001janine are you ready with the roll call and can you hear me we're just gonna sandra bradford here angela wilcox barry altschuler here leah callister lazari here erin chanding katie karam here steve wang here would you please rise and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you and welcome to our regular board of education meeting on july 12th of 2022 i want to start today with just asking for a few moments of silence as we remember our friends and our neighbors in highland park thank you it's a good time and reminder to be thankful for the positive relationships that we do have with our community public forces so we mentioned them a few meetings ago and i'll just recognize them again we do have on
002our website um see something say something so i'm going to remind the community of that as well so please take advantage if you see something that's not right and report it just a gentle reminder that this is not a public meeting please be respectful and kind throughout this board meeting that does occur in public all board members are here because we want to make barrington the best it can be for the students the parents and community members board our next meeting is on august 16th a reminder that we will be also holding our annual board self-evaluation on that day so please come prepared and if you can review our board protocols beforehand lori grant will at least be walking us through those interest review what time i was reminding the board that um our next
003meeting is on october 16th and we're also going to hold our annual board self-evaluation on that date as well i believe we're going to start at 1pm is that correct you mean 12 30. okay and lori grant will be facilitating for us and she will be at least reviewing our commitments on the board protocol so please review them if you can beforehand also that week we have ribbon cutting ceremonies exciting time for our bill 220. on monday we will have ribbon cutting monday august 15th we'll have ribbon cutting ceremonies for both prairie and station on tuesday the 16th for grove and roslyn road and on wednesday the 17th for sunny hill and i i'm assuming everybody has given their their commitment to attend to janine okay so i just we've got before we jump into
004public comment we've got a lot of things on here i just want to remind everyone um i see a lot of comments are going to be on books and on curriculum we will be discussing curriculum this evening but we will not be taking any action on either of those topics that i see here so we'll be taking action um on routine consent agenda items board policy meeting dates and okay and that's all i really have to report but given the the amount of people that we have here i'd like to ask that dr hunt do his report first if that's okay with everyone yes okay uh good evening thank you uh for being here this evening uh i do want to address a couple of things uh related to some communication that the board of
005education uh has received lately and a few other important updates for the district um i want to speak to senate bill 818 first of all the district uh actually received a press update that's the policy service update uh that uh supports the board of education uh in november uh asking the board of education to review a policy specific descent senate bill 8018 policy committee at that time made the decision to table any action on that policy until we better understood where the illinois school boards association or board of education was going to land with alignment to senate bill 18. so recently we did find out in august that the the recommendation from isbe will be to align with the standards within senate bill 18. although although we will talk about this later tonight i think
006it's important to at least give the board an update letting letting you know from an administrative pers perspective we are not recommending to the policy committee to move forward we're recommending to opt not adopt the policy implementing senator so specific to that recommendation and again the policy committee will review this at our next meeting we'll bring this back to the board for any further conversation uh but specific uh kind of reasons for that there's a significant amount of content and grade levels that we frankly cannot absorb based on the number of standards that we teach and the level of appropriateness of of age in that content and we think that would be pulling away from the core curriculum secondly isbe has not provided direction on if the district has to adopt all or nothing within
007that policy so that's important for us to know as well and then also i think it's important for the board to remember we can we will have to continue to provide the mandated units of study that are that are within the health and pe curriculum that we have been offering over time so we'll continue to do that that includes human growth and development family life including sexual absent abstinence until marriage and age appropriate sexual abuse and assault awareness prevention and education in grades pk through 12. so to be clear those are mandated in law and we will have to continue to include those i want to clarify again policy committee will have this conversation in our next meeting and any action or any further information regarding that would come through policy committee to the board
008of education i also want to address book challenge i know that's you know we've had a lot of interest in that i addressed this uh in our last meeting as well we do have a procedure for the re-evaluation of materials that we are undergoing currently with the book genderqueer the school review has been completed and that has been shared with the board of education and we are moving forward with the district level review at this time that process is ongoing i would anticipate this book review uh to be completed and shared with the board of education uh by the september board of education meeting so those are two updates i wanted to share uh as well as some other items uh district-wide some really good news for the school district it was definitely in spring
009of this year where an email came across my desk from isbe asking uh districts to apply for a competitive freedom grant and i think uh there might be some that thought we were crazy with the timeline and how quickly we had to turn around to file that grant uh but i am i'm pleased to announce we were successful and we will receive three hundred fifty thousand dollars per year for the next three years uh totaling over a hundred a million dollars to support students the grant specifically is written to enhance opportunities for students at sunny hill enrichment opportunities outside of the school day and after school pro programming i want to thank becky weigle nate rouse and the boys and girls club of dundee township who signed on as our partners with this grant so
010that's a great thing for our school district that will help improve opportunities for our students in the sunny hill community i also want to recognize and and thank those involved that helped us receive the harper community innovation fund grant that's a one-year grant for ten thousand dollars and this again allows sunny hill students to participate in the end zone program at harper college the summer camp where students can elect to specialty courses to enrich their lives and explore interests we want to thank barrington area development council penny cashmere and brian battle along with our local grant writers of becky wiegel again for putting the time and the energy in to go above and beyond and bring those funds here to help our kids so thank you all very much for uh [Applause] in terms of
011enrollment uh you do have you uh the grid in front of you uh we continue to move through staffing uh it it you know we're getting closer and closer to you know opening of school um as you kind of review that uh you know the board of education did ask that we really tried to stick within class uh class size guidelines this year and that has been our charge moving forward i'd highlight two kind of areas that we continue to watch third grade at rosalind road uh we've got a couple of sections that are that are increasing uh towards or over those guidelines with a couple of students and we're also keeping an eye on a fifth grade sections at rose elementary uh we again we're very cognizant of staffing and the the financial commitment
012to uh running as efficiently as possible while providing the appropriate education to students and we'll continue to update you if there's any changes uh to staffing levels as we move into the the school year also in front of you this evening you have an updated copy of a district mission statement including core belief and strategic priorities it will also include learner profile for you should encompass the changes discussed by the board of education at our last meeting and we have administratively already started to talk about aligning district goals and the work with indoor in the district to the priorities established within the framework 220 process we do have action planning a lot of work to do to really complete that plan and that will happen as we come back into the school year but we
013are already starting to align the work and the priorities within that plan and kind of more of that information will be coming as we move closer to the to the start of school lastly ms bradford talked about the exciting groundbreaking opportunities for referendum and i unfortunately don't have uh equally good news to share but i think it's important to share with the board of education and as well as our public uh dr bine over there did kind of late breaking news a few meetings ago regarding gravel strike that's impacting construction throughout the area that that strike has moved into week five at this point and at this point it is starting to impact the progress that we've made or able to make with some of our construction projects so if you look at barrington high
014school specifically we were about one week ahead with that project we're anticipating being about three weeks behind as of right now uh a project that you know should have concluded in september now looking at possibly october the the other options uh that we did review at significant cost in other words going elsewhere or further out to get gravel had significant cost to the district and really didn't make sense i want to commend dr bind dr winkelmann and the construction team uh as it looks like they're trying to be really creative with prairie the prairie parking lot as you know that was a big project that we were slated worried that the gravel would impact that they're being created with trying to obtain gravel from some of our other temporary lots and do some things to
015make sure that project continues to move forward so i can't say i promise that that will be delivered but we are working to continue to move that forward so hopefully we can be there by the opening of school so that that would conclude my report and information tonight happy to answer any questions that you have so i just want to thank you for your recommendation um i'm the regarding senate bill 818 and um you know you are our ceo we as a board delegate uh the authority to you to run the district and to provide your leadership and as a member of the policy committee i um definitely appreciate and accept your recommendation and we'll proceed accordingly thank you yeah dr hon thank you so much for giving this primer i think it helps you
016know quell some of the concerns that we've heard about throughout the week um if i could ask would you mind elaborating a little bit more though on the process of how books are reviewed in our district as far as you mentioned the school level thank you for bringing that up i know you had asked about that please and and we did put um we have the information yes yeah we we you have that information and we did put all of the guidelines for a selection criteria on the website it's under the parent tab uh library section so parents can go through that and and look at all of that information but would you mind just kind of giving a quick summary so if i folks understand that it's a school level review then the district
017are you talking about the uh the review process the review process yes sir yeah so it starts with a library review it moves to this building level which is now complete with our current uh uh review it then moves to a district level team which involves you know a variety of members that were identified including a parent uh then a uh the kind of the summary of that will be provided to the board of education who will then make a decision whether they take that up and have a conversation correct so at the end of this process we as a board have an opportunity to discuss as well sure perfect do all reviews go through all three levels yeah so how do you determine i mean i understand this there are a lot of emails
018you look at the policy um as it moves through the review uh parents or those who challenge a book have the opportunity to continue to move forward i think okay when it comes to the board is that a discussion or an action item would be a discussion i think originally and then we'll you know hear where we want to go with it and then could be an action item okay sorry the board is able to dispute a recommended it's a recommendation i'm assuming it's not a final answer it would be the final recommendation from the administration i feel like i'm hearing the desire for it to be an action item um i feel given i i and this is on me i did not understand this process uh fully um which i apologize for we
019try to figure out a lot in our first year here um but yeah i think if a book if something is pushed to this level i would appreciate it being once it's gone through a review process discussed at the board level so what we'll have to clarify as we kind of go through this is is that typically i would share that information board would let me know if they want to discuss it um is that is is that the process or you want am i hearing this board wants everyone to come to this level i think if it goes what i heard was if it gets to the district level right if it gets if it gets that far in the review process we should be discussing we should discuss it okay and we can
020talk about that during our self-evaluation too it might be a point that we want to review did the previously reviewed book get to the district level it did and was shared with you with the board in a weekly report i think that's that in in my experience that would be the time where the board said hey we want to have a conversation on the board level and that is where i apologize for not quite understanding the system so i mean perhaps and i know you said that process is over um i do have questions i i already and maybe we want to discuss this after we hear from the public i mean i already questioned and um who is listed on the reviews um i i just i yeah i i think that this needs
021to be especially if it gets to the district level it should just automatically be transparent at the board level public discussion and i'm with you katie i misread it myself and so i guess i know you gave a pretty resounding no last week or last meeting i guess my question would be because sorry because just talking all right okay i'm sorry is this better we'll get all up in here for y'all is this working yeah is this better i'm sorry [Music] sure well i guess for our purposes my understanding from our prior meeting was that because we had missed as a board and again my my fault for not understanding this but in february when that uh review of that last book was done because we did not request a board discussion at this stage
022in july five months pence we're now not able to ask for a board level review correct yeah i would say that the the policy and the procedures that are established uh limit that for one year um and i i i would tell you after digging into this and having some conversation with legal yeah i think we do want to look at this but i don't want i don't want to do it in the midst of while we're going through this right i don't want people thinking we're looking to change something because of where we're at today so i i do believe we need to have a conversation as a board um and get some legal input into the you know as katie mentioned the process and and how that lays itself out i just would
023suggest we we get through kind of where we're at right now so to clarify you've converted with legal that because you know as newborn members we i would say i did not ask a specific question okay yeah so i guess my question then is or my request if it's okay to do this so sandra would be could we add this as a discussion item provided that our legal counsel agrees for a future meeting if the review gets to the district level i'm talking about the prior review that we missed or the prior review correct so the one done in february that we did not bring up as a discussion item because i think it would be a shame to wait another seven months when there are you know concerns well and i think along with
024that the greater issue here is i think we probably need to have a discussion item on how we create books for our library and how they're chosen and what parameters we have around what we consider sexually explicit material what our limitations are as a district so perhaps this is a bigger discussion that needs to i would like a better i i mean i think we have a little bit of a gray area here as to what i know um angela you brought up the policies that we already have in place and they seem to directly conflict with um the al the library bill of rights also so i think we have a greater discussion here that needs to happen over what is appropriate to have in our libraries yeah i think so too and you
025know i i obviously you know definitions are always key right and then you know what are our standards what what does the first amendment you know it protects your freedom of speech but it doesn't protect your freedom to defame somebody it doesn't protect pornography and it doesn't protect obscenity so you know i think that when you look at you know what we are what types of materials we're curating um the definitions are are key and if you look at the history of the district and you know books that we had found did not fall within our first amendment rights i mean judy bloom books were removed um you know it was quite some time ago but they were removed because they provided content that was deemed to be either obscene or um you know beyond
026what is viewed as educational material that's relevant for children i mean it's kind of it's always a balancing act right like there's educational value versus the um you know potential for you know being seen as obscene or pornographic and that's what it looks like this latest review did as well they balanced it so i think that it's it's timely it's relevant for us to discuss those definitions and to discuss what that balance is in our district because i think that that's a question you know and and you know maybe that has changed since i don't know 15 years ago when certain books were removed but yeah i mean and you have professional educators that are experts in this that need to be a part of that process so who is this so melissa's i mean
027which of your administrators kind of oversees the library so ty gorman is uh that he oversees uh library media ty gorman and dr fuller's office okay i think i'd want to spend some time looking policy wise we have anything there that would have to come through policy so it's a bigger broader conversation for sure okay so maybe you can get back to us and let us do another comment on that leo yes please so i do think it's valid that these policies are in place that our educators and our librarians are making these decisions as a board it's our job to maybe understand it better but i don't think it it's the board's view that counts like if i like a book or don't like a book i think we have we have experts to
028look at books and evaluate them and see what's what's proper for our students and for our diverse students and to include all of our students and and have things that that are helpful for all of our students and represent the underrepresented and the students that need extra support in these in these books and in our libraries but i think that we can have a very diverse and inclusive library that doesn't have sexually explicit content and i would actually along that line i also agree with you julia but i and this is a greater conversation i have personally and maybe this is me i and i'm not meaning this to be offensive i have a problem that's some the people some of the people involved in the book review process are all the people also the
029people in charge of putting the books in the library [Applause] so we don't have this conversation agenda can we agree that we would move it to a future agenda item um when dr hunt sees that it's feasible yeah that sounds good i mean there's a couple things happening one is we're looking at a specific book we need that process to play itself out correct the second thing is we need to look at the process and i i know that people on you know both sides and in the middle want to make sure that we have a fair process and i think we have to defer to the superintendent to kind of give him time even just being here a year to really dig in and didn't realize we were quite going to have um you
030know this kind of a an explosion you know this early in his tenure but we would give him some time to kind of look at the process look at the policies we're not here tonight to talk about any one book that's not on the agenda and um you know nobody's gonna censor books or or put books back on the shelf right now so the process is in place and i think we have to let the process play out it may not be fast enough for many people and you know i apologize for that but we want to have a fair process and that's what's happening now and i think let's let's let the process play out and then we can at least have a discussion we don't like the process we like the process depending
031on it doesn't matter how they end up with this book is is the process fair or not and then move on from there so so we're not going to have this discussion tonight though i just want to be clear so we want to have a review um we want to have a future discussion on the book review process itself i think that's probably most appropriate after we've gone through the process for this particular book hearing what you had to say dr we don't want to come across as reviewing it mid-stream of this particular book being reviewed no i guess is that okay you know i guess my perspective is just to not further the delay you know if i heard if i recall i think i heard that because of uh administrative leaves and and
032just summer schedules this won't be completed until september i'm not sure that we can wait until september to review the process i don't underst i i think we can review the process but keep the same process for a book in question does that make sense meaning we don't change the process mid-stream but we still review it so that in anticipation of that of its completion we're right at the ground running with how we just just to be clear to do this right it's not just read it and come here and say this is what it says i mean there's national best practice there's uh you know our own staff that would have to be involved in that conversation this isn't just a i can turn this around in a week this is going to take
033some time so just just be aware if you want it done right and done well it's going to take some time and you know a lot of these decisions are where where do we want to prioritize and where do we want to spend the time the board is telling me they want to look at this i'm i'll propose a time frame that's reasonable for our staff to get the information together and bring it back to you for a conversation so can you also include in that how much time it's going to take because we do have a lot of priorities that that we've agreed to address this year as well yeah and i would i would say that you know education of our children is still our number one job here which is you know
034we had a presentation last week or whatever we met last about our test scores you know school is starting we really need to focus on education as our number one priority i'm not saying that this is not incredibly important as well but um you know we are a school district to educate children so i i really don't want to i i don't want this to fall off of the radar but i also don't want to prioritize this as school is starting that we need to re-review the book review process and have a new system in place by the start of school i feel like the the process has started the books have been taken to to be reviewed etc and that that process is ongoing so that's i agree so much work to be done
035and i really think that making sure that our kids get a quality top-notch education is at least from my perspective the number one job of the board of education so thank you thank you all right i would agree and then just add student safety right student and staff safety okay all right we are going to move to public comment is a board value your thoughts and opinions and in accordance with our board policy we ask you to state your name and either your attendance area or your relationship to the district before beginning your comments we're going to limit your comments this evening to two minutes because we've got more than 20 speakers we're going to ensure that all voices are respected and heard in accordance with our board equity statement that states that we recognize
036embrace and protect the identities abilities and voices of our diverse school community and for our school policy the school district expects mutual respect civility and orderly conduct among all people on school property we are commit to addressing the issues and not attacking people and we ask the community to do the same i ask you please please to be kind if the crowd is too disruptive i will be calling a break in which the board will leave through this door and we're committed to the open meetings act and not violating it so please let's not be disruptive and let's not delay the meeting if someone else has represented your views please do not feel the need to replete their comments instead consider standing to show your support i've seen a lot of signs that are brought
037in here i've been asked also to keep the signs below your head so we're not blocking the view of everybody in the room we ask that these actions do not delay or impede the public comment or the work of the board as a reminder public comment is not a conversation and it does not necessarily affect the views of the board if any comments require require further attention we will ask dr hunt to follow up and report back to the board my role tonight is to lead us through this meeting and per our board protocols okay please be attentive and listen for your name to be called i'm going to call up because we've got so many i'm going to call up two at a time so that we can try to get through this quickly
038rude person in back holding her sign up we are filming this for the rest of the community not everybody is here they want to see our meeting they want to hear what you have to say the signs are blocking and we've gotten many complaints about the signs blocking i understand people feel very strongly about this but please keep them at your face value at your face level up here you're blocking people's views and your community wants to be part of this touch just because they're not here so please be fair okay let us begin um as per our um past practices i'm going to allow kevin morrison our county cook county commissioner to come forward first that's or whatever whatever you're comfortable with and we do have a timer here to remind you of your
039time that's the microphone yeah very good good afternoon everyone uh i'm kevin morrison i am county commissioner of the 15th district which includes all of barrington township first i would like to thank the district 220 school board members who have a thankless yet critical role for our community i'm coming to speak tonight as the first ever and currently only lgbtq county commissioner i was once that queer kid in school that desperately wanted to not have to hide who i was out of fear of rejection bullying or violence despite living in that closet i experienced all of that at previous meetings and tonight that this is not just about one book this is not just about affirming sex education the words we're hearing are not different than what we're seeing in other parts of the country
040with anti-lgbtq legislation that's being pursued um and we know that this uh language is dangerous it causes violence so i'm here today because there are queer kids within 220. that we saw just last year a trans student on school property shot with a pellet gun that is unacceptable action do i get my time back well i would like to speak to the lgbt youth that are listening today you are perfect who you are you are loved for exactly who you are you deserve to feel represented and seen in the books you read and the history you learn and there are so many people here to support you i'm so sorry that you have to endure listening to enormously harmful words shared by some of the adults in our community last year alone 45 of lgbtq
041youth seriously considered suicide of lgbtq youth seriously considered suicide having curriculum that is affirming to the queer students that attend your schools is critical they deserve to be seen and we deserve to support that thank you kevin [Applause] thank you kevin i allowed him a few extra seconds because he was interrupted let's please try to be respectful and not interrupt next up is jenna shields and then tara nielsen hi my name is jenna shields i'm a parent of a barrington 222 children first i want to thank dr hunt for not adopting 8 18. thank you so much for listening to common sense parents and the community i'm here to alert at the board if you don't already know that a petition has been circulated throughout our barrington community it's posted on the new independent www
042dot district family forum website if you don't follow social media to date the rapidly growing petition has more than 1300 signatures from concerned citizens family and taxpayers the petition highlights there are two significant matters that we were wishing to resolve one thanks to dr hunt has been resolved with sb 818 the second was the need to filter obscene and pornographic content across all media and resources so the media that content has been promoted by the teachers and is available to our students the idea of parents having to filter for this or routinely opt out is unacceptable while many policies exist to address obscene or pornographic content the school library policy still needs to be updated we ask that an independent task force that includes parent representation be developed a rating system similar to movies and
043tv as well as a way to report inappropriate content we also need training on how to handle these student inquiries about adult content and conversations referring to students referring to the parents and guardians so thank you very much again dr hunt and thank you after tara will be shannon finest thank you for allowing me to speak my name is tara nielsen and i am a concerned parent i came here tonight to state my opposition to using any part of the national sex education standards in the curriculum here at barrington school district 220. i want to begin by looking at where these standards came from they were written by a non-profit advocacy group known as future of sex education initiative in partnership with advocates for youth answer and psychists with contributions from gender spectrum human rights
044campaign planned parenthood and a number of other extreme advocacy groups these are not education standards written by academics but rather ideologies advocated by these groups to push an agenda we must push back on this agenda it's harmful to the health and safety of our children they tell our children they can be whatever gender they choose they advocate for allowing gender affirming therapies puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without parents knowledge they want us to believe children are sexual at birth and begin experiencing sexual pleasure at a very young age they are extreme at activists who have made their way into mainstream education it's not for me to judge adults who choose to live alternative lifestyles they have the god-given free will to make their own choices in life but i take exception when i when they
045think it's okay to push these lifestyles on our young children their ideologies have no place in our public schools they do irreparable damage to our children these new standards are not appropriate how is it age appropriate to teach children in grades three through five all about romantic and sexual feelings and masturbation how is the age appropriate to require sixth or eighth graders to define vagina anal and oral sex no part of these standards are acceptable we're pleading with you to review the curriculum that's currently being used here at barrington schools and leave it at that thank you very much after shannon will be susan jensen hi my name is shannon fine ice next year will be my 21st year teaching physics at barrington high school i also live in the district and have two children
046attending grove next year they will be in first and third grade i'm here today to stand up for the opportunity for our children to have a choice in the books they can check out at the school library i understand completely that there are books in the library that offend us it is said that a good library has a book that could offend any everyone censoring award-winning books because some people do not agree with the content is a slippery slope not everyone has the same religion morals and values choosing to censor ban and remove books that represent the trials of teen lgbtq community leads to further ignorance of a community that already feels misunderstood and marginalized that ignorance leads to hurt feelings further marginalization and bullying describing this as dangerous is not too strong lgbtq students
047are the highest risk group for suicide the trevor project found that 52 percent of lgbtq youth who were enrolled in middle school or high school reported being bullied either in person or electronically and those who did have three times greater odds of attempting suicide all students should be able to see themselves represented in our schools we need to include and accept all students and give all students a chance to be fully welcomed into our classroom and community the board policy manual states in section 610 that the district objectives are to foster student self-discovery self-awareness and self-discipline develop students awareness of appreciation for cultural diversity the district district equity website states barrington is focused on creating and maintaining an environment of diversity inclusion and respect in our school system and in all aspects of our school
048community i love my students that is why i teach i love my own children i love the barrington school district which is why i chose to spend my career here and bring my family here to participate in it i'm not advocating to force any student to read any book they are not comfortable with i'm advocating for the right for my children to have access to books they may eventually want to seek out we should not be spending our time trying to censor ban or erase the experiences of an already vulnerable population we should instead direct our precious time to supporting the education thank you susan and after susan will be emily young susan yeah after you will be emily young thank you i'm a barrington area resident barrington high school alumni my daughter is part
049of the queer community and has had suicidal thoughts and has been hospitalized for those thoughts my name is susan jensen thank you um i'm thankful to have a chance to speak tonight i was very sorry to see that a group of parents is working very hard to ban the book genderqueer parents have the right to guide their children's reading but parents should not be making decisions for other parents children specifically a small group of parents should not dictate what books other people's children are allowed to read books are tools for understanding complex issues limiting young people's access to books does not protect them from like life's complex and challenging issues even if they're not in the library many books can be found for free online as well as through apps at the public library so
050kids will find them whether you ban them or not young people deserve to see themselves reflected in libraries books reading a book does not make one straight gay bisexual transgender or non-binary we should be very careful not to sexualize any person because of their sexuality or gender thinking that the lgbtqia equals just sex or porn is so damaging to young members of the community of our community everyone deserves a healthy relationship with their body their self and their sexuality there can be elements of the lgbtqia culture that is hypersexualized but the same can be said of heterosexual culture take cheerleading or volleyball volleyball uniforms or even our football uniforms we don't seem to mind those in those cases as well as books in the library of heterosexual nature all kids want to express themselves which
051is normal acceptance matters it's been proven to save lives many in the lgbtqia community do not have allies and reading about similar people can help them know they are normal they exist they are human beings removing and banning books from libraries is a slippery slope to censorship and the erosion of our country's commitment to freedom of expression if one book is banned what's to stop the next and the next thank you very much [Applause] hi everyone my name is emily young and i am a resident in town i'm also a trustee on the village board of barrington i care deeply about our community especially the young people who call our town home as was mentioned earlier this evening education is of the utmost importance when we're planning the education of our children um in our
052town and that extends to quality sex and relationships education at school this education protects children against abuse and harassment helps them develop healthy relationship skills and improves their social and emotional learning media literacy and academic performance for a long time in america sex education has failed students by denying them an education on important topics like stds consent and healthy sexual relationships now we have an opportunity to move forward and i hope that we will continue consider that instead of moving backwards now i know that we're talking about books and it's been said that we're not considering any book in particular but i've noticed a lot of the books that have come up have been queer specific books and i think that's important to keep in mind because the books that are being discussed deal with
053questions of sexual identity but there are students in our community who are asking these questions and so while you're saying these might be mature topics that's the reality of a lot of teenagers today they're asking these questions and they're looking to resources for answers as a public school barrington district 220 has a responsibility to our lgbtq youth to provide library resources that support their health and well-being books like these that are being discussed can be a lifeline to queer youth who often have to look outside their home for representation and information teenagers need represent representative stories and sex education that matters getting rid of either would be a disservice to future generations and to our community as a whole thank you emily i just want to say i apologize if i didn't read all the
054names so if you want to put you know remind me you're a trustee on the comments and i'll make sure you get it first as i would any other representative okay so good evening hi i'm sylvia toman i'm reading this email on behalf of ashley kumar who has two kids at station and one at roslyn because she couldn't be here tonight we moved here from elgin nine years ago for better schools and always heard nice things about barrington we have been dealing with some issues for a while now things have changed in the worst kind of way i'm seriously considering homeschooling and asking my aunt to come in and help she's a retired teacher first of all my middle school son has a kid that repeatedly masturbates in the classroom the teacher has removed him
055from the class and had discussions in the hallway several times i've emailed the teacher with my concerns why oh why is this happening my son is more than distracted by it and i say that politely other kids notice it too does this happen a lot why are they doing this unfortunately that's not all my daughter again a middle schooler had two things happen to her she was in the girls bathroom stall going to the bathroom and two stalls over she heard noises sounded like boys she said so she finished up and started to head to the sink when her friend walked in and went towards that stall the door was now open she saw two boys having oral sex in the stall by now i'm not only mortified but i'm angry why is this happening
056and why isn't anyone doing anything about it i've talked to the principal teachers and other parents and yet i get vague responses i'm sick of it it's affecting my kids in a negative way i'm having to explain things in the nicest way possible i want to protect my kids from this what can we do as parents i'm contacting you because i see you and other moms are working hard to stop this over sexualization of kids in our school district oh and the other thing that happened she saw the video that was sent around of the two middle schoolers doing oral sex on each other why would anyone do that i can't undo what she saw it's horrible my husband and i keep saying why i feel like the reason thank you tom hadley after tom
057will be rebecca riley i would just stand over here if it's all right they stand that's fine speak loudly try to stay close to the microphone here it will pick you up tom hamlet my name i'm a is uh educator of about 50 years i've spent most of my life talking with adolescents listening to adolescents coaching them the last 25 years i was a clinical counselor with them and i i couldn't help but as i listened here hear all these problems and um but i never heard the word drugs that's a massive problem and whatever you can do as a school system you have prevention programs for that because a lot of these behaviors are poor impulse control that comes from drug involvement a lot of people do not know that the adolescent brain somewhere
058sixth seventh eighth grade actually stops growing and they call it pruning you see it actually stops and parts of the brain are now used for other things in that interval there is no cerebral cortex work going through the brain processing emotions anything from the back of the brain instinctual stuff all so many of these problems we hear all the time and as this government normalized marijuana that was a bad move that was a very bad move so i would encourage the board to continue prevention program works i would continue and maybe the best thing i can offer you is get a book please wrap up i will the best book you can buy to help me understand is adolescent psyche thank you tom thank you thank you rebecca o'reilly i'd ask you to keep the
059clapping to minimum so people can hear me rebecca riley i called you up i thought i saw her here there she is after rebecca will be karen savard i'm also reading a letter tonight from another parent who couldn't attend tonight her name is amanda rawson she has one child at station when our middle school daughter saw the video posted of the two boys performing oral sex on one another in the bathroom at school the video that went viral among students and sparked what we thought would be public outrage why again is this happening in our schools fast forward a month later my daughter also witnessed another student who frequently masturbated in the classroom again why is this happening in our schools what is going on our daughter was a straight a student with many friends
060and social activities when her moods changed and her grades started slipping we knew something was very wrong as she became more withdrawn we realized we had to get help after talking with a school counselor and her pediatrician we got a referral for her to see a clinical psychologist after weeks of therapy our daughter unpacked her feelings results worse than we ever expected in short the doctor told us our daughter had thoughts of suicide and felt isolated due to the growing new trend of gender identity she wanted to feel accepted by everyone but she could not cope with the pressures of hearing about girls experimenting making out with other girls and boys performing oral sex on each other in school bathrooms it was too traumatizing and confusing for her the doctor explained to us she's a
061great kid our family values and christian beliefs don't align with this kids don't regulate these experience these experiences the way adults do our pediatrician told us they can't cope so they shut down to be brief our daughter is still in therapy she may never fully recover from the mental trauma what has occurred at school is not only negligible but criminal cultivating this assault on our children is completely kids being exposed to porn and being overtly sexualized at such a young age has many risks and thank you karen karen saber okay all right we'll move on uh corey fittus [Applause] i'll give you another minute but i really don't have to do that and we've got like 30 more people to go actually i don't have to do that please take one more minute we need
062to create we don't need to create another unfinished confused over-sexualized kid in this community one is way too many i think we all saw what happened in highland park and i think we all have seen a lot of things i'm so sorry thank you for being here yes so everyone you know what these books are about you've seen them they're way too graphic for kids at a young age you can ask any clinical psychologist kids aren't supposed to be seeing this how many in this room could stand up right now and tell me you don't want your kids to see this in school how many people in this room sign this petition what's the number now over 300 and growing and this petition is about how many days two or three days three days i
063don't think there's any argument here this community doesn't want to see this it's overwhelming it's harmful to kids it's pornography it's obscene and a lot of kids are getting hurt by this kid almost committed suicide not because he was trying to figure out if he was gay or not or wanted to be trans or wanted to be transgender the kid almost committed suicide because of peer pressure and couldn't cope thank you rebecca thank you it's not a choice corey sorry fittest how you behaved as a choice yes it is thank you detroit the floor is that party fittest please do not start this timer yet thank you after corey will be laura dominic thank you thank you um first of all i just wanted to say as a parent of three children who have either
064graduated or continued to be in 220 i come with you with these remarks um i appreciate the teachers librarians uh for their professional qualifications and how they utilize them to choose these books uh these are not regular people off the street who are deciding these titles they're award-winning books they're off lincoln's list these are generally agreed to be award-winning books these are people's experiences and we need to see those in barrington they are in barrington people just need to open their eyes to them if you have if parents have issues with some of these titles i would suggest that this is a parental issue and for values that the parents should be talking to their kids about about whether they should be taking those books out or not and not removing those choices for everybody's
065children in coming here tonight i spoke with my three children about the titles in question that were indicated on this petition that they're mentioning and my 20 year old son said he hadn't heard of them my daughter also hadn't heard of them my son suggested that students who did need to look at these books or were seeking those out would find something in them that they that they could appreciate and see themselves in there is value in them um that also as a navigator i find sometimes that i read a book and i don't enjoy the book i simply put the book down there is nothing in barrington requiring these books be taken out by students i ask them about library policies they have choices on what materials that they take out it's not assigned
066so if you feel a certain way your children don't take out the book but don't remove the choice for the rest of us and i think that you're just putting your head in your scent in the sand if you think that these issues don't affect barrington [Applause] i'm going to ask that everybody either speaker is speaking or we will call a break laura dominic after laura is going to be melody angelos we need to make sure the see the speaker feels safe and can be heard thank you um my name is lord dominiak i have a child who's going into the sixth grade um i've never spoken in a meeting before um i tend to keep to myself i'm not one into drama but i watched the last board meeting and i have to say
067that that i found it really alarming and i want the board to know that that that although that there's a very um vocal group of parents who who believe very fervently about their thoughts that there's also a very a large majority i believe of parents in the district who don't necessarily share the same views but i think those views might not be heard as loudly for a number of reasons number one i think it's easier just to kind of be quiet especially if you're somebody like me who doesn't like to speak out very much in public because of the nature of what we're talking about here i think there's a lot of parents who are afraid that if they speak out and say no i want a book like genderqueer in our libraries that they're
068going to be labeled as a pedophile or somebody who's promoting pornography um but when i when i listened to this i remember very clearly a day i used to be a school teacher and i was teaching in germany and then one of my favorite memorials is in the middle of a boxburg in berlin and it's this empty library that you walk up you don't even see it and then there's this library with all white bookies with no books in them whatsoever but there's a door leading to it and you kind of want to go in there and put books back in the shelves like they're supposed to be but you can't because you can't go back in history right next to that there is a plaque with a quote from somebody um she wrote it
069down what is it what is his name heinrich um heineken he wrote in 1822 um and his quote is part of a play says this was just the beginning where they start to burn or in this case banned books they will in the end burn people too my i have so much more i want to say and if somebody else wants him is going to be speaking let me know [Applause] all right i have to ask that you allow me to call the names so we can proceed melody angelos and then monica casey yes i'm melody angelos i've lived to bearington for 36 years i've put three children through district 220 and i have six grandchildren in district 220 one is a sixth grader going to station in the fall i can't believe that a
070teacher would recommend a book with that kind of material in it to a sixth grader it's not appropriate it's not right besides that the kids lost a year and a half of education during covet and i wrote to every board member here i think you guys need to be focusing on getting that education back to these kids and finding a way to help them catch up because they lost that they did and i don't know if you realize there's a lot of grandparents in this district that would be willing to come in and help at the schools if they were asked and i think that's research resource you're not using but the the sixth grade stuff it's not age-appropriate and it really shouldn't be there that's all i have to say thank you melody monica
071casey after monica's margozata robo hi excuse me i'm monica casey i've been in the district for over 17 years have three children that went through the district and our youngest is a junior i want to thank dr hunt for his um affirmation that the main priority here at district 220 is education and excellence and leadership and having a having um the curriculum based on mutual respect of all all people affirming that education the core the core education is is our key to making successful children in their future regardless of the past they take and i appreciate you considering our voices um over the last couple weeks with our letters i wanted to be clear that our position with a lot of the people here and the petition that was together had nothing to do with
072the elimination of sex education in our schools it had nothing to do with banning books or discrimination or shaming or having any phobia or hate toward any type of group it was about preserving integrity and having age-appropriate content in our schools for your information the sv 818 standards and the opting out of all the schools right now 446 have opted out and only 18 have opted in in illinois that's over 50 percent have opted out so i want to congratulate joining them so introducing introducing these sexual explicit topics among others at these early ages can alienate children have them lose trust not feel safe and can definitely marginalize their ability to learn these policies can be manipulative create excessive pressure and anxiety for children and teachers alike and they place instructors in administration in a
073state of predilection that's borderline predatory a new curriculum is a huge and unnecessary financial burden for the district as well it's absolutely necessary to allocate the resources all right support short files thank you and focus on what we've lost and so that they can make up for less time thank you after marco's daughter is magdalena martes magdalena martinez you're up next good afternoon mother of three in the district fourth one may be in a year let's see your name is mogojara um first kind of wanted to contradict the previous speaker that said that everything about sexual education is all great i mean let's stick to healthhead anatomy that's what they need to know american academy of pediatrics this is one of the country's leading authority on pediatric care this is just one of many credible
074sources you might want to research on porn exposure versus kids mental health quote sexual predators have purposefully exposed young children to pornography for the purpose of grooming children for sexual exploitation pornography exposure at these young ages often results in anxiety for the child children also report feeling of disgust shock embarrassment anger fear and sadness after viewing pornography these children can suffer all of the symptoms of anxiety and depression they may become obsessed with acting out adult sexual acts that they have seen and this can be very disruptive and disturbing to the child's peers who witness or are victimized by this behavior children under 12 years old who have viewed pornography are statistically more likely to sexually assault their peers in some children exposed to pornographic material are at risk for a broad range of maladaptive
075behavior and psychopathology so a copy of this along with transgender's connection with pornography it's undeniable um was handed out to you so i suggest this for a midnight reading it's it's a very touching one and highland park shooter the mother was exposing herself to police she was posting her note pictures all over just you know barely covered this was another over sexualized child we've seen the results anger the kid pretty much did what he did do we feel sorry yes of course we feel sorry but it's too late so we need to prevent this we can't have a next generation of shooters and look at what's happening there's one after another one after another granted internet is an option but we need to make sure those books are better magdalena after magdalena will be anastasia
076andrews hello everyone i'm a new face i'm as i am moved in and considering whether my children should go to the school um please state your name for it sure magdalena memphis you announced me sorry about that magdalena i'm a new resident new taxpayer to the district um my children however i was considering on the movement of parents and the community involvement by all of you by all of the taxpayers friends family etc and this is the location that we've chosen for our children however i am very concerned um to re-enroll my kids for after homeschool environment for the last year into the community setting you are dr hunt you are giving me a glimmer of hope by rejecting the sb 818 um however it it's still not a just final decision um i wanted
077to echo something sandra i'm learning everybody's name that you've said when you see something you say something the community is seeing things and is saying something and they're not provided a safe space they're being belittled they're being shamed their children are being shamed me pulling my children from school is also targeting my kids so mr morrison you grew up to be a successful leader and speaker so clearly the school system didn't fail you allow my children the same opportunity to not be sexualized but focus on education [Applause] like others but that can happen outside of school create something within your means of leadership but leave the school for math for learning for learning of history there doesn't need to be anything else so please use the taxpayers money wisely not to go back and and
078find the one time somebody bullied you and you know what i don't see them maybe they failed at night but you've succeeded to use your platform to go back to the educational standards that you were offered because clearly they've provided you success so i hope that i will be given an opportunity to reinvolve my children once the school year starts thank you very much dr hunt okay after anastasia will be greg zinn hi my name is anastasia i can hear you honestly i met a resident of the district for 28 years and dr hunt thank you for the update on sb 818 i know that was something that was pending for quite some time and causing a lot of anxiety to a lot of parents in the district i'd like to respond to one thing
079we actually we are the majority and we do not appreciate the faculty that are choosing the porn books to be available and easily accessible to children so that needs to be said no matter what teacher former teacher current teacher who has children of a certain gender or any other mental illness that they might be suffering that has absolutely nothing to do with porn books in the library so we'd like to know what the exact procedure is for this book procurement who including names titles approved the books in our library what's the review process i know we heard a little bit about that but it's not very clear especially those of us that are paying attention right now uh the verification process the checks and balances uh we're kind of tired of hearing foia it's not
080our job to review every single book in the library it's your job to make sure that you don't get into the library this district is 100 responsible for those books and you are liable and you're liable for your faculty's decisions so angela thank you for what you said last meeting um highlighting that steve and katie thank you for standing up to us and supply and defending us on the pornographic material in the minors and just one more thing i just want to point out jim hi how are you doing today uh jim mcgrath in divisible illinois he's a self-proclaimed expert on a right-wing extremists targeting high school and college such as turning point and young therapist foundation jim claims that he's a social justice okay we're not going to attack we are not i'm gonna
081have to ask you to stop thank you thank you very much mike i need to say thank you thank you we're i'm gonna remind everyone to not attack people i'm going to ask one more time that we not attack any people and we not delay the meeting any further are you greg's in i am i'm going to give my time to terry terry please say your name the district hello my name is relationship to the district please yes hello my name is terry yormark i'm president of south barrington thank you for all of your level-headed conversations and questions to begin this meeting it's appreciated look guys i don't want to be here i'm a father my number one job in life is to protect my children and that's why i'm reluctantly i was originally going
082to come up here and read from the fourth grader's book entitled lawn boy but that language and content isn't even appropriate for this that you see here today you cut the mic off just like the school board did in florida to father it was simply just reading the book passages instead let me try a more tactful route i love america i love our country you know what i like best about our country we're the most understanding and welcoming place on earth we are fully accepting of all religions colors beliefs personal decisions and so on we don't care what the heck you do behind closed doors you'd be hard-pressed to find any of these people that do you guys do you but here's where it becomes a problem when you force your ideas your beliefs your
083religion your practices on us that's why as a society we don't like that push a used car salesman we don't like to knock the door try to convince us to check the religion we don't like that telemarketer telling us we're trying to upsell us on anything we don't like him when we're pushed but you know why this room is filled you know what really pisses us off when you push your ideas and your beliefs on our kids that's where we draw this line of the same teacher a 10 year old boy about blow jobs from that lawn boy book go right ahead do it behind closed doors but don't you dare extend that freedom to feel like it's your responsibility or your right to teach that to my child [Applause] so we're going to move
084to the next speaker i understand but we do not have to do that we have we still have more than 20 speakers i'm the next speaker in life i understand i'm going to give you one minute like i gave the former person one more minute two minutes one more minute that's real fair thank you you know what i'm just gonna take a break if you if you're gonna extend longer than one minute one more minute and then that's it you know why our kids do you know why our kids are not being taught do you know why our kids are not being taught about what's going on in russia or the oil crisis or the bond markets or the stock market do you know why because their minds are not complex enough right now to
085understand that that's the same reason you can't be teaching about this crap because their minds are not fully developed i have a question for all of you when you were young what did you want you wanted kids to be kids you just wanted to be a kid well you know what these kids just want to be kids right now why don't you go back to when you were a kid and remember that let them be kids thank you chris yeager and then andy santos because everybody else did my name is andy spence from the last meeting june 21st i learned a lot i realized all the people i realized that all the people i reached out to had no idea what was going on zero um on under understanding what's going on today they were
086all in shock they said why would they want to do this the books are straight up pornography and they need to be removed no questions asked i keep hearing from other people here that they've been bullied there's issues growing up because of what route they wanted to take i have no problem with that i i don't want anybody to be bullied i love everyone equally i really do i have friends of all kind of race and like i said in my last speech i'm friends with everybody and i don't want anybody to be bullied i love everybody equally now there might be some that say these books are needed for my child as i heard today if that's the case you could go on amazon order the book take it behind doors read what you
087want to read read it at home i have no problem with that i don't need a book that my son could accidentally chuck it out and open it and be shocked it's just like turning the tv on on the wrong channel and you're traumatized to pull a book out and be traumatized if someone needs that book no problem order it yourself we don't need this in our school it's pornography you see what it shows a dick in another guy's hand sucking on it it sounds disgusting and horrible but that's what the book shows vagina slime i've never heard of such a thing if my son reads that he's gonna be shot i don't have a problem with anybody but that's not acceptable for my kids if anybody thinks this book is acceptable come get me
088outside explain to me why and i'll push for you guys but that is not right this has uh this has nothing to do with hate i promise you i don't hate anybody anybody that knows me i'm there for them or being homophobic i hear rumors out there that we're homophobic that's not true this is strictly has to do with we don't want our kids to have access to this or taught with these books also if any anybody any kid needs help because they're struggling with certain things you should reach out to our school district because we're supposedly one of the best districts and they will help you out personally i have reached out to our school to help with my kids and they did a great job just ask for help furthermore when we are
089talking about sex education it should start and stop strictly with reproduction and the male and female organs that's it is not to teach people how to perform sexual acts prior to introduction of this new way of teaching sex education had nothing to do with training people how to perform oral sex in a heterosexual environment now that now that it's bisexual or homosexual all of a sudden we are teaching people how to perform sexual acts and changing the way it's being taught from the productive system to actually sex acts now if you are a parent and need more for your child feel free to uh to teach them what they want thank you andy i want like two minutes because okay i think he's gonna get us two minutes okay can you please state your name
090chris yeager this has to be right you get you get the rest of the one minute pretty quickly right here if i feel that hold on do we love filming and taking pictures of people within this room okay i want my two minutes from him because i'm speaking this is this is for our district this is for the good it's not for the bad okay everybody else has followed the same the same he has two minutes i have two minutes you've already spoken for three sorry okay i have one more minute done no no he has one minute if you want to give it to me what is it like to yield my one minute back to him i i'm just trying to be consistent can you read just wait i'll hold it okay if
091i feel that i need to teach my child further than what i just said i would be the one who's going to be taking or talking to my kids with nobody else furthermore i am proud to see everyone that showed up for the last week i've been making personal phone calls and text messaging to everyone that i know and like i said almost all of them were clueless but they said this was unacceptable and we will come and support everyone and be there for our kids by applauding who came here to put up by applauding who came here to put a stop to this agenda [Applause] as you can see that would be a majority of the people of this school opt out of 18 acre or let's see as as you can see the
092majority of is against what we are trying to push these push please put this to an end 54 of the schools have opt out 18 are on hold thank you both very much next up is christy johnson and then sofia eamonn okay christy thank you sophia amen and then gina williams hi my name is sophia emen i am a mother of six i have children at countryside prairie and barrington high school i just wanted to state that i actually appreciate having some members of the lgbtq community here i understand the difficulties and challenges that face these youth i also do appreciate the previous comments made by shannon and emily and i agree with a lot of what they said our schools need to be focused on education the issue for me is that the content
093in some of these books is in question are way too sexually explicit reading about directives on how to give a blow job and a hand job does not need to be in school libraries pictures of how to give blow jobs and hand jobs should not be in our school library having a brother and sister talking about fingering themselves tasting her vagina slime is highly inappropriate and makes me very uncomfortable this is incestuous behavior and it should not be discussed in a book that's available at a school library i'm horrified i can't believe anyone would think that this is inclusive versus pornographic content why can't there be queer books or lgbtq representative books that don't have explicit sexual content there's so much more involved in a healthy relationship other than having sex giving hand jobs getting
094this is not what a gay relationship is about it's not just about sex and i think you guys would agree with me it's not about having a brother and sister fingering themselves like this is outrageous i can't even believe that this wouldn't be pulled immediately and not even reviewed if my six kids ever saw this content i would be mortified absolutely mortified this is completely like x-rated i don't even see this in movies in r-rated movies and we're having this in our school i just really want everything to be focused on education i want kids to feel included and not excluded and not bullied and not want to commit suicide but this isn't the answer showing them how to do these acts in fourth grade talking about a fourth grader giving is completely irrelevant and
095not acceptable thank you do you know william and jessica spence after gina williams hi good evening i'm gina williams i have three kids in the district um elementary school is roslyn road um i just oh is that better um i just wanted to say regarding all of the discussion regarding the the book content this is not about i know this has been said many times but i feel like it can't be said enough this is not about the fact that it is lgbtqia content there are hundreds of books in the district that are wonderful for feelings of inclusion and and kids wanting to identify with someone who's like them this is about porn it's about porn it's it's inappropriate graphics in a book that is accessible with a middle school sign-on to the to the
096barrington high school online library i checked on my own kids ipad that means someone in sixth grade could get the ebook so i just want to clarify that this isn't about any kind of hate if there was if there was some other content heterosexual content we would be just as outraged it's just what's there and it shouldn't be there there's public libraries for that we're talking about school libraries we're asking you to please protect our children protect their innocence please keep this out of the school libraries thank you thank you jessica and after jessica is marcie mcclary hi there my name is jessica spensos i am a mom of three two in the district and um first of all i'd like to thank dr hunt for your recommendation for sb 818 as a mother as
097a teacher i'm very pleased with your recommendation i'd like to take a moment to read some of the comments left on the petition that was put together by 300 concerned citizens and i'm not going to name these people because they're all named you can see it's public record i'll just give you some quotes of what other people are feeling people that are not here today first and foremost porn and obscene graphic materials do not belong in our schools children must have protection from this destruction parents have rights i am protecting childhood we must protect the innocence of children explicit content has no place in our schools pornographic materials can have a great mental impact on our innocent children say no we can't allow this exposure to our kids they are too precious age-appropriate material should
098always be the main priority children and adolescents should live in an environment free from pornography especially in their school common sense explicit and obscene material is not appropriate for children and has no place in schools it's time to stand up for our kids explicit material of any kind or persuasion has no place in schools i can't even believe this is debatable schools should never provide minors with access to pornographic materials protect childhood and innocence kids get such a small window of time to be innocent the schools do not need to expose them to this obscene sexual notions and inappropriate ideas it's wrong it's inappropriate we must protect our babies get this poison out of our schools content in schools needs to be age-appropriate and district 220 should maintain local control for sex education i'm signing
099this because it is time for district 220 to start thinking of our children's best interests and not cave to propaganda anymore thank you thank you hello i'm marcia mcclary thank you so much for hearing our comments and thank you for the response on sb 818 that's great news i it's great um so i just wanted to say again um just to reiterate what others said this isn't a place and a conversation about discriminating against any group of people whatsoever it's really about the content we're showing that's age-appropriate or not um just like you go and see an r-rated movie you're going to probably view part of it first or look at the review before you take your teenager to that it's the same thing we want to do with the books district already has several
100policies and angela mentioned one of them at the last meeting i found several more one of them is about internet safety it says that devices shall include filtering devices while on district network prevents minors to depictions that are obscene pornographic or harmful or inappropriate to students we also have one that talks about publications in school and it talks about um uh school-sponsored communication so comply with ethics and rules of responsible journalism texts that is libaceous obscene vulgar lewd and invades privacy of others is not you know basically is not allowed i'm summarizing um and you know and there's another sighting in that same policy similarly um so this is i mean in summary we are this is not a new concept about content in schools i know this has been contemplated by the district many
101times and we're just asking that it gets extended into the library and throughout as like a core belief of the the process that we don't have adult contact being exposed to our children and that's something that the parents make the decision on um the other thing i wanted to say is just that um you know we we see uh the schools of the trusted place and even though these kids are going to come across this stuff on youtube you're right but that's kind of in the corner they're hiding from their parents they're going to come across it sure they are you're absolutely right but the school's a trusted place and we expect that the morals and the ethics at school are different than them coming across something random on youtube thank you hello i'm richard
102hofer i have two kids in 220. uh do you know first off i i want to before i read this you know most of these parents we don't have a problem with gays like i support the gays we're friends with gays i work with gay people i'm friendly with them they're part of our family so we don't have a problem with the gays we have a problem with pornography being shown and there's definitely a distinctive difference and i don't want these to be blurred those lines because i don't think if this was a book about gays that we would have any problem with that the united nations convention defines a child as a human being below the age of 18. they are not they're classified as unable to make serious decisions and sex and sexuality
103is a serious decision with many consequences under illinois law we cannot consent under sex under 17. department of justice child pornography is a form of child sexual exploitation federal law defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexual explicit content involving a minor the supreme court has ruled that transmitting obscenity and child pornography whether via the internet or other means is illegal under federal law for both adults and juveniles the supreme court case of reno versus aclu obscenity is not protected under the first amendment right of free speech i'll repeat that obscenity is not protected under the first amendment right of free speech and is a violation of federal obscenity laws under criminal offenses that law passed in 1996 makes it a crime punishable by two years in jail and 250 thousand dollar fine for
104anybody engaging in speech that is indecent or offensive if the speech could be viewed by a minor now i understand you guys are we're we're an involvement of people that are trying to get good batting average decisions and we have to be considerate of the gays we have to consider them because they are part of our community but we have to make decisions that are good for the mental well-being of our children just look at our society today and anxiety and depression is unacceptably off the charts and it's because of our decisions [Applause] welcome jordan hello everybody my name is jordan i'm a barrington alum and i graduated in 2018. i currently have two younger brothers in high school i believe these books should not be in barrington 220 school libraries because they are not
105necessity to they are not necessary to the curriculum therefore our schools are not the place to include these for those who feel they need it barrington public library is a fantastic place to obtain these reading resources as stated in barrington district 220's code of conduct chapter 7.27 clause 3 they note that quote students are prohibited from accessing at school any publication that is socially inappropriate or inappropriate due to maturity levels of the students including but not limited to material that is obscene pornographic or persuasively lewd or vulgar contains indecent or vulgar language or sexting as defined by school board policy and student handbook end quote within this list of four books all available within barrington schools lawn boy genderqueer this book is gay and fighting words readers are exposed to a 10 year old having
106sex with an adult as well as giving and receiving oral sex explicit images of more than one individual engaging in sexual experimentation and activity sex combinations between different individuals described in a great level of detail how to build a profile for and join sex apps and detailed descriptions of sexual assault referencing back to the clause in the code of conduct the students would be accessing reading materials that violate the specifications within the clause this argument is not about who is involved or described it is about what acts are being described and shown and that is porn what precedent does this set for future reading materials allowing these books can only open the gateway for more and more pornographic books thank you so much and then carrie olsen deanna hines and perry olsen deanna hines and
107carrie olsen then jennifer parisi anyone why don't you go ahead um good evening my name is deanna hines and for five years of my career i worked at a local community crisis center and presented in some of the schools in the district i find it ironic that those who screech about free speech are so quick to shout down others and block cameras who disagree with them if this book offends you i suggest you talk to your own children and ignore it the same way you ignore homelessness and suicide rates in lgbtq youth gun violence hate crimes racism privilege and sexual abuse with an organized religion thank you thank you [Applause] my name is cassie olson can we hear this my name is cassie olson i'm a roslyn mom and third generation barrington resident thank you
108for the opt out to sb818 that is wonderful news i have submarine remaining sex ed concerns last month i spoke about district 220 making the move to teach fifth grade sex ed in a co-ed setting i was among a group of parents that raised concerns to our principal and the director of elementary curriculum about this change i do not believe 10 and 11 year olds should have to watch a video featuring featuring an animated erection in a co-ed group the response that the principal and director curriculum both gave me is that a lurie's children's rep consulted with the district and said elementary children should be taught sex out in a coed setting larry children's was the buzzword that was supposed to make us stop asking questions if a representative from a medical institution said very
109young children should discuss the awkwardness of their changing bodies in a coed group parents were just supposed to accept this change some of us don't just accept questionable policy because we're told that the experts have spoken at the last board meeting and in my email to the board last month i asked you all what hard facts or specific data this laurier's rep provided to show that it is beneficial to the majority of elementary age students to be taught sex ed in a mixed classroom another community member sent a foia request to see the presentation that led to these changes 220 has not produced the presentation but they did provide the name of our rep from luries do you suppose laurie sends doctors or psychologists out to discuss medical issues and data with our district well
110think again per 220's response to a foia request the lurie's presentation josephine kearns was a lurie's gender consultant who spoke to the district 220. her resume shows a work history including roles as a high school algebra teacher a theatrical production manager and a gender consultant josephine's instagram proclaims they are a theater artist gender consultant activist and in another post josephine claims to be a radical whatever josephine kearns does in their private life is none of my concern or business i reiterate that point her private life is none of my business or concern when our district makes policy for our elementary age children based on the recommendation of self-professed radicals with no medical training that is where 220 and luries loses my trust sb 818 news is very encouraging let's continue in the right direction and
111protect our children's [Applause] innocence jennifer yes uh my name is jennifer parisi my husband and i moved into barrington in 1985. we specifically chose barrington for the highly rated school district we were well aware of the reputation of barrington schools we have a very large family here many relatives have attended barrington schools from k through high school including our own we had four children and they all went k through 12 in the barrington schools we now have three grandchildren in the system and we expect that they will receive the same education the education should include reading writing math history science geogra geography at the appropriate age health education may address changes that happen to their bodies and various types of reproduction including humans that should be discussed in biology my 11 year old grandchild will
112begin middle school this fall to my understanding he will be able to log onto his ipad and read the book genderqueer this ipad book may be written in a thoughtful manner that explains what it's like to realize that you are different but it includes x-rated pornographic pornography imagery that no minor should be exposed to most adults would prefer not to see it either having respect for others can be talked to eleven-year-olds without the sexual aspect respecting every person should be the lesson treat everyone fairly and equally children should learn that but eleven-year-old children should not be learning about alternative sexual lifestyles to be clear whatever two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is their business and none of my concern but educating minor children about such topics is unacceptable unacceptable to
113me and most of the parents here tonight it is the responsibility and duty of parents to determine the appropriate aid for their own children to be exposed to mature topics it is not in the purview of the school district nor the state of illinois fifth grade students have been moved to co-ed classes that include visuals of male erections there are pictures in books on the recommended reading list for sixth graders and depict oral sex you must be 18 years old to purchase a playboy but my 11 year old grandchild can pull up an ipad and see two males having sex thank you thank you sandra [Applause] brian priggy and then jane papamitrial brian friggi have three kids two in the district in the state of illinois a 12 year old can seek treatment for a
114sexually transmitted disease seek outpatient mental health services receive birth control seek treatment for drug and alcohol abuse or the effects of a family member's drug and alcohol abuse all without parental consent and in many of these without parental notification while the conversation in our district currently revolves around gender queer and sv 818 we aren't debating a single book or a single piece of legislation tonight in fact we're debating whether our students ought to be educated about the choices that they're already legally allowed to make further we're debating whether all students should be educated or only the cisgender heterosexual ones of course the arguments vary from objection to objection in the case of genderqueer the content argument boils down to a discussion of genitals between two individuals assigned female at birth one that would be chalked
115up to locker room talk if they were assigned mail at birth and a depiction that is no more pornographic than a demonstration of a condom on a banana in the case of both genderqueer and sv818 the argument nets out to parental choice sb 818 very clearly states that parents may opt their children out of the curriculum without repercussion the email that the district sent which contained indirect reference to genderqueer contained a content warning and was sent to parents parents that can choose whether they convey that particular title to their students in our library we have a wide variety of viewpoints religions and political stances in our curriculum no one is objecting to instruction on reproduction why is it that the only topics that come up are those that exclude our lgbtq plus students let's ensure
116that all our students feel seen and have education available that meets their individual needs and the needs of our evolving society we don't teach palm pilots and aol keywords in technology anymore why are we resisting the modernization of our health curriculum too thank you very much [Applause] after after jane is susan mcgill [Music] we're trying to hear jane thank you james my name is jane papa dimitri let's just wait for a second yeah my name is jane papa dimitri you i'm a parent of two former barrington 220 students i also work in the district and i thought now would be a good time to come to the meeting because i did approach this 11 10 years ago 11 years ago um i want to kind of include a little portion of this book of why
117um i'm here and it says masturbation i'm good at it i'm ambidextrous if there were a present masturbation league i'd get drafted for number one and make millions of dollars i'm going to talk about it because everyone does it and everyone likes it and if god didn't want us to masturbate he wouldn't have given us thumbs so i thank god for my thumbs if this paragraph made you feel uncomfortable or not appropriate to read out loud in front of all you why would you approve to put this in the hands of our children i was very proud of my daughter she was a freshman not raised to you know be familiar with all this stuff quite yet because she was not emotionally ready and she stood up and the only one in the whole class
118and said i am not reading this and the teacher goes oh just give it time and she says no i'm not giving it time since when is it necessary to include this type of reading material for classroom reading assignments as a parent of past students this book was brought to the attention to the principal of the high school in which he was too busy and a few members of the board swept under the rug they tried to convince me that this was normal and it was the whole book that should be critiqued and not just portions and the lesson this book had to offer was amazing really we need to pornography to get a point across well this has no place in our school curriculum particularly without the parents aware and should be decided upon
119by each individual family household rather than the school deciding for us of what is appropriate for our children please focus on teaching about reading writing and arithmetic and leave the proposed radical sex ed up to the parents why does the school need to discuss hormone blockers different ways to have sex etc parents know what is best for their child child and children and when stay in your lane please i really appreciate all what the teachers are are doing for our schools thank you susan mcgill and then sarah africano hi there i'm susan mcgill i'm a 25-year resident of barrington and um i've been a taxpayer all that time with no children in the park in the school district i wanted to applaud the board for trying to find a balance and i came to the
120meeting tonight because i learned through the democrat precinct one here in barrington we spread the information about the chaos that was being created by some parents who feel strongly and rightly about part of the school process my view is that this is a public school i went to a catholic school when i in the 1950s and 60s and it's a perfect place we didn't discuss sex we had pure or impure thoughts i mean it's like it wasn't until i was in my 30s that i had some of the understanding that children have now so and that wasn't helpful to me it was not helpful to me so the thing is that this is a public school system you folks have done a very good job i have supported you i live next to grove school
121the construction is wonderful um the carnival was not wonderful and so the thing is that be brave be courageous don't cave into one side or the other both are right and i am proudly wearing the gay straight alliance shirt from barrington high school because one of my neighbors was attacked by one of her school colleagues and so i wanted to support what this young woman was trying to do so we need both sides of the equation and we need some balance less extremism and you know i did actually read the book queer gender genderqueer and at my age it's not offensive to me i suppose that for a child it would be difficult sarah and then there's catholic schools and there's home schools all right after sarah is brooke heffernan hello and thank you all
122for your time um i'm here and i honestly hesitated quite a bit about you oh sorry my name is sarah africano i'm a resident in the district i have two kids that attend huff um i hesitated about speaking up tonight um and i too like many parents have grappled with the decision about when to provide content to my children and when that would be age-appropriate and at the end of the day i felt like i needed to come here because i want to ensure that much like the previous speaker that i'm providing what i think is a balanced view from some parents that i don't think are fairly represented in this conversation i too want to make sure that my children have access to content that is age-appropriate but at the same time i do
123think that it's imperative that as we look at the titles that are being put up for debate and recommended for consideration that we are careful about designations of these titles and and the information in them being designated as obscene or pornographic like others on the board i am an attorney and i too understand that it is imperative that definitions matter and we pay close attention to how we are defining these and how the impacts may resonate with respect to designating certain material as pornographic many of these books have been praised as resources for those who identify as non-binary or asexual and those for who know someone who identifies as such i think that we should be cautious to put labels on these books without a complete discussion of the material and avoid misinformation and mischaracterization
124about the content in the books i do believe also that we should be careful about filtering books that examine race and lgbtq identities and whether or not that's the message we want to send to our community choosing to censor books from our high school sends a message that we don't value our own students maturity and ability to make their decisions about the content they consume i do believe that in high school students are able to decide when they want to review and take into consideration that type of content thank you brooke and then i can't read this name i'm just saying the first initials d heffernan okay nelda europe i know thank you hello my name is nalda munoz and i have a fourth grader and a sixth grader we moved to barrington 11 years
125ago specifically for our children the emphasis back then was on making our children intelligent and there was strong competition for academic success the education system i relocated here for exists no more now barrington's priority is to indoctrinate our children instead of higher learning sex ed used to be about reproductive organs and the birds and the bees were left up to the parents we i decide when kids are ready not you okay what's uh now you issue them porn and you decide what's right or wrong what sexual positions are okay and even instructions in real action pictures and explicit wording here is a book i just found the other day on my 12 year old school property ipad called fighting words i hope you're listening this is from the book clifton put his hand on my
126leg on the inside of my thigh grabbed the bare skin beneath the bottom of my pajama shorts don't i yanked myself sideways he laughed put one thick hand around my neck grabbed the elastic band of my pajamas short with the other stuck his hands down the back of the shorts inside my underwear i screamed not that anyone was going to hear me hold still he said i tried to get away he took hold of the waistband of my shorts and pulled them down about child molestation how dare you thank you nelda next up thank you gross next up is being a kamath ray and then paul rednecky good evening um my name is bina kameth rayne and i am a pediatrician i'm also the mother of three children i can't i can't hear you everyone
127please be quiet my name is beena kameth rain i'm a pediatrician and a mother of three children in the district countryside foundations north barrington and rose as a pediatrician i'm an advocate for the optimal physical mental and social health and well-being for all infants children adolescents and young adults i'm also the mother of a son with developmental delay and intellectual disability it is disappointing to hear that our district has decided to opt out of senate bill 818 but i hope there will be consideration for the important points of the bill that should be applicable to our children's education the law establishes 15 requirements for course materials for comprehensive personal health education classes each requirement is aimed at promoting a complete evidence-based age developmentally and culturally appropriate education that is inclusive of all students for a
128district that boasts about seeing the students please note the following individuals with disabilities are seven times more likely to be a victim of sexual assault and this hits close to home for our family the law requires their inclusion in the education the law also requires that we be sensitive to student circumstances including if they are pregnant or parenting or living with stds course material may not reflect or promote bias against any person on the basis of race ethnicity language cultural background citizenship religion hiv status family structure disability gender gender identity gender expression sexual orientation or sexual behavior the law requires education on consent self-advocacy developing healthy relationships and how to seek confidential health when needed it also requires that content be medically accurate unbiased and consistent with ethical medicine and public health there has been
129a lot of talk in these meetings about parental choice and parental rights and i choose for my kids to have access to an inclusive and evidence-based education thanks after paul is laura davis good evening my name is paul rednicki i have two kids in the district um i watched the last couple board meetings worth of public comment over the last week or so and had a couple thoughts i wanted to to share with the board first off um libraries should contain a wide range of ideas and the barrington high school library seems to do that i to those who are objecting to what they d you know to some content they deem objectionable um for board members and community members alike i was rather disturbed when i heard the suggestions that we need to have
130some sort of a grading system or a rating system for books i know of no other library that has those to dr hunt's point it's going to be very very difficult to operationalize that let's keep a couple other things in mind the presence of a book on the library shelf does not make it part of the curriculum it makes it an option for a student discuss these topics in your with your in your family's morals and values with your kids and trust them to make good choices and this is maybe more absent the gender queer or the the law and boy i'm not sure about those books i have not read them i haven't looked at the whole text but thinking about any other books that might be construed as objectionable even just in words
131and not in graphics you know the only way to combat a bad idea or a book is with a good book or another idea so you know challenge people to be parents read one with your kids engage with them on an intellectual level explain them why you think that's not you know a viewpoint or something that sits in your family values if these are parent choices and parents have you know parental rights to these things then engage with your kids know what they're reading ask them what they checked out at the library in today's modern world kids have unfettered access to more information than ever before they have access to many sources of information in its many forms on their ipad cell phones computer or someone else's device the curated materials of a school library
132may be one of the best places for a kid to explore thank you paul laura davis and then barbara patoon hi i'm laura davis and i um have a son that went through district 220 but first of all i want to say thank you to all of you you guys are suffering the stresses and all the community and it's a tough job and i really appreciate your efforts but i'd like to thank you speak to first in support of the american library association the american association of illinois school library educators and the group of highly educated school librarians who make decisions regarding books and book lists to engage every student in the community this is important for inclusion dedicated information specialists our librarians review hundreds of books and make decisions on books that build empathy
133resilience and broaden awareness of people places and things i don't want any books banned from the library i looked through my home banned booked books book to see other books that have been banned in years past so on the origin of species banned for religious grounds all quiet on the western front banned for political reasons catch-22 for social reasons and candide for sexual reasons i trust our education specialists if some parents choose not to read a book on a list that's sent out that's your choice but i want the books to be i don't want limited choices for my grandchildren but thank you very much and thanks for all your work thank you [Applause] sarah barbara last name against p difficult to read here i guess not um rob delac katie baldesano good evening i
134didn't know i was going to speak tonight could you please state your name first my name is robert delaoche i live in the district and i just want to thank you for your time and share with you my thoughts as i collected them tonight and one of the last people so thank you for paying attention i appreciate that the ideology of transgender is wrong and i don't believe in it there is um it's analogous to a person who's anorexic who looks in the mirror and says oh my god i'm so fat just like somebody looks in a mirror and says i'm a male when you're actually a female or vice versa there's a book called johnny the walrus it's written by matt walsh and he says he talks about johnny who has an imagination a
135really big imagination and that he's a walrus and everybody tells him and he he thinks he's a walrus and so then his mom starts to wonder if he's really a walrus so she takes him to a doctor and the doctor says yup he's under walrus you can feed him worms take him to the zoo and sure enough you know johnny didn't like eating worms he didn't like really being in the zoo and then his mom kind of came to her senses and thought you know what i better get back to what johnny really is he's a boy with an imagination so that's really all i wanted to say and uh thank you very much katie and then after katie is rachel turk hi there we gotta lean in i'm katie valdisano i'm the mom of
136three kids one at the high school one at the middle school and one um in the huff attendance boundary um i'm sitting here thinking about the strategic planning process because i came to the the two two day thing that we did and then the coffees and i just keep thinking about those themes that kept coming up about transparency and partnership and i just think that for so many of the families in this community that is really what they're longing for they're longing for that transparency to know what's happening in their schools and know that it is an environment that they can trust we want to feel like we can trust the schools trust our teachers and i just really i know it's been a tough couple years with covet and all that and just encourage
137you to keep thinking about different actions and different steps and how they build a sense of unity and trust in the community um i just also wanted to just add you know thinking about this petition that this over 1200 1300 people signed that just to really reiterate that it has nothing to do with sexual preference it has nothing to do with representation it's really about trusting our schools to curate a safe and age-appropriate library and that petition is calling on the school to do just that there's no desire to regulate other kids book choices that is not a piece of it it's about the pornographic material and i'll i'll end with a quote from thomas soule who i've quoted before because he's a brilliant man and he believes so much in the power of education
138and he writes the most basic question is not what is best but who shall decide what is best and for the 12 over 1200 signers of this petition they want to decide as parents for their young 11 year olds who open that ipad they want to decide what is best for them so just really asking you just to kind of remember that that is where the majority of parents are coming [Applause] uh i'm going to ask barbara again no no barbara uh rachel turk oh i apologize i can't i'm really tired my name is barbara peterson i have two of the sweetest most loved grandchildren in the school district here okay my name is barbara peterson i have two of the sweetest most lovely little granddaughters that are in the school district i care i'm
139here i don't have anything prepared i don't have an agenda prepared but i'm here as a grandparent who has seen what has happened in our school system with what's been happening throughout this country and i have to say that when i grew up i grew up in a neighborhood we had families i was in a school that had good moral values i went to catholic school and i i feel like i got a good education as well as a good upbringing and i think we've gone away from that in our schools and it's sad to me i am sick to my stomach when i hear about these books which i would never read i i don't know why it's not very black and white to all of you that are on the board as to
140this pornography that is in the schools and that it is not i'm surprised it's not been immediately removed while it's being under review that it should be put away so you can have the time that i understand you need both legally and otherwise to review this but i am appalled that is still on the shelves in the schools i have seen my my little grandchildren that now have had one of them has had the sex education class that i did not was able to see but was given to her and i think it changes them a little bit personally i said if you ever want to talk to graham about anything you can i know that she's a little bit more withdrawn and shy and i think that a lot of age inappropriate uh material
141has been given to these sweet innocent children who just want to be kids they um from the beginning my little grandkids i was so proud of them it didn't matter you know all they want is a friend they don't care about color about anything else disabilities anything they just want to be kids why can we not let them be that why are we doing this to our children and our grandchildren this makes me sick to my stomach and i promised my daughter i would not come up here i was just going to stand appropriately in the back but i do feel from my heart i have to say okay rachel turk and then after rachel is robert winden what's your problem no if he's not with the press the president should go back there the
142floor is with rachel we need to be able to hear rachel hello hi my name is rachel turk and i have two bhs graduates and an incoming freshman since 1973 the supreme court has used the miller test as a standard to define obscene materials the miller test has three parts one of which is quote whether the work taken as a whole lacks serious literary artistic political or scientific value end quote i took the time to read genderqueer for myself by the way it is clearly marked for ages 18 and up and at 10th grade level so no one is recommending it for younger ages if someone asked me to sum up this one word some of this book in one word i would not say porn i would say struggle for the many people here
143who haven't read the book this graphic novel is a memoir of a non-binary person as she she goes by she and her youth struggles to fit in all through her childhood puberty and adulthood she repeatedly struggles with her own body her feelings and trying to connect with others beyond friendships she says it's like her gender is broken and her sexuality is broken ninety percent of the book is her internal dialogue with this struggle out of the entire comic i would say about six panels are very graphic and taken out of context and taken out of context they were very shocking however i think these images were included in the book to show her very real reluctance to touch her own or someone else's genitals or have anyone else touch her she is out of graduate
144school before she even kisses anyone this is not porn the gentleman before asked how this one explicit feeling could possibly be acceptable and how showing two dudes if you had read the book you would know that it was actually two women and the woman with the strap-on was trying something in the hopes that she might help her connect with someone intimately without touching people show this frame for shock value but they don't show her face in the frame it is distressed she asks the other person to stop so they stop and in the next frame they are lying side by side in bed not touching can anyone here recall ever seeing a porn film that goes like that well they don't go like that it's all about the happy ending in other words this works
145as a whole no soon after that the relationship ends and she starts to wonder if she ever had sex again it's not porn this has serious literary marriage thank you thank you rachel [Applause] again rachel's interrupted so i let her finish for a few seconds uh robert winden everybody else on the other side you did ma'am except her's huh good evening um first of all thank you all for your patience this evening um another long evening here and it's wonderful to see so many parents out for things they are passionate about i think one thing is clear i think nobody is disagreeing is that nobody wants pornography in the school library nobody wants age inappropriate texts to be taught to the kids but the question is who decides what that is and i'm glad to
146hear the board is going to revisit visit the policies this is something that should be revisited from time to time but i implore employ you guys to be careful this is an incredibly slippery slope if we say one thing is inappropriate and then the next thing is inappropriate i've already heard in the past couple weeks conversations of different books that people don't want in the school library that i have read and that are incredibly important books that my children have read coming through this school system because they don't think they're age-appropriate as somebody who has spent a large part of my career prosecuting and working with child sex offenses and victims of these horrific offenses i will tell you guys that there are incredibly important material that children have to read that is not comfortable
147not necessarily these books but there are things that are important and so it is very difficult to handle that slippery slope when we come to flat out removing things from our library and removing the access for people to see that so i ask you guys to consider that very carefully as we move forward and thank you guys for your time [Applause] have i missed anyone okay uh two more um entries i would like to add to the list and i'll ask you to put them in the record for us um we the board has received a letter from gabrielle doyle the advocacy campaign manager from the trevor project from the trevor project i believe everybody got a copy of that but just in case can you make sure that everybody gets copy that you mean
148and then we also have received a letter from um and both these were submitted uh with the support of community members a letter from meg mcelroy the senior program director of the american civil liberties union of illinois so we'll enter those into the public comedy as well ginny is going to make sure that we get them good okay so ford we have uh one more thing um just to thank you all for your public comment um this is a reminder the public comment is not a conversation and it does not necessarily reflect abuse the board dr hun i heard a couple things that maybe we should follow up on um the um the ability to i'm assuming the book in question has been gender if we were for most people's discussion there's been a couple
149comments that the middle schoolers can see that when they sign on if you could clarify that for us yeah i would i would ask those people that were able to do that if you were to please email your name to us so we can go through that is that is not from a technology standpoint something that they should have the ability to do so i would just want to research that and can you please um remind us where that book gender there's a few people that commented that their middle schooler was able to see the book genderqueer if you could please email dr hunt that is not something that's supposed to be possible is what dr hunt mentioned so in other words if you can access a different building's library we would like to know
150that because that should not be the case and i we heard a couple of public comments that that was the case so we'd like to follow up on that and then just for clarification um a few things were said about the book genderqueer can you remind us where that book is available and if it's part of the curriculum one more time it's not part of the curriculum it's available at the high school there are i don't remember the number of copies five or six copies uh and one electronic copy currently okay but didn't you say that all the copies have been removed while you guys are doing the review uh i believe they're all checked out by those doing the review i would assume that the online version is always available that's correct okay okay
151board we have just um had a few minutes um to listen to the public comment do we want to take a quick bio break for five minutes uh yeah i'm indifferent that sounds like a good idea okay we're gonna take a five-minute break [Music] i yes all right steve we're going to get back to it everyone we're getting back to it the next um item on our agenda is um our informational reports there will several this week does anybody have any questions or comments on the information reports that we received then next up is um our board committee reports i know finance met today do you guys have anything to report or do you need some time to digest and read it back to us i am ready to go possibly probably finance met today
152and it was only a few things but important things we discussed two new public acts that affect school finance and operations one allows school districts earning an isbe designation of recognition or review to recapture the difference between the maximum permitted levy and the actual levy amount in subsequent years without losing the levy authority in perpetuity two other portions of that legislation address the annual disclosure of a school district's cash reserve balance as part of the budget and levy adoption process and extend the sunset of certain inter-fund transfers the other act brings illinois in line with virtually all other states in the country and providing flexibility to use a variety of criteria in awarding national school lunch program food service bids in other words we don't have to go with the lowest bid we can put
153in factors like quality and taste which is awesome so we also talked about the 2023 draft budget we reviewed it in the committee it's in a little bit of a new format it is um one section of a much larger document but includes all of the same financial information as in previous years the budget is consistent with the board guidelines and assumptions based on the committee the whole meeting that we had had earlier in the year the draft budget is balanced and reflective of a surplus currently at 1.8 million but because it is a draft things keep changing you know this is the way this budget is it keeps changing money comes in spending goes out uh stone companies go on strike things happen but we are very hopeful the other big information in there
154was that the esser funding account is for 3.3 million dollars for next year for the draft budget so that's good we'll still have astro funds and it will be coming to the board at our next meeting in august so if you want to take a preview of it you can look at the finance meeting uh documents will there be extra funds at 23 24 or are we done after 223 having spent the bulk um of the esser funds and maybe all of the ester funds if there does if there is any surplus that's remaining some of any available funds we would have the opportunity to spend those depending on which batch of extra funding it is but we preferentially spent the early awarded items first to give us more flexibility on the tail end but
155we're not anticipating that that would be any material amount if there's any left whatsoever in the following year i think we all have to be aware about you know that there'll be some personnel issues that we're going to deal with a year from now and kind of kick it down the road and i'm glad we have the support this year but we just have to be careful um we don't want to get too dependent on that because we're not going to have it in the future that's correct and we we have uh i think the board knows we've identified those us are funded positions very specifically so that that we're aware which ones those are staff that are filling those positions are aware which though which of those um are us are funded so that
156we're they don't just turn into additional staff in perpetuity um that you know we're very careful about those as i recall the posts were even written that way that this is a one or two year that's correct yep well and just to remind you some of the extra positions were so that we could have more spacing in classrooms and have smaller class sizes so that's not a an issue this coming up season no it's more social emotional that's coming in correct and then just one other thing i just wanted to state again leah what you were mentioning about the bids we don't have to take the lowest but we have to take the lowest qualified bid as you were mentioning but i just want to make sure it's clear that we can't just pick and
157choose it has to be the lowest qualified bid for whatever restrictions that we've provided we for food service we now have some flexibility to use other criteria so that you can actually develop a weighted system cost still is absolutely an important factor in assessing uh the best bid that is available but now as leah said we can include things like quality and taste in evaluating the bids that are out there okay any other board committee report you know if you don't mind lee i want to piggyback on what you said i think a few key things that i jotted down that i thought were really valuable and i think the rest of the board should be aware of as well is that in building this budget uh as we mentioned there was a surplus of
158around a million eight and but in no small part is not do or is this due to the team making sure that we are controlling our expenses for example the combination of purchase services and supplies the team made sure that we budgeted a zero percent growth which i think is huge there are ft reductions in here in alignment with ensuring that we're staffing to our needs and that's also factored in and then you know what what's not being taken into account is you know the ability to offset increases that we're seeing the gasoline prices that we talked about paper bid that we mentioned last week or last meeting so a lot of good work went into this and you know another note that i think is important for the rest of the board to know
159too is that with in doing so we're going to be able to meet dr byn's recommendation and have and land right around a 32 and a half percent fund balance at the end of this year provide that we meet our budget and so i just want to give kudos to you to sarah to the team for doing this and pushing our stakeholders to meet this budget and to kind of again come back to the surplus that we had hoped for so thank you thank you any other updates okay um let's move to the consent agenda do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as second okay any questions or comments on what's presented there i'll read through everything that's on there before we take our vote okay on our consent agenda this evening
160our minutes from uh june 21st both closed and open several finance reports we have gifts grants and donations so thank you marcia mccleary if you're still here for your donation of books june reports for exception bills nslp exception bills activity accounts for bhs and k-8 wage and payroll report treasurer's report revenues and expenditures and for july the bill list we have a revised personnel report and we have the parking lot agreement with salem united church down the united methodist church um if i's ever called where it's the same amount as in years past um provide parking for the huff street huff street school staff that's what we use that for and then there's also a list of authorized depositories all right are we ready for a roll call all right sandra bradford yes steve wang
161yes leah callister lazari yes katie carram yes barry alt-schuler yes angela wilcox yes okay motion passes and we've got several action items we have second reading of board policy and my recollection is we didn't ask for any follow-up on any of these policies do i want to does anybody want to move that we approve them all as presented second okay any questions or comments let me read through which policies these are we discussed them at the last board meeting their policy 2 230 public participation at school board meetings and petitions to the board policy 580 court duty policy 6290 homework policy 7 1 5 student and family privacy rights policy seven to eighty five food allergy management program okay roll call arielle schuler yes mia callister lazari yes katie carram yes sandra bradford yes steve
162wang angela wilcox yes okay next action item is to approve the job reclassification recommendation that was presented we have a motion to do so so moved second you want to give us a quick yeah so exactly uh for the bseo um negotiated agreement uh the job reclassification committee meets and looks at positions in terms of how they fit how they've involved in terms of workload and responsibilities each year and then sometimes recommendations are made for reclassification tonight we are recommending two uh positions be reclassified that's the lead athletic trainer and computer services assistant any questions about the memo that was presented i mean improving the recommendations you're we're proving the um the changes to those staff as well correct okay let's do a roll call angela wilcox yes leah hollister yes barry alt-shuler yes sandra
163bradford yes katie carram yes steve wang yes motion passes next step is we have a motion to approve moving the october 4th meeting to october 3rd some move second i'm sorry i missed the second hello thank you okay i think it's pretty straightforward we would be moving it from a tuesday night to a monday night to avoid some religious holidays we surveyed the board the board we have the same number of people available at either meeting okay let's go ahead and we'll call please sandra bradford yes leah callister lazzari yes katie carram yes angela wilcox yes barry alt-schuler yes steve wang yes okay motion passes next up is a consideration to approve the resolution authorizing the sale by sealed bid of real property located at 310 east james street in barrington so dr pine jump
164in if you need to on this uh i believe this is the third time this board will have gone through this process uh to uh put uh james street uh up for public auction uh we're asking you to approve this resolution to set uh kind of a bit uh price uh and dr bine can then go forward with the process of advertising uh the auction uh with the bid opening i believe said sometime september sixth or sixth and obviously for a conforming qualifying bid that would lead to a purchase of the property anything else that combined roll call please eddie karam yes sandra bradford yes steve wang leah callister lazari yes angela wilcox yes barry altschuler yes all right let's get into our discussion item on human growth and development thank you i'm gonna invite
165dr byrne dr gill forward to talk the board through our presentation uh this evening [Applause] welcome i'll give it one more second before i look at dr fuller is it showing on your screen and listen yeah it looks like this the expert's coming there we go thank you magic crazy all right so thank you for having us here tonight so tonight we're going to be providing a brief update and dr hunt already talked a little bit about it but as as it relates to illinois senate bill 818 or the keeping students safe and healthy act we're going to provide some background and historical context as it relates to the fifth grade human growth and development unit which is part of our science and health curriculum and then current practice so as it relates to illinois
166senate bill 818 as previously mentioned by dr hunt this was a law that was passed in august of 2021 and districts were just recently notified on june 24th that the national sex ed standards were approved by isb and now a next step is that individual school districts have the option as to whether or not to provide sexual health education instruction and then districts that do choose to provide instruction may choose and adapt the standards based on the needs of the district so it's not the expectation that any district adopt the standards in full there's 76 pages of national standards we would by no means be obligated to teach all of them we're expected to write a curriculum that's aligned to state and or national standards if so approved additional guidance is expected from illinois the
167illinois state board of education no later than august 1st of this year and then finally the policy committee will be discussing and determining whether or not to adopt the policy related to the national sex ed standards in senate bill 818 and as dr hunt mentioned at the beginning it is our recommendation administratively and as a teaching and learning team that we do not adopt this policy and we will talk a little bit about why on later slides so before i hand it off to dr gill we're going to shift into talking about our fifth grade human growth and development unit but i do want to point out and it's important to do so that senate bill 818 and fifth grade human growth and development are two separate topics and so for background and historical context
168this unit has been taught for over 25 years in fifth grade in barrington and likely if you went to a public school you also experienced a unit similar to this when you were in fifth grade or somewhere about that and according to illinois school code you have from kindergarten through sixth grade to teach this unit but we've always found it most appropriate because of the standards and performance descriptors at its most appropriate at fifth grade as stated before this is a mandated unit of study set forth by the illinois school code under the area of health physical education and safety so i'll reiterate that this is not sex education this is health physical education and safety and this unit is aligned to the illinois health learning standards as well as the performance descriptors that go
169along with those and then lastly and then i'll hand it off to dr gill we did review this instructional unit and the illinois unit or mandated unit of study in both 2013 as well as 2017 following our curriculum review and development process within science and health curriculum reviews and there has been no change in materials since 2017. okay so uh this unit is taught within our science classes in fifth grade we really focus on systems and energy so in the fall our students investigate the micro level looking at structures and properties of matter through investigating mixtures and solutions in the winter then students explore systems at the macro level looking at earth and space systems and then prior to the human growth and development unit students learn about matter and energy in organisms and ecosystems
170for their life science unit so this occurs in the spring and they really develop an understanding of how matter and energy transfers through living systems students then look at how energy transfers through human body systems the respiratory system the muscular skeletal system the circulatory system and the nervous systems they also study the importance of the systems the parts and functions the structures and functions of the system how to care for the system such as eating nutritiously getting enough sleep and exercising and then finally students learn about the impact of drugs on these systems as well at the end of this fifth grade study in life science the students are taught a three-day unit on human growth and development as the last human system of study the focus is on changes in the body during puberty
171and how to care for yourself during puberty such as getting enough exercise and getting enough sleep we connect human growth and development to body systems so that students understand that puberty is a natural process and part of growth and development so the standards for this unit and again these are illinois health standards the first one is students who meet the standard can describe factors that affect affects growth and development the descriptors for the standard include defining the word puberty identifying changes in the body associated with puberty identifying characteristics of puberty and the effects of these changes on physical mental and social development and understanding how proper amounts of rest work sleep exercise activity and nutrition promote physical mental and social well-being the second standard that aligns to this unit says students who meet the standard
172can apply decision-making skills related to the promotion and protection of individual health so we talk about how cleanliness affects personal hygiene and health and we talk about the analysis of consequences for poor choice health choices such as staying up late playing video games how does that affect your system the following topics are not in the school code for fifth grade so these topics are not taught in fifth grade marriage parenthood and families pregnancy and childbirth sexual intercourse gender identity hiv aids or sexually transmitted diseases sexual intimidation or harassment again those are not taught in fifth grade so our current practice is that we have a three-day unit taught in the spring of fifth grade connected to fifth grade focus on living systems and human body systems the learning objectives again are why puberty what puberty
173is and why it happens the changes during puberty and the male and female reproductive systems while many of our students are starting to go through puberty around fifth grade again that's why we have it in fifth grade this unit is an introduction to puberty and then prepare students for a deeper study of these topics at middle school we teach the unit in homeroom classes because it's important for students to learn medically accurate information about all gender changes it's also important for children to remain in a classroom with a teacher and classmates that they know and an environment that they know this is especially important for students with special needs it respects all genders and it is reflective of our middle school health classes it also avoids liability and litigation parents and guardians or parents and
174caregivers are provided with the entire unit prior to instruction including all of the materials used in the unit the learning objectives talking points for parents to use with their children and additional resources from the american academy of pediatrics as well as a procedure for opting out of the unit parents can again opt out of the whole three-day unit or any one part of the unit as well typically we have 10 about 10 students who opt out of this unit across the district that's over the last numerous years this year throughout the district we had six students opt out of this unit future updates so next year we have decided to eliminate the 20-minute video it is an older video it was created in 2012 and we've used it for over six years so it is
175time that we updated this resource we will look for different options and alternatives to you starting next year that's all we have thank you for your time this evening any questions on the board can you speak to specifically why the change was made during the 20 minute video on the period after not to separate boys and girls as we used to do yeah so as dr gill mentioned the importance of having both genders have medically accurate information to understanding what happens to both bodies before during and after puberty there's a lot of evidence out there from the medical field showing that into be helpful in preventing things like sexual abuse from happening and it is also recommended from the illinois state board of education that we do not specifically separate any genders for any type
176of instruction let alone human growth and development so those are some of them so i have three kids in the district i have a high school or middle schooler and i had a fifth grader who i did um so this changed is very recent and in roslyn it just happened this year so um and the fact is is actually both genders were taught the same thing they were then just given a safe space to go where they could ask specific questions about what were going to happen to their bodies biologically girls were allowed to go and ask about their periods just amongst girls boys were given the opportunity actually when i did it with my son did it it was after school and you you came with a guardian and it was a completely separate
177presentation so um a lot of parents in roswell and questioned it and i actually asked a ton of other fifth grade parents and they told me they had at other districts they had no idea that this why that that or they had they have fifth graders were the oldest they had no idea that this changed they had no idea why they were told during covid that it changed just because of not being able to move kids changed it in 2018 right for schools that didn't change because not every school changed in 2018. um so i know in what we were asked we were we were told that um you're referencing the illinois school code and then a presentation through luries um and we've since been given the information on who gave the presentation nothing and
178make a couple thoughts on that so josephine kearns who folks have talked about as the representative from lurie children's hospital she did work for that medical institution at the time she no longer does in her role that she did represent at lurie children's hospital she was not a gender consultant in her role at lori she is now when you look up her resume as i know many have but in her role at lori's she was a director of the gender program as well as a researcher for luries and at no point was she ever a consultant for us she provided a one-hour presentation on an institute day that was set up for by the previous director of professional development on the topic of gender inclusivity which was separate from the topic of human growth and
179development but a topic within that presentation was about the importance of not separating genders during curriculum implementation parents ever asked if this is a change that they wanted as part of this correct this curriculum or this was just made on the recommendation of that's not information that i have in front of me at this point but at as dr gill mentioned families always have the option to opt out of any or all or part of of the year and i actually i don't really respect that it really bothers me that the only option we give parents when they question something is to opt out because that's the choice that is true for this particular this particular so i and i'm not i'm sorry if it's coming off as if i'm attacking you i don't mean
180that to be that way i just i feel that we talk about equity we talk about making everyone feel comfortable we talk about listening to everyone's experience and making everyone have their best experience in our district and i i and others question if this decision was made with that intention because i do know every single parent i know a lot of parents i talked to said their child would never feel comfortable in this setting being able to ask questions to further their understanding of these topics can you can you speak to how children can ask questions with in how our teachers handle that currently yeah so we have always had a question box and it's an anonymous question box students are all given an index index card and then at the beginning of the class
181period a teacher will ask like what is your favorite television show so all the students at least have something down on their index card and then students cannot can submit those cards at the end of the class they collect all those cards and then the teachers obviously review them then for the next day to answer some teachers have tried using a google form too to be you know more up-to-date but i haven't heard any feedback on that either to be clear the students every student turns in a card and can you speak to you know becky i don't mean to put you on the spot but i'm going to uh because you were here during the transition what is the feedback from the staff in terms of impact on students right um so and to
182be perfectly honest our our staff have different comfort levels with this unit even before we are teaching you know together or not but the feedback from the staff has been really they haven't said that you know there's been any kind of um an issue or anything with with this change the principals that i've talked to have said that they haven't heard from many parents except for one or two schools um and so again i don't have any more information than that i could ask parents and teachers for more information but this was communicated to parents i mean parents when when this change was made and and and there was this description of the past over the since you said 2018 that was included that by the way now we're doing this differently or i just
183you know that was sent home but most of our schools have parent meetings prior to the unit where there that's where it was communicated wouldn't be in the letter though oh that's a good question like the letter has been around for a long time too so yeah yeah and we went through a lot of changes too in the spring of 2020 we didn't teach the unit because we were that was the start of the pandemic well i mean i would anticipate how many schools switched over in 2018. i don't have that information right now okay so it was it's been a rolling change throughout the elementary school so say we have eight elementary schools maybe we had two switch and eighteen two switch and nineteen nothing happened in 20 2 and 21 2 and 22.
184i made that up um you know clearly you're not going to get any feedback as far as whether this was a positive change or a negative change or if you know teachers saw any sort of difference in 2021 because the kids weren't in the classroom um so you know the change is is not really a change um in 18 and 19 um you know i would i would think that that's i mean it would be interesting to have that data how many you know classes did switch over and to really survey the educators that were you know preparing this information and whether they saw a difference the other thing i'd say is you know i i i feel like there is a middle ground here that could be pretty easily attained instead of just saying
185you know what if you're if you know that your your son is really shy and maybe he is going to have some questions and he doesn't necessarily want to ask the follow-up question that comes from his question that goes in the question box in front of you know a bunch of girls um or you know even his peers or whatever that i would think there would be an option instead of just saying okay then you're gonna sit in the library for this unit or whatever they do i don't know i'm making this up again but you know you're not going to participate i would think that there would be an option to you know opt in to a group of you know peers you know boys whatever and and similarly for a girl you know
186all of our kids um i mean we we have all and all of our children have developed at completely different rates you go through the element or the middle school and you see men that look like men and and and boys that look like boys it's a broad spectrum and you know everyone's comfort level with that is different and you know i i do think that as parents we know our kids well we know what is going to give them um embarrassment especially you know when you're still 10 11 years old and what would be a little bit more of a comfortable situation so you know i'm wondering if as we you know you're obviously reviewing the curriculum because you're pulling this video looking at some other um presentation methods or whatever if there's an
187option to have you know how do you want your kids to be presented this information if you choose not to opt out i know some parents will just still strictly opt out um but i would i would think that maybe there would be you know some sort of middle ground and and i will say that um you know i mean my kids went through this years ago but um i i thought it was so nice in the way that at least at that time the information was presented and um because we were invited as parents to come and it was really such an interesting part as far as you know coming of age you know you know discussing puberty but also you know you've been treated like a kid you were a little kid in
188elementary school and now you're going to be a big kid and you're going to go into middle school and you know what we support each other as women we support each other this isn't a competition about who's going to be and you know does is it you know how middle school goes regardless but i remember my daughter lighting up as we left like oh my gosh yeah this is girl power we're entering into this new phase as women and i have these mutual friends and they have my back and and you know similarly with the with my sons so i do think that there's um you know and i again am not an educator and and you know i haven't conducted these studies as far as providing information in you know uh um you know
189all gender [Music] a situation but i do think there are times where it's okay it's okay to um you know commandeer your inner girl power or whatever it is that you know you feel as an elementary student about to enter into a big school that you've never had to switch classes in before and never had to have eight different teachers and never had to find your locker and all the other things i mean it kind of is a coming of age in more ways than just puberty and i think that um you know to kind of reassess if there's a way to still parse this out um you know so that there's safe spaces um you know for maybe the you know presentation of more intimate information and to give a better way to to
190ask questions than just you know kind of one it's either one size fits all or opt-out yeah those are all things that we can certainly look at and i think a step in the right direction now is making the decision to remove the video because from my perspective the feedback i've received the feedback that dr gill has received it's all been sent as it relates to both genders being together is that it's about the video and showing the video together and we haven't received any other feedback at least we haven't from the perspective of genders being together for the other parts of the instructional unit over the course of three days that has been a concern together so i do feel like the removal of the video is a step in the right direction while
191we look at the components of the instructional unit which again are guided by the mandated unit of study i have a question about um other districts i got to believe this is a really hard statistic to find so we actually did reach out to surrounding districts that we do compare ourselves to and it's split four out of the eight that got back to us four uh separate and four yeah and they do that for the whole unit or just for a video or do you not know we didn't ask that specific question so you alluded to a civil rights issue and avoids little liability and litigation so but obviously it is other districts are separating boys and girls to learn about what is going to happen to their specific bodies during puberty so what i
192mean what what litigation are we risking without going into legal details that as you know that would not be appropriate but we did have a situation where a family families approach the district and want having concerns about students being misgendered and not being not wanting to be separated for the unit so that at one particular building so that was one of the reasons to start this investigation and even though gender identity is specifically not taught in this unit which we've discussed um so i know at rosalind we just because this did not go over well um amongst a lot of parents it was asked why couldn't we show the video with we had three classrooms why couldn't one be if boys and girls wanted to be there together one be girls and one be boys
193and then have a questions in that situation and we were shot down um i i just feel we sometimes i feel that a unilateral of this decision was made without perhaps taking into account all the students and perhaps for some of the students is how the feedback i've received but i think what we we've said with pulling the video out looking at what would replace that warrants us taking a step back and looking at how that's offered that would be great and since uh this was reviewed in 2013 2017 is it up for review just the whole unit itself in the next couple of years now it starts i want to say 23. 23 24. oh okay so another two years official review starts with for but at this point in time it's just trying
194to find a new um fill-in for the video that's going to be removed and it may not necessarily be a video right like go look for that but it may just the modality and the type of media might be different so along with the new video are you saying you would consider re going back to separating boys and girls for portion of the unit for questions i think they need to look at resources make decisions on that and then determine what what is most appropriate i guess along that line because i know at many schools this was sponsored through the pto as an after-school thing are schools still allowed to do that if they so choose yeah i don't have the history completely on that i got a little bit of it um you know
195if if outside activities you don't want to use our facilities there's there's procedures and processes to do that um i don't want to speak for the pto on whether they want to do that or not i know i'm just i'm not speaking saying they do either but it used to be run that we would bring in um a speaker for girls and a speaker for was and it was not it was sponsored outside of not outside of the school but the pto sponsored it in our particular case or i think in one school maybe the girl scouts did it or whatever is that yeah so as stated in the memo this year there was only one school in particular that chose to do that with an outside organization and it was an event just for
196for males i think in the past there would be like a mommy daughter tea or something like that but i know that you know not all kids have a mommy you know and so that becomes like difficult and troubling and you know hits a different button of care that we need to be aware of or a daddy or you know yeah and we don't want to ostracize kids oh absolutely you should be able to come with a guardian or whoever you so choose a trusted adult i want to say that i feel like um you guys got this and the thing the only thing that i would ask for is when when and if we make a change that we make it clear in the memo that goes out to the parents i trust your
197judgment that's what you're here for i feel like they're way too far on the dance floor so but will we hear back what the the changes in the curriculum then this time frame to look at this the fall yeah by yeah within the fall because this unit is typically taught in april and so in a timely manner prior to the unit's implementation so let's do that work and take what we heard under consideration we'll report back to the board talking a weekly report that would be excellent can i just i just want to back up a little bit you you're differentiating sex ed from a family planning unit in sixth seventh eighth ninth tenth eleventh twelfth grade they don't get sex ed no so it's so all of this so remember what i said illinois
198senate bill 818 is different than the mandated units of study so the mandated units of study in the state of illinois fall under the category of health physical education and safety so there's a bullet pointed list of everything a student must experience either in grades k through 6 or middle school and or high school and so in middle school as you know a student needs 18 weeks of health and high school student needs 18 weeks of health and we choose to teach that in 10th grade so within the units of study as set by the state board in those bullet points we are obligated to align ourselves to the illinois health standards so let's say we did adopt the sex ed standards then we would have to go back and realign our curriculum to embed
199some of those standards in but if not then the standards that we're obligated to align to are the illinois health standards which to my knowledge are not set for revision at any well yeah that could change but it's not right and then going back to 818 so we can't pick and choose if i mean we either have to say yes we're going to do this or no we're not or are there important things in 818 that we might want to share with our students in district 220 yeah so that's a conversation that we should have at the policy committee as to because you do have to either adopt and say you're teaching sex ed or not teaching sex ed but then if we decided to teach sex ed then you could take the standards document
200and then choose which standards we teach within there so let's say we felt as a district it was only appropriate to use the 612 standards then we would have the ability to do so but we feel we have what we need right now within the health standards to align with the mandated unit of units of study if that makes sense that's not something you would august first it's approved and you're going to roll out this year oh no i understand that we would need at least one academic year to appropriately vet the standards dr hunt mentioned that if the resources associated with kind of changing our curriculum to really focus on all of these aspects of sex education is taking away from the core academic values that we are promoting and teaching in our schools
201which makes sense i mean that's that's concerns discussed with our team for sure so like with the illinois health standards things like sexually transmitted infections are part of the health standards so there are still some topics but it's limited to what's set out in the health standards so will we will we though look through i guess i'm still confused we got received everything that we might choose from or is there still more we don't adopt the policy if we don't adopt the policy then there is nothing we need to do right now it as it relates to curriculum with the exception of reviewing the video or instructional materials to replace the video because we're already aligned to the mandated units of study should we decide to adopt the policy we would be able to pick
202and choose pieces of it so if there's 100 things we can pick one well i mean there's 76 stand pages of standards so not we wouldn't necessarily teach all 76 pages but we would align our curriculum to the standards because standards themselves just like a textbook is not a curriculum they're a set of standards that help inform curricula but we could choose that one standard and implement it in our current curriculum as well right which one standard there's 76 pages and there's one piece of it that we like if we don't adopt the policy no we're not using any of these standards i think my understanding is responded to whether the district can adopt all or nothing correct yeah okay i thought it was right i guess i'm just troubled that there's been no change
203in material since 2017 but things have changed you know things are happening and i just want to make sure that we stay on on the cutting edge that's what barrington does with other curriculum so i agree we don't want to spend more energy than we have to but we also don't want to teach our kids something from 2013 when in 2023 that may not apply anymore but but health health is part of the curriculum cycle just like every every curriculum comes around five years seven years every seven years and 23 did i hear yes starting in 2023 starts the process so that first year is really that research and then the second year is the design and develop and the third year is implementation we will be looking at this we can't review all the
204curriculums at once it's impossible we need our teachers to be teaching right that's why we have a cycle a cycle yes wait and you can't buy the resources every year doctor doctor standards don't change all the time like since we're currently aligned to the health standards we do have an appropriate curriculum in place and we do believe that curriculum is fluid and one example of a small revision is looking at something like a supplemental instruction material because that's one small piece that makes up a much broader curriculum we appreciate you recognizing that and trying to fix it and just clarify for me so the health and pe standards that uh maybe ma'am usually work term what did we just update you're talking about the pe teachers and curriculum and that has nothing to do with
205the health curriculum i mean that's a separate some of the health standards are overlapped with pe and so yes they do talk about nutrition they talk about proper exercise and the importance of exercise so some of that is being taught in our pe classes but not human growth and development there's very specific health standards by the state of illinois let me be clear exactly what we're doing and what we need to be doing okay okay how about agenda items for august 16th see what we have on here we'll have an action item to adopt the textbook instructional materials just a reminder we we did that kind of at the end of the year this board talked about let's do it at the front end so if you're thinking we just did that well we did
206recently do that but we're looking at resources and materials for the upcoming school this is so this list then is going to be posted publicly when or is it already out there i didn't check to be honest so if what prior to the launch of the new website it was up there i'm not sure and samantha you can correct me if i'm wrong but it should be on the website and after board approval we'll replace it with the new one but i'm talking about a new one right after board approval we'll put it on there is it i guess my question is does it need to be up there prior to board approval too anything we can vote on it but i guess don't we want to get a sense of what parents think of
207these materials as well we bring it to you as representatives of the community and recommend it to you to approve i'm just trying to think of what we looked at this year it was hundreds of pages of books and i'm not sure how seven of us dr hunt said they would highlight any changes in the curriculum and draw it to our specific attention well that's fair but that doesn't mean that so then you could go to last year's list essentially yeah and remember this is the core right right we proved the core curriculum okay so then i guess the school starts on actually school starts on the 17th right kindergarten um i don't know i guess i'm just i'm concerned because i just know that i don't know i don't know i don't think i
208have the bandwidth to go through hundreds of pages of and i and i get that you're going to identify the changes but who's to say that's just going to be changes that need to be verified i don't know i'm kind of thinking out loud right now i don't know what the rest of you guys think uh i had a different understanding i think by law we have to prove we have to take this action her policy so what is the timeline again what's the timeout district has typically done this at the end of the school year right so we agreed the board right the board that we move that up so we are moving it up now maybe this first year it's it's difficult because it's a quick turnaround and steve if you want to
209go through all of that i would start with what we what we currently have out there that's i mean that's i would assume the vast majority very very minimal changes yeah so the vast majority is consistent with what you approved two months ago well to be fair though i think that it must be for everybody i just know when we approved it in what june was it or what was it the may meeting of the second meeting was the second or i mean we were four weeks away from the end of school it had been in effect for twenty seven months in august that's why we're changing the process i understand but what i'm saying is again my takeaway from that meeting was just all right well it's already been in place so you know
210why descent at this point right no i understand so i would this would be my suggestion this is what i did so you know if you're interested in your materials that are being presented then i would just look at the copyright dates of the publications they're all listed sure right and again we'll highlight what's changing right and the isbn number and everything are all accessible on the report to your point steve maybe this year is not the year to do it because we have a tight turnaround but maybe now or and we can keep working our way up to having this be done earlier and right maybe like at the beginning of the summer so we can approve it and then there's some time curriculum and resources we can bring those changes with those approvals
211yeah so this is a a short blip because like the timeline indicated before the presentation was given in april but unfortunately it was for the current year now in the 22-23 school year we'll provide another presentation in april or however the timeline is determined by the board which will include the report for the 23-24 school year so you won't even have to wait until the summer makes sense that's helpful okay thank you all right do we have a motion to can to um approve the confidentiality of closed session minutes so moved roll call please leah callister lazari yes angela wilcox yes sandra bradford yes barry altschuler yes katie karam yes promotion cases i'm sorry back to agenda items are i'm not tr when did we decide to discuss um how books are curated perhaps our
212definition of i which i agree is slippery slope which is i feel like if we could define things for people to the best of our ability as a district we might side note question did you get my yes four of the minutes excuse me did you get my yes did i remember i'm sorry for the minutes approval for the minutes did you see us yes okay good sorry because i don't think i spoke that's because i spoke sorry okay um do we have a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor aye all right any opposition