001you know good evening everybody Welcome to the June 12th Board of Education meeting can we have a roll call please Auntie Aaron Livingston here Mansell here Parsons here rolowitz here to terage I'm sorry Savage Williams here a course of habits [Laughter] all right the first item on the agenda is written communication Dr Davis do we have any written communication we have no written communication this evening okay great the next item items for information is the report onto the social Consciousness program I'm looking forward to this director of equity today um mcalpins who's coming to share with us and Lauren Hamilton um who's back with us as our equity and um who is here every year for our social Consciousness programming um Lauren's going to talk about that and Janae is going to set the frame
002for where we're headed so thank you all right thank you so much Dr Campbell for that introduction I'm really happy to be here with you all again at the end of another school year to just uplift a lot of the work that our Educators and students have put in to creating spaces of affirmation and joy and healing which we'll talk a little bit more about through the social Consciousness series I'll also share some additional adaptive work that's happened this school year and Benjamin will take over from there so here we go thank you all right so where I'd like to start is by tying in the vision for this year's social Consciousness series to how we started the school year as an entire staff body at Institute day so this year was all about healing
003and solidarity and in reflection with Dr Kinsey and Campbell prepping for this school year we talked a lot about how last year was about the joy of finally being able to be together again in physical space with each other after a year of remote learning this year was about beginning to really put in that deep work to heal some of the fragments and some of the wounds that we've experienced in this landscape of recovering and still enduring a global pandemic Uprising fights for racial Justice and Liberation poverty and a whole lot of hurt and Trauma that our students and ourselves are experiencing so that's how we let into this work and where we were at just to bring a little bit more symbolism and really visualize this messaging we let off with kinsugi which is
004a ancient Japanese art form of mending pieces of pottery that have shattered and artists over centuries have used gold to put these items back together and really it's about seeing the beauty in us in our Brokenness and it's a process that takes months it's not rushed it's about care and creation and what can be created from that healing that is connected to others and I have this alongside the knowledge from black queer organizers who have shown us through years of organizing that we need to be able to cultivate healing together in community and it's not something that's done isolated so this is a really great frame for the social Consciousness series and how students use these spaces to come together and Find meaning in their experiences Mr William Jenkins helped us put together a highlight
005reel as he does every year to Showcase this year's Series so we will go ahead and watch that together thank you Mr Jenkins and then we'll speak a little bit more about this year [Music] and we are here to lift you up and to show you what you are capable of there's a lot of narratives out there about us and sometimes we lose ourselves within the constructs of white supremacy but not today all right not today all right I think it is vital that um they have a chance especially in a school this size to come together and see who else is in their own racial and ethnic group and get a chance to connect with them on issues that they share in common I don't think this is about separation I think it's about
006focus and I think those two things you know those are two different things it's not about excluding other students it's about including ourselves safe space means that you're safe and free to be all of who you are and oftentimes when we're a mixed company we're not able or maybe we don't feel safe enough right to bring the fullness of who we are to the table and I feel like there's some Community Within in their own Community as well as Community outside the school because we bring different people in to do workshops for all the Summits so it's really a collaborative process that students get to enjoy your identity isn't something that anyone else can Define for you it's something that you can find for yourself not a parent not another student not a friend not
007a romantic partner not anybody can Define you for you and whatever that is you should embrace that and you should understand that it's okay who you are we see your power and your beauty every day not just today every day and that you all get to see it in each other and rejoice in each other man this event was amazing uh the joy the love um you know the beauty everything in there is really cultivating these students again to go out into the world and be their best authentic selves and that's what we need we need more of this and to be honest it'd be amazing if if all schools in our communities could do something like this this is this is truly special [Music] [Applause] thank you Mr Jenkins um where's my clicker here
008we go so typically I like to get up here and share a number of highlights from each of the individual student events in this series but I'm going to let the reports be speak for itself this year and just kind of lift up some things that aren't isolated so in the series we have five student events as you know we have four student Summits that are based around identities we have the latinx student Summit black student Summit our Middle Eastern North African and Asian or Mina student Summit and then our lgbtq Plus student Summit last year we also added programming to the series that allows students to speak to the intersexual intersectional experiences they have around disabilities as part of the abilities community and I just wanted to uplift some of the labor of love
009that went into this year series so over these five events we had more than 1200 student participants more than 25 student organizers and then more than 50 unique workshops that were grounded in just some of the things that are listed here right so we have creativity and poetry and dance expression youth organizing and legislation history sharing life stories embracing our natural features intergenerational wisdom healing generational trauma interracial solidarity and then of course a lot of us you know we like to eat and that's where a lot of love comes in and so there were also some workshops around that as well and then we also have a photo here students who plan the black summit who are behind the scenes who worked October through March really we had some final meetings together in Dr Campbell's
010office just having a little bit of a celebration with the black caucus before the summit it's definitely wanted to highlight that and they really loved being in that space and seeing a reflection of them in it so thank you Dr Campbell for opening it up to them all right I have to absolutely shout out our Summit speakers just to speak to the fact that this isn't something that happens in isolation within the evidence and Community a lot of folks Nationwide know about the Summits and are really invested in the experiences our young people are having and so when we reach out they respond and they come even if it's not within their norm and a lot of them take the time to connect with the students whether through doing additional workshops after their keynote address
011or a book signing where they get to spend some time with the organizer speaking to how abnormal it is to have something like a student Summit at a school and it for it to be fully supported through resources and Time by a board and by a superintendent so just to name some of these folks we have from left to right top to bottom Dr Shalini Shankar Mina Summit speaker Dr Yaba blay and Nick Brooks black summit speakers Yolanda Renteria Psalm 1 and then Dr Steven Thrasher these are activists writers practitioners of healing at academics and Educators artists and Visionaries who came to spend time and share wisdom with our young people foreign something really special that I have to shout out Carrie Levy for our director of research evaluation and assessment that students have the
012opportunity to do this year via the black student Summit survey was respond to a question how would you describe yourself we had a hover over 120 students who responded to this question on this survey and this is how they see themselves the bigger the word is in the word cloud the more students identified with and I just wanted to share this with you because this is who our students say they are do we believe them and I feel like part of the social Consciousness series work is bringing spaces to life where students can um continue to do that self-exploration and continue to show us who they believe they are looking ahead when I was putting this slide together I was like okay how do I quickly just list the number of things that we've we've
013been working on that are going to launch next year and so I was like you know what it was in the report so I'm just going to put it back up here what you can look forward to in addition to the Summits are disability Community doing some additional programming there's going to be an anti-racist student Workshop another Resident residence experience with Calvin Terrell and then we're also going to launch programming that centers the Contemporary and historical experience of our indigenous relatives in this community and something else that I will say is that a lot of the labor that goes into this is carried by black and brown women in this building it always has been and it continues to be so I thank the board the superintendent our assistant Soup for the ways that you
014all have supported this and I ask that we keep that moving forward so we can sustain it long term lastly the students want more right Summits this Series has been a huge success since it started with a blackmail Summit back in 2014-15 they're specifically speaking to wanting opportunities to teach each other about their different cultures and racialized experiences so what does it look like to come together in a student event where everybody is learning from each other and with that comes questions of okay how do we build capacity to add more programming to this series where does that come from right and so I'll wrap up this portion of the presentation just by leaving you all thinking with that what does it look like to support the women who are doing this work to actualize
015these student Visions long term cool all right so do you want to do this part or should I okay real quick um so some of our additional spaces where anti-racists work and conversations are happening connection development include all of these things so staff facing spaces include the building leadership team some of these internal teams a racial Equity team that was created by our teachers Council that started the school year talking circles with Dr Kinsey so Dr Campbell last year started this tradition with his talk backs to really keep a finger on the pulse of what staff are experiencing and using that information to make some real time shifts and changes as needed throughout the school year and just to generate that trust again training on restorative practices we trained over 135 staff members on that
016really important work and are making sure we're tying it with racial equity and what it means to be racially just as we talk about shifting to restorative culture in this building Janae began a radical reading Circle she can speak to more about made up of black and brown women just to give us space to connect with each other we continue to have our district Equity leadership team a district anti-worth anti-racist excuse me working group black brown and breathing returned for another healing Series this year and offered some staff opportunities for engagement and then we did an equity survey which Janae will speak more about and then finally our student-facing spaces included new lunch spaces for queer identifying students Crunch and cookout just to give them a space to come together key key is we call
017it in the community and just um have some time to relax and enjoy a meal black brown and breathing again was back for a monthly activation and then Janae and I along with some other black women in the district launched a mentorship group that we're still building with black girls called Shades Janae hello everybody I am so excited to give you all some insight about what we have going on during the next school year so Lauren you did a fantastic job um so first we created a survey um we used uh people from delt which is the district Equity leadership team and also dog to help us create the survey and then we gave the survey out we had about 382 people respond which was fantastic we were so excited about that number um then
018the data dive came and so we had to look at 382 individual responses and we did that last week it was really interesting um some things that kind of popped up were a lot of issues around trust I mean that was the number one thing that came up trust between uh staff and each other and then trust between staff and their supervisors um and there was a lot of uh things that pointed to historical trauma in those surveys and so what we want to do and what we're in the process of doing right now is taking those survey results and making them into seven modules so next year we're going to have Equity leadership Equity learning teams and those Equity learning teams are going to be based on the results of the survey and trying
019to write some of those things we see in the survey so this first year which we're calling um what did we say uh season one episodes one through seven are really going to be focused on a communication collaboration and community um we felt like that was the foundation of all the things that they said that we need help with um from the survey and so this year and this is um we're planning this out to be about three years long um and this first year is just going to be focused on that we have a number of teachers and support staff and administrators who have come in to help us create the curriculum which is the process that we're in right now um so everything is being done collaborative and we're trying to get as
020many stakeholders involved in the process as possible so that's one of the biggest things we're doing next year some of the other things we're going to continue doing um are radical book study last year this past year we read ratchetemic and next year we're going to read Street Justice no Street data sorry Street data um and we the hope is to incorporate some of these things that we're learning from these different authors into our Equity work in the building so this first round um was really full of black and brown um teachers and it just so happened to be that um we did have some non-black and brown teachers but you know it's just happened that way and it was beautiful we had some great discussions it really became a really nice affirming Affinity space
021almost um and they had great ideas about what they would like to see in our space and different things we can take away from the book so we hope to do that next year as well like Lauren said we're going to continue with shades um and talk to our latinx staff to see if they're ready to start um shades for brown girls so that's what some of the things we have planned for next year thanks wonderful very exciting very exciting so thank you thank you for the video and the social Consciousness series it's always amazing to me to think about what was that year 2013 when it started in 2014-15 so in Spring of 2014 Marcus Campbell said I got something for you and it's gonna be big that's all he said those words suck
022with me and I was like what he's talking about what could be bigger than what we're already doing right so um it's just really exciting to just realize that there's always more we can do and what we do for staff benefits students and eventually gets two students so you're working with students and staff so do you name most of your the work that you were spelling out is going to be for staff is that correct yeah the book reading the book the book club and the learning the three-year program is going to be for staff which will eventually go to students and I'm excited to hear what else the students want I'm a little nervous about that to be honest because you know students they don't hold back they ask for the Stars and then
023if we start going they simply look at us and say why not so um something that Dr blay said during her address at black summit was um we don't see things like the black students Summit AT other schools and it's not because you all as young people aren't pushing and trying to organize them it's because us as adults and I believe she spoke to board members in particular get in their way right it's it's not about them it's about what we have capacity to do and what we believe we should be doing to support their Vision so yeah they want to they want to learn together they want to teach each other the social Consciousness theories creates a lot of energy and so we're just trying to meet them where they are yeah thank you
024thank you Monique yeah you know what I appreciate since 2014 is the evolution that has occurred um with this and and it's inspiring because many people can say they've started something or they tried it out but to be here several years later almost oh my God almost 10 years later that it's still evolving is is Big so it is big I almost started singing this gospel song called it's big but I won't um um but you asked the question or you laid it in our lap and I didn't I didn't ignore you know I picked it up um you showed the solidarity and then you said the question you also told us that this this work is being led by women of color particularly black women I'm assuming um and you wanted us to think
025about what support looks like for them so I'm gonna ask you um because probably with the exception of a few of my colleagues that are in this work like really in the work um I get in it when I have to but you there's a few of you that stay in it so it I don't want to tell you what I think support looks like I would rather you tell me what support looks like for you and as board members for us to to take that in so if not now you know when we meet again that that comes up or Knowing You Lord you probably got something [Music] um so the Summits the social Consciousness series happens because the district is willing to put resources behind it right to actualize these Visions um what
026a lot of us need as women who are carrying this labor is either time built in to the day right through duties or PD release time to be able to come together to build these or honoring of our time through a stipend or honorarium something that allows us to have sort of an exchange of that labor right now you know it's after school five to six thirty Saturday meetings and planning sessions with young people and trying to figure out how we balance our full plates as professionals here with our primary hats on with our roles and then also make all this happen how are we building in the time are we paying people for this labor Janae do you have anything else amen yeah I mean I I appreciate that because we you know we
027can talk about our our social Consciousness efforts or our diversity Equity efforts or our anti-racism you know efforts and so forth but if we're not um putting the resources behind just your bodies doing it then there's an expectation that you'll just continue to show up and do it right um and so in 2014 I think I volunteered and you did you met with the volunteers on a Saturday to get us ready for whatever we were walking into and at that time I was just a parent I had no idea what what Dr Campbell's Vision was right but I knew I wanted to be a part of it um and I were like right now I'm sitting here wondering okay well that is a lot that's a lot that we're asking you to continue to do
028and we've been asking you to do it for 10 years so and it also um in addition to honoring the people who are supporting students in this now it helps um with the sustainability ongoing right there are folks who've been in this building for you know 10 to 15 years who have been carrying this work and they're ready to take a step back and allow folks newer to the building and into this space to step into that leadership role and it's hard to convince someone to put in that amount of energy even if they feel it's very valuable and important for our young people so we need some additional ways to draw them into it so we can keep this going and growing yeah um thank you for that yeah thank you for asking one
029of the things that I remember about Dr Yaba Blair when she was at Summit which was the first time I saw her speak uh was that she talked about the black and black women particularly who carry this work um and she said this is work you she's speaking to me you're not doing people you're not doing favoritism work folks aren't allowing you to do the work so um she really made it she really emphasized the fact that people who do this work should be paid to do this work this is our work um so thinking about that um and what it takes to put on something like the social Consciousness series the student Summits are big and we know we know that not just Evanston but communities across this community and this country are watching
030they're watching what we do so this there's quite a lot of pressure to as I say hit a home run when we do this so keep keep that in mind and think of other ways we can be supportive as well and show that support and support hi Pat um well yeah I have a sort of a perennial question is what more do you need so I think my colleagues have done a good job of of asking about that so um but I I just love this presentation I look forward to it and I think the world of both of you because the work that you're doing is amazing and the proof that all these kids are so excited and so um engaged and and the leadership that they're showing is really coming off of the
031two of you and how you work with them and what you do to support them and encourage them and and all that so you owe you know you deserve so much uh gratitude and and respect for that terrific work I do of course want to put a shout out to to William Jenkins who I don't think ever leaves this building and that beautiful reel um he does so much for us and I just always appreciate you William so I just had a couple of just a really kind of a technical question I guess but you mentioned the district anti-racist working group and I was wondering what does that look like who's in it what's the work of that group kind of can you just kind of Flesh that out a bit more um so dog
032as we call it which was an acronym that was made in Jess and then we were like yep dog we're gonna call that we're gonna call this group that um so this group was created I believe back when we were in remote completely remote and um Jacqueline battle Laura who is a Community member white woman academic legal study she reached out to Dr Campbell and was like Hey I know there's a lot going on right now in our community and our nation I'm willing to support what do y'all need so um we created dog to give any staff member an end to ongoing conversations and deep reflection on their practice and personal lives through a lens of racial Justice and Equity so we started with Jackie Battle Laura and then last year still leaning into
033outside facilitation we partnered with Corey Wallace and Christine Saxman and this year we decided to lead this work internally after having a couple of years of support by folks in our community and dog has been a space of preparation for 2022-23 because we knew that Janae was advocating for Equity learning times to be part of our professional learning calendar and expectations for 2324 and so the folks in dog are prepared to help support these conversations and these various breakout groups will begin having next school year and to really be alongside our colleagues and wherever they're at in their journey of understanding of self self and others so it's had a lot of different iterations Pat but that's where we're at this year it was a year of prep for a great year thank you very
034much all right yeah okay so taking notes I can take these things back to my own District I think you guys are brilliant and I love the work that you're doing I um also think about how you are helping to create a generation of kids who are ready with such a forward approach to the world and they will demand what they deserve as they head out into the world instead of kind of getting it out there and thinking why didn't I have this before so I I just I love love what you're doing and and so my thoughts are kind of around the ideas portion and I was thinking about Chris Edmond and wretchedemic and the biomimicry and I was like gosh it's really like kid mimicry like if we could just watch them and
035do what they do and then take that out into our conferences it would blow it up right and so I um thank you for seeing their Brilliance and not trying to fit it into a little like conference box the way we go out in the world and do that so please continue to teach us what you learned from them because I think as adults we could learn so much and then I was thinking about when you mentioned straight data and um and I'm also thinking about like where this work gets to live here in eths and you know I'm like starting the coup The Hub um but so I was thinking about how a heat map could be done of the school to figure out also where kids feel most safe and fear will where
036they belong and so some of the work that their voices could bring in to help us figure out where so much of the equity work gets to literally live as a space in the building and to kind of build out from there so I cannot wait to hear what happens next year thank you thank you yes excellent well thank you again thank you for being here thank you for being who you are and leading this District in this very important work that really touches all of us you know and even as you talk we're going to call on you again as a board to come and help us keep learning as well because we want to be active in our journey as well so thank you thank you and we'll answer that call now that
037I get to work directly with Janae as full-time yeah [Music] [Applause] yeah we had such a great time together at The Retreat I feel well I had a good time some more time yeah with you all thank you all right thank you all right thank you before they stand up I just want to give another shout out both to Lauren and to Janae about the ways that they uplift student voices but staff it's tremendous and you're talking about sustaining but also growing and you never lose sight of that both for students and for staff so I've witnessed that I've benefited from it as well and continue to grow so thank you thank you awesome all right okay so moving along with our agenda the next item is the first reading for uh press policy issue
038number 11. I think um board that was in your packet um so are there any questions discussion what okay good okay so we are at um our discussion around the district goals so I wanted us to um to have some time and we do we have we have some time to talk about goals our goals and um I know that some of you shared a little bit I know Pat did so um I think what I'd like us to do is just look at all the information that we have and we'll just take one goal at a time we have four goals so we'll take one at a time and uh just talk about the language and see if we can come up with um a consensus on this the wording for the goals does
039anybody have any anything they would like to say to open this conversation up we um we consulted with the Alma group we had input from staff and we had meetings with the community um so we we got a lot of information and I want to say that as I reviewed all of this I was also remembering in the information that we received when we were doing the superintendent search I think that was really helpful as well so I think collectively we got a lot do to the goals there's somewhere because I have nothing in front of me the current no no no no the markup Pat Center is um it's on a Google it's on the Google Doc yeah I know but I don't have it here is there a link that we can open
040March meeting good point May the other end month so Marcus just went there's the edited version is in the May packet it's in the May pack and yeah and it's all and it's redlined and you see the different options in there okay I just want to go to go through each one um well I don't mind if you want someone to start I'll start um so in terms of goal one I liked a lot of the changes adding the word structural to racism um the as an anti-racist institution I thought those were good additions the one piece that I was a little worried about was in the various iterations of the edits I think that the um the predominance of racism as the number one got taken out and I I feel like that should
041go back in um I I'm fine with listing individual you know all these different areas separately I think that's important but I remember when and I came on the board right after these goals were voted on and I remember being at the meeting where the board voted on them and that that was important to call that out because as much as there are all these other groups that we want to be very mindful of race kind of is always a factor even when we're talking about other groups so that that's my one big concern here I like a lot of these words and I can live with lots of versions but I think that piece that we used to have about the you know race being and I'm not even remembering so the the sentence
042was recognizing that we thought we'd add structural in there is that what you're talking about we added structural and that was functional racism is the most devastating Factor contributing to the diminished right to keeping that yeah I feel like that got um I'm I'm really sorry to interrupt this Mira and I are just struggling to find the current Google doc if somebody could um all right I can't I'm having trouble I can't access my board email from this computer and there's not a link in the packet the May version is just some prior version it's not the Google Doc that's in that may when I look at the board book link so I don't know can somebody figure out how to get us a copy so that we can look at what we're because I
043can't even follow what you're talking about right now yeah okay okay without a document and I sure it's it's not in the packet so it's hard so if we so are you on the Wi-Fi eths Wi-Fi yeah I think I am okay all right let's just take let's let's take a few minutes and just do that because I want everybody to have this in front of them yeah that would be good oh my God what a mess okay so we're gonna I need we need everybody to attend um see what's it called me find the drive because I just printed it the person District goals District goals goals it's fine I'm still just signing in my Google um let me see if I have the link s yeah it's just dry that's right yeah um
044yeah [Music] okay it's eths goals um yeah sure wow [Music] so I Gretchen are you in it thank you can you get into your emails because that's what I'm trying to remember I think so thank you we're good taking bread [Music] yes yes yes you said it's uploaded on the board book yeah I see it now it's there is it board book okay causes for a moment um Dr Campbell is going to recognize the student that's here so I'm bored just had a little bit of a miscommunication with the athletic department but that's okay yeah I want to ask uh miles Grand Gene to come to the podium come on not miles we saw you we did we did we did Miles you can stand right there yeah at the podium and uh miles is
045shared with me that he won the 110 meter hurdle first place he also came in fifth for the 100 meter dash right and came in what is a zero miles in ninth for the 200 meter dash and we had a whole plan to recognize him from track and it was a little late but miles and his family are here anyway and um so but it's okay because we always at we'll have time to make uh to recognize our students and to say congratulations so Miles congratulations for your achievements [Applause] and I also have a part of my superintendent's report to recognize abrielle Hartley and DeSean Wright and I'll do that at that time but miles is miles is here and so we want to say congratulations and you have to come back because we have
046a pen and all of that that we wanted that we want to give you and we also want to shake your hand so the board's going to stand you're going to come around and Shake our hands and say congratulations miles [Laughter] so why can't from where he's a wide camper he works at Echo miles to you Milestone you work for Echo [Music] oh you got you got me excited I was gonna see she is the contract right under the you know her bag she's signed you up right so we've got two summers ago I saw your Echo miles okay anytime you want to come back and have you graduated are you going are you going to Iowa yeah you're a buckeye now so my daughter went to Iowa so it's it's a it's a great
047great place congratulations yes well I enjoyed going yeah great wonderful all right and you all are free to stay or free to go but congratulations thank you thank you thank you thank you all for coming thank you we were trying to delay it so I guess now we have to get right into it bye miles all right bored everybody have what they need okay all right so um so we'll talk this through tonight of course if uh there's if there's more to be done or sad we can certainly do that as well later okay um but I just wanted us uh last month when we met the hour just got so late that we I didn't want us to try to have that conversation then um so now um we're a little fresher at least
048I'm feeling a lot of time the first two it's really the first two um although we did have a few comments with three and four so I think uh I think I think we can get through this so um Pat can you repeat how you started me yeah oh no I think the option two is fine yeah I just think that um we have to um include the most EV racism is the most devastating factor I think that is a very unique piece of our wording that I think still needs to remain even as we uh expand the list of specific groups that we and and factors we want to uh weigh I think that's all great but I still think we need to say that um so I would I'm fine with two but
049just bringing that most devastating Factor contributing to diminished achievement down to it I agree with Pat and that was what I was going to bring up tonight too as well was um that line about recognizing racism is the most devastating Factor was I mean the first time I read the goals that was something that just really hit me really hard and it's so bold and so profound and um just so courageous to make a statement like that in our goals and um so when it kind of came out and it's sort of replaced by as an anti-racist institution which is great but I just feel like it loses that um kind of really moving um bold statement that we had before so would we open it with as an anti-racist institution eths will dedicate itself
050to eliminating the predictability of academic achievement based upon and then we list them or should we should we do it sooner um hmm so um eths recognizes that structural racism is the most devastating Factor contributing to the diminished achievement of students as an anti-racist institution eths will dedicate itself to eliminating the predictability of academic achievement based upon race family income and we're adding lgbtqia plus status disabilities and status of emergent multilingual and English language learners in doing so eths will increase each student's academic trajectory to realize college career Readiness and Independence how does that sit with you it's the first goal and it's and it's got to be a powerful statement and I think it says a lot about us and what we believe so I'm just gonna add this in here and I don't
051you know I'm just gonna say it um I understand that it's important to list to create the list yes um I understand that I I understand that that's who we are we want to make sure um we're not leaving anybody out um and that we're recognizing everybody when we look at the data if we're using the data um and we are and we are using the data should be race is the most determined Factor regardless of everything else well including everything I mean it is it comes it's in there and oftentimes there are some things that we don't even know on this list but we know for sure that our um particularly our black students are significantly significantly impacted by this achievement Gap that we've been trying to get after so and it doesn't matter
052where they come the income the you know the status the disability all of it it is what it is and so I'm I agree that if we're looking at option two that race needs to be in there but I wonder how that creating this list doesn't allow us to really look at the data that we have received you know um I don't know how to say it any better but it's it's what we know maybe somebody could say it differently well that's what I'm I'm just like yeah keep adding to the list and I get it it's important um I don't know well I mean I agree with you Monique that that needs to be in there and um I think and it needs to lead so I wonder if we just go back up
053to option one which does it is parenthetical right now but we would obviously remove that um so that we keep eths will increase each student's academic trajectory to realize college career Readiness and Independence recognizing that structural racism is the most devastating Factor contributing to the diminished achievement of students um and then eths will and then the full list so it kind of puts that first as we understand that's the foundational because to your point race comes up in all these other categories right so what will we do with the list well I think and we had a list before I think I mean what yeah you know because the staff have to go and do this right so what will happen you know with the list or will it come back regardless of the other
054things our black students are still not performing you know I mean I I don't know I'm just you and if it were any other lists say we you know we segregated this and and it was family income by this and that was the thing we were looking at then we would look at that but what we know is that every report we receive our black students regardless of if they're um in special ed regardless of if they're active or not regardless if they're attached to a sport or not um regardless of how they identified they're at the bottom of the list and so I'm I'm just having a hard time not focusing so we can determine what the the you know how we go at this because the goal has to be achievable I mean
055you know so we have to be able to say this is what we're going to gather this is the data we're going to look at this here are the factors we're going to put in place so that we can measure this how do we how do we measure this this list like how is it yeah I mean how is it attainable I hear what you're saying and I think how I get my head around the list and it's even how we look at the data it is intersectional because it's race and all of these other pieces whenever we kind of you know shake the data this way or shake it that way and it does help us when we are looking at Special Education data to look at black males in special equip with IEPs
056right and so if because we have an intersectional way that we interpret today the data um having that what the way you just read goal one really does give give me a a help me it helps me to get and helps us to get our head around the operationalizing of what that actually looks like when we bring this information back to the board so it's actually really helpful because we do look at these we triangulated and we look at the multiple components of the student identities because that's different if we didn't have race and it would be different if we excluded race you know what I'm saying so it's good to actually have have it all playing out because does that that intersectional approach especially as race is leading it is driving so many other
057aspects of the list if that makes any sense um I was just Consulting chat GPT to see if I could get anything um no for real I don't even know what that is chat GPT generative AI that kind of builds oh yeah anyway it's amazing okay but anyway um because we have some differing opinions um I can talk camping but I don't know we have different strengths let's just say oh bring them all to the table we have a good thing but I what I what I thought I heard you saying is different from what I just thought I heard you say Dr Campbell so no I mean maybe I'm wrong so this is what I was going to ask um I'm wondering if what we're missing is a bucket category type in order to
058make sure that we do keep track measure and analyze all of the various groups knowing that if we are able to bring up our students particularly as you named our black male students and all kids would come up with that right so what I didn't like about chat gbt is it's a diversity factors but what I think we're talking about is any demographic marker right and so I'm wondering if we could say something and find a generic category label to indicate because we're always going to also have more groups right it's never it's it'll just gets longer and longer thinking because I'm I'm thinking in my head there are groups that are missing here yes yes but if they are this is where we could say okay what's that no go ahead but if we
059could figure out what is it called in our in our sense of our data are we are these demographic markers are they I don't want to necessarily call them identity because socioeconomic status is not an identity um but I think if we could figure that out then that we would say we want our academic success to never be predictable by a demographic marker or whatever it may be so that's what I'm trying to search for and wondering if that's what you are that's what I'm trying to get up yeah because I'm yes yes these are typically marginalized groups some of them right some of them are I mean I really am glad we are putting race and leading with that yes I think that's that's important that's important and and um as Marcus said if
060we take race if if we disaggregate every group by race then we really we've done what we said we were going to do here well and I think I mean I think one of the things that Mira was going towards um that I was thinking too is that you can almost say and as a result of focusing on Race then we will eliminate the predictability on these other lists I guess my my question about the list and I know it gets long and I know um but I I struggle because if we were 30 years ago we wouldn't be calling out race we would be incorporating it in a generic way and that was a big moment in and eths was ahead of the curve by naming race early on even disaggregating data starting in
061the 70s so I guess that's a concern I have is do people I I we absolutely have to have race the way it is that it's the most devastating factor it's intersectional to all other groups if we do a good job addressing structural racism and improving and eliminating that as a a factor for students who aren't you know to support students to achieve then we're going to help everybody else so I agree with all that but I just wonder I don't know I don't know that we should give a generic for for I don't know I just don't feel quite right about clear not for race I wasn't no I know you weren't I'm saying that's used to be it used to be that race was sort of lumped in with everybody you know all
062students and we're named out loud yes and I guess I think that's an improvement that we made that but I I wonder if that applies to other people who you know special ed being a good example or um lgbtq plus I mean I don't know I I think I I'm just it's needling me doesn't quite sit right but I just want to put that out there okay so I'm taking notes uh one of the things I noticed in the original is that it was a period hard stop after race um and then it was in addition to the list I think there's power in having a period after race an isolating race even more yeah structurally in the goals so then it would be yeah I mean we yeah what do we I'm just I'm
063not on the board but that's I don't want to write it for you but that was one of my suggestions that's part of the power of it was the period right here it is here in option one well we we would put the period back there I don't know how that it's like you know and so that's what that's that's my issue I totally agree with you yeah I don't okay I wrote on mine and I thought that was a period I thought it was a period too thank you all right because that yeah when I saw that I was like well we're just adding to the list like we're just adding correct absolutely should not yes yeah yeah I agree 100 yeah actually I like I I still like option one better options I
064like option one with the period I don't know um if we're going to include as an anti-racist institution do we include that eths will increase each student's academic trajectory to realize college career Readiness and Independence can I just interject I know that um people I wasn't finished sorry I'm terribly sorry okay yeah okay let me just finish sure sure um so that sentence and then the second sentence recognizing that structural racism is the most devastating Factor contributing to the diminished achievement of students period as an anti-racist institution eths will dedicate its effort to eliminate the predictability of academic achievement based upon and then we don't need race again is that is that how it read before we did yeah okay based upon race family income lgbtqia Plus disabilities and status of as emergent multilingual and
065English language learners reject two thoughts sure um not directly related to that structure that you just read which which I'm fine with but the um in the feedback that we got nobody liked the functional trajectory language and we've eliminated functional but we still have trajectory and I just I wonder it is sort of a little bit of a weird word it sounds like we're launching our students into space or something you know what I mean it just has a strange um connotation so I'm wondering if we can fiddle around with that and then then as you were reading this again and returning to this language about structural racism is the most devastating Factory um uh well actually now something else has occurred to me but anyway in within that phrase when we talk about diminished
066achievement of students and I know we've attempted in other places to get around that sort of deficit way of thinking and I'm wondering if we could use something and again this is not because I was just noodling it over um the most devastating Factor can contributing to just the racial predictability of achievement or something although that's a little clunky um but rather than this diminished achievement deficit kind of language um we might be able to do better there and I'm also I am trying to think about kind of punchier shorter phrasing here so that we end up with not something that reads like one of those cobbled together Mission vision statements that where you're trying to include every possible word Under the Sun and then nobody gets the point and I think we're sort of
067on the verge of that with this goal frankly because it's got so many words well we keep taking out words and then we do adding more although I still say that as the first goal this is this is the it is we're leading with this one it's a big one it's the problem and it's really a base it's everything it is what we do it is it is and and as I was going through the um um budget I was reading the goals in the budget and and many departments use our language right in their um Department goals so it is really important to have this goal okay so here just thinking out loud eths will um I lost my thought hanging it's a better word performance well I I was trying to get to
068academic performance bths will do something to um I have to get back in my head eths will increase each student's academic performance academic path outcomes outcomes nice yeah academic outcome to realize Contra yeah and I I really think that should that should be the first sentence because I think what we also heard was the feedback from the staff they said this is great but it's very passive like what are you doing like what are you yeah and and we have to you know yeah maybe say that first if that is our if that is our thing which it is and that is our responsibility as a board to help you know support that and Lead that just as much as the the first I mean the folks on the front line then then we should
069say that um and then perhaps then lead with um you know we recognize or we acknowledge or we um we yeah believe or something that's that says we know this to be true um and that the um the structural racism or whatever that's really not the goal that is not no it's a say no it's just the statement within a goal but it's you know it just sets the tone for the goal but so somehow we have to just say this is what we're going to do and this is why yeah yeah do we need to say outcome if we say eths will increase each student's academic Career College and Career Readiness and Independence I like how you get it you have to yeah it's very it's more specific students academic to do what you
070know what I'm saying so it's like they're ready we're gonna Inc we're going to increase their students academic Readiness and Independence increase but like and that is College and Career readiness right no no are we fine with outcomes period yes no literally out comes period or no no because the outcomes are identified in the measures that's the way it usually kind of relates so I see so you're saying um each eths will increase each student's academic outcome I I think that's a possible option but I think we need to acknowledge um really three things and if it if they get acknowledged in outcomes and measures it would be okay and that would be the college piece the career piece and the independence piece because The Independents are I think for me that applies obviously to
071all of our students but in particular perhaps to our special ed students so all right that's yeah so those I like so okay we could take it out but they need to be very specifically acknowledged in outcomes and measures no I was just gonna make the smaller point that this whole outcomes a measures part I thought that's something do you guys do a little bit later yeah we can do it later that we shouldn't get hung up on that all right we're not We're Not Gonna hang up on that right which makes it very intentional yeah absolutely if we just so I'm going back to the book you have us read right right and our responsibility was student performance period it didn't in the goal it didn't say student performance to do this or do
072that because it could be a whole gamut of things for different people it could be I'm graduating to do a gap year are they ready to do a gap year you know so I I think um from the board's perspective we know more and we know that ultimately we are just as responsible to helping our students achieve their academic performance that's it but then the outcomes become how like in what way and what's going to be measured and then that makes um staffs work more intentional through whatever the realization of College and Career Readiness and Independence what does that look like so I think going back to your words because you're right I'm not like with the goals we have to be able to just know it and say it and the person reading it
073and they need to know exactly what we're holding them accountable to do and when we um and it has to be bold so yeah as you congratulence talking I was like yep and that would make them more intentional about the outcomes and more deliberate about what they should be and more specific which is what the goals should be to have it in there so keep the list of realize that line or move that to our produce yeah yeah okay I just want to be clear what you were suggesting so uths will increase each student's academic whatever is if it's performance if it's outcomes period Pete offered that up as a suggestion yeah yeah it's like yeah that's the outcome that we want though performance I'm interested in the end game yeah right you're going to
074figure out how to get us there right and I am fine with it but I I think Gretchen you were on to something in terms of that list being important and and so I would just remember those words for below yeah yeah because I'm I mean we could do then when that list comes back to us to say this does not this is not specific enough but if we're including it there then we're doing both and right here yeah yeah no I'm I'm good with that I just agreed with Gretchen that we should hold on to those Concepts and then I think the next sentence Monique I liked you added we because then again that puts the onus on us uh recognize that structural racism is the most devastating Factor contributing to and um I've
075changed I agree with Gretchen that that diminished achievement is a very negative but impeding I thought was a good word because it doesn't put it on the students as they are wrong it's that racism is the thing I like that getting in the way okay gave us that feedback too that we put the onus on them right what this goal is yeah taking responsibility yeah I like that nice and then we can go to the and then at the the last sentence I wonder if I'm the last sentence I know we're trying for brevity so but I just I I thought there was some discussion around two things that I thought were really important first intersectionality and secondly that if we're doing right by our black male students specifically we are going to be doing
076we're going to be lifting you know everyone because that means the instruction and all those things that we're attending to for again our focus our number one structural racism is going to support so I don't know if we want to say that if we want to like acknowledge that as a result of this we um you know we will then also I don't know if we want to those aren't the right words but the concept being do we want to connect that by doing by focusing on structural racism we are indeed going to support support all students and we listed a number of groups I think that's getting too many words in here and I you know actually I think we can we can make a statement um you know we can develop the goals
077which then need to stand on their own for some period of time um in in announcing our goals I think we can make statements you know it's a little bit like the legislative intent right if you um are trying to interpret a lie you know you might look back on the legislative intent or you'd pay attention to the legislative intent behind the law when you and that's the kind of thing that we can all articulate support Marcus could you know working with us we can develop a statement that would accompany the release of our new goals or some some such thing but I just we can't have we cannot have an entire page here for goal one people need to just be able to say our gold one so but I don't I'll be honest
078with you I'm not sure what we're saying like what what would be if someone said to me okay Mira what did everybody decide on tonight I would not know I was gonna ask Pete if he's getting a little bit of a summary of what you all are saying because um I have eths eths will increase each student's academic outcomes to realize then the second part is gone it's moved into the outcomes and then we recognize that structural racism is the most devastating Factor impeding the achievement of students and now we're on to the third sound okay but for instance in I respect you all so much but I I said I wasn't okay with that and then we're like yeah okay just saying outcomes okay and then we're like oh no no it's okay that's
079okay we can do it and now we're gonna just like so I'm a little uncomfortable with our process right now um but I'm not sure if this is the time to like maybe this is the time that's why we're here that's exactly why we did okay so but it's really hard to hold what all the ideas are because I can't really see them right and on the document so your visual and I yeah I am I'm trying to started reading and I had nothing in front of me yeah Lisa Lisa can you go make copies of well I know he can actually take notes they we can display yeah Pat I can this is cool here it's just that when we're shifting it and then we're kind of agreeing I can't see the living document
080yes so we're going to pull it out so you can see this yeah um because I'm not how is it that we're okay with just outcomes and saying it as a generic word when the specificity of the ideas around College and Career Readiness and Independence while I know they're down in the measurement but it's kind for me it's very much the same argument as why we would say race or why we would name structural racism to me there's power and like outcome to what end so why are we just saying outcome like you I don't think I hear you're saying is outcomes for what yeah for what purpose yes and and you you and so outcomes I would we need to say more about that like what are the outcomes right so I would have
081said the students academic College increase each student's academic um College and Career Readiness and or towards something but I would name the actual things yes like I liked that in there um so I'm curious why we wanted to remove it it's up there so one of the things I would suggest is that college career Readiness is a is a construct and it's a construct that's comes from both the state initially it was the cut it was the ACT college readiness benchmarks and then the college boards college readiness benchmarks and then the state developed career Readiness benchmarks so if we want to link it to the state we can Define it by the state but again those shift over time and language changes so I'm I don't know if we want outcome or if we want
082outcome specific to post high school maybe that might be a suggestion because then you could feed those same indicators underneath as outcomes if we used post High School which I think captures where we are kind of in our thinking are you okay with outcome post High School outcome High School post high school high school outcomes so we have Independence does it have Independence in there yeah so if we say post High School outcomes then so in my mind that means that captures a lot like other just a broad range of alternatives for students whatever it's going to happen after high school and it gives us some flexibility around um the outcome and measures piece which you know we can hold on to the goals for a longer period of time and the outcomes and measures
083we can you know to Pete's point the state and you know all the required measurements have shifted over time so we can be we can shift as necessary within that without going through some wordsmithing of the actual goal again I mean is the title of this goal one still Equitable and excellent at education ah yeah I thought at one point we said Nissan like they contradict each other or that they can't both be the same thing right because an excellent education is we're trying to adjust yeah I like making that shift but I think I think keeping both words in there is important because not because of us we get it I think that a lot of people who are not paying as much attention as we do we want to make sure we we
084don't want to give them an uh an opportunity for I think I wrote well this is related to the budget but that that doing equity and being fiscally responsible is possible you know having so I think we need to use that more for a public presentation than to us we I just mentioned it because it it gives a headline to what the goal actually is so you know as we're rewording the goal I just want us to remember what we're trying to do can I just push back on this post-high school outcome post High School piece it sounds like we're trying to control the things that we can't control which is to say what happens after high school we're doing everything we can while they're here the outcomes were increasing things while they're here to
085get them to a better place after I just feel like we've confused things a little bit with that back office and you're trying to make so you think by having no kind of qualifier that it kind of keeps it in the high school is that what you're saying well because we're the high school I am not sure we need to be to restate the obvious you know no I well I'm asking if you're saying if you pull that out then it's just kind of our students maybe there's a word between academic and post High School Lynn Christian uh or maybe towards or some something maybe post high school should come after outcomes eths will increase students academic outcomes academic outcomes to support high schools something most high school Readiness to you like that word post
086High School Success that's good to realize both High School Success and then success gets clarified in our outcomes and measures I like that hmm okay it's starting to come together how's everybody feeling mirror everybody I'm really honored and thank you for doing this with me here and having us um this is yeah definitely very um challenging I mean I would start with as an anti-racist institution but I I hear it that's what Leah said yeah I just like I would name that each that I would say eths will increase each student's academic because that we could start the second sentence with that it's fun I think it should be the first thing too I just think we need to understand that we're making a statement and not lose sight of we need a goal yeah
087I mean we will do this right we're writing our yeah so you're saying yeah it's gonna say you will be updating your Equity statement soon that's a much better topic sentence because we are because the topic sentence of our goal now encompasses what follows we've um you know so as a topic sentence I think we've captured the race piece and the you know what we're trying to do peace and then in the whatever sentence or two that we follows we'll flesh that out right yeah and that's easy ER to read yeah I like that and then the third sentence could be dropped as an anti-racist and start with eths Will dedicate God thank God thank you Pete yeah all the way to the then that's the third sentence oh my gosh you're good at this
088Pete we should we should vote him in you want it you want the job okay I actually like it I do too all right you can take out the stuff we asked out so that we don't have to yeah it'll make it shorter than it are you fixing the typeface yeah with everybody watch it with everyone watching it becomes extraordinarily difficult to navigate I'm gonna get it right um there we go let's make that green really obnoxious green camera all right that's good that's a good color all right so we're all good with the purple and then we're on the third sentence yeah but why do you have you can unhide schools in there but that's okay no that's a note over here okay okay so do the fix the last the last sentence we're
089getting rid of to strive yeah because we're just yeah it's too many words yeah we will dedicate we'll dedicate an hour its efforts yeah per hour yeah it's a goal so we could say eths will eliminate yeah we can do that yeah yeah how about that you like that you can just say yeah because that's a lot of work that's nice yeah yeah eliminate the predictability of academic achievement base of Honor race there's the list there's the list upon well I mean you're saying structural racism so yeah can we say outcomes instead of achievements academic outcomes instead of achievement because I think that an outcome is somehow bigger than achievement yeah it is I don't know well and it it goes with what we've said yeah right right it matches all right yeah no I
090think that's good I like it it doesn't feel like too many words to me wait there's something that's not lining up right based upon Ray's family income lgbtq plus disabilities what happened to our list conversation that's another one that felt unresolved for me so like are we we've agreed by majority that we are having a list Monica you comfortable with the way delicious I mean I wish we could just focus and ah they're op you just did something yeah that's better something like that maybe yes yes oh I love that that's really very well done Pete I was gonna say I just wish good to have English teachers you can sing along race and you did that yeah we did it okay with that with those three words that's good well okay okay connect that
091space but I would okay I would be somebody who would vote for no list um but could we I mean could we be a little bit more like I don't know what grammatically what section it's in but um academic outcomes based upon race and the intersection or intersectionality but you don't have to say like family income because it could not be a family it could so yeah or gender I um I mean do we need to like we're talking about ability not necessarily if we take income out it's literally I think all the protected it's almost every protected class right but for instance with but income is right no I agree that's why it's not protective class right yeah I don't know but where is gender for instance in the sense of like so do
092we really want to that's the problem with the list exactly yeah that's that's exactly the problem with the list right because you you missed something yeah we could we could have 12 things going back to the data it it matters right the intersections matter but we know that race is the predictability these these other things I I would have a very hard time saying to somebody who's got a kid with disabilities and we have a focal and strong community of parents uh families of kids with disabilities that we're going to take disabilities out of this goal I just well now that it's my the feeling of extraction is yeah undermining it's just I I don't think we are undermining your point about race by allowing a family with disabilities to see themselves in the school
093as an example I mean I think this would hold true you could isolate some of these other things in that way and I think that's completely Fair and at the same time you can acknowledge race as the structural racism is the biggest problem and race as the biggest determinant of success in high school I think both of those things are true and I think we can have them both here and I think it's pretty artfully constructed right now yeah with Pete's assistance so I just want to you you help me think of something Gretchen so when we say it's intersection with gender income Etc is when you say people see themselves do what do people do people think are we are we getting ahead of p i mean I don't I think we need to
094say what we need to say but is that going to be understood by our community writ large like is that I I you know I hope so but I think we can I mean it's really our job to communicate that yeah I think we have to you know we found out in those surveys that and people don't even know where what our goals are right so I mean back to the point when whenever we're having a conversation at a board meeting we should be directly connecting what we talk about very in a very maybe um Elementary kind of way to what our goals say so tonight the reason we were talking about our identity work or racial I'm trying to think of the global word we had for everything the reason we're doing that is
095just not because it's fun and our kids enjoy it it's it's because it's connected not just to goal number two in well-being but it's it's very directly connected to goal number one and what we're trying to do to lift up the academic outcomes of our students particularly our students of color and it's very and and then when you say that it's so obvious that this is why we're talking about this tonight but we need to be way more explicit about it and and stop people just saying why are you talking about all this stuff that happened last year often the the um start that way they often say this is connected to goal number two this is connected sometimes so maybe that would be an expectation that we would have that we would be more
096intentional about that I know they know what it is I know we know what it is the point is to make it more obvious yeah for all the people who just told us in their surveys that they don't even what what are these goals we didn't know you had them we don't know what you're trying to do because so I I respect that and I guess then I would just wonder uh maybe it's not now but we have to just be modest and know that um or maybe it's show some sort of humility that this will always change right so we're not we don't have religion up there we don't have um you know I'm sure there's some other things that we could come up with um age I mean we don't have we don't
097have religion we don't so we I mean and it's not necessarily because the law tells us that we have to these are ethical in our moral compass directing us as well um income really we're talking about wealth like it's it's not really it's a nod it's a signal right it's not complete so maybe that's part of our work is that we always come back and we always know that we're always gonna it's you know keep growing with this um and we just have to know that and so when we kind of stop now because we're not going to be able to I mean I guess that's my that's my issue with the list but I you know I wanna hear my colleagues um you know we went through the e-plan and we know Geographic is
098a big it's a big one where our students live yeah it's huge so you know immediately that was the one that was missing for me because I'm thinking about right ZIP code or where most of our students live that were that we've been talking about all year long that we're most concerned about so um that's why I was just like can we just stop at race because when we look at every category and and subgroup it's the one thing that's consistent even with our our special ed community and so I I don't know I don't know how we make it all inclusive but I you know Democrats wanted to put it out there that it's that we're bound to leave somebody out in in two years you're gonna have to when you're running again hear
099about it no because we're leaving somebody out we're leaving groups out as there are some students and parents who won't see themselves in this right and we certainly don't want this to be fluid but you know I'm intrigued by Mary what you just said about this being sort of adaptable as things come up right and to see you know maybe we can pause and reflect something back to the goal to say hey look why don't we go back in and either add finesse or shift or change based on what's coming up for us I'm good with that yeah yeah I mean that's what the goal is supposed to be it is supposed to be fluid it is supposed to move you know with the well and we if you look at the red line version
100we did that this year we've added to what we had before in terms of expanding lgbtq uh qia plus and emergent multilingual um and English well English language Learners was there before but so we have done that now I mean you know there's always the and you know like you can sort of say and all protected classes or you could put some catch-all at the end if if you wanted to yeah but then nobody acknowledge that yeah no I know I know I'm just saying that is an option well I'll just say look forward to writing a strong Equity statement yeah you know based on this conversation yeah yeah we have not looked at that Equity statement since 2011. all right so we are due for a review we do for fun that's our work
101next year get ready let's just start like at 5 00 p.m okay okay yes I do like those earlier all right should we go to go to and just to be clear on the outcomes and measures um so staff is going to do work on that okay because I had some questions about what things were but yeah yeah okay yeah I don't know we shouldn't have even yeah foreign extraordinary I know that's right that's a word I don't know yeah I'm not sure I don't know that I like that one um yeah Leah said that she she was not a fan of that yeah and I would tend to agree I don't think the adjectives that really have a place in our goes so much I mean it's easy to I think we can talk
102about it that way but yeah and I don't know capacity is a weird word it is weird how is it different than potential well what does that mean you have capacity and I don't like I don't it doesn't everybody have capacity like I don't know isn't potential incapacity you know it's pretty similar yeah I think that they are okay let's pick one and then go with it we like potential better I like potential better things are you taking care of this wait a minute see like how did you guys just do that I don't know no I'm just saying that sorry so now it's recorded in the notes it's it's official it's gone I think potential is old school not in a good way and I think capacity okay close growth and it's a part
103of thinking about even you know like you're understanding for a zone of proximal development it's it's a really important concept you persuaded me okay let's go I can I can if potentials old school and I was unaware Cassidy have a judgment in it yeah it appears very fixed to me capacity yeah it's like ability okay no potential is having or showing the capacity thank you wow develop into something in the future okay so what um yeah so what do we want to do so why yeah why say a word when you actually mean capacity potential means having capacity our students will provide an environment centered on students possibilities possibilities the maximum amount how about uh um the students something about their vision of themselves or their future their what they want do you know what
104I'm getting at I'm not getting the right word but the concept because I feel like capacity is like reality I I don't want to limit it to just the student I don't know this is not going to come out right never mind um they may be self-limiting that's what I'm going to say so I don't so I don't want to just say what they want they may not even know what they want it's our job to open okay the door to the possibilities let me let me read the what Leah wrote she said eths so she's asking to us to consider a more active more measurable goal for example eths will provide opportunities for students to build skills centered around and around maintaining well-being and lifelong competencies that align with the intersectionality of their identities
105Drive rich it is you need that heat I'll write it up I got it um you need glasses I again I guess I would be a little bit more direct you know I like some of what she had said um but I I'm looking for us to not provide opportunities but create the conditions necessary I like that so I like that I like that too and then maybe some of what she said but somewhere what about because I was thinking this too when you said that eths will provide an environment centered on our students by ensuring that they experience dignity I mean I don't know I'm not crazy about dignity and respect so um but by ensuring whatever whatever for their well-being we can change all that but I'm I'm removing the whole extraordinary potential
106and capacity so we go straight to we will provide an environment Center on our students yes I like that and then let's figure out and then pick up some of um because a student-centered environment is way different than I like that you know I mean that changes how you think I mean you know you already do that but it shifts how you make decisions absolutely and the voices you allow for the apart what if it was um eths will provide an environment centered on our students um by ensuring their well-being and then me I don't know we can kind of through and then maybe put some of the specifics that Leah sometimes on our students and their well-being okay and yeah get rid of all that other stuff and their well-being yeah by providing lifelong
107competencies in line with the intersectionality of their identities which is the last part of when we had mentioned before about identities we were saying that it doesn't really cover everything like income right well what you write is this a different sense of identity this is just like the themselves versus their demographic more like individuals anyway I'm not sure people know what life on competency is there that might be one of those phrases including me I know right I wasn't I'm not sure [Music] well she also used the word skills which I don't love but maybe skills and like something more less didactic than lifelong company skills wow I definitely think the skills yeah just skills both still are clear yeah lifelong skills yeah yeah yeah yeah provide like long skills and I I would do
108something that's more like skills is like more fun something well skills is like I have to major in stem so I can get a job that's what I'm saying so I want them to also very concrete think about majoring in English so they can become Pete Davis right or you know like that there's more more you know I'm making a joke but the point is it that there's opportunity to realize their interests and passion and so skill is very limited to me even though it's important a range of experiences I will I'm hung up on why are we saying students and their well-being why isn't it students well-being yeah yeah that's fine that's fine yeah yeah it's just a that was a gradual stuff students well-being well-being excellent possession period yeah maybe well-being period yes
109what do you call it right here [Music] that's what I was saying period right period yeah and then it's done it's a one sentence goal yeah oh yeah mic drop yeah actually I mean that's it I'm good with that I'm good with that too yeah yeah I mean we can still mull this over yeah we can talk about the howl later yeah that's well again now comes the measures but Mira I want to just I'm sorry I don't mean to be devil's advocate here but before when we talked about in the previous goal you needed some definition of what outcome do you need that here with well-being like defining what we mean by well-being in the in the goal like you brought up about defining outcomes outcome does feels generic has more of a definition
110but that's that could just be you know no it's fine I'm just I'm just pushing back because you raised that before and I thought it was a good point so I just want to make sure it doesn't apply here yeah I think if it said like students feelings the lobbying feels okay okay yeah or just when you say an environment centered on our students yeah yeah okay I'm I'm fine with it I'm fine thank you uh yeah I actually I I'm good with I like it Kendra what are you doing are we boring you cancer Raider she opened the baklavar container and came back and we were still on gold too she only brought enough for herself [Laughter] okay enough now that's good all right we're so close we do we we got the budget
111Pete eliminates some of these words here okay let's do it yeah I don't have a problem with it I'm okay unless anybody can eliminate any of the words actually I do like the way it's written because I like the values based budgeting yeah are you good with this you had some thoughts okay well mine is really is less about the wording of the goal and more about something specific okay yeah we can talk a bit later you're okay uh no but oh wait it's just my probably my ignorance around it's very full of financial lingo kind of stuff that I don't oh no it could have so much more effects you need to hang out at my house for like 10 minutes because stewardship your values based budgeting the word equity in uh in a
112financial financial statement yeah it usually means something else [Laughter] yeah right okay and um what do we what do we mean oh Kathy's leaving us Integrity see ya see you Kathy okay okay what is the difference between equity and integrity well Equity is is I think Integrity is talking about financial into it has to do with financial integrity and the Integrity of our facilities right so the Integrity of our room sorry so when we're talking about uh Integrity I feel like we're talking about financial Integrity reporting transparency controls things of that nature yes right but when we're talking about Equity then that's going that this is just highlighting even further what we discussed in goal one and making sure that that is trickling through everything that we do including the fiscal accountability the Integrity is
113a little more financially specific I think I mean Integrity gets used in different ways yeah we're all act with Integrity we are like to think that we act with Integrity I think the way it gets used here is is kind of specific in this financial context correct so I do think that it is a term that is you know widely used when you're talking about finances but it's with everything right like I would hope that um anyone here would approach goal one with Integrity right right um and so I just think that it's it's once again just underscoring but I will say while I I get what you're saying mirror about stewardship right not being something that somebody's going to maybe necessarily use every day but really when you look at the definition of stewardship
114that is exactly what we are looking to accomplish here when it comes to the finances right we want to be good stewards of the committee dollars that were entrusted and so it's it's I hear you but I also can't think of a better term to Encompass what we're trying to accomplish when we talk about fiscal accountability what if we moved it around a little so that the integrity was better connected to financial stewardship so something like eths will employ values-based budgeting to intentionally focus on equity and provide Financial stewardship with integrity or something like that but pardon that got a little Tangled for me well I the point being then it brings it the Integrity piece it better defines what we mean by it it does by putting the stewardship financials yeah yeah so I
115hear that right because people there's a focus there there's a focus on Equity but the Integrity piece is really like interwoven into like how it's done right like you're gonna do it with Integrity while focusing on Equity yeah I guess is what you're saying yeah so to intentionally focus on equity and provide Financial stewardship with Integrity yeah does that work does that convey what you're talking about but isn't that the definition of financial stewardship Integrity yeah operating in it yeah so I mean so is it needed or can we just say Financial Integrity I think people really understand that yeah then yeah yeah or do you see them as I see them as different yeah I see them as different to be stewardship is our job it's what we do yes right we make sure
116I mean that's in theory our job is to push back and make sure the budget is right and so I can operate an Integrity in the way that I handle reporting and ensuring that you know there aren't like fraudulent things happening to the best of my ability within the district but when we talk about stewardship I think of things like you know how are we setting ourselves up for the future with what we have now um things of that nature and I don't know that that always relates to Integrity Integrity or that you can't right like what you what year was that it would be really beautiful to see the word future in here um and honestly like so who is our audience the community yeah and that's why stewardship is I think really important
117well that I would argue is the opposite for me um I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me transparency um you know responsibility future forward those are words I would understand and know that I don't yeah it is not a word that I would ever say um and I'm not you know I mean I think I'm uh maybe not the best sample of our grouping of a focus of our community because I'm on the board but it is not something that comes into my vocabulary really ever so this so this works so frequently I know yeah lingo like I I do that too with certain words yeah and you're absolutely right these goals while they're for us to create outcomes and measures we going back to what Gretchen said people need
118to read this and know and see themselves in it so I agree I was just wondering like can we use stewardship instead of Integrity or how can we make it real clear transparency is a big issue um or not an issue it's not our issue it is priorities so how can we make it real clear that this is our goal this is our objective this is what we're trying to to do it has to do with Equity it has to do with values based and it has to be and it has to do with being operating locating our resources right through ethical decision making I know this was supposed to be the easiest I know yeah well okay I mean I what I hear Kendra saying I think is important so it and so maybe
119we changed the word but I think this notion of stewardship to me means that we are watching to make sure that we're you know staying within the budget now being mindful of the future not being you know go on a crazy spending spree to the point of impacting negatively the future that's one concept and then this and that and people care a lot about that because you know 25 of that tax bill goes to us so they they care about that and then the second piece is the Integrity piece is the following the accounting rules and being transparent and being you know uh careful with the financial piece so I think there's two concepts there what we call them I could work with different words but I feel that that's what I'm hearing from Kendra
120and I agree that there are two really important Concepts and we've acknowledging that we've already agreed on equity and that values-based budgeting I really like that term because it really does speak to how you make decisions okay I think Pete Pete's got it Well everybody's been talking I think you definitely have it yeah and I I love it like how the words are been tightened up here nice but yeah I think you've nailed it Kendra does that work it works yes this is where I need to be a diplomat right I would speak it yeah it's late already you can still roll it over it's great thank you Mira thank you for it for this so I mean it's not yeah I mean yeah well that's your work again well Mira what is the what
121is the concern that stewardship word or the whole thing or what I mean really so you're I'm seriously asking okay it is for me it is still very yes uh steeped within and it's because it's not my lingo if it were the lingo I use and I'd be like oh it's great so I my bias is deep and maybe it can be educative as well as informative but Financial stewardship employing values-based budgeting for me from the word it's to the rest of it it just it just sounds like well I think though then it's a good thing that we've LED with Equity integrity and transparency because I think that captures the important bits for you yeah it could be a both end right yeah right exactly have that exactly and so this mirror would it
122help if it said by budgeting based on these values yeah I don't think and Define that term I feel like we I I love you thank you I think we should go to the next one because I I can hold that it's both also that it that it that it has language that is really important especially as you know we're hearing from you all in Kendra that this is the language of of finances yes um and that like that's okay yeah let's leave it and also Kendra is going to present us the tentative budget tonight and she's going to address this maybe but you are going to present tonight at the word conditional that is also conditional well I mean it's not you know it's funny but it's not because the outcomes and the measures
123have to speak to equity integrity and transparency specific yes you know yeah and the more we add the harder it is Right today buy that and we're going to do this so we'll get to see if the measures will support the goal I mean that's why I know this is not final but we'll get to see if they truly support the goal okay poor and when we get to the measures when we get to the measures then it should be clearer we hope we hope we hope we're not making it Leah wasn't crazy about this communication Loop because she doesn't know what the heck that is neither neither do I so I usually use two-way dialogue but that you might not like that well why don't we why don't we do Pete's Pete's trick of
124the first thing to do is eths will strengthen community and family relationships period period I was gonna do that I knew I knew I was reading your mind as an English fellow English major then yeah and we're stuck to further an effective Continuum this is a great example of the lingo that of the other side of things right there's a lot of yeah nobody likes me just an effective Contin yeah you know what we might um no somebody did some of that no come on let's just add that means some of that is gonna be encapsulated exactly right so that you actually to leave it as that feels strong I it feels strong to me too and maybe it's just a late hour strength and women and family relationships leave it at that and go
125okay can I I'm sorry I don't mean to be a spoiler but I think you have to I think using at least using the word either engagement or communication or something yeah because okay you got to have some connection to where would you put it where do you put it uh uh strengthen community and family relationships and through two-way communication through uh engagement through something like you could just put through and then put whatever words you like I don't like communication Loop but through connection through connecting with Community Partners regular engagement or engagement communication and engagement and just leave it because engagement suggests you're listening as well as talking to okay through communication and engagement and engage engagement yeah yeah okay I think we could say dog food and people go great let's go let's
126go do we want just to work final do you want to get rid of more on our agenda goal Force should be Community engagement because this doesn't really speak to Partnerships yeah let's get rid of that part yes but I think Community engagement can include Partners oh it can yeah yeah but I mean maybe that's a word we want to remember down below because that is an important piece which I think you already have in here how about a family your family the weird thing to me in the surveys here was that everybody seemed to think this had only to do with communication with family and that was when the goal was drafted that was not at all the strengthened family and community family and family do it in the same Community relationship how about
127family and Community engagement yeah family first yes yeah yeah yeah right family and Community do we um what's the word relationships well I'm just worried about the concept just saying family is there another word to talk about students or not wives the traditional family yeah I mean is it just like like if you well well I think family can mean a non-traditional yes yeah I mean uh what if you're in a foster space or yeah like are we like what is the apparently uses Guardian but that doesn't yeah um time you can help us here yeah and I appreciate your question yes we want to make sure people feel honored with it um but we've really been switching a lot actually to same family instead of parents because parent is very very binary fact about
128that feeling very right not centering and not building relationships yeah yeah okay yeah so we're we're kind of Reinventing and trying to be trying to be forward in this use of family yeah okay okay yeah wait we'll start making family and Community what community what relationships relationships that's what we had connections I like conscience yeah yeah right connections oh chatty over here gave me gave me that one Community connections and communication that's the three seat wow it's like a little Community some dangerous territory there connections through communication you like Partnerships then we go back down partnership is the goal well then you can keep it in there yeah well the the advantage of Partnerships is that it does encompass some of the other agencies that we work closely with enhance community and family connections through
129effective communication and active engagement um a lot of adjectives yeah I think that's good is that what she's doing yeah hey I'll make it better chat open is chat Dot openai.com that's the free version embrace it folks what's wrong [Laughter] um all right okay we did it okay agenda item two [Laughter] all right where's the agenda here we are okay comments from the public are you sure we have no comments from the public this evening no comments okay foia's we have yes we have 11 foyers one from smizer one from Fox one from Shelton one from Paz one from Le Souza one from Hayden SB one from Paz one from Clayman from Jax and one from Espy responses in your packet bag I'm sorry yes all right okay board committee reports I have one little
130report um I haven't reported very much on Ed red um but I did want to share that I am officially retired from the Ed red executive board as of today we had our my last executive board meeting for Ed read um where there were four retiring board members and it's amazing how that whole executive board is turned over we had a delightful lunch I was presented with a delightful plaque and for my eight years of service on the Edward executive board including two as president of the at Red executive board so it was very very lovely I'll continue to go to at Red you know member meetings which I would encourage all of you to do really administrator and board members and many of them will remain accessible on Zoom I believe going forward um
131and I would also suggest that you all mark your calendar you should all be getting the emails for August 3rd is they're doing a new event a legislative breakfast um so if you're free and not on vacation that's something you might want to attend more details will follow okay all right other reports there was the District 65 Park School committee and gee I should have brought my notes but I certainly didn't didn't bring my notes do you remember much about that we just got an update from Park School um and with their Administration on all of the remarkable programming that they have been engaged in the last year and one thing that sticks out is that they had their first Justin win um honoree from Park School and so they were it was really nice
132to have them share a little bit of that and um yeah and and you know the finances which we um are going to continue to discuss with uh District 65 how we can know what those numbers are for part school a lot earlier than than May so that we can certainly um address the needs that are then come up there so it was a good meeting yeah and um then the graduation was at the end of the week and I know that you were able to attend an opportunity to speak at the park school graduation yeah all right okay speaking of superintendent's reports here we are I thought Kendra was about to get the budget maybe all right no uh thank you um so I would just like to thank all of our staff members
133and board members all of you and and Leah because who participated in commencement for the class of 2023 last month um and as I mentioned at graduation I'll say it again tonight we honored uh miles just a few minutes ago but abrio artley who was the class of 2023 uh graduate won the state championship in the 300 hurdles which is amazing Dawson Wright is a state champion and the shot put that is the first time in eths history all right and uh to um Kai Strickland who was uh on the 4x4 relay team that took seventh place in the triple jump graduation was a beautiful day and a memorable event I am grateful to our recent graduates and for their unique perspectives and that continue to push the school forward and I look forward to
134greeting the class of 2027 uh for April 14th on their first day of school right so 2027. right that's exciting um I'd also like to say thank you to our community and school leaders who made it to our community talkbacks this year it was a success I hosted four sessions and it was an honor to build new relationships in the community from these talkbacks and the Gathering to find values purpose and the goals of the district had a great final talk but not final but last talk back of the year at the YWCA and that was a fantastic conversation with eths the city and with um some a few parents who came by summer school started June 1st and will end July 13th so please visit the website for details about the eths office hours
135during the summer as well as important information on summer construction projects lots of roofs that we're putting on that will take place through the end of July and that concludes my report right right thank you thank you thank you all right we are here we've been waiting we're talking about your dessert well good Kendra is going to now begin to our present our attentive budget for 23.24 it is balanced so thank you Kendra for balancing the budget absolutely thank you for balancing the budget tonight I really didn't intend on Dr Campbell's stealing my Steam you know I was like I'm coming out the gate to talk about a balanced budget that's literally my first bullet point but thank you so much waited to eat up okay so you know so yeah didn't want to bury
136the lead balanced budget extremely proud to be able to um present a balanced budget for yet another year uh our cash reserves and fund balances continue to be within uh the acceptable range per board policy and once again I you know in doing this budget we're just really demonstrating the strong commitment that we have to long-term fiscal sustainability um making sure that the budget is in line with goals which we'll go over a little bit more later but and especially as we discuss goal three so and then this diagram was just to kind of give a visual for the budget you know timeline and how that process works so really it's just a continuous loop because phase one is planning uh then you know you start preparing the budget you go through do the review
137and Analysis the tentative budget public review and comment once that gets posted and then the approval and filing which happens in uh September is when we'll have the approval and then it has to be filed by the end of October and then before you know it you're right back to planning all over again for the following year uh because it does take time uh takes a lot of effort to make sure that you're talking with various stakeholders uh not making decisions in a silo because obviously that's not how we're we want to operate when we're trying to make sure that we're benefiting the students in our community and so just wanted to put that visual up there so that everyone can kind of just see how it's it's an ongoing process it's not just we
138talk about it in June set it set it aside and then talk about it again in September but continuously throughout the year we're revisiting um where we're at for the current Year's budget where we need to be where we plan to be in the future and so just some of the financial considerations uh that came up in preparing this tentative budget where the lasting effects from the pandemic I know that we're probably sick and tired of talking about the pandemic but really the you know it's although although we you know people are saying okay we're coming out of it but there's still these lasting effects that have that have come right that we still have to contend with um in the needs for our students but also in ways that weren't initially anticipated right so
139not just student needs but also how it's affected various Industries uh whether it be Transportation construction things of that nature and what that means for us when we're talking about the finances and uh as their funding is closing uh closing out for us we have a significantly uh lesser amount of Esser funding this year than in the previous year and so we're seeing like a decrease in the federal revenue but also what does that mean for positions that initially were funded by Esser that now if we have decided that you know the impact to our student body is so great that we want to hold on to those positions working out how to fund them to make sure that we're caring for our students so another consideration as well always the state's Financial condition which
140of course is better than it was you know five years ago but still not at a place where we can just feel completely comfortable with saying that oh we know that for sure that we're not going to see pension shifts in the future and that this won't have an effect on us and so just putting those up there because they're still not they're still in play as uh potential outcomes that could happen and then uh limitations to our local Revenue increases so when we talk about property taxes and CPI we'll get into that a little bit more in a different slide but we have inflation that has exceeded um our p-tail limitations so we're really capped at the five percent when it comes to what we're able to Levy for our property taxes we're able
141to do five percent plus whatever new property comes on to the tax rolls and so when we have inflation coming in at seven percent uh 6.5 percent uh in you know even higher in some specific Industries how does that affect how we're able to uh still balance the budget and then the current labor market also significant uh salaries and benefits are the largest part of our budget and so when you're looking at the labor market and hiring and trying to attract and retain the best staff possible for eths how does that work when you're talking about dollars and so for the labor market right now you know when we see that minimum wage is increasing everywhere is paying more money a lot of corporations are able to pay more money they're able to do that
142because their revenue looks a lot different right they're able to pass those costs on in another way but we don't have that opportunity here as a school district and so figuring out how to compete in the labor market when a number of other opportunities are available to to people that weren't where the landscape looked a lot different years ago so this is a history of CPI use for uh p-tel as I mentioned before and so we see here when we're looking at the past 10 years how there's a steep increase from 1.4 percent to five percent in the last two years we have uh the CPI used for p-tel at five percent although inflation actually exceeded that five percent so that's our limit that five percent but inflation again was seven percent 6.5 percent or
143higher depending on if you get industry specific about the Consumer Price Index and so uh just just to kind of bring home where it's been in the past and what the typical trend is versus what we're seeing now and how that has absolutely had an impact on how we've budgeted sorry forward some other specifics about the tentative budget so we have 104.9 million budgeted for fy24 and so that's 4.9 percent more than uh fiscal year 2023 and the operating budget so when we're talking about the operating budget that's the education fund operations and maintenance Transportation working cash and tort fund all of the other funds which are bonded interest and Social Security are outside of the one outside of the operating budget and so the operating budget is 94.7 million for fiscal year 24. so
144when we were talking about the budget and the financial section we're reviewing the revenues and the expenditures so to start off we'll just go over some highlights when it comes to the revenues you know one thing that we talk about is how we're heavily reliant on property taxes in order to fund the needs of the district and so over 80 percent of revenues are property taxes so just really recognizing that if not for the contribution of the community we wouldn't be able to do what we do and it's just extremely important to highlight that um you know of course we're ever so grateful for it but to just recognize that it is a weighty responsibility to make sure that we handle those funds with care and so um yeah so PR property taxes we I've
145talked about this a bit already that were subject to the property tax extension limitation law and so the property taxes in a school year are the blend of two years because property taxes and the levy goes by calendar year so since our school year goes from July 1 to June 30 we are a blend of two different years right now as you saw that CPI history we're working with the five the two five percent years right now and then uh so that's really the bulk of local Revenue we'll get into that a little bit more but then with state revenue that's looking pretty consistent um right now evidence-based funding and categorical Aid categorical Aid is going to decrease love just a bit but evidence-based funding is expected to remain flat and then federal revenue which
146includes title grants Medicaid and Esser funding is decreasing a bit uh because as I mentioned we had a higher influx with Esser funding in the previous year that we're not going to be seeing this year so property taxes are increasing by 4.75 percent and what I wanted to bring up about that is that we levied higher than the 4.75 percent we levied at 5.5 so that we would be able to not only capture everything Allowed by p-tel but also whatever new property came onto the tax rolls came came on but then the reason why right now the tax increases our budget at 4.75 is because you don't always collect a hundred percent um and this year we didn't collect 100 uh our collection rate is looking at about 97 so I wanted to be mindful
147of that in the plan for next year uh just in making sure that we're budgeting conservatively not having any challenges come up if things will come in exactly as expected and so as we are able to get those numbers solidified by time we're doing the final budget I'll have a I may have some tweaks there which is why we don't do the final budget until September because that's when we have firmer numbers on exactly what to expect for property taxes and some other factors that are in play with the budget corporate personal property replacement tax is increasing by 26 percent and so that is significant we've seen some significant increases uh for this local Revenue in the past few years and so again we're we're waiting for this number to come in as well usually
148we'll get so sorry usually we'll we'll get a projected amount that gets published but it hasn't been published yet and so once that happens this summer then we'll be able to update that number once we have a firmer projection evidence-based funding I mentioned is expected to remain flat and then federal aid will decrease by 13 percent and then this is just a diagram showing like I said property taxes over 80 percent where property taxes are really 82 percent of our budget for fiscal year 2024 my apologies um and then chills the other pieces as well just in a diagram in the chart so for expenditures our expenditures we group them in the category salaries benefits purchase Services supplies and materials Capital outlay tuition and miscellaneous and so the majority of the budget as I mentioned
149before is dedicated to salaries and benefits and so this is greatly driven by negotiated contracts of course we also have exempt staff and administrators that aren't under contract and then uh benefits include things like imrf also like our medical benefits which have increased things of that nature and so salaries and benefits are increasing by 6.89 from FY 2023 and so and so I just kind of delineated those things that I just mentioned previously about what makes that increase up and then capital outlay is decreasing by 9.9 percent 9.96 and the education operations operations and maintenance funds and then we have this diagram as well showing how salaries and benefits are the largest chunk of our fund expenses and so I also uh wanted to just bring up the district goals where we don't have to
150talk at length about it because oh the goals had their time to shine tonight but I I bring it up in conjunction with this presentation because I do think that it is important to highlight that when we are making decisions when we're making budgetary decisions that it's tied to the educational and support needs of the district and always weighing the district goals against the decisions that are made and so we just make sure that you know what the things that we do tie back to the things that we say we're going to commit to doing um and so I just wanted to bring that up in relation to wait for it Mira value-based budgeting I should have like edited in stewardship somewhere so of course you know we recognize that we're talking about dollars right
151and one of the things that I probably that I say probably to my colleagues annoyance is like it's not Monopoly money people uh but but but we're we have limited resources um and we know that we just have so much work to do and so you know how do we how do we think of the best way to further the initiatives that we have and really we have to always make sure that we're tying things back to what we value and so instruction just always being a top priority maintaining a reasonable student teacher ratios in the classroom avoid personal layoffs wherever possible those are some things that we've had for years but I also wanted to just take a moment to talk about some specifics with value-based budgeting some things that are specific to this
152particular budget right and so um Staffing focused on meeting student needs and so you know there's increased mental health needs trauma School refusal truancy residency social emotional learning English Learners and the school to prison pipeline those are all things that we have to contend with and so um when we were talking about the fiscal year 2024 budget we've seen that we've even we have some positions that are going to be focused on addressing some of these needs right so a director of truancy and residency um restorative practices coordinator multilingual learner teachers uh different Equity analyst so all of those to support the needs of the district in line with what we value in the district goals and so uh second bullet just continuing to fund our Equity work to address racial disparities in achievement and
153then bolstering professional development opportunities that support strategic priorities so earlier tonight Lauren was able to talk about how many staff members we've been able to train when it comes to restorative practices we also are currently working on training the trainer when it comes to Courageous conversations to make sure that we have people in the building that are able to further that work with our staff members and so there's just a number of things that we're doing um to make sure that we're we're getting to our end goals and so all of these things there are a number of ways to address these these concerns it doesn't always have to do with money but oftentimes you it does right and so making sure that those things are interwoven into the budget you know I I tell
154people it's not just about the dollars and cents but it really tells the story right like and when you really examine the budget you can really see um what we're about and so for the final budget format it so the one we have the tentative budget includes the executive summary and the financial section which will be updated by the time we're presenting the final budget and then that final budget will also include the financial analysis section the operational section the statistics and glossary section so that's what we all have to look forward to in the future it'll be here before you know and this just talks through next steps I uh touched on some of these items before but just so that everybody can kind of Mark off their calendar September 11th is when we'll
155be having our budget hearing and then uh prior to then we'll publish we'll publish a notice no later than August 3rd and also we're going to make sure that obviously the tentative budget is on display for public inspection for at least 30 days those are legal requirements that we have to adhere to and so we'll get all of those things done in time for the budget hearing on September 11th and then at which time after which time we'll be able to approve the final budget if pending board approval of course and then once that happens then it could be filed with the county clerk within 30 days of 30 days of budget approval questions I just want to say thank you your new slides are really refreshing and your um your explication of values-based budgeting
156was really nice because that's something that we've asked about and so it was really nice to have you do that run through thank you I do want to thank you for a balanced budget I mean actually looking at all of um all the priorities and the work and that this entire budget really just gives me such a complete picture of the district from everything we do really our Equity work um how we um how we instruct students how we make decisions around curriculum all the Departments and I know this takes like a whole team to do this so I'm thanking you but I'm really thanking the whole District yes because I know that it means that everybody has to plan accordingly and stay within their limits and sometimes that's really difficult to do I know
157how hard that is to do so um so I just really highly highly appreciate deeply appreciate um this and all the strategies that you're taking and recognizing the threats and anticipating and talking about them they used to make me so so nervous to hear the threats but now I I um I see it as proactive so I I really do appreciate it thank you yes yes and I do want to second that you know this work it's not just my work right like I have the privilege of coming here and presenting this information but really it is like a district-wide like like I said before this is that we're talking about physical fiscal accountability that's a district goal yeah right and so I I just wanted to lift that up what you were saying about
158how it takes everyone to to get to this point but um so I completely agree we are so grateful to you and your team and and by extension everyone else who does such a great job with this because you know we are in a very minority opinion uh group of districts that are this well-managed at a triple A level and all that good stuff that you'd you know we we could take for granted because you do it so well and you've done it for so long but we we don't so thank you I have really quick questions because there were some numbers that were significantly bigger I think I kind of know what they are but I felt like I should raise them up especially because if someone's still watching or reading the budget they
159might have this question so um so in expenses overview there was a big increase in The Fringe it was 18.27 what what is that about yeah can you just quickly say yep and so Fringe includes our medical benefits which have gone up uh so as you know we're self-insured but just claims are up and the costs cost of insurance is up and so that's a big piece of it also uh with imrf there's an employer portion that the district pays and this year I want to say that it's 4.8 but it's going to increase to 6.3 in January like they're about I don't have it right yeah that's fine yeah but it is increasing and so that's another factor that went into um that Fringe benefit going up and [Music] yeah those were those were
160the biggest pieces of that so that gets to another of my questions which is by Department there are these big numbers under medical for the certified and the non-certified staff that's what that is right the big so another thing that might look so that is what that is but another thing that may look wonky about that is that we used to budget we used to budget by certified and non-certified and we've rolled it up into one so you'll see a zero under 2003 and then you'll see that um that it that 2002 and 2003 from the previous year have been combined and then increased to account for the increase in Fringe Benefits okay so if you were looking like in the breakdown per Department that is something that may have stood out yeah but yeah
161okay cool and then there was something called other objects and it was 11.94 increase over last year this was in the uh expenses overview what is other objects so the items that aren't that don't have the designation of like salary Fringe you know what I mean it's um and so it is 11.94 increase but what I will say is that that increase because this category is so much smaller than any other category um the percentage increase is really only oh right okay two hundred thousand dollars yeah so so the swing is may not it's really not as big dollars right right when you're talking about a budget that's 104 million yeah but because it is such a small category that two hundred thousand dollars a percentage just got it okay right that's great um so
162two more quick questions one the academic Support Program had a big increase can you talk about what that was is that more programming or is that related to staff salaries and fringe benefits I'm trying to think sorry you're so academic supports you used to be under the principal's office but we have recently pulled it out and now it's covering the Staffing related to Jerry's success in his department and so that's why there's an increase there so it's a change in what your kind of categorizing there yeah okay that makes sense in what's being charged to that line and it's also an expansion of what's previously been done like as far as supports go so when we're talking about addressing the needs of learning loss and things of that nature um which I know you know
163you guys all saw that that's one of that's one of the ways that we've been able to expand on what we're doing and address those needs and so yeah that's that's what happened with academic supports thank you so much for the help there Marcus because there's a lot of lines yeah no I know I know and I don't mean to put you on the spot um so the last one is about bilingual is there a bigger number of students there or is it a situation where you're sort of restructured what you're you're including both okay both uh we've seen an increased um an increased influx of students coming in from various countries that have needed more support and that we have we have identified some opportunities that we really needed to make sure that we
164addressed in order to care for the students in the way that was needed and so there that is another expansion of programming that that will be happening in 2024 and that will continue to grow yes um for next year this is just step one and the reallocation of so of resources and over the next three years we will continue to build to build that um because we have a ways to go great thank you Kendra I really appreciate your answering my nitty questions but the numbers were bigger and I just felt like I should call that out just because it's helpful for us but also the community to understand it wasn't that we went on a spending spree yeah I I actually appreciate the call out because you know it's hard for me even when
165I I was like you know I want to expand on on values-based budgeting and what we've done but it's hard to talk about everything like if you guys want we could really be here you know what I mean if to talk about everything yeah and so yeah you know I highlighted some items but it's hard to kind of get into every single thing and so you only allowed for me to brag a little bit more on the greatness that we're doing for students there you go continue to do so there you go thanks so much awesome work and the reality is that um things are going up the the inflation you know everyone's talking about it but then when you look at the numbers and see the increases line by line it's it's amazing so
166it's going up and we're getting less money from the state so having to do more with less having to do more with less so that that really should have summed up my whole finances all right well thank you again okay so we are in action items right yep so um the first action item is approval of the tentative fiscal year 23-24 budget can I have a motion please someone second good luck Lisa roll call please yes yes the next item is the consent agenda which consists of approval of bid for special education student transportation contract approval of iasb membership approval of minutes from regular and closed session meeting for May 8th 2023 approval of bills treasurer's report for March 2023 and April 2023 Personnel report approval of negotiated contract for engineers and approval of negotiated
167contract for Safety Management personnel and finally approval of exempt staff salary increases for 20 23 24. roll call please yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes I have a quick question actually I just want to know in terms of the the new Transportation contract are both of those vendors new to us we've not used them before those are we've used both of the vendors before you have used them both before okay okay do you want to talk a little bit about the oh my goodness it's hard we are in a we are in a someone said a forced Monopoly as it relates to Transportation um and we have looked at Alternatives and we just have not been able to get there so we're going to continue to problem solve with um
168with a special education department and those and the parents because we just we just couldn't get there during uh during the debate for the contract it's yeah so it's consistent right and so I I was just joking I will so yeah um we heard from parents especially in our special ed Department about the service uh for our special ed Transportation this year and it's been difficult it's been really difficult because we want more we want better however there's nowhere to go yeah and so that's been a challenge and so we were able to meet with um the parents recently and just kind of have a discussion about some of the challenges that we're faced with and try to problem solve with them um on what we could do in the sit with dealing with what
169we've got right and so and it's not just specific to eths I've reached out to colleagues at other districts and it is a challenge everywhere transportation is a mess going back to what we talked about with the job market like it just isn't what it used to be and so you know we're talking about driver shortages yeah we're Vehicles it it's a complete mess and so it has been difficult but I think that we were able to kind of reach a place with the parents where they're understanding that our inability to switch vendors is not because we didn't want to but even when it came to the bid um the pre-bid and the bid opening we we tried our best to reach out to a number of different contractors to solicit bids we had five
170at the pre-bid meeting and only two bid and then of the two that bid one of them wasn't able to um provide everything that we would need for them to become the awarded bidder and so with that you're left with one the only the only vendor that you had already right and so I think it was a helpful though to have that conversation with parents um I'm glad that we were able to have that sit down and just kind of you know talk with one another and so we're gonna try our best to make next year a better year but it has not been easy and so [Music] thanks Kendra I appreciate that and I'm really glad you had that conversation with parents also thank you Monique when you're gonna say something your lights on
171oh no I was okay oh so there's a motion on the table right did we no we voted I just asked after oh I think that was wrong but I okay so thank you and lost track all right old and new business does anybody have any older new business we did our goals yeah so we'll take a look at those if you um have any thoughts or questions after the meeting you know we can certainly talk about them again uh closing polling of the board it's not I have a quick thing so open and change their name what are they Oakton College so in the executive summer is open Community oh it's Oakton College yes that's right right yeah good good catch yes okay can I have an emotions all in favor aye aye all
172right this meeting is adjourned thanks