Committee of the Whole Meeting January 13, 2022

001we are meeting in the hensdale South library and the time is 6:10 p.m. District 86 is holding board and committee meetings in accordance with the state's current Regional covid-19 medication plans please call the role member Walker here member hman here member James here member Hanson here member held here member lenthal here member Waters here please stand if you were able and join me inting the pledge ofi IED of the United States of America and to the for it stands Nation godis andice for all point of order before we begin I would like to note a change in plans for the board discussion of agenda item 5.1 RFP 22008 diversity equity and inclusion consultant we were notified today that Val run Consulting Group has withdrawn its proposal there will be no presentation this evening superintendent prinus

002will read a statement from Vala valun superintendent FIS thank you president I received permission to read the statement publicly this serves as a formal withdrawal of our proposal to serve as a consultant with hinel Township respectfully the events of today January 12th coupled with the manner in which I was treated upon visiting your District lead me to conclude that the valbrun Consulting Group is not the right partner the vitriol and lack of professionalism in the direct messages I reive from members of your school Community demonstrates a clear lack of Goodwill to address the issues of diversity equity and inclusion in your District I got several messages yesterday and really think Hinsdale is a dangerous place it would not be physically comfortable it is unfortunate that your community would prefer to expend energy attempting to discredit

003my character and professional standing rather than examine the practices policies and behaviors that have created disparities in your District this underscores both the sense of urgency to address these issues yet demonstrates why these inequities are pervasive and unresolved it is shameful and I feel sorry for the students that have to experience this and don't have the privilege of walking away the vbr Consulting Group prefers to enter into mutual partnership with clients who are genuinely committed to advancing the equity imperative we appreciate your initial consideration and wish you well in finding a [Music] consultant consult group the celf committee which is comprised of parents students teachers staff Board of Education members and administration will discuss the next steps during its February meeting item 5.1 remains on our agenda so that the board can discuss the matter

004at that point in the meeting at this time we will continue with the news thank you president Walker before we turn it over to our student liaison a couple pieces that I want to take a moment to recognize inale Central was proud to recognize J G Kari as the regeneron science Talent search scholar the regeneron science Talent search is the nation's oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors at this moment G Kari is the top 300 scholar with the top 40 Scholars be announced later this month on January 20th so hopefully more for information will be forthcoming H Central is proud of G and and thankful to the Red Devil staff who have impacted her academic success and hopefully have an opportunity to bring her to this meeting in the

005future congratulations G on that on behalf of principal Corney lip and I I'd like to uh introduce Patrick M to this Podium the mic up front here uh Patrick is the department chair for Fine Arts at Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South he will introduce a few of his colleagues from the music department of both schools so that they can recognize our students who have earned All State selection for band chorus and Orchestra from the Illinois music Education Association Mr MOG and students and staff please come forward Mr M the floor is yours Board of Education superintendent exem guest it is my pleasure to introduce to you uh the members of first the members of the Hinsdale Central Music Department VY here Mr Matt kinsky Mr Serge pensi and the hin sale South band director Mr

006Kirk Hickman um these uh amazing students that you see in front of you working with these uh Educators uh have the distinct honor of being selected as all state musicians um the process is a long and arduous one that began all the way back at the beginning of the year and required uh preparation and auditions participation in a district festival and um a lot and a lot of practice um these these people have been working since they were young on the their voice inst or instruments to prepare for this type of moment and it is incredible honor there are thousands of students in the state that have auditioned for this and these amazing students have been selected I am going to read the names first of the students that got selected that are here and

007then read the names of the students that are here just so that you can hear um all of their names because I think they all deserve uh the credit from Hinsdale Central High School um we have students that aren't here um Ann Asher was selected for honors courus uh Evan Carlson was selected for All State chorus uh Vanessa Ivanov was selected for honors course uh Grace Stafford was selected for honor's chorus and April woo was selected for orchestra for the present Hinsdale Central students we have Athena Deng who is selected for honors Orchestra on violin we have Lily gami honors choir E for [Applause] al1 Arun Maran for All State band OBO Emily Wang All State Orchestra [Music] violin and Isabelle zuu uh Orchestra All State [Applause] cello um you know I'm not exactly specific

008if making all state does involve honors and all state and all of them are considered All State some of these students made honors and some of them made all state but they're the the same honor but I don't have the specifics because the ones that I print out don't say they after the last audition process whether they were all in honors so if I got like the specifics wrong like I think almost all of them were in honors band honors Orchestra so I don't want to insult them because I know they have practiced a long time though I'm not just in all I'm in Hors I know you are I'm sorry if I misspoke I'm a little bit nervous I don't do this that often either um from Hinsdale South we have um these are

009the ones that are not here today Wesley Davis who made an honors choir for as a tenor Elijah John who made honors choir for bass uh Alexander K who made honors band uh and Ryan Mueller who made All State Choir and the one student that is here here from Hinsdale South is Henry Sullivan honored choir obviously we really appreciate the time letting them uh be in front of you and we recognize the amazing amount of practice time and effort that you all put in and we truly appreciate your hard work and dedication to the music department thank you teachers and students [Applause] thank you Patrick teachers and students uh at this time I'll turn it over to Christine L for the Board of Ed report from H Central Christine the floor is yours good good

010evening I hope everyone had a relaxing break and happy New Year Central's music department held the annual Winter concert for students on Tuesday some students start up close in the auditorium I went with my adaptive PE class and it was absolutely phenomenal to enable all students the opportunity to experience this artistic performance classrooms also live stream the concert many Central organizations took the time starting December 1st to walk with their peers in support of the hash you matter challenge groups such as hchs Department chairs student council polar bear running group St student services and more all participated in wearing green and walking for this amazing cause operations snowball hosted a mental health awareness month throughout the whole month of December they teamed up with other clubs as well to raise awareness about mental health issues

011that impact our students they kicked off the month with an all School speaker where some students watch live and the rest watch via live stream hosted walking challenges handed out cookies dress days inspiring quotes were posted around the building from celebrities sponsored yoga and Zumba classes and even more on my report there's a link to all the month's activities our boys swim team dominated their meet on December 18th and we won by over 300 points also we made a new sophomore School record for the 200 medley R an amazing job to our Red Devils who made history including nois bouis Nate Harris Jeffrey who and Brody marett with a time of 13772 and finally finals were optional and no harm for the semester this year they were spread out over the course of 3 days

012as per the years before the 2021 to 22 school year personally I really appreciated this change because it felt like it was a sign that the administration was being proactive and really receptive to the emotions of students I know many freshmen including my brother were incredibly anxious at the thought of taking such a major test with no prior experience the same was said by a sophomore I talked to in micro Finance as always I'm super thankful for the opportunity to represent Central student body and I'm happy to take any questions thank you um I would now like to introduce um hinel sou forley as on Jenny Panton for our hinel South good news report good evening and happy New Year um one thing I wanted to touch on as well starting off mine is the

013no harm finals students are thankful for the change to no harm finals this semester one Junior that I talked to noted that the no harm finals have been beneficial to her learning and there is no longer one bad test grade that can break down the work achieved through the semester another student a senior noted that having optional finals has benefited her stress levels by allocating time to those classes she's either taking AP exams for or she is struggling in this has helped her to feel less stressed while myself the student body and pack are all in agreement this year that in this semester that no harm finals are optional and for a great solution p and myself both agree that this system is not sustainable in the long run there's a benefit to learning that

014comes from the challenge of a summited exam I recognize that the board has yet to make a ruling about the second semester finals and I think that a baby step forward to that same level of rigor might be beneficial to our students last or the weeks prior to winter break we held multiple Spirit weeks in a row at henzel South and it was an explosion of self tribe I think it was two to three weeks it was just straight straight weeks um never in my years itself have I seen freshman through seniors cling to Spirit Week so much freshmen usually think they're too cool for it they don't like to dress up and this was amazing it was a great two weeks and it just really made the school feel connected in a way that

015I've never really seen before in my time sou and finally um H South is an awesome place with mer many talented um band speech and athletes their names are all listed on my report I think if I read them all we'd be here way longer than we all want to be but I would really appreciate if you check them out because they worked really hard for their accomplishments in all aspects thank you and let me know if you have any questions thank you both for your comments we are now going to move to agenda item three which is audience communication uh board will now hear audience comments for up to a total of 30 minutes each speaker will have three minutes to speak just as a brief reminder our board protocols state that board meetings

016are meetings of the board in held in public not open Forum or town hall meetings board members will not engage the public during public comment 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 but not a time to re-engage the public the board will consistently abide by our formal processes relating to this issue so that are treated fairly and equally our first speaker is Katon meland good evening I prepared remarks concerning the proposed diversity equity and inclusion consultant but in light of today's developments it has been necessary to revise those remarks Mar s however this topic remains relevant to this board there is no acceptable consultant for diversity equity and inclusion and this is not something that should be

017brought back up renewed or pursued any consultant tasked with this training will inevitably sew the seeds of Discord and division how does this lead to Discord and division you may ask me here's an example the job description of your director of instructional Equity lists roles and responsibilities as to quote lead and collaborate with building instructional coaches content specific interventionists seel and GST to ensure that both restorative practices and CRT are embedded in all instructional spaces end quote CRT stands for critical race Theory CRT teaches that one race is responsible for oppression of other races CRT is a hateful and racist ideology with no aims other than to promote Grievances and assigned guilt based on skin color without regard to actual conduct of course you will deny the teaching of CRT but doesn't that strain credulity

018when it appears in the the director's job description it's therefore quite fair to infer that any consultant will work with the diversities are to implement CRT but there is another problem when you hire a diversity consultant you will be taking another step toward an Ever growing and Unstoppable bureaucracy this will assuredly happen because there are no measurable goals bureaucrats will after the bureaucrats fail they will simply say yes we failed and that's why you must expand our budget these requests will be nearly impossible to resist because denial of equity and social justice will surely bring charges of racism to any Challenger I urge you to drop the hiring of the diversity equity and inclusion consultant thank you [Applause] our next speaker is Mary odad good evening my my name is Mary odow d86 resident and

019taxpayer thank you for allowing me to speak tonight we were going to hear a presentation from the Valour Consulting Group regarding Equity diversity inclusion and anti-racist training here at d86 I read the PowerPoint presentation that was kindly provided by the district thank you first of all for your transparency the valron presentation is very professional in appearance language and tone it contains lots of impressive sounding phrases like quote PP coherence framework crosscultural generalized ability and my favorite psychometric scale construction protocols impressive phrases indeed perhaps worthy of their own category Jeopardy now one word you will not find in the valber presentation is the word implode i m p l o d e implode the verb implode means to end or fail suddenly to collapse into itself in a sudden and violent way one might use the

020word implode in a sentence such as quote I hope the entire GOP implodes exclamation mark one person did indeed post this sentence on Facebook on August 9 2021 she also posted that Governors DeSantis and Abbott are quote the devil just like Trump that person's name is valda valr a valburn Consulting Group I find Miss Val's comments grossly unpr professional inappropriate and offensive I certainly do not find them inclusive as with the recent termination of the district's contract with the Saxman group another Equity consultant I am glad the d86 board will not hire valr Consulting Group our teachers students staff and Community deserve better this coming Monday we honor the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr a leader who urged us to judge each other by the content of our character not the color of

021our skin by the way according to a member of the Kel committee the cost of valin's contract for 6 months $174,000 thank you for letting me speak and uh you know valda if you are out there I find this shameful w [Music] yeah our next speaker is no Manley my remarks were also directed towards the uh new or the proposed Equity consultant but good evening my name is no man I'm a resident and taxpayer of the Daran Illinois District 86 and I'm also I also live in the Hinsdale South attendance area the United States is not a racist country and District 86 is not a racist Community I moved to Daran in 1996 because of good schools safe community and low taxes however in the year 2022 those motives longer true shootings and looting in

022opra Mall car jings right down the street here at the sitco and right across R 83 over here in the willberg Target store are now weekly events in D page and now we have W culture ruining our schools the people of this community are hardworking they sacrifice for their families and are dedicated to their community so it's unclear to me why the district would want to hire another racist consultant for $174,000 for a six-month contract research into the valber Consulting finds a troubling number of social media posts spous research in extreme political bias for example M bbr posted on August 9th 2021 quote disantis and Abbot are the devil just like Trump I hope the entire GOP imploded at a seminar put on for the ne for neor School District 203 bin presented a ridiculous

023pyramid of white supremacy note that I've been in this community for 25 years and yet to see a clan Rally or a nazi march but I have seen antifa riots in neighbor going down to Grove yet miss bel's presentations paint in WID Strokes with racist terms such as white privilege white fragility and institu racism to sell her brand of racist snake oil now that this racist organization is off the table perhaps we can address an inequity in the district and take that $174,000 that bber would have been Char would have charged and applied to the creation of two new courses at Hinsdale South so instead of Hinsdale Central having 230 course offerings and Hinsdale South having 171 Hinsdale South could now have 73 finally we're celebrating Dr Martin Luther King's birthday on Monday why can't

024we teach his simple principle of judging a person by the content of his character and not the color of his skin thank you is Lind hi um thank you all for your service I have I have a couple of topics um I hope that this statement is already out of date because I hope that the two combatants have already decided to care more about the district than their own Egos and bury the hatchet and drop this stupid stupid qu you both were jerks it happens to the best of us when we're sunbound okay when you recognize those signs in yourself head straight for your car it's 20 to midnight it said that nobody is out but cops and bad guys don't be a bad guy and the reason it's so important you guys and because

025every single person on this board is pro d86 committed to public education committed to d86 as a little America and a great moral cause I call d86 a microcosm of everything worth taking a stand for but there are forces that don't agree that d86 is a positive value or that public education should be supported disunity on the board among people who have the the same love for d86 and the best interest of the districts at heart um can only open the door for um ideologies we all have seen recently in power and and we um while we respect everyone we we don't want this ideology in control of our Birth please get back together everyone we have profound differences on how to achieve the great goals of District 86 but we everyone that's at this

026board table agrees that it's a great value and um stupid corals wait waste the funds of the district I think we should flip a coin over who gets to extend the Olive Branch first preferably in public with handshake and who gets to reciprocate with the with the Olive Branch Hol and put it to rest it's a total waste of time money and Goodwill and just opens the door to factions who wish us ill um finally um I would I'd like to appeal once again to um address a really stinking festering abyss of race and classism in this District gaping in our faces that we've long had the power to close and to repair and that is of course the unequal course offerings hurting everyone but mainly um disproportionately H stale sou we have the ability

027to um turn all these courses into combo class cles we've long known how to do it so let's and that's something we can all agree should should be addressed and solved thank [Applause] you our next speaker is Brian bushelon good members of the board my name is Brian melan I'm my parent here at the school District had freshman at tville Central High School and a daughter younger daughter graduated in 2018 and went up and come in May in a couple years I'm here tonight uh first and foremost to discuss this gas with this whole Equity uh deal that this this this district is is dealing with and honestly I've lived in this district for over 20 years um and in my time here there not many people with my skin tone in this neighborhood but

028I tell you what in my time here I've never had issues my kids all four my kids been raised in this in this neighborhood this community gone through these schools and and have done fine now I tell you what both my parents from the Deep South Alabama Virginia they were they were raised in a very difficult time late 30s 40s 50s 60s right during the time of segregation all the riots all the Civil Rights stuff I'll tell you what they were raised with morals and values okay they didn't have a lot coming up didn't have S experience in am they they made their way through life through an education system they went to college they got degrees my father served 30 years in the military as an army officer and my father lived with 20

029and I'll tell you what my parents gave me the same values expectations morals that they were raised with nobody gave us anything we worked hard for everything we got this is one thing I want to show you this Equity stuff I'm sorry but it's farce and I can see right through from the get-go you want to talk about racism yeah I've dealt with a little B that here and there who hasn't who in this room has not to a certain form of fashion I'll tell you what everybody has the right to good education everybody has a right to improve their lives everybody has the right to go to college but not everybody can and not everybody will but it actually should be afforded those things now tell you that's not going to be equal okay

030this equity and this this this this St these Consultants it's a force and as a parent as a minority school district has kids in this District I'm extremely disappointed in how all this has gone down and to be honest with you this should stop it should stop it's absolutely ridiculous and I'll tell you what if it continues I'm I'm going to be here to keep it down from here on out and that's the only one only one race folks One race and that's the human race that's it our next speaker is Fred Bard I Fred Bard concerned taxpayer three children who graduated the district and two are currently in the district to begin with I want to be clear to all school board members and the superintendent how important it is for you not to

031take left or right views but for you to govern straight straight down the center this has not been happening although I'm glad valin Consulting failed at the very last minute I can't believe you would consider proposing such a company especially after all the previous mistakes and the fact that the vast majority of our district does not want any of this if your reasons for having both an equity director at 115,000 a year and also a consultant at 174,000 a year for six-month contract which in total comes to 463,000 annually if that reason is due to the the Strategic plan or the cell group you should immediately do the following number one rewrite the Strategic plan or destroy it and go without one and focus on our District's motto which is to achieve academic Excellence Excellence

032it seems to me this strategic plan and Equity statement that is the basis for this plan has so greatly steered the district off course the three incumbent school board members did not even get reelected which is rare number two form a new cell group and properly advertise this in all possible sites and fors to all district participants and stakeholders so that all stakeholders have an opportunity to participate and give their thoughts if you did this you would see that the majority of our district is against this far-left Marxist ideology and that the majority wants you to focus on math science Reading Writing and achieving academic Excellence it's my understanding the previous cell committee was handpicked by a very small group and those with Centrist or conservative values were not allowed to participate in the cell

033committee number three one of the most important characteristics of a good superintendent is to know their community in our case all seven towns that feed into our schools the other key quality is for the superintendent to have a great attention to detail and have experience with vetting and recommending Consultants signing contracts and other high level tasks most importantly is extremely important that the superintendent rule from the Center like Dr Bruce law previously did thus I would like to immediately call for the superintendent to resign or for the board to carefully review the superintendent's contract and determinate her her device of agenda is clear additionally she has made too many mistakes in hiring and negotiating previous contracts including Consultants Saxman Panorama and the most recent example tonight this has been a huge waste of everyone's time

034and taxpayer money it is inexcusable that multiple times she has not been able to properly vetted Consultants history and qualifications for proposing the district hire them four lastly and most importantly if any sitting school board members ran for the school board as Centrist including conveying promises about transparency and accountability if they did this and then once elected at the school board quickly pivoted to this radical leftwing ideology I would strongly advise them to explain to the district why they did this if there's no solid explanation then I would advise they resign this should be greatly appreciated that you did the right thing for the ultimate benefit of our children and to properly represent all the con constituents who voted into office thank you our next speaker is Kim Naro the hinan New Year's resolutions nailed

035what's wrong at this board table instead of discussing issues sticking to the agenda and forming a curriculum committee board members Ambush and attack other board members as the only witness to the full exchange between waters and health after a held publicly called Waters anti South I hope the attorney's report matches reality Waters did not strike held when Waters tap held shoulder get his attention hell didn't react but now claims it's smarter hell turned two guys headword in the parking lot into an incident and if anyone made a threat it was held who pulled up and for around 200 2 minutes and 30 seconds threatened to report Waters although Chris cavino presented the program studies as a living document at the December policy committee meeting they declared curriculum status until the 2324 program studies to block

036the discussion about curriculum committee a well scripted Walker in the policy committee hurman and maybe Hansen devised a plan to block agenda items then Walker hman held and Hansen resolved to block discussion at the table as this transpired HUD looked ashamed hman routinely leaned in and coached Walker then cheered as Walker crushed the competition it's like watching Mean Girls whisper and pass notes it's so painful to hear hman cheer Walker on as she pulls the rug out from under Leen ball what happened to Walker's promise to Champion open governance through respectable communication at the board table or even common decency this board will never function as a whole as long as Walker hman held and Hansen function as a bargaining unit I can't believe President Walker doesn't stop held's frequent interruptions that she allowed held's

037personal attack on Waters and hman openly shames board members without naming names I would love to see the table restructured which you guys did partially um into a v so that all board members are visible on the live stream mix up the senior and Junior board members promote discussion across the table Tammy should be seated at the end with Deb kadasi so that it actually is the functioning board together while I was thrilled with the unanimous vote on the program of studies like Cynthia Hansen I wondered what changes d86 would slip in elimination of special ed programs elimination of supported classes elimination of survey courses in English d86 should never approve significant curriculum change in the program of studies prior to Tammy there was a 2-year curriculum adoption process but the prior board eliminated it

038approved sweeping changes without supporting data or even a written plan I remember when DCS presented their departmental progress with supporting data and goals transparent measures for success but those are history what else happened in Tammy's tenure significant cuts to staff that have direct contact with kids and adding Administration how many new positions have been created we're supposed to hear about the consultant that was more than enough money to staff a co-taught Spanish class and to give us um Latin and German at South Tammy added two handpick super ended committees Pac and Kel and tonight she's proposing two more in the name of alignment the llt instituted wildly inequitable grading where students at one school receive retakes while their peers do not d86 needs to take the checkbook away from Tammy our next speaker is Molly

039Gibson good evening thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak freely um I thank you board for what you do for our community and most of all for students that's why we're here um I came tonight to oppose the hiring of any Equity consulting firm on uh the basis of three reasons the two have been discussed already but um just a few points on them um the first two are costing necessity I I feel that um we have already hired the director of instructional Equity uh Patrice Payne being paid $115,000 and um according to the uh she was featured in this 386 forward um and you know had a Q&A we she also did a presentation at the November PTO meeting um in which he pretty much stated that um we are not teaching

040CRT in our curriculum although I encourage you to read this document there are the L the language is all there so um and she also seemed to be very um positive about uh how the curriculum has already been Incorporated uh there were uh heads of departments who had said that they have implemented this in their program of studies and that the teachers have been um had some professional development already from Patrice in this Arena unfortunately at that very same PTO meeting parents were promised that they would um have their questions on the equity curriculum addressed and um due to a time constraint uh applied by uh president or principal Walsh um we were not allowed to answer or to ask those questions questions so um as part of this plea I would um ask that

041we be able to have this discussion because it is necessary these are important issues um at the next uh PTO meeting which I believe is in January if that's the appropriate form thank you so and the last concern I have um is the ideology behind all of these um the already implemented partially Equity curriculum um you know I'm coming from a Christian value I guess lens um where you know our community is about Unity it's been so lovely living here in hensdale my husband and I have been here 15 years and just people support one another um this ideology please study it it's divisive um it pits our students against one another and we're better together you know we we can do do more together and this is for about our students you know let's

042unite and have divide thank [Applause] you our next speaker is anber good evening folks uh my name is Ann Huber I am a g86 residents and I speak on beh of d86 residents that do not often attend Boe uh meetings I represent my in-laws down the street my elderly neighbors people I see uh walking dogs every day um 40% of Oakbrook is over 65 okay I know you think of Oakbrook and Polo and big houses and such there's a lot of old people that live in Oakbrook okay and and a number of them are on fixed incomes a number of them are dealing with inflation and what's expected to be increased uh interest rates as drum Powell uh recently testified so these people are shocked shocked that this board is considering spending hundreds of thousands

043of dollars on something that has nothing to do with academics or sports or College Prep or technical skills or special ed kids it has nothing to do with that they are outraged that you are going to waste their precious funds on social engineering and I would urge you on their behalf to not consider another consultant I know bbr is out of the picture uh thankfully but others should not not be considered either it's just not appropriate my clients and I believe that schools should hire teachers and social workers not political Consultants I urge you to stick to the basics education and security please do not waste District funds on social engineering because we the taxpayers old and young do not want to see this board dismantle and then rebuild something else that somebody else concocted

044right we want you to support what we have um and and just lastly I know you're dealing with construction issues and um and the inflation that's going to cause all the prices of that to go up so I would encourage you to watch your pennies because you're going to have to pay more for all this Construction stuff you're dealing with so please just be apply your common sense that I know you all have up here that's all I ask thank you very much thank you for your service our next is Sean pza I'm a Daran resident of 16 years and my son currently attends henel South High School from what I understand the district is running on a lean budget we were told that the necessary hiring of two science teachers to implement the two-

045paath option was above the District budget numerous residents spent two years fighting for this outcome taxpayer dollars were spent creating a curriculum for only a physics first the two- pass science option cost results in roughly 200k yet the same Administration and Boe is pushing for the spend of 174k on a six month contract after they've already hired a full-time Equity administrator with a salary of 113,000 the district needs to listen to its Community constituents and allocate These funds to bettering our curriculum and teachings achieving academic Excellence not more money spent on Equity training the equity administrator we are paying her 13k what exactly is her job description and why is she not capable of Performing the task the consultant is being hired to accomplish celt as a community knowing the celt committee recommended bbr consultant

046we would like to know how the members of the celt committee was selected and by whom we believe a committee with this much influence on our students education the MERS should the member should be diverse and represent all view points it appears based on the recommendation of bbr Consulting the C committee does not have a diverse base and rather quite skewed in One Direction how can we fix this our next speaker is Donna Maron my dad was lot of in the world but I got to say uh thank you to all of you I wouldn't want any of your jobs so you know congratulations for doing it and I appreciate it um I also got to say that uh what a great bunch of speakers I'm I'm not going to hang with them so I'm

047B you and they stole my thunder anyway so just going to read you a paragraph out of something I wrote up here uh the effort to hire a consultant I I think it confuses priorities it sets them out of order you know the students coming through the school doors now and in the future going to face a very difficult and much tougher outside world loting up on Equity I think may be not wise at this point in history given the events of the world and the competition that these students will face from the rest of the world if you haven't traveled if you haven't worked outside or maybe worked in you know California you may not know um the rest of the world does not care about equity and I think we do the students

048a disservice uh by misleading them with the notion that someone owes them something or that there's a reason they can't succeed especially the lower tier students if you will um so I'll just relate a quick little story for you here um I SW a business had businesses in engineering we with others and we form the largest and number one specialty fire protection and safety engineering company on Earth I still own a large chunk of that we did a job for Samsung in China anybody ever been to China that's a rhetorical question I know you can't ask but I ask you to educate yourself on them because you know what the first thing you go there if you take your phone or computer everything on it is immediately downloaded through the 5G supervisory Network okay that's

049number one so you don't take that there why why because there's no Freedom number two you work we worked with the German company and the Korean company samstone we built the semiconductor facility what's happening there right now in China anybody know anybody the cities semiconductor plants are shut down why because there's another virus coming a htic fever that's uh headed our way three the Chinese Communist party if you don't know it is a small fraction of the population in China the rest are known as laen those are the old hun names but Ordinary People but the Chinese Communist party is run by really about five families it's the most large Distortion of equity on Earth and they steal everything that's who our children are going to have to compete with right there okay so if

050you're concerned about producing quality students and people are going to survive in the world and if you think China is not going to be in your life it already is and I don't mean the Chinese people I'm talking Chinese Communist Party All right so um I will end on a Kind of a Funny note is that if Equity is truly important to us uh I had to use the restroom down in the hall and noticed that it wasn't ADA Compliant and I think in terms of equity the place to start is those with phys physical disabilities and mental disabilities people who can't help themselves so I you start wanted to start with the restroom down the hall thank you all our next speaker is Lisa halmer good evening my name is Lisa hmark and my

051husband Todd who's also here with me this evening um are taxpayers of District 86 our children have gone through the high school and have obtained a great academic education from the teachers at kingdale who taught all of their students in their class without discrimination the withdrawal of bel's proposal is good news though we should be appalled at the critical degrading tone that she projected on her community within for [Applause] proposal so far this evening I have been heard one person speak well or in favor of hiring an equity consulting firm that's for sure now I know that not all of you here have signed up to speak but maybe by a show of hands does anyone here wanted the board to pursue the hiring of another Equity Firm let the records show that I do

052not see any other hands I am highly opposed to using our tax dollars to fund any other Equity Firm as well every teacher at this school teaches their entire class their office doors open for academic questions and for help for all of their students not just those of a certain race in fact my son Bronson who's also here this evening thank you Bronson um I have a question for you have you ever experienced any of your teachers at hinel South teaching students differently based on the color of their skin no thank you the teachers and staff of District 86 are not systemically racist in fact forcing them through AC training most certainly discredits them not only in their academic field but personally attacks their character in fact the teachers and staff of District ad8 STS

053themselves should be appalled that the school board is assuming that they are racist and need to go through some type of equity training as a school board it is your job to take care of the academic needs of of our students it is also your job to use the money that is from us the taxpayers of this community wisely that is for academic needs not to push political goals and agendas therefore thank you for your time in considering all that I've said and all that the rest of the community members of this community that have appeared here tonight have come to express to you thanks our next agenda item is uh agenda item four uh board new business Dana Crumley who is an attorney with the transic firm has joined us this evening to provide

054the board with a report that details the findings of her investigation into a complaint filed by a board member in accordance with policy 2 26 uniform grievance Miss Crumley pleas you please come forward evening everybody I have some copies for you of the report which I'm going to pass around um to the board members thank you and I have some additional copies here that I'll just leave with you that you can distribute so good evening everybody um I'm G to give the board members all just a minute just to read through the report it's not very long it's about two and a half pages so I'm just going to take a pause here for a minute and give them a minute ch for for ready okay um I I just have a few brief things

055to to present to everyone and then of course you can ask some questions if you had some um so I was charged with investigating the complaint that was filed by board member held after the October 28th Board of Education meeting um the complaint was filed November 4th um I did provide a summary of the complaint in my written report I think that pretty much everyone knows about it because it was written about in the newspaper and we actually had a public comment on it earlier this evening so I won't belor that what the complaint was about but basically it was an interaction between Mr Waters and Mr H um to investigate um the complaint I took several steps I interviewed um everyone that was present um obviously members Hollow and member water were the most

056Prim that I interviewed and they were both very forthcoming and um very Cooperative with those interviews um I also interviewed some additional Witnesses another Board member Miss James um I interviewed a member of the community and I interviewed some School District staff members although School District district staff members did not see all the parts of the the um the exchange um so in addition to interviewing people I did review emails I reviewed the stories in the newspaper I also had the opportunity to meet with Mr Simpson who's the director of security here and he thoroughly reviewed the video the security video uh footage with me so I reviewed that as well with them I've made just eight findings of fact and I think um if I could have made fewer I probably would have made

057fewer I think the the the theme Here is that this was something that happened and maybe it was not the best and it was I don't think after having met the parties involved that it was a reflection of who they are overall as people um so I think you should read my report with that in mind and is that I think that your the board will be best served if you take that take this as one isolated incident and move on from it so with that I will go ahead and present the the factual findings because I do think that's important and then I'll go ahead and give my recommendations although ultimately under the policy it's the board's determination about whether to accept those recommendations that that I have for you so first uh number

058one upon leaving the building Mr waters's right hand made contact with Mr H's back his conduct was conduct was hit or a strike and did not constitute an assault number two the contact was not welcomed by Mr H and he informed Mr Waters as such um Mr Waters said don't put and then there's I actually wrote the word but I'm not going to stay in a public meeting because I understand the rules about that um don't put words in my mouth with with uh some profanity in there or something substantially similar to that phrase as he walked past Mr number four Mr held and Mr Waters continued this verbal exchange as Mr Waters and Mr held walked toward their cars number five Mr seesac who's a Security employee here at the district heard this um

059heard Mr H and Mr Waters speaking to each other and observed their continued verbal exchange he approached Mr H and Mr Waters to inquire about the conflict and advise them both to end their conversation for the evening continued to observe them as they walked towards their parked cars six the verbal exchange between Mr H and Mr water ceased momentarily Mr H entered his car and backed out of his parking spot before leaving the parking lot Mr H stopped his car um and told Mr Waters not to put hands on him again Mr cesak instructed Mr H to continue pulling out of the lap that was number seven and then finally the a factual finding Mr Waters told Mr C appreciate it if Mr cesac did not mention the incident to anyone so those are the

060factual findings it was certainly a a bad moment we've all had them I I'll be the first to admit that I've had bad moments with people conflicts with people arguments with people that I wish I didn't have but it was one uh very brief moment when I looked at it on the tape that we're talking about a few minutes of of an evening so the recommendation um that I have for you is that you just take uh you issue findings to both your policy requires you to issue findings to both the complainant and the person who's been accused of of the um misconduct and that the findings reiterate that you do all affirm to hold up your policies and to live by those policies while you're serving your board duties and as you build this

061community facing role um and that you're not going to support the use of profanity or getting into arguments or or you know interchanges like this in the future towards anyone whether the person is on the board whether the person is an employee whether the person's a student a visitor anyone here that's that's coming to the school district and then the second prom of the recommendation or the determination that you would make to to the to people involved is that there's no violation of of board policy I I know that some people might think well it's there there's a policy that says you know 8.30 you can't talk that way and certainly we don't want people to think that you can I don't want people coming to the basketball game using the FW because you know

062the board has made this determination here and that's not the intent of this this um and I think the reason I think the intent of this is to just give everybody a little bit of Grace for this moment and move on um I I will share with the full board that I talked to Mr held and Mr Waters at length um I think that both parties um acknowledge that they played a role in in the conflict um and then I think both parties and this is very important that this incident is not representative of how they want to interact with each other moving forward that they want to interact with each other in a more positive manner moving forward and I I believe that intent on both their parts is very genuine so I think

063they also agree and again I talked to them separately but this came out through our through our conversation that they would be better served and the board would be better served and interest of the community would be better served by focusing their efforts towards achieving a process for future disagreements so that disagreements are going to happen clearly you have people coming to you saying I think this side on an issue and people think on the other side but you have to have respectful dialogue over those disagreements and that's very important um and so H having disagreements hand in a logical manner um and that means limiting limiting your conversation sometimes I I want to say the other thing that I didn't mention earlier and what I looked at was the board meeting from the night

064before and I know there's certain things that make board meetings long but you know the board meeting should not be an opportunity and you need to have an opportunity to ask questions and to conduct your business but you also don't want to have so many comments back and forth that it becomes like a filibuster there's you make you make a decision when you have four consensus of four and then you move on you're probably not going to change people's minds and I can tell you this from you know practicing law that you know the judge gives you a certain amount of time to talk you're not going to change his mind by talking 10 times longer than what he gave you you know than the time frame he gave you speak so I think that

065somewhat contributed to how stress people felt and that might be something to be mindful of in the future so I put um at the end of the report to sample findings letters for you you can certainly you know tweak those as you see fit but um I think the important thing is that everyone wants to move forward in a more positive productive way and I am confident that the people that I Mr held and Mr Waters do want to do that thank you Dana for um sharing that report and covering the information with us um I'll just ask if any board members have any brief questions at all so then I will also ask um um by a show of hands do we agree to close the complaint by issuing the two-pronged approach that uh

066Miss Crumley just outlined for us so if you're in agreement with that two pronged approach will you just raise your hand all right everyone is in agreement thank you thank you very much we will uh follow the outline that you've established and issue the letters that uh that you've attached as well you're welcome thank youbody I'll read these extra copies here so that thank you D thank you for the time the work take care so our next agenda item is uh 5 point1 um and as I shared at the beginning of the meeting Val Consulting has withdrawn its proposal um no presentation is being given tonight do any board members wish to comment on this agenda item yes I think we need to foster a discussion we have a nice crowd here this evening thank

067you for your participation and your generous offering of your time uh I think it would be a good time for us as a board to understand you know the steps forward Tammy I think you mentioned something in February what are those next steps and how can the community become more informed as we go down that path there's a Sal P that's scheduled to meet in February at this point obviously this happen today but the cell is made up of proximately 50 individuals of parents students staff and teachers and that's this time just and again for the benefit of the community who are largely no offense misinformed or uninformed on every meeting this is a public meeting it's a live stream can you explain the Cadence of which meetings are live stream which are public which

068are not which are able to be attended I think what we want to do is just keep it to this particular Point around the valin Consulting so if you have you know comments there as tamy just mentioned the um uh this topic any next steps will come before s and the next meeting is in February um I have a few comments um what I'd like to say is that nobody wants children to feel unsafe or unwelcome in this school nobody that said this board member would expect that any initiative thought brought forward to the board addressing any diversity and inclusion concerns would be inclusive of all students and address all impacting diversity and inclusion including race economic religious disability sexual orientation rules um others may have mentioned even the ADA requirements or other other areas

069um as stated in our d86 Equity statement we Define equity work as the act and art of providing each student with what they need to meet their learning and well-being requirements further stating by listening to our students staff and Community we acknowledge the importance of seeing hearing and celebrating their identities in our curriculum programs Pathways and school experiences I believe the d86 any d86 Equity work should unite our students and our community and not create divisions My Hope Is that the C committee as they look to their next steps supports all our students and is fiscally responsible along the way thank you I want say as a member of the sub committee that the um process to find a new Equity consultant look um solid transparent and um you know we'll continue on with this

070work I'm excited to continue on this work it's necessary work so when we talk about representing all students in our district it was the entire committee and um the need for the work was born out of um expressed needs from students and staff and so um that's work that will continue um and so I look forward to the February meeting uh it is uh important to be inclusive and to celebrate but there's also going to be some difficult discussions that's just the nature of Education it's important to be open-minded and listen to everyone's opinions everyone's opinions and to validate every everyone's experiences they have a right to express what they believe their experience is what the you are is not up to be determined by anyone else so if we hear a need even from

071those who feel marginalized and who are exhausted and continue to express what it is that they want we have the requirement to pay attention and to do the work on behalf of also of of that um population as well so I look forward for something in February work I I had a question um for superintendent we received obviously you know a lot of emails about this but there was one email that came in today um Can other board members observe s or is it only limited to the two board members that are members because of the make um correct we could not have um I could not have board members at the committee turns into a me so quick question about the paast and the future with the initiative it sounds like the IDI the

072Intercultural development inventory it calls for to the extent that valr was working with us using data collected from the IDI to collaborate and develop a comprehensive 5year plan should the community expect and we heard some numbers that were quite stifling to a particular member of the community you made a comment are we to expect a 5year run with this particular initiative in the example of 170,000 is that be playing out I I think what we need to do I I appreciate your comments thank you for for um bringing them up um we do not we are not entering into a contract with valr Consulting and I just like don't know what the plan is what's what's the scope of our discussion I can just be if I could help maybe um debunk Something That Grew

073legs so um when an RFP is issued for anything out of the business office the district puts together a large picture of what it's looking for and puts it out on the street all different vendors and Consultants who are interested in applying can they're responding to our ask but you should think of it as a menu of whatever that is when that comes in and we're reviewing it that is not a contract that is not a scope of work and through that process which s went through in the committee in this particular situation there was four different groups that were brought in for a presentation self rated them gave feedback it is then in that process should you go forward of awarding a contract that you start the negotiations of what is the actual scope

074of the work that's desired and what is the fee so at no time was there any commitment to any funds or length of service and it was not ever about 6 months in a certain dollar amount the information on the RFP was specific to all the things we asked about to say if we were going to do any of these things what would your key structure be does not mean that we were doing one of them or 10 of them it was to say in this long Whitney of asks what might you charge and all the respondents had a similar type of be back in a table so I just want to be clear about that misnomer it was never about 6 months of work at a certain py structure so can you drive comprehension

075to this board member as to what timeline to expect for this anticipated budgetary expense we don't have a plan any longer we're going back to S so when Dr pay maintains there's a 5year plan that's what I'm wondering about how does that play into a timeline of service with this role what you're referencing that strategic plan in the response to our RFP there was a there was a process of a 5year plan within there using IDI as a tool that is something that that consultant firm uses and that is what they were suggesting to get our asks and our RFP this response says to develop a comprehensive 5year plan with our team the original response from the Bel Consulting Group they put together from our ask what they believe they can help us with based

076on our R that's what I'm trying to confirm and that includ who fiveyear plan ours Dr pay's or theirs that's I'm just asking a question I think it's important there is no plan oh the scope of work had not been created it would have gone back to selt to work on that plan that was simply their proposal as did the other three individuals put together proposals as a resp to the RFP that Thank you regarding the other misnomer of the money um and the budget question does the administration have a budget in mind and an amount for again it was the work of the committee to decide the scope of the project and had not reached that level 3000 a year okay we're going to move on to the next agenda item thank you everyone

077for your comments I do have a few more questions I this is I I I understand you'd like to move on but I'm a board member and other community members have questions and I'm one of those community members and I'm a board [Music] member to ask some questions to drive comprehens of our community and myself as a board member thank you we will take two more questions this time I'll see I'll see the floor to other board members I do have one I'd like to ask Debbie Peggy Eric Kathleen Cynthia any questions I guess we should I I fear asking this if there's a general understanding from everyone in this board what maybe would help an understanding of what CRT is and if there's not that's a good place to start um with regards to

078what is involved in culturally responsive teaching is the terminology and um Equity work that we want to have done in this District so we don't and so prob good place uh not to disc but for people to do research that's not something we're going to discuss at the board table but I I feel like that's a stumbling block in in this discussion in general so that is the essence of what I think we need to at least be on the same page with on language and terminology that page can alignment can be achieved amongst the board members if it's not already I'm just asking simple questions about this entire initiative and you know the one consideration I have from a fiscal Prudence standpoint is as a board we just approved a 20% increase to the

079referendum projects in the summer of 22 the budget was for 20 million we just approved a $4 million overage of course there's costs to bear with respect to completing projects given the shortages with the pandemic that's 4 million bucks we just work tirelessly as a board to achieve a dual sequence science um you know science pathway for both schools that serves both all 4,000 kids wonderfully and that was in my estimation dare I say painful for A2 ,000 expenditure so we are in the business of educating students and we work that hard for that long just to spend 200,000 I think it's important to spend what sounds like could be multiples of that on this particular issue and just to drive narratives and share information with community members because dollars are short in any school

080district and only going to become shorter as you've seen the CPI final CPI for 2021 was 7% the year prior was .4 fiscal Prudence is important and driving the appropriate decisions of the board for this community relative to best representing our community's interests and there's many community members here there's many that are not I just think it's important to be open be transparent and to have those discussions thank you your comments have been noted and um we are going to now move on to the next agenda item and the next agenda item is agenda item 6.1 which is the consent agenda the consent agenda items consist of items minutes business Affairs Personnel policies contract renewals and administrative tasks that are routine in nature or have been discussed with the board and are now presented for

081approval any item may be pull 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 I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented still move second motion hman second C please call the roll member hman I member James I member Hansen I member h i member 11th I member Waters I member Walker I motion carries the next item is to approve the hhst one year collective bargaining agreement extension is there a motion to ratify the one-year collective bargaining agreement extension between the HH STA and the District 86 Board of Education some second personman motion held

082second hman superintendent FIS thank you I would just like to uh thank our hhsa leadership for continuing to work with us in the CL of partnership um I think given um context of everything that's going on this was um a well um a great opportunity to just continue allowing our teachers and staff to focus on uh working with our students and not be distracted by negotiations and certainly appreciate um everyone at the table that was a part of this contract thank you will you please call the member James I member hon I member held I member lenthal I member Waters I member Walker I member herzman I motion carries approved job site agreement with Cintas Corporation is there a motion to approve the d86 transition Center job site agreement with cint Corporation as presented motion

083second motion James second person are there any questions any discussion will you please call the RO member Hansen I member held I member 11th I member Waters hi member Walker I member hurman hi member James I the next agenda item is agenda item 11 um and I just have a brief report I just want to thank the teachers uh staff Administration for all of your hard work um in this uh challenging time um putting and and making changes um as needed uh we do thoroughly appreciate uh all that you are doing so thank you very much um we have set aside time on our agenda for board comments uh this section of the agenda is not for board deliberation it may be used by board members to offer their comments for the record each board

084member may offer comments for up to 10 minutes per Robert's rules for a minimum for a total of 30 minutes for all comments are there board members who wish to offer comments first go ahead at our last meeting on December 16th the board was scheduled to discuss two agenda items the formation of the task force to look at Creative Solutions to offering courses at both campuses and the formation of an academic committee like that in other districts to work collaboratively with the administration especially during this time of curriculum alignment grading practice change and pandemic Education First I'd like to acknowledge the students that came before this board and the prior board last spring to share their frustrations with being unable to take certain courses they had registered for due to scheduling conflicts it was my

085hope after initiating a request on May 26th 2021 that the district would explore Creative Solutions that would not eliminate scheduling conflicts and access to court es for students at South and Central but minimize those conflicts my request to discuss the formation of a task force was proposed on May 26th brought up again but delayed on June 23rd delayed again on July 22nd delayed again on August 12th and finally six board members all but member Walker expressed supportive discussion on October 14 but a discussion was again delayed finally on October 28th a date was set for discussion December 16th and on that night 7 months after first proposing a discussion members hman held and Hansen changed their minds before a discussion even took place shortly after being seated as a board member in May I was

086approached by a longtime hind hensdale South Advocate and former parent a woman who has worked tirelessly for District 86 with the idea of said task force I pursued it because it was a great idea and in line with my campaign goal of making datadriven and student centered decisions while claims of micromanaging seem to be invok the board working collaboratively with the administration to improve student access to courses is for the betterment of the district especially when to date superintendent has not informed the board about exploring all options some ideas I had during my election campaign and communicated to constituents were staggering the schedules of Central and South to minimize impact on course load if a student wishes to take a course at the other campus providing transportation to community commuting students and teachers increasing early

087bird options like some of our peer districts looking into remote delivery with teachers alternating campuses increasing course offerings during summer school especially Singleton courses and revisiting course credit earned through other summer programs because we are unable to offer all of our courses I hope the superintendent will explore option solution to student difficulty accessing courses including my list above however I'm disappointed that now it's much too late in the year to affect much change for next school year I was assured when the discussion was delayed until after the October ptech committee that changes could still be made to improve student scheduling for the 2223 school year but now as we enter second semester I'm fairly certain the stall tactics have ensured no such improvements are forthcoming second the district has been engaged in large scale curriculum

088overhaul course alignment grading practice changes and other initiative set forth by the Strategic plan it made good sense then and in my opinion it still makes good sense to have a special board committee to oversee this work many of the proposals brought forth by the superintendent have been met with Community push back including the science curriculum the math curriculum and the change to grading practice my proposal to form an academic committee was an attempt to create a venue for vetting and providing feedback on academic reports curriculum proposals data inclusion reports on grading practices and an opportunity for the board to provide clear direction to streamline our full board meetings curriculum is ultimately the responsibility of the board when I was stifled by President Walker at the last meeting I was explaining that it is as

089important to our constituency as fiscal responsibility our curriculum and the quality of our programs is ultimately why the overwhelming majority of residents move into the communities that feed into District 86 over the course of the past 8 months we have heard repeatedly how long our meetings go particularly the length of conversations about academic matters imagine if we did not have a working finance committee or a policy committee and the work of those committees was pushed to the full board it would significantly increase not only the length of our conversation but also impact the efficiency of our meetings it is rare for a district to engage in full-blown curriculum changes across content area it's also uncommon to at the same time educate students through a pandemic support teachers through a pandemic change grading practices by implementing

090a new grading philosophy align courses across two schools prioritize social emotional learning and take steps to address a mental health crisis among children it is is in my opinion too much but the proposal for an academic committee even on a temporary basis can work to address many of the issues in depth with a higher level presentation brought to the full board an academic committee such as those active in other districts would provide for robust discussion and transparent and honest analysis of data among participants I Envision a working board committee not unlike our finance and Facilities committee with three board members and administration working collaboratively to set agendas meetings on a monthly basis in-depth discussion and direction for full board presentations thank you so I do have a few comments I would kind of open with

091the sorry H next I'll come to you I try I won't speak very long I don't think so so you'll have the mic soon um I my comments related to the uh um diversity Equity inclusion piece but it wasn't really germine to the discussion I at that point in time because it wasn't specific to the contract there uh I just want to say that I hope um though we we've received some communication from the community that we as a board recognize that the concept of equity um whatever we're looking at it it's not a four-letter word it's not a not a scary item it's not something that we should be frightened of the idea of recognizing that and our having our staff trained because the idea of this is is professional development as opposed to

092this person being or the Consultant Group whatever comes in going directly to students that are professionals Within the buildings are being taught how to meet students where they are we've talked about this in relationship to academics talking about um kids that come in at a high level academically or come in with some struggles we have to meet kids where they are academically but we also have a responsibility our our staff has a responsibility of understanding experientially where our students are coming from as well and being able to have at least some tools at hand because we're all going to be learning of these things but some tools at hand to be able to meet students where they are Beyond simply Reading Writing and arithmetic because it is it is more we all know that more

093goes on in these four walls than simply getting up going to a class sitting down writing a few notes getting up you know rinse and repeat um it's a fuller experience that District 86 provides students we've always been very proud of of of what we can achieve we're also very proud of our of our students of course and our staff and how they work together this is one other thing that can help to strengthen the district and again helping to better understand helping our staff again to have those tools to better understand um in certain capacities where their students are coming from where their fellow staff members Also may be coming from as well so I hope we don't lose sight of that that we don't allow people to use buzzwords from um you know

094various Talking Heads or pundants on Twitter whatever it is to try to confiscate the issue and make it seem like this is something different than what it is that we you know somehow it's an Insidious Marxist plot to overthrow um public education because it's not it's fundamentally not um it it is I think the task of people um within you know the community to understand is as a task for us to understand what it's all about but that means that to understand we need to do our research and I hope that when this comes around again and when we have again the another hopefully a proposal for uh a consultant to to teach this valuable work to our to our staff that folks within the community if they have questions that they reach out in

095good faith and ask those questions to post uh within the staff that they don't simply just copy and paste a form letter and just send that into us as though that somehow is research and intelligent thought because that response was very disappointing to to hear that and to to read that continuously um in there it's it's a again a misunderstanding of what it's about and it's perpetuating a false narrative and it does at the end of the day have a negative impact on students as a graduate of this District I can say no I didn't experience any racism it's true um maybe that surprises people but I can't say I didn't know that it happened I can say that I know friends that it happened to that had very negative experiences I know that there

096are experiences that continue to this day to this school year that is reported that is shared between people at the self committee um between um between counselors students and teachers parents and kids it echoes throughout time it's it's present and it's there we're not saying that the work is going to radically change the community but it provides tools to help uh Educators to address some of these issues within the school and having those tools is not a negative thing having um some of that knowledge is not a bad thing um that that some are trying to make it out to me this is not part of again that larger National conversation this is something specific to us here and that we have to work with here we have to handle it here in our district

097and I look forward again to however the sub committee decides to um to approach this topic and bring it back to us I look forward to whatever that end result is at a future board meeting Waters did you have a comment yeah just a few things U First there was a meeting or two ago we talked about the population of the district with respect to um the composition 504s and IEPs would represent I do believe we' got some data um about 25% I think is that number for combination between the two there was some discussion about that just to clarify for the benefit of the community uh the second thing I wanted to discuss is these two task forces of course it's important to note that the task force that board member of lolog just

098referenced is the curriculum committee the other task force is for the remote platform to provide learning remotely between both schools where those courses are otherwise unavailable for a handful of reasons for kids at either school um to so to speak remote into the other school that that remote platform as some of you will remember is why I ran for board and there's a handful of reasons why it was appropriate then and even more now this is obviously one of them this task force is important as well as the curriculum committee so I Echo your support Debbie and I also Echo the four members who proposed maybe five both of those agenda items which eventually got squatched and dismissed as agenda items as a rookie board member I need to understand from policy or from Administration

099what warrants the dismissal of agenda items during a board meeting is that germine is that part of policy I would like some clarification on that at some point perhaps tonight uh perhaps at a future board meeting but those are two very important task force forces and not allowing the community to hear the discussion on those two agenda items which were publicly noted uh was disappointing to several people in the community myself included the last piece I'd like to speak to is quite important I do apologize to the community for having to read about fellow board members as well certainly staff in admin ation the incident between board member held and I um without a doubt I used an exploitive to drive emphasis for the point I was trying to make uh which was completely uncalled

100for and inappropriate I am completely responsible for that without that use of the word Eric may not have responded in the capacity that he did his sensitivities could be different than mine um that doesn't make my perception of the non-event which is what I told the security guard seesac one that I mentioned to him was I certainly hope we don't have to report this non-event but excuse me that's my perception and my perception is only mine and because of that I do apologize ER to you for generating that event I certainly apologize to fellow board members community members faculty and staff to have to deal with this event waste time on this event and for any certainly for any children who find out that there's a board member using an exploitive to drive an emphasis

101for any narrative in a private setting or not it's inappropriate for that I apologize to you as well would you like to take Lind suggestion yes we're not going to hug it out oh absolutely I'm not social distancing cameras over there unfortunately we did a nice pose the seat of the night Eric and I hit a Socks game earlier the year we'll be hitting another one I was at the Bulls game last night 9:00 start rough I was at the Bulls game last night too I rough start 9:00 start that was rough it was who is it for who is it for that's not really a board comment does anyone else have comments I have a I have a few mom comments um I really just want to take a moment to read our mission

102statement at d86 empowering students to pursue their ideal future by acquiring critical skills and knowledge to collaborate create and connect in a never changing with a never changing world as you may have noticed I switch seats tonight to give me a little bit of a different perspective and help eliminate a one side versus The Other Side feel that I was having um I'm looking forward to the day when we as a board are able to maintain our focus and our resources where it belongs and that is on our students and maintain our tradition of Excellence I also want to bring up some more comments that I had made back in December I want to repeat some of my December comments uh regarding the science sequences and what was agreed upon when we approved the program

103of studies back in November with two valued science sequences I wanted to make sure that the community was aware that we when we approved the PCB with Earth Science track as well as the traditional BCP track for the 2223 school year students that were in the PCB track were able to switch to that traditional track if they so chose despite assurances that students would be able to take honors biology it appeared that the program of studies did not address this option and Communications with the guidance Department weren't clear on the options that the students had and was causing a great bit of confusion the option was never communic at in board briefs and any other method to students and families in the current uh PCD sequence until June January 6th after those students began selecting

104courses with their counselors for those students that were in the honors chemistry of the earth Sciences courses there was not much of an explanation as to the difference between these two options and why they were options out there in addition to my knowledge students in the physics in Universe honors in the physics un physics in the universe it's a little bit of a tongue tongue twister and the regular uh chemistry of our Sciences were not informed that they had an option to return to the traditional track if they so chose um those students had to actually bring it up to their guidance counselor request from the science department chairs and then see if they could be approved for that change a lot of things that if if you weren't aware of the process they wouldn't

105have known that that was even an option so I just wanted to bring that up and make sure that we were trying to be as transparent as possible and I'm a little disappointed that it was not communicated forthright immediately after that board approval of the um program of studies thank you superintendent thank you I have about two than could you pull up the slide for the um so as you know this week next SL pleas um just sort of highlights um everyw we continue to be in high I put the links of the updated information as of U this week DP County was at a 20% positivity rate I also put the link to our dashboard that we update every Friday and I U once again appreciate our ongoing partnership with Osco and uh they

106will be here on campus at hinel Central from 2: to 7:00 p.m. on January 24th to do booster clinics for students ages 12 and up and first um shot of fiser for anyone who's not currently vaccinated and wishes to be vaccinated um the next slide is just all of the links and I can even as I was walked in the it appears that the sport one is already being updated and the FAQ has already been updated so these links are actually outdated as I'm walking in the door they already updated that FAQ and is now updated today so we will um change out those links once um we have that and so I think what's important to know is really uh we continue to um be committed to the health and safety of our students

107employees during the co pandemic and our guiding principle always has been to maximize that that consistent inperson instruction the guidance continues to be updated though and we will continue to monitor it um next slide I really want to give a public um shout out to Northshore clinical labs they have been terrific and extremely responsive I just pulled a little bit of data it's a big picture remember when that when it came on board when the board approved um earlier this fall prior to December 15th and I chose that date because that was just sort of as it was starting to peek up we had 741 students this is just student data not staff data we had 741 students that were pre-registered in accessing the NorthShore um piece since um December 15th an additional 1 1511

108students have been registered through Northshore the number of PCR tests that we have conducted up until December 15th we had conducted 1,22 and in less than a month we've done an additional 878 and again that is just student data and I would really like um to thank norshore they've been very responsive over winter break we had um a significant need from the committee we opened during winter break but they were further they were kind enough to even further expand when we reached out to them because the demand because we watch email that the line was out the door so I really um do appreciate the partnership with norshore clinical U they've been outstanding next slide so high level big picture things that have not changed um is that expectation for school Personnel to be vaccinated

109or submit to weekly testing everyone must wear a mask indoors at all times regardless of vaccination status and the test to stay remains an option for close contacts in school settings some changes um one that was added was specific to masks so as we have heard IDP did accept the cdc's shortening of the quarantine isolation exclusion period it has been added if a student um or staff me and staff member falls under one of those um options of reducing uh their time under one of those if it is an uh extracurricular activity for days 6 through 10 they have to have a mask on um outside that is the change slide seven some of the this is basically probably many of us don't know it has dig that 5 days as long as symptoms are

110un resolving or if someone was asymptomatic but tested positive but what's important is when they do return to school that they are wearing that mask at all times around others um regardless of um where they're at with the property one change um an update is there is now a quarantine and relas letter that D County Health Department has issued to all schools so if your student is um caught up in one of those forms they're they are now asking the parent and the student to sign off and specific to each the bottom half has the specific expectations Upon returning in particular what's in here and we um I guess in some ways we're fortunate that we had an alternative schedule this week with finals because it's allowing the operational site to get ready for this

111but essentially if um a student uh second semester up to next Wednesday and if that was their day six and they met that criteria not only are they wearing a mask but during the lunch piece they are need to um be seated six feet apart while they're eating during day 6 through 10 that obviously requires a lot of coordination of all the staff and F who are all those individuals so that is something that both FS are still working through but what they would look like in that letter that the parent would be receiving and the student it outes all those expectations for their return of days uh 6 through 10 so this will be new for us next week but I'm sure like everything else we will work through it um slide nine this

112is another change um they are now making the recommendation that if um someone is regardless of your vaccination um status and you have um been deemed a close close contact while you can you do not need to be excluded they are now asking um to be test at least 5 days after the exposure so again that's another fortunate that we have nor Shir here on campus that's very easy to accomplish whether it's staff or student um while they were here slide [Music] um the other key piece in here is that exclusion piece um to note um so this may cause confusion and may get updated but as if you you know out in the news you are hearing that there's this ramp up to provide home um testing kits so that will be another thing

113our health officers would work for as of right now um schools are not able to accept that home testing so again we are fortunate that we have norshore to assist families and again in each particular case the health office working is working closely and Cheryl Moore and her team is working closely with all of our staff to help people walk through when are experiencing any of these conditions SL 11 um anytime you have to count days it depends on who you are and so I think um they tried to do a um better job in the FAQ to be very clear how the days are being counted that's probably one of the biggest stressful events in the health office is um Family student and health office are all on the same page of how the

114days are being counted based on the context of the situation and the students vaccination status and so in this FAQ they tried to be a little bit clearer and again comparing it with that masking consistency piece the other piece that they updated um we um the majority looked at our dashboard prior to that 12:15 date we had a lot of students caught up in quarantining situations because a number of their household had tested positive it was not a close contact at school but it was actually something from their household to this last bullet point um it's a little bit through that I'm actually keep that done um and so that last bullet point is that um individuals who meet the above parer May return to school even if other household members are in isolation and

115quarantine as long as they Mas consistently through day 10 so that's a positive Evolution for our students because many times it was just simply because it was a member of our household and was not school related slide 12 these are some other changes to member of the same household um I think as we've all heard this particular um variant is spreads fairly quickly and so this has been tripping up a lot of our students and so again here are the new roles depending again in our health office and andp health we work through all this but it it does depend on your the vaccination status um as to what path um our options for those and and when it happens and so again instead of getting to the weeds it's just that they' have clarified

116the rules in an attempt to allow students to be in person instruction when it makes sense but there are sort of very specific spefic rules in very specific situations that our health office will look through with each family that's impacted slide 13 they also got a little bit about adaptive pause in the newspapers we may have heard from other districts surrounding us we've been extremely fortunate that we've had um no significant issues at all with staing Upon returning for second semester um but what's important to note Le currently in this FAQ they were very specific to say adaptive pauses using remote learning may not de employed to f deing shortages so some of those districts it's almost um I would call it at least how it's written right now almost think of the traditional snow

117day where the expectation was you were making it up at the end of the school year and school was not happening and also suggesting when if a district does make that decision to do an Adaptive pause that um everything is just done C the extra for I don't understand um sorry so no good question it's confusing to me so School cannot take an Adaptive pause and do remote learning and count it as an instructional day you would have to if it's if the reason is because of Staffing shortage I understand so you can take an Adaptive pause if the case you know count too high and use the remote learning without having to make the day off at the end of the year if you do have to take it because of a staffing shortage

118is then the implication then that it has to be tapped down to the end of the year okay as of today okay and I say that and then the second piece is adaptive pause for either reason everything gets shut down if the school itself is being taking a dep of pause then it's suggesting that there are no sports or activities that got so the next step because as I shared literally two things have already been updated as I was driving over here and so we continue to monitor all these different guidance pieces but the most important piece is there is a um an evolution and and a consistent um by both at CDC and idph is really looking at the data collecting if you were not aware Lake County um was the uh has been

119a data collecting site for that test to stay that CDC actually used them as part of their test site and it which were the process and protocols that we had adopted um here in District 86 I had contacted the health department there as they were um already enacting at the first semester and um so I do believe and appreciate that it's nice that they are constantly looking School based data and trying to intervene and give us guidance um again it does change fairly regularly any other questions um this is related but somewhat of an aside is we look to having kids come back for days 610 and you he spaced 6 feet apart especially inel Central what is the status of the pool in Phil and will that potentially be ready to help us out

120or not yet no um I did well un there was a construction update this morning Bill and I were both in a different meeting this morning so I don't know if either still the update but Josh might know there was we're still working on the ceiling tiles and lights I believe in that space yeah so the uh condition of the the cealing grid and the light fixtures that were in the pool area were significantly worse than what was anticipated so we had in order to complete the project we had to move forward with replacing the full ceiling grid and all the um electrical pictures just over had basically reached the point of nearly resting out and it just wouldn't have been safe to put anyone in that space because potentially falling you know life ex

121ceiling grids is not something that we could do well so uh long story short uh all of that will be replaced the target end AG is now mid-February so around February 15th somewhere around there where that space would be turned over to the dist okay if I can just com we are making it work and using multiple spaces for these alternate lunch Tes so it's not ideal I'm extremely frustrated don't get me wrong but but we are making it work and my team is working tireless find spaces to enable everybody safe those who want to be as well as those who now have to be because they of these RS okay and then um has there been any change to the definition of an outbreak and then how are those being communicated to activities teams

122Etc you know I have that answer as parent but wondering you know for the community it's altered a little bit and so um there the health department is asking are working with the health office and it is it depends and so there is not a one fit answer if you look in the guidance it used to be a solid two and now they're talking about three and so how it's dealt with um is the context and sports is treated differently than in a classroom setting andone secondary and so um basic Al it is um there's an education team the Department of ucation County Health Department and so we report the situation and the facts that we know and they provide guidance of what they would like to have happen and so it's not the same

123in every situation it's situation specific any other questions okay other uh agenda I uh report was just wanted to share um as you know um earlier this school year are the gold one um presented their program update work and that was a a significant Milestone U for the go one work to make and so as part of that um work is to now take it to that next level as that curriculum piece and writing is is happening as was described in those presentations it's to create two different committees that um one the work has been ongoing and I will talk about that but the first one is this profile of a District 86 graduate and so the intent is to um create and and and be on the same page of all the qualities and

124characteristics that we want our students to possess when they leave our district and also to make sure that um when we talk about that mission statement of their ideal future what are those Pathways so now that that go one program teamwork is is been identified and we know the path forward some of that work is still taking a multitude of years to get to that we can now talk about now that we know the what how is it and and how are we making sure when we talk about our B profile of a graduate and what is the feedback loop to give us feedback so if I'm a student who graduates one year two years five years perhaps what is it that we would want to do and what are the tools out there to

125keep track the district does not have a process or a system to keep track of our students once they leave and so we are putting together all this work and all these strategic plans so we have our kpi dashboard of real time students but we really do not know were there experiences at District 86 to to acquire their ideal pathway did we did we were we successful or not and so part of that work with a profile of a graduate of that committee will to unpack that and what does that mean in District 86 and what might that process look like and what are some tools so that we can track and get feedback after they leave us right now we do not have a feedback loop to really understand how how did we do

126as a system and to understand what it looked like um the other committee is to um is actually part of the current strategic goal 2 um strategy 4 it has been working um but now we are ready once again because we uh one have been working with this thing called the pandemic and and had an opportunity to explore all different pieces and now that we have that anchor work of go one that pathway forward it's really to look at what are the different um secondary instructional models and Frameworks and to see if there are any um changes to schedules practices to improve or enhance the way we deliver instruction Foster that professional growth and the development of our faculty staff and support student learning one of the feedback the surveys that we received last year

127when students and staff um gave us feedback on the different instructional schedules that there was a loss of like the how we were using time and when they had an opportunity to check in or learning time our block schedule versus traditional and so that is something that that committee will um also be exploring who's on these committees we have a a student and a parent application that was going to be sent out tomorrow um those applications are due on 127 we are looking um for the first committee the profile of graduate to have eight students um three current hinel central three current hinel South additionally we want one student from each school that's currently attending the Technology Center of ducate we will also have um six parent Guardians three current or future hinel Central parents

128or three current fure hille South parents for the second committee we're looking to fill six student positions three from each campus and six parent Guardians three from um each um Center Schools either current parents or future parents um as part of the CBI I also work with um hhsa and we were working on membership from the hhsa as I said before specific to the secondary instructional model one that b of that team has been doing that work under Brad for Ty and his strategy leaders and so they are embedded within this um committee and that will be order first is to provide updates of the work that they have been doing the intent is that this um these committees will meet monthly February March April and May and give a up um update to the

129board in June when we typically bring our strategic plan updates and give us a status report at that moment in time because we have students on these committees um the meetings happen during the day however specific to torture of The Graduate there is an entire need focus groups as the committe is doing their work that we know we need to um have focus groups with business partners universities um a larger set of of parents and students and so some of those focus groups will be happening both in the evening and during the day as well so I um happy to speak to any individual member outside of this meeting as I'm looking for two board members to serve on each committee and just if you could let me know if your interest um after by

130127 CU then all up calendars so can take any general questions or I'm happy to speak with anyone offline if you want to know more if you're interested in serving on the committee um our next agenda item is agenda item 13.1 and uh assistant superintendent of Human Resources cherl Moore will present the 2022 employment benefits open enrollment report uh thank you uh as you know each year we do an open enrollment with our employees uh this year our open enrollment really reflected a very stable enrollment uh we discussed this in detail with the insurance committee yesterday uh but for purposes of the board the enrollment was stable which is uh means a very nominal impact to the budget since our uh increase was 1.7% this year on so that's the report thank you very much

131um our next agenda item uh CFO Stevenson will provide the board with an update on the pil thank you president walker uh well member Waters did already steal kind of my Hunter on this report but yeah the final pil for uh 2021 is is to come in at 7 % um so uh it's capped at 5% um you know the the legislation doesn't allow us to exceed 5% um in what we the what the district could potentially Levy um but just this more of an informational update at this point and obviously we'll have a number of conversations uh through Finance in the board level as we get closer to the levy process in 2022 thank you so agenda item uh 15 is future agenda item requests we've updated our process for future agenda items to

132reflect the conversation that was held at our last board meeting a list of board member requests for agenda items will be compiled at each meeting and those requested agenda items will be added to the 2022 Board of Education future agenda items log which is linked in board dots are there any requests from board members for a future agenda item I just have um a clarification I believe we're getting a presentation at the end of the semester about grading I believe February because I know the grades aren't due until um the end of this month but at the last meeting um I had requested either Anna data um or you know her data about home more completion under the new Gradebook categories and if there was an impact on students you know especially in those courses

133that are weighted 910 or 100 Z and I think it was misinterpreted I've clarified it with jeffre coino but I'm also interested to know um how that 50% floor is potentially impacting some of our students that have an IEP or 504 for executive function deficit so if something um if some of that anecdotal data can be added um and then as a future agenda item I would under a future academic report like to see a presentation of the AP score data from last year so I think what would be of the new process I think I heard two different topics and then maybe I don't think it's the first one isn't really necessarily an agenda item we talked about it at the last meeting but I brought it up now because it seemed like the

134most um the best place to bring it up during the meeting um just a few things that I'd like to see touched on during the greeting our next grading update which I believe is either the January 27th meting but I actually think it's the first February meting I think you're right I think we did agree that the grading update would be in February um I have my note that um on February 24th the semester grade the slides from 4 to 7 but then I thought there was a conversation because of the other reports that are um being presented that night that it could also because it's data could also be part of the weekly W so I take Direction way but I think we would need to be a little bit Clarity of um if

135there's something outside of what was on slides 437 I believe we were updating those charts this is what my notes have from the last presentation but I'm not sure slides through 4 through S are anymore you have to look at that data I just have grading the semer grades slides 4 through 7 update to represent in the first semester I'm not too sure that it includes what you just shared so I yeah no we we spoke uh outside of the meeting and and we can we can um add to the presentation right uh because it it was during the board meeting we did um there were some questions about the effects on homework and and and we can address some of those uh as uh the the addition of the 50% floor impact on students

136with an IEP is something I think our team would have to think through how we would actually like collect that data so that I I can't I I would I hesitate to commit to that being in this report uh only because it's it's it's it's coming up in the in the near future um what I was unclear about is whether or not we were going to do that report the first meeting in February or the second I thought it was the second because of the the um semester grades wouldn't be finalized in our hands for us to actually look at that work until late January so I was hoping I guess I'm making the request can it can it be I have it as February 24 and so then the second item I think was

137the presentation of AP sare data from last year that can be added to another academic report it doesn't necessarily have to be a future agenda item but just a request for some that data with um even I believe there's an academic report that comes in April cor so so I plan to bring up policy 640 relating to curriculum um tonight as a future agenda item and I'm surprised to see that it's back as a future agenda item um listed with a three minute pitch at the at the next meeting um I'm not sure I understand the 3 minute pitch I I would expect that if it's a future item and it's on the agenda that it's on the agenda we no what what we're doing is asking each board member to present what you want

138to you know give your three minute pitch just to why you want to see it on an agenda we I will ask for a show of hands and the next or at a future board meeting we would have a deeper discussion if there are four board members that want to have a further discussion on that topic so just getting on the list is is not actually a future agenda item because what we're doing right now is asking for future agenda item topics right so the topics will just go on the list then at a future board meeting probably the next meeting we give board members an opportunity to to say I wanted to talk about X here's my pitch about my future agenda item I ask the board to for a show of hands of

139who is in agreement or would like to discuss that future agenda item at a next at a future board meeting we get the show of fans if there are four people then that topic is added to a future agenda it may be the next meeting or it could be a meeting later just depending upon what other items are on that particular agenda so how is that any different than what we were doing before where we had four board members that agreed to put two items on the agenda and then once they got to the agenda they never got discussion I don't understand I I guess I so I was asked to make a three minute pitch if you don't mind Peggy tonight about an academic committee um I actually I find like the title even

140to be offensive and disrespectful I've given my pitches multiple multiple times and I'm not going to engage in like this board's version on Shark Tank to try and sell it only to then get it on the agenda and get back ended at the meeting after I've prepared for the agenda item um but you know tonight I was asked to pitch yet again give my elevator pitch um about an academic committee which I've done prior and I did tonight during my board comment so I'm not going to you know talk about it again it's been talked and talked and talked about and we had four board members myself member James member Waters and member Walker that agreed to put it on an agenda only to then have it you know taken off the agenda but then

141again Ask for if there were four board members that wanted to talk about it it would be like if we got to the president's report and we said well are there four board members that actually want to hear the president's report that's not how it works so I guess move to see if the academic committee has four members that listen to my board comment and are interested in it and why can't Peggy James just talk about not Pitch I mean we're not trying to sell each other something we're actually trying to make decisions that are for the betterment of the district can't she just talk about policy 640 and what she'd like to see happen tonight and why do we have to wait another meeting well let's start with the academic committee and I will

142ask board members for a show of hands of the board members that would like to move forward with having a discussion about the formation of a board special committee for curriculum matters for academic matters okay so I've never called it a curriculum committee it's been reported in board briefs as an academic committee so I will ask again uh for a show of hands of how many board members are interested in the agenda item proposed the formation of a special committee for academic matters so we have fewer than four we have three board members that raise their hands so that agenda item will not move forward so I have couple agenda item proposals um first to revisit the remote platform task force that was discussed which would provide opportunities in the example we were discussing um

143for a handful of me meetings to provide opportunities to have remote learning to leverage the technology system and perhaps upgrade it to provide opportunities for kids at southc Central to access the other building at Central South excuse me to provide learning opportunities for classes that could otherwise not use I'd like to bring that task force back up as an agenda suggestion the other piece I'd like to bring up is either a policy update after the next policy committee which I do not serve on I need to understand how we can have four people approve a agenda item only to have it dismissed at a meeting like we did the last meeting or two ago when two different task force discussions May the agenda agenda only to be dismissed I'd like to see that policy measure

144that that that allows for that if it does at all whether that's an agenda item or a policy up clarify for the record just so we're we're trying to do this in real time could you what what is the name for the first item agenda item that you said what did you call it it was the it was one of the force that was dismissed and this one was the task force to utilize the remote platform um to provide learning opportunities remotely for students in either building that for whatever particular reason can't get that class at their building task force remote remote remote only or to look at Creative Solutions to offering courses that just trying to keep keep in not just a category heading I would just say yeah task force to utilize Crea

145Solutions including remote technology not the Sol but what would you like the they call task force or remote utilization I think that that's kind of the core of it right trying to yeah I mean the spirit whether it's remote or creativity is to provide learning opportunities of kids in either building you can't get that class in that particular building and instead whether it's driving whether it's whether it's remote I'm not sure what you want to call it I think it was it was called the task force to look get Creative Solutions to create access for students of both campuses to the courses that they may not be able to access due to scheduling complex or other reasons as a note to that one um just depending on I guess the future pitch or whatever that

146might come there going back to February or March or January all right so going back to the first quarter of this of last year when we were starting to talk about the scheduling and we you know there was a bit the world languages conversation on the stacking at South and and and dropping the Latin and one the German one um just as background for coming when you for the for the Shark Tank um there was a conversation on some of that and some student based reaction so just to to if I find it I'll email it but there was one of those meetings during during the discussion on cre women that talked about what was offered which was a remote platform um and a dislike of of using it because potentially of the school year

147but um so just as kind of additional backgrounds as you're kind of building something that can just inform the additional conversation we don't have our videos aren't often easily uh you know time stamped or anything so again I can't give you that but that could just be additional help as coming up with the framework and then the second agenda item to clarify was just whether it's a policy committee update or an agenda item itself to understand the ability to cancel if you will or dismiss agenda items that were formally voted on by a majority of the board not voted on but that there were four members in the support of discussion correct thank you and I have you know a little bit related to that because as we know the board governs by policy so

148pursuant to board policy 2150 the board May establish committees um to assist with the board's governance function and in some situations to comply with state law requirements these committees are known as board committees and Report directly to the board a board committee may not take final action on behalf of the board it may only make recommendations to that end I previously brought up board policy 460 related to contracts to the policy committee for discussion the committee of three determined that the policy does not need to be updated and that recommended was to simply stated to the full board as a decision and then contradicts with the that board policy so you know I mean my my concern is that similar to what Mr Waters was alluding to is that two members ultimately a majority of

149the board commit of the policy committee should not be able to make a decision for the full board they can bring a recommendation back but the discussion could should ensue at that point and for that reason I'd like to add um an additional discussion related to board policy 460 as a future agenda item that no no I'm just I'm just clarifying the process right now that's all I'm asking process can can you clarify so the the items that we're discussing that are being added to the list of future agenda items will be discussed in more detail at a future meeting I will ask for a show of hands and see if there are four board members that want to put that item on a future agenda for further discussion so that's that's what's happening right

150here is we're just identifying the topics that people want to bring up it will come back at a future meeting for a show so we have an established process for bringing up future agenda items and we're changing that process now no that's I'm just I just explain what the process is so but the the pitch is new that wasn't there before so they're making it a new process okay well that's not only new but it's also unknown to this board member how exactly things can hit the agenda as a function of a majority approving a discussion for an agenda it actually hit the public and be noted for community members to invest their time to show up here only to see excuse me only to see these particular agenda items dismissed at a meeting I

151need to understand how that's possible i' like policy to revise as as reference an agenda we noted your comment previously so thank you are there any other that will be added to a future agenda I will ask for a show of hands and when we go through this whole list I'd like to add a future agenda item where the full board can discuss how they want to go about proposing and determining if something is a future agenda item so watching board members prior to this board I remember when Mr H requested as a future agenda item that this board discuss Community engagement and there was no show of hands it was a good idea and his fellow board members because it was something he was passionate about a agreed to allow the discussion so I

152understand under policy 2110 the president has the to set the agenda but I also think that processes that involve the whole board should get the full board's input okay it's not a dictatorship it is a seven member board and we can add you just ask for so we will add that agenda have any other then the board will now hear additional public comments comments will follow our board protocols and board policies is there anyone interested in making a comment each speaker will have three minutes to speak good evening members of the board first I would like to reiterate the ex the exence brought up by members Waters and Lal of ring South and Central student similar course offerings we also need to address potential issues regarding offering access to both sign sequences for students at

153hingel South I also wanted to note that the last time I heard about zoom in a room remote learning or any other possible solution for Equitable course offerings from a school official was a few months ago by one of my teachers while we may not move forward with the committee with the committee suggested by member lethal we are running out of time for next school year as the course selection process is well underway additionally I believe that the District 86 Community should see more transparency as the course selection process continues this year and all stakeholders should be made aware of which courses will or will not run next year at both campuses finally I wanted to say that one of the first steps of many we can take to advance diversity equity and inclusion and

154to empower our students to pursue their ideal Futures is through these Equitable course offerings of schools thank you for your time and consideration I was really pleased with today's meeting up until just a few minutes ago a lot of positive things happened at tonight's meeting and you know I want to thank people I want to than Peggy for switching her seat up and Eric for agreeing to it I think that's a huge step in the right direction so I want to deare you guys as a board to do something that maybe isn't in your comfort zone um I dare you to do the right thing in good faith I think this Bo should invite Debbie to do her presentation she she did the work and it was on the agenda and it was St and

155what happened at the last meeting was absolutely horrific and if you watch it back I don't think there's anyone at this table who should feel good about what happened and so I'm daring you guys to actually do something to act in what I'm saying and actually have those discussions they're really valuable to this community and to our school and so please reconsider those of you who are unwilling to say yes and raise your hands because the only way you guys are going to work together is if everybody raises their hand and so long as we have more than half of you not willing to raise your hand we're never going to move forward so please reconsider please reconsider take the time I know you're not supposed to act on what I say but please act

156on what I say because what happened at the last meeting was awful and you know Terry you and Debbie were really good friends and to see that happen at the meeting it just it breaks my heart nobody should feel good about what happened I mean cyy was so excited when you guys voted together on something so why not have the discussion Debbie did the work Debbie's committed we need work on academics so that we're not sitting at me for 5 to 6 hours it's the right thing to do so please take a vote don't even take a vote actually everybody should just asent that we want to work together and if you want to work together you say yes when people have something that they want to discuss it's interesting great minds work along the

157same lines because I was um also planning to organize my comment around the theme of thanks and to um thank a number of board members for the wonderful job they did the wonderful step toward board Unity I just can't thank you enough from the bottom of my heart also in the seating arrangement that is just glorious and truly a a milestone that will let this board work together for the good of the community even if you don't always agree on how to get there you all have that goal in common um other things other thank yous to um board members Hansen and hell for um the your courageous stand defending Equity as an English teacher I'm bothered by people using words without accuracy there's nothing not to like about the real definition of equity it

158doesn't mean everyone will have an identical career path or that everyone will be a clone it means that all students are met where they are and they receive what they need to liberate their best potential it was Equity when my son the music teacher and my son the cardiologist both got what they needed from District 86 for the music teacher summer school is very important to free up two slots during the school year for two music classes and so I appreciate both of you bringing attention to what Equity really means and I would like to thank board members Waters and lethal James for um defending the academic um the committee on academics I I cannot imagine why this can't even be discussed I'm sometimes I think I know the real reason but in this case

159I don't did we did I miss it did we vote against the Creative Solutions committee surely didn't and board member 11 you listed a whole um group of solutions all of which we should be implementing and um board member waters you know you're just fantastic on this topic there's no reason that that we need there we should get to 95% equality and combo courses would promote um one District a one District bonding experience and board member James thank you for pointing out that there is um that students are not really being offered the chance to switch back to the classical BCP with without hassles and barriers being put up and and that's not right and that's not what was promised but anyway thank you all for the wonderful things that happened I'd like to make

160a public comment can I stay in my seat or would you like me to move over there stay um you know I wanted to address the whispered side of our conversations between members Walker and hman typically in audible to the rest of the board and the public I did some research and happened upon a determination letter written in February of 2021 Teresa limb of the public access Bureau writes in response to a request for review and to school board members whispered conversations at a board meeting to that end this office notes that board members exchanging notes are engaging in whispered conversations during an open session of an in-person meeting could give the appearance of secret deliberations even if community ations involve less than a majority of a quorum of the public body members although this

161office is unable to conclude that the whispering and passing of notes during this boord meeting the one for the request for review violated any specific provisions of the actions are inconsistent with 's intent of ensuring that public bodies conduct public business openly further it states that meetings should allow any interested member of the public access to contemporaneously hear all discussions and we will now adj the meeting with no further discussion the regular meeting of the board will now adjourn time is 8:45 p.m. all those in favor hi