School Board Meeting 5/12/25

001Good evening everybody. It's always good to see everyone here because I know that you all watch on TV when you're not here. So, it's good to see you all. Welcome to the board of education meeting for May 12th, 2025. Could we have a roll call, please? Here. Here. Here. Here, here, here, here. Thank you. Okay, so let's go right to our agenda. The first agenda item is written communication. Dr. Davis, do we have any written communication? We have no written communication this evening. Okay, thank you. Okay, then the next item is the student recognition for the DECA International Competition winners. Yes, we're going to have our deck team, our DECA team along with Mitten Patel to come and share a little bit about um this year's competition, how we did. And this is an annual

002thing and always happy to have you all here. All right. Appreciate the time. Appreciate the time. Uh do you all want to stand? And I think in years past if they along this side here. Thanks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that all right? Okay. Great. I've written some things. We'll see. Thank you. All right. Uh thanks for your time. Uh good evening and uh thank you members of the board for allowing me um to show off the accomplishments of uh these 16 absolutely remarkable uh young adults. Um so let's just get to it. Um, I like to brag about them for a little bit and their accomplishments. So, what is so remarkable about what they did? Um, some of the students to my right uh competed in a DECA written event. Written events

003are a process. Uh, they require months and months of preparation, all-nighters, and a lot of research. These students began working with Miss Jacobe and their uh way back in August at the beginning of the school year and their hard work just ended two weeks ago on April 30th. I'm in awe of their dedication. I could not be prouder of their efforts and in just a minute you'll be amazed at how well they placed at the state competition. Uh spoiler alert, uh these remarkable ETHS individuals finished either first or second among 2,000 students. But written events are just one side of DECA here at ETHS. Some other students who stand before you today competed in a roleplay event. Preparing for a roleplay event began in August as well. They worked hard with Mr. Manila and myself

004before school, during school, lunch blocks, and any free time that we could borrow from them. I can speak personally about their experience. It wasn't easy. Mr. Manila and I made sure of that. We offered uh we offered them constructive criticism. We challenged them. We pushed them. And then we asked them return. We asked them to return the next day and do it all over again uh with us. I'm in awe of again of their grit. I am proud of their resilience. And just like those who competed in the written event, you will be shocked by how well they placed at the state tournament. Surprise, surprise. Everyone standing up here before you either finished first, third, or fourth amongst 2,000 other students at the state event. And it gets better. And to put an exclamation point

005on just how well ETHS performed, some of our students to my right finished first in their written event and first in their roleplay event. These remarkable individuals are the Beyonce's of DECA, winning in multiple awards. Thank you. uh multiple awards across multiple categories and they can't be stopped. I'm so proud of them. Um at this time I would like to recognize uh the individuals here uh for their hard work and efforts. Uh so here if I call your name um please take a step forward and uh be recognized. Uh Bryce Lordy and Jude Hall finished first in state for their hospitality and tourism operations written event. Good job gentlemen. Eli Bachoin finished first in state for his sports and entertainment marketing research event. Good job, Eli. Ellie Newark and Kate Meyers finished first in state

006for their international business plan written event. Good job, ladies. Grace Vandenberg and Skyler Hoffman. There we go. Look at that. Still team finished first in the state for their community awareness written project. Liv Gerstein finished first in the state for her buying and merchandising operations written event. Great job, Liv. Maisie Peter finished second in state for her franchise business plan written event. Great job, Maisy. Ruby Wejack and Theodore Woo finished first in state for their marketing management team roleplay event and first in state for their community awareness uh project written event. Incredible job. Incredible job. Jesse Dushart finished first in state for his automative services marketing roleplay event and third in state for his startup business plan written event. There we go. Anna Stler, who could not be uh with yours today uh because she

007has a lacrosse game. Uh if she was here, she finished fourth in the state for her principles and hospitality tourism roleplay event. Could not be proud of her efforts. She did an incredible job. Thank you. And lastly, but not least, Michael uh Lazaroich finished fourth in the state for his principles of entrepreneurship roleplay event and top 20 in the country for his principles of entrepreneurship event. Michael, so proud of you, buddy. So proud of you. Words absolutely cannot express how proud Mr. Kobe, Miss Manila, uh Mr. Manila, and I are of all of you. Um, each and every single one of you, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much. Some last words. Seniors, good luck. We wish you nothing but the best during this next phase of your

008life. Everyone else, see you next year. Clear eyes. Oh my god, I forgot to Where are you in this? I forgot to see this is why I don't do it. How did this happen? How did this happen? You're on the first one. Sorry, one more. Aiden and Lavine and Joshua Steinhoff finished first in state for their franchise business plan written event. Sorry gentlemen. Congratulations. Appreciate it. Always helping me out. Uh thank you again for the board for your time and uh thank you all again. And before I leave students, we'd like to say congratulations to you. So, administration, the board's going to stand up and you're going to come around this little Wayne's trying to get a picture. Yeah. Yeah. Just But let me finish giving them my instructions and they're going to come around

009here. We're going to give you a pen, shake your hand, say congratulations. Okay. So, I'll give you the pen. Yeah. Start this [Applause] way. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. [Music] Nice job everybody. Nice job. Don't forget to pose for your picture. Can I put [Music] This is CT. Thank you, Mint. Nice job, sir. Congratulations. Great job. Uh, DECA students and families, you may leave if you so choose. Enjoy the evening or you could stay for it's up to you. Don't feel it. Oh, what the crap? All right. seat for everyone. Super. Great. Okay, we're going to continue. Okay, the next item on the agenda is comments from the public. Dr. Davis, do we have comments from the public? Yes, we do. Uh, we have 18 comments from the public this evening. Um, so speakers who have

010signed up for public comment will be invited in the order they signed up to address the board for up to 3 minutes and you'll come up here to the podium. I will keep time and signal you I'll I'll try to do a countdown to one and then when the timer goes off I'll fumble with it and ask you to finish your sentence. Um, speakers are asked to come forward and speak at the lecture and please state your name and address. Public comments generally pertain to school district matters, but comments about any individuals are expressly prohibited. Please understand the school board does not respond to public comments, but will listen carefully and will follow up as the board deems appropriate. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay, first public comment is from and apologize for my pronunciations and my

011ability to read handwriting in advance. Len Lumpin. Good evening. I'm Leonard Lampin. I'm a 30 plus year resident of Evston. I live at 835 Bridge Avenue. I come before you tonight and I won't mention the name of the teacher, but I'm concerned that a teacher got disciplined for putting up a poster in his classroom. I wonder whether this is the community that I raised my children in who attended this high school 20 years ago, a little over 20 years ago now. I wonder whether or not this school board and this school leadership understands that we live in a democracy, a democracy that is not Trump. This is not Trumpville. This is Evston Township. And in Evston Township, we respect the opinions and the ability for people with different opinions and different political views on even

012sensitive subjects to have a say and to put up posters. Otherwise, when Trump won, we would have expelled an awful lot of teachers and students who wore mega hats. And we didn't do that and we shouldn't have done that because this is Evston and we allow for a political discourse in the Jewish community. And I am a Jewish resident and I've been a longtime activist in the Jewish community. We have a disscent. We have a disagreement of opinion on Gaza. we have a disagreement on the settlements and whether Israel is a Zionist organiz country is doing the right thing by what they're doing in Gaza. As such, we should not be disciplining teachers because they took a position different or it maybe was somewhat offensive to some Jewish students in the high school. My opinion

013is if those Jewish students or their parents were upset, let them come before the school board and raise that question. Let's have an open discussion, not disciplining teachers because they had the courage to speak out by putting up a poster. Thank you very much. Next public comment is from Candy Jameson. Hi, my name is Candy. Um, 20006 Daro Avenue. I'm the mother of a student at ETHS and my oldest graduated from here in 2023. I'm here today to speak about the recent discriminatory ploy to silence student voices in call that call for an end of genocide. Every school in Gaza has been destroyed. Let me say that again. Every preschool, elementary, high school, and university has been destroyed in Gaza. You can't dispute this fact. Those schools are gone. You may like to ignore this

014reality or justify the dehumanization of Palestinians, but our students have been brave enough to take a stance through the power of disscent using art, history, literature, critical analysis, and the results of a full well-rounded education, culturally diverse. an education that we're eager and proud to provide for our students. As a parent of a high school student, I value educators who amplify the voices of students that question the world around them. They ask, "Why is this happening? What are the ways that I can have effect or make a difference in the world or at least in my community?" We want our students to help build a better tomorrow. To question our violent history, to own the inheritance of the violence or become better humans with love and compassion for our neighbors, those who look different, those

015who have different religious beliefs. I know these students and teacher are courageous to say not in my name. Art has the ability to provoke. One needs to pay attention to art that makes you feel uncomfortable. One minute. Art that is shaking your foundation because it says something about you. In this country today, we see authoritarianism grow and their need to silent voices of dissent. I see no difference between this case and our current administration. I stand here to ask that you reconsider the censoring of history of our history and our future. Next comment is from Andrew Ginsburg. Hi, good evening members of the board. My name is Andrew Ginsburg. I live at 1815 Keeny Street here in Evston. Um I for the last nine years I've been a history teacher at ETHS. For the last

016seven years, I've been a member of this community. For the most of the time I've been teaching here, I've been proud of my role in the district and my reputation as a dedicated and wellrespected teacher. I've enjoyed the academic freedom here and the fact that students are encouraged to talk about the most pressing racial and political issues of our time and to joyfully explore their identities through the affinity summits or solidarity serieses. I love the district's focus on equity and challenged myself to incorporate equitable practices into my classroom and the clubs that I sponsor. I saw the inspiring and laudable values of the school at work immediately after George Floyd was murdered. Several of my students participated in painting Black Lives Matter in front of the school with their baseball team basketball teams and I

017saw other students at various defund the police rallies, meetings, and discussions around Evston. At that time, the school's leadership in the board immediately staked out a strong position in favor of the rights of marginalized communities, against state violence, and in support of the growing movement for racial reckoning in this country. At the beginning of the 2021 school year, when right-wing provocators disrupted our open house, claimed that affinity spaces were themselves racist and tried to take over/colonize these spaces, the school's leadership stood up for and rallied around our shared values, and defended our right to speak. These were impressive and proud moments in the history of our district. Unfortunately, the district's reaction to the suffering of Palestinians could not be more diametrically opposed to their laudable actions in 2020 and 21. After October 7th, 2023, as

018the number of Palestinians killed and displaced dwarf the number of Israelis killed in the original Hamas attack, as tens of thousands starved to death, as nearly every person in Gaza was displaced, as Israel bombed hospitals and schools, as Israel deliberately caused mass starvation, as Israel empowered settlers to steal land in the West Bank and kill its inhabitants, including the cousin of two of our students. Zionists in our community have used ETHS to suppress discussion of the genocide and punish those who avoid prohuman rights sentiments. Too often, leadership at this school has capitulated to the small group of people marginalizing and punishing teachers at their request. Some few examples include an email went out to the entire ETHs community that didn't even mention Palestine in October 2023, which set the tone for the whole response. Administrators

019invoked rarely used board policies to selectively remove posters from teachers rooms. When angry Zionist parents were trying to censor the Palestine Solidarity Club from watching the very tame movie Israelism, the superintendent repeatedly forwarded me their emails with the simple message, another the clear message being sent to me was, "Look at all the problems you've caused me." At no point was I assured that I that he would defend my right to speak. An administrator admitted to surveilling teachers reviewing video footage who stood next nearby for moral support as our students staged a pro Palestine sitin. Administrators created such an unsustainable working conditions that a beloved science teacher felt unsafe continuing to work here and resigned their position. After a few Zionist families were angry about the progressive anti-ionist group Jewish Voice for Peace coming to our

020civics fair, I was removed from the civics fair planning, a school tradition that I initiated and directed for seven years. All in all, I've had between 10 and 15 meetings with supervisors. I've lost count about the substance of my speech on Palestine Israel. Collectively, these meetings sought to silence me and the students that I am standing behind. Okay, Elma Lo is going to use the remainder of my time. Uh, Elma Loi is our next speaker. Three minutes, Elma. All right. I am going to continue my comrad's written testimony as I have received it. Um, recently I received formal discip disciplinary action because I hung up a Jewish acts of disscent poster on my classroom door. After I was forced to take it down, I put a note telling students why it had been taken down.

021The removal was again at the behest of one of angry parents. The school censorship and later punishment of me contradicts past practice and is in violation of both my First Amendment and Title 7 rights. It goes without saying that it is intimidating to be targeted, shamed, harassed, and retaliated against by the most powerful figure at one's place of employment for expressing support for the rights of one of the most vulnerable populations in the world at this time. This is made all the worse because this treatment came at the urging of a small group of parents who are trying to censor speech both in the broader Evston community and within the Jewish community, my community. By siding with this small group of latigious and aggressive parents, the school has taken a position which endorses and imposes

022on everyone else the Zionist view that political support of Israel is central to being Jewish. This is not a uni unanimous position in the Jewish community and according to these ser to some surveys does not represent a majority or even a plurality of American Jews. I'm part of a tradition that draws from the history of my people and to stand up for the marginalized and to advocate for social justice. This aspect of my identity makes me a good teacher and helps me to embody the stated values of the district while I am in my classroom. Censoring and suppressing my expression not only violates my first amendment and title 7 rights, it is a chilling acquiscence to the forces of reaction, one that is both counterproductive and anti-Jewish. It is behavior that is simply unacceptable from

023the leadership of our district. I am asking for the following. That the district removes the written warning that I received for the poster from my personal file. that I receive an official and public apology from the district that the district continues its policy of academic freedom and commitment to equity by seizing its suppression of free speech about Palestine. Thank you, Andrew Ginsburg. The next speaker is Nadia Greenspan. Good evening. My name is Nadia Greenspan. I live at 831 Forest Avenue. Um, I'm a community member, a trauma therapist, and a Ukrainian born Jew. I am named after my great-g grandandmother who was murdered in Bobby in 1941. She was 28 years old when she was shot along with more than 30,000 other Jews in the span of a single weekend. That legacy lives with me. In

024the Soviet Union, where I was born and raised, there were Jewish quotas at the universities and workplaces. Jew was stamped as my nationality in my passport, which I had to carry with me and show at any official setting. It was customary to ask somebody who didn't look Slavic, "What's your blood?" a coded way of marking who did and who didn't belong. My identity was shaped by both institutional exclusion and everyday judgments through documents, policies, passing remarks that all reinforce the same message. You do not fully belong. That is why the experience of Palestinians in Israel in the occupied territories are not foreign to me. They're heartbreakingly familiar. I recognize the mechanism, the codified exclusion, the constant questioning of one's belongings. I recognize what it means to be visible and invisible at the same time. To

025be told in so many ways that your existence is conditional and it bears no resemblance whatsoever to what is being called anti-semitism today when Jews or allies speak out against Israel's treatments of Palestinians. Criticizing a government engaged in occupation and apartheid is not hate. It is a moral responsibility. To conflate the two is not just intellectually dishonest. It is an affront to those of us who have actually lived through anti-semitism. I have spent the last three summers in Kiev working in a trauma center with Ukrainian soldiers and their families. I know what it means to live under bombardment, to spend nights in a bomb shelter, and to fear for your life. I have worked with people displaced by war and genocide. Rwans, Ethiopians, Serbians, Ukrainians, and now Palestinians. I have devote I have devoted my

026life to working with and resisting the structural and psychological aftermath of white supremacy, colonialism and genocide. I know that these forces how these forces operate not only through bombs and borders but through the systematic erasure of identity, culture, memory and belonging. What Israel is doing to Palestinians what Israel is doing to Palestinians is not an exception. It is a textbook case of settler colonial violence. That is not what is happening when Jewish students and teachers express dissent against Israeli state violence or when they name what's happening in Gaza is genocide. And yet increasingly that dissent is being labeled as anti-semitism in order to shut it down. Anti-semitism is real, but it does not come from justice movements or from people calling for Palestinian liberation. Anti-semitism is rooted in white supremacy, the same force that punishes

027and criminalizes dissent. And that is exactly what we're seeing in this case, a teacher being disciplined not for causing harm, but for refusing to stay silent. To fight anti-semitism, we might resist the systems that silence moral disscent. To fight white supremacy, we must protect the voices that challenge it. Encouraging disscent is not a threat to Jewish safety. It is in the heart of Jewish ethical tradition. Okay. The next public comment um is from Sendal White, but I'm pretty sure I didn't read the first name right. White. SAM white. Okay, got it. 1802 gray. Oh, you can do it from right. I'm I'm okay. Yep. You have three additional minutes. As a therapist in this neighborhood, I work with Jewish clients who are afraid to question what they have inherited. I understand that fear. I understand

028how whiteness teaches us to equate safety with power, to fear what we don't understand and to cling to systems that promise protection through domination. But fear is not a Jewish value. Liberation is. That is why I stand with a teacher that you disciplined. To punish him for displaying Jewish acts of disscent poster is to say that only one version of Jewish identity is acceptable here. That is not neutrality. That is discrimination. There is nothing anti-semitic about Jewish voices saying not in our name. There is something profoundly Jewish about it. I asked this board to stop endorsing Zionism as the only legitimate expression of Jewish identity and to create space for students and staff who descent with love, conscience, and courage. Thank you. [Applause] Our next public comment is from Leslie Williams. Good evening everyone. Um,

029I'm Lesie Williams. I live at 2516 Prairie Avenue in Evston. I've been an Evston resident for over 30 years, a local synagogue member, and the proud parent of an ETHS grad. As a debate team member, my daughter thrived in an atmosphere of rockus and often heated argument over issues of the day, working with students and sometimes teachers with views diametrically opposed to her own. It never once occurred to our family to try to silence or penalize any student or staff member for views which made my daughter uncomfortable, even those who belittled her opinions as a young black woman. It was important to me as a parent and a community member to encourage diversity of expression even when it challenges our most cherished beliefs. I therefore find it deeply disturbing that an ETH teacher is being

030disciplined for a poster championing that very culture of descent, specifically Jewish descent. The poster by Jewish artist Leora Ostro, curator of the Jewish Museum in Maryland, quotes from legendary rabbi Abraham Joshua Hesshel, who in 1971 wrote, "The prophets of ancient Israel who rebelled against a religion that would merely serve the self-interest or survival of the people continued to stand out as inspiration and examples of disscent to this very day. Judaism in its very essence came into being as an act of disscent. Yet those who attract the most attention are frivolous, while those who are authentic speak in a small, still voice which the establishment is unable to hear. Creative disscent comes out of love and faith, offering positive alternatives and a vision. The scarcity of creative disscent today may be explained by the absence of

031assets that make creative disscent possible. Deep caring, concern, untrabled radical thinking informed by rich learning and the power of the word. Why are we threatened by these words posted by a Jewish te teacher, a work of art by a Jewish artist, inspired by one of the greatest, most prophetic rabbis of our time. There are those who might claim that Rabbi Hesshel would not have agreed with Miss Ostra politically. But it's clear he believed in the necessity of dissent and disagreement within the Jewish community. One minute that he thought creative disscent made our community and country stronger. To censor his words because their use by Miss Ostrov makes people uncomfortable is to fundamentally misunderstand Rabbi Hessho and Jewish tradition. It is profoundly anti-Jewish to suggest that only one viewpoint is a Jewishly correct one. By disciplining

032a teacher, ETHS is elevating one interpretation of Rabbi Hesshel's words and trampling over those of us who disagree. At a time when powerful forces are aggressively silencing and criminalizing dissent in our universities and courts, I call on Eths to stand firmly in support of all teachers and to have faith that far from being harmed by dissenting views, our students are enriched by them. Thank you. The next public comment is from Seoben Mafet. Good evening. My name is Siobhan Moffett. I live at 2027 Church Street. I am reading this on behalf of my son um who is an ETHS graduate who could not be here tonight. These are his words. Hello, District 202 board in Evston community. I am Hakeim Clavikho from the ETHS graduating class of 2024 and I wish to share my experience with

033ETHS's administration surrounding criticism of Israel and support of Palestine. Days after October 7th, I wrote a short excerpt on the condition of the Palestinian people. Alongside this excerpt, I provided a collage of images and links to more information. After a day or two, I was called into the senior dean's office. The dean told me my postings were unacceptable because I didn't have the required approval stamp to post them despite multiple clubs events being posted around the school that lacked the approval stamp. I was also told my usage of pictures that depicted a slingshot and resistance fighter Leila Khaled was unacceptable despite having seen students projects posted around the school that had depictions of guns also. But I took their words in good faith. I took the weaponry off and attempted to go through the correct

034channels, only to spend upwards of a week having my emails ignored by the staff member in charge of student poster approval before finally showing up at her office where she told me she would take a look at it and I never heard back from her. But I persisted. I went to the ETHs superintendent's hosted community circle for those wishing to discuss the conflict. I met alongside a number of my underassmen, some of whom had family in Palestine, who voiced their pain and hurt at the school, only acknowledging the Israeli losses and not the innumerable deaths suffered by the Palestinian people. All we received in return were head nods and concerned frowns with the promise of change. I tried to submit an essay to the Evstonian in which I interviewed both Jewish and Palestinian students who

035were upset at the school's response and callousness. After submission, I received no response and no chance for review or criticism on how to improve. Finally, during the peaceful student sitin in support of Palestine, I and others advocated staying over our allotted protest time limit as it wouldn't be much of a protest if we acquis acquiesed to the administration. We were told there would be consequences if we continued. Um, after a bit of an altercation, I began recording using my cell phone. Shortly thereafter, a staff member noticed my camera and roughly grabbed my wrist, telling me to stop. I asked why she was cons so concerned about me simply recording a conversation. One minute. I was quickly rushed away to the dean's office again and told that what I did was a crime, something that I

036was unaware of at the time. I asked under what circumstances they could prosecute me, and the dean took this as a sign to call the EPD station police officers into the room. They sat behind me, surrounding me, and told me that if I didn't delete the video, I could be charged with a felony. This blatant act of intimidation rattled me, so I acquiesed to their requests, unsure of what else to do. I was let go around half an hour later. Due the due to the time limit, I bring up only these instances of repression that I and others suffered. But I assure you that if I were to expound further, my comment would be another 10 minutes long. I will end with my takeaways from my last year here at ETHS. For a school that

037prides itself on diversity and respecting all voices, it became clear that this is nothing but a farce. It's easy for this school to say it supports black or queer liberation because these movements have already achieved significant accomplishments that are easy to uplift in retrospect. But when presented with the choice to allow students and teachers to advocate for the Palestinian people and resistance against Israel, which is carrying out what may be the most welldocumented genocide in history, District 202's stance remains clear. Shut up and fall in line. It seems for now this district has chosen to stand with the status quo and the reactionary bull work of the Trump administration and Israel. Our next speaker is Shabara Mir. Hello. Uh, I'm Shabbana. I live at 1802 Gray. Uh, my daughter is a former grad. She graduated

038last year. Um I wish that while she was at uh ETHS that she had had Andrew uh sorry didn't mean to name uh she had had the teacher uh to uh teach her the subject um the teacher who has been disciplined but she did not um throughout her time that she was here. Uh I would ask her if uh the events in Gaza had been covered in her curriculum and the answer was always no. Always no. Uh prior to that I asked her if the events the terrible events in Ukraine had been covered. The answer was always yes. I contacted the school. Nothing nothing ever happened. I'm not even going to go into the other issues of curricular representation or the representation of holidays were Muslim uh that uh ETHS is plagued with. I'm not

039even going to go into that because that's not the problem that we're facing right now. The problem that we have right now is that months ago 15,000 children had been killed in Gaza. Months ago. That's not a current count. And my question to you is this. What is the good of an education if it has nothing to say about the genocide of our time? What is the good of that education? What does it do? Not only has it nothing to say about the genocide of our time, but for the people who are being nothing but human and have something to say about the genocide our time, whether they are among the teachers who are now being disciplined or the students who are being shamefully disciplined as I'm hearing one minute. They are being silenced and

040censored. I'm shocked. And yet at the same time, having had a student, a child who's been in the school for four years, I'm really not that shocked. I'm really not that shocked. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Allison B. It looks like on here. Maybe it's it's Oh, here you go. Okay. Sorry about that. Couldn't read the handwriting. Okay. My name is Austin. Um and I'm I live at 1625 Kirk Street. My wife and I are newer residents in Evston. My wife went to Northwestern and now we're imagining our future here in a beautifully progressive community. We've been excited about the pro prospect of our young child going to this school one day. But the news of the censoring of censuring of teacher acts has alarmed us. Descent the principal um teacher acts

041was espousing in the poster is so essential to any meaningfully robust institution whether religion, school or democracy. The idea that the school would weigh in and effectively narrow the range of acceptable discourse to disclude dissent in this political climate in which students are being disappeared and violent violently silenced is shameful. Not to mention that an attempt to erase Judaism's rich tradition of debate and rigor is just intellectually unserious. The school needs to do the right thing and stand by teacher X's right to spark thought, challenge, and rigor. The the school should not lose itself further down an unprincipled and frankly draconian path. Thank [Applause] you. Next up is Sarah Mount Joy. And then I can't read the rest of the name. Sorry. If you could just give your full name at the podium, we'll get

042it. I will. My name is Sarah Mount Joy Pepka. I live at 1625 Kirk Street. Uh, why did I choose Evston? I attended Northwestern 20 years ago. There are wonderful schools here. I looked up the school districts. We moved here from Los Angeles. We chose Evston specifically. We left the sunshine. Evston is close to Devon with really good halal food. I was surprised by the number of um South Asian, Arab, and Muslim students enrolled in this school district. It's quite low, but I had really high hopes nonetheless. We bought a house two years ago. We have a small child. I am pregnant. I'm very annoyed and tired that I have to be here tonight this pregnant, but it's important. I am astonished that I am here not even to defend a Palestinian or a Brown

043or an Arab teacher, but a Jewish teacher's right to express their First Amendment rights, daring to express dissent on this state sanctioned genocide. And whether you decide that it is a genocide or not, you have to understand that that word is being heavily debated in international courts and across journalism right now and human rights groups. I can only assume that what this censure means for this one teacher, this one white Jewish teacher, what it means for your more marginalized students and teachers. What is my child and this little child who I've not met yet? What are they facing in a few years? They have the same names. They practice the same religion. They look the same as the thousands, tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of children I have actually seen dead logging into

044the newspaper and social media every day. What are you setting my children up for by censuring this one teacher's right to hang a poster from a Jewish magazine? I support this teacher's first amendment rights to oppose genocide and to hang a poster. This really shouldn't be a debate. You need to listen to his requests and remove the [Applause] censuring. Our next public comment is from Robin Brown. Hello, my name is Robin Brown. I live at 1205 Elmwood. I am a Jewish parent of a Jewish ETHS student. I have written to this board on many occasions and spoken here mostly thanking you all for your moral courage and encouraging you to remain steadfast in your protection of free speech and expression for all ETHS students. I am here in that same spirit. I first became acquainted

045with the teacher in question after an Evston City Council meeting in November of 2023. Following that meeting, I was thrilled to learn that he was an ETHS teacher and thought to myself, "That is the type of teacher I hope my children have." I have been impressed with his unwavering commitment to speaking the truth despite intense opposition, backlash, and disparagement of his character. But I'm not here to talk about this teacher. I'm here to speak in support of free speech and expression, even when it is inconvenient. I am here to remind you all of your commitments. This school has a long history of bold equity work that has been the envy and the enemy of many other communities. I have always been proud of the way that this community does not shy away from controversial topics

046and embraces the discomfort of exploring how each individual's identity impacts their academic performance as well as their sense of belonging. I have seen this in policy, practice, and in curriculum. ETHS has been clear about their commitment to protecting marginalized students in the face of threats from our federal government and other outside forces. ETHS has been bold and brave. This recent move to censor a poster from the Jewish Currents magazine is neither bold nor brave. There was nothing wrong with that poster except that it made some people uncomfortable. Expressions of identity abound in the walls of this building. Look around and see all the signage proclaiming support for particular groups of marginalized students or political causes. Look around and see the images and symbols represented by students and teachers expressing who they are in the fullness

047of their various identities. This is what makes ETHS great. I have seen many assignments asking my son to explore and reflect on his multiple identities. There is richness in these assignments as he gets to know himself, his peers, and his teachers. These assignments are what makes EGHS great. But what is not great is inconsistency, hypocrisy, and the silencing of ideas and perspectives. The current silencing is those who express too much empathy for the plight of Palestinians or those who do not support the state of Israel. We have felt this in our Jewish communities and institutions. But this is a school. It is not your job to pick a side in this conflict at to the detriment of critical thinking, multiple perspectives, free speech and expression, and student well-being. This does not prepare students to develop

048the skills needed for civic life. These are are the strategies out of the anti-dei playbook, one in which ETHs vowed to resist. I empathize with your position. I'm sure it has been challenging to have been thrust into religious and political discourse that might feel unfamiliar. You have undoubtedly experienced pressure from the various community members who attract the most attention and speak the loudest if you do not behave in accordance with their view of Judaism. While we may be smaller voices, I encourage this body to be bold and brave to listen to the voices here and inside yourselves that fervently support free speech and expression. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Jason Yanovitz. Good evening. Um um Jason Yanowitz. I live at 1720 Oak Avenue. I've been in the in Evston since 2008 and have

049raised uh two children here. The youngest is about to graduate from ETHS. Um, and among his most valuable experiences at the school, and he's had many, uh, has been his membership in the Palestine Solidarity Club. Uh, even though they've had to fight for the right to see films such as Israelism. Uh, and it is in in in during that I emailed the school both once to protest the fact that they weren't being allowed to see it and then to thank you for the change uh, in that policy. uh hearing that we're preventing teachers from displaying posters uh that celebrate the rich tradition of Oh, I should have mentioned I'm a Jew if that's not obvious, but um preventing displays of posters that celebrate the rich tradition of Jewish descent is an act of anti-semitism. Uh

050it makes Jews less safe to say nothing of members of other marginalized communities. Zionists are on a mission to conflate criticism of an apartheid state with anti-semitism. And we cannot give ground to this. It makes everybody in the world less safe and it is a unbelievably uh vile and unfortunately often successful uh strategy and I am grateful that there are teachers Jewish teachers and others that stand up against this and I am grateful uh to the teacher whose name I'm not allowed to say for some reason uh who's taken uh a tremendous stand uh to create a space for my my son and others to explore ideas that are cut against the mainstream of what uh the dominant ideology that we have in our society today. So I hope that the uh board reverses this

051discipline decision uh and um either way I am in uh stand in solidarity. Our next public comment is from Annie Zeran. Thank you. My name is Annie Zyron. I live at 1310 Wesley. I am the proud parent of one child who's graduating this weekend and one who graduated from ETHS in 2022. I've also worked at this school as a paraprofessional and I've known some people on this board for many many years. And I uh my son has been active in this Palestine Solidarity Club, which is how we raised him. We raised him in an anti-ionist Jewish household. I realize that not all Jews in this community or in in our country share the values that we do and that's fine. We wanted our son to come to a school where ideas could be debated, where

052critical thinking could take place and he has found that to some to certain extent on many issues, but there's always this Palestine exception. And I want to raise issue with that. My older son got to see trans flags hanging in classrooms, and I'm grateful for that. That meant a tremendous amount to him. But why shouldn't our Palestinian uh teachers be able to wear kafias or see their flag hanging in classrooms? If one flag goes, why can't all flags go? We're here to celebrate uh we're here to celebrate and promote cultural diversity. And as an educator, this is you can't learn in a climate of fear where teachers are afraid. Students cannot learn. That permeates an entire institution. And I think we all know that. Uh and I'm not naive. I understand that the winds blowing

053from Washington are putting pressure on institutions all over our society about what they can allow and there's funding at stake and I know these are big questions but now is not the time to bend the knee to this arrogant disgusting administration in Washington that wants to take dismantle our schools and take away all kids rights not just issues around Palestine but we are not going to have trans flags in schools if we if we concede on any of these points we either hold the line on all of them or we will hold the line on none of them. And it matters what ETHS does. This is an important high school in this country and in this in this area and it matters. Taking a stand will matter. Will give courage to other institutions. But also

054the opposite is true. If ETHs bends the knee around these questions, lets teachers get pushed out, great, wonderful teachers get pushed out, then uh that will matter too because that will also set a tone because this is considered one of the most progressive inst uh high schools in our area. So, what this institution does matters not just for this institution, but for all of our all around our community. And I'll say one last thing because as a parent and an educator, I know that our children don't just hear the words we say. They see what we do and they learn more from that than from whatever words we might say. They look at our actions. And that's why I would I would implore you as educators to think about the actions and the message that

055we want to send our students. We want to preserve what the best of ETHS is that this is a place where my my my kids and other kids have found a beautiful education and a wonderful and very diverse community and we will lose that if we don't defend [Applause] it. Our next public comment is from uh looks like and pardon my handwriting well as I try to decipher. Is it Ezekiel Leeb? Is that right? No, I think I got it wrong. Isaac. Isaac. Sorry, I couldn't I couldn't read. Uh, hello members of the board. My name is Isaac Leeb. Uh, I'm a senior here at ETHS. Um, I'm a proud Jew. I've been in this community since I was 3 years old, and I was raised Jewish throughout all of it. Um, for the first

056two years of my high school experience, I was incredibly proud to be an ETHS student. I had been homeschooled for most of my uh, schooling prior to that point. And coming into this institution, it felt like an actual continuation of that in a space of progressivism in a place where my values felt not just honored but reciprocated, where minority students were allowed to be themselves and express themselves. Um, however, that very quickly became not the case. And I've seen over the past two years um this school administration alongside uh large swats of uh our culture in general cave the knee to blatant fascism and allow Jewish students, Jewish teachers like myself, like Mr. Ginsburg, like all the people here today to face real consequences that harm us. I have taken almost every single history and

057political class offered here at ETHS. I went through your entire curriculum. I am in appgap right now. I just finished up with the wonderful Mr. Patel. Right. Why do you have us learn about Schneckv US? Why do you have us learn about the censorship of students during Vietnam only to turn around and do the exact same thing that those school administrations did? When have the students ever been on the wrong side of this issue? They weren't wrong in Vietnam. They weren't wrong during the civil rights movement. They weren't wrong during apartheid South Africa. They weren't wrong in Iraq. And they are sure as hell are not wrong now. I simply ask all of you when you go home tonight, not as your board members in your suits, but as people with hearts, when you sit

058and you fully analyze how you have behaved, I hope that you recognize that it has only caused harm and has only capitulated the side of this that is blatantly and openly evil and actively doing harm to all of our communities, including the Jewish ones. Thank you. Next up is Elias Ginsburg. Uh, hi. My name is Elias Ginsburg. Um, I live at 1815 Kenny Street. The teacher Andrew Ginsburg is my father. He I grew up He as he taught me really everything I know now. He has taught me what it means to be a Jew. He taught me He taught me how like what it means to be Jewish in America and how that affects me and everyone around me. and he's he taught me about when I was little I would ask why can't we

059get this kind of couscous or this kind of matzah and he'd explain everything that has happened over the past 70 years and frankly deaf ears I was eight or whatever but it's scary now that the deaf ears are not of 8-year-olds it's of adults at an institution such as this where we're supposed to be listening to everyone And it's it's frankly just it's sad and it's scary. Much like my friend Isaac, I used to be so proud of being an a student here. Huge school. My dad was respected and it was it was fun. But over the past two years since October 7th, 2023, it's not been the case. I've been it's frankly it's been disappointing and I have not been proud to be a wild kid. Something I hear all the time. I'm a

060senior. I graduate soon. Every all the events be proud to be a wild kid. And frankly, I'm not. It's the past two years have shown such a disregard for Jewish voices and any voices that speak out about our treatment here. and what is going on in Palestine and it's it's been something that is really not represented our values at ETHS and Evston. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jennifer Leeb. I'm Jen Lee, 2309 Grant. I'll keep it short. I think I'm last. And um you've heard amazing words tonight. I have a senior and a freshman. And I also felt um for the first two years of my senior uh who is Isaac uh schooling here um very very um gratified and hopeful um that he was receiving an education that was allowing him to think

061and to question and explore all the ideas and all of the things. Um, and I don't feel that way now. And I feel concern for my freshman who is spending all all of these hours here for so much of his week. Um, because regardless of what my opinion is about Palestine or Israel or any of that, I see a tipping point in our country where we can't trust the news media. We can't trust our history textbooks. We can't, you know, it's very difficult to find a place where we can uh uh believe what we are hearing and and really understand what a fact even is anymore. And so it is incumbent upon you as an institution to give our children the tools that they need to go forward as adults and navigate this climate, right?

062Of of whatever their opinion is, that they should not be afraid that their opinion is going to to get them in trouble to have their uh art piece that they put on a wall taken down. that that this is a place for them to explore ideas, know how to have ideas that maybe offend someone and learn what that does to the other person and how they can amend that. Right? It's it's it's just for me it's not about what's right and what's wrong. It's about allowing these young minds to understand how to express it, how to navigate it, and how to then go out into the world as adults and use those tools. That's it. I'll wrap it up. Thank you very much. Our final comment is from Roy Zu. Hi everyone. Um, my name

063is Roy Zoo. I'm a resident of the fourth ward, 1100 Church Street. I'm a student at Northwestern. Um, I've lived in Evston for four years. I'm also a member of Students for Justice in Palestine at Northwestern. I was thinking of wearing a kafia, but I think being up here already paints a target on my back, so it's kind of whatever. Um, I know people who work here. Some of my friends who graduated Northwestern one or two years ago work here now as staff and as educators. I would love to be able to raise my children and envision a future in Evston that includes marginalized people like me, but this cowardly and capitulatory action is making me reconsider that. I'm deeply upset to hear the school board taking a stance against um free speech where a

064teacher who put up a poster in his classroom was accused of being anti-semitic and offensive. Right now, we are living in a moment where disscent is not only being censored but actively criminalized by right-wing forces. When the Northwestern chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace erected a suka with an anti-Zionist message to commiserate the deaths of thousands of Gazin civilians, it was torn down by the university and claimed to be anti-semitic. After the Trump administration took office, um, all students were forced to complete an anti-semitism training at Northwestern that stated explicitly that any student who speaks against political support of Israel is anti-semitic and open to being disciplined, put on probation, or expelled for multiple violations. Are you folks, parents, civic leaders, and education advocates, unable to see that these punishments at ETHS merely continue these

065same patterns of violence that are eroding the right to free speech so fundamental to all educational institutions? It is fundamentally discriminatory to censor Jewish art that is anti-ionist or challenges Zionist values. It is bigotry to claim that the only way to protect Jewish students is to harm some members of the Jewish community at the behest of more powerful voices in the same community. You should all be ashamed for the harm you've caused not only your students and staff, but the future educators who once looked up to you. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this evening. Okay. Thank you. And um I just want to say um thank you to all who spoke. I know that that's coming here speaking um can be challenging. So um we really appreciate and heard everything that was said.

066So thank you to all of you. And you're welcome to stay or if you'd like you can excuse yourself, whatever you'd like to do. I'm going to go on with the meeting. Um the next item is uh foyers. Dr. Davis. Yes, we have seven foyers. Uh one from Rad Zimsky, Oliver, Love Park, Isle, Kpsa, and Hal Blisson. and the responses are in your packet. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'm going to pause just for a a minute because um it's a little bit of movement. Okay. Okay. The next item is um Retiring the board. Retiring board. We're not going to retire the whole board. Don't you don't you worry. [Laughter] Okay. Um so the first item is um review of the student representative election. And who's going to do that? Dr. Davis has those uh

067the motion. and then I'll I'll uh I'll read it. Uh so this is for the student board election. Be it resolved by the board of education, district 202, county of Cook, state of Illinois, the returns from the student election held on April 11th, 2025 in said high school district for the purpose of electing one student member and one student alternate member of the board of education of said district to serve from May 12th, 2025 to May 2026 are as follows. The student member board of education is Ava Hansen and the alternate student member of the board of education is Annie Stolar. Motion Eva, sorry, Eva Hansen. Okay, so we need a motion to approve um the results of the election. Can I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Could we have a roll call,

068please? Auntie, yes. Livingston, yes. Mona, yes. Carson, yes. Keyart, yes. Rolling, yes. Savage boy, yes. All right, so the motion carries. And I think um at this point, I think a few of us would like to say a few words about Rachel. So um I'll turn it over to the board. Okay, we'll start with Leah. Okay, we'll just maybe go around. Okay, I just want to kind of look at my notes. Um um so I've really enjoyed having Rachel as the student representative on the board. Um I think she is such an impressive young woman and I've particularly admired the self asssurance she's had to join and contribute to board discussion as a high school student. She's particularly been effective in bringing student issues to the attention of the board. Thank you, Rachel, for your

069service. Okay. Okay. Um, so I've known you even before high school. Um, and I know you are an incredibly brilliant young woman of color who is sitting here taking in a lot. um and who has an incredible future ahead of you. And um I just want you to continue to be the thinker that you are and to also remember your heart and I know that there's a lot even within your own family and that you are making a lot of people really proud. So thank you. I actually wrote this down. I don't always do that. Um, I'm honored to have shared the board table with Rachel this year, my final year or two. Um, Rachel, you've been a valuable addition to our meetings with useful and substantive updates from the student body, always delivered cogently.

070I especially have appreciated your ability to deliver challenging updates on difficult subjects without shying away from hard truths. That talent will serve you well as you make your way through college and the rest of the world that awaits you, especially in these times when even speaking the truth seems like a challenge. I wish you nothing but the best. Hi Rachel. How ready are you to get out of here? You're so sad. you you always deliver whatever news you have with that smile. And um and so it's it's been a pleasure and a joy um over the last year, your senior year, to just watch you blossom and blossom and blossom more and become more confident and um you already came confident, but to just watch you with each report just say a little bit more

071and go a little bit further. It's um it's been an honor to watch you and excited about your your next level on the West Coast. East Coast. Where are you going? Harvard. Harvard. Why did I think Stanford? She got she got into that too. That's why. Well, who does that anyway? Congratulations and I wish you nothing but the best. Yes. I'm going to go last. Um well, first of all, I agree with everything that's been said so far. So, um but I I really have admired you through this year. Um because it's not easy to come and sit with all these old people, speaking for myself only. Um but no, seriously, I think that we've always been lucky. We have wonderful student uh representatives on the board, but there's been something a little special about

072the way you've done it. Um, and as has been said, you always gave really good reports and thoughtful and dug into things that were on the students minds that we might not know about if if not for you. But I really love how you you listen to the do the conversation and the topics and you ask questions that are really thoughtful, really um useful to the conversation that certainly represent you but also I think help us to see through the lens of our students because it's very important to all of us here that we understand where the students are, what they need, what they on and and how their how they interact with everything we talk about because really that's why we're all here is because of you and the other 3,900 people that you

073share this building with. And so you've done such a great job at that. And so when I saw on social media that you got it you were going to Harvard, I literally teared up. I was like, damn, she deserves this and she's going to be great and I just can't wait to see what that looks like. So, thank you for your service and we just wish you the very best because you're going to do great things. So, thank you, Rachel. Um, you've been such an asset to the board. Um, we've loved having you here. um you've always made it very clear to us that you are you really have an understanding of your fellow students. You really put in the work to have a broad understanding of what was going on in the school and

074you were always prepared when you came. You let us know what was going on. You did not shy away when things got difficult. If there were challenges with the students, um you let us know. You didn't you were not afraid to bring those things to the board. I admire that. Um, I also follow the ETHS seniors on Instagram. So, a week or two ago, I saw you were going to Harvard and I was it was such a proud moment. I thought, you know, you've just you've worked for this. You earned this. Um, I wish you all the best in your um coming endeavors and have a great time. So, my turn, Rachel. And I first want to say I agree with my colleagues. um these words are really um really special and certainly describe you

075well. I was thinking it's just been like a year ago that your peers elected you in this role. It just seemed like the year went really fast and um trying to figure out how we could hold on to you for another year, but I guess that's not possible, right? No. Okay. So, but you have definitely served with dedication. Um, you've offered some very insightful perspectives and always demonstrating a true passion for representing the voices of your fellow students. Um, I think as a cla as a senior for the class of 2025 and alum of Nicholls Middle School, I have to say, um, you just bring a unique and invaluable viewpoint to our discussions and you've heard much appreciation for that. you understand the student experience firsthand and you've helped us with our perspective and helped

076us weigh in um that understanding. You've consistently used that understanding to thoughtfully inform us. Um so we really appreciate that. Um there's just so much more we could say, Rachel. Uh your contributions to the board and to the community as a whole because we know that you've done a lot in our community. Um just so valued. You've been just a vital um p student representative for our board and uh you've done so with such intelligence and grace and just a genuine commitment to serve others and we can see that um you've truly served your peers well. Um so we're incredibly we were incredibly fortunate to have you as our student rep. So, I just want to say thank you to you for your hard work. I know that that you had to prepare those reports

077and you came in always prepared, always ready. Um, you were just very dedicated and just from the very beginning took your position seriously and it was very clear to us. Um, and also I want to congratulate you. um going to Harvard. That's so exciting. Um that's just a tremendous accomplishment and uh we are just so proud of you and you are I'm sure your family is extremely proud as well. So, we have a little something for you. And again, thank you. All right. So, Rachel, did did you have something you wanted to say? I mean, you don't have to. Don't feel pressure. [Laughter] Okay. Let's hear it. Oh, is it on? Oh, I didn't even know. Okay. Well, hi everyone. Um, I mean this all just seems like so like thank you guys so much

078for just being such amazing like board members and I really just felt so welcome here the first day I got here and I don't think like my confidence starting off would have been there had I not felt so like welcome here. Um, but yeah, all of this feels very bittersweet being my last meeting and then tomorrow being my last day of school. But I'd first like to thank a few people. Um, I'd like to thank Dr. Kinsey for being such a strong supporter of all the work I've done and always being really flexible with our meeting times. I'd like to thank Mr. Pond and Isaiah Turk, the student union coordinator, and my vice rep, for making my transition into student union so seamless and for supporting the initiatives I wanted to start. And I wanted

079to I want to thank the entire board and the ETHS community for allowing me to rep represent ETHS as a student and for trusting me to deliver accurate and inclusive board reports for each month. Since this is my last board meeting, I'd like to give an overview of the work Student Union has um accomplished this year and highlight future committees and plans that will continue into next year and beyond. This year, student union has worked to provide a greater variety of menstrual products in all bathrooms at ETHS and this comma committee has made intentional decisions about where support is meant is most needed and the ETHs community will soon see that impact. We've also ensured that all physical education teachers will include consistent self-defense training in their curricula and emphasize this important skill. We've also

080launched a lunchline efficiency committee and this committee got itsformational form approved by Dr. Libby and Miss Roseman to gather student feedback on lunchroom efficiency. And this committee plans to continue its work into the next school year. As a student representative, I focused on creating inclusive spaces, especially in response to the November school board meeting findings where the well-being show survey showed that Hispanic students and Latin students felt significantly less connected to the school community um more so than other racial groups. I collaborated with Miss Hamilton and other staff to hold an affinity space for Latin students to share feedback on their experiences and we've developed an outline for a new program modeled after Black and Breathing to help Latin students form community connections and grow as active proud leaders at ETHS. I'm very proud of

081this work which will continue next year and hopefully for many years to come and I'm incredibly grateful to have served a term on the ETHS school board. This experience has been deeply rewarding and I look forward to returning one day to see all the amazing progress, especially with Eva taking my place. And again, I just wanted to say thank you everyone. That's all. Thank you Rachel. Okay, stay right there just for another couple of minutes. Um so now we are going to move to our next item which is review of the board of education election and um do we have any retiring board? Sorry I keep forgetting. All right. Uh Dr. Davis. Yes. I'll read the uh the resolution. The canvas is in your packet. Uh resolution. Be it resolved by the board of education

082district 2012, county of Cook, state of Illinois, that the returns from the regular election held on the first day of April 2025 and said high school district for the purpose of electing four members of the board of education said district to serve full terms be and the same are hereby canvased and the results therefore from the returns of said election are as follows. Tally of the votes are included in the permanent minutes see attached in the packet. Therefore, the board of education finds and declares the following are duly elected members of the board of education to serve full terms. Mera Auntie, John Martin, Pat Manel, Pat Savage Williams. And we need a a motion. And we need a second. Can we have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Roll call, please. You bet. So, yes.

083Parsley. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. So, now we're going to um say a few words about our retiring board member. And we'll start on this side and we'll go around. I'll go last again. So, um, Liz Gretchen, it's been wonderful. Um, I know a lot of us will say some similar things. 16 years of service. Very impressive. Um, we so value your just, you know, long long view of the board work and the school's work and the progress and everything you've contributed to those con conversations. um when you've been able to um talk about legal stuff, it's been very helpful to have your perspective on the board. Um I of course appreciate your sense of humor. It's always you've always made me smile. Um I don't know. I think I don't think most

084people know, but like every once in a while, you know, the board will receive like new information and we have to kind of take it in and we're learning something and you know, the gears are turning and we're all thinking and and it's it's often times Gretchen that'll be the first one to speak and I'm still like processing and I'm going through like the five stages of grief and I'm doing like long division in my head and Gretchen is like she's completely assessed the situation and has this like fantastic cogent response and then we're all just like yeah that's it like and then she'll say this thing is a thing and we're like it's a thing and then we all like it just like brings the conversation together and I just it's a real skill

085to have and I admire that and um you know just always being um just very forward in your opinions and very thought out, very thoughtful opinions and I appreciate that and we will miss you Gretchen. So yeah, I'm glad we're at the beginning because by the end we will have all said um no Gretchen, it's really been a privilege to serve with you. Um and to get to know you uh inside and out of the board um which has been great. Uh, I remember a COVID a very cold COVID day in your lovely back uh patio where we sat freezing, but you had heaters and quilts. You were very well prepared. Um, and it was it was it was great. But, um, you you know, you really are a model for what a schoolboard member

086should be in the sense that you are incredibly well prepared. uh not just with the material we send, but I'm always at a my jaw drops open every time you say, "Yeah, I watched that that uh webinar that the forensic put out about XY." And I'm like, "Oh my god, she watches all the webinars. She's on all the Ed things. She's just so You do your homework and then some." And I I think that is such a um it it's very powerful and very important to the board discussions because you bring things that we just you know either I didn't see that webinar or um it you just bring a lot to the board with the level of preparation and research that you do. But you also really um I know that you really care

087about what happens here and that's why you that's your love language is being wellprepared and smart and um and I think that's that says a lot about you as a person and it says a lot about ETHS that um we have such a a really strong thoughtful person um participating in this in this work. So, you know, you've done a great job. We really will miss you. Um, and particularly, how are we going to end a board meeting? It's just not going to be the same without you screaming out ajourn. So, anyway, we will miss that. Maybe we'll call you. You can, you know, dial in. Um, but thank you for everything you've done. It's really been a great great to work with you. So Gretchen, I've actually I actually wrote some down and I

088don't usually do that. Um but I I think um this moment you deserve not to just be thanked for your service but to be recognized. Um to serve as long as you have that's amazing in itself. Won't be me but that's amazing. So, I'll start. I do want to take this moment to recognize and to thank Gretch and Livingston. Um, as she retires from the board, um, for the past eight years, we've been neighbors. So, we've sat together. Um, yeah, at this table, meeting after meeting. Um, and you know, I guess like any good neighbors, we didn't always agree. Uh, we didn't agree, but we respected each other and and I felt that sincerely. Um, I learned early on that Gretchen was going to say exactly what she thought and that I should be prepared.

089So, um, you know, so she kept me on my toes for sure. And, um, I used to tease her as, um, retired attorney. And I don't know if attorneys ever retired. I don't I don't think she has. But um anyway, we we would tease each other about that or I would tease her about that because I knew when she was coming ready and um and I I told her that there was something about her and I was like, "Oh Lord, she's on today and it's we're going to get it." So Gretchen always came with precision and clarity. Um very clear. She has been a consistent and passionate advocate. I noticed this very early on um for our girls and making sure that they were not forgotten, overlooked or underestimated. And I I remember that that

090was something that really um hit my heart early on when I whenever something came up and you would definitely always talk about the girls, our students, our our young ladies that that need to be seen and not forgotten. Um and she's been a constant reminder that this work isn't just about policies and budgets. Um it's about people and making sure no one gets left behind. Um, Gretchen has never been one to sit quietly. If something needed to be said, you were going to get it. Um, she challenged our thinking. She pushed the board and the staff to be better. I don't care if it was, uh, a spreadsheet, uh, policy, uh, whatever. Uh, she was going to tell you what she preferred. and uh and and she what I appreciate about that is that you

091brought your full authentic self each time and um and to every conversation actually. So with Gretchen what you see is actually what you get and I think that's rare and I think it's valuable. So, I am truly going to miss sitting next to you thinking ahead of time like how is Gretchen going to deal with this situation? Um, because again, like I said, you kept me sharp and you kept me honest and you actually opened up the door for me to be my authentic self even though we challenged each other sometimes. Um, so I appreciate you for that and I thank you for your service, for your voice, and for making sure that none of us ever got too comfortable. Nice. I kind of want to try to hold the mic the way you do

092when you get ready to do the questions, you know, and you're like this leaning in. That's she leans in. She's like, "Okay, so the graph that you made is really much better." And then you ask like a fivepart question that I can't even keep up with. Um, and I love that. And it's kind of hard to see you. Um, okay. So, here's the thing. One, I love battling with you and I really enjoy our close sessions because we can't even really do it as openly here. and you made sure that we are the board we're supposed to be because if we all are in echo chamber, we're not doing our work. So that has been amazing. I love that you're also kind of impatient and I mean I it's fun cuz we feel it. Yes.

093It's so it's so real and it's so um important especially when I think about like you said I can be me because you are you and we compliment and um and I've really appreciated that a lot. Yeah. And so I also think about um what it means is I get to move to the left and how I can help to also think about what the space is that you're leaving and how we can all maintain some of these pieces that we really love. And so let's not agree just to agree. let's rethink about what we bring in and how we can challenge each other to push us forward because I think that's invaluable. So, thank you and miss you. All right. Um, normally I'm a very verbose person, but I get nervous about these kinds

094of things, so I I wrote some some thoughts down. Um, so Gretchen, um, I I haven't been on the board long with Gretchen. This is only my second year, but I certainly was familiar with the many years of service to the board before my tenure. Um, Gretchen, I think, has has brought and brings so much historical knowledge and perspective to the board. Um, her input on all things legal has been very valuable to us, and I'll miss that. I appreciate her willingness to speak her mind and ask hard but fair questions. I again don't have years and years of experience, but in my experience so far, I feel like we have better and better data reports because of Gretchen pushing and pushing for a data dashboard and data expressed in clearer and clearer ways. 16

095years on the board is a long time and I believe that's evidence of her care for both the high school and for our community. Thank you, Gretchen. [Music] Wow. I've been thinking about this for a long time, Gretchen. Like, what can I say? Um, as you conclude your dedicated service to the board, you were first elected in 2009. So, that's a long time ago. Um, and you've been on the board for, as someone said already, 16 years. So when I was first elected in 2013, you were the president and I was able to watch you as president of the board and you were president for a couple of years and it it helped me craft my role as president. I still often think, well, what would Gretchen do? What will Gretchen do? Um, but you

096um you were a leader and I feel like you've you are such a natural leader. Um, and and your your legal background has just always been such a helpful resource for this board and we will we will miss that. Um, you just have kept us all informed of legal cases. you pay attention to what's happening uh within our state, within our nation. Uh and and you've just brought this unique and invaluable perspective to discussions. Um you've always been active. I I I know that you were active when you were in district 65. You were active. Um you were on uh the wellness council, the calendar committee. Um and you've just done so much here at district at district 202. You've been on the policy committee, the finance committee, um the audit committee, the community legislative

097group, Ed, you were the Ed RED, you were on the Ed Rad executive board. You led the board as um the ED red executive board. You were on the school improvement team back when we had that. It's a long time ago. You were on the substance abuse prevention coalition. You've been on the city schools committee. you on the joint 65202 committee and the Oakton Community College governing board and I might have left some things out but you've just done so much. So it's no wonder that you have such a deep understanding and involvement in our school community because you've just done so much. That's that's not surprising. um your comprehensive understanding of the complexities of this system uh just just really run pretty deep and um I just really appreciate your willingness to dedicate your

098expertise, your abilities, your intelligence um across this wide range of very critical issues that we've all had to deal with. I too appreciate when you ask a question and and it's going to be it's going to be long. It's going to be a long question and I have to concentrate to pay attention to hear the question because the question is loaded with so much information that I need to get and learn from. Um, so your years of dedicated service have definitely left a permanent mark on our school district. Gretchen, your thoughtful insights, your tireless advocacy for our students, for all students, and your genuinely genuine care for our community will be deeply missed. I'm not sure how we're going to adjourn our meetings. So, I know you've assigned that to Meera. Yeah. Yeah. Meera, you

099you you got a big job ahead of you. Anyway, Gretchen, thank you so much for your exceptional leadership and I just wish you the best. Oh, thank you. And I have a little something for you. Thanks, [Applause] Um, I think I told people before that this was going to be somewhere between um uh I don't know who was the longest day of the union, Trump. It won't be as long as Trump's State of the Union. Um, in fact, I think it'll be under 10 minutes because I timed it earlier. Uh, when someone recently asked why I was leaving the board, I responded, "Isn't 16 years long enough?" I think it is for me. I previously retired as a partner at a large Chicago law firm, Jenner and Block, which some of you may now know

100about because it's one of the firms taking a stand against the unlawful and unconstitutional executive order targeting law firms. Though I haven't worked at Jenner in a very long time, I could not be more proud of my former firm. I hold similar feelings of pride about ETHS as an institution for reasons I will get into in these remarks. If I were a member of Congress, I would still be at the beginning of a multi-deade career, but I'm not. This is the school board, and our strength is the evolution of our membership, the differences we bring to the board, and the fresh points of view that come with those differences. all in the interest of serving our wonderful students. I want to touch briefly on what that has looked like over the 16 years of my

101service. Over the course of my time in this seat, I've served with colleagues who were diverse in every way, including race, gender, and age. For the benefit of the people who were not present then, here is a little bit of history in very, very rough order. I began my service in in 2009, as Pat noted, after Margaret Luri, Omar Curry, and Missy Fleming had left the board. We were a group of very strong women back then, including three black women, Mary Wilkerson, Jane Colatin, and Martha Burns. Mary Wilkerson and I actually drafted uh the district's first equity statement together and Martha Burns and I learned how to listen carefully um when we were partnered in one of our board training sessions, which I will fondly remember is an hilarious exercise because neither of us were

102very good at listening. Um, and also our board president Rachel Haymon and my friend Deborah Graham, who sadly passed away not so long ago, and finally Mark Mets. And then along came fellow attorney Scott Relle, who brought an unmarried and childless at the time perspective. And also Doug Hol, Bill Guyger, and Jonathan Bomb, another attorney. each of whom brought a unique perspective to the board based on their jobs and community service. Ann Sills served with me for a time and then came Stephanie Tutterage and finally along came most of the people who share these board seats with me now. I've served with Pat Savage Williams the longest and I thank her for leadership. Mon'nique Parsons came a little later and brings the wisdom of her long service at the YMCA and her knowledge of our

103community to her role here. Patmanel brings her own broad range of experience and education to her role. More recently, Liz Rolowitz has weighed in with her thoughtful insights on equity. I will miss the sense of humor that Mera Antie, who has been my neighbor at the board table, brings to us. And finally, Leah Peakarts brings her singular experience as a counselor at ETHS for many years to her newer role on the board. I'm also grateful for the service of our student school board representatives over the years, most recently Rachel Durango Cohen, all of whom have gone beyond the usual high school activities to help educate the older folks on this board about the real lives of our students. Speaking of our students, I thought it would also be interesting to note how our student body

104has changed from a demographic perspective since I joined the board in 2009. At that time, our white population was 46.4% of the student body. And in 2024, it has not much changed at 44.4%. Our black student population has declined from 35.3% to 23.9%. While our Latinx population has increased from 11.8% to 20.2%. We have likewise had increases in our Asian population from 3.4 to 4.5%. And students of two or more races from 3.1 to 6.5%. On a more substantive note, I'm most proud of three decisions made by this board over the course of the last 16 years. The first was our decision to make changes in the freshman year experience. a decision that came in uh my first year on the board. As we all know now, students reading at grade level enter the same

105freshman humanities courses, providing them all with an opportunity to earn honors credit and later to take advanced placement courses. This change has resulted in significant increases of black and brown students in honors and AP courses, and our students have maintained strong scores on those AP exams at the same time. I am likewise proud of our support for transgender students in a variety of ways, including an important vote around access to restrooms and locker rooms in the middle of my 16-year tenure. I think that came I am the only current board member who participated in the vote on the freshman year experience and I recall it well. It was an example of Evanstonians doing what they do best, complaining loudly and with righteous conviction that was painful at times, but all part of the process of

106moving forward. I'm confident that we are on the right side of history in these decisions. Happily, the least controversial decision we've made is the one to appoint Marcus Campbell as our superintendent just a few years ago. I'm so pleased to have been able to participate in that decision and to work with Marcus these past few years. Indeed, without Marcus, we may never have gotten the district dashboard and progress monitoring that I have been asking for since my first year on the board. There remains work to do at ETHS despite our successes. um true to my um forthright form, I urge the board to keep focused on what remains to be done and not get too self- congratulatory about what has been achieved. The most obvious example of that is the opportunity gap that remains between

107our students of color and our white/Asian students. I am disappointed that the joint district 65202 committee no longer meets as regularly as it did when we also had a first in history joint board goal around literacy which also slipped from our attention and focus. Similarly, after serving on various Evston cradle to career committees from its inception over 12 years ago, much work remains to achieve true collective impact in this community. Finally, with the exception of a student school board rep, our current one, we have not had a Latinx board member in a community where that population has only increased during my time on the board. The reason that ETHS has the reputation that it does, one that is not perfect, as our public comment demonstrated tonight, but always striving for the best for its students,

108is that we have the trust and support of our community. That trust is built and maintained by all who work in this building every day. The board does not do the day-to-day work to make things happen here. a principle of board governance that every board member should know. Uh but it's critical that the board learns to trust one another and hold itself accountable. As I mentioned earlier, a schoolboard seat is a long way from a congressional seat, but it is nonetheless an important elected office and one that will only become more important going forward as my colleagues here grapple with the difficulty of an environment that does not always value public education and the critical role it plays in communities everywhere. My own students benefited enormously from their education here, and we should all want

109the same for the young people of our community. We must defend this kind of public education in the strongest possible ways. I wish everyone the best in that effort. [Applause] All right. Thanks. So don't go yet. Okay. Um, I am going to call for a motion with the roll call vote to retire the board in SA DA. Um, can I have a motion, please? So, move and a second. Second. Could we have a roll call vote? What if I said no? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, what's going to happen now is the board will take a 10-minute recess. There's cake. And uh Gretchen and Rachel, you're welcome to have cake. And and then you're done. And um and then when we reconvene, Dr. Davis will assume the role as president prom.

110So, let's take about a 10-minute break. All right. Thank you all for reconvening. Um, so, um, Dr. Davis. We're asking Dr. Davis to assume the role of President Prom. I graciously accept that role. Thank you. Uh and I will commence with doing our oath. So, if I could get the new student rep up at the podium, I will do the oath of office. [Applause] promise to go at a reasonable pace. Okay. I say your name. I Eva Hansen, a student member a student member of the board of education of the board of education of Evston Township High School. of Evston Township High School. District 202, District 202, County of Cook, County of Cook, Illinois, Illinois. do solemnly swear do solemnly swear to support the Constitution to support the Constitution of the United States of the

111United States and the Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Illinois of the State of Illinois and faithfully discharge and faithfully dis discharge the duties of the office the duties of the office to which I have been elected to which I have been elected. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Can I now have all of the uh newly elected board members join me at the podium together? Yeah, that's you. One, two, three, four. All of us up here. All right. There we go. All right. Read very fast. Yes. No, you read slower cuz it's hard. All right. Raise your hand. Repeat after me. I say your name. I, do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will faithfully discharge that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office the duties of the office of

112member of the board of education of Evston Township High School of Evston Township High School District 202 district 202 in accordance with in accordance with the Constitution of the United states, the Constitution of the State of Illinois, the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and the laws of the state of Illinois. and the laws of the state of Illinois to the best of my ability. to the best of my ability. I further swear I further swear I shall respect taxpayer interests. I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector. by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets of the school district's assets. I shall encourage I shall encourage and respect and respect the free expression of opinion the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members by my fellow

113board members and others who seek a hearing and others who seek a hearing before the board. before the board. while respecting While respecting the privacy of students the privacy of students and employees and employees. I shall recognize I shall recognize that a board member That a board member has no legal authority has no legal authority as an individual as an individual and that decisions and that decisions can be made only can be made only by a majority vote by a majority vote at a public board meeting at a public board meeting and and I shall abide I shall shall abide by a majority by a majority of the Lord decisions of the board decisions of the board while retaining while retaining the right to seek the right to seek changes in such decisions changes in

114such decisions through ethical through ethical and constructive and constructive channels channels Congratulations Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Congratulations. I really appreciated the enthusiasm. That was fantastic. You got it. No problem. [Music] Go faster. All right. Um, I'm going to call the meeting back to order and ask for a roll call. Auntie here. Margin present. Monel here. Parson here. Here Okay. So now we're doing the election of the officers. I will take nominations for the office of president and then we will take the vice president and secretary. Nominations need not be seconded. Each nomination will be voted on in order of their nomination. And once a candidate receives a majority of the votes of the board, four votes, the election process is over. I'm going to call for the nomination of

115the office of president of the board of education for a one-year term. I would like to nominate Pat Savage Williams as president of the board of education. Are there any other nominations? Seeing none, I'm going to close the nominations and call for a vote. Roll call, please. Auntie. Yes, Martin. Yes, Monel. Yes. Parsons. Yes. Carter. Yes. Grower. Yes. Savage Williams. Yes. The new president assumes the chair and continues the nomination process. Thank you. And thank you board. Thank you fellow board members. I am I am now calling for nominations for vice president of the board of education for a one-year term. I would like to nominate Mon'nique Parsons for her amazing leadership to continue the role of vice president. Thank you. Are there any other nominations for vice president? Hearing none, I will close the

116vote and call or close the nominations and call for a vote. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I would now like to call for nominations for secretary of the board of education for a one-year term. Who's supposed to do that? You do that. Oh, I nominate um Dr. Peter Ba Davis who does outstanding work year after year after year. Yes. Are there other nominations for secretary of the board? Hearing none, I will close the nominations and call for a vote. Indeed. Yes. An enthusiastic yes. Yes. Okay. Now, I'd like to call for a motion to appoint Kendra Williams as the school treasurer of the board of education for a one-year term with a compensation of $1,000. Could I have a motion? So moved. Second. Yeah. Fine. Um,

117can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay. We have reorganized our board. Find where we are now. Okay. 16. Okay. Can I do it again? Okay. All right. So, we're at item number 16, approval of resolutions. The first one is approval is a resolution ratifying acts, contracts, policies, and bylaws. Oh, I can do them all. Okay. Okay. Good. Sorry. not mean to say that. Okay. Okay. I will do all of these together. So the first one is as I just said resolution ratifying acts, contracts, policies and bylaws. The next one is resolution uh designating signatory. The next one is resolution regarding check signatures. The next one is resolution establishing regular meeting dates and place. The next one is the resolution establishing dates to review

118close session minutes. And finally, the resolution ratifying approved depositories. So moved. Second. Can I have a roll call, please? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Scrolling. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Okay. The next item. Can I do these together too? Which one? Presentation. Oh, with the presentation. Okay. [Applause] Okay. Okay. So, we're we're at items for information. The first item is the AFSUSA student presentation. Now, this is going to be great. This will be hopefully this will be you know it's late. Sorry, kids. Uh we're going to have Carol down to one. We down to one. Okay. Yes. So, we've got Carol Muskin from He was a volunteer for AFSUSA. And uh we've never done this before, but we always host exchange students from all over the world. And um so tonight we have just a brief presentation.

119Um already this evening um AA who's from Spain has an exam in the morning. Matteo who's from Italy has an exam in the morning. But Carol is we have one student that Carol's going to introduce tonight and uh she'll just share a little bit about her experience from Malaysia and um and that'll that'll be the presentation. So Carol introduce her. You can sit at the mic Carol so that you can both of you and and yeah, turn the mics on. Oh, push the button so we can hear you. Hi, I'm Carol Muskin. Um, I've been a resident of Evston for about 10 years and I've been a longtime volunteer for AFSUSA, which is the largest and oldest of the international high school exchange organizations. I just put a little packet at everybody's spot. I have

120a couple of extra if I didn't get one to everybody who needs one. Um we've been placing students at Evston for a long time and um uh Dr. Kinsey and Dr. Campbell and I have been working together um in my role as a volunteer school outreach partner from AFSUSA to ETHS. And I just want to first say thank you to the school to the teachers administration who've been providing absolutely phenomenal experiences for our exchange students over many years. We also want to also thank Dr. Campbell for joining the AFSUSA national board this past summer. And we're very pleased to have an outstanding local educator on our um AFSUSA board. And we do host we are hosting three students here this uh year. Uh unfortunately Matteo um and Aina. So Matteo from Italy and AA from

121Spain are both taking the AP pre-calc exam tomorrow. So they were studying here diligently during the first part of the meeting. Um but we do have tonight with us uh fussy um who came to us from Malaysia. The Malaysian students are only allowed the way the program is set up with the country. They're only allowed to come for one semester. And I think in the past ETHS was like we really want them for all year. Luckily, um, we convinced you all to, um, host FSY this year. I think we're all really glad, um, that we were able to host her. And I'm going to just a ask FSY to say a few words about, um, her program, the YES program, and the US State Department programs and the certificate that we have to present. Um,

122hi, my name is Fazia Fara. I'm from Malaysia. um under the program Canada US exchange student program which is an exchange student program between the US and the countries with majority Muslim population is fully funded by the US department of state. Uh first of all um since I have the opportunity I would like to thank um ETHS for being one of the um most memorable experience of me staying here for the past um 5 monthsish. Uh thank you for giving the opportunity for me to really enhance the um experience as an exchange student. I not only learn about the American culture but the culture of the US being the country of diversity and in a way appreciate my roots more and also for giving me the opportunity to present my roots and heritage as a

123Malaysian. So the cit the certificate that I'm going to uh present um afterwards is the certificate of appreciation from the US department of state to ETHS for hosting students especially um the exchange students that are under specific programs like me and a few other programs too. So thank you. Thank you. present too. Yes. President smile. You got to practice the handshake and smile. There you go. Perfect. Thank you all so much. Thank you. And we're very excited to make sure to have five students. So, thank you all so much. And anybody in this room, we're still seeking a host family for a wonderful young man. So, I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. Pat, can I just say one thing? Yes. Before you go, go ahead, please.

124Okay. Is she still here? Um, I'm really glad that you had this opportunity and your fellow students. And I just wanted to say that in 1983, I was an AFS student in Espa and it was a formative experience in my life. Wow. Nice. Thank you. Can I just one second because AFS loves the connection. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. Love it. Thank you. That was great. All right. Wonderful. Thank you. All right. All right. The next item on our agenda is the sustainability update. And I think I saw John. Yeah, we have John Crawford, uh, director of operations. and uh Kim Neestra, our director of nutrition services, along with some students um to share a little bit about our sustainability work. As you all know, the board approved the sustainability policy last year, and

125per your policy that the board passed a year ago, there are annual updates. And so, here is the required annual update for 2024. All right. Good evening. Uh, John Crawford, director of operations and sustainability. I'm Molen Wilson Thomas. I'm a sophomore at the high school. I'm Jexa. I'm about to graduate. So, I'm a senior. Kim Manestra, director of nutrition services. I I promised special ed that I'd get them on by 10:30. So, we're going to make this a little quick. I'm joking. Um, as doc as Dr. Campbell said, last February, we passed the Green New Deal, uh, ETHS Green New Deal sustainability policy last May. We presented our plan, some action items that we were going to take place this year, and, uh, we're here to report on those. Yeah. So, I'll kind of kick

126things off. So our goal number one is the sustainability plan and scorecard and this is kind of serving as the outline and the guiding framework as we approach some of the more in-depth facets of this plan. So this year we've managed to outline strategies and actions to meet the goals of the policies. We've established subcommittees which include students and staff and members of the community for each sub section of the plan. And we have presented scorecard values and actions to the board which we can check as we do that right now. Um so in progress still are the subcommittees that will meet monthly or quarterly. Um the main issue here I would say is trying to get more student involvement. It's I would say challenging to get a large number of students to commit to

127some of these more long-term farreaching projects. But this is something that we'll be working on going forward into next year. And we're excited about what we'll be able to accomplish. And then also in progress is the public facing web portal to report data and action items to the public. Yes. So Miss Hannah, their students are ready for you when the the new uh website comes out. And for the next goal is education. Um we have been able to provide professional development outside the classroom and we have a few pictures of um some waste sorting images that are on recycling and trash landfill bins around the school. Um also on the top is an image from this year's climate justice conference, the fourth annual such conference. Um, and we also had anything but a car day

128just recently, um, which was very successful to, um, talk to students about and staff about different ways to get to school because transportation is a really important facet of sustainability. Um, so there's a few other uh items that are in progress and um a lot of that has to do with presenting new employees with different ways that the Green New Deal policy and plan affect their jobs. Um, and there's a lot of different things going on with that. Um, especially with working groups. Um, and sustainability is just such a thing that affects so many different parts of different people's jobs that they don't maybe expect. So, just making sure that people know that in different ways. Um, and we will have a toolkit that should come out in the fall. Um, and we should be

129having more regular emails before breaks that um are announcing that we staff should unplug and shut off electronics in classrooms and close windows and doors to conserve energy. Um, and the new school website will allow us to recognize and showcase these efforts better and be able to see them. Yeah. Goal number three is greenhouse gas reduction. Uh we just completed our sixth year of the strategic energy management participation. Uh six straight years of energy reduction. Um last year we had 670 LED light upgrades. These were done by our in-house engineers. We have a detailed energy reduction roadmap laid out. We have projects ready to go just waiting for funding. Uh we also installed four VFD VFD drives on our heating pumps. These are pumps that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during

130the heating season. And uh we completed a Nycore energy assessment. Every 5 years they could come in the building, walk the entire building uh and provide some feedback on on ways to save some energy. Goal number four is also water conservation. uh we added a submeter. A building this large, we only had one water meter coming in. So when we'd get notifications from the city of Evston that there's a leak, you know, our engineers are running all over the building trying to find it. Um so we added one submeter, made sure it it tied into our building automation system. This summer we're going to add five more. So then every section of the building, we will know when the water we'll know when the water leak, what section of the building it's coming from. Uh

131part of that Nyore assessment, we we had 233 sink aiators installed by Nycore free of charge. Uh it' be a 2,000 therm savings for them. Electrification and right sizing of our current domestic hot water are it's right now it's fed by steam. So that's in progress. We have plans in place on how to do it. We're just waiting for funding. We provided our yearly steam trap audit. We found 30 bad steam traps. Um again in our in-house engineers replace those. We'll be getting a a rebate check from Nyore for those. And uh electrification of our current steam absorption chillers. That's, you know, our steam absorption chillers are 30 years old. Once we replace those, we'll be able to uh shut down our our heating plant during the summer months. Our next goal is waste and

132we've been planning on working with industry experts to perform a waste audit to figure out kind of what's going where if we're sorting our waste effectively. Um, and I mean composting and sorting waste correctly is a work in progress. It does take time to educate students again with the education piece um on what goes where and why it's important to compost. Um, and so we're planning on creating some videos to try and educate students on and staff on why that's important and where some common lunch items go. Um, and then also um we are prioritizing reuse, repurpose, recycle, restore, other more of the re uh words. Um, and there's so many of them and they're so important. Um, and also reducing single-use plastics. Um, you might see there's like cups over there that are um,

133glass instead of plastic that are reusable. Um, also we have the water monster purchase that um, saves or that replaces 1,6 single-use plastic water bottles, which is a lot of single-use plastic that we're saving every time we use this. And um, we use it for different student activity events. It it'll be being used tomorrow for the senior sendoff. So, come check it out. Uh, goal number six is food and beverages in the building. Um, some of the achieved goals are, um, we have a daily plant-based and locally sourced menu option every day. Um, eliminating plastic water bottles schoolwide. We switched to refillable condiments in place of single-use packets. And reusable plates and cutlery are now used for events for 50 people and under. Um, in progress, we um targeting 25% local and 50% scratch-made plant-based

134meals. And also in progress, we're focusing on fresh, minimally processed plant-based options, not highly processed beet substitutes. Um, one lesson we did learn is um the bulk bulk milk dispensers uh led to a decreased bell consumption. So, we we returned to cartons based on student feedback. Our next goal is healthy indoor and outdoor environments. Um we recently completed some different renovations including alumni hall and the nursing skills lab. Um those both used increased natural lighting and we improved the HVAC controls for thermal comfort and comfortable furniture that easily reconfigures to a variety of setups and ceilings that improve acou acoustics. Um, we were also able to um make a honey locust tree that um fell due to storm damage in senior courtyard into um some seeding for one of the other courtyards. You can see

135at that image on the bottom um there. And we also were able to plant 30 native trees in fall of 2024. Um, I think that picture might be from last year, but um, and we also were able to increase storm water management and native plants with this or with the studio theater edition uh, or their plans for that. Um, and yeah, so goal number eight is purchasing. So if we think of the school as kind of a living breathing organism with the waste coming out, we need something going in, right? And that is kind of what purchasing encompasses. So this can be anything from the classroom supplies to the food to the cleaning products. Um so a couple achievements this year. Um the school has uh instituted zerobased budgeting. You see the little investipedia graphic

136up there. But that's basically where all the purchases have to be justified rather than the board approving line item of budgets with then adding stuff on. So, this has been credited with cutting a lot of these non-essential functions that we see, especially as our fiscal bells, so to speak, are tightening in these areas of budget cuts. Um, sustainability budget account is another thing that's been established to help pay for for some of these sustainability improvements. again since we don't have a lot of the federal money coming in like we used to. And one uh anecdotal example of how zerobased budgeting and related uh fiscal reforms have been positive is our switch to pathosands which is a much cleaner and cheaper cleaning product made from salt water and electricity. Um, and this has helped us really

137dramatically cut down on a lot of these cleaners that we've been ordering, which are not good for the environment and are not good for our pocketbooks either. Um, so some areas we might have to improve on are educating our internal state court holders in terms of how to make the best um, financial decisions. And then also our purchases ideally should meet or exceed the environmentally preferred purchasing or EP. And a lot of these um fiscal improvements are important because our sustainability fund is directly funded by these savings from these cost cutting measures that really don't have a impact negatively on any of the schools operations that are only a positive. Like a couple of examples that John brought up in a meeting the other day, a lot of these contracts, if you some some significant

138cost savings have been achieved just by simply calling the provider, saying, "Hey, we'd like a lower price." Boom, half off, done. So, there's these really rather frustrating, right? But also simple improvements that we can get way easier than it is improvements that we can make. And again, all this money goes directly back into funding these energy improvements that will then pay for themselves. That's purchasing. Good job. Thanks, Olen. Uh, so how are we doing on our on our electrical savings this year? In 2024, we had over 335,000 kilowatt hours reduced for 4.7% savings. Um, and in the six years of our SEM, we've we've we're over 2.4 million kilowatt hours saved for 27.8% 8% reduction on the natural gas side. You see this year we actually had an increase in therms instead of a decrease.

139Um the bad news is we had an increase. The good news is we know why. Um one of our air conditioning systems is our ice storage machine which is an electrical m machine uh not natural gas and uh the compressors were going bad on it over the summer. We rely on that ice storage machine for weekend and after school events. It builds ice overnight and then we melt it the next evening. Um because it was unreliable, we were running the boilers more and our steam absorption chillers longer. So we know why we had the the increase. Um since then the two compressors have been changed on the ice storage machine. So so we're rocking. We're ready to go this year. Um but overall in the six years we've had 378,000 thems reduced uh for a

14033.7% reduction from our baseline greenhouse gas emissions kilowatts reduced plus the therms we increased this year we still had 253 tons reduction for 2.3% and over six years we're at 38% uh CO2 reduction. CFO's favorite slide, what are we saving? Um, avoided cost in electricity over 218,000. Natural gas 189 plus some uh incentive checks that we got back from SEM, from KMED, from Nycore for a grand total of uh 442,000. Some of the grants we applied for this year, this one was a a community change grant. Uh, it was a true community collaboration. Climate Action Evston, uh, District 65 partnered with us. Shout out Jack Jordan, uh, Jerry and and Joel from Climate Action Evston, uh, Millie and Karen from District 65, and of course Candace and Roman from our district, our grant writer. This

141was a six-monthlong grant we worked on. uh $20 million grant which 14 million was going to come to ETHS would have been able to electrify our chillers, electrify our domestic hot water. The west parking lot would have been park uh solar parking canopies with battery storage, EV charging stations, geometry and construction would have been fully electric and solar. Community service would add funding come to it and uh Dr. Davis knows curriculum development was a huge part of this. Um Dr. Davis and our science department chair were working on what it was going to look like. Um we applied for it in November and then in January it was paused. So not the greatest hopes it's coming back, but the work we put in is is allowing us to apply for other grants when they come

142up. So we're ready to go. Next is the Cook County Arts Creative Placemaking Grant. Um this was uh Evston roots community heritage garden was the idea. Um it was a true community collaboration between climate action Evston the community service office and emerge groups and uh Eton Sunrise and Evston ASPA and local artists. Um it would have be I say would be because we're we haven't heard back yet. We're going to hear back in June. Um it's a 250k grant to transform an underutilized exterior courtyard. Um the one that is kind of by door two. Um it would do we would make an art exhibit and a community space, outdoor classroom space and um a mural um that honors Evston residents past and present. We would also you install a native pollinator garden and a little

143free library and a community fridge. And so we'll hear hear from that in June. All right. So a few weeks ago with help from Candace San Roman of ETHs. Um Etown Sunrise applied for a grant from Da Vinci, which is a Canadian bike manufacturing company. Um this grant amount was for $3,500. And our hope is if this grants awarded, we'll be able to build a shelter for the bikes over the bike racks near door 2. So, this vision kind of arose from speaking with a lot of students partly at the anything but a car day and also outside of school about how they get to school and some of their biggest concerns. We know that in the spring and in the fall months, we see a lot more people biking. Our rough estimates put about

14410% of the student staff collective population which is a significant number. That's a lot of car trips that are not being tapped. That's a lot of exercise that's being undertaken. Um but we see some significant drop offs during winter and during periods of more inclement weather. And one of the biggest reasons we attribute this to is that students actually don't want their bikes to get damaged or changed to get eroded. I mean, compared to cars, bikes are actually quite sensitive to the elements, especially over prolonged periods of time. And we know that students need these consistent ways of transportation if they want to make this a viable way of getting to school. Um, so yeah, so this grant was for $3,500. We know that this is not going to cover the full amount, but we

145hope that this can provide more of a proof of concept to the board if it's awarded that we can get it's a little bit more funding, likely under $10,000. there's not going to be a significant expense and this isn't some controversial bike lane, but this is a concrete way that we can allow more students to bike to school and that's going to directly reduce the car trips on the road as well. We've also applied for a $5,000 grant today actually with another organization. We'll be hearing back from that in June. So, more to come. Um some ways that nutrition services is supporting local and reducing waste is um we use the common market which is a non-for-profit food distributor that helped us source more local products year round. The we have USDA funds that supported

146our local purchasing efforts and we've gone up um to 10% of our total food budget went to local items this year um including produce. It's not just just produce. It includes meat, rice, oats, and more. Uh we partnered with SFSP pack which is a refillable chemical company that significantly reduces single-use plastics, bottles, and jugs. So we are able to just do our refill our chemicals and not use the jugs. Oh, and then nutrition. Um our our future plans, we're exploring alternatives to replace all plastic beverages in the building um such as you know more sustainable options like paper or aluminum. And then we would like to transition to more durable reusable melamine trays for student meals to replace single-use paper alternatives. Some additional highlights and plans. Uh ETHs partnered with Climate Action Evston again. We

147had a an accelerator event here at the district in in March. Um it was a student and community event where uh some lower ticket items that we could possibly do before school begins next year. um some bike infrastructure. They're looking for bike repair station, a pump uh an emerged uh project emerge team is working with the geometry and construction, possibly hosting a 5K uh to to get those buildings solar and then you know students are really really wanting outdoor learning spaces. So looking at that and how we could maybe provide space in some of our courtyards for outdoor learning. Um, we were selected by the US Department of Energy energy class champions leading the advancement of sustainable schools. We were one of 60 school districts nationwide selected for the program. Uh, we met twice and

148it's been shut down. Uh, we were nominated in three categories for efficient and healthy school recognition. Uh, retrofit for our LED upgrades. We've we've done over 3,000 over the last six years. uh performance pro for our SEM energy reduction and solution strategist for the the green new deal policy and plan. Um that program has been paused as well. Sustain Evston contact or city of Evston contacted us a few weeks ago. Um their sustain Evston program now includes school districts. It's a $25,000 grant because we had these projects lined up ready to go. We applied for one and we got it. So, we're going to be installing 10 VFT drives this summer. Uh, our engineers will be doing it in-house and um it's $31,000 worth of equipment. So, $25,000 from Evston, we're paying for it. They'll

149they'll pay themselves back within the first month. These are will be on the remaining heating pumps that we have. Kameed has a huge program right now for High Bay athletic wing gym lights. So, we'll be installing 112 of those this summer. Um they $40 installed per light fixture and uh 10-year warranty on them. It is no longer purchasing classroom printers. They performed a soft launch this year by just not doing it and uh it went over well. So it might be news to some of the teachers back here, but so they are they're rolling with it. there. They will no longer be we have a duplicating center where they they could make copies. Uh department chair offices have printers if they really need it. Our ETHS libraries had donated over 1,400 lb of books to

150knowledge exchange. Uh this avoids the landfill. They they're repurposed and reused. Um it's the equivalent of 17 trees. Uh our chrome zone does a tremendous job of repair and reusing all Chromebooks. Um they ask seniors to donate their Chromebooks back at the end of the year. They have 10 years of of uh updates available. Um so we have extra ones. The students take them apart, build new ones. It's a tremendous program. Constellation Energy came out and did an energy efficiency assessment. We're still waiting to hear back from them, but they are our our natural gas and electrical provider. So looking at ways how we could decarbonize. Um our SEM program public sector, we came in second place. I I don't like saying that too much, but the the school district that came in first place

151was Elgen Elgen Consolidated School District, and they have way more schools, and they're new to the program. So it was a tight race, but we ended up in second place. And then this year, we're doing 500 more LED replacements through the ISB $50,000 MA matching grant. and our engineers believe that this will be the last LEDs installed and they're very excited about that. And then lastly, recruit, recruit, recruit. Like Olen said, it's difficult to get a lot of students involved. I mean, they're they're doing so much. So, we we've been meeting in the mornings. We've been meeting after school whenever they're available, but we're just going to keep recruiting and and trying to fill in the ranks. And that's it. Any questions? Great. comments. Nice. Very exciting. Not exciting to hear about some of those

152grants that got paused. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of work, but Yeah. Like I said, it wasn't a waste of time because we have there was a lot of leg work we needed to do anyway and and now we have all those numbers and data and ready to go. Yeah. And you can kind of move them Exactly. to the next opportunity that comes for you. Yes. Very very wise. Yeah. Very wise. Okay, board questions. Anybody? Pat, not a question, just a thank you because I this is a lot of work and um it's great Kim and John, you're doing your leadership is terrific and thank you to our students because I remember a few years ago this plan came from students and um not that we weren't doing a lot of stuff already and

153trying to be better, but our students really pushed us to elevate and so it's great to have you here um and all of your work on this is is really important. So, thank you all. Thank you. Great. Others, John. Yeah. So, there there was two things. One, I I'm struggling to find it here in in in the board packet, but I thought I saw something like you were applying. Uh I it was like for the efficiency like with do like the lawn work and doing like all robotic. It was something with the city. Does that It's not with the city. Uh you're talking about green zone certification. Yeah. Yeah. So that's still in the works. Okay. Um but yeah, all of our all of our landscaping is 100% robotic, electric, or battery operated. That's Yeah.

154So we have 29 robotic lawnmowers throughout. I saw them this afternoon when I drove by. Right. Yeah. It's so Scott loves them. That's amazing. Um and then there was one other thing. This is like very specific, but something that actually came up during my campaign and it was kind of lightly touched on with with the water savings that that we're seeing. Um, like and this was something I experienced. I was years ago, but in the locker room, the boys locker room, but for the pool, all the showers just have a single turn on. So, if you turn on a shower, you turn on 10 showers, and you can't just turn on a single shower. Is that anywhere on the list? Yes, it's definitely on the list. And and to to since you mentioned the swimming

155pool. Yeah. The swimming pool hot water comes from the power plant on Lake and Dodge. Yeah. The swimming pool is at church and Dodge. So you could speaking of inefficiencies, right? There's a lot of gas. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you. That was excellent. That was very good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, John. Other questions? If not, I also want to express gratitude to all of you and and thank you for continuing to bring this forward. Um, I just really think it's so important. I've learned a lot and um hopefully we'll continue to get these reports and and uh thank you for looking for opportunities and grants to take advantage of. So, um so thank you. Thank you to the students and like you said recruiting students is really important because

156in in a way this is this is our future. Um it's really important for students to understand this because this will be their future as well. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. [Applause] All right. The next item is the special education report for 2023 24. Now there's the team. have Amy Berbick, our director of special education, introduce her team. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. I'm actually going to ask the team to introduce themselves just so they can share a little bit about um their area of specialty uh the to represent our department. So, I'll start with Patrick. Good evening. I'm Patrick Chambers. I'm the assistant director of special education overseeing special programs. Hi, I'm Millison Griffin. I am the other assistant director of special education overseeing

157case managers, coordinators, articulation, and compliance. Thanks. Hello, I'm Vad Basich and I am the department chair of special education. I oversee day-to-day management, pair professionals, teachers. I support with problem solving, instructional, and anything Millie and Amy tell me to do. Tamil Tarant the third assistant director uh of operations. I oversee the day school as well as any other student who is placed off campus and transportation and um great. So um we are uh pleased to be before you this evening um to tell you about the work of the special education department this year. Um in your report um we have prepared for you um a board goals crosswalk um where we've identified um kind of all of the work of the department across the four board goals. Um we are going to share um some

158significant highlights with you. Um some things we're very proud of um and proud of our teams um in in what they've accomplished this year. Um and then um under board goal one, equitable uh and excellent education, we want to share with you our student demographics. Um of course this is our responsibility to monitor our student body um our students with IEPs um and um what their areas of disability are uh and what their other identities um are described as. Um and that informs our work in terms of how we're developing our programming for special education. Um included in that is student performance data. Um uh just as you've um asked for quarterly um data reporting, we do the same. Um we do actually weekly uh data gathering and monitoring and that informs our team's work.

159Um and we'll um expand on that a little bit in our report. Um we'll address student well-being um and our efforts to provide um social emotional supports within the classroom as well as through related services um and in our program development. And um a cornerstone of work in special education is around transition planning. And so that has to do with community engagement um and partnerships within the Evston Skoi community um that we'll describe for you. um a lot of our accomplishments in that work. Um and then also some areas um of growth that we have. Um if we have opportunity, we might share a few student stories. Um and then finally um of course our commitments um from this point forward. So just as I shared um again this is a lot of fine print.

160it's in our report. Um, but this just really um illuminates um the work of the department across the uh board goals. Um, and again, we will um share some details um through through the data that we share with you this evening. Some of the highlights we really want to raise up um and acknowledge our department uh for their good work are the following. um for this school year. Uh when we look at semester 1 data, we're able to identify that 86 86% of our students with IEPs earned A's, B's, or C's in special education classes. We can also share that 93% of students with IEPs earned passing grades in special education classes. So, we see a significant number of students being successful. um we are concerned about that 7% and so um that's some deeper

161data that we've looked at um in terms of what those students require and need and what implications the uh that has for um our continued work and problem solving. Um, data continues. I we've shared this with you in years past. Data continues to demonstrate that our general education co-eing model has been increasing the performance of all students compared to our same sections that are not co-taught. So again, this has implications for the um teacher resource of having a two-teer model in the classroom. It certainly provides the support needed for our students with IEPs. Um but we'll share some data with you about how compelling it is that all students um benefit from that model um and are achieving at higher levels because of that um instructional approach. Um, and to that end, because our data

162continues to show um the um the value of co-eing, we have been able to increase access to co-t talk classes by 30% this year and we're slated to um uh add to that increase um for the next school year as well. our ETHs therapeutic day school um since its inception in 2020. Um we have graduated 37 students um from from that program. Something we're very proud of. We actually had a ceremony today um for three students um within that small program that again have earned uh the uh graduation uh uh requirements um towards graduation. So it's wonderful news. Um, additionally, we have either been able to reintegrate fully or dually enroll 18 students to the main building. Um, and so again, that's building that bridge for our students who require that level of support to

163come back to their home school and access supports, activities, um, some amount of their instructional time within their home school. Um again um really important um bridges to build. Some additional highlights. Um we currently this year have 35 students in 25 onampus or community-based vocational training sites. Um this is such a of critical importance to our students who are going to go um directly into the workforce to have these opportunities now um with supportive uh job coaches and uh and teaching staff um to provide those opportunities early and often uh to gain those skills. Um we have maintained 12 ongoing community vocational partnerships in the community. Um these uh some of these are very long-standing um partnerships um that our students um have these work experiences in um and some have uh additionally led to

164students being employed full-time after they've exited from special education programming. Um we have three three new site partners this year. Um, and we add different um sites and uh and community uh opportunities based on student enrollment and their interests so that we're correlating um vocational experiences with their um interests and strengths. And we're endeavoring to look for um continued uh additional partnerships within the community to support students um employment goals. Um, another key, um, statistic to share with you, and 18 seems to be our magic number. I I think we need to go buy a lottery ticket of some kind. Um, but we have exited 18 students from special education this year to general education full-time. Um, you know, that's um maybe a small number to some of you, but um when we think about

165the percentage of students who have special education or IEP needs, um this is significant. in one year's time uh to have done the appropriate data collection um and for students who have earned um their way uh to not needing services um any longer. So this really good news and again 18 magic number here 18 students um just recently have uh we have found have received funding for college through the department of rehabilitative services. Um we have actually had 39 students who have applied for that college funding. Um so we're awaiting responses for many, but this is a record high for us um for our students to have um received funding um to support their post high school plans. So it's very exciting. Next, we're going to shift into our student demographics to give you um

166a sense of who our students are and um and what this information tells us um as the leaders of special education and our responsibility for how we provide services. So, this first um chart is telling you our enrollment this year by disability category. I will tell you that this is based on what the student's primary disability is. Some students have a secondary or even could have multiple disabilities. Um but the way it is um identified in the state is through their primary disability. Most of these numbers in terms of the category of eligibility are um kind of on trend. Um so we've seen this pattern um for several years. I will note that other health impairment um we've seen an increase in students who are eligible under that category. Um so again those would be

167health related needs. One of the most common um that is found under o health impairment is um ADHD. Um so again this is um information for us. It um then tells us about what we need to be considering related to programmatic um supports um or related services and likely staffing needs. Next, we're sharing with you the percent of students with IEPs by race um and student enrollment. Um so on the left you see um our students with IEPs by race and then on the right you see our total student body um by race. Um and just by the visual alone um you know we recognize where we see some disproportionality um in special education. Um we've talked about this each year um and um and see those areas that tell us about ourselves. Um so

168again this has to do with identification um of students with IEPs. Um identification of a disability um by race um has some significant implications for us about um what are those factors right um uh that that get us to this place. Um so these are things that we monitor um and um and then guide our work um in terms of what we need to be looking at related to any kind of exclusionary factors uh for disability c uh categories. And the next area that we monitor um is the placement continuum. So, this has to do with how much special education students have um and uh and then our if we're on trend um and if we see any increases in need um for our students uh related to the level of support. So, we've provided

169here for you um this comparison from 2023 um to now um and you can see um some encouraging things. for example, um you know the first line is the least restrictive environment. So that means students who are in general education most of their day. So we have a relative um uh increase there uh which is encouraging and it's on trend with the amount of resources we've put towards co-eing as well. Um the other thing you will you will will be able to note is that you can see a slight um kind of increase in the last couple of years around students requiring private day um uh private day programming. Um so that is always concerning for us because that means students are away from their home high school. Um but of course we know that

170there's a lot that goes into that that students require that level of therapeutic support and those related services. Um but again we we want to monitor that um pay attention uh to what that is telling us about um our services on the main campus uh for our school community. And then the last thing I'll note um is that um slight increase um or a notable increase um for private residential um so again students who are requiring that level of um you know 24-hour care um around their um social emotional or safety based needs in order to get their education. Um and then the last thing we want to share here I believe are um students with IEPs in our off-campus settings. Um so this would include Park School um our public day school and those

171private therapeutic day um uh programs that I mentioned. Um we and this is by race. uh we want to pay attention to this so that we are again monitoring for disproportionality and then also for um any type of exclusionary characteristics in decision-m uh related to those placements. Um again we're we look at this also related to our student body enrollment um and um and see if there is proportion there. Um, and so you can see, um, for those students who are in an off-campus placement, um, we see a slight decrease, uh, for our white students, a slight increase for African-American, black students, um, about the same for Hispanic, Latinx, um, and somewhat the same for Asian or two or more races. And next we're going to shift into student performance data. And I'm going to

172ask Rada to speak to that. All right, it's a little bit past my bedtime. So if I start mumbling, just follow along on the slides. Um, so we currently provide 14 different graduation requirement courses in a co-taught model with a total of 31 sections. As indicated, this is an increase of seven sections to expand our ability to support more students both with and without IEPs. Uh we also have been able to increase the sections for next year. Uh the data shows us that students are successful in our co-taught classes. The percentage of students with an IEP earning A, B, or C in co-taught classes have been increasing over the past three years. Over the past several years, students with an IEP and without an IEP in COT talk classes outperform students with an IEP and

173without an IEP in non-COTTO general education classes. To highlight a few classes we see this with uh we have humanities, our humanities co-taught. Our next slide that's yeah our next slide is our civics co-op. And our next slide is our geometry co-taught. This affirms for us that the commitment to co-eing is meeting our instructional outcomes for all students and therefore is an effective use of human resources. As this is an important investment, we take it seriously that we need to assess for efficacy in order to continue to advocate for this teaching and learning model. We want to recognize what is working, but we also want to identify what is not working and for whom, so we can address interventions with an equity focus. Looking at semester 1 data in our special education classes, as we

174indicated, 86% of our students in the classes earned A, B, or C. 93% of them passed in the special education classes. However, 12% of our Hispanic or Latino students with IEPs have failed a special education class first semester, which is a significant number. This indicates to us a need to look more closely at that student need. not represented in the slide. Going back to this um not represented in this slide is the day school data and currently day school students are passing all of our day school students are passing at 85% or higher with ABS and C's. Uh as a team we have focused on freshman performance as we recognize the importance of this year for our students in their four-year trajectory. In the opening school report, we saw that our freshman on track metric

175was closer to 78% for students with IEPs, which is aligned with the range of 79 to 90 for this metric in years past. Not reflected in this slide, though, is our first semester data indicated 86% of our freshman students were passing their core classes, including PE. However, at the quarter, we call it the third quarter dip, we were down to 79%. Looking deeper into that third quarter data, um, our students are outperforming ontrack me measures from last year's data in English, social studies, and PE. This is both in special ed and gened classes, but not in science and math. Important to note is not a lot of students with IEPs take science their freshman year. In addition, our pre-alggebra and algebra 1 classes are not offered co-taught, but the algebra one is offered team taught,

176which is with two gened teachers. Hi. So, I'll be talking next about student well-being. Um, our culturally responsive SEAL integration and teaching and learning. We have targeted interventions for students with multiple risk factors, including one-to-one support and action planning, bi-weekly collaboration with the deans, our tiered internal problem solving for responsive intervention development, explicit effort and differentiated approach toward obtaining student perspective on their needs and goals to build student engagement. Continued NC progress process align with schoolwide process while allowing for individualized goal setting and credit recruitment options. Continued CPI NCI crisis intervention, verbal intervention and continued restorative practices implementation. our special programs orientation which is team self-contained classrooms therapeutic day school that provides structured learning spaces with lower staff to student ratio that fosters a sense of belonging through increased individ individualization student discipline data with

177utilizing FBA and BIPS to service towards prevention patterns improved behavior interventions and data protocols Here we would like to highlight that the literacy lab and the academic support center are consistently the highest student academic supports being utilized across our students with special education. Our next slide shows that there are a high number of students with IEPs that continue to require support to interventions through the dean's office which may lead to consequences. These numbers speak not only to the student need but has implications for student schoolwide need to support students with IEPs and their behavior and social emotional learning. The bi-weekly work with the deans are important as we continue to tie our efforts into monitoring services, reviewing and updating behavior plans and interventions. This slide shows um talks about absences and truency. This data has

178implications for us regarding early interventions as the data shows us that if there is a pattern of absences, it continues to remain across all quarters, which is why we are currently targeting attendance-based interventions for next year. We do not know um sorry uh we do not know how and what those interventions um are going to be but that highlights that we have some progress for now I can't even see our next slide uh talks about our problem solving um so if you look at the interventions the Problem solving and interventions refers to the IEP teams and how they are proactively problem solving around interventions and aligning this IEPs with attendance, academic performance, and/or behavior and well-being needs. While 12 to 14% of our students have required significant interventions that address academic, social, emotional, and attendance-based

179needs. So the bigger blue um is the problem solving team that is on the the case managers, coordinators and teams. And then we have our tiered approach which addresses and brings in our administrative team to help support those interventions and and thought processes. And if I could just acknowledge um one thing um on these uh past few slides um this is all data that is part of the data dashboard um and so um you know we're utilizing that in our work um and so we wanted to just kind of reiterate it or bring it back here um so that you know that we're doing our due diligence with that data as well. Um this particular slide is the one that I share with you when um when I come um when you're reviewing that data

180um because it speaks specifically to the IEP teams uh you know of which Millie and Rada um you know really lead the way um and and again just kind of illuminates how many of our students are utilizing the supports within special education um and then how many students we are concerned about right and that we're adding additional tiered um supports um and interventions and supporting teams in their work with students um who are at risk or or critical. Um and uh to just re remind um anyone, the the critical list would be students that were at the point of calling um additional IEP meetings because we're identifying that students likely need more or different. Um and so that may result in additional services or um uh placement changes on the continuum um because of the

181the level of the student need. The next slide shows um a slight decrease in students with IEPs participating in extracurricular activities. Um however, it does show a increase in students with IEPs in um engagement in activities such as our summits, uh the black, brown, and breathing, homecoming, and prom. And we just don't have the school year 25 data yet as the school year's still coming to a close. Um but we'll be able to add that um as so that we have that trend data to follow. And then family engagement, we host different activities throughout the year or participate alongside our counterparts. Um we have our special education night, information night. We we participate in incoming freshman information night, incoming freshman course request nights, IEP articulation meetings, as well as our transition information series. um those

182transition and information nights. Those are our parent engagement nights and those are part of our programming where we're we're um it's a tiered approach where we're starting with the students in the classroom doing our transition planning and trans transition activities. Um and then we build with that family education about our community resources and then that um along that continues then we're connecting our families with those outside agencies or those uh outside resources. Um so our community engagement partnership with center for independent features uh it's an ongoing relationship um and they're the ones who are in partnership with are hosting those transition events with their families. Those are started with a poll to the families where we're asking what their interests are or what their their questions are and then um uh based on their feedback

183we we work with CF to then um uh spell out what the the engagement nights are going to be over the course of the the year. Um CIF also partners with us to support our transition house. Um uh and they've they created a alumni social group that meets uh I think twice a month. It's free of charge uh but it houses an opportunity for students or former students to uh gather at a pizza place and have an opportunity uh to hold community. um comprehensive skills assessment is part of our um uh the plan that we have with them and it's a transition assessment tool which kind of helps us identify where a student's strengths are along with what some of their uh deficits might still be. uh they've um they're continuing to do a summer

184camp for uh with our students and it's uh last year it was called Travel the Town where they're kind of exploring how to engage with our community and how to really spell it out in a sort of adultting manner. Um and then there's the uh personalized transition support lessons uh that they do at the house and at the day school. our post high school planning support. Uh we partner with the college and career center. Um uh we've done um a number of field trips to the Evson rebuilding exchange. We've done a field trip to um uh Oakton for diversability uh with a number of students. Um this year we did a trip to Symbol Training which is um a trade school institute. Uh we've had continued growth of our post-secary education, vocational training, and independent

185living support through our use of our transition and vocational coordinator and our transition specialists. Next, uh one of our bigger um community partners is our is our relationship with DRS uh and our secondary transitional experience program, which is called a STEP program. Um, we have we currently have 73 students enrolled through the STEP contract, which is a huge increase. It's a all-time high for us. Uh, 39 seniors have applied for college and trade school funding through DRS and 18 have received funding. Uh, like Amy had said, um, of those 39, we're still waiting to hear back as, um, that 18 is not definitive. It could be increasing. um continued work with the city of Evston with the youth and young adult division and the work workforce development department for summer paid employment opportunities and then

186our um ongoing relationship or collaboration with Evston case which is a uh parent and student advocacy agency. Uh some highlights for our community partners uh is we have 15 students uh in the community working for or job training for job training without uh job coach support. So that's independently at a job site uh using natural um workplace supports. Uh we've had a number of uh additions Kurts Cafe, Seville Flowers, and the PTO Community Center. Um these are in response to student interest. And then we have our ongoing partnerships with Three Crowns, Target, Jets Pizza Flowers, Rex's Place, and others. So with all did it again, um with all of that that um we've shared, we want to um kind of reiterate for you our focused commitments um given what we know um and understand about

187our student needs. Um we continue to explore um and expand our continuum of services. Um we have increased enrollment at our day school um and in some of our special programs. And so um you know we take it very seriously to utilize student data to help inform where we put our um teaching staff and our pair professional staff and our related services. Um so that commitment to uh monitoring our continuum so that we are aligning that with student need is paramount. Um of course we um work to center equity um in all of our work um and utilizing student needs uh to drive our decision-m. Um so um everything we do is with the students first um and using this data that we've put before you and other data as well um that we're gathering

188weekly uh to inform our decision- making um and and take that responsibility very seriously. Um we are committed to inclusionary practices. We know that that is a schoolwide commit. Um and so we look for every opportunity we can to model that work um and to partner with department chairs across other academic departments um to look at curricular elements um and ways that we can accommodate and modify instruction so that that provides those um doorways to stay open for our students to be in general education to the greatest extent possible. Um, we've actually also identified some ambassadors um, in general education that are really committed to and skilled in that inclusionary work. Um, and uh, kind of trying to build an ambassador um, team across uh, the district to um, help others who are still learning

189about ways in which to modify um, and accommodate students um, in their general education classes. Um, as Millie spoke to, um, and Rada as well, our tiered interventions, um, we utilize a tiered intervention model, um, and have improved our problem solving model, um, to be responsive in that way, um, even within special education. Um and so um you know the data we gathered just as we mentioned things like um students who are at risk or students who are critical um again those are data driven decisions um and metrics that we're using to then determine um how we intervene um on students behalf. Um and then lastly, as we just um kind of elaborated on, um our community partners um are a critical element of our instructional model um and the way in which we gather

190um engage our families because they are um such important partners and members of the IEP team um to support uh their students uh well-being and um instruction and uh overall achievement in high school. Um, so, uh, you know, we're very committed to how we engage the community, um, and, um, and that we're ever expanding that reach, um, as well as looking for new and, um, and better ways to engage with our families, uh, to ensure that they, um, feel an active member, um, of of our partnership and of the team. I think we have one student story we're going to share with you just to kind of um share uh um the work that we do, the work that our teams do and I think Tanil's going to take that. All right. So, the only

191student story we're going to share is demonstrates the importance of recognizing student needs, making diff difficult decisions as an IEP team uh to move a student to a more restrictive environment. So after struggling at the main campus, we have a student uh that had over 30 discipline referrals here at the main campus mostly for hall wandering disrupting the environment. Um the student experienced um a remarkable turnaround in a very short time that he's been at the day school. Um at first he was resistant with attending, didn't want to come. However, the support of the staff who built strong relationships with him and the smaller environment which we recognized that he needed um the student is now thriving. Um he's maintained excellent attendance. He's earned straight A's right now. He comes into my office and asks

192me every day to check his grades and make sure I call his mom and tell her. Um and most importantly, he feels supported and valued. um proving what can be achieved by recognizing our student needs and giving them what they what they need to be successful. Um after the student after some time uh he has come into my office numerous times asked if he could go to graduation and prom at the main campus. I said absolutely. He's like great. I'd never want to leave. Um, so just to kind of demonstrate that sometimes even though we don't like to move kids to a more restrictive environment, recognizing a student need to give them what they uh need to be successful access their academics is is necessary. I want to give a little shout out. Um, uh,

193the Teams program, uh, is starting their own micro business and so, uh, a couple blocks throughout the week, they're coming around with their cart and they're selling, uh, teams treats. Uh, it's a bag full of, um, somewhat healthy treats. Um it started out as all healthy stuff and then they got some complaints that it just was um not scratching the itch. Um so um so anyways uh just uh keep an eye out for that. And last but not least um this slide is just illustrating some of the great things that we're doing at the day school. Um over the last three years our um our enrollment has increased 27% and our attendance has increased 12%. Um we promote the circle of courage framework emphasizing belonging, mastery, independence and generosity. Um students have opportunities to interact

194with therapy animals like Harriet the bunny and our bearded dragon Rocco. Um it helps them build empathy and responsibility. Physical activities such as biking and boxing promotes wellness, self-regulation and confidence. So some of the experiences uh that we do on a daily basis or weekly basis um encouraging our students uh social, emotional, physical development and their whole well-being. And finally, we just want to make a few acknowledgements. Um, I just want to acknowledge Dr. Carrie Levy um for being my partner in um reviewing all of our data and helping uh to assemble it in a way that I hope um was constructive and and meaningful. Um big shout out to Nicole Johnson um and Liz Shrader who are our transition team uh within special education. They are leaders in our work around um all of

195our post high school planning for our students. Uh all of our vocational um and employment related work. Um and as you saw from the um highlights that we've shared um that has led to some really important outcomes this year too. So big shout out to them. And then of course to the entire special education department and staff. Um you know uh everything that we have um shared with you tonight that is a result of uh an incredible dedication of our teachers, our pair professionals, our related service providers um and um you know has led to some really important outcomes for students. So thank you to them and thank you all. All right. Thank you for that report. I I um there's so much I know that the special ed department um is doing on a

196regular basis. In fact, I always think about special ed department as touching like all aspects of the school. Um, you have a probably a very large staff like how many people are in in is your 95 with our contracted staff. Yeah, that's a lot. It's big department. Yes. Much needed, I'm sure. Most definitely. Much needed. Um, okay. Board questions. Hi. And, um, thank you. I know this is a lot and it's very late. um without being asking the question that is so basic but yet I kind of feel the need to which is um I was thinking about I was trying to list all the things that you're helping our students to do engage exit enter excel have these meaningful experiences and I'm thinking about the systemic barriers that exist still within our locus of

197control and I was just wondering If you wanted to identify just for our ears and future work, one or two of those that you kind of were hinting around, but maybe more explicitly just to leave us with that, like, hey board, we need you to think about this. I'm just looking at my team because I really want to give them an opportunity to to kind of bring voice to something. But otherwise, I'm sure I have plenty. But I can I can talk about co-eing just because that has been kind of a focus. Um just if we're thinking about systemic barriers is just our access of our students having access to that co-eing model and and really prioritizing that. um when it comes to staffing and sectioning and keeping the number of students that need co-eing

198in mind when we do our programming in sectioning because that offers the ability for students to be able to access that curriculum in a much more meaningful way. Um I think we also have a number of interventions throughout the school that maybe are not accessible for special education that we are exploring how do we make it more accessible um and working with the other departments. So uh those are two things that highlight Um I appreciate that Rada and I would say um in addition uh to what Rada offered um you know so just as uh co-eing provides that opportunity um to provide that ongoing support um for students in more rigorous classes. One of the um other pieces that we um identify are students who are being brought up for initial evaluation for special education

199in high school. Um and so that's very concerning to be 14, 15, 16 years old um and um entering high school um and not being successful. Um we recognize that there are things that happen before uh they come to us um but also or and also um we have responsibility and obligation for how we intervene on their behalf. Um, and so I would say one of the things that elementary schools do differently and arguably better than high schools is um actual true progress monitoring and intervention. Um, you know, in those short intervals. Um, as a high school, we are um, you know, we're sectioning driven and we are uh, credit bearing class driven, right? and we have, you know, very strict enrollment numbers and things of those natures that um that are those structural pieces

200for how we operate because we're so complex. Um but they also can be barriers because we don't have flexible staffing um or a flexible staffing model to be able to push in supports for a time. Um right. So that when we identify that a student is struggling um how do we push in to those environments to try to identify um those concerning areas and intervene on those on that uh those students behalf, right? And uh with that we would be able to in four to six weeks um uh very likely mediate an issue uh or mitigate it um and resolve it. Um and yet what happens is a pattern of failure for a student and then of course out of concern um you know our staff uh bring a student up to say they need

201more they need different uh and that could result to result in an evaluation for special education. So it's a very large um complex kind of um uh pattern but it is something um that we struggle with. That's something we partner with our colleagues um across departments um as we're as we're able. Um but it is something that I I reckon with in terms of how can we push in supports um and and support students needs um so that we are not overidentifying students um and putting them on a more restrictive path. So centering a a lot of what you said in our tier one space um is key. Absolutely. And you know um you know the data will show that those students um that become uh the students who are evaluated for special education are

202students who are black and brown. Thank you Leah. Hi. Um so first I just wanted to acknowledge and say that I appreciate um you're sharing you know a lot about the hard and important work you all do and some of the things that we can feel positively about for sure uh like a high percentage of students passing their classes increasement an increase in engagement and involvement in school um and thus I would say and belonging. Um, one thing that jumped out to me and in the spirit of Meera's question, I curious like what we should know as a board about the factors contributing to this is the chronic truency numbers and I'm a little bit more curious about what um factors you see contributing to that or systemic barriers because I just wanted to highlight

203I was looking at the third the data dashboard about students in general with seven or more unexcused absences and we look at our students as a whole that's 6%. And then with students with IEPs, it's 38%. Which is more than one in three. Um, and before I give you a chance to respond, I do want to um acknowledge and um praise the fact that I noticed in the written report for interventions, you specifically talked about having a commitment to developing and collaborating intervention actions related to chronic truency um and in building truency that and how it intersects with students IEP based needs. That's seems so important and while also saying that you want to engage in the district's um schoolwide and in and plans for students in general um with truency and chronically chronic absences.

204So I'm going to say one thing first but um I wanted to give Rada some opportunity to talk about um some of the work she's been doing. Um but I appreciate the question and um and do want to start with that acknowledgement that this is a schoolwide issue. Um so um you know and again it it lends or it leads to some of my other commentary right about um overidentifying students for special education when there's a chronic truency issue. And again, this is all in the spirit of we're trying to help students um but students who aren't in classes haven't been able to receive instruction um and receive intervention, right? And um those are exclusionary factors for special education. Um, so I would just say, you know, first and foremost, we we know as a

205district that this is an issue. Um, and um, and so we're really eager to be partnering on some truency in initiatives. Um, and have a committee um, to that end. Um, and and right so it's always an and with us. So, it's us participating in that work and utilizing those resources that are a part of a grant um that has been funded and um and working on that from a from a schoolwide perspective. And then uh what Roder will share in terms of some of our efforts um or our future thinking around attendance-based and truency based issues. So Millie and I have been focused on data. We're like two brains in one. I don't know. Um we finish each other's thoughts, questions, ideas. Um but we've really been asking this a lot since since first

206quarter since reviewing our first quarter data. Um and if you take a look at our chronic truency rate um those numbers the 83 86 80 that's like a cumulative um so that that indicates like we started off with 83 first quarter and then it's that same 83 plus three and then that 80 goes it dropped right um second semester is when we initiated our new tiered intervention model thank you Millie um and it's more of a it's a problemolving strategy where it really highlights and focuses on our our students in a more intentional way. Um, so I think I mean we don't know for sure but you know if you take all these different factors and and when you're more intentional with the problem solving um and implementing interventions early on identifying supports maybe even

207moving through those continuums in a more um you know doing those interventions with fidelity and moving to through the continuum when it's necessary we we can see progress. So, um I you had a lot to what you were asking, so I'm trying to pick little pieces of it. No, that's okay. Um but this is a question that we are exploring and one of the things that we're looking to do next year, um actually before I get there, um can we go to our third quarter data? Um uh the word Yeah, that one. Maybe this one. um I don't know so many data charts and it's late so I'll try to be quick um but we we identify we know that when we target a student population like we did in our our district OKRs as

208well as our department OKRs we see progress we see growth we saw that with our freshmen um we saw that with our um African-American or black students especi primarily our freshmen um and we're seeing now that need to expand right to target our interventions. Um we're seeing that our students who are Latino or Hispanic have higher truency and chronic absenteeism rates than our other groups. Uh what we're hopefully what we're piloting next year is a learning strategies that's attendancebased um that'll allow our 11th and 12th graders to have more um I guess more of I don't Millie maybe you want to explain it better but like uh a more intensive intervention uh regarding credit recovery. um in school belonging uh access to post-secary planning um as well as like alternative pathways to that end goal

209right because when we can offer more pathways for our students we can we engage with them and their families early on we can bring them in so I think we are identifying those needs or we're it's it's a lot um and we're picking up pieces where we can to try to move forward and to also to piggy back off of all of what Rada has said um also if you go oh you're on in this life. Um so what we're trying to do um and what we're going to continue to problem solve at this level is that if we know that we are going to have an uptick in that second quarter, the intention is that we are going to take those bubble kids. So at one point those 22 students who were not chronically

210absent in first quarter were trending that way. And so our our um goal next year is to truly be intentional on hitting those students who who in who are in that bubble. So, um we really target those have already come up. Um but those bubble students, we are going to try to um put in intentional interventions um as well as guide our staff into truly being able to collect adequate data, truly being able to create attendance plans, truly being able to support the parents and grandparents um in what they're doing at home to kind of support their student to come to school and be successful here. So, it's a lot to go into the chronic absenteeism and truency. Um, but our goal is to try to get those students who are um fluttering after that

211first quarter and try to truly put some intentionality in supporting them. It's very clear that you're very thoughtful about this issue and and clearly being very intentional about how you're tackling it. Hi. Um, thank you for your presentation. Thank you for your work. Um, I have two questions actually. Um, the first one is, um, I've been aware of the sort of, um, national trend of black and brown students being over represented in special education. Um, I think we saw, you know, the pie chart tonight kind of showing that it's happening here. Um, I was wondering if we have um our IEP teams or other special education professionals have access to or utilize um professional development specific to the intersection of disability and race and that sort of um you know issue of that over diagnosing

212and over IEPs for students that are black and brown. So I appreciate the question around professional development, right? Um I think um if I understood correctly, you were asking about special education staff having that professional development. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say I think we need it to be in general education, right? Um because we and and we're working on what we can do as special educators to provide that for our peers. Um, but it really is that work, kind of the tier one work um about how we um orient instruction to be inclusive of all students um so that um we don't continue to see rates of failure or rates of not meeting um standards which then you know become the data points that are used um to indicate that a suspicion of a

213student having a disability, right? Um, so it really kind of requires that stepping back even further. Um, and our teams it also and also, you know, as Millie and Rod specifically are speaking to, they're really leading the way in helping our special education staff around their advocacy um for students, right? So helping to build those partnerships with general education teachers and leaders um around um that student problem solving um and um differentiated instruction models, right? Um so it's kind it's kind of a two-fold or even three-fold approach. Um but it's a good it's a good question because you know we know that we the obligation we have to actually provide the professional development. One of the accomplishments this year um has been really working closely with our instructional coaches. Um it's just such a dynamic

214team um of district instructional coaches um none of which have a formal special education background and yet um their skill set is so strong uh that what they bring um to any teacher um uh speaks to the best practices in special education as well. And so that is one of the accomplishments. Uh Millie and Rada again um you know facilitated that work um so that our instructional coaches can then take those tools with them to whatever teacher they're working with. And um you know they're more so working with uh general education teachers um than special education. But did you add I can add something that's um sorry uh but I think it's important to note that the special education evaluation process is not housed with the special education department. It is outside of us. So

215it's through the tiers and SST process. So I think that that plays into part of the the need for that professional learning. Right. Right. Thank you. Um yeah. And then my second question um is about kind of um I'm wondering about um trauma informed care in special education and if that's something that we um utilize in our special education and I'm asking because I think um and I'm not an expert in special education but I had a lot of training in trauma-informed care through um being a foster parent and we see a lot of um a lot of over representation of children who've experienced trauma in special education. And we've seen a lot of um behaviors that are resulting from trauma that mimic um behaviors that you might see in certain disabilities. And so, you

216know, kind of like parsing out the root causes of certain things so you can best kind of address um with the behaviors or other things like that. I was just wondering if we had that sort of approach in our So yes and no. Um so at at every point we we have to consider uh trauma and the the the function of the behavior um that that any student will be exhibiting. But I would also mimic what um Amy has said in regards to um over identification. That is also a PD that I would recommend um for general education schoolwide as well. Um the recommendation or the referral to special education normally is from our general education teachers um who may um benefit from PDS and traumainformed teaching um and understanding to understand the difference between

217trauma of a student and situations of a student versus a disability of a student um and and referring them for that. So I I don't believe that that training lies within the special education department, but I definitely would support that training for for all. Great. Thank you so much. Absolutely. So I um was thinking when you were talking about this that um no one has mentioned the fact that most of the kids probably come in already identified. they come into the school um identified I'm not sure how many initial um evaluations are done in a school year but um some of these students come in already identified is that correct? Yes. So we have we on average one about a hundred students each year give or take a few 110 each year um that are

218part of our rising class right um and then I would say and this is super rough um but I would say um somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 um students come up as considerations uh each year for special education and about 20 uh to 25 of those um go through the evaluation process. That doesn't mean all of those students become eligible as you know. Um but you know, it just kind of gives you that that number, right? Um and again, we're we've really been committed to um working so closely with our student services partners um and colleagues around this work, right? Um so just to the the many good questions everyone's asked about um you know, how do we get to that prevention aspect, right? Um, so we're really um really dedicated to

219that work um as well as the professional development and the the tiered intervention uh work in in GenEd. Great. And and I had one other question about um uh co-taught classrooms. Um how many students are in typically in a in a cot room? You're welcome. Oh, so I mean so an average class size is anywhere 20 to 25 students, right? So just the typical general education class and then you know it wouldn't exceed the 30% uh for students with IEPs, right? Um so we don't increase the class sizes for classes that are co-taught. um we keep them at the whatever the you know standard um max seats are and then um address that proportion. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Okay board. Are there other questions? Well, thank you. Thank you for staying late and

220thank you to your little girl cuz this I feel so sorry. Poor little thing. Thank you. I know she's out. Yeah, right. Okay. Okay, we're going to keep going here. The next item is the RTA letters and um board in in your packet you had um some sample letters. I don't know uh Dr. Campbell, if you want to speak to to this, but um at our city schools meeting, we learned I guess we learned at the city schools meeting just a little bit before that um that the um that there is a consideration to cut uh service CTA and PACE service particularly in Evston and we're concerned about that because um as you know we have many students that rely completely ly upon um the uh public transportation to to go to get to school

221back and forth. Um and um Dr. Campbell has written four letters to um our our um congressmen, state reps, reps and the governor. Right. Yeah. Um so as a board I would like I think it's important for us to respond um very intentionally um either uh through our own letter um or the city is doing a resolution. So the city passed a resolution which the board has an opportunity to look at and if it would want to pass the same resolution it can do so. So the board can either write a letter, author a letter um from the president which has all of your signatures and or pass a resolution. So the issue with the resolution is that we would um pass it at the next board meeting which is in June which is in

222June. So I I guess I'm I'm thinking a little more urgent than a resolution. I'm thinking more urgent than the timing. So I'm more concerned about the timing. Um, but anyway, I just want to that those are just some of my thoughts. I want to hear from other people. I mean, I I agree with you that we shouldn't wait until after the June meeting uh to say something. I mean, definitely we could do a letter. um we could write an op-ed that was more public that could kind of stir public interest in this cuz I think I bet there's a lot of people who rely on the bus that don't know right that it's going to be detailed. Yeah. So those are happening different options. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I I think we do all

223of that and I don't you know I don't think it's too late right for the resolution. Okay. So, I think we do the letter um first and foremost. We do what Pat said and we still do the resolution and we come back with another letter. And I mean, you know, you advocacy doesn't have a number. You just got to keep hitting them. So, right. Um Yeah. So, I think we do all of that. Okay. And I think you make calls. Mhm. I mean, if you especially um you can start with your current alter person to push them to do that and then so you can start locally and then um you can reach out to our our district representatives as well and send messages to them. Yeah. And I'm meeting with our state legislators probably

224one day this week or next week. And maybe two of you because we have to watch open meetings. Two of you can join me for that meeting with the state legislators. Okay, that will be helpful. Yeah, I have forgotten about that meeting. Yes, sir. Um, we don't have a date for that, right? We do, but we had to reschedule because it's just not going to work this week. Okay. and and perhaps in the op ed um because that will be going out to the public and bringing attention to this, we also could suggest how um community members what they might do. Okay. Yes. Okay. So, we'll work with the board on the letter and the oped and um let you all take it from there and we will reach out to the city for the

225resolution that had passed at the last city council meeting or maybe two city council meetings ago and bring that to the board for the June meeting. Great. Great. I think John's got his mic on. Well, I'm I'm just trying to think like this this is a larger issue of them cutting back on public transportation in general, right? believe so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I'm I'm just curious if if there's also a path that we pursue that's more aligned with just specific for our community with with our students because this is such a larger issue and we we all know Illinois is going through quite a bit of trouble right now in general. What what I've read is that ridership is down and so it this may be too steep a hill to climb and perhaps

226we try to identify where some alternate funding could come for our students. Yeah, it's an interesting proposition. I mean, I know we have hundreds of kids who take the bus every day. I'm sure. I'm sure. And without that service, there's just no way they're getting to school. There's no We don't have yellow bus service or anything like that. So, it's the only way they get to school is is um as are those bus routes. So, yeah. And I think every so often they review routes. They do because this is at least the second time that this has come up um since I've been on the board. And I think if you um don't make any noise, then it it will get cut. So, they definitely review their routes and they make changes and adjustments. Um,

227but I, you know, I don't know. And they want the feedback. They just don't know. Yeah. And they want the feedback. Yeah. They want the feedback, but I It boggles my mind that they have no idea how many people this would impact, right? I think I I think that it would be helpful for us to give them this information that we have. We're a high school, so there's a difference in our district and and district 65. We're the high school and our students, many of our students rely upon um the public transportation 100% to get to school. They may not know that. We assumed that because, you know, we live in Evston. It's and it's it's it's clear and and it's it's it's so available to us. But they may not be aware of that.

228And in the past, I believe they have backed off. Yeah. Based on the feedback they received from from us, from the high school. So, um Right. So, I Yeah. So, we'll go at it again. Yeah, we'll go at it again. And if there are some alternative funding, I'm totally looking I'm totally fine looking into that as well. Okay. So, we'll work on these things. I just say that funding would come from the state. Yes. Not the school to fund those routes and not No, no, no. Yeah. Coming from somewhere outside. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. This Well, the state has kind of let us know that they don't have any money. Yeah, but um just kind of in general they kind of said we support you. We just don't have any money. So, okay. Anything

229else on that? If not, we're at the superintendent report. It's late. So, happy summer. You know, we're looking forward to um the end of the year with graduation. Had a great prom. Yes. And um finals are next week and seniors say goodbye tomorrow. And um welcome to Eva, welcome John, and have a great summer. We'll see everybody in the fall. All right, great report. Okay. All right. So, we're at item number 19A. Um, so for item number 19A, I move that the board approve the resolution approving the settlement agreement between the board of education of Evston Township High School District 202 and the former employee, Miss Lisa Davis, in substantially the form attached to the resolution and presented to the board of education. So moved. Second. We have a roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Yes.

230Yes. Okay. 19B. I move that the board approve the resolution approving the settlement agreement between the board of education of Evston Township High School District 202 and the educational support personnel employee, Miss Joanne Burchie insubstantially the form attached to the resolution and presented to the board of education. So moved. Second. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Item C, approval of Pride Month resolution. And Liz is going to read that for us. Thank you. I am proud to read our Pride Month resolution. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pride month 2025. Whereas the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969 sparked a liberation movement, a call to action that continues to inspire us to live up to our nation's promise of equality, liberty, and justice for all. Whereas Pride is

231a time to recall the trials of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer, LGBTQ plus community has endured and to rejoice in the triumphs of trailblazing individuals who have bravely fought and continue to fight for full equality. Whereas the LGBTQ plus community in America has achieved remarkable progress in Stonewall. Whereas historic Supreme Court rulings in recent years have struck down regressive laws, affirmed the right to marriage equality, and secured workplace protections for LGBTQ plus individuals in every state and territory. Whereas for all of our progress, there are many states in which LGBTQ plus individuals still lack protections for fundamental rights and dignity in hospitals, schools, public accommodations, and other spaces. Whereas our nation continues to witness a tragic spike in violence against transgender women of color, LGBTQ plus individuals, especially youth who defy sex or

232gender norms, face bullying and harassment in educational settings and at are at a disproportionate risk of self harm and death by suicide. Whereas we recognize the resilience and determination of the many individuals who are fighting to live freely and authentically. Whereas we affirm our obligation to uphold the dignity of all people and dedicate ourselves to protecting the most vulnerable among us. Now thereby be it resolved that the board of education of Evston Township High School District 202 recognizes the month of June 2025 as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pride month and celebrates the achievements of the LGBTQ plus community and the great diversity of the American people. Thank you, Liz. Can I have a motion for acceptance, please? So moved. Second. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. The

233next item is the consent agenda which consists of approval of administrator and exempt staff sie increases for fiscal year 2526, approval of ETHS arts and innovation wing expansion phase 1 package three, approval of agreement to furnish food service to community consolidated school district 65 of Evston and Skoi. Approval of minutes regular and close session from April 7th, 2025. Approval of bills, treasurers report from February 2025 and personnel report. So moved. Second. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh, the next item is old or new business. Is there old or new business? So moved. Not yet. I'm sorry to embody Gretchen. I know you were close. Okay. Closing or polling of the board. And I do have one thing I want to just quickly say that I went to um the performance of Mama

234Mia and it was amazing. I think Liz was there was I don't know if anybody else got to go but it was really so good really good exceptional very good okay can I have a motion for adjournment so moved okay this um board meeting is adjourned at I'm not going to say the time if you don't say the time this This is now we dance like midnight.