School Board Meeting 5/9/22

001[Music] good evening everybody welcome to the may 9 2022 board of education meeting can we have a roll call please here here here here here here here thank you 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 thank you all right the next item item for information is student recognition there's a deca international competition is there ever uh you know anytime that we have uh any of our students compete at a really high level and do really well we welcome the opportunity to have come and uh and be recognized and honored by the board and you know our deca program has been doing well for many many years even uh miss weber with the previous uh advisor uh

002but i i must say uh miss weber has really uh put her heart and soul into this program uh she accompanied the these deca students to i believe it was atlanta is that right for the international competition uh and and uh and and they really uh represented eth as well so jenny i'm gonna invite you up uh to introduce our uh achievers uh and then uh uh i don't know quite how you're gonna orchestrate it but but get them all up to the to the lectern with you at some point and then i'll give everybody directions what comes next it it's painless okay so after two years of cancellations and virtual competitions is um with great honor that i am able to stand here before you to recognize these students who have dedicated so much

003of their own time in deca these students started working on their twenty page marketing research plans or eleven page business plans within the first two weeks of school starting they dedicate their lunch periods free periods coming in before and after school to work on these projects in addition these students practice their presentations with me starting as early as 7 30 a.m as you might know deca is a high school competitive business club where students can compete in role plays and written competition this past march 24 students attended the illinois career development conference in rosemont that hosted 1200 high school students for the first time since the pandemic started i had the pleasure of working with seven of those students individually on their marketing papers as well as their entrepreneurship plans it is my pleasure to

004notify you that of those seven students all seven place top ten and all seven placed first in their event at state competition [Applause] in addition we had two students place for their role play competition as well these students earned the opportunity to compete at the international competition that hosted over 17 500 high school students from across the united states as well as from other countries such as mexico guam spain china and germany and atlanta georgia it is my pleasure to recognize the following students and their accomplishments at the state competition as well as at the international level level sebastian schultz and braden weiss took first place at the state level in their hospitality and tourism operations research event focusing in on accommodating staff during the covid pandemic at five and dime sofia kozma took first

005place at state in her startup of business plan sweet eats a bakery targeted specifically to individuals who have a variety of allergies sophia earned competency at the international competition scoring at least a 75 percent on her presentation evan berger and justin davis took first place at the state level in their franchise of business plan purchasing franchise rights to edso's burger shop evan and justin earned competency at the international competition scoring at least 75 percent on their presentation jonah gerstein and caleb gerstein took first place in at state in their sports entertainment marketing operations research event focusing in on accommodating staff during covet at camp timberlane jonah and caleb earned competency at the international competition scoring at least 75 percent on their presentation the following individuals qualified to compete at the international competition in their individual

006competitive role play event sofia kozma took second place in her entrepreneurship individual series but she competed in her written event at nationals because he can only do one he can't do two matteo solas took second place in his principles of business management torren ravi took fifth place in his principles of business management role play tauren is a first year member competed in his event at the international level against 250 other individuals in atlanta georgia torn not only placed in the top 20 of his event but also in the top 10 earning an overall 8th place unfortunately due to ap exams him catching kovid he could not come tonight so he's here with with us in spirit pictures and videos of their experiences at state as well as at the international competition can be found on

007the eths deca instagram page if you'd like to see them and on a final note i would like to thank my co-advisers dave feely and chris manila as you know dave is retiring at the end of this year and i am so thankful for all that he has done for our deca chapter over the years i look forward to having him continue to help grow our chapter and continue to work with our students in addition i would like to thank my department head dr shelley gates i still remember when i was in high school competing she was chaperoning deca with my dad who was the deca advisor here as the eths duck elites competed her support over the the past years has just been amazing i'm so thankful to have such a supportive department chair

008who i can go to for guidance support as well as amazing leadership lastly i would like to thank you the board for allowing us to run deca here at eths the opportunities as well as the experiences that these students get from these conferences are truly limited limitless so thank you for your support so first of all that was my little reference to that we've had great leadership of deca and jenny came in and took it uh kept it going to higher higher levels because yes her dad was was the deck advisor goodness for how many years a number of years here at eths uh and we still see him uh he comes back for retiree events and that and it's a real wild kid but to our uh student achievers uh we are so proud

009of you uh you you uh you know in the state competition in the international competition uh you have just uh made sure that people know that eths produces top students and people who do amazing work so here's the rest of the of the program and and jenny you too uh we want we're all going to have you come around this little horseshoe and we'll give you either a fist bump or or an elbow bump uh to congratulate you and when you get to our our president here miss savage williams we we have a pin uh for you uh okay they're not really made of gold uh but uh but they uh are a wonderful uh way to recognize that you have been recognized by the school board so congratulations and let's have you come around

010and so we can all congratulate you thank you for accomplishment i love your jacket what does it say on the front oh she's got a cover that's awesome look at this sequined and and you may leave we know that you have other things to do besides sit through public meetings but thank you for coming tonight uh really proud great way to start the meeting wonderful okay so our next item item on the agenda is facility engineering associates we have an update and i believe dr robinson's going to lead this and matt driscoll our uh director of safety and um uh i i know that uh dr campbell and and even dr baifus have had involvement in uh in all of this too and so they'll probably be chiming in but board i'll begin by saying

011uh that we did have facility engineering associates uh do a a thorough uh safety report on eths and and they have reported that uh to the district and uh you were briefed by paul tim uh this evening in closed session uh who is actually a vice president and and and a nationally known safety expert we briefed you in close session because anytime we're talking about uh safety measures and and strategies uh clearly it just you know like like any organization uh you don't publicly tell all of your strategies and and all the things that that you have in place and you're putting in place uh to maintain the highest safety quality so so clearly we we followed that protocol but we do have a nice report tonight uh to indicate to you a a little

012bit more about what we what we learned and and our commitment uh to following those recommendations i'll also point out that in the front row uh is terence dobie mr dolby is our is our assistant in our safety department so we have we have the team here to report to you and to answer questions uh with that uh keith or matt oh thank you okay i blew it and now we'll turn it over to dr campbell i was actually prompted on this sorry about that who will give some remarks to bring this all right thank you dr with the spoon and good evening board we appreciate the opportunity to work with an external forum to conduct a thorough security assessment at eths we consistently strive to strengthen our sense of safety and well-being and i

013want to speak directly to the topic of metal detectors before we start the presentation because i know that some in our community have advocated for this approach i think it's important to important to first acknowledge that all high schools have safety concerns and we live in a time when school safety must be the highest priority as we consider our next steps i want to make sure we ask ourselves what is the best approach for eths what is right for eths for our students and for our staff may not be right for others everything we do sends a message about who we are what we value and how we function not just as a school but as a central resource and venue for this entire community as a schools that tries to do it all eths

014might reflect must reflect on our capacity to serve this community in many different roles while always prioritizing the safety of our students and staff metal detectors do not serve as a preventive measure against school violence and eths cannot give the impression that a solution has been given to a problem that would still exist but we can take steps to make sure that eths is a safer school and a just and equitable learning environment for all students and we will do this with empathy and compassion for the students and staff who come to this building every day we will also do this by creating an environment of trust and rapport where students and staff will speak with us about alarming matters that they know or hear of having a safety assessment helps us to hold a

015mirror to ways we can improve deterrence detection delay and respond in a crisis there are no simple solutions that's primarily because metal detectors can be easily bypassed a few years ago i attended the american education research association annual meeting a panel made up of researchers and former law enforcement officials were in agreement that one of the main things that minimizes the risk of in-school violence is building a school community of trust a place where students are seen and feel seen by adults and their peers a place where we can practice acknowledge caretale safety comes when students feel loved and valued we will continue to make our thinking visible to our school community because this is an ongoing effort and commitment it is hard to know how a culture of care and concern is built over

016time here when there's just a formal assessment or window of time a week or a day in the building but please be assured that eths will continue to prioritize the safety of our students and staff and will take specific actions to strengthen our security measures some of which you will hear tonight and the presentation by dr robinson and mr driscoll thank you very much thank you dr campbell dr witherspoon and board for this opportunity for presenting the safety assessment update i am sitting here with mr dresco and mr doby behind me and just wanted to give them a shout out with their leadership because as you'll see pretty soon we're doing a lot of really good things and it directly is because of their leadership and your vision as a board so i just wanted

017to start with that so mr driscoll will kick us off with letting you know a little bit about who actually did the assessment i'll go through the methodology we'll talk through some talking points more specific and then we'll we'll finish it out mr driscoll thank you i appreciate the board having me here tonight so paul tim he started out with the fea and the assessment paul is nationally and internationally known he's worked with wyoming school district with west virginia he's even helped train schools in bermuda he's at pretty much every conference and he is the person the go-to person if you ever need to know anything about school security we're very lucky to have him conduct this evaluation randy braverman former law enforcement officer 34 years in the business managing security operations he's overseen full-size

018scale operations for emergency crisis exercises and he's also an instructor for the law enforcement training and standards board for the executive institute for illinois all right so i think one of the things just to note too about mr braverman is he uh was one of the leaders in school safety at oak park river forest so he is definitely that boots on the ground uh partner with paul tim in this effort so as far as the facility engineering associations what they did and do they have a methodology called alpha advanced logic protection heuristic analysis and this is a way that they conduct their physical assessments these guys don't just walk around you know they actually do a stress test on some of our systemic practices which is appreciated as a matter of fact one of the

019days that they came uh it was an unannounced visit uh just to see if they could actually gain access uh to the building and some of the systems that we have during their uh interview and their assessment they also had a chance to walk around to interview some of our staff members and they got multiple perspectives from our staff safety staff administrators and teaching staff as well as far as this report and again i just want to reiterate it and i know dr witherspoon mentioned it but we just you know we want to be careful with what we provide he gave a very specific detailed report which is which is good and one of the reasons why we don't want to go through all those specifics is we don't want to provide a blueprint on

020how to access the building so we just wanted to make sure that was highlighted these are the tenets of the methodology deterrence detection delay and response mr driscoll will kind of go through and give some of the recommendations and examples of these points all right so i actually appreciated the chance to have this evaluation by paul tim you know we want to be tested we want to be evaluated we want to see if the measures we're putting in place are effective and you know they are the recommendations that we have are more to strengthen and enhance what we already have in place so that was very pleasing to hear uh in the deterrence area um you know he talked about expanding the use of contraband prohibition so we're talking about you know if you come

021in some through some of our doors we have the little signs that have you know the gun on it and a little line through it we want to expand that to include other weapons that we don't want that are also included in the pilot post alarm signs and greater view around the building we want to ensure that exterior doors have corresponding numbers inside currently they're all also on the outside for secondary responders but we want them on the inside so people know what exits an entrance they are leaving from we want to align the landscaping for crime prevention through environmental design so that what that is basically want to keep our hedges shorter so we can look out the windows no one's hiding in anything we want to make sure that you know the school

022is still beautiful but doesn't allow for people to access the building and of course we want to repair and maintain fencing in the area of detection again recommendations to strengthen and enhance were achieve attempt to achieve comprehensive pa coverage we want to make sure that all areas of the building everyone can hear us at all times during a drill crisis or even just basic announcements so you know we've expanded that so on the outside we have bull horns outside you can hear directions and instructions very clear currently we want to encourage all staff to sign into the ice program we're basically you know an alert goes out and they have it we also want students to do this so if they're out grabbing a cheeseburger or something and there's an incident at the high school

023we don't want them returning unnecessarily you know we're going to routinely test the local door alarms so if someone uh you know goes to leave up on our panel located at our entrances you know we can see you know door one was accessed we want to routinely review the door usage reports for our card swipes things like that that a lot of our staff and coaches have and we want to monitor for door propping mechanisms like the little wood blocks that people put in not only does it uh you know damage the door because it lifts the door up and gets it off its hinges and everything but in an emergency we don't want people panicking trying to close the door and all they had to do was look down and kind of kick the

024block out so we want to make sure those aren't present additionally we want to ensure that all unsupervised areas are locked so classrooms offices things like that we want to ensure that all video surveillance camera cameras and affiliate systems are functioning properly so we do a regular check on that consider we're going to utilize existing handheld metal detectors for random searches as dr campbell had already discussed we're going to consider requiring all students to register smartphone numbers so that they can be reached during an emergency like i just discussed in the area of delay we want to improve student scanning and monitoring practices currently as they leave for lunch everyone scans out we want to look at and discuss should they also be scanning back in we want to make sure that especially now that

025everyone's massed up that we ensure that everyone coming into the building should be in the building and we want to continue to have routine manufacturer level door hardware audits we've already had one come through and we're just going to continue those about every six months or so and we're going to consider adopting a practice that requires all classroom doors be closed and locked at all times for the most part they are our teachers do an excellent job at that but every now and then they you know rush out to get a student hey you forgot this or you forgot that and they've left their classroom door open sometimes keys or whatever are left but for the most part our teachers do a phenomenal job at locking their doors thanks to that mr driscoll and i

026just want to be clear to just highlight that these are items that were recommended for us to strengthen and re enhance you know it was really good to see in the report that we do so many things well already but to know that there were some areas of improvement uh from an outside person obviously gives us hope uh to know that we're doing some some good things and gives us a goal to be better as far as response you know i got to tell you our response team with safety members they are trained in first aid cpr aed non-violent crisis intervention stop the bleed and even narcon administration which is good and one of the other recommendations that they asked if we continue to expand that training so again even even looking at the training

027that we're doing with our staff is is really strong but we want to expand that to do and be better we also want to consider acquiring additional emergency supplies be strategic around the building inside out of what we can have to better improve if you ask what might those items be i think there's always a good assessment to see what they are these are anything from wind-up flashlights to bull horns any any method of communication to improve both inside and out and also consider improving our evacuation maps by adding alternative evacuation routes and location of emergency supplies such as the aad again we do that there's a systemic structure and system that we have right now even on the wall here you'll see there's an exit plan but it's a good recommendation to have an

028alternative plan and just kind of marked for those who aren't familiar with the building where items such as aed's are kept and finally uh post evacuation plans in every room and you know we've we've done that in every room but you know there was a misstep there with the bathrooms so uh we we again have a list of things that we are going to strive to to do better and finally i just want to mention uh that the audit is only as good as the actions that it follows i think uh paul tim and his company and his company gave us a good road map uh very thorough and you know as a part of this assessment uh they've given us some pert some priorities prioritization points to work from so there are some some

029major ones that we want to make sure that we hit first we're going to continue to commit to improving the safety and security for all of our staff but we're also committed to working with outside vendors and companies with people who can give us those multiple perspectives uh ongoing so that's i think is the most important you know when you know we haven't had a safety audit in in several years but to know and think that we're doing well but to see that we can do better is always positive so at this moment there's my orange question mark i'm happy to take any questions that we can answer thank you thank you for this report thank you for this information and um questions from the board mira sure hi and thank you um i don't

030think minor questions are just two things to think about i always worry about closed classrooms and i understand that you know there's a tension so i guess my thought would just be to think about how we might counter the closing of our communities you know if we have to have doors closed just something to think about and the other thing is is the ice program i would just urge us to think about the name because it evokes something that is the opposite and so just thought thank you very good points liz um i was just wondering since the pandemic was were people using an open door in the classrooms for ventilation for airflow and how does that sort of reconcile with the new policy of wanting to close the doors well it's it's not a

031new policy that we have for keeping doors closed it actually functions as a couple of things one is safety but the other one is climate control in the uh classrooms because they're individually uh monitored uh but i think climate you mean the temperature not necessarily the student attitude yes yeah see where my head goes but uh i totally see what you did doctor what i think he's referring to with the climate there have been times where teachers have left windows open or doors open for ventilation and in the middle of winter then we have a busted pipe so we've all you know like robbie brown puts out on the regular uh throughout the year uh hey keep your doors and windows locked um you know it's not just for the purpose of safety and security

032yeah but i will add because of uh the pandemic of course people uh wanted to have flow air flow in the classrooms so obviously to have the windows open is one thing but to have a crack door just improve that and that was just a mitigating factor that we did to try to help reduce the spread covet in the building thank you yeah other questions so lots to think about here lots to learn continuously talk about and learn so thank you again thank you for your report all right thank you and you know i'd be remiss if i left without not giving a shout out to our safety staff yes when we talk about i think dr campbell talked about the power of relationships so to know that we do have a safety staff who

033prioritizes that and our faculty you know we i don't think we give credit to our students uh more than we should i tell you every single day they are managing themselves and their behaviors and informing uh adults and trusted folks in the building about potential situations that happen uh we we watch that unfold every day and i just wanted to to just kind of double down on that whole notion of building relationships and connections and how paramount it is with what we're trying to do in the school community and know that we're doing everything we can to improve those relationships but i'm super happy with the foundation of where we are we're in a good place it could be better but we're in a good place thank you for adding that important piece right thank

034you okay the next item on our agenda is an update from the eths educational foundation and the alumni association and you can see we have joanne burchie of the foundation and david futransky of the alumni association and uh they have a really nice uh report for us as well as explaining uh an approach that they're going to be doing with an owner's representative through the foundation as we look forward to the the next big wave of improvements at eths [Applause] thank you dr witherspoon good evening ford dr campbell members of the school board it's a privilege to provide an update on the eths foundation this evening the last time we were here was in 2019 when we were in person on behalf of the foundation's board of directors and staff i'm happy to report that

035the foundation has done well and exceeded its fundraising goals over the past two years our donor base is growing and while the bulk of our gifts come in from individual giving we've had a successful virtual fundraiser in 2020 and we were back in person for wild free ths at robert crown and i saw most of you there so thank you it really affirms us to have the support of the school board we're so grateful to everyone who stood by us especially during the remote period of of learning our supporters include alumni parents grandparents local businesses family foundations all entities that believe deeply in our mission of equity and excellence here at eths last year 75 percent of our total revenue came from alumni but our non-alumni supporters are growing and if you look at the

036number of donors 45 percent of the donors were non-alums last year which is a significant increase donors near and far are so proud of our school and we received gifts from people who say that it's directly connected to the experience they've had at eths they send us as little as two dollars to last year we had a record-breaking 1.5 million dollar single individual gift from an alum from the uk no gift is too small when the students came back together in the fall our school was beautiful and welcoming and waiting for them thanks to the school leadership and the building grounds committee and everybody who who made that happen um i'm happy to say that there was evidence of philanthropic support on every corner of this high school and campus for starters in october a

037band instruction tower was installed erected on the corner of lake street and dodge avenue the students haven't gotten a chance to use it just yet but we are looking forward to them using this very very innovative piece of equipment of a structure and now with that structure which was fully funded at the tune of 75 000 by donors um the the band can practice in its complete squad out there on that field the district has had a multi-year multi-million dollar campaign to do the locker rooms and we're in the midst of that and when the school district asked the foundation board to contribute to that to invest in that project we last year gave 350 thousand dollars towards the girls and all gender locker room and will be contributing another thirty thousand dollars this year

038towards a new physical education classroom donors contributed in the past two years three hundred and sixty five thousand dollars to the remarkable major renovation project the multi-million dollar project that the district is undertaking in the eths auditorium anyone who came to joseph or one of the recent spring concerts were dazzled by the new lights and the improved sound it's wonderful that our performances will be more spectacular but on top of that our student technicians have the opportunity to use new digital sound and lighting equipment that is industry quality and could prepare them for future careers the last major renovation that the foundation supported is the new eths lit lab up on the second floor we are so proud to have contributed 550 000 towards the renovation and nearly a hundred thousand dollars additional support for

039literacy resources scholarships for teacher endorsements and a summer literacy program that helps not only eths students but elementary school students in our community this next slide shows the historical growth of foundation investments you can see from 2008 to 2021 what what the trajectory was and it isn't ironic that it also follows the tenure of dr witherspoon i can honestly say that having the support and the validation from the leadership at the top makes the difference it increased our visibility and the confidence of our donors to give to our school i look forward to working with dr campbell and in this same capacity because i know he's already interested in partnering and and talking with our alums and our most generous supporters so in the last 14 plus years we've raised 9.5 million dollars actually we've

040raised more that's what we've given to the school after our expenses which are pretty minimal 7.6 million of that is for campus advancements capital improvement projects as the district calls them last year we gave the most the largest amount of grant money to the school at 1.7 million during the past 14 years this level of support has supported over 25 extraordinary capital improvement projects but on top of that we have been able to invest in some non-capital improv improvement projects for example now our supporters are supporting the geometry construction program and we're helping to fund the gap between what that house costs and what it can be sold for affordable housing we are also supporting the steam design thinking class a really innovative capstone class for our seniors and what the foundation has been able

041to provide is to build out the capacity in the classroom with a pip fellow from northwestern during the pandemic we had many many donors contribute to the student response covid fund and initially that was used for things like technology and hot spots and emergency needs for our students during the pandemic now the funds that we have are being used for such entities initiatives as the music lesson scholarship fund which provides financial support for students to take private lessons and stay in the band even if they can't afford that on their own we are also supporting workforce development through the ikit internships and job shadowing program this spring break 26 students participated in the first job shadowing program and the foundation supported the compensation for those students so if they were not working their part-time job

042that week they didn't lose any of that income that they might be saving for their colleges what are we imagining next this is exciting last year our foundation board went through the strategic planning process and determined that our organization is positioned to take the necessary steps to increase its support and impact with the hundredth year of our building approaching in an upcoming centennial celebration we believe there is a great opportunity to tie our development efforts into this historic milestone currently we're raising money for the south community center south community room on the second floor improvement project we anticipate calling it alumni hall and having it be a state-of-the-art learning center that you would find over at kellogg or one of our other local universities or colleges with global technology to conference in people all over

043the world we also anticipate that this could be a launching pad for our celebration for our centennial in 2024. on top of that we're embarking on multi-year fundraising we're pivoting from taking one project that usually mary and this administration has helped us think about to a longer range larger in scope project that would incorporate multi-year fundraising this is really exciting we've already committed some initial funds and you're going to hear a little bit more about this for a discovery phase to identify what that might entail and what the budget could be and then eventually the foundation will do a feasibility study to see how much we can raise what's fundable and what resources we need to be successful and i think that's a perfect segue for me to turn to david futransky who's going to

044take us a little bit further to talk about the centennial and the discovery phase that i just barely alluded to thank you joanne um i think you can hear me okay uh we are embarking on a centennial the building you sit in was built and opened on september 11 1924. so we are 98 years away from that opening and the centennial is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate i should mention that we just mailed the kit out to our alumni there are about 30 000 who receive it in the mail and we are now approaching 10 000 who receive it electronically our goal is to move that to more and more electronic uh delivery and less paper delivery in the future but when you have the majority of your alumni being older they still like to

045read the newspaper and hold it in their hands so we're still sending it out that way we should also note that because of not being able to celebrate over the last couple of years we have three 50th reunion celebrations this fall the classes of 1970 71 and 72 are celebrating their 50th we have 325 25th reunion celebrations as well so we're going to be very busy hosting tours dealing with groups and we have over the last five or six years actually started to get significant class gifts out of 50th reunion classes people get nostalgic and want to come back and support eths and we work closely with the foundation on that we have three themes to our centennial celebrate we want to have some community parties we want to celebrate the things about eths in

046this building in the center of our community and we want to narrate the stories of eths and we want to sustain future growth and i'm going to talk about those three very quickly we're going to celebrate by having the alumni association work with different groups to host parties host gatherings host tours host lectures all sorts of events in the building and in the community we've started some discussion with the city i think in 20 this fall of 2024 there will be centennial banners all over the lake posts of of evanston celebrating our hundred years at church and dodge this is what church and dodge looked like in 1919. this is looking actually from lake street north or what would be lake street north this was where you're sitting was a farmer's field these fields were

047leased there were a series of tenant farmers who took up the land around eths and there were a number of referendums they finally passed one in 1919 to build the high school the school had been at elmwood in dempster had overgrown its facilities and was renting space in second floors of buildings in downtown evanston for students who couldn't fit into elmwood and dempster so kids were going back and forth to davis street um and dempster to fill out their day and the city pushed for referendums it took the end of world war one for them to finally pass a referendum that would allow them to raise a million three hundred thousand dollars through bonds to be able to build this building one million three hundred thousand dollars was what it took mary you if i

048gave you that you build a whole new three classrooms i think uh in 1920 there was a sign up on the corner of church in dodge so you're looking south and it says the high school give boys and girls a chance for a better education this was one of the first attempts to get people to donate to the construction after the referendum had passed they were looking for more money the fields were still being farmed at that point and it took them a couple years to buy the leases out move the farm houses out and be able to start when they started the school board was not wearing team of eight t-shirts i think they dressed a little differently you can if you look real closely you can see the fox heads and tails on

049the women's coats it's a little hard to tell who's the you know who's who there but this was the board around 1920 at the groundbreaking event for the high school i don't i don't know who the board members were we can research then find that out if you'd like um this is looking out of what would be joann's my office area today out of west 127 and you can see that we had our priorities straight we built our trek and football field before we built the school or that's what the athletic director told me was that our priorities were right you can get some idea that farmhouse that was there became the construction headquarters where they got started and in september of 1924 this is what the front of the building looked like we have

050discovered that if you go to the other side of the building west and south the west side wasn't built in 1924 that took them till 1926 because they ran out of money so they built the classrooms on the east side of the hallway they put a wall up and they waited till they had more money to be able to finish that side of the building and this was what an art studio this was on the second floor in the h hallway around 1924 when the building opened and you can see that they were doing studies of plants and drawing plants at that time so this is some of the things we've uncovered about the building and where we're starting from our goal is to now move on and move forward we want to tell the

051stories that have not been shared as much as stories we've told over the years if we look at the distinguished alumni wall it is dominated by men and is dominated by whites and there are plenty of other people for people of color women who went through eths over the years we need to tell their stories better one of the places we're going to tell those stories is in alumni hall the room that's called a252 today the class of 1970 is in the process of having one of their classmates who just won a guggenheim foundation award as an artist he is going to create a mural commemorating eths from the late 60s early 70s and it's going to become a centerpiece on a wall up there with stories of individuals of um of eths told around

052that mural so that there'll be a big place there in the hallways where we can start telling other stories and putting in front of students a different narration we're talking about sustaining and looking to build and a capital campaign needs a reason to do something and the cause of having a centennial to celebrate lets us think about supporting mid 21st century wild kids we are looking at supporting student success student opportunity access sustainability we're looking at being fiscally responsible as we do that and we have been working with a firm called cotter consulting a woman owned business that works with school districts around the nation they have worked in the area with highland park deerfield hinsdale niles i'm sorry with oakton community college on developing master plans and working as an owner's representative in your

053packet i believe there is on the consent agenda an agreement with cotter the foundation is funding the work with cotter this year but it will come to you for approval uh it will be a gift from the foundation to fund the work with cotter on behalf of the district um we did interview other firms cotter was the one that seemed to best meet everybody's needs in working in this cotter currently is working with us listening they are on a listening tour at the moment they have met with many of the administrators many of the department chairs they're starting to meet with teachers who use space our focus for this work is the south end of the building the art swing the area that was built in the late 1950s and into the 60s that really

054hasn't much had much done to it and when i walk back into some of those areas when i walk on the third floor of the art swing my mind takes me back to 1965. i walk into a room that had my typing class we don't have typing anymore we had keyboarding but now kids learn that well before they get to high school but you can still see in that room where the long tables were bolted to the floor and the typewriters in my mind i see bolted to those tables there aren't enough outlets in that room the room's not designed for a 21st century class it was designed for a mid-20th century class we have things like throughout that area of the building when you walk through the hallways on the first floor the display

055cases look like you're walking into 1958. it's a nice time travel but it's not necessarily the environment we want for 21st century students we have a plan with cotter of working with them to visit with a number of people throughout the building if any of the board members would be interested in talking with them we'll be happy to set up a meeting for you to visit with them they're listening they're asking questions about what would you like to do in this space if you could design the space from scratch what would it look like how would you fix it we're not promising anything we're creating some vision we're creating some ideas and this will help us create priorities it will help us get to a point where we can go out in a request for

056qualifications for architects and engineers which will happen sometime this summer we'll take the vision that cotter helps us develop we'll clear it with work with administration on that and then we'll put it out for a request for qualifications that process will lead us to have a firm that we can work with that will have continuity of design we'll be working with one firm instead of several firms there will be a bidding process basically a bidding process for people to come in and tell us what they would do and what it would cost to do it and then we start putting price tags on what these different desires to do things in the art swing the little theater the classrooms in the a-wing the cooking area the fashion design area the engineering lab a252 and areas

057down at that south end of the building that have not other than the ceramics lab and the literacy lab have gotten the attention that other places have gotten all of i think almost every department in the building has a class down in that area so we're moving from calling it the art swing to maybe the arts and innovation wing we're looking at all of the innovation that goes on with our students down there in various fields across the board and our goal is to be able to prioritize what we want to do stage what we want to do over a period of years put price tags on it so we know how much money we need to raise to be able to do it and come back over the next couple of years with a

058more detailed plan a more specific plan and specific goals of what we will be raising to have a multi-year multi-million dollar campaign to make some changes that will help benefit eths students as we move towards the middle of the 21st century and that's it we'll take any questions if you haven't wow very exciting times really exciting looking forward to to this board any questions from the board pat thank you that's all sounds great and i love the history lesson so any more of those you have for us come back anytime um but i i wanted to just flag that in the process of focus groups and survey and community conversations that we did around the superintendent search we heard from our students that there was concerns about equity within the building in terms of what

059got attention and what didn't and i raised that more towards what you're talking about doing in that um i hope that you're talking to our current students in you know and the firm you're working with is talking to them i think the students really have a lot to say and could be really helpful um in giving you a perspective that you know as much as i love the history lessons maybe that's not what they want i don't know so i i guess i just encourage you to to talk to our students because we heard some things that we hadn't really thought of to be honest with you and um i can only imagine that that will be the case if you speak to them as well great thanks pat we will include in the listening

060tour with carter uh some groups of students will try to get some groups together over the next couple weeks um right now we you know their their voice is important because they are users of the space as well absolutely i um just want to thank you for the narrative part you know being more inclusive so i just want to lift that up because that is so important especially i think for the black community who have been here for such a very long time in evanston and a lot of things were taken away from the black community during a you know during integration and what have you um ymca as an example um and and so it is so important to make sure that we reflect their participation in their history and the changing history that's

061that's going on right now within our community inside this institution probably the oldest one of the oldest probably outside of northwestern being here in evanston and to have an entire race be voided out of that experience um i'll just say it's way overdue so i appreciate you making that a point and i just wanted to lift that up again because i that made me lean in even further listening and gave me some pride thank you dino robinson who is one of our distinguished alums has volunteered to work with us and bring the resources of shore front to help in the process we do plan to use students in researching the process of what's going to go up on those walls and working with a number of our history and social science classes our civics classes

062to get kids involved in the research projects to help with finding those stories and researching them we do have kids who are currently coming in looking in our archives which go back to 1883 and finding stories we have scrapbooks and finding things that we're all learning about together there will also be an overall committee of a hundred this was something that the pandemic hurt us with putting together but we're looking and i'm talking to people in all areas of the community to be part of a committee that will meet a couple of times but will be sort of a group to help us reach out further into the community and into various constituencies so that we can have students faculty staff but people in the community who are alumni and who are touched by the

063high school be part of helping us to shape the narrative and the celebration faces excellent thank you yeah that sounds wonderful i hope that that we can invite um community members that don't typically come and participate so that they can see um some of these these highlights some of these these stories that they don't hear because i think what happens is people don't appreciate that we are telling a dif we're different we're telling a different story we're very intentional about it yeah it's exciting i would just add um and it is so exciting um that if you didn't need any board members uh to work with cotter um volunteering myself and or at least just to talk with them i'm thinking podcasts and thinking story core you know just in getting reaching out into our

064communities but extending um the listening uh capabilities so i don't know if you probably have already thought of that but um one i appreciate i'll set up a time with you to come meet when they're going to be in the building which is usually three or four days a week now for the next five or six weeks so we'll find a an hour for you to sit down and talk with them we don't want to get too far out ahead of ourselves in the centennial we don't want to announce the fundraising aspects until joanne and the foundation have raised some leadership gifts for the foundation we can't do that until we know how much money we're going to need so we don't you know it's sort of a quiet phase and that's normal in a

065capital campaign we don't want to get too much noise and excitement out there until we have something really to get excited about and that's going to happen in the 2425 school year in a big way so we have some time to build our base up if you look at a capital campaign normally 50 60 70 percent of the goal is raised before they announce a campaign is announced and the foundation and joanne will be doing a lot of work talking to a lot of our most generous supporters to help us but we don't want to have the community doing one thing over here while we're in that phase so it doesn't all happen overnight we have a couple of years to work on this we're coming to you now to give you a heads up

066about where we're going with this and we will be asking many of you to be part of that committee of 100 and help us shape the overall thing as we move it down the road right great thank you wonderful very exciting thank you both all right the next item on the agenda is comments from the public dr davis do we have comments from the public yes we do let me go over the introduction of public comments speakers who have signed up for public comment will be invited in the order that they have signed up to address the board for up to three minutes i will keep the time and signal you at the end of two minutes as a courtesy i will let you know it is time to stop at the three-minute mark in

067the event that becomes necessary speakers are asked to come forward and speak at the lectern please state your name public comments generally pertain to school district matters but comments about any individuals are expressly prohibited please understand that the school board does not respond to public comments but will listen carefully and will follow up as the board deems appropriate so let me set my timer up and as i'm setting my timer up our first public comment is from eris mcguire hello everyone my name is eris mcguire i'm a sophomore at eths and member of eton sunrise if you've seen the chalked up sidewalks outside of entrance one and our walk out just a few weeks ago for earth day you probably know what we want to talk about eths needs a sustainability coordinator in early 2020

068this district hired a sustainability coordinator to respond to demands for climate action from students and community members but currently the position is vacant i have trust that most everyone i'm speaking to understands the urgency of climate action especially pertaining to community representation having someone who understands the urgency and importance of this position is essential to improving the well-being and sustainability of our community and student population and hire assistant in hiring a sustainability coordinator we can craft and implement a comprehensive plan to reduce the school's carbon footprint work collaboratively and transparently with the student population support climate literacy and create a culture of sustainability making eths a leader in climate conscious education two minutes ensure that the district conserves resources resulting in financial savings on our walkout we held in march we riled up support and

069cheers from the student body in the larger community community in support for hiring a sustainability coordinator we are the generation that will face most of the repercussions and deadly consequences of the climate crisis and if i'm going to speak for most of us we can feel powerless and taking action especially in our community but as a community we do have so much of an impact and if this district follows through on their promises we can bring hope into the student body and ensure they have a voice when fighting for sustainability in a climate conscious eths thank you our second public comment is from nathaniel orlov meyer hello um first i'd just like to thank the board for the honor to speak today so i'm nathaniel earl of mayor i'm a graduating senior and i'm the

070current hub treasurer of etown sunrise as all of you should already know in 2018 the city of evanston created the climate action and resiliency plan or carp and just a few weeks ago on april 25th the city declared a climate emergency this holds the city accountable to gold set and carp notably cutting city-wide emissions in half by 2025 and net emission and net zero emissions by 2050. initially this may seem kind of irrelevant to district 202 but as one of the largest employers in the city it's crucial that the district takes bold decisive action to support the city's goals the main obstacle to this kind of action is that there is no one in the administration with the time or relevant experience to make it happen which is why the district so badly needs a

071sustainability coordinator in a year where the pandemic has brought many additional expenses to the district's budget it may seem unwise to add another administrative position but the city of evanston and district 65 have both hired sustainability coordinators in the past five years even with the pandemic why well for one it's just the right thing to do but also because the savings that this position can create are in the same neighborhood as as its expected salary so it essentially pays for itself for reference district 65 hired a part-time sustainability two minutes for around thirty thousand dollars a year with the expectation of transitioning to full-time next year while the city's full-time sustainability coordinator has a salary of just over a hundred and ten thousand compare these numbers to the sixteen million dollars that the san francisco

072unified school district has saved since hiring a sustainability coordinator in 2008. obviously san francisco is a much larger district than 202 so the comparison isn't perfect but smaller districts can also see huge savings from sustainability projects like the 100 000 that the batesville arkansas school district about the same size as 202 saves each year after adding a 760 kilowatt solar installation that's a hundred thousand dollar savings from just a singular project a full-time sustainability coordinator at dths could take charge of multiple projects like this and end up saving the school enough money to offset most if not all of their salary aside from infrastructure improvements to reduce the district's direct carbon footprint a sustainability coordinator could also help the district establish a climate curriculum and other related education to ensure that eths graduates are prepared

073to become leaders in a world where climate change is growing into a bigger and bigger part of people's everyday lives one minute the current climate curriculum committee is doing good work but slowly and this all could happen faster and more efficiently with the sustainability coordinator to really guide the project through from its current state all the way to implementation ultimately i understand that next year's budget is already pretty much set in stone so it could be difficult to make space for a sustainability coordinator this year but if the district really wants to show that it's serious about climate action it can choose sustainability and climate education as one of the new district goals for the next five years setting this goal would hold the district accountable for measurable progress on one of the most pressing

074issues of this generation and set a strong framework for the addition of a sustainability coordinator and other important measures to next year's budget thank you that concludes public comment for this evening thank you all right the next item on the agenda is uh foia dr babis we have three is that correct yes there are three foias marsh sternstein and uh march and the response in your packet okay thank you all right the next item is board committee reports board turn it over and see if anyone from the board has attended any meetings recently okay all right the next item is student board report so barbara hi everyone um so this week is full of ap testing such as last week so a lot of students are in and out of class just like myself but

075i it seems to be going very smoothly um students have like time to study the day before because they're excused from some of their classes and that's been really helpful so everything's been going well with that also the seniors last days on thursday so i know a lot of them are excited and then after that they have prom and graduation so i've heard a lot of buzz about that and i think that's something to celebrate and something really exciting for them as for student union we're wrapping up our projects for this year and kind of putting like a 2b continued sticker on them hoping to revisit them next year and then as for the rest of us so juniors and sophomores and freshmen we have less than three weeks left so we're almost at the

076end and yeah that's all the exciting stuff happening last quarter yeah thank you it's amazing this year has flown by wow all right dr witherspoon well i'm just going to pick up on that theme barbara since it is indeed the closing out of the school year we have at the incoming freshman sports activity fair on tuesday may 17th we've been doing this now for a number of years that's will be at 6 30 p.m here at eths and we find that our incoming freshmen and their families really appreciate learning all the sports and activities that will be available to them here and they can actually sign up and get on some distribution lists and and and start activating that wild kit involvement we are going to have one more wild kid academy that will be

077on saturday the 21st it will be at 9 00 a.m and i'll just remind folks that this is a saturday program where our students can come and get extra support and it continues to be highly successful and and we have hundreds of students come on a saturday morning um the latest u.s news and world report uh continues to put eths among in the 97th percentile among high schools in the country i always want to remind people that if you were to take out just looking at the schools ahead of us if you were to take out the selective enrollment the magnet schools the private schools the charter schools all those schools that actually actually control who comes into the school you would find that eths is is more like in the 99th percentile of comprehensive

078high schools that embrace and welcome all students in the community so kudos to our students to our staff to to our teachers obviously and and to all of this community that puts such a high significance and priority on education uh it it really does translate into what happens at this high school uh so again uh this this theme barbara wednesday night is eths senior scholarship night it's going to be a virtual uh experience again this year and we'll be getting out of the uh uh youtube uh link on that real soon to folks so that everybody can tune into that and then on thursday this thursday may 12th is the last day of class for school and classes for the class of 2022. uh it's always a very uh special and emotional day on the

079last day for seniors in any school but really it's a very emotional meaningful day uh when when when our students realize that they're truly wrapping it up however when they're dismissed that afternoon we're going to have a block party for them over at legere field and so this is something that we've not tried on the last day of school before but we have had this kind of celebration before al over there and and it's gone well so uh we think it'll be a great way for the students to celebrate uh their uh their last day uh because then on saturday is prom at 7 30 and navy prayer and on sunday the 24th second i'm sorry at 10 a.m at wells ryan of the arena is graduation and there we are another year pretty well

080wrapped up last day of school is barbara alluded to it's friday the 27th and yes i'm now talking about summer school begins the following thursday june 2nd and uh we're tying a bowl on another great year aths that concludes my report okay we are moving along in so many areas all right so we are at items for action and the first item for action is the organization of the new board so i'm going to ask for a motion with a roll call vote to be made to the to retire the board sin and die can i get a motion please so moved second well call please yes yes yes yes so um dr davis would you please assume the role of as president pro tem yes i will thank you uh let's call the meeting

081back to order may i get a roll call please auntie uh here livingston here here parsons here here here savage williams here i'm going to start with the election of officers i will take nomination for the office of president vice president and secretary nominations need not be seconded each nomination will be voted on in the order of their nomination once a candidate receives a majority of votes of the board four votes the election process is over i like to call for nominations for the office of president of the board of education for a one-year term i'd like to nominate pat savage williams for president of the board are there any other nominations i'll nominate monique parsons for vice president we're going to go just we're going to go in order we start with just president

082and then we'll go in order sorry about that no problem okay seeing uh no other nominations for president uh can we have a roll call please andy yes livingston yes yes parsons yes yes williams yes and now the new president well the returning president uh will assume the chair and continue the nomination process for for officers thank you and thank you board so now um i'd like to call for nominations for vice president of the board of education for a one-year term okay um let's see i'd like to nominate monique parsons [Laughter] all right are there other nominations if not i'd like to call for a vote could we have a roll call please yes thank you thank you all right now i'd like to call for nominations for secretary of the board of education

083for a one-year term i nominate pete davis right other other nominations no way pete all right can we have a roll call please yes no no i'm just kidding yes just keeping it interesting tonight yes thank you now i'd like to call for a motion to appoint mary rodino as school treasurer of the board of education for a one-year term with the compensation of one thousand dollars so moved we have a roll call please yes okay that concludes the organization of the board um let's see where am i resolutions oh yes resolutions all right so resolution ratifying um contracts policies and bylaws we can read them all together actually we can just read them all together read them all together and i'll take one vote yes so we have several resolutions um then we have

084um so that was a then we have resolution designating signage sanitary then we have a resolution regarding check signatures we have resolution establishing dates to review closed session minutes resolution establish establishing regular meeting dates and place and a resolution ratifying approved depositories so moved there's another one is there another one no maybe that's we don't do that one yet maybe yeah right now that yeah so far so good okay so we have a so moved i said uh yeah emotion can i have a second please second you have a roll call yes okay so the next item on the agenda is review of student election and oath of office for student board representatives i will start with the i'll read the resolution declaring the election results okay that's typically what we do thank you be

085it resolved by the board of education district 202 county of cook state of illinois that returns from the student election held april 29 2022 in said high school district for the purposes of election of one student member and one student alternate member of the board of education have said district to serve from may 9 2022 to may 2023 are in your packet they're there they're there with the with the votes received therefore the board of education finds and declares that the following are duly elected student members with offices as specified below of the board of education to serve from may 9 2022 to may 2023 nicole yao student board member of education and sophie brown is the alternate member for the board of education and then we would approve the resolution okay could i have

086a motion for resolution approval please so moved second roll call please yes all right at this time we will administer the oath of office at the podium all right uh nicole if you could come up i'll meet you up here hello everyone hi [Laughter] so i'm going to read the oath of office you're going to repeat after me okay i will go slow i promise i say your name i nicole yao a student member of the board of education a student member of the board of education of evanston township high school of evanston township high school district 202 district 202 county cook illinois county of cook illinois do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear to support the constitution of the united states to support the support of the constitution to support the constitution of the

087united states and the constitution and the constitution of the state of illinois of the state of illinois and faithfully discharged and faithfully discharged the duties of the office the duties of the office to which to which i have been allowed i have been elected [Applause] and nicole you can this will be the last board meeting you get to attend by sitting in near the front uh and we're going to be saying goodbye to barbara and that and that's going to be your seat at all the upcoming board meetings so congratulations thank you so much thank you nicole welcome nicole all right so um it's really it's really great to meet nicole but i'd like to take a moment to um thank barbara for all of your dedication and your commitment to us um during this

088uh rather wonky year i would say um you had a chance to to watch and be a part of this board as we really tried to deal with some um complicated issues and and i always appreciated of course your reports but also the times that you chimed in and that you um shared and expressed um the perspective of the students it was it's always great it's always important uh for us to hear student perspective and i know that um there are many perspectives in a school this size i know that um and i and i know that that you're challenged sometimes to um to to present those perspectives and probably weren't always able to do that um but that's okay because it it helped us think about the perspectives that are here that we're hearing

089and consider what perspectives we're not hearing so thank you and i'm excited for your future um excited that you are probably going to um do some great things i hope that this is a first maybe maybe not a first i don't know but this is a step in um you really understanding the complexities of what it's like to be a leader and the challenges and um really take into thinking about policies and you know as we talk about the future and and impacting the changes um you know this is the group that can have that impact so um it's really been great having you here i can't believe the year has gone by so quickly so thank you and i'll open it up to any other board members that would like to say some words

090um i didn't write anything down even though i knew tonight was going to be your last night and so i won't be too long because you know i don't like a long meeting um i just wanted to say that it's it's refreshing we've i've been on the board such a long time now we had this long stretch of male um student school board reps and then in more recent years we've had we've had a few women young women including yourself so slowly the women are catching up as far as the student school board rep goes and i have to say that yours was a particularly notable voice of all students but i think reflecting your female perspective and i particularly appreciated um your calling out of toxic masculinity as an issue still at this high

091school in the same vein that some of your predecessors had called it out and you also called out allegations of sexual gender harassment which are tough issues and related to that topic of toxic masculinity i appreciated hearing that from you in a persistent way of course we haven't solved all those issues we haven't gotten to where we need to be on all those things but you were a terrific voice and am i right that you're not a senior yeah i know it's so that that's actually so unusual i would say most of our student school board reps are graduating so i think that's kind of nice and you're gonna be around and maybe you'll just show up and watch and comment at one of our meetings in the future i don't know you might be

092really done with us but hopefully you'll stay in touch and um thank you for your service it's a big job for a student i mean it's a big job for anybody serving in this sort of volunteer capacity it's very thankless but i think especially for a student who's trying to juggle your your coursework as well so thank you thank you and best of luck yeah sure it was already on okay so first of all lisa don't move us because this is the best seat right here and i'm always so excited to see you and to be able to kind of have our sidebar a little bit and as we warm up for the evening and you know i know you have mentioned your parents and their desires to ensure this future for you and i

093hope that they're watching because i think that you're really you would make me proud as if you were my daughter and i think about what gretchen said regarding your voice and [Music] and i would also argue just being here so having students in our midst you know given that that's our purpose but at the table is so important um and so i thank you for doing that as well um and i think about your i don't know all the things about you obviously i know very little but the little that you've shared um it's exciting to think that that you've taken this on um and then that you are stepping away you know you'll be your senior year but you have this future in front of you and that you allowed us to to maybe

094play a role in some of that so um it's just a lot of giving and i want you to know that and i want to thank you for that and then the last thing that i would say is that um if you do later have ideas or thoughts um please add them because it's not over this is you know just something that can always continue um and i want us to learn um from your perspective and as you mentioned as well so or i think that was pat actually was talking about those multiple perspectives um because i'm always curious about the dynamic of a board and i think we're steeped in tradition but i i would like to see that change and having a student is definitely a part of that um but i think

095we could even do more so so give us your thoughts and whenever you'd like thank you yeah i i just want to add all the great things that were already said by my colleague but what a crazy time to leave right i mean we gave you a lot we gave you a lot and and you let it um consistently and just um i admire your quiet strength right your ability to be unafraid to say what you want to say what needs to be said even though it may fall on ears that don't want to hear it you said it anyway and i appreciate that um and i'm excited by the fact that you are not a senior right like you are a junior and you will be here next year um to hold us to

096the you know to the fire to show up and to to remember what it was like to serve in this capacity but to continue to advocate and share your voice and i expect that next year will probably be bolder right um and a little bit more profound and that's exciting and that's really exciting so as uh mira said show up keep coming stay connected and bring others with you thank you pat so yeah i completely agree with everything that's been said um but just thinking about you and um you're finishing up tonight you know for me and i think you've heard this a lot from administrators and board members but we really need to hear from students um because the perspectives are so important to what we do so in my day job a lot

097of what i think about is yeah you can have all these great policies but how does that fall how does that work for the people who actually have to deal with that policy or that instructional method or whatever it is and i am always always thrilled to hear students talk about that because i learn so much and then i can help the people who need to make changes learn too um and listen to those voices and so you've just provided that um so acutely as people have said it's such an important time um and so i'm very grateful to you for that and i um i as monique said keep coming and bring others but i also hope that this experience has taught you about your voice and i'm expressing to you how important it

098is and i hope you have begun to see that and understand that um and this is not about us it's about you you have you have a very powerful voice and i hope that you will continue to use it certainly next year when you can tell us stuff but even beyond um and never be afraid to to speak up because it's so important to hear from that the perspective that you offer be it as a student as a woman as whatever you decide to do in your life and so i i really applaud you for what you've done here as a junior in high school and i can only imagine what you'll continue to do from here on out so thank you for being here and thank you for all that you've given us and

099i wish you well liz barbara um i just wanted to say that i've really enjoyed having you here on the board um listening to your statements every every month has been really enlightening and we've learned a lot from you i definitely wanted to point out that i respect and admire you for taking on the difficult and serious situations regarding sexual harassment and sexual assault that have been occurring among our students and for you advocating for them and having the courage to come talk to us about it i really want to commend you for that and i hope that your student your fellow students felt like their voices were heard here through you so i just wanted to say thank you for that and we did learn a lot from you and i just hope everything

100goes great your senior year and i wish you well in all of your future endeavors stephanie and i'm just going to build on the wonderful things that our colleagues have said tonight you know this is a moment as you're developing as a leader that you try something out and you take a chance and i think you saw the impact that you had and you felt that and a lot of us felt that so i want to encourage you to keep being brave and take those chances because you'll see where they land and you'll see the kind of power that you have and also the other thing that i was really struck by as i listened to you was was how you always led with empathy and you led with a concern for students your fellow

101students your peers and and representing their perspectives and you did that from a wee place and i really admired that and i like that and i um i want to encourage you to keep doing that too so be brave and keep leading with empathy and thank you for your service so once again barbara thank you and um i do hope we see you next year and you've got nicole to help and guide and nicole you have a consultant and that is unusual yeah um that we have that so thank you again and i have a little something for you thank you yeah so this experience has been one of i think the most important ones for me um in high school so i want to thank you all for that it really taught me how

102collaborative ethhs is just like being in this position and just having this seat on the board like others mentioned it really shows like what we stand for as a school um and how we work as a collective and just being here like as a student before i didn't really know what went on behind the scenes even though it's public school board meetings it's still behind the scenes i didn't know how there was monthly reports on student well-being and student activities and student mental health i never knew that there was a group of people like consistently working toward improving eths and i admire that so much and i'm so grateful for the school even more than i was before because it like being here has opened my eyes to just a whole another level of you

103know adults caring about us and really like yo you guys are the reasons like we succeed you know high school is so important and i just want to thank you all for that as well as welcoming me and teaching me so much i've learned so much over the past year um so i really want to thank everyone for that and i'm not going to leave you know i'll be here i'll be working with nicole i'll be working with student union so this isn't even a goodbye it's more of like a thank you so much and you know i'll see you in a couple months [Applause] right okay so is barbara's going to exit we'll invite nicole up [Laughter] thank you barbara thank you barbara come on up nicole and i'll tell the board nicole is

104a sophomore so you're going to do another junior wow all right welcome nicole so when you want to speak push the button and the light will turn on fine yes and if you get real close all right hello okay welcome all right so i'm gonna go on with our agenda and the next item on the agenda is approval of pride month resolution and gretchen's going to read that for us turn on the volume um our resolution is titled lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer pride month it contains excerpts from the proclamation by president joseph r biden jr in 2021 whereas the uprising at the stonewall inn in june 1969 sparked a liberation movement a call to action that continues to inspire us to live up to our nation's promise of equality liberty and justice for

105all whereas pride month is a time to recall the trials of the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer lgbtq plus community has endured and to rejoice in the triumphs of trailblazing individuals who have bravely fought and continue to fight for full equality whereas the lgbtq plus community in america has achieved remarkable progress since stonewall whereas historic supreme court rulings in recent years have struck down regressive laws affirmed the right to marriage equality and secured workplace protections for lgbtq plus individuals in every state and territory whereas for all of our progress there are many states in which lgbtq plus individuals still lack protections for fundamental rights and dignity in hospitals schools public accommodations and other spaces no more so than now i would add whereas our nation continues to witness a tragic spike in violence against

106transgender women of color lgbtq plus individuals especially youth who defy sex or gender norms face bullying and harassment in educational settings and are at a disproportionate risk of self-harm and death by suicide whereas we recognize the resilience and determination of the many individuals who are fighting to live freely and authentically whereas we affirm our obligation to uphold the dignity of all people and dedicate ourselves to protecting the most vulnerable among us now thereby be it resolved that the board of education of evanston township high school district 202 recognizes the month of june 2022 as lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer pride month and celebrates the achievements of the lgbtq plus community and the great diversity of the american people thank you gretchen can i have a motion for acceptance please so moved second well call

107please yes thank you the next item on the agenda is approval of the new superintendent's contract dr marcus campbell sorry i didn't mean to say it like that that was like dr evil could i have a motion for approval please so moved a second roll call please yes yes yes yes yes please yes all right thank you monumental thank you all all right okay the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda which consists of approval of resolution of the district's participation in the trs supplemental savings plan approval of elementary and secondary school emergency relief round three spending approval of settlement agreement settling lawsuit jonah meadows versus evanston township high school district 202 approval of acceptance foundations funding for owners representatives for capital fundraising approval of student parking fees approval of minutes from april

1084th 2022 special meeting in closed session april 7 2022 special meeting and closed session april 11th 2022 regular meeting and closed session april 18 2022 special meeting and closed session april 21st 2022 special meeting approval of bills treasurer's report for march 2022 personnel report which includes appointment of the assistant superintendent for human resources and the appointment of assistant superintendent slash principal and that's it so move second roll call please yes all right item 18 old and new business are there any items that board would like to present i don't know if this is older new business or the closing i just wanted to say that graduation is coming before our next meeting and so i just wanted to wish the class of 2022 well and to acknowledge that we see you this has been a

109crazy ride for all of you but you're amazing and you've done amazing things in the last four years and really proved yourselves and then some so um on a personal note but i'm sure the rest of the board um agrees that we wish you all well we wish you a wonderful and well deserved uh congrat uh you know celebration of your achievement and um we look forward to hearing about all the great things you do um once you leave eths but you never really leave hhs you're always part of the family so um congratulations thank you thank you for adding that that's it that's very important i concur anything else board members mirror your light son oh just prepared to say yes all right um can i have a motion to adjourn yeah i move

110for you journey gretchen yes beat you all in favor yes aye all right this meeting is adjourned and it's not even 9 30 yet you