001I call to order the June 8th 2023 special meeting of the Board of Education of Hinsdale Township High School District 86 we are meeting in the Hinsdale South Library the time is 5:30 please call roll member greenspot here member James here member acas here member Gallow here member lethal here member Walker here member Waters here may have a motion to adjourn to close session for discussion of the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors on park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint Lodge against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting for a volunteer of the public
002body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity however meeing to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the local government wage increase transparency act may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted held in accordance with this act 5 ilcs 120 2c1 so mov Gallow second James please call roll member James hi member acas hi member Gallow hi member lenthal I member Walker I member Waters I member Greenspan I the board will now adjourn to close session the board will take action following the Clos the board will not take action following the Clos session is detailed on your agenda just the regular consent agenda okay the board will take action following the closed session as detailed
003on our agenda the board will reconvene around 6:30 thank you the time is now 6:50 p.m. and the board now reconvenes an open session of the June 8th 2023 special meeting please stand if you are able to join me inciting the pledge ofg to FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and jce [Music] we the board will now hear audience comments for up to a total of 45 minutes speakers will have 3 minutes to address the board speakers who do not have the opportunity to address the board during our first public participation agenda item will have the opportunity to offer their comments during the second public participation agenda item we need to add that oh oops special meeting that's my
004oops I apologize I apologize can amend it we can amend it make a motion to amend the agenda to add public comment at the end of the meeting if it's needed we will okay board meetings are meetings of the board held in public not open form Town Hall meetings board members will not engage the public during public comment the board will keep this in mind as we conduct our meetings allowing the public to provide input at the time alive on the agenda to ensure the multiple voices of the community inform board deliberations when the board deliberates it will be a time for the board to listen and learn from each other taking the public input into consideration not a time to re-engage with the public the board will consistently abide by our formal processes related
005to this issue so that all persons are treated fairly and equally our first speaker speaker is Ana Raman me grab myself a timer I did public speaking and debate for two years so it's kind of second nature if you hit the button green light come out there you go thank you okay perfect I'm on Ramen and I'm I am a rising senior at Hinsdale Central I wanted to offer a student perspective on the fate of AP European History now as a disclaimer I have not been approached by any staff members to do this and all opinions shared tonight are my own my goal is not to criticize but rather to urge the reconsideration of proposed curricular changes I am troubled that these changes are being made with little input from students themselves considering that no
006polls or surveys appear to have been sent out to the student body now I took world history honors as a freshman AP European History as a sophomore and AP US History as a junior in my opinion AP European History should be retained as a sophomore level honors track course across both schools it offers a fantastic introduction to a major component of history and to college level coursework in an engaging environment AP Euro truly ignited my own interest in history and taking this class led me to realize that I want to continue studying the discipline Beyond High School but there's currently a movement to make AP Euro a senior elective let's break down the basic reasons for the proposed changes firstly parity between Central and South now I'm all for parity but the All or Nothing
007mentality of getting rid of Euro as a mainstream course only to replace it with AP World History is flawed why can't we have both let students take AP World as freshman and Euro as sophomores for me taking world history before an history gave me a well-rounded perspective and this allowed me to better understand interactions between countries of the world as well as the power dynamics that exist in the world today second is relatability diversity in curriculum is important and we should have a wide variety of course offerings to appeal to every student and their perspectives however taking away the choice to take European history is contrary to these ideals the metric by which we evaluate classes shouldn't only be relatability because that assumes that students don't have the ability to understand anything that doesn't directly
008pertain to them there is a fundamental misunderstanding here Regarding why we learn history the lessons learned from this class are Universal in nature and so are the skills I urge you to keep the current course structured considering that AP US is a standard junior class taking AP European History beforehand is the best way to give students context for the topics that they're learning about we see discrep and students abilities to keep up based on whether or not they had taken Euro the previous years at least I can attest to my own apus class I urge the Board of Education to take a step back and to conduct a more thorough investigation of student opinions on these classes we are the ones being affected at the end of the day and we have a right to
009work alongside the adults it would be a loss beyond words to demote this highly enriching class thank you for your time [Applause] our next speaker is an [Music] win my my son wants to to speak as well is that okay he wants to stand next to me is that okay want take a seat here or you want to stand you want to take a seat and good good evening my name is ang win I'm a res of hinel we bought our home in 2004 believe 19 years um I'm a dad of of two kids ages 10 and eight uh I also happen to be a I'm a Harvard trained pediatric doctor and a biotech entrepreneur uh and the reason why I'm am where I am today is because I I grew up in D County
010but in fact I grew up going to neille schools and Di was really important in neille back in the 1980s over 40 years ago and because of those di initiatives in me I'm a recipient of those dividends and so when I live in for almost 20 years one most affluent you know cities in the country the top 100 literally like number four in the state and there's a shift in our perspective how inclusion is part of our fabric I'm kind of shocked and disappointed because you know how do we pay it forward right and this is what's really really really sad to me and I wanted to read this out and so today I stand before you to to emphasize the critical importance of incorporating diversity equity and inclusion into our education Sy students as
011our society becomes increasingly interconnected and diverse it is imperative that schools take on the responsibility of nourishing a generation of students who understand appreciate and celebrate these principles first and foremost teaching diversity Equity inclusion Fosters a more accepting and tolerant society and by exposing students to a wide range of perspectives cultures and backgrounds we enable them to develop empathy and respect for others they learn to recognize the inherent value in diversity and to appreciate the unique contributions that individuals from different walks of life bring to our Collective Human Experience in essence we are building a foundation for society that Embraces it different and rejects discrimination moreover incorporating these principles into our Educational Systems prepar students for the realities of the modern world a business case an increasingly globalized Society individuals are bound to encounter people
012from diverse backgrounds in their personal professional lives and by teaching Dei we equip our students with the essential skills needed to navigate in multi cultural World they develop the ability to communicate effectively across boundaries collaborate and solve complex problems these are not only advantageous in the workplace but overall contribute the overall coming and cohesion of society teaching di inclusion cultivates critical thinking and a broad perspective and when students are exposed to diverse ideas they learn to question assumptions challenge biases and engage in thoughtful dialog and so let us work together to ensure that our schools become bastions of University at the inclusion where every student feels valued empowered and to make a difference in the world thank [Applause] you our next speaker is Jennifer zani hi thank you all for all your hard work um
013I want to thank you for approving the position of the director of instructional Equity I think this is always a tough issue for any organization and Dr Payne's recent report suggests the district Personnel are taking the mandate to provide students with the support they need uh they're taking it and they're making it work for the students and the staff which is terrific um Dr King talked about asking the children what they're proud of and I think if you ask anybody what they're proud of there might not be an immediate answer that comes to mind um but as she talked in her presentation and she talked about Champions I felt that when these kids get through school and they look back at their school experience these are the kids who are going to know they can
014be proud of their work they know they were supported and they know they achieved they might not end up straight A but they're going to end up good students and they've powered through so I think it's it's terrific as she described it I didn't know the term pwi but I did know that we could never say that all our students have the same style of learning we couldn't say that they all have the same interest they don't have the same family situations uh they certainly don't have the same mental health characteristics um and they certainly don't have the same cultural background so we know that student engagement and achievement is very complex and we couldn't profess as a district to support Excellence if we don't seek the best ways to support our students um so
015this position and the team that works towards developing and improving the support model um proves in my mind and I think in the minds of a lot of people that the district is not willing for good to be good enough but it's really willing to commit to Excellence for each individual um I think I mean I think is um said in our adult lives we have a lot of circumstances where we could look back on a system or a situation and say oh if I had taken a step or if I had taken a different step maybe there would have been a better outcome and um here that's our work lives usually but here this position the director and the team they are the adults and the students are relying on them to take those
016steps so in the school system we have a community that's benefiting from a team of adults who are committed to thinking about students and their outcomes and the families in our district are able to R r on the commitment to success and Excellence so thank you for considering this position our next speaker is yvon May good evening I wasn't planning on coming but when I went to watch the M from home was no video link on the agenda so I rushed right over here um I know it's live streaming but if people go on to the agenda they are not going to find the meeting so perhaps we can make sure that doesn't happen in the future um secondly I know that you have discussed and decided to begin videotaping committee meetings and I commend
017that but there was no discussion about videotaping all special board meetings many can go right into executive session but often times public comments to come so those meetings also should be recorded so I would make that request respectfully um I did attend however the last meeting and listen to the students from South who um had been denied and access to the AP cm and AP Computer Science um I was disgusted to hear that this is a course AP chem that this year at has two sections that are very small and there's no reason why there can't be two sections that are very small next year find the money make it happen computer science I was horrified to hear students were being steered away from that course that word should never be used if a student
018comes to high school and has opportunities and wants to take a high level class it should be offered find a way to make it happen AP Euro as you all know I have five four graduates all took AP Euro it was a hard class my kids went on to high achieving colleges their courses there were hard but all four of my kids said AP Euro was the one class that prepared them the best to do deep dives into all of these harder courses so please do not eliminate as a sophomore level course if there are sophomores ready willing and able to take it let them take it open it up let Juniors and seniors take it don't just steer people away from it because it's a hard class that's the vibe I'm getting it's hard
019let's get rid of it superintendent search it's time to start talking about who's going to replace Dr coino in less than a month unless you guys announced today that tan Apprentice is coming back you've got a very short window of time to publicly discuss what you're required to do how her role is going to be filled come July 1st it's not on tonight's agenda unless superintendent search is what you're referencing um and finally um I'm going to remind just going to go back to AP Euro the three new board members at this table all said during one of the debates that they would keep AP European History as a sophomore level course unless you're all going to break your promise to the voters who listened attended your meetings and then vote it accordingly you better
020vote to keep it as a sophomore level course thank you our next speaker is Greg Walker all right so before I step to the mic and full disclosure I'm Terry's husband I rarely come to these meetings unless I feel there it's incumbent and I come about every 18 to 24 months so yes we didn't hear not every can you guys hear me now yes okay I'm going to talk about Dei but I'm going to weave it in with four other topics clock started or I need to cross I got it okay I'm going to talk about postco superintendent Trends superintended search process d86 board inter relationships and support for idea which means inclusion diversity equity and access postco there's 13,500 superintendents across the country but postco 3,500 of them retired there's a 25% reduction in
021the breadth and depth of quality of superintendant that exist for us to pull from but guess what how that impacts us there is a negative 75% reduction in the number of applicants for superintendent jobs if there are typically 20 applicants it's now like five or six if you're a premier District you might have 30 applicants in the preo now you may get eight so we need to be aware of that in terms of our search process okay rhetorical questions how many steps is it to basically hire a superintendent how long should it take can anybody on the board answer that probably not I'll tell you I did some extensive research back in January knowing this could potentially come up it's a 10 month typically 10-step process give you a handout that shows you that um
022and if we if we have to hire an inter superintendent there's typically a premium associated with that you're talking about potentially a $500,000 cost associated with hiring in superintendent legal fees search fees everything else that means a lot of desk facilities and other things that we don't get if we protract this process okay d86 board inter relationships I'm going to try and talk about if you're a superintendent candidate things that you typically don't like you don't like board politization you don't like board polarization you don't like board infighting you don't like uh micromanagement and you'd like a board that actually support idea which is why I'm here at to uh there was one article I read I read about 60 back in January I don't know if you all know Clin with Sergio Leon but
023there was talk about there's a good bad and ugly if you're a superintendent you're going to do a search and you're going to find out the ugly things that you don't like about how the board is interacting the head of the New York school district quoted a couple years ago talking about helicopter boards he said trust your professionals to make decisions to be there that should be Theirs to make school boards are full of former teachers and other individuals with various forms of specialized expertise but having knowledge in a particular area doesn't give board members a license to micromanage last he said if school board members run to an auto if a school board member runs an auto repair shop should he or she show up to a school bus garage and check the timing
024bels so to add some levity we've got experts that are teachers and faculty members and department heads who are making decisions you all have a tough job that you're trying to be proactive and the best District across the country allow the and empower the board to be proactive but there's a fine line or you going to call it a type up that you have to walk and I encourage you to do that and do it proac uh last thing I don't have time run out of time but there's nutrier um and Stevenson are two of the best schools in the area they're actually ranked right around us nine or 10 in terms of performance and they have some Dynamic idea programs so I'm going to hand you guys this if you want it if you
025don't if you want to use it as Kitty letter knock yourselves out that's a copy if you want make [Applause] cop wrapped up I will hand this to my beautiful wife and she can pass it down you guys and anybody else sitting back there I'm call our next speaker is Dr Patricia Jones blman I press the button my name is Dr Patricia Jones blessman and this may be the first time that many of you have seen me uh but first and foremost I want you to know that I am a of a rising sophomore South High School and I a godmother to three other male students who also attend South I'm a licensed clinical psychologist with over 30 years of experience as a clinician and consultant one of my specialty areas is in cultural competence
026and inclusion I've consulted to educational institutions and business organizations around Justice Equity diversity and inclusion as a new parent to this District I was thrilled to see the teachers here at d86 so eloquently describe detail and in carefully support the need for an education that allows all students to see themselves in within the historical timeline of T achievement their compelling arguments have already been documented and circulated the path forward that they described as Innovative and much needed this team did exceptional work and the board would to ignore implementing their recommendations and maintaining the director of instructional Equity position my personally my son has traveled to Europe specifically Germany France and the Netherlands he has traveled to Japan China and Thailand to Cuba and Egypt and hopefully soon we will be traveling to England Africa and
027Brazil in our travels we have explored how different countries provide play spaces for their children our children live in a world that is increasingly bringing them into contact with people from around the globe their education should include their perspectives as well as prepare our young children as best as we can for the world that is coming and quite frankly the world that is already here thank you our next speaker is Reed McCullum hello U my name is Reed McCollum I live in ndale I want to say I'm grateful to this board for its sincere commitment to improving communication and transparency with the community those are sorely needed um open discussion asking hard questions and aspiring for consensus are admirable so I applaud the board um I trust that this board will put students and Families
028First and vote to hire Dr P's replacement as our director of instructural equity during Dr Payne's annual presentation on the 11th it was really clear how important it is for a director to lead this work Dr Payne said Equity is not a side conversation but rather it is fully integrated into all of our work and it was incredible how true that is from her report the Dei director work uh Works closely with the academic cabinet the district curriculum leadership team the mtss leadership team the building Equity action team the culture and Equity leadership team or and kak and a student services cabinet without a director to coordinate this vital work student achievement would suffer and achievement gaps would likely grow and the harm it would do through the message it would send to students who
029do not feel seen or fully supported is immeasurable Dr P also outlined a goal for Equity work to be more proactive and to build on the base that mtss interventions um and professional um development have laid um she spoke about a focus on belongingness building classroom cultures and making sure all students feel celebrated it was inspiring and felt urgent students and families and staff are eager for this Vision to be realized I trust that all seven members of this board will vote to replace do your pain is as a new board to eliminate an established role of this importance um that's so important in supporting students who need the most help within weeks of being sworn in would be Reckless it would fly in the face of concerns about the pace of change over the
030past few years that many community members have expressed if any member of this board had doubts about whether a director was needed I struggle to imagine why that board member would not have asked Dr pay during her presentation on the 11th to weigh in on that idea during the 25 minutes of Q&A that followed her report for all of these Reasons I'm confident that this board will vote to hire Dr P's replacement after an open and transparent conversation tonight our next speaker is Linda Burke I thank you all for your service I have limited time in a lot of issues yes of course we need a districtwide director of equity and inclusion um in case it could be argued that building level staff working on Equity would be sufficient it's a very good idea but
031it is does not replace a person coordinating all of these activities and over the past few years years we've heard so many students and parents and board members speak eloquently about why this role is so important and we're hearing very eloquent voices tonight um I will now bring up a an issue of equity that seems to unite the political Spectrum the odest of political bad fellows all agree on this um we really should not be shutting anyone out of a basic 10th grade academic requirement maybe namely AP cam at all we knew that demand was right at the cusp of meeting a second SE section from the start we should open a second section and I was I was appalled that the solution in you know quote unquote was raised that maybe people will just
032drop out of AP chemet South hello um how often do we have it as a goal that people will quit AP cam no we we need to um open a second section or get a waiver so that three kids can work at at one station in other words a waiver so that the section could be bigger but um and we also for smaller elective classes I will not give up on Creative Solutions um I never gave on the C course that must have taken a decade or more we are talking about electives that have a high symbolic importance but Advanced and motivated students so Creative Solutions would work it would not be like learning during a pandemic from you know alienation and isolation students would go to a certain designated place in the school and
033hold one Zoom class per day for example in um certain elective courses and um we hear the issue raised that sometimes Central students are short Changed by the present system well that's true but it doesn't happen nearly as often and since when do two wrongs make a right are we now running on the principle that two wrongs make a right so and finally let's bring in AP African-American history if there's the greatest story not still fully told um that is um the ideal history course huge in significant narrow enough and focus to go down thank [Applause] you our next speaker is Alison Peters good evening I'm Alison Peters um I'm a d86 parent and I'm here tonight to read a letter that was written um on behalf of my friend my um a fellow d86
034parent and my colleague at college F Consulting Molly Hughes who was unable to be here tonight dear d86 board I'm writing as an Alum of hinel central a hinel central parent 2019 graduate current 2025 student and as an independent College consultant who works with students from high schools across the state and Country I am deeply concerned about the proposed new social studies curriculum changes changes that were rushed to approval without a thorough careful vetting by all stakeholders I implore you to please keep AP Euro as a grade 10 offering and world history honors as a grade n offering I also ask that you keep honors philosophy and expand this offering to Hinsdale South since 2010 I've worked one-on-one with hundreds of students across dozens of high schools in the United States from public and parochial
035to boarding I advise many high Achievers attending hinel Central who choose to pursue a rigorous social studies path often they end up in world history honors freshman year because they know that they will like it and have done well in Middle School social studies and history occasionally it's because they already truly love history still many of them ask for my professional opinion about the relative importance of this path they seek confirmation that taking such a path is worth it more specifically when deciding on sophomore classes many asked me about whether they should take AO meanwhile they rarely asked if taking the most rigorous math path is worthwhile why is that after 13 years as a college consultant I'm confident that it's because the college admissions landscape is ever present in their minds and because admissions
036is more arbitrary and confusing than ever the one thing students feel they can most control is their transcript the goal of earning A's across all subjects at any cost including their health or their long-term educational goals seems to be the only standard that they can grasp on to when choosing courses there is also a misconception that selective colleges prefer stem riger Above All Else the reality is more nuanced than that and my job is to offer perspective with their long-term goals and development in mind so when a student asks should I really take APO I hear it so hard I confirmed their suspicion I say that indeed it is rigorous but I encourage them to embrace the challenge I explained that assuming school counselor and teachers have recommended AP Euro as a good next course
037for them earning a be in AP Euro is an achievement to be proud of and that College admissions know and highly value the rigor of this path I also tell them that countless students I worked with upon reflection say taking apuro was among the best academic decisions they made in high school what they don't yet realize at this juncture in their young lives are the other important reasons for my guidance toward this class she goes on to give four excellent points that I'm going to run out of time to read tonight but I'm going to encourage her to email this to all of you and I will leave her letter here for those of you to read it thank you for your time and consideration have a good night thank you our next speaker is
038hello it's nice to see all of you uh my name is Liz nippa and I'm a resident of Daran and a member of the cast d63 School Board I'd like to begin by thanking every one of you for the service for our students in the district we know that you work very long hours very for this unpaid position and I deeply appreciate it I'm here today to advocate for the social studies alignment team's recommendations and filling the director of equity and inclusion position first a little background for those who may be new to school boards to be effective a board must clearly understand its role versus that of school-based Staff the Illinois Association of school boards explains that an effective Board of Education governs a school district and focuses on core values Mission Vision and
039goals while the superintendent and District staff manage the schools setting objectives action plans and procedures when high achieving teachers present a well researched databased plan to alter the social studies curriculum sequence the board should govern by asking good questions doing research approving said curriculum and ensuring that students meet academic goals as member Gallow stated a board should trust and then verify trust the teachers to make good curricular decisions and verify that the changes yield positive academic results and the social studies alignment team said we would also like to express with sincerity the um Del I'm going to I knew I was going to do this deletrius effect to morale that certain changes will have on many staff members who spent countless hours on the alignment plan and its implementation trust our teachers study after study
040shows that ensuring all students belong and feel respected for their individuality yields academic gains a major concern for this community is the high percentage of black Latino and lwi income students in the district who are struggling academically progress was made under Dr Payne and our students need and deserve the continued support that a director of equity and inclusion provides across the district the board should support the social study team's recommendations and fill the director of equity and inclusion position thank you so [Applause] much our next speaker is Kimberly Ashen schlager I am Kimberly oon sliger a 31-year resident of Hinsdale a master's degree social studies teacher and was a banking executive in the US London and Hong Kong my comments tonight are based on attending most d86 school board meetings for about 2 years I'm
041representing myself tonight but I do believe I am a member of a less overtly vocal contingent of our community that has significant concerns about the tenor and the narrow vision of this board with all due respect the former board while some may have disagreed with decisions was a legal democratically elected entity their votes over the past years do not warrant warrant nullification as a community member that is why I do not understand the following why is d86 spending what will likely be significant time and funds for Legal Services to hasten the departure of the superintendent when the former board voted democratically to provide us with a perfectly reasonable offramp for that departure if this board's pursuit of an Al alternative outcome continues I will want to have a full accounting of what was not provided
042to students from all those fees spent I will be anxious to know because your campaign pledges repeatedly demanded that this is essential for full transparency hard as I try I cannot discern any business or pedagogical case to be made for this needless action and how can this board not endorse an energetic vision for our school district that Embraces well-researched best practices for the social studies curriculum that emphasizes rigorous critical skills development within every grade level paired with Dynamic sequencing of courses that will prepare our entire student body for the global World they will be entering regrettably I am only hearing how we have always done things in the past as well as a CLE of repeatedly using the word data to satisfy personal but often errant conclusions we are indeed looked upon as a community
043of dynamic individuals families and schools that should be our reputation and our mission to maintain if you remain mired in Rel litigating thoughtful prior Decisions by faculty teams of professionals and Boards I believe d86 would be left behind other schools we Benchmark in our national cohort so finally in the next election will the next board nullify your efforts it certainly could I do not believe this is what you want the legacy of d86 to be one that flip-flops is disruptive to students progress ress and one that has potential to disadvantage our students as they go forward to meet the challenges of this complex but fascinating World they will inherit this board's current and pending actions do not Bowe well for a promising investment in our kids futures or our community let's move on thank you
044so much our next speaker is Jim Conlin good evening everybody uh I have a house in pale I have I also have a house in Pennsylvania so describ as a part-time resident I have two daughters who graduated from Central uh my observation and I won't take three minutes I don't think is that Dei is very controversial is controversial in the country is controversial in Illinois and it's controversial in d86 you wouldn't know it listening to the 20 people here tonight but it's very controversial Dr Apprentice was controversial she's not the superintendent anymore because she was controversial so please don't go away with the idea that there's overwhelming support for Dei there is support I wouldn't call it overwhelming I don't know if it's 50/50 6040 but I do know that people the community who are
045not happy with it uh who view it as having a left to spent uh who view it as excessive militant who view it as associated with the Democratic party and not the other half of the country uh don't feel this has been transparent and I do think you ought to pause hire a superintendent see what they think and then move forward that's my view thank you [Applause] and last speaker is Kim M last meeting I talked about social studies so I'm going to go for something different I'm thrilled this board created the academic committee and the board's commitment to a rigorous curriculum adoption process is starting in the policy committee as how we Implement changes we used to have a three-year curriculum adoption process and I think that that's really really important it's important to
046have different places for the community to engage with the academic committee you could help Mr Mary understand where d86 are and where we work and where we could be and how we can do it together the teachers created an alignment plan under Bruce law in January of 2019 why did the administration abandon the teacher plan students in d86 especially at Hino South showed unprecedented growth when we had GN classes why did it admin eliminate the courses that resulted in that success and why didn't admin alter the course as proficiency has continued to fall lots of discussion has resulted from the south students who made public comments at the last meeting after several of them spoke I looked at the data at the HR Staffing meeting to maintain flat staffing admin showed what courses are not
047running due to low enrollment why didn't admin explain why a 3% decrease in population resulted in a 10% drop in FTE in science where are those teachers being reallocated looking at the master schedule d86 have removed teachers from classrooms to fill r as Department chairs assistant Department chairs interventionists literacy lab and a number of teachers hold other administrative positions that aren't actually even explained the number of students in special ed courses have grown exponentially what's the impact of mtss which doesn't even show up on the master schedule half and the other support programs where are those resources being taken from in order to provide resources in other place during the policy committee meeting Chris coino and Deb kroski reported they are finalizing the building procedure manual which will establish what the procedures are for registration
048hopefully that will resolve some of the problems kids have with scheduling so that they know what has happened and what their recourse is overall I feel like d86 has been derailed since Camy Prentice took the hel actually since she came to the district since Prentice advocated for the elimination of student proficiency has fallen and more students graduate without Independence that they need to succeed postsecondary you're doing great things much needs to be accomplished before the regular Cadence of adopting the program of studies so I hope the academic committee and this board will move forward on academic changes and slow the role cther before we move on I did want to um propose an additional agenda item tonight to discuss the proposal for 2 or point4 FTE to allow the students and South to have an
049additional section of APK and and discussion surrounding it one small point of order Mr Waters I am actually meeting with the parents tomorrow afternoon to discuss this and I wonder if it might be more apprpriate to finalize that conversation with them prior to any board discussion or action I do want a second um board member of water about that concern so if we can just keep a PR on that conversation so that we can make this a priority conversation thank you are you comfortable with that so Dr Goo will summarize and I just wanted you know mention it at the table okay perfect thank you moving on board business 5.1 the national superintendent search assistant superintendent of Human Resources Cheryl Moore has presented the board with an overview of the superintendent SE process for the
050board's discussion has everybody had a chance to look at um M Moore's document okay at this point um I would like to ask respectfully and humbly that member Walker and member Gallow work together with Miss Moore on streamlining the process and then bringing everything back to the board is that agreeable are up for it Terry yep okay fantastic sounds good are there any other points of discussions or questions okay moving on strategic plan review Dr coino can you start sure um behind me on the right is a visual of uh the work that was created I believe uh in 2019 um and um comes to fruition uh not comes to fruition um was designed as a 5-year plan at that point in time um believe or not we are through um 5 years uh of
051of or or we're at the 5-year Mark where we should be thinking about what the next steps are um for the district strategic plan um when we were talking about this agenda item um my thought was just to sort of provide a general overview of what districts typically do at this point in time so the board could have a discussion about the direction that it would like to go and potentially entertain questions about where uh we are uh with the process uh the board uh knows uh that it it received a goal three four and five update uh at the I don't know if it was the last meeting I'm losing track of the meetings uh it was at a very recent meeting and at the next meeting uh the next uh scheduled meeting um
052June 22nd uh will receive a update um from goal one from me and goal two from Dr car Smith uh who is the gold Champion there as well as some um some um thoughts uh comments about the the plans uh from a building level administrators as well so um when a strategic plan comes to a conclusion uh the board has to make a decision about how it wants to carry forward um knowing that um um this is the point in time when Community input is typically sought once again as it was at the beginning of the Strategic plan process um I'm fortunate enough to be um part of this process uh in a district that I uh am moving to shortly um and uh also in my own children's District so I have some some
053notion about how this this renewal uh exists uh currently right now from those two personal perspectives but in general um the board probably needs to begin having a discussion about how uh it would like to proceed uh with discussions related to renewing revising rethinking and recommunity whatever the Strategic plan might look like in the near future um typically this is a process that is conducted jointly with a superintendent and the board uh and um um so so that will be part of the discussion as well uh but it is always a process that involves as many stakeholders as possible um through surveys which I know we have some trouble with uh through focus groups uh through um a number of scheduled meetings uh through a lot of comments uh and and and and and and
054ways for the community to be involved um typically the board and or the administration work together to to think through if the five areas are still the the most pertinent areas of Focus right and then invite the community in to think about how those five areas should be shaped and how new goals either are created or goals are revised based on what they currently are as as listed here the one step that that um our District took um at the creation of this strategic plan that is slightly uh different than what some other districts do is it also outlined these critical or these competencies under defining Excellence that are very hard to read and have a lot of words right but um did a lot to provide Focus for each of the goal areas related
055to things like and and this is just I I'll speak for my area curriculum alignment while goal one doesn't say you do line curriculum the areas under coherent systems critical competencies Innovative teaching and learning practices those words if you could read them and I think they're linked potentially for you to see here um in our on almost every document that we put out um every major document um do speak directly to those ideas which were which came directly out of community feedback um about creating a single program of studies and having options for every kid uh those types of things so any for the board's conversation these are the items that you probably need to be talking about in the very near future related to the Strategic plan and as we think through um the
056work of each goal area specifically goal one with curriculum alignment where we seem to have a lot of conversations that I don't enjoy sitting at that end of the table and presenting and and taking questions right but but it it will probably behoove the group in the community to be be thinking through what that actually means those what you know and again and um working through the language um whether or not we're going to keep it or not uh related to what each goal kind of the underlying competencies underneath each one so um that's that's a general overview um and um I I don't that's all okay uh with regards to the um five goals in the Strategic plan um wion board discussion and approval there are very clear board committees that associate with each
057goal and I would ask that the board committees consider the goal that ass is associated with their work so goal one would be academic committee um solely academic in my opinion but but with discussion back to the board I just want to confirm something now we're actually going into the fifth year am I correct so while it was drafted 5 years ago we're going into the fifth year of implementation of a 5year plan knowing that at the end of the fifth year we will be having a new superintendent so I guess I would think that it would make sense plus we're also going to be launching a national search which is going to include a lot of feedback from the community that is potentially not going to substitute from having that same focus group type
058of format for strategic plan but it's going to potentially help us inform what kind of strategic plan when Etc but I would say that we finish out the Strategic plan over the next year wait for a new superintendent and then Embark with that leadership on the process again the only thing is that part of um in terms of curriculum there are many areas that um report 100% complete and I think it would beoo the district to evaluate the data coming out from the Departments that are reporting 100% complete I think that could be part of this next school year so Dr coino in in the development of this plan and I I don't think you were here but when this strategic plan was developed did the district work with a did the district work with
059a consulting firm or was that put together yeah the it's it's not atypical for a district to contract with a a consulting firm about strategic planning or an individual who guides the process and and advises the board and the administration about the the pieces and sometimes even facilitate some of the meetings so there is a uh a genuine feeling of an unbiased person who is like taking everyone's thoughts into consideration so that that is an option um and and the only comment that I would make about member lethals which I think is is is a is a very thoughtful plan to is that many of your superintendent candidates will be looking at that plan in when they begin to apply for jobs regardless of how member Walker and Gallow conducted this will be something that
060everyone will be looking at so just keeping in mind that that will be the the public facing document still for the next year in its present format yeah I mean I I I do think that I agree um finishing this plan out and you know waiting until um we have a new person in place I think makes the most sense in terms of establishing U the future plan that's actually I want to ask you Dr know does that make is that with a recommendation that we wait till this year plan plays out and then would you recommend that given the fluctuation in the district leadership right now and I'm saying that with as much um vagueness as possible you really want to have a firm leadership structure in place before you go through the process
061of renewing in a typical structure in the final year you would begin having those conversations at least somewhere within that year so that by the year after it's done you have something to move to but but there's also the idea that you continue on with the work you know in in all of the areas and and just discuss them as maybe president green SP suggested in the Committees that bear them uh the most responsibility yeah I do have I do have one comment on that because I do want to be sensitive to um you know the Strategic plan was put in place and then it was implemented with a certain vision and we have had a lot of push back from the community on certain aspects of the plan and I do think that we
062need to recognize that and that as a board not in committee as a board of s especially under goal one we should have a discussion about the direction so we do set the direction um but this Board needs to set the direction and the expectation as a board of seven um so that we're sending a very clear and consistent message um as this final year rolls out so while I appreciate the work of the Committees there's certain work that should come before the the full board and I believe that that is more discussion that should come to the full board to S as soon as possible and I would I'm I'm sorry go ahead I would agree with your point um Miss Greenspan about um a lot of things have been checked off and said
063done and we need to reflect and look back and and look at our teachers have been sweeping with a broom in front of them and sweeping with a broom behind them they've been I believe they've been very busy in these past 5 years and I think giving them a little bit of Grace of this is we're done we're we're you you've checked the Box off now let's look back and reflect where are we with that how how did that how is it working out I would like to do that and I also expect that because leadership is flux um that we we take this year to finalize this strategic plan reflect and allow the new superintendent who will be coming in in 24 the space and the board will be um creating maybe some goals
064to be looking at at that point in time and also there are several um there were several areas that were kind of delayed over the past years so we have some fores specifically that are not rolling out until the 24 25 25 26 years so with respect to the goals Dr coino which goals are complete almost complete if you looked at them please we have five so I mean we've received reports so it um goals 3 four and five are the closest to um the word completion I struggle with but I don't I don't I'm not comfortable with that word but yeah yeah continuous Improvement is important but goals three four and five um are the easiest to quantify as being the furthest um uh as closest to achieving the goals that were set for
065them uh goal two while a lot of work has been done a a vast majority of it was also wrapped up in student schedules and while we we made a um um uh some some changes based in the ratified contract for changing periods there is actually inside that contract ongoing conversation about uh the potential for Teacher supervision how that might change the day so I would say that that one is also um influx and and probably Falls closer to the um I I would not not use the word completion there but it's again in progress go goal one is the one that is probably um the the the largest of all the goals uh the most not largest the most ambitious of all of the goals because it touches every single um course in the
066entire school district and well a great deal of progress has been made and if we can count this my goal One update and we take it off the next agenda that would be terrific um but but there there has been a great deal of work done the teachers have done a tremendous job to your point when they asked us to pause we paused in a number of areas and that's why even though that it ends next year there are still there's still work planned over the course of the next two to two and a half years um so um that that would be an area where um we would have the the most ongoing work so with regards to goal three four and five it's closer to completion however we describe it right goal three
067is HR so it would be um I'm wondering if HR can revisit with Cheryl to make sure where the work is if there are any areas that we need to look at and the Board needs to hear about like Reflections um gold gold four doesn't really have a board committee it's family and Community connections and I believe member Waters it would be great in um maybe leading a group to examine goal four family and Community connections right and communication surveys any of that piece are you comfortable with that quite comfortable yes thank perfect goal five is resources it's Finance for the most part CFO senson presented a pretty complete report at the last meeting about where where is will you look at that that if there's anything you need to bring back the perfect and
068Facilities possibly for you work together yeah perfect any more discussion on strategic plan moving on uh 5.3 the social studies program team provided a me oh so let's have the discussion with social studies uh with possible 11 would you like to start sure I I would like to start um by reading from a letter that we received that Allison Peter began a meeting so I'm going to continue where she left off and then I have some comments of my own um just to refresh she wrote a letter to in the full board did receive it um and she left off at what they don't yet realize at this juncture in their young lives are the other important reasons for my guidance towards this class specifically it is one of the courses in District 86 that
069most prepar students for the demands of academics at the selective colleges they hope to attend I believe others especially Chris fryer have expanded on the following point apuro is exceptionally efficient in expanding students curiosity and critical thinking skills and 10th grade is the ideal time for such growth since my job as a college counselor is to help guide them to the best preparation for success in college for those students prepared to take this course I therefore recommend it highly APO is approv winner look at the scores our students earn on the AP test and what they go on to achieve in a push AP Lane Etc this course because of its rigor and content is foundational to their success in other AP courses it is in my professional experience by far the most cited confidence
070building course that Rising District 86 seniors reflect upon when deciding where to apply to college when a student asked me if they can handle the rigor of a very selective University or strong analytic and writing skills are required I often say that if they did well in AP Euro they are prepared academically for any rigorous College path with Humanity's core requirements and those schools are many this is as true for future physics Majors as it is for history majors I have never had a student regret taking AP Euro other classes are more of a mixed bag when students reflect on them it is simply put a student favorite for those who take it another reason to support this sequence is that it makes makes sense to take AP Euro before taking AP US History AP
071Euro lays the foundation for a better understanding of AP US I won't elaborate on this point as many others have made it AP modern world history is not equivalent as it is essentially a survey course there is the old adage if it ain't broke don't fix it it applies well here please evaluate the suggested P New Path versus what we are throwing out and I'll skip down to the final paragraph of the letter finally let me take this opportunity to opine that honors philosophy is an outstanding offering that launches students into college with deep curiosity and intellectual generosity there is too little intellectual generosity today in college and Beyond it is a gift to those students who take it current students who hear it is going away are clamoring to take it before it disappears
072I received a call about this issue 3 days ago I also know current College students and recent graduates who claimed it helped them choose their college courses more thoughtfully than they would have otherwise what can justify taking this course another proven winner away why not try offering it to hensdale South so that those students can act access this educational gem as well so I'll leave off there I did want to we have received a few comments I want to make it clear that AP European History and the program of studies is available to 10th graders but it is also already available as an elected course to 11th and 12th graders and that is outlined in the current program of studies which is a unified program of studies for both campuses um next year I also
073want to um provide some context about some other information that we've received honors philosophy is a course that's historically been taught at Central but there was a philosophy and ethics course taught in hensdale South and it went away because of low enrollment so um it isn't that there wasn't ever a course there and there's only been a course here and then there was another claim that perhaps you know these courses were started and spearheaded you know by one teacher well that's how a lot of new courses start in fact we received an incredibly thoughtful email from no Lawrence this year this week about how he spearheaded bringing African-American history to this district and um and successfully did so and that still runs with um multiple sessions sale Central each and every year so I'll I
074have a lot of other comments to make but I'll turn it over to other board members I think in the same day we also got um comments in our email inbox F Comm member supporting AP World History I took the time to compare both of the courses um from my expertise and looking at more comparison the conversation of less rigor or more rigor is from AP from ap's website themselves if you actually take the time to compare the two courses the skills that are being supported are exactly the same so the conversation of the fact that they that AP World History is less rigorous um I'm not seeing the evidence for that at this time in terms of actual rigor and content skills um according to ap's site themselves AP European History skills are valuing
075primary and secondary sources analyzing the Clint evidence and reasoning you find in sources putting historical developments in context and making connections between them coming up with plans our thesis and explaining and supporting it in writing and they are the exact same skills that are expected for students in AP World History so I just want to make sure that that is clear that they are on the same level of rigor the difference is in terms of the contact um that's what I just wanted to make sure that we are all in agreement that the skills and the rigor of these two courses are exactly the same it's the content that differs um and I would even go further that uh the content of the world history creates an interconnectedness of global societies that we know is
076a mandate and then we saw the report coming in from the um the team that actually um did the research brought in the Illinois state standards for social sciences so I do think those are very valid claims in terms of the alignment um that the social studies team has brought to our attention so those skills are the same across AP modern world AP Euro and then even AP AP um US History however um AP modern is known to be a very fast course and more broaden scope whereas AP European History allows the opportunity to dig deeper into content it was also mentioned or brought to this board and last meeting that some of those Global Connections are incorporated into AP European History we were provided multiple um units that are used in the courses now
077to provide those connections so gu one thing that I would say is um I'm a little I thought the the the memo that the teacher sent to us was was very um explained everything that they had already told us um I do find it a little a little curious not here tonight um that we're debating this but they aren't here to answer any questions uh specific questions I presume that doino could answer questions for us um both of our department chairs with social studes are in the audience okay but no we did not invite teachers um at this time and I I guess my position on this or my feeling is and I I said this at the last meeting based upon the information that was provided to us and the information that's been during
078their presentation as well as what's been sent subsequently it seems to be that the recommendations that they're making was well thought out and um should stand as it has been approved previously now if there is an opportunity for us to offer both courses at the sophomore level perhaps we can consider that but I also think we need to look at the numbers and as I recall in looking at the information the number of students who are requesting to take this course as sophomores has been declining over the years so there's a social studies requirement in 9th grade and there's a social studies requirement in 11th grade there is no social studies requirement in 10th Grade and there's been no evidence brought to this board to suggest that those numbers won't still decline for 10th grade
079because there're isn't a 10th grade social studies requirement there's a graduation Civics requirement that a lot of students choose to fulfill during their sophomore year but there's been no evidence to suggest that AP modern world is going to pull in more numbers than AP European History does at the honors level sophomore year in fact in 200 I think it was 15 when Civics the Civics requirement came to be in Illinois this board stated or the social studies Department stated even though social studies has only a 2-year requirement the majority of students take more than two years social studies electives at the 10th and 12th grades will be impacted the most by this change in required courses referring to Civics so there was an expectation already that there was going to be a decline potentially in
080enrollment in 10th and 12th grade now at Hinsdale South the numbers don't seem to suggest that there really is a fallof from their freshman honors course to their sophomore honors course however there's been nothing to suggest that AP modern world sophomore year is going to improve that that participation at the honors level but there's also nothing that states if I don't take AP Euro as a sophomore you can still take a AP US History as a junior I know this as a fact because it's what happened in my own household so and a lot of kids do that and that's why it it jumps back up for junior year and I mean the quote by GK Chesterton has now been referenced a few times at the board table most recently at the last meeting about
081the social studies curriculum and board member requests for discussion and POS possible action the quote don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up as a principle about understanding a current situation before implementing change in this case the fence is not the curriculum proposal approved in the fall of 2021 in my opinion but instead the time tested successful curriculum that is already in place as this letter went on I believe this was the person that Miss Hughes was the one that used the phrase if it ain't broke don't fix it we don't have a broken system as near as I can tell and we have a pretty successful system at both schools and I'm unclear why we're upending a decades long curriculum that has been successful and well taught
082um and well respected I I thought the teacher um it stated why I mean we we are given four reasons we're told that the persistance of low enrollment right but no gu no guarantee that that en going to go up so but think there's an issue though there's a concern that we have L enrollment lack of alignment to cour offerings The Continuous lack of compliance with Illinois social study geography standards and an ongoing inability to offer one some social I mean they stated the poor reasons so I think it's unfair to say that there isn't hold on I can just finish and then finally is that I want us to just bring back to attention that in this letter this has been three years of work not 3 days not 3 weeks not three months
0833 years of a group of professionals across the district who have come together and who have made the presentation so I find it a little concerning that three years of work to me I value that and I value the recommendation that's being come in I appreciate that we are debating the conversation and in L that conversation if we're going to continue that course I'd like to just answer then if we're continuing that course how are we addressing those four concerns conerns I can appreciate saying let's keep a all right then how are we addressing the four concerns that the team has come up with because I don't not hearing those concerns so I would like to back up following our March meeting when the social studies presented all of their final findings um I had
084asked how are we going to one of the key parts of this process is sustainability and as part of that sustainability I asked how many what are the percentage of students that take 2 years 3 years and four years of social studies and it's it's pretty telling so when you ask why is there is a big drop in students that are at taking 8 Euro or whatever is a sophomore year there are only 38% students at Hinsdale South taking four years of social studies and 65% at Hinsdale Central 28% are taking 3 years 18% at hensdale South or I'm sorry 8% at Hinsdale South 18% at Hinsdale Central and then 20% of the students at Hinsdale South are only taking two years of social studies so with those 20 courses that were being proposed I'm
085not sure how that sustainability is going to happen and I'm not sure that the numbers were actually analyzed when they were going through and looking at this so my recommendation and what I would like to to ask is we've started to take steps in the policy committee it's mentioned that this is 3 years worth of work three years worth of work that did not come to the board at any point um along the process for touch points and so we've started to take steps in that policy committee to look at the um administrative procedure and to add some of those touch points back in my recommendation is to have a motion to cause the curriculum development for a short period of time while the academic committee has a chance to way in and we can
086start looking at some of back and forth but I don't think that's quite accurate because I do believe that the social studies Department came to a meeting in March of 2021 2022 at some point 21 only at a very high level they presented at a high level with four slides when we approved the when we were geing up to approve the program studies in the fall of 2021 um and that's not including updates on go one there's been in 3 years of work no there was no there was no detailed update on on the social stud upate no there was no update on the social studies curriculum work other than a percentage of how much work had been completed there was no update brought to this board until I asked for an update last October
087which was eventually brought in March and and the update was to answer the questions that I had about what was moving forth so this the prior board was asked to approve this after a four slide presentation with very little detail if any other than a broad outline and then snuck into the program studies and I'll take the word snuck out okay but I've had a problem with the process for curriculum adoption since before I got Seated on this board and we've seen a lot of claims that you know well we should listen to the teachers and they worked on this should we listen to the teachers or should we listen to the six teachers so the whole department did not have a broad discussion about this or ample opportunity we learned that at the last
088meeting that while they may have had an opportunity to provide feedback that a feedback was dismissed and not incorporated into a final plan it wasn't incorporated into fine-tuning a plan and it certainly didn't come to the board for any refinement in fact one of the questions that I had asked at that meeting in the fall of 2021 was philosophy honors is going away instead of being you know moved and implemented itself and the answer was well you know this is preliminary there's always room for Change and as we've seen that change hasn't come so I appreciate member James recommendation for a motion the motion that I would make is that this gets reversed at this time pending for the you in terms of just a couple things to add to what Pember 11th all said
089I went back and I watched the 21 meeting again and it was indeed a four you know four uh slide presentation and at one point I think the term was that you know me mention that it was a work in progress and so it was certainly not a robust presentation of what was what was you know to transpire as far as as far as the Persistence of low enrollment you know board member James mentioned a couple different things I would also offer and remind community members who were here last week certainly the board and the administrators were here for the last board meeting we heard from several students of South as it relates to the akm piece we also heard some of those students maintain that they were steered in different directions or steered away
090from certain courses that same narrative which most of you should be familiar with was presented at this board table by community members emails to the board public comment about being steered away from certain courses after physics first and BCP became a dual sequence so frankly and to be harsh in some people's estimation but in my estimation honest I don't necessarily trust administ administrative directive to counselors when it tends to play out that students are being steered away from particular courses we heard it about science two weeks ago and we heard a lot about it I'm sorry uh we heard it about science prior we heard about APM specifically most recently so I do believe that the person system of of low enrollment is perhaps being manipulated by administration's demands of Staff with social I'm sorry
091go ahead no go ahead I I actually do if we if the motion is to reverse the decision I'm going to again ask them how do we propose because if you reverse a decision that you're proposing that reversal is solving the four issues that the um social studies team uh so I'm not sure that that reversal will solve the issues so the low enrollment we have we have nothing no data collected to indicate that changing out the sophomore honors course is going to improve low enrollment in terms of enrollment in other social studies courses we have enrollment in africanamerican history at Hinsdale Central and we're eliminating it we have enrollment in East Asian studies and we're eliminating it we have enrollment in honors philosophy and we're eliminating it instead trying to bring these courses I
092mean when we talk about students having opportunities to see themselves within curriculum why are we eliminating African-American history East Asian studies and courses like that instead of expanding them by including AP African-American studies which is rolling out by the college board so we're eliminating the opportunities that were being told we need to you know give another honors or another history survey course students are going to have a survey course their freshman year their social studies experience for most of middle school is a survey experience and now we're going to also have a survey experience sophomore year we need in my opinion to give students an opportunity to dig deep into historical topics and have the opportunity Dr coino you said something um when we were discussing covid gaps and I haven't forgotten it you said
093a lot of the gaps that you're seeing are not necessarily always academic gaps but one of the gaps that you're seeing is that ability to dig in and do something hard and have perseverance and tenacity and stick with it AP European History provides that and I don't have any evidence to suggest that modern world AP modern world is going to do that I mean h Central basically has been teaching the AP modern world history minus a few units um that's their freshman experience some kids go on and take that exam through self-study at the end of freshman year anyway why would we eliminate these rich courses in favor of unknown at this time so again this is where I I feel that there are quite a few areas that are we thought thought through from
094our our teachers and our curriculum writing team or Strate social studies team my my question is is can we kick this to the uh academic committee to dig in and look at the few areas where there might need to be some tweets for example making AP Euro the sopt class available as sophomores there there's some value that's been done today I I don't want to throw it all away I want to be able to utilize a good chunk of that and then expand on it in order to find that comfort zone so with regards to Dr Kino's information that he provided the board just before this meeting so I'm not sure if everybody had a chance to look at it but end of year 2023 um we expect social studies to be about 57% align
095and that's just an estimation I'm not I thought that was just the two courses am I correct no the are you reading the blue column yes I am so that that would be the entire department um based on the seven aspects of curriculum alignment that we've laid out you know PR studies textbooks out comes okay but I further on in that message because it was asked um I I received the information from the Department chairs that somewhere roughly around 70% of the new the two new freshman courses as well as AP modern um are developed in complete not complete because 70% is not complete at this point in time if we were to pause today we have about 70% of those courses Already Done Right a lot of work was scheduled for the summer um
096to continue to work on those with those teams uh so um that that would be um that would be the work as you're suggesting Applause that would then was but I would suggest that the academic committee would start early in the school year August September looking at some of the question that member acis and the team was um couldn't to point out but the team was was is is writing about and and I I just want to add that at this point in time it sounds like the conversation has really only been about Euro right but I I so maybe there's another piece here no I I I mean I have concerns about the elimination of African-American history East Asian studies philosopy honors and other elective courses I think it's also important to note that
097when this was first presented in the fall of 21 the program team did not identify course enrollment as a problem and a lot of these other issues so we were again and I challenge anybody on this board to go back and look at that presentation from October of 2021 where we voted maybe two meetings later um to see the information that we were given at that time time and how this evolved over time with no updates to the board or an opportunity for four slides yep two three four yep and it was just a list of what was happening with not a lot of very little detail about what was broken what was trying to be fixed why the fence was being torn down so my understanding with that um presentation was the curricular work
098was a work in progress all right so just so I as a community member you don't really see everything or hear everything just so I understand sitting here uh the work in progress was not um it was not described annually post summer because it seems like the curricular work most of it is done over the summer yeah I mean it could vary it dep okay so we're about 57% but specifically with freshman courses and AP modern world that could curricular work is about 70% complete as of today prior to the presentation in March were there any updates okay I ask you with regards may I finish thank you may I finish thank you um Peggy with regards to policy you're working on policy the policy committee to kind of further Define this not to um
099devalue the work of our teachers and our departments um rather to provide touch points so the board is aware so we don't end up in this situation again correct correct and Beyond the board and I appreciate that point is the community so we've heard from community members we've also heard from other social studies teachers we heard um you know a few we've heard from the program team that sent us an email but we've also heard from Noah Lawrence we've heard from John mbet um these teachers feel very strongly and you know deserve to be heard as well on this and and I'd like to know how you come up with a plan on anything that every single person is going to agree to because that that's essentially what you're saying then is that we have
100to bring in everybody so that everyone's in agreement and that's not going to happen on any topic I'm I I'd like to can I okay um back to miss James point about policy I recall back in 2020 2021 before the election um be in 2020 when I noticed that the policy I believe it's policy 640 um was revamped and it made me actually it was the administrative procedure the policy itself has not deviated deviated it didn't say to um okay okay that was how the policy is interpreted as the administrative procedure so just I know where you're going K do you do I do we never talk though okay I we'll find out be a good test listen um policy 640 was actually the official policy as K probably remembers it is is the original
101policy it was retired in July on July 23rd 2020 as it was written as K yeah so so under policy committee and board dos on your policies you can take a look at all the retired policies and a lot of this curricul you know the six so 640 6 660 um a lot of these policies as probably K remembers them and as they worked um and they worked well for the district were retired in anticipation of strategic planned work and the issue is for me personally as one board member is um clutch points were taken out with regards to reporting back to to um discussing with the board what was happening um the policies uh that were that replaced some of these policies with regards to curricular work and academics [Music] um while they they
102um satisfied legally Our obligation as a district the original policies were much more comprehensive and they actually took into consideration our community our students and our employees so there was clear Direction and what the policy and what the expectation of the board they don't we don't entirely have that anymore especially as it is with regards to curriculum and academics and you did you did touch on one of the points I was going to make and but to further it there was an election in 2020 2021 I remember talking to quite a lot of people in 2020 before paperwork was to be filed for that election I that helped with that election in 2021 and the community banded together I believe and elected four people from that list of 10 people whom they were being told
103all these things about curriculum and learning and accountability to the community the community at that point in time in my opinion felt that they had had changed the direction of the board with four people being elected to grab hold again to be able to to listen to the community it wasn't to be but then there was another election in 2023 and now more people were elected who talked about curriculum and accountability and now we have that and not to negate the work that has been done so I don't want to throw I don't want to throw this baby out with the bath water as another baby has already kind of been trying to be thrown out and the bathwater so um I'd like to acknowledge the work of how it was being guided but we
104need to um understand what what is broke what are we trying to accomplish throughout the whole election I've always I had always asked what is the problem we're trying to solve so let's go we need to go back have a pause and figure that out and have the board who's been elected by the community and therefore that's how we get notice of how things should be going because then in two years if they don't like what we do and they kick us up so um I'd like to I'd like to back member James's although I understand the need for total reversal too just to say this is not all right and it hasn't been all right throughout this whole process of how this whole strategic plan has been pointed in my opinion as one board
105member thank you member James can you uh repeat or articulate your motion please again before she does I'm just buying you time Peggy um no but before she does I'm just wondering you know is there any Credence to the possibility to both pause and reverse to make sure that no work is um put forth by teachers perhaps unnecessarily in the summer right but if if we're pausing curricular work then we are in fact as giving direction to not work on curriculum development over the summer and giving Mr Mary and chair L an opportunity to work together so I guess it's we're saying the same thing but by pausing it um there will be no curricular work done so we are actually giving the social studies Department direction as opposed to possibly having them still work
106over the summer begin the work and then um changing in the fall it is really the most respectful and considerate thing for our board to do at this moment I I just want to make sure I'm clearly understanding okay that our motion is pause curricular work during the summer which is the most from my understanding of school systems social studies or curricular work because I I think we need to be very clear social studies sorry I'm sorry we're this this item on the agenda is specifically with regards to social studies and it wouldn't it would be the curriculum um the curriculum alignment that was approved it wouldn't the existing courses in course I think we need to be very clear because this is what school systems do from my understanding and Dr if you could
107back me up summertime is the optimal time for curricular work so I think we need to be extremely careful and very articulate of what we're suggesting and what we're sending as a motion right now I can confirm that we have little over 1,400 hours of curriculum work scheduled in across the the district over the course of this Summer that has already begun um so um so with this in mind then if this is the direction that the board chooses to take what are the next steps the the academic committee then meets and dictates to the um Team what happens next and and the direct the future Direction well immediately we would give uh assistant superintendent Mary an opportunity to come in July 1 um and chair Levan paal will probably begin Communications pretty quickly with
108assistant superintendant Mary right and they will uh begin discussing some of the work and examine uh what is happening to and actually asking for possibly data um so I don't envision that okay as as the role since we need to provide some Direction as a board that by signaling a pause that's a signal that this particular pathway that's been proposed and is in motion um is not what you know a majority of the board the full board a consensus of the board wants to see going forward and um the refining that proposal would fall then and would be my hope we what the academic committee needs to do what the policy committee needs to do is Define how that's going to happen and so that should happen with full Department discussions um and well I
109understand you know Terry's point that you're never going to get everybody on board you at least have to have make decisions as a full Department um and bring those back so to be fair committees can't make decisions no I'm saying I'm seeing the policy committee as you define the process for curriculum that's what I'm saying not the specific pathway or the specific um curriculum but the process by which you know we want to see this done so that um it would come back to the board and then probably have its first stop um present at academic [Music] committee so the motion is to pause the social studies curriculum work and send to the academic committee for full for review I think at this time the motion should be to pause the social studies curriculum workk
110pending further direction from the board okay in fact I move to pause the social studies curriculum work pending further review you further direction from the board would you like me to restate it please do I moved to pause the social studies curriculum work pending further board Direction so move second James is this opportunity for discussion you I need a couple points of clarification okay so um the board will need to discuss and and maybe this is part of the previous discussion about the Strategic plan a couple very high level questions does the board want continue to sorry does the board continue to interpret goal one as having a common program of studies with common courses on both campuses number one right and if the answer is yes right then of course we have to do
111something with the Freshman courses that's that's to be determined later but but just please understand that we have four different courses across the two buildings for freshman um level history right social social H regular honors they're different four four different courses so that that's number one number two and it's kind of the same question and it's the elephant in the room question right we just need to be clear we have used the word sustainability in a number of presentations and I just want to be clear that that word means that the course remains viable is a course students can enroll in and the course can run and as this board knows that becomes problematic when we have a number of courses that because there aren't students in them don't run from year to gear it's
112already been cited tonight in this conversation that there was a philosopy course itself South it stopped running because of low enrollment or whatever I actually don't know that history right but but I I I understand that to be true um so I just want to be make sure that to keep it front of mind that we are talking about two very highlevel goal One issues you know with this discussion right that must be come into play and I'm not sure if our building principal also wants to speak to that issue no he does not that he's going to anyway thank you dry just 20 seconds uh I'd like to ask if the board would consider that the motion would it would mean that the person who made the motion if I'm uh lucky enough to
113be listened to uh amend the motion to not include the phrase curriculum work it's too broad um and I will gently and gracefully ask the person who made the motion uh the board member forgive me trying to talk fast who made the motion to amend the motion if this is going to go forward to Paul's goal one related uh uh curriculum work or something there is other work happening in the social studies department and the motion with a second on the floor right now is to pause curriculum work and I am sitting I don't think that's what you meant okay but that's the motion on the floor and I would then leave this room and tell them stop everything okay and I don't think that's what you meant and I would gracefully ask you to
114consider aligning the motion with what you actually mean thank you for that's exactly what I was trying to communic that's why he asking about the number of hours in that how it is so important to be extremely articulate of what we're asking what the motion is on the floor well also separate the question that Dr Cino asked us about the aligned program of study and I would hope that all seven of us want that aligned program of studies that's something that have been worked on for a number of years to get to that point uh one I ask Dr coino please with regards to sustainability and we're talking about courses and enrollment low enrollment and um you know cancellation or moving of students from one course to another um I've asked this before and I
115asked it down specifically by building by Department what is the rubric to determine what what um low enrollment means like what is the rubric to determine what course is being um taken off um taken away from students in terms of removing that opportunity or option because when you look at the program of studies and you look at the master schedule I do not see a clear pattern and I know it's by campus right so so the board had asked for Staffing to remain flat next year so there's only a certain number of FTE and and dollars in terms of Staffing that is available to each campus but I think it would be really important for the board to understand if there is specifically a rubet do core classes run at law enrollment um do they
116take priority to electives by Tas there is not a clear understanding for me as a board member and I would appreciate if there is a rubric for it to be shared so I I agree and I don't know necessarily that it's a rubric I mean certain courses are advocated for by building principles and make perfect Suns I think the number that was quoted for the philosophy ethics course was that it was 14 and it didn't run um I I not sure if I'm recalling that but we've run classes at 14 um before in fact the prior board and the prior board before that I don't think anything came before them um you know requests are granted so I think it's a bigger conversation because I think we we have to get creative about how we
117think about Staffing and perhaps you know move away from a fixed model that can make sure that we're able to run courses um at both campuses that perhaps don't meet the enrollment threshold because you're you have to think that not only are you running the course for that particular year but you're growing a program so we had this I think postco with a journalism course or a newspaper course at Central and it was advocated to run it at a lower number because we were coming off of Co and perhaps it hadn't gained the student momentum that needed to happen because students weren't in person um but I think that's a conversation that perhaps starts at HR um but again comes to the full board because with the carda report you know that was presented we
118need to be proactive in how we're thinking about getting courses to students um as often as we possibly can so with regards to this please I ask um in March Staffing comes to this table for approv approval so this conversation and this understanding needs to happen well before March it cannot happen the meeting before it's presented to the board for a vote because that's not enough time to just so we you know have complete understanding from where I'm coming from the Staffing meeting in March indicated that um in order to support student need need for growth and proficiency um two subject areas Ela and math we going to run at what would be traditionally considered low enrollment for our district meaning 18 students or less per class at South and at Central I think it's
119just mostly math that we be running at 18 students or less so to be clear we run classes core classes large Bunches of classes to support student need at what we consider low enrollment I appreciate this whole conversation cuz that's like something on my radar but it wasn't for tonight cuz you know we got other fish to fry and I think we should get back to what Dr Hardy had counseled us up and I I would like to thank him for that um so can we focus on amending the motion I don't know I can't recall if Mr Waters since you were the second who was the second or was that you Mr was the first and member James was the second so I I withdraw my second but withraw you first yeah yes as
120we modify here yes I move to pause the goal one related curriculum work and social studies pending for future board Direction so move second James okay point of order here she made the motion he's seconding it so he's really seconding it okay just because normally C Miss greenspot asks for a motion Miss leall did not ask for the motion she was doing the motion okay just so I'm just trying to keep everybody on the right face I second dad will you please call R member James member acas no member Galla I member lethon I member walker nay member Waters I green SP I motion carries moving on to 5.4 schedule of board meetings the schedule of the regular meetings of the board is required by the open meetings act at being of each calendar or
121fiscal year the schedule that is presented on the agenda has everybody had a chance to look at it yes I just have some questions about it can is it time to ask questions absolutely okay um I like the color coding this is really good um but in December we're in in both November and December we're only having one working board meeting however I believe that possibly we need to have two working board meetings in December because because that is if if memory serves me correctly we are getting ready for the levy and I believe that you know that it it would behoove this board um to have I can understand why only one in November because of how that Thursday hits um so but I would like to suggest that December 7 but I don't
122know what other things are happening within the district that might be um conflicted with December 7th because of holiday holiday um events all the fun stuff that our that our students do so possibly but I believe that this board because it's a new board and it'll be the first time for some of the board members going through the budget process the levy process that it it's very critical to have some a third meeting within November December time frame if we could think about that and then also so can I just can I address the levy um really quick before you jump into the other one well the other one was the finance committee meeting for for um for uh December also because I know that you know Finance needs to be really helpful with us
123with the let so that I was going to suggest something December 13th for finance but I also know that there are holiday things going on so so what we did last year um in anticipation of Levy because we knew at the finance level at the finance committee level because we knew um it was going to be a big um a large topic that we wanted to make sure that the full board had an opportunity is we moved the discussions up um quite considerably where we began Josh was able um CFO Stevenson was able to outline the process for us I believe if I look back in October um so that the full board had plenty of of preparation leading up to December um to understand the process learn about the recommendation um and then vote
124and have the ly hearing so and I believe that we would be looking to do that for the the same way this year because we have new board members and also because the levy um is very similar in nature to last year where it's going to require likely hearing although CFO Stevenson isn't here to tell me if that correct um so I understand your concern but um I think we can address it just by moving the timeline up that's that's really good to know I just wanted to verify because it's so put on our radar yeah just as and that's and Josh has always done a really good um you know when I was on the board with them prior so I appreciate that um and then I think that's all I have so with
125regards to your concerns at here UK and um clearly this board is not afraid of a special meeting so if we need the working time we can add one in December but knowing that it's the holiday time too and we're all going to be crunched any more discussion moving on uh member Gallow uh to 5.5 Boe at Kingsdale 86 .org email address update uh I asked politely if member Gallow would work with CIO Bol uh with regards to some uh distribution issues or delivery issues to the distribution list of the email Boe Hinsdale 86. org member G could you give us an update yes I had noticed this when I came on board that um certain um community members emails were not being delivered to the full board um at least I wasn't getting them
126in my email inbox but there was a plethora of issues with mine but um I worked through with with um Mr bwell and Mr Jula and got my individual issues taken care of after a little bit of time um but then we do have at least one Community member who sends board board emails to us on a semi-regular basis that is that doesn't get fanned out it's delivered to our inbox as I found out with Mr bald and his and his wonderful tech team um but it doesn't get fanned out to us and Dr Kino has been gracious in forwarding them to us so it doesn't look I I did it one time and it kind of was confusing that to me at least um and I knew it was coming so um we're still
127working on those issues Mr bwell and I are going to be hanging out here a little bit after the meeting to do some more things and he's gotten um he and his team have gotten Google on the phone and um we're going to be working it out and just figuring it out so hopefully if anybody else notices things that maybe it's it's coming into how i s I had these emails coming into my personal account because it's sent to the community that and they weren't being sent to the to the full board um but I talked to that person sending it and she was saying you know send it to the full board and um so it hasn't been um they haven't been being received by the full board since January as I've talked to
128other board members here um so um so hopefully I know that we will get this done CU we've got a great Tech Team and in the interro we do have somebody forwarding those emails to theard so of that individual individual Community member what I asked politely and maybe there is a media outlet that could report this but if if a Community member or a public is trying to communicate with the board um in until we are certain that the distribution of any email that comes into Boe at hinsdale86 .org is forwarding properly I ask that anybody trying to communicate with the board as a group send to each individual email address until we are certain that it's working because one caveat is that when you send to the Boe at inel 86. org the person
129sending it was receiving notification thank you for your email please be advised you know that that acknowledgement so that person didn't have any clue that it it was still it is still being received in our inbox they are waiting for us in our in the inbox that is the general Boe inbox and it just hasn't been fanned out to our individual board so um they are there in the Inbox and we can tell who inbox okay I just think this is is one anomaly that's taking place with this particular address and I don't think it's happening all the time the smaller ones seem to come in it's the larger ones for whatever reason but we are getting we do have Google involved and we're going to capture some screenshots they've asked some more information and
130continue working on it just as a community member just for clarification I had problems sending to the Boe at Hinsdale 86. org email address too and we can go through the whole discussion and what we found but there were some issues with the delivery of the email so rather than possibly missing a Community member or a Public's email to the board without us knowing without the sender knowing that we haven't received it I just just to make every body aware that this could be an issue is really a responsibility that we have as the board was there anything else K or Keith okay moving on 5.6 director of equity and inclusion discussion Jerry would you like to start you know I guess I'll say that I fully support fing Dei position I saw firsthand as
131a member of selt how important and appreciated the work that this role plays in our school district the students and teachers want to talk about this these issues and need support in this area the recent report that we received by Dr Payne showed some improvement and there's more work to do I'd like to call the board memb attention to Dr Payne's report specifically page 35 where she shared some information from teachers about some of their experiences and what they learned from some of her trainings I think it's very telling some of the words that are listed there and again to me just proves that the training and the work that that this role would provide is very important as a board we have heard from parents about the challenges that some of their students have
132had within our district and again I fully support us moving forward with this role I need to agree wholeheartedly with Miss Walker on that those sentiments and um you know Dei is just an extension of what had done for such a long time and it is quite we need this in our district so I'm in full support of approving this so I'd like to um give a little context on this and my interactions with Dr Payne um over the past year so I was the board Le on on Sal um this year and there was a call at the end of last year for students to be the driving force of the C committee for this school year and having sat at the committee meetings I can say that um Dr Payne accomplished that you
133know that committee is primarily made up of students there's a very small handful of parents an even smaller handful of Administrators and some teachers that represent the be what are considered the beat teams at both schools um I'm not going to speak to some of the you know particulars but I will speak to one of the actionable items that came out of salt um was an awareness around cultural en religious holidays and celebrations that our very diverse student population um observe or take part in during the school year and providing information to our staff um about those holidays so that they can not only acknowledge students that they have in class but also be aware that some of these celebrations impact a students's ability um you know to do work I can speak to um
134the holidays that I know best you know a lot of students that yonip are not studying for an AP European History test the night um that yonip starts um and probably need a little Grace and flexibility in taking that exam I can also say that Dr Payne LED this group with um so much professionalism and sincere care of the students of District 86 and she is a tremendous loss but what would be a bigger loss for that group of students is for this work not to continue and for this role not to be filled for next year um so on that front I'm in support I'm also in support of the work that she did on our mtss framework so we have students that are not special education students that perhaps are not supported by
135a 504 that are struggling some with school avoidance issues some with mental health challenges um and some just struggling and the mtss framework specifically um the Excel 3 program that's in place the champion um model I think um has yielded according to her report um really really positive results and she has been the administrative chair of those supports so while they're implemented at the building level and there is building autonomy in fact the supports don't even look the same at both buildings as should that should be since they um have different student populations she is the district level administrator in charge of that and at this time in this District I do not think that we should take that role um out of play and delegate those responsibilities um to somebody else considering that it
136would fall to our incoming assistant superintendent of instruction Jason Marky so I think we should keep that consistent finally the last thing um that I think is really important is Dr Payne's commitment to belonging and to se work and so our elementary students our middle school students engage in SEO they learn how to be a good friend they learn how they learn about conflict resolution and the work that goes on in our high schools is an extension of that of that work um and I think it's an expectation as I said when I ran that our students of all differences across culture religion disability sexual orientation gender identification should be able to come to school and feel safe and included in a public school setting and to that end um belonging this work um and
137this work I believe should continue under a dedicated administrator for the time being so I would note that the position has changed slightly it previously was the director of instructional equity and it's now the director of equity and inclusion um I would also note that several areas of authority um of this position are not not there anymore um so to me there's a little bit of a concern that we're not getting another Patrice p is going to be a different uh skill set related to this um to this role um so you know there as well as a couple of other areas that where the job description has changed I also noted on the um npss supports um with some of that Authority not being there we we are actually looking at nine FTE for
138certified staff at Hell South six at um and six support staff as well as seven support staff at Central four certified staff whatever so 11 staff members specific to ntss at Central 15.4 at South um I I had asked for some clarification around other um additional supports and additional staff on that and I I don't have other than everybody plays a role um I don't have specific uh detail around you know who is this person supporting how does that all work I guess was my question so I actually um I wasn't really clear on the name change I I I actually prefer Dr coino had written um an answer to some questions to the board and had proposed another name change which would be the director of equity inclusion and student support not to be
139though we'd have to be careful because we do have a director or of you know student services okay um and I think that that more accurately reflects the work that Dr P does um I'm I'm actually also not sure why it changed away from director of instructional Equity I could easily go back to that as well and prefer both of those to um but it's been changed so so um I do prefer director of instructional Equity as a title as well as a job description the job description that Dr Payne holds right now has more key in terms of her work she has enforcement mechanisms so on so forth this director of equity inclusion position doesn't have the same key so Dr Comino can you explain why the title was changed and and how if
140issues come up how they are addressed with either the teacher or whomever um there's something that needs to be addressed so we can start with the title and I just want to clarify I did not propose a third title I I nearly insinuated that that that that might more comprehensively discuss the or uh describe the actual work um of this director um um but let's let's I I guess walk backwards a few years when this position was originally proposed and we wrote a job description we believed we knew what the position would be and at this point in time two years later as I've heard from every almost every member at this table and from scores of community members right the work has been very valuable and it's perfect sense to alter the original 2-year-old
141never had the position before job description to match the current ongoing work of the person in this position when we originally conceived of the role we use the term instructional Equity because we believe that that person was going to spend the vast majority of the time working with curriculum alignment teams it became very clear very quickly with the work with selt with the work with mtss with the fact that I sat in a room with her after she started and we talked about the three-legged stool we had a joke about you know these are the three things that are going to support this position one of them was about instructional Equity but really the others were about student support right and and working with students and staff around professional development related to culturally responsive education
142inclusion belonging working with all students so the role began to change at that point in time we were were just 2 years delayed in even thinking about changing the role knowing that it was coming new we figured we would alter the job description to match what we knew was currently working and at that time we also wanted to change the name to more actively reflect what is going on with uh with the position I had no problem with students student support being added to it um but at this point in time I don't think that that's actually a conversation here um and we can we can you know refer that back to to to the the actual role itself in our discussions and Reflections on that as far as the um the bite that has
143been discussed it was never the idea that this person would be a disciplinarian or an evaluator one of the things that I thought Mr Latino very eloquently said when he gave us the presentation a few um weeks ago about our coaching system is that all the research says you never put a coach in a position to evaluate right because that coach is going to lose a lot of their ability to work with the person because of that Dr Payne's role and and this role moving forward I'm sorry Dr Payne's role since its Inception while we wrote in it that there could be some evalu to Pieces it has never been part of the role on purpose from the beginning right if that is part of what we want to do I would caution against it
144because that will take away the this director's ability to both lead professional development and open and honest way and sometimes to confront really challenging conversations you have a different conversation with a person when you know as the person being conversed with that that person's evaluating you and can potentially discipline you so we want to separate those we have other mechanisms for that we have other roles our principles take on those roles our assistant princip take on those roles are I and and and and take on take on that type of role or my role takes on those types of roles so uh Human Resources take some of those types of roles right um so so so that was a very intentional decision and one that I think is in the spirit of the position and
145the work that is being done now and should be done in the future can I read a commun email that we got we' got a lot of emails regarding this position yes I would like um and I think this kind of emphasizes um and I'm I'm happy to see that we it seems like there's some consensus on the role of Dei um I think what's really important is in Dr P's presentation she did bring to light that we are still not meeting so this isn't a conversation about you know this is a conversation about students I want to make that very clear this is a conversation about students and all students um and the data she shared and the report that's coming out of the state with Equity work we are still not at the
146level that we need to be at and then we also had received um in our documents the letter coming from isby um with our ratio number so we're still not at those attainment numbers yes we're above compliance are you talking about the equity Journey Continuum report and like where we rank that's one that's the report yes so so so just one point of clarification please with regards to where we rank we actually ranked very high and we are ranked very high per the state I think we're ranked at four not to say there's not work to be done not at all not saying that but give credit where credit is if I the number 3.1 our level it depends on so which which piece there are several different rankings but overall I think we're ranked
147four yeah so we're actually ranked really well not to say that there's not work to be done but get credit where credit is due because we're talk if we're talking about Dr Payne's work it's two years of work in the making to get us to where we are with in terms of that ranking if you want me to comment on the equity and then we also have received the letter with the risk ratio right so that's filter the two evidence of that the work is needed the work and I think it seems like we're all in collaboration um we all are in agreement that we need to continue with that um but the one Community member that I appreciated the voice of the direct impact on super performance with the implementation of mtss across all
148TI of students is undeniable we see the numbers um however I cannot this is again a community member's email however I cannot iniz enough eliminating this role de localizing the streamlined efforts in place will create a return to status quo and will hurt all students when we have interventions that are approached in a systematic and targeted way all students benefit as the students who were once struggling me the rest of their perers where they are and then the schools can focus on future initiatives on a broader scale so I think this really reiterated the message in terms of how important is the mtss system which I appreciated Dr P's work and then we want to continue with that direction I agree with you I appreciate Dr Payne's work but just a point of clarification mtss
149is not Dei it's not Dei work that mtss is specifically for the general population and it's specifically defined to support students that are struggling you know mtss tier one supports all students every student in the classroom mtss tier 2 supports students that are failing two or more classes and then mtss is three or more it's not it's not necessarily Dei I would be really comfortable if the district had a person titled as mtss like a director of mtss because that is a huge push that supports students growth and success I'm not against a Dei person that's not at all it but we're we're we're tagging the mtss UH responsibilities onto the Dei person without giving them necessarily curricular or academic responsibilities I I think that's a mistake and just to just to give my perspective
150as it relates to mtss that's obviously the most important or one of the most important supports we can bring as it relates to the legal piece you know not only do the ranking speak volumes I'm unaware where they were before Dr paint started and of course they may have you know a new is a new continue okay and I've done my own independent research from a legal perspective and the district has been and still is more than in compliance with respect to anti-discrimination um policies and procedures we are more than in compliance with it I think I'd also like to generate consideration from the new assistant superintendent of curriculum Marky to have him collaborate with us as we're discussing some of the different possible values of the role um because obviously supports are the most
151important thing and and as well as making sure we maintain that glowing rating we got which I didn't know if it was top four I thought I thought I heard it was top three nonetheless it's there is no ranking R there zero ranking four is the scale we got a 3.1 in student achievement which means we have a moderate gap which means our students with IPS and our students that aren't white are scoring lower often lower than our students who are white or students who don't have iibs that's what it means the data on the school report card is from 2019 it is prior to all of this but that was a high ranking relative to other schools if I'm not mistaken it was I thought it was top three in 19 to all the
152I don't I don't think they were ranked no I think what the state if you look at is website for the equity Journey Continuum it describes the ranking right it describes the rating and it says that 3.1 does represent uh some gaps small gaps MH I think it's beyond the gaps right it's also student experience and teacher experience and again I I I'm just going to call my fellow board members attention to Dr Payne's report page 34 where she lists feedback from teachers and I'll just read one of them it says the description of student life for black indigenous people of color students were eye openening and sad that really bothers me to hear that that is a statement that is being made by teachers within our district so to me this is something that
153we absolutely need we absolutely need to continue the work and we absolutely need to have someone here who is focused on this work for the students for the teachers and for the district so I still agree with Terry um but I do want to Circle back to something that um cat said you know about mtss you know would it behoove us to have you know a separate director of mtss and and that may be I mean I think the mtss work is I'm very passionate about I seen um the difference that it can make for students um in the buildings however at this time this particular role has been delegated that responsibility and I don't think that this is the time I mean organization of the district with a school year beginning um prepping for
154the new school year began like 3 months ago um I think that it would make sense to maybe have that conversation at a different time but perhaps leave it here for now so that we can continue um with a consistent model for next school year I did also one of the other things one of the other anecdotes and I brought this up when Patrice Payne um presented to us because I don't think it's well known but we did offer SAT prep work for underachieving students this year and one thing that Patrice and um the director of elll since language is sometimes a barrier did was instead of just sending out an email to students that qualified for these supports um they actually personally met with these families and parents to educate them on the importance
155and we can argue all day long about the you know merits of standardized testing but I think Patrice even said this well we can't deny the fact that it does open doors for students and we can't deny the fact that we have community members um that may not understand its importance and so that that personal connection um I think went very far and I believe when I spoke with her you know that that is something that you know is potentially going to be used um in other circumstances and frankly should be um having been in a district with an advisory system that did home visits and regular reach outs to families um we need people to be doing more of that and to be leading the charge on that saying hey I got this great
156idea um and running with it so I really appreciate that um but on mtss I understand what you're saying I don't think this is the time to um upset the apple cart on who is in charge of it um I think we need to make sure that it goes forward and Begins the year smoothly for students that are at risk just pointing out though this position is a 10- Monon position right so they won't be working this sum correct know it's a 10-mth position plus 20 days 10 at the end of the year and 10 at the beginning of the year and to be clear this person is in charge of mtss Y so this is our director who is in charge of mtss there's you want to add a person we'd be splitting the
157already established responsibilities for that position when would this positions start then if it was approved so officially hired is different than start because it's a 10 plus so so the the the person would work with Mr Mark just like Dr P works with me to figure out which days we're going to work um which days the position Works between the end of school and July 1 and then from July 1 to the beginning of school the contract reads that there are 10 days on each end where work is required and that's how we we operate with almost all of our 10-month directors that is how we operate with all of our 10 month directors and then my only other question that I had asked but I think you're answering that here right now is overlap
158with other roles that we have for the mtss supports and the other other pieces of the puzzle that you're saying this person is the lead of mtss as a whole yes I mean we are a we are a large organization in the same way that we also have the system principles for instruction and we have me and we have principles we we we all work in the same direction with the same the same goals but yes there are certain people who are in charge and responsibility Falls with them this person's responsibility is to coordinate the mtss the s in mtss the system is there further discussion I would just say that without rehashing the path the district's been down these last couple of years um there was neither appropriate process for Community engagement or the
159process itself with the first two attempts by Administration to adopt higher and Implement uh a different position for Equity Consulting and this position is certainly different but process engagement and buyin those things matter so those ideals need to transpire in my estimation before this consideration anything else will simply Foster divisiveness in our district further discussion sorry I just want to acknowledge that we had um I think commity for bringing up attention we had about 20 plus emails coming in we've had committee members today come in um Express their interest in this position so I want to just acknowledge their voice in terms of uh their advocacy for the position and I will just reiterate that we have heard from parents and students who have had negative experiences in our district we cannot ignore that the
160only I'll have that is we have specific policies in place that specifically address those situations we do and sometimes students are afraid to bring it up we I heard that in s sometimes parents don't know where to go I mean we cannot ignore that these issues exist I think I think to that point too on these issues we don't want to always be reactive I think we want to be proactive to try and prevent some of the instances from happening so I I do appreciate that that you know any sort of bullying whatever we want to call it um shouldn't be tolerated but we should also be fostering a school community that um makes it less likely to happen and and I I don't know the answer to that but I I don't think taking
161this position away is the answer at this time also I you know I understand your point and I think what you're referring to is the Consultants that the outside Consultants that were brought in there are no outside Consultants at this time doing this work in this District that work has fallen um Dr pay and in observing her work um on the cell committee and and granted I know this isn't about Dr P because in reality she's she's the least person that's about it this point unfortunately we wouldn't be having this conversation but I I guess I think too you know if Dr Payne wasn't moving on to another District would we be having this conversation and so it's my hope that the committee has um the hiring committee has found a person that is going
162to follow in her footsteps because her approach and her demeanor um have been I think really really beneficial to students and staff so just just for clarity there's no action regarding getting rid of this position or anything even remotely closed so I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding the only action with regards to this position and equity in the district is to approve a candidate that is presenting SS there was never action to get rid of this position ever ever and two um I Echo L lethal's uh Praise of Dr P um her disposition in particular and her approach to discussion really tough discussion um was not only appropriate it was effective for a district I um certainly hope that when the director of equity and inclusion is filed that Administration and the community and
163this board provides the support needed to be successful to for the position to effectuate change across all demographics for all students Is there further discussion moving on 5.7 uh to approve a one-year contract for direct the director of equity and inclusion and salary of $122,000 is there a motion to approve a one-year administrator's contract effective July July 1 2023 through June 30th 2024 with Christopher vix to serve as a director of equity and inclusion at an annual salary of $112,000 so yeah Gallow Walker ready yep please call roll member James I'm sorry member acas I member Gall I member lethal I member Walker I member Waters n member greenspa I member James I'm going tostain motion carries item six approve the consent agenda consent agenda items consist of items minutes business Affairs Personnel policies contract
164renewals and administrative tasks that are routine in nature or that have been discussed with the board and are now presented for approval any item may be pulled from the consent agenda for further discussion and consideration all items on the consent agenda are approved with a single motion unless removed before the roll call vote does any board member wish to remove an item from consent for a separate vote may have a motion in a second to approve the consent agenda as presented second Gallow you get that that time I didn't hear the first a and then Gallow please call roll member Gallo I member lth I member Walker I member Waters I member Greenspan I member James I member I with no further discussion um the June 8th 20203 is there anything anybody wants to discuss
165I think we were going to talk about uh adding to the agenda the opportunity for the public to make comments I'd actually just like to make a quick board comment I would like to make a board comment so I had an opportunity to attend the transition Center Partners breakfast one of the transition Center exit ceremonies and then one of the graduations cuz our graduations run um at the same time our hensdale Central and hensdale South and I wanted to thank the schools for having me um but also just to congratulate all of our graduates and encourage everybody if you have an opportunity and are invited to an isit ceremony at the transition Center um there're just wonderful celebrations for kids that um have been in District um potentially for eight years in this District but
166in our community schools for a very very long time and so congratulations to all of our students moving on I Echo Miss L PA's comment uh I was able to attend the Hinsdale South Awards cere senior award ceremony and it was wonderful it was so wonderful to see all those seniors and being so bubbly and happy and um all the presenters it's it's just a great culmination to their 13 years so thank you to the schools for providing that briefly board member James and I were at the transition Center we both want one in BD and Darion and to say the least and underscore the obvious they're doing outstanding work it's it's inspiration um Hinsdale South graduation was outstanding with board member Walker and board member James uh and I'm not sure the principal Hardy
167if Dr Hardy is still here but outstanding speech by himself and several others it was a it was a great night and the weather blessed [Laughter] us any further comments I thank everybody for joining us I wish wish everybody a great weekend and with no further discussion the June 8th 2020 or 2023 special meeting of the board will adjourn at 9:25 p.m. thank you