to have that understanding also uh and this was a good Communications uh method from for making that happen so I think I think Damian nailed it on the on the head that's what I'm talking about is we need

046to have a a foundation of facts and I can't imagine that's coming from anyone other than our staff and our our Administration um you know let's let's get a little more concrete and and think about the needs of our science class Labs um I don't think a parent are uh appointed to the community engagement committee is going to understand what the needs are of our science department and which elements of the curriculum and the the state standards we're able to meet and not able to meet based on our current lab facilities and what we would need in the future to meet those needs I think that's what I'm talking about is developing that Foundation of facts what data we have about what we need and then we get the community engaged when we get to

047the part where we talk about prioritizing which solutions to those needs uh we want to we want to pursue first do we understand the distinction there yes I think we understand the distinction I think there's just a difference of opinion and the best way to get the community involved and I'm work with that okay so that's fine but can you explain to me what what the purpose is going to be to bring the community into the fact Gathering stage because if the community doesn't understand the need it doesn't make a difference what the standards are and what we're equipped to do or not to do we go nowhere with projects and we have teachers on this right parents business owners members we we will need to communicate what those needs are but I'm talking about

048actually finding out what those needs are I don't think that the members of the board even understands what our science lab needs are um I'm talking about the actual development of those of that Foundation yeah and I if I understand what you're saying I I agree with you and and and and it's Damian and his team's responsibility to both do a physical assessment of the facilities but also work with staff and and and and understand the the the the functional needs that may be in the building and and put that together in a presentation that would be made at Community engagement meetings uh it's just the first example that popped into my head but but that's what happened in Richmond County Community Unit School District number one there was an entire evening about about the

049functional needs in the facilities and that presentation was made both by the BL architects in terms of kind of best practices and education now but it also included the instructional staff that got at some of the issues that you're talking about you know maybe some of the challenges with science labs uh Elementary rooms that are not well Geared for small group instruction uh that's kind of Damian's job to put that information together so it can be presented you know at the community engagement session so people can kind of hear the challenges discuss them learn about them and then and then begin giving us input on what you know on their feelings about those things so so that that's kind of how the engagement sessions work at every every meeting people will learn something it's our

050job and the facilitating job to package that and put it together together so they get some smart information and then they decide something based on what they've heard that night uh not a whole lot different than how a classroom operates you know there's information presented people talk about it and then we get feedback from it yeah that seems very intuitive to me thank you Colleen yes you wanted to say something you wanted to say something and you've got your turn thanks um so I've asked this last time and I would just like to ask again and see if we can make some decisions about it um first of all I um feel as though it might be a good idea to allow any board member who wishes to be on the facility committee to be

051on the facility committee um not to limit that number um if board members want to participate it seems like that's um only will benefit the um process um and second of all um I I'm still not clear I mean I understand the explanation um that we've heard but how the committee is going to be chosen I know that we always say it will just be natural how that's going to happen um but in order I just I would like more clarification and a decision well a couple of points uh and this was entirely not our decision I can just tell you what we've done in the past uh we have had two formal uh appointments and so board members to the facilitating team and we've done it with two in part because of open meeting

052loss and so it's a meeting that you don't have to you know I if if a majority of board members is on that team I I guess theoretically some kind of action could be taken I don't know I'm not a lawyer but we've loed it to for the reason now having said that we have these meetings have always been open to the public and anybody that can attend that that wants to uh and and jenio I I mentioned earlier I didn't mention the name you know all board members attended you know they didn't set at the table at the very beginning but but these these meetings are very collaborative in nature and the only caution about having a lot of board members there you don't want the participants to think that the board's going to

053run this and that their participation is not important but after they've had the first couple of meetings and kind of get ahead of steam up you know in terms of what their job is that that becomes less of of an issue I I said earlier the more we're all talking to one another the the the better uh this works what we have done in the past in terms of who gets on the group is is got get names from everyone board members principles uh people in the community that know people you know city manager or Village manager I mean collect a lot of names of people that would be good on a group like that and then uh you know ask the superintendent to put together five or six people even more that sit around

054a table and kind of go over that and I you know we would be part of that uh some names are mentioned so often they just kind of jump to the top and and and and other times you you need to be do some thinking about uh let's let's assume there I'm just making this up three towns in the community and we don't have anybody from town B and we may want to get some Geographic diversity or we may have some population group that were that doesn't seem to be on the team so there's a little thought about balancing it obviously it can't be an exact match of the community demographically but we can get as close to that as possible you know you don't want 10 members of the Chamber of Commerce for example

055a couple of people from the chamber would would be good to kind of represent that group uh we have not had problems in the past kind of saying those names come to the Forefront when we go through there uh again remember this group is about process it's not the group that makes decisions that happens in the community engagement meetings kind of the big you all come meetings so so what this group does is puts together the engagement program everything just to give an example we talked about earlier the needs assessment let's say Damian is going in one night and doing a presentation on the physical uh qualities or conditions of the building before he makes that presentation we would have him rehearse that in front of the facilitating team so so they could have an

056opportunity to say you know what you said on slide 10 didn't make any sense to me you need to expand what you talked about on slide 12 uh that that's an opportunity also for board members to ask questions and make sure that presentation is as crisp and sharp as it can be and then after that we'll work with the facilitating team and putting together our work activity for people people you know to work on after the presentation uh and to help us with Communications my point is that group doesn't make decisions about the outcome of the facility plan that happens the the product if you will happens at the engagement meetings so uh uh that that's a long-winded answer I'm sorry but that that's kind of H how we've done that in the past I

057know you've if I remember right you've had some experience with these engagement programs so probably this is sounding a little familiar to you no it does sound familiar I just I guess what I'm in order for me to feel fully on board I would like to feel as though the board would be the group when you said um a group comes together with the names to pick who's on there I would like the board to be that group and the board to be able to have the ability to um decide the committee and veto certain people if that so that the board is comfortable as we move forward you you know that I that's obviously not my decision I think in the past what has happened is that that after that small group kind of

058bets the names and talks about them those names come forward to the board of education and some kind of communication but but you you know how we go about doing that you know there's probably multiple ways to to to to deal with that issue the the one thing I could say is Go going over that list at a board meeting might take a lot longer than what you want to do on a formal board meeting and we have devoted two and three hours to that you know having that discussion uh you know I don't want to tell you how to have your board meetings but that's a long time for an agenda item in a board meeting well perhaps we could say any board member member who wants to be on that committee could be

059on that committee and anyone who doesn't want to spend the time doing it doesn't need to participate right and and people at that meeting need to uh it needs to be an open and candid discussion so so that that but but yeah that's fine I I I just it's an environment where there needs to be some very uh honest discussions about about people uh you know in terms of of kind of putting that that group together I I I I can just give you a simple example of that in one Community one of the names on there was someone that had a history of being very disruptive in meetings and that was important to hear when we were when we were making selections because this group needs to be a working group we're going to

060have very tight agenda uh one of the things that we're going to tell this group is every meeting's going to run two hours after two hours we're done whether we're done or not so it's a real work grope in terms of getting you know it's not a debating Society if you will I mean the facilitation team it's a real work group every meeting's going to have identifiable goals and an agenda to achieve so so we need to be kind of uh we got to roll up our sleeves and work at these meetings point I'm trying to make I'd just like to say welcome the health the the professional health we've talked about engaging with community in a variety of ways for too many years and I don't see any conflict with trying to do some

061things in parallel U nor to have the help to do it uh some of those conversations would be linked some would be unlined but uh I think having the help to to get us started here is a direct result of of what we have been talking about as a board for the past year and that's getting Community engagement started I think we've got to focus I don't know what else we need to do as a board to actually get the ball rolling uh with talking with the community that that clearly includes staff and I also appreciate the financing behind this that the retainers only the $20,000 U and there actually is a kicker that gets paid only if there is a referendum that passes uh I like that so can you speak to what the

062difference is between a Community member that's on the committee versus a Community member that's not on the committee do the committee members get some sort of voting right for example yeah the the facilitating team is is a committee that that is about process as I we're going to talk about how to communicate meetings uh you know rehearse presentations look at the work activity we're going to have at that meeting look at uh that marketing for lack of a better word material they weigh in on everything having to do with process uh we'll go in and say listen we're going to bring stuff to the table for all of this but your job is to make it a lot better uh and and we need your input on that the the actual process for that leads

063to the the the final facility Improvement plan happens at Community engagement meetings and those meetings are kind of hopefully kind of big yall come meetings uh where everyone in the community will be invited uh the vast majority of time when we do those meetings uh input is at a table level not so much an individual level uh we'll have a table of 6 to8 that will process a a a work activity but the activity is turned in by table not not by individual at least in the vast majority of time and the idea is to have them talk about things someone mentioned earlier that staff teachers would be at every table and they will and and one of the things that participants love particularly the non-parents are are hearing about things that are going going

064on in the school building that they may have no idea about until they come to these meetings uh but but the facilitating team won't be voting on anything other than than process I guess uh you know we will also be asking them at the end of the First Community engagement meeting for example we will put together a a document I'm getting into the Weeds on this I'm sorry but we'll put together a document that's all the verbatim responses from the table uh we'll put together a an executive summary and we'll put together what we regard as consensus points and then we'll take those to the committee and they'll look at everything and will in necess say did we get it right does everything that that on these documents that we're showing you is is that

065an accurate reflection of the Comm of the meeting and then all of that information from meeting one is handed out to the group on on table two so we're completely I'm sorry meeting two so everything is completely transparent and posted on on the web page but but I again I want to make the point that that the actual decision making or product occurs at the uh Community engagement meetings and whoever shows up gets to exercise voice in that so one of the things we received in in in the information from bldd is a list of uh like hourly rates can you tell me when those hourly rates come into play in the cost structure yeah so relative to the BL time facility needs assessment um creation of drawings uh you'll see in The Proposal that's

066what we outline our work so uh Rod's work is allinclusive whatever time efforts you know are covered in there those rates come into play when we're creating solutions that have been requested uh creating information for the meetings uh creating presentations presenting those types of things oh I see so that's the distinction there is depending on whether it's coming from the uh creative Entourage side that's included in the $20,000 retainer and then yes yeah creative entourage is covered under no matter how much or little of the services you utilize uh the the efforts of creative Entourage will will carry through and to be honest for most of the presentation type work and creation and coating of information and kind of pulling that out of those meetings they'll be doing most of that work uh BD will

067be there mainly for the facility specific um or architecturally specific types of items we have a retainer with BL and we're supposed to be tracking ours against it but when we go over I just make them take me to lunch so it all works out really inexpensive recently without being able to go to too many places for lunch so right so the superintendent recommends the Board of Education approve the documents which is the charge and the agreement for Professional Services with BD engagement initiative is there a motion to do that so move lson second other discussion we've not touch down yet so one other the thing I want to bring up with the board is I think we need to be a little cognizant of the calendar we have ahead of us um we all

068know we've got an election coming up in April um and three of the board seats are are up for election uh Max L and Merl are you guys intending to run again I don't have to disclose that right now nor am I prepared to I don't think that's Germaine to this well um max do you want to weigh in I know whether we run or not and whether we're voted in or not this is still work for the community that needs to be done and we have got to stop putting up cans and roll blocks and get going please okay okay let's okay let's not jump to conclusions I'm just asking that question because this is a product that's being developed that we're we're we're putting money down for that should be or that will

069be used by the next board the the board that exists in November of 21 which is when the final report uh of this process is going to be produced and so I would like the board to consider that maybe a more prudent approach would be to do as much as we can to prepare for this process up until April and then let the next board decide if this is the process they want to utilize because I would really hate for us to spend 20,000 60,000 or whatever we spend um on this process only to have the next board not want to use it uh do you follow what I'm saying K I don't I I I think boards are faced with this uh to do work in with a longer view than than that that

070we are indeed tasked to make decisions without perfect information at any given time and that there's a certain level of of trust and thanks that go into the boards that have come before us and and trust and thanks to the boards that follow us I think that handoff is natural I'd agree with M much of our exceeds a year or even exceeds four years and this is a good example that's why I I would suggest we have this ready to go immediately in April I have it ready to go from the starting block then because then it will be two years of guaranteed continuity um with the membership of the board there's no such thing as guarantees anymore in life at least we're living it right now I mean you don't know that someone won't

071move and change their position we owe it to our community to get a plan a facility plan in place we've talked about it it's our fiduciary responsibility to get going on this and this is the way to get out of the gate we haven't laid before us and in fact I feel like we're being extraordinarily negligent if we don't take an opportunity that is before us at hand where we have exactly what it says in our Board of governance the opportunity to engage with the community that involves everybody and they Define what they think we ask for professional advice they say a couple of people we have people saying for we need to do what we're asked to do we've we've asked experts and let's move on this so we can get a plan it

072Ken I would look at it differently I actually welcome the help from the professionals we've got here tonight but I think your point tonight was is well taken that we've got to engage with staff and and and early get the baselines so we we actually do have work to do before a first meeting with the community folks so a lot of that work would I think need to start sooner than later so I'm in favor of of moving forward so I'm actually in favor of moving forward with those preliminaries that we talked about the you know the needs assessments and building that Foundation of facts I'm okay with moving forward with that immediately I think that there's not going to be a dispute about what our current um enrollment numbers are and there's not going

073to be a dispute about what parts of the science curriculum standards we can meet and we can't meet what I'm concerned about is this board deciding on a process for Community engagement that the next board is going to throw out if they just so choose I I don't know if they are they may just continue on they frankly that's pretty shortsighted because this goes beyond the work of any one particular board and and and frankly in the last couple months Ken you you you've been one that said we we need we need to get going on a facilities plan so this isn't this is yeah I'm K I'm not TR to do not concerned about the uncertainty and Truth is any board on any given month can change its mind and do something different I

074mean that's that's the reality I mean is that wise no I don't think so we have a a continuity to to maintain and protect I just want to be clear that I want to move forward on the needs assessment now immediately I what I am suggest ing is that we not lay down a huge pile of money on a process that the next board may not want that's all I've had my say I move that we amend the motion to say that any board member that wants to be on the facilitating committee can be and that the board will be involved in the selection of the committee including the ability to veto I'll second that I believe that to be totally unwise to to make an official public board meeting for Action every time three

075or more board members would show up I we we've never done that with more than two people we've hired superintendents uh with people with the community where there were only two official Representatives the rest of the board sat in the back room that's just the really the only way this can work the other problem with that is I don't want we we don't need the board to get together in a public meeting and talk about go through community members by name and talk about who would be strong or not strong and why or why not they should be on a committee and if we've got more than two board members on there we have to do that in public meeting and that's that's not fair to those people it's not fair to the community if

076I one being considered you going to talk about me in public please don't consider me because I don't want that as a community member um we no we can't do that that way that could be solved by five board members volunteering to not be on no it can't be solved it can't be solved then yes it can if five board members volunteer to not be on the committee then the committee will only have two board members on it can we vote on the amendment so that we can actually get we should Le yeah let let me let me address all the board meeting members on the facilitating team uh my sense of that is that it sends a really bad message to the community uh if I'm invited to attend that meeting and and all

077seven board members are there what that tells me is that no matter what we decide to do the board's going to second guess and change it that that it's not creating as you are in the charge of process and and creating the facilitating team to to uh to implement that process as I said earlier I I see absolutely nothing wrong with all board members attending the meeting but but I think you know I think having two formal Liaisons with with others sort of in the audience and part of the discussion is much better Communications to the community about about this process uh how we pick those people that are on the facilitating team is a is a different issue and and again I would hope that there's a lot of communication among all of us

078to make that decision but but I think if if I'm a Community member and a volunteer and I'm showing up for this meeting and all seven board members are part of this process I'm going to be a lot less inclined to participate than than than than otherwise uh you know we we have kind of recommended having two board liaison for a lot of good reasons and a lot of the good reasons come from mistakes that we have made over the years virtually everything I know about this is because we screwed it up at some point in time and tried to fix it and make it better the next time so that that's the best professional advice I can give you is is that we need to all talk to one another but we need to

079you know wa for people that come to that first meeting we need to pay attention to Optics and what we're communicating Jer I was just kind of say I think we need to be we're trusting of our community members to work through this process intelligently and thoughtfully without influence um from the board um I know from my perspective if I were being asked to lead this um I would I would want to know that the board trusts me to do that without having some overt or covert influence on it right so what was the amendment amend the motion that any board member who wants to be on the committee can be and that the board will be a part of the group to decide who is on the committee does that sound right it does

080okay so this is the amendment that we're voting on not the main motion Henri no Hennessy yes schz yes Lon no thank you Giles no Keith yes Keith I vote Yes mome No so the amendment fails now we're back to the original motion is there any more discussion on the original motion we have a votee on the motion please Tennesse vote present Schultz present I'm sorry I can't hear you calling present Keith no Giles yes Henri yes Larson yes mome yes and the motion carries um resolutions for delegate assembly Dr Hall okay so the um delegate hang on guys thank you for being here tonight Robin thank you for having me I enjoyed it and uh hope this is going to work really well for everyone look for discussion thank you guys sorry sorry to

081cut you off you thank much absolutely okay Dr Hall delegate assembly um so the delegate assembly is going to look a little bit different this year the um joint annual conference overall has been is going to have a very different format um there's a um kind of a mini conference on Friday November 20th if any board members are interested in signing up for that um and so the delegate assembly is actually going to be on November 14th um typically traditionally the vice president has has been the representative of the board in that so um that's a point of discussion um to see if she is willing to do that and then secondly to um vote on the resolutions that are contained in the resolutions committee report I'm my recommendation is to support what the iasb's

082recommendations are for the resolution the resolution are can be the beginning Point um for for what eventually becomes can become law um sometimes that happens sometimes that that doesn't these are simply um resolutions that have come forth from um school districts from school boards and um it's again the beginning Point sometimes of of items that turn into um laws in the state of Illinois so with that um again the the delegate assembly is going to be on November Saturday Saturday morning November so first of all I suppose let's talk about who the delegate is who was a delegate last year I did it last year did you I thought typically typically it's the vice president you going to stick with that plan the reason I asked going to change anything that person need to be

083paying attention we go through the rest of the discussion I'm happy to do that again I did it last year okay hearing no other discussion I think we stick with our normal plan then that would be my recommendation board members Dr Hall's recommendation was that we file the IAS the iasb recommendation on each of the resolutions does anyone desire to do anything differently on any of the resolutions do I need to explain what that person does this it's not okay hearing no discussion I would entertain a motion that Lori Larson is our vice president and our delegate and that we file the iasb recommendations is there a motion for that so move is there a second second is there any further discussion last chance if you want to change a position okay we roll call

084Vote for This on Schultz no dials yes LaRon yes Keith yes Hennessy I'm gonna abstain please Henri no mome yes we have four your yeah car okay new business can you stop for just a second yeah so I need to ask a question so um because this will happen before our next board meeting um the board's recommendation is to support items number 1 through 12 that is correct because that's how it goes you go before and they ask for district y so I just wanted to make sure because last year we had several people come in and talk about guns and schools and stuff so I just want to make sure that I represent our district properly uh sorry I just I'm a little confused I thought it was to follow the resolution committee's recommendation

085I I'm just making sure yeah well just so you know vote present and abstain when the information was in front of them that got me confused because I don't want to be called out in front of all my peers and have that happen so I just want to make sure so I will support items 1 through 12 understood no wait Lor sorry resolution committee recommendations right okay because Lori for example item number one the resolution committee does not recommend it okay see sorry I was looking at the numbers last year we went through them yeah we went through more last year when we did it we went through them in order so that I knew yeah it seems like we're probably skirting now since it's 820 and I don't want to skirt that since I'm

086representing our committee I think that last year there was at least one that there was at least one more on and um but just if there needs to be more discussion by means have it yeah laori if you look on page nine one is a do not adopt oh I had two is a do not adopt perfect okay a do adopt a do adopt okay at home all right next up is our school Improvement plans it has been about 90 minutes we're going to take about a quick five minute Comfort break before we get into that this it's kind of a natural breaking point so we we'll pause for about five minutes we'll come back at 8:25 and we'll start with school Improvement plans our building leaders e e e thanks and we're back live

087so thank you um WebEx Colleen and Ken are you there Ken is here col's there okay I'm here see all right very good well at this time we've got our principles with us to talk about school Improvement plans and uh we're going to start with Mr Ryan Martin good evening hello everybody want to really quickly kind of go over our goals for Middletown Prairie um just before we do that I want to start and say the four principles get together on a regular basis and try to get on the same page uh vertically and the Overview at the beginning is it comes from all four of us um and you know why these goals are very important to us our number one goal is it's most important is our top priority um is the wellbe

088of our staff and our students so uh with that being said we have developed some goals more specifically for each building um but want wanted to state that before I got started on on Middletown uh the process for Middletown Prairie uh Mr day and I collaborated for our own personal goals and as we were developing those we really try to keep our school as the main focus of what we want to improve on to also benefit our school uh through this process we've developed a department chair committee which has replaced our leadership team committee that we meet with on a weekly basis um we present Ed our overarching ideas with this committee and got feedback uh before making the actual School Improvement plan where we did bring back um and get approval from this the

089leadership team before pushing that out to staff uh I'm going to real quick go over those goals and then kind of conclude by saying what we're doing to try to attack those goals this year um first goal is to continue to build on the community uh and climate that we have built on last year if you remember last year our goal for number one was the same where we had 26% of the five essential survey come across that our staff disagreed with the statement I usually look forward to working each day at this school I'm very happy to say that we improved that number it dropped down to 8% this past time going through the survey which really shows me that our culture and climate is showing some gains and I want to continue to

090build that uh especially through the uncontrollable items we're dealing with with the pandemic uh the things that we can control I want to make sure we still are controlling those by trying to support our staff and our and our students uh with our culture and climate uh goal number two is also something that we based off of the five essential survey data uh 58% of the staff said that they have reported either zero once or twice to the statement gone over student assessment data with our teachers to make instructional decisions I really relied on Mr day has his former position in Danville School D District he has five years as a data instructional facilitator I really relied on him on to lead us through some data discussions and I'm just using that as a personal

091goal as well to try to learn a little more on um so with discussion with the leadership team uh we decided to make this a goal and we are going to be reporting data throughout the year and trying to use some of the data that we have uh to make decisions based on our own personal students and our classrooms our third goal is a coordination goal with the districts initiative with diversity we have a diversity and Equity goal um I think this is very personal for me as I also want to establish environment not just for the staff but for the students but for the families that this is a safe place and it does take inside all of the backgrounds um culturally and um with the relevance that we've had through town hall meetings

092and getting some data through that that's is really trying to focus some of our attention with our cultural awareness committee we've had this committee for 3 years now um really have done some really cool things here at Middletown Prairie and we are taking the data from uh the collaboration with the University of Illinois and Dr rum rum leadership uh to try to really focus that committee on what we can do at Midtown Prairie to make it more reflective of a place an environment that we want Muhammad to represent especially Middletown where families are experiencing school for the the first time so those are our three goals um we're we're working together with three major committees to try to attack these goals um and that is with the leadership committee with the um responsive classroom committee

093and also with third with our cultural rights committee so we are meeting on a regular basis to attack uh the goals that we have in front of you and and just continue moving forward here at miltown PR so I will accept any questions you have Brian what did you say the name of the last committee was I'm sorry leadership committee I just I sure leadership committee responsive classroom committee and then the cultural awareness diversity thank you yep sorry it's hard to talk to the mess you're right Ryan just an observation you've got some really good measurable goals in number one and two I understand three is much more difficult because it could be kind of fuzzy did you discuss how you could have measurements there yeah so that's a great that's a phenomenal question and

094we brought that up with our our committees that how how do you measure how do you put a smart goal put a timeline say yeah yeah we're we're diverse we're we're Equitable we we we've hit that fch Mark I don't think you can so that is going get ongoing goals but we have put together a document that merges four major pieces of data um that our committees that Mr day and I put together to look at through our leadership committee and two of those days are one is a survey called The Castle survey that Dr rumel is going to talk more about after our uh presentation and also from the the Dr Tan who led the discussions of the Town Hall meetings have generated two very big pieces of data that fall into the category

095for diversity team we actually met today um we met today for um Dam so today to talk about some of those data points that we can start attacking and and putting a goal on on sheating would it help just to even name what you just said that You' be using you would introduce this and that for surveys and you if that's a baseline or something like that that might be helpful to include yeah because you clearly thought it through sure but the goal doesn't quite say that yeah so so in in in document that I have created with with my team I do have a little bit more in detail that has that in there that has the action items that goes with um meeting some of those items and to be quite honest with

096you we're just kind of at the very beginning stages of dissecting the data received from the surveys so I use today's U meeting h a focus on what is it that we can focus in on and creating an environment that is Equitable and inclusive is one that's really high up there but in a pandemic it makes some obstacles to really be inviting for Community to come in so we talked about some of those obstacles but we're being creative with what that looks like by maybe some celebrations that we have here having virtual um guests come into our rooms and speak uh from different cultures and different backgrounds so we're starting some of those conversations to get into that but um I I think what you're looking for more of that data will come from the

097discussions that Nicole Dr R will have that's kind of guiding our discussion that's at the initial stages from my perspective an acceptable uh measurable goal is that we're going to dissect gotta Y and and it's it's a tough topic topic right because everybody it is but but you you clearly have something behind it glad to hear thank you just a comment um goal one I appreciate your work on all the goals but I really appreciate the Improvement you've seen as far as the climate culture and I know that's it's taken a lot of effort that's been very intentional on your part and I just want to be on record that I myself and I know all the board appreciates what you've done there I appreciate it and one action item from for that goal is

098when we meet through the department chair that leadership committee um I have I an action item on that agenda is to check in with the Department chairs on just the pulse of the community that we have here in our school and uh we share something positive for that week and then we have opportunities to say what's what's not going well and to to be real honest with you everything that's not going well isn't controllable it's all things that the pandemic is putting on us and causing stress and everything within our control I feel really really good about where we are um as a staff and and as a community within the building yeah thank you anything else from Mr Martin thank you than you Mr Martin I call you Mr Martin number one now this

099is number two well thank you guys uh for this opportunity to talk about Lincoln Trail and our school Improvement plan um this is the volunteer group or committee that meets usually before even sometimes before school starts but this year once school started there was sort of a lot to unpack from last year's School Improvement plan with the abrupt end to the school year time that we didn't have with students and as with a lot of committees that start at the beginning of the school year and some of those are are listed there but um a couple key committees were the idea committee which is our inclusive diverse education for all committee positive learning environment committee the multi-tier systems of support committee um similar conversations in all of them and there was really just this strong

100feeling that um from our staff that there needed to be something that unified that work of all of those different committees and that really kind of does lend itself well to the school Improvement plan and through additional conversation not only with the other principles but through the leadership team that we have at lincol Trail and these other committees as they were getting started with their work this year was this need for a mission or or a vision where are we going so I'll have to read it here because I can't read it from about there um but since this work has already started the mission statement that staff um fine-tuned and edited and re-edited is our mission at linking Trail is to Foster positive and collaborative environments in which all students families and staff are

101welcome valued and supported physically emotionally and academically it's a long way of saying um that everyone has a seat at the table is kind of what what we kept coming back to and so that's that's our mission um and so some of the things that we're working towards is that relationship piece and James comr said way better than I ever could no significant learning occurs without a significant relationship and so all of these committees work and the work of our staff especially in this very different school year after a very different end to last school year is this focus on on relationships the second goal um it's sort of related because it's more focused on that relationship that staff have with each other looking at the five essential survey that our staff took last year

10272% of Staff indicated that they had not observed a colleague during the past school year um and so that you know research shows that teachers watching other teachers is very crucial and the benefit is huge for them as Educators and so we talked about what are some of the things that are getting in the way and and how can we you know provide this opportunity for people because I think there's a strong want to it's just there's a lot of hurdles that get in the way Co certainly doesn't help um so we've been working on some different structures and things that we can put in place that will allow that collaboration to continue and and starting small and looking for places where we can provide those opportunities for staff so those those are our two

103goals if anyone has any questions questions for Miss Hunter I love the opportunity to observe and gain I mean as Educators we're constantly learning and I think it's exciting to see what other people are doing and get that perspective and also have other people give insight to you when you do that so that's awesome I'm glad that the staff all value in that a place that's really easy for us well it's not really easy but relatively speaking easier to start is every classroom at Lincoln Trail starts the morning with a morning meeting um it's selfishly Mr Martin and other Mr Martin and I like he does too though I know um like to go in and we lead those morning meetings so that teachers could then go and observe someone else's morning meeting it allows

104T and I to have an experience with students that we don't have necessarily you know from that office it allows us to see them in a different learning environment and again build that relationship ship that we wouldn't necessarily have just seeing them in that office type situation so we've had some morning meetings already even some for our remote students so that was um a test of my technology skills to say the least um but that's that's been fun um you know for us to get to connect with kids in that way too other questions or comments the wick drill goal thank you H thanks for being here Junior High Time Junior High Mr Mills good evening um just want to take a quick second to to thank the principles um the team that we've put

105like the teamwork that goes on on a daily basis a weekly basis a monthly basis of bouncing ideas U being sounding boards I can't think this this group enough for for their help and and everything um that's went on this year especially so thank you to each of you um as far as the goals um a lot like Mr Martin's personal goals Mr fiser and I get together just kind of um itemize our personal goals and align them with uh the building goals then utilizing feedback from staff and the team leaders in our building um two of the three goals resemble the goals from last year um um and and then a new third goal so first goal Junior High School Administration staff will continue to strengthen the PB team and the philosophies behind PBIS

106during the 2021 school year will F the PBIS team will focus on academic and social emotional needs of all students usually there's the behavior component of this well thankfully we don't have many behavior issues this year if I mean it's very very minimal um and but our academic and social needs social emotional needs are very there's a lot of need there so that's been a focus of this group Mr fiser does a fantastic job leading this group um and the staff is really stepped up to think outside the box and how we can help students um but also help teachers and staff so um that's goal number one goal number two is um Junior High Administration staff will focus on continue to implementation of the responsive classroom curriculum main focus this year will be continue

107to work on building relationships with all student um right now that relationship piece is more important than ever um and our staff just continues to amaze me on the work they're doing the ideas that um they've thrown out there just to get students involved um and build those relationships with all students whatever model they're in um in regards to their education our third and final goal is um build culture awareness diversity Equity across msgh um and more this with the district initiatives which have been fantastic um and Dr Romo has done a great job leading that charge um we are very early in the stages of this committee at the junior high U but I'm looking forward to to the work that we will do um within this so any questions for me in regards

108to the goals of the Junior High Mr Mel is it selfish because I haven't had a kid in junior high for a while remind me of what you do during the Bulldog Power Hour I hear about it but forgot there's there's a lot that goes on CU there's a lot of things that are in there yeah what doesn't go no um they're they're doing you know I'll just it it varies by by class and by teacher but right now um I've got teachers that are literally checking grade books every single day um it may that may take five minutes but what missing assignments what what can we do to help you reaching out to those teachers of missing assignments to say hey what can I do to help this kid um be successful they're doing

109activities on building relationships on uh you know just various different things um we also um in a non-co we do many other things incentives and and whatnot um and we've recently this year brought U foreign language to that power hour too so the eighth graders that's within the day it's not in Zero Hour anymore so there's a lot of different moving Parts um you know that that are going on we've got I've got uh elected teachers that are teaching remote lessons during that time I mean there there are so many things going on whatever is needed during that time thank you you're welcome PBIS is your is your first goal and of course my first exposure to PBIS was when you were with PBS at the high school sure and then um when you left

110and Mr Benedict came in and and both of you did such a fantastic job with that at the high school and um it's good to see I know you really made that a priority since you've been at the junior high to kind of build that and and build that culture and I just want you to know that I appreciate that I think that's one of the one of the better things we do to really reach and help K so thank you thank you very much thank you else okay Mr Benedict I want to Echo um what Mr Mill said about just getting the opportunity to collaborate with everybody on a pretty regular basis so it makes it it goes a long ways and it's it's good to be a part of a good team um

111our process is similar um we use our division head treat in in the summer to kind of review the school Improvement plan from the previous year and then have it try to drive um some bigot some some ideas of what we want to tackle for the upcoming year um this summer was a little bit different a lot to discuss but um through it we kind of came away with three big ideas that we wanted to build build on two of which were were similar to last year which brings me to goal to goal number one um this is our social emotional goal um we felt like that this is important um because of collaboration and relationships and you've heard a theme of relationships tonight from the other buildings and it's no different than at um

112no different at the high school um that collaborative environment um is key and that starts with relationships some things that we've done uh to do uh to improve that is we are have started working with Dr Tan on introducing the stronger teams curriculum uh into our advisory periods and with that comes some pre and post um test data that we can use with our students to kind of gain um the progress that we're making there um interesting you're probably not surprised with early po early pre test we haven't tested all the students yet but Stress Management is the number one thing our students are telling us right now um so that's been really good for us to get some immediate feedback through that curriculum um restorative practices continues to be a huge piece um in

113our in our building we continue to grow with that we've received a lot of training on that and not only with staff and students um we're starting to see that that take on a bigger and bigger role as it becomes as teachers just get more comfortable with it and students get more with it it becomes a little bit more a little bit more accepted and a little more valuable in our building so that would be goal number one goal number two is our is our Equity um inclusion and diversity goal and certainly with the events of this of this summer um that forced us to take a look at things to a little bit different lens and figure out you know how can we improve and how can we um and grow grow um a

114couple things that we've done um is we've started a diversity team at the High High School U made up of of Staff um it was volunteer we have 16 people that volunteered to be a part of that and we were um getting close to rolling out um an event called Bulldog voices that will be available for our students here by the end of November we're getting ready to put the finishing touches on that um the other um again I I I go I don't want to keep going back to restored practices but it's a framework in which we're having some some valuable and meaningful conversations um with our students students about this um Merl you brought up a great point because we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we're going to

115measure whether we're successful there or not um and we've talked about doing a pre and post a pre and post survey just to try to get some some data points but um actually as we've gone down the road of the castle study that Dr R is going to talk about I think it's for our staff anyways it's going to provide a you know framework of kind of where we're at where where we're going and what it's going to look like so we're hopeful that that's going to help take care of some of the death point because you are correct that's a that's that's a challenge meure right now our third goal is our career Readiness goal we had a goal very similar last year to this uh the reason for this goal is is certainly

116I think um we want to continue to improve to give our students um every opportunity that they can um we I think we do a great job of getting our students certainly ready for college we have a great track record on that and it's not that our track record and career Readiness um is is bad but I think there's certainly room to to grow there um and we want to make sure that we're you know we're providing um multiple opportunities that may be a bit different than you know your traditional or students that's going to college um one thing um from a data point that we're we're doing is we've partnered with the local EF which is the uh um is through Parkland and we're piloting a program called Z Z is a program that

117collects data um through through it's if you're familiar with what Career Cruising used to do if your kids have been through Career Cruising um in advisory um zel is a souped up version of Career Cruising um if you can collect data let's our counselors know um what what programs or what careers our students might be interested in or what they're taring towards and that might help us make some decisions about classes and programs moving forward um Dr R was able to apply and get um a waiver for comy based education I think we presented on that at at um a board meeting last spring um we have a team we have a team that is that is working on that certainly with Co we're probably a little we've kind of slowed down that process it

118is still there we're still having conversations about moving forward with that and then I think another thing important to note is is enrollment in our ecca program which are the students go to Parkland is up significantly um that was a push that we made last year to make students more aware of the opportunities there and and we're we're doubled in what we were the previous year um so those are some of the things that are going on with our career our career Readiness any questions Mr Benedict are you are you saying Zell like yellow it's with X yes XX yes Z yeah we have to do so we have to report to the State College and Career Readiness indicators and um um I I think zel is going to help with that process too as

119well collect some data that we have to turn into the state what's the stronger teamed curriculum you mentioned yeah um so Dr T who we partnered with at at the University of Illinois and it's a curriculum that he I say curriculum um it's it's it's a series of lessons um that are geared towards high school students that are based on um so that we'll take the data like Stress Management and then there there are lessons that our social worker will put together right now she's videoing those lessons and pushing them out and the kids have a worksheet it's not for a grade it's strictly optional um but they can go through um and look through those lessons and she'll lead them through that you know on and she gives them ways on um strategies on

120how to handle stress management you know things that you can look for situations to avoid things like that you're doing that during advisory during advisory yes right now it's just in sophomore advisory yeah other questions for Mr bened thank you you Mr Ben I don't anything specific Mr Benedict I was just commenting on all I to me I'm speaking more as a parent and maybe as a board member too that I see a lot of feeling goals and I tend to be more of a thinking person out comes person and I don't see a whole lot about the nuts and bolts of Education in these goals and maybe that's going to come later I don't I don't know but um to me it would be important to make sure that we're exceeding or reaching outcomes

121that are acceptable not only to our community but for people who are going on to other aspects of their education and Math and Science and English and and you know the I I just don't see any of those goals here that's what my comment is I guess so I don't mind speaking to that um I I I I think for I don't want to speak for the other we had some conversation about that and traditionally I think if I looked at past School Improvement plans um the SAT has been a measuring stick for where where and we had a school Improvement goal specific to that last year as trying to raise um some certain subgroups in the in the SAT to try to improve that improve some instructional um to be h i mean we

122didn't take the SAT till this this fall for that so I mean that was that was off the table as far as having the comparative goal um you know just for our building um I I I also think I agree with you on the instructional goals we're really Unsure how to set those right now or at least we are in our building um it it's it's it's challenge so I'm not shying away from it um and I think in some of the like I I can tell you right now like today we had several meetings on uh that I think that would fall under goal number one for us for social emotional that were strictly grade specific in some of the in like Nathan mentioned um we have an early study hall program as well

123that's that started um you know some RTI measures that we're trying to do to to to address the social emotional site and how that how that impacts things that's where some of that stuff is falling for us yeah I'll speak from Midtown as well it's you know you got some kids who let's just say with the kindergarteners who missed out on the last third of their their year and then starting the first grade and some are remote some are here it's kind of hard to to get that initial Baseline data so that's why my number two goal is to show data throughout the year because I think that's more important to show that Benchmark data and see growth physically as the kids are going right now because they're not where they should be right now

124as far as just a very first data but I've already seen the growth from day one to this past quarter and to have kindergarten teachers come to me and saying what we're doing is working even though we are fully remote to show these kids knew three letters now they know 18 letters it's it gives me goosebumps to say that we have shown true data and true growth that's that's better than any goal I could have set with a with a reading goal at the very beginning when I really didn't know what that Baseline is going to look like so well that's the stuff that I'm interested in is how you know especially this year more than any is how are we going to catch those kids back up and how are we meeting those outcomes

125and and I don't know the board can decide from themselves but I think we should have something back later to say here's here's what's been happening and here's how we're achieving these things and um I don't to me that's what we're here for I I think you make a great great point and I I don't I think we can do an update in the spring because frankly I think we'll know more and when we came back in August uh having been gone for five months I think it's it's and having it be a completely unknown unique new situation um just really weren't sure what to expect but we are you know well first of all the state assessments are not way to measure growth and they didn't even occur last year and I think a

126year ago at this time Dr rumel gave an update on the school report card data well there's like no there's a couple I don't I don't even I mean I don't even know it's on it because there's so many things we we didn't do and that's that's not a i that's a snapshot that's not showing growth over time but we are um administering um map tests and I think that the you know the absence of of I guess more data driven goals tonight does not mean that that's not going on and I I think your point is well taken I think though at the same time there's there's just a huge amount of uncertainty and and how how how we measure and you know how how we get kids caught up but it doesn't mean

127that people and our teachers are not working hard on that and providing interventions and support I think it looks a little bit different in each building and you know one thing um you heard our actually our speaker tonight talk about was a study hall at the junior high work on the and provide support for students who um are are failing and and um you know we've seen more kids on the DF list at both at Junior High and high school and that is being monitored and followed up on so definely should be at the Forefront of our thoughts and I I'm not having any problem with these goals at all I'm just saying that that passage when we're not if we're not stating those as goals then and I know we're working towards them but

128that should be our top priority that's we're school so seems obvious to me sure appreciate that perspective I think the know certainty is real but I also heard several things come out of here already that would be helpful to feed back to us maybe the mechanism is the the building reports that come through here to actually share the good news that you know you're going from three letters to to 18 and so forth and maybe you're really struggling with what's the new Baseline and oops or I got one you know just pass that on to us as you fill out those reports I think we all would celebrate whatever we can do in those spaces uh going forward whether it's formal in something like this or not I I think it would be just helpful

129to to have that dialogue and really get it top of mind uh by by sharing that here other comments for our building leaders just want to say thank you and thanks for the work that went into the plans but in bigger picture I just just want the board to know and um that I've worked with a lot of different leadership teams throughout the time I've been an administrator and um our four principles just work together so incredibly well there's just communication there's alignment there's conversation um it's very easy when you just have four separate buildings that do four completely different things meaning serving different grade levels in off four buildings you know we don't have four elementary schools or you know two high schools or anything like that they all do very different jobs and

130um serve different ages and populations of kids and um their their communication and um work together is is really impressive and and is really moving the district forward so thank you for that and um appreciate all the time that you spend on this thank you um next item is Town Hall conversation followup with Dr R yes and I think Dr Tan is online Dr Tan are you there yes I'm here good evening everyone good to good to hear you good evening and thank you for the invitation to join all of you this evening here it's so good to see all of you my video is starting out um hopefully you'll be able to see me soon all right so um I'll go ahead and get started um so I'm just going to provide you kind

131of an update from June I think was the last time uh that we kind of talked a little bit about where we were with diversity and Equity so um when we talked before we talked about wanting to create a diverse inclusive and Equitable learning environment um that really promotes social emotional learning and that's kind of the work that we've been doing well before I came um with Christine and Mary Weaver actually kind of started some of this social emotional learning work um and so our our groups there that I identified are the protected groups um but you'll notice we added socioeconomic status that came out of the Town Halls it's a group that we often talk about when we're talking about our programming or academics um we often look at low income students and their

132achievement levels um but we felt it was important to to add that root to this um and then we still have our definitions of diversity inclusion and Equity there so where have we been um just kind of a like a quick overview of the whole presentation from June spent a lot of time um with our staff understanding trauma and it was out of that professional development that staff said wow um kids go through a lot and we need some tools and some resources to kind of support kids um and so we uh went on a search of what we thought would align with where we wanted to go and so we're using uh responsive classroom K8 and restorative practices 912 I think you heard the principles kind of refer to to those um I hate

133to call them programs but refer to those throughout their presentations but they really do provide tools for teachers and building relationships and connecting with kids um and then in curriculum we started last year looking at social studies and that was with the new um LBGTQ law where we needed to look at um the contributions of those citizens uh within the curriculum and for the last couple of years uh in working with Dr Tan uh we've been looking we've been surveying kids um well in all good years it' be at the beginning of the year and the end of the year but um not all years have been equal these past few years um but we do try to collect some data from our students in terms of their social or their social emotional uh well-being

134and kind of try to correlate that and look at how that relates to their academic performance um and then last year we were able to share that information with Chad and and his team um at the high school and really began to have some discussions about um some of the student responses and how they correlated to um students grades in terms of the numbers of C's D's and Fs students had so we're currently in the middle of a book study on culture class and race um what I like about this book so far um the teachers have studied we talked about how to create a safe kind of Brave space to have discussions and what that looks like um so teachers kind of were able to have a discussion about oh you know when I

135feel comfortable with the people I'm more likely to have those conversations and to be brave in those times when I've been hurt or um and so we talked about that and I think that comes back to the importance of relationships that we're working on uh today we talked a little bit about um common termin te ology and trying to build some common vocabulary uh with the staff um we've also participated in some bystandard training I think there's definitely more that can be done there um as well as some lgbtq training um and actually just probably to start off the year and within that first couple months just some training on social emotional learning in a pandemic like what does that look like how do we take care of ourselves how do we support our students

136um you know it's probably not a training any of us would have picked out five years ago when we started but it's definitely something we needed this year um in terms of curriculum and looking at it from an um Equitable and inclusive and diverse um lens we're looking at our English language arts this year music and foreign language so um Caitlyn meguson our instructional coach is leading out the English language arts uh committee so she's doing a great job with that and then working with the um high school with Chad and Nathan on music and foreign language getting those out um so we are also still in the process um we just finished up the four town halls and getting Community feedback so I hope you found in the board report kind of the summary

137of The Big Ideas and the principles uh referred to that Castle kind of road map um and so each of them kind of looked at um where you see the green kind of emblems those four big ideas with their staff and we'll talk a little bit about some commonalities between them but you can see some of the big themes that emerged from the town halls um and Kevin and I are currently in the process of connecting with some individuals from this town hall meetings and trying to dig just a little bit deeper with those individuals in a more personalized kind of conversations some clarity um in just asking just a few more questions so with that um trying to summarize maybe the three pages from the town hall there was definitely this feeling that it's

138bigger than just the schools the issue of diversity equity and incl iion it goes into the community and it's going to take more than just the school um to make some of the changes that parents recommended um so we need to engage train and Empower both um black indigenous people of color and lowincome families both of those communities need to be empowered and engaged as well as not just the families within our school but families within the community um and then they talk about in the town halls there was this conversation about improving experiences so we have to be flexible willing to Pivot in order to make some of these changes um the suggestion of bystandard training affirming diversity and then just creating these safe spaces um the safe Brave spaces and that comes back

139to the relationships so that we can have these safe open honest conversations and so then when the building uh principles kind of took that road map or that framework to their staff um they came back and staff talked also about really meeing these relationships again creating these safe Brave spaces um that would help us create an equitable learning environment so that um somebody can say like hey I I can't be a part of that there's no Transportation or hey I I can't afford to do that you know so that when we're creating activities and events we're really thinking about all students and their ability to participate and then there's also this need to create opportunities for connecting and healing so and I think that's even something that came across from the community is there's been

140hurt over the years and how do we create a place for healing and then moving forward from that so kind of our most immediate I guess you could say next steps um we're continued professional development for staff um as I mentioned I don't think we can do like the bystandard training or the LBGTQ training or diversity you can't do it like one two hour afternoon session and say you did it and you're done so it's just got to be ongoing dialogue you know takes a lot of times for us to hear something to process it for it to really um kind of make it our own and something that we're comfortable with um it came up in the um Town Hall from the community that we really need Student voices so I think you heard

141Chad kind of discuss um at the high school they're going to try to get started with that here before break but we've talked with all the principles about what are some opportunities what might that look like it's definitely going to have to look a lot different at Ryan and Megan's building than it does when you're working with 14 to 18 year olds um so talking about student voices um and then uh within those building teams um I you know I know that everybody wants to change now and they well sometimes they want yesterday right but I have you know if you walk around this building here just an example because there have been great things that have started happening in all the buildings but I think you'll notice a change in the students that are

142represented in the um materials that are hung up in the hallways so the materials represent a lot more diverse population um so hopefully kids are beginning to see themselves in the in the materials that are used in the hallways um and the books that have been ordered um lots of feedback on just changes in how um formerly known as Columbus Day was taught a lot more conversations this year um with regards to indigenous people so the changes are starting to happen and the best part about it is it's happening um the teachers are owning it they're creating it they're talking about it and really playing an active role in that um and then the buildings are also continuing to talk about creating these safe Brave spaces for conversations so that um I can go to

143somebody and say Hey you know that kind of really hurt you or this is how I took it and let me explain why um in that takes time to build so we're really working and I think that having goals that are focused on your culture and climate and your building just really helps support in creating those safe spaces um kids see us so when we get along as adults and are able to model um how to how to have those conversations it's only creates a better space for our kids um and then I kind of eluded to this earlier but within the community uh we'll be working towards is creating a way to empower and support um the bipack that black indigenous people of color Community um in supporting them um in not only becoming

144active in this dialogue um but helping us guide us to the next steps so Kevin is there anything you want to add anything I've missed um yeah I think I think you have covered most of you know um the points um you know we have discussed um Let me let me you know start off by thanking um you know the board and thanking the district for this opportunity for us to be working together um you know I I had a great experience leading the town hall sessions with the community I am really encouraged by the outcome by the discussion and I am looking forward to working together with the district and with the board with everyone um you know moving forward with this conversation this whole issue of um Equity diversity and inclusion um it

145is a really important issue as it relates to Young people's social emotional development and I am looking forward to partnering the district and moving forward from here to thanks Dr us too let's put in I cannot even tell you how many hours supporting our district in this initi um so just thank you Kevin for all your time and your work and your colleagues who have also given um and your grad assistant who has also given time so thank you thank you for your gold in our broken pots I totally remember you say that and that just been on my mind so putting things back together with the gold and the broken pot thank you yeah so I I wonder if you know I wonder if the board would have questions um you know for us

146um you know for me um you know I'm definitely interested to hear about the board's perspective those of you you know I was really encouraged you know those of you board members who were there for the town halls um I think this is an opportunity for me to engage you know the board to actually hear your thoughts your perspective as we move forward in this work together what's been the community participation so far in the town hall um I would say the first one was probably were we about 20 maybe at the first one we were really close to 50 at the second one and probably were we about 35ish probably at the last one and then online were we at about 20 yep that's right and and moving forward from here here um you

147know I would really suggest that we sustain the momentum if having conversations with the community I think that helps to build trust that helps to build relations uh with the community members I met up with you know many community members I met up with many of you individually at the Town Hall sessions as well and um you know I think one of the conversations we've been thinking about it's you know how best can we support the bipo community I think this is where this current moment um you know Dr Ru and myself uh we are linking up with some individual members to actually get their thoughts about what's the best way to actually engage the bipo community in this conversation I think it's really key and important for us to really have their voices and

148their perspectives in this so and the other thing that Kevin and I have talked about too is the need to also engage our lowincome families um and to engage our families that maybe are not traditional what we would have called traditional families um so families that maybe have members of the lgbtq community and how can we reach out to them and families that maybe are not Christian question for you I I I was happy that that Senator J Rose shared that a village has a chance to get grant funding in ways that we never would and I wouldn't State necessarily that we are insular by any means but just curious about cooperation between village with our kind of leadership that we've got here in ways that could possibly provide grants and do things in implementations

149that that we wouldn't necessarily think of on our own so I I think we've got a grand opportunity to take some leadership and do some things not just now but as as a a lifestyle going forward how do we keep this up how do we continue to engage and could there be sources of revenue as chat with them to see whether there's anything like that out there at all I I wouldn't doubt that there there could be so Kevin and I are have been actively writing by us I mean Kevin has been actively writing um but we as you can imagine things are super competitive um so we did write for one last year to kind of supporter work that we did not get funded um we've got two pending right now and another one

150we're getting ready to do so it's it's the game I guess but we do look for funding and and some of that would support um being able to in more Empower other groups within the Community other than the school so that's a great Point can I can I add to that um you know I think what comes along Grant is bringing in of resources and here um you know partnering with um you know our institution the university here which our chancellor has always emphasized to us faculty that we are a land Grand institution and what that means is we have a social responsibility to our communities you know around us and we have this push for us FY to be working closely with the communities and that's it you know even if things don't get

151funded you know through grants uh please be assured that you know you would have our faulty support people like myself and my colleagues who be more than willing to be supporting the work of your District so you know I I think this collaboration that we are having um you know between the district and us back at the social work school and at larger campus level I think it's a great model um you know and I think this is the way forward for us to be supporting the communities around us and I hope I hope the district we have also benefited you know from the resources back at our campus Dr R as a person who also sits on the Education Foundation I don't know why I mean that would be I would suggest applying for

152something like that I mean what the work that you guys are doing impacts our entire district and all of our families I don't vote on the grants but um as a board member unless I'm on that committee but I think that would be a good partnership because I know when I walked away from it I think I sent a message to Dr Hall I was just like parent involvement parent coordinator parent engagement you know that's like a big thing that just kept sticking out that in the SCS but those are two separate things that's what I was thinking would come out of it but I I mean I think the Education Foundation would be a very fitting place to go for a grant thank you Nicole what these four priorities that you have here from

153the town halls what what happens with those okay so are you talking about what within the board report yeah yeah okay so the so to clarify the the pieces that are in bold those are the four areas that are identified in the castle framework and so we have been using Castle's framework because they're kind of like the leaders in social emotional learning and that's what everything we do has been falling under um and so we took um the themes you can see under there what we kind of took away from the town halls and kind of matched them to each of those four big areas within that um and so I think when we look at how do we use those four areas um we're still Gathering just a little bit of information um in

154terms of giving some guidance on from different members of the bipac community um you know what are your thoughts with these next stops you know what are some potential hazards um well that's what I'm wondering if you've got you know 20 to 50 participating in these Community uh Outreach events you know how many of these are are diverse voices in in each event or how many of these people are repeat attenders where you're hearing similar ideas that are you really getting a broad sampling of the entire Community you know for example under number three cultural fluency moving away from binary language I think that would be a very difficult thing for this community um I would have some issues with that personally um so I think we have to keep that in mind and making

155sure we're getting a broad sampling from our community at large abolutely yeah no that's a great point we definitely had some repeat um attenders um we definitely have people that attended only one um of the three so I I think right now right now we've just kind of begun these one-on-one conversations um and there do you want to I mean it's kind of for guidance right now Kevin do you want to yeah um you know those were the teams um raised from the town halls we reflected on it um I do agree um you know with what um Nicole has just said that this is still a working document um you know I think in those conversations when we speaking with um you know members of the bipot community individually what one of our questions

156to them it's one are your suggestions about other ways to reach out to other members and I think this gives us additional insight about outrange and I think it's key and it's important for us to do it in a way that it's relatable and do it in a way that is also trusting of our intentions and I've often emphasized um you know my own role here um in working in the district and this work that we are doing is the importance of doing it from a Grassroots ground up approach I think this is where we build traction this is where we build capacity and um I think one key aspect of it is also the reflection piece being reflective of what we are hearing and I do appreciate you know the point that um you

157know what we have there um you know it's just a representation of who attended the town halls definitely there's more work to be done in engaging a different voices in engaging a different groups in the community well I think also so I think there's a a subset of the population it may not even be a small subset it may be a larger subset who is afraid to to speak on these issues because they might be afraid of being labeled or another and uh I personally I participated in a gender identity community at the NCAA level uh for uh you know our college sports teams and I can tell you it wasn't an open conversation it was a a very one way agenda that was not allowing much diversity of opinion um so you kind of

158felt suppressed in some way so I think that we shouldn't make that same mistake in our own community that we're allowing people people to speak freely uh without having the fear of being labeled I do agree with you I think that's key that's important um I would I would think making an individual one to one connections with people that could probably be one way in which we can also bring voices in as well and I think now fing up from the town hall the next step is actually to have those conversations there um I do agree with you I think it's really important um you know to actually get diverse voices in i i to me I feel like that's a work in progress U because I I agree with you that um I I

159don't know how diverse I mean it's hard to tell there were a lot of people the town halls I didn't know which I thought was great and there were people that came more than one time and that was fine we didn't set any limits on that um and then there were people that expressed certain viewpoints and um I I think the idea of getting more voices into the conversation is absolutely a work in progress I don't want it to be exclusive or feel like it's a oneway conversation the whole point of this is is diversity um and and working on that and respecting um the opinions that are out there I did get some emails from some parents that kind of Express um some of some of the things that you just said and um

160you know I encourage them to attend I don't know if they if they did or not but I I I don't want to think that in in the process of trying to have these discussions about equity and diversity that somehow we're shutting down or excluding any part of our community so I I think that that's just something we need to keep the keep the conversation going and figure out how to just make everybody feel welcome that is the whole point here is inclusivity for everyone were there four or three I thought you said three I three live in one remote is it two two live in one remote three live in one REM three live one remote cuz I wrote 20 35 and 20 I was but then I must have missed you say one

16150 there there was a 50 yeah there was a 50 and which one was the best attendant the one at the Methodist Church okay I was out on the lovely tennis courts and on beautiful evening okay that was SC they were all very nice evening they got lucky very fortunate with weather yeah the weather really cooperated with that well one of the things that happened in July is I made a motion for a committee and I am going to make that same motion again tonight because I do feel like some of the next steps can benefit from some board level discussion and attention so I'd like to move that we create a board level committee focused on inclusion diversity and Equity that's tasked with Gathering and assessing input and making recommendations for Meaningful change and

162action within the Muhammad Seymour School District a second this isn't an action item I I would appreciate you putting it on the agenda so I can look at the wording that you're saying I'm not opposed to thinking about this but you're talking and she's recording and it's not an action item just in of fact anything that is on our agenda in general terms this is a town hall conversation followup I'm choosing to use this as a followup to the town hall that was one of the discuss points that we had had is that we wanted to get through this process of town halls I think as a followup that uh I think it's important that the board continues to focus on this this is not something that you want to move on tonight I'm going

163to request that this is on the next agenda uh at the next meeting for Action I'm happy to write this up and provide that but I would like this to have a vote on the next agenda if you refuse to do it tonight I would refuse to do it just because I would have to abstain because I don't have enough information and if we're voting on something as I represent the community and not just my opinion I would like the community to know what's coming forward so I can make a decision on best the community and I would hope you would respect that is is not on the agenda as an action item therefore we did not take action on that's actually incorrect Max just so you know our policy dictates that anything that is

164on the gend on the agenda as a general topic you can allow action versus discussion does not actually impact that but if this is not something that you want to move on tonight then I'm going to request that this is on the next agenda I've made other requests and things haven't been added to the agenda if you can assure me that this will be on the next meeting agenda I'm fine with moving this to that time I can assure you that if you'd like to take a vote on this we can put it on the next meeting agenda and we will do so thank you anything else no thank you Dr Tan thank you thank you thank you thank you Dr okay this time a closed session is necessary for number one the appointment employment

165compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who will serve as independent contractors and a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the public body or legal counsel from the public body including here a testimon complaint LED against an employee a specific individual contractor educational setting or a volunteer of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine as validity to Collective negotiating matters between the public body its employees or the representatives or deliber or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees is there a motion to go into close session for those reasons still is there a second second further discussion roll call vote please Kei yes Larson yes Hennessy yes Henri yes Schultz yes Giles yes mome yes we'll go ahead and

166take about a 10minute recess if you're on WebEx please log off and log back in on the closed session WebEx link uh to the public uh we will shut down the live feed there will not be any action um foll close session thank you for being with us tonight hope everyone has a great evening good night thank you thank you administrators for being here