001that's one two three test one two three thank you it is now 6 35 and we are out of closed executive session at this time we will reconvene the regular meeting of the board of education with the pledge to the american flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all roll call please mr buker here mr herrera mrs howell here here this is here mrs whitcomb here mr zicker are there any items on the agenda any members of the board would like to amend or move hearing none do i have a motion to approve the agenda of the regular meeting of the board of education on november november 15 2021 as presented
002mayville made the motion and member houck seconded the motion to approve the agenda of the regular meeting of the board of education on november 15 2021 as presented discussion roll call please ms mayville hi mrs houck mr herrera mrs whitcomb mr zickert mr bucher mrs reed nimik i motion passes at this time we will have our school reports from student council students up first we have caden finisted from belvedere high school to honor our veterans and remember the reason for our day off on november 11th washington academy the students had been practicing for student-led conferences in their classrooms students were preparing and practicing what they will share with their parents so they can take ownership over their learning they recently finished celebrating hispanic heritage month on october 15 and some students and teachers helped create
003visual displays throughout the building a goal in the building is to embrace the students and the cultures within the building and community they have done this by promoting and providing students with opportunities for student ownership of their learning and our building's environment they'd look forward to continuing their practices throughout the year at south middle school there was nothing to report belvedere high school bellevue high school concluded a successful fall athletic season by seeing more all-conference athletes named than the total named during the entire 21 the 2020-2021 athletic season beau and gigi de genero qualified for the state meet in the girls tennis and nina fiore qualified for state and girls cross country boys soccer finished the season ranked in state and both sutton and mckenna gaines finished top 10 in multiple events for girls co-op
004swimming girls golf nearly qualified for state and football ended their season with an exciting 32-29 win over guilford also theater arts performed the play trapped in the performing arts center october 22nd through the 24th and both national honor society and theater hosted separate halloween events in the hall in the school we celebrated uh national stress awareness day on november 3rd giving away squishy stress pencils to staff and students and talking about stress management techniques now since the north representative is not here i will be speaking on their behalf lincoln elementary school they had a space night with the discovery center for third through fifth graders and it was a huge success all students participated in a space laser assembly earlier the same day the students have been learning patriotic songs this month and in music
005in honor of veterans day at seth whitman they have been very busy at seth whitman we know that we now have after-school tutoring running for schools in grades k-5 after school tutoring takes place every tuesday and thursday and instruction focuses on both reading and math students have been very excited to attend at caledonia elementary they are having a great year at caledonia they finished up their first annual trunk retreat and had a great turnout in addition they allowed students to wear their costumes to school and did a parade through the neighborhood the students parents and community loved it they are looking forward to parent conferences coming up at the end of the trimester at central middle parent teacher conferences were taking place on 11 4 and 11 10. national junior honor society induction ceremony will
006take place on 11 10 21 boys basketball cheer and dance seasons are in full swing the first progress run was sent home on 11 421 the staff has been involved involved in analyzing several pieces of data in the last few weeks dual language aappl data approaching proficiency data for all students approaching proficiency data for students with special ed and el services and the panorama data that the most recent survey at north high school they had an awesome month up north here are some highlights they had their first play in over two years puffs they had a spirit week at the end of october that included a huge hit where students brought anything but a backpack to school boys cross country finished 10th place in the state of illinois and peoria the band had their match
007marching concert and the choir performed their fall concert they had 21 teachers nominated for the golden apple awards and lastly the girls volleyball team finished second in state in the past weekend that is all at this time members of the public and employees of district 100 who submitted comments via email will be read after the in-person comments and those attending in person will make public comments first per board policy 2230 the board must allow a minimum of 30 minutes of public comment in a 20-minute minimum total length of time for any one subject if we reach 30 minutes on any given topic this evening i may request an end to public comment in order to give the maximum number of people an opportunity to speak please try to limit your comments to three minutes again
008all email comments perfor provided to the board of education via the boe at district 100.com email by 1 pm today have been included to be read if time permits emailed public comment received after 1 pm today has been attached to this evening's agenda for the public and the board review i apologize if i mispronounced names please feel free to correct me first we have holly schmidt spencer she'll be speaking on the impact of teach of teacher on administrative leave on students specifically social studies and at bcms thank you good evening my name is holly shrimser and i am the parent of an eighth grade student at belvedere central middle school my child social studies teacher is one of the district teachers who has been placed on administrative leave due to the vaccination and weekly testing
009requirements for the past six weeks my daughter has not had a teacher in this u.s history class a multitude of people have been covering this class and the teacher's absence one day they have three subs in one 45-minute class period the reason why i wanted to speak to all of you this evening is not to debate the state mandates or give an opinion on this issue but to bring your attention to the impact that it is having on our students the teacher who's been placed on leave taught both language arts and social studies classes at the school according to the principal they were able to make the necessary changes to get most of her classes covered but two classes remain affected her sixth and seventh hour social studies classes these two classes include approximately 50
010students there essentially has been zero teaching going on in these two classes according to the building principle the 50 students that make up these two classes are now approximately six weeks behind their classmates from the other eighth grade history classes we have been told that it is unlikely that they will ever be able to catch up a few weeks ago another history teacher was brought in to teach the class for two days this was because the students were being forced to take a test over material that they had not yet covered well i believe this teacher made every effort to go over a lot of material in a short period of time to catch these students up the reality is that it just wasn't enough time and all but two students miserably failed that test
011my daughter included we requested that she be allowed to retake that test but we're told instead to not worry about it because the test was going to be excluded when they factor grades because so many students did poorly two weeks ago central middle school implemented the edge annuity online learning program in these two classes this is a credit recovery program that is being used as mainstream curriculum students work at their own pace watching lessons and taking tests on their chromebook they are basically responsible for their own learning the building sub sits in the classroom simply as a classroom monitor the principal has advised us the edge annuity will continue to be used until this teacher returns to her position or someone else applies for it the job has currently been posted for four five weeks
012without a single applicant this is what i want to ask you tonight is this the education that i'm paying for and where is the fairness in this situation are these 50 students not entitled to the same education as the other 8th grade students and how are these 50 students going to compare to their classmates who had an actual teacher when they move on to high school next year and history classes that they will be required to take there i don't know the answer to this problem but i do know that i can't sit back quietly and allow my child's education to be impacted in this way on behalf of my child and the other 49 students in those two classes i implore you to make it a priority to figure out an acceptable solution to
013this issue so that an equal education is being provided to these students thank you for your time thank you next john deary speaking on proficiency-based grading good evening my name is john deary i am a teacher at belvedere high school i also have the privilege of being the english content leader and a varsity coach there as well i've been an educator for 12 years and in those 12 years i've picked up two graduate degrees a master's of arts and curriculum instruction and masters of science in instructional design i bring these degrees up not to gloat or to pad my own ego but to bring in some expertise and some intentional work that i've done over the course of over a decade on how to structure curriculum instruction and design in the classroom over the last
01412 years i've taught both in a proficiency-based system here in belvedere for the last four years as well as the traditional grading system prior to that one of the things that's really talked about when we talk about proficiency-based grading are the deep dark secrets that happen in teachers grade books teachers grade books are subjected to their needs their wants their desires at the time that as we look at how points are assigned we actually are not teaching information but we are rather acquiring points that we go through and we can hide and change manipulate the value of a test or the weight of an assignment to make the class average look a little bit better to protect our own backsides it's something that's been done for a long time it's something that's uncomfortable to admit
015and it's something that's done in many many locations this is not an isolated thing this is not something that's unique to me or to any of the teachers i've worked with and pbg is supposed to go ahead and shift that into measuring skill and basing it off of a standard and we've come across the problems of making that switch because when you've had a system that you have a little play in that a box of kleenex can bump you from an 88 to a 91 you get that b to an a without actually learning anything one you're put to the challenge of actually teaching it becomes much more difficult when we look at what pbg is bringing for us in our schools it is bringing that struggle and we can all deny it we can't
016deny that and that struggle is a good thing because it is bringing about better teaching practices and teaching a better teaching experience for our students that being said everyone in this room cannot deny the fact that we're here because we care about students we all do whether you're on the board you're a parent you're a teacher here we all are here to advocate for our students what's best for them and our methodologies and approaches are varied and are never going to align but as we move forward and as the board considers possible changes to our grading system and our learning mastery system i implore you to look at the two roads in front of us the first road is that of responding to those feelings of emotion the the the vitriol that has come out
017of the conflict over this the emotions that parents have about their students struggling the frustrations that teachers have those are the things that can give easy quick changes rather i implore this board to go with an approach that is slow that is calculated that is built upon data and time things that we don't want to give but we need to over the course of the next year we need time without code influencing our practices while we're having all teachers at the same time implementing working with our instructional coaches and our resources in the district to actually be able to explore this topic to better understand how it's working for us and be able to make the changes necessary for us to implement that so as we listen to voices again i implore you do not
018respond to the emotion respond to the time and the need that we have to cover this issue thank you very much thank you mr deary next bill clicker speaking regarding proficiency-based grading read this quickly so i can squeeze it in um my name is bill clicker and my wife and i have been residents of poplar grove since 2004. our daughter graduated from belvedere north in 2021 and her son is currently a junior at bellevue north our experience with the school system and faculty in caledonia belvedere central and belvedere north has been overwhelmingly positive the reason i chose to speak here today is to voice my opposition to the continuation of pbg in district 100 schools while i'm confident the faculty confident in the faculty and the ability of my children to work hard to learn
019i feel both students faculty and parents continue to struggle unnecessarily due to pvg it's my opinion that the underlying philosophy that pbg is built on is fundamentally flawed it encourages procrastination and does not prepare students for post-secondary education or postgraduate employment i'm gonna i'm unable to think of a career path that allows you to repeatedly try and fail until you achieve achieve success i don't think you would want your surgeon architect engineer or bus driver to be allowed to just keep trying until they master their craft the reality of life is that there are deadlines and consequences to not meeting those deadlines ppg has taken a simple universally understandable grading system and contorted it into a complex mess that puts our students at a disadvantage when compared with their peers in other school districts despite
020their best efforts pbg has not been administered consistently by faculty adding to students frustration and confusion perhaps it has a place in grade school where difference between an a and a c doesn't mean a whole lot but at the high school level grades and gpa have a direct impact on a student's college admissions scholarships and financial aid i feel the transition from high school to college which is difficult enough already is made more difficult by forcing our students to shift from pbg to a traditional grading system once they get to college my daughter escaped pvg by attending rock valley college in her senior year through the running start program my son will be attending rvc next year through running start as well running starts an excellent program for high school students in good academic standing
021but is even more valuable now as a means to avoid pbg we chose to live in poplar grove in part based on the reputation and quality of the school system however when recently asked by a new co-worker who voiced an interest in moving to candlewick my recommendation was to consider a property on the north side of the subdivision or a private school to avoid district 100 schools at this time i'm sure the ppg was implemented with the best intentions and the faculty is doing their best to make it work but to anyone who is paying attention it should be fairly easy to sense the continued frustration of faculty parents and students the most compelling data i found in the 2021 district-wide grading promotion system document that is attached to today's board agenda is on page
02228. over 70 percent of the 1459 students polled would prefer a traditional grading system to pbg i'd be interested to hear the results of the same question asked confidentially of faculty or parents in the district my suspicion is that you would see similar results when seventy percent of your constituents are making asking to make a change it's the obligation of this body to pay attention and vote accordingly it's time to end this failed social experiment and npbg in district 100 thank you [Applause] thank you mr clicker next misty croyell speaking regarding proficiency-based grading and ms crayol can you make sure that the uh microphone is on has a green button please says it's green excellent thank you all right [Music] um i'm long so if i have something very important to get to so if
023i'm gonna run out of time please let me know i spent a lot of time preparing this and i do have handouts for after yeah i would love to thank you um so i do have um i've allowed to go over i did a lot of research on this over the last couple months and i was really like an opportunity to present everything again if i'm gonna run out of tenses let me know for reference i'm a mom of five kids two who are a high achieving graduates of vhs a senior and a sophomore at vhs and a seventh grader at the sms we've been part of the district since 2005. i work full-time as a project manager writing proposals for complex communication systems that integrate with various communications platforms i have an mba and
024various certifications in project management i understand the process of project implementation performing risk analysis and determining risk mitigation strategies that are needed throughout any project implementation i say all of that as a frame of reference and to clarify that the implementation of pbg and now the new empower grading system is exactly that a project prior to this year i didn't feel the need to get involved in board meetings curriculum meetings policy meetings let alone find myself standing here speaking at a board meeting and when pbg first rolled out i told my kids they needed to adjust to the new teaching methods and support their teachers as this was an adjustment for them as well now frustr frustrated with the direction of the curriculum and grading systems i went to my first curriculum meeting in march
025questions were asked i found that the answers being given did not provide clear answers so i began asking questions of my own the short version was that we were five years into a 10-year plan i asked what we were doing for students who are ready to move on to new material in their classes but are being held back waiting for others to catch up i was told we were we are not there yet i asked what the remediation plan was for students in the district to have been negatively affected by the implementation of pbg there is no remediation plan there is no plan b for students that this is impacting negatively so i have to ask why are we implementing a project with no implement with no risk mitigation strategy in place in the world
026of project management to not consider the risk elements of a project and plan for mitigation strategies before the start of implementation borders on irresponsibility as there is never a situation during project implementation that does not require some element of risk mitigation as i understand it the rollout of pdg was approved by the board as a pilot program meaning there should have been no assurance that would get approved to continue on within the district so when the goals and measures so what are the goals and measurements that are being used to determine if pdg is successful at the elementary and middle school levels who's responsible for medi measuring those goals who's responsible for providing the inputs how we determine if we are ready to keep pbg moving forward into the high school or if we need
027further evaluation to apply risk mitigation for success at the lower grade levels first the district 100 website states that we've been working on pbg since 2011 and started pushing implementation in 2016-2017 the site also refers to us as a certified marzano high high reliability school but what does that even mean should i skip to my most important point all right so i want everybody to stop trying to convince me that there's something wrong with the traditional grading system and that my kids brought in kleenex for extra credit for their grades the the um the pbg has negatively impacted my children i have a son at uis who was impacted between eight and ten thousand dollars over the course of his college education because of the gpas my daughter who was just received refers to acceptance
028letters to college today into her program um i'm gonna put this chart up here this is the difference point one percent of her gpa makes and what she can be offered for scholarship money that's thirty two thousand dollars thirty two thousand dollars difference in what she could get for scholarship money and because of pbg she is on the brink of this and not this and it's not because she's not smart and it's not because she does not work hard it's because of pvg because she was on track for this right here that's 32 000 so i'm going to ask you to please i'm not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater i'm just saying we need to pump the brakes at high school reevaluate reassess find where we can make some changes to make
029this beneficial without hurting the students who are on their way to college thank you miss croyo next we have mark if the speaker's not we don't use the speaker anymore because we're broadcasting the sound to the internet so that speaker doesn't pick up anything thank you for anyone that approaches please remember or think of that and maybe project your voice if you want take your mask down while you're while you're speaking okay next is mark rhodey he'll be speaking on achievement test scores no i i was going to allow my time to miss you okay so no on you okay thank you do you do you have something to give do you want to hand it to him and have him read it it's more personal i mean um uh oh right that's not what
030we're here please stop that's not what we're here for what we're here for if yes ma'am since your time is up yes if you would like to see to mr rhodey to read for you that can be done otherwise we can move i think the biggest point i wanted to make was the scholarship money so that's it okay there was other stuff okay all right okay next we have tom wahlberg okay thank you if this is not a back and forth between the audience and the board it's public comment thank you mrs mayville thank you mrs croy mrs cruel you have things that you can pass out correct okay if you if you would like to provide that to anyone else as well as well as to the board um that wanted to hear you
031speak that would be fine as well okay as i was talking about the rankings of the school throughout the last 10 years um the very last page is for the marzano academy that this is a lot of this is based on and it clearly shows that why are we following after a program thank you next we have elise schlichting speaking on proficiency-based grading i'm actually reading this on behalf of melissa gallagher she could not be here for the meeting tonight dear district 100 board members firstly i would like to thank the members on the board for this unimaginably challenging job of servicing this district especially during the last two years we appreciate your time and commitment to serving the community i have three students currently in this district one attending bcms and two at bnhs
032my concern today is for the failed pbg system and its clearly obvious inability to support our children's education as evidenced by our plummeting test scores board members have a difficult decision ahead of them we as concerned community members strongly urge you to vote against the failed system and return to standardized grading i have written a previous email to the board that outlined what i see as the major flaws to the system i have spoken to countless students parents and teachers who all feel the same it is time to revert back to traditional based grading before we academically lose an entire generation of students to fit to this failed system it is my belief as well as those i've spoken with in this current administration's decision to advance their pbg agenda that has single-handedly destroyed our
033position of academic power in our region and throughout the state district 100 was once able to tout its high academic achievements over surrounding communities as was the reason so many of us were lured to this district in just a few years potential homeowners have repelled from buying homes in this area due to our academic failure in the key academic areas that matter math science and language arts how can become how can being anything lower than 50 percent be at all acceptable to anyone on this board we all realize that district 100 isn't even close to 50 percent and it seems absurd that we can stand by and allow us us to continue on this path knowing the root of cause is pbg in addition pbg and its connection to empower must be stopped immediately empower
034has strong negative implement implications to our students grades and is leaving students parents and teachers confused about our students true progress in the classroom nearly every day i receive an email stating one of my students is behind on work when they claim to have turned into work not a single parent student teacher or parent student or teacher that i have spoken to believes the decision to institute in power was based on the software's effectiveness and accuracy and it's leaving all of the frustrated confused the contract within power needs to be broken immediately if nothing more for its performance failures as i stated i see countless negative aspects to pbg but one glaring obvious point i would like to address tonight is the preparedness or lack thereof my once highly achieving student no longer feels the
035need to study for exams because they can retake a portion of their test if they achieve a lower test score than they set a goal for in life beyond the classroom adults need to be prepared for highly stressful tests pbg is teaching these kids that it's it's okay not to prepare that they can have a second or third chance if they need it and nearly every profession i can think of of do-overs are not accepted in professional environments colleges and workplaces make no room for these that are not ready a person will need to be edged out by someone who has trained harder or prepared more our children's early and middle educations are the foundation of what prepares them for beyond the classroom we have one chance at getting this right for these kids and
036now is the time to right the wrong board members have the power to vote against this system today for its lack of achievement and its failure to perform please so please do so now while we still have a fighting chance to turn the ship around and get it back on the right course of academic success sincerely melissa gallagher thank you miss lichting next we have alicia russo speaking regarding proficiency-based grading i'm just i'm just reading off my sheet i made a name good evening everyone um i am alicia perez um i was a russo um tonight you have very big decisions to make it won't be easy this is a hard emotional time for everybody everybody's invested financially personally and emotionally no matter how or what you feel about pbg children's futures are on the
037line i'm fortunate to have at least 15 different teacher perspectives from a day in the life of my three north students i have average children from an education perspective it's easy to find people to come up and talk about how great it is and how great it is for the future of our children but ask yourself why didn't they offer anyone who didn't like to come up and speak from a teacher perspective why would they be willing to share it with me and not other and other parents how they would feel but they are not comfortable sharing it with the true true decision makers it's kind of sad isn't it first i need to say that i really like mr friesman we've become friends and personally it seems to be doing a great job at
038north i want you to all know um when i share information it's just to share it's not just to share it it's not personal he and i had a great conversation about pbg we both agreed that we don't agree on everything but he respected taking in my information i asked him to share talk to one of my twins one of my twins offered to talk to him and they had a great my son came home and was super excited about the conversation they had what he described was we need to be rewarded right not a prize or a token a grade how are they doing they don't know on a day-to-day basis where they stand in a classroom they have to understand am i there am i not i say to them how is your
039school day going i don't know i got through that today but i don't know how i did or i have to retake it my other twin in chemistry loves his teacher says to me mom why does he only teach 10 minutes and then i have to work on my own and now i have to do the whole unit all over again because i didn't do well on it what are we doing these are fundamental core things that our children need when do teachers and i love teachers some of my closest friends are teachers we've relied so much on video teaching that we're not actually educating our students we talk about the old grading system lucas said it to mr friesma we need to be rewarded we need to have grades we need to hope know
040how we're doing well isn't that what an abcdf on a paper did if a child got an f on a paper isn't that a red alarm to say to a teacher that kid didn't grasp it shouldn't i go back and help that child why do we need the social emotional aspect of it to move it along it was right in front of us now you can go and find anything on the internet that's positive about pbg and negative we can find out about medical we can find out about anything right what i found on the marzanos in maine you all know this they made it into law in 2011 2018 they took it out of law because they weren't having success but what was consistent across the districts in maine was that they liked components
041of it so it almost sounds like what we had with canvas right we had the teachers lay out their calendar in canvas and these children could work along at their own pace while teachers were teaching them as a matter of fact when my daughter's best friends finished english class in december her freshman year and moved on to her sophomore year what was wrong with that we were doing well why did we have to disrupt that so i just want you to all understand the frustration of grading from a teacher's perspective as well they say we don't know what the hell is happening we don't know how to change a grade my daughter was almost ineligible right another coach actually said we don't know when a child is eligible when they're not eligible it's all very
042confusing how about something as simple as insurance kids get discounts for good student insurance do you know most insurance companies aren't accepting pbg even as an insurance i mean what are we doing all because of this i'm just going to recap just end with this report cards came out i posted this on facebook and i also have emails to survey and i like i keep things up for a couple days and then i take them down because i'm not about bashing the district but i am curious right my one student had a 2.5 and out of three and had a d another student had a 2.5 out of 3 and had an a what are we like how do you do this why does that make sense and i'll end it with this and i
043have a lot more to say but i'll end it with this if you're gonna do something in this district let's stop doing it halfway let's just go all the way in close if you're gonna stick with pbg if that's what your choice is close the damn schools down for a full week help these teachers let them learn how to grade this properly they're learning it on their own they're learning it as they go they had to watch a video on how to do this in power and now apparently they get to ask questions so i just ask you if you're going to do it do a great let's stop doing things halfway in this district thank you ms perez next we have carla gayle speaking regarding proficiency-based grading hello so i obviously came here for
044the bigger issue um about my son but i did talk to you all for a while and i hope that you read the letter and um so i know the majority of people are here for another issue which is also um equally important um i just wanted to give the perspective from someone new to the district that's never seen this before um so i got my son's report card he's nine i also got my daughter's report card she's 13. um i it was apparent that there was like domains or like standards or something there was like weird numbers and abbreviations and i had reached out to my son's teacher and trying to figure out like where are these numbers and symbols coming from like there has to be some guide or like some bigger thing
045somewhere um so after like a week and i don't know if maybe the teacher didn't understand herself what was going on but i finally was directed to the district website where there's the huge guide on the proficiency based grading which lists all the different domains that are apparently picked by the school board it just i think that there should have been more information maybe from the beginning of the school year because i had no idea what the whole system was about when i talked to a couple parents about school board meeting tonight and i had mentioned proficiency-based grading everyone that i said that to had no idea what it even was and these are parents you know that have kids here they don't even know what what proficiency-based grading is so it seems like there
046might be kind of a big disconnect to a large population of the district they don't even know what what's going on when i went to conferences um for my daughter in the middle school um the teachers weren't even sure of why the numbers were showing up i mean they were working off the empower it's this is new i'm like you know okay so she's doing really well because she usually doesn't do very well in this subject so what's going on and it's like i almost felt like there was no way for me to tell like what she's even learning or where she's at at all with anything so i left the parent teacher conferences very confused and i i don't think the teachers really understood wholeheartedly what was going on either so um you know
047like i said i'm new to the district but like my first impression when i came here just looking at the numbers and not really having any understanding of what exactly the domains are and what exactly we're teaching them and there were also comments about there's no books anymore they can't use books because the books were geared more towards things where these domains don't address so it's like they have to kind of pick and choose what they can cheat teach to meet these particular standards which was odd as well so it seems like the kids are getting different lessons depending on what the teacher is and there's no books anymore either so um that was just my input for what what i've seen is just coming to the district is just a lot of i have
048no idea you know like i really feel like i have no idea what's going on after the first report card so that's all thank you miss gail is there anyone else here this evening that would like to approach the podium and have a public comment please state your name sir scott fowler from belvedere i know a lot of you all know me um the other day i was talking to different families within an hour i had three families tell me that they absolutely hate the proficiency-based grading i'm lucky my baby graduated so i'm done with you people but the bad thing is now my grandkids are coming so you won't see me go away but this grading system you talk about how many years you've been doing it you set people up to fail that
049officer is going to be the one dealing with them because when you set people up to fail they fail and another thing i'll touch about and we won't get into it this is gospel hearsay i heard we're putting female dispensing machines in the boys bathrooms which that's not right and i have one last thing if you knew our proficiency-based grading was going on would you move this county thank you [Applause] thank you mr fowler possible that we may not get through all of these but we will start with the emails that were received first good afternoon d100 boe members i am contacting you today to express my disappointment in your decision to discontinue the shield testing for district 100 students and staff you have single-handedly taken away the personal choice of 1156 students and staff
050who chose to receive weekly covid19 testing though my children were not signed up to receive this testing i can't help but think of the nearly 1200 who had consented those students receiving those tests stood the possibility of a test to stay in school and stay out of quarantine if they were in close contact with someone with covid now you have taken away that option this is not in the best interest of the students i am sure you are constantly hearing about parents wanting to keep their kids in schools this was your chance at making that possible for these students additionally shield testing would have provided an extra layer of security for those who are worried of contracting or spreading the virus you don't have to agree with them but you do have a responsibility to
051empathize and represent them i am a law i am a law am i alarmed that university of illinois shield staff created accounts for those who had not consented to the testing absolutely do i feel that the situation was being addressed by the administration accordingly yes do i feel strongly that our parents students and staff deserve the option for testing 100 but you have taken that choice away at no fault of their own i know as well as anyone that district 100 is continually being compared to neighboring districts so here are some comparisons for you northbound school district is proceeding with shield testing rockford district 205 is proceeding with shield testing hananiga is proceeding proceeding with shield testing when these districts are able to keep students in person because of shield testing and belvedere is not
052you not dr wiestman should explain why you chose not to give these students the option test to stay i sincerely hope you give great consideration to re-evaluating your decision and work towards re-implementing shield testing within the belvedere school district 1156 students and staff deserve better from you sincerely heather wick community member thank you ms wick next this is an email from lincoln ross it has come to my attention that district 100 has made some decisions that have not been transparent the district has created gender plans for students who want to be recognized as gender different these plans require district employees to not inform parents about their child's gender plan until the child gives the school the okay school employees will be required to call my child by a non-legal name or given name without telling
053me or seeking my consent the non-regulatory guidelines which the district feels empowered to do this give them freedom to decide how the plans will work and the district has decided to cut out parents even though those same guidelines told school districts to make public their policy about gender plans the district has not done this in fact the district has made the decision to keep the policy and the existence of gender plans a secret from the parents in the community this is a direct violation of the non-regulatory guidelines themselves we also know in the guideline we also know in the guidelines from the state reiterate lgbtq plus children have greater struggles with mental health and suicide when parents are not part of the plan the only viable reason for withholding this information from a parent is
054if the parent is deemed destructive the district is implementing a policy of non-disclosure and has the full def has the default position is all parents are destructive do you believe this default position of withholding information from parents without cause will hold up in court i don't think so the superintendent even went so far as sending out a sign up sheet for any teacher to receive lgbtq plus safe space stickers so kids can receive counsel from untrained and unqualified teachers without documentation or parent consent this is a this also is a giant lawsuit in the making i have to ask why the secrecy and risk when it is a fact that simply keeping parents included is far healthier for students i wasn't planning to add this last part but the teachers union is holding classes about
055privileged whiteness and the privileged cisgendered and the importance of critical race theory and education these teachings have no place in primary and secondary schools but the union and the superintendent are pushing them in this community anyway if the superintendent needs something for his sport card could i suggest alienating the parents in the community and that he should score very high next we have a letter from allison mcgee regarding pvg dear board members of district 100 i am writing this letter to bring urgent notice to the flaws in our new grading system my name is allison mcgee and i am a student who attends belvedere north high school i think that pbg itself is not necessarily the problem but the implementation of it in our schools has some major flaws despite the goals of pbg we
056have not seen the student-paced opportunities in our school that was promised for standards-based grading it became known that there was this new idea of having a student-paced type of learning allowing other students to either go ahead or stay behind depending on how well they are doing on a certain subject or area in our school we have iprs every single week those ipr's will tell us if we are behind pace in our class or not if we are behind pace we get an email sent home to our parents although i understand that some people that some may some sorry that some might say that helps students know what to do and what not to that takes the purpose away from student pace learning especially when we get an email sent home to our parents about it
057also another idea of standard-based learning was that we as students could practice our standards without grades being affected in the end in our school i think teachers need to come to a consensus or understanding about what is graded and what is not quote students are able to practice their mastery of standards without the penalty of receiving a bad grade in the gradebook end quote and that was from an etopia.org reference ppg is not the same in theory as it is in practice i believe teachers are confused on whether or not the practice assignment should be counted to a standalone standard final grade as some teachers in our school take the formative assignments towards final grades and some do not even look at our assignments before the test although you can argue that every teacher is
058their own person and therefore can have their own type of grading with this new grading system there needs to be a set consensus on what is and what is not counted towards your grade for a b c d and f grading it allowed more flexibility for different teachers to have a different way of grading but as for pvg there is not a lot of flexibility for teachers to have totally different grading systems as pbg could be very effective and help us see clearly what is missing and what is not i believe that in our school teachers in our school teachers need to come to an understanding of how ppg should work in our school this is highly important to me and others attending my school for these are our grades which could highly affect our
059dreams later in life please take this into consideration where we are very concerned about what pbg could be doing to us in our grades along the line sincerely elsa mcgee and i apologize if i pronounce that incorrectly the next one is from ellen elin jacobson dear board of education thank you for your time and commitment to d100 students teachers and families my name is elin jacobson and i have elon jacobson and i've had the privilege of teaching for the past 20 years at washington academy it has been an honor to call district 100 my home during that time teaching is my passion each day i strive to have a positive impact on my students and families it is my focus to create relationships that help students as they progress through our schools in my time
060spent in district 100 i have helped support many initiatives in a variety of capacities as a teacher summer school principal program coordinator staff developer and committee member it has been my pleasure to help move our district forward a large reason i have remained in belvedere is because we are not afraid to do what is best for our students throughout my time i've had the opportunity to play a part in moving my building forward with proficiency proficiency-based grading i have worked with groups of teachers on both science and math curriculum committees as well as help pilot mastery connect to my building as a district we have been working on pvg for the past 10 years and i can without a doubt say it has universally changed my classroom and instruction pbg helps to facilitate meaningful conversations
061with my students and families my students no longer throw papers into the garbage as they leave my classroom but are proud to go home and show their work to their families my third graders are able to talk to others about the growth that they have made on a specific scale and can articulate why they have received a given score listening to students take ownership for their learning and the pride that they have in describing their growth is unlike anything i've ever experienced in my in the classroom pbg has provided an opportunity for my students to accurately describe their current understanding of a standard and allow them to set goals for themselves as they practice understand and master content proficiency-based grading also provides a system to help students understand that we all learn at different paces
062and progress towards mastery at different levels just because a student cannot master multiplication within the time frame set by a given textbook does not mean that with some time and additional instruction and practice they will not be able to do so pbg allows students to continue to practice and reassess when they are ready no different than someone taking a driver's test if you fail the first time you're allowed to go home practice and then retake when you are ready pbg provides an accurate snapshot of what a student understands at a given moment families can easily see what skills the student has mastered and which need more practice something a percentage cannot describe i'm asking that you keep pbg in our school district it is what is best for our students thank you for your time
063and consideration next this is from northwestern illinois building trades union it's president alan golden dear members of belvedere cusd 100 school board the northwestern illinois building trades unions represents 15 000 construction workers and operates 20 local apprenticeship programs here in the state line area our apprenticeship programs combine traditional classroom instruction with on-the-job training that lays the groundwork for a successful career in the construction trades graduates of our programs are ready for a good career in life continuing a tradition of fine craftsmanship that has been a pillar of our community for generations before anyone can be an apprentice they have to meet or exceed the requirements of our application process all of our programs require minimum grades in math and reading a requirement that many recent high school graduates have difficulty meeting we understand that the
064proficiency-based grading system allows students to re-do homework and re-take exams so that they can focus more thoroughly on problem areas and still advance in class we support this approach so that more students can achieve the math and reading skills they need to be successful in our industry in addition we believe students will be better prepared overall to enter the real world our applicants are able to apply to our apprenticeship programs multiple times in fact it's common for many people to not join the apprenticeship programs until the second or third time they apply this is real world example of a system like proficiency-based grading where applicants are encouraged to improve and try again it will also reduce the barriers to young people joining the trades because they will be more likely to meet the minimum math
065and reading requirements programs like proficiency-based grading lay the groundwork for students to be successful making it more likely that they'll have a meaningful career in our community as you discuss proficiency-based grading tonight please consider how it will impact the educational outcomes for students and the long-term prospects for gainful employment and ultimately the economic vitality of our local communities sincerely ellen golden president next is from dick rundle from eliminateracism815 to board of education belvedere community unit school district 100 to be read at tonight's board meeting board of education i'm writing on behalf of the board of directors in the in the education action team of eliminate racism 815 to express concern about your plans to hold a vote on whether to keep the quote district-wide grading and promotion system end quote which could result in the
066elimination of proficiency-based grading within the belvedere district proficiency-based grading is based on a competency-based approach to education which is in turn designed to prevent students from falling behind or staying behind all students are held to the same high expectations but instruction is individualized to meet each person's strengths and challenges as you know as a result of the pandemic many students now have unfinished learning learning loss black hispanic low income and english english learning students have especially suffered a system which allows students to work towards set standards by redoing some of their work until they meet those standards is an age-old method of learning it is a system based on the concept that quote practice makes perfect and quote this method has been newly adapted for use in educational settings we are especially concerned that minority
067and low-income students who fell behind because of the pandemic may need this individualized method of learning to make up the losses incurred as a result of online learning methods which were created in an emergency as a result of no in-person learning rather than through a careful thought out and tested model of learning to not allow for these students black hispanic low-income and english learning students as well as many white students who fall behind to catch up on their missed learning will mean that a generation of students will be lacking in the education which they need to be able to become functioning income earning students in the belvedere community we urge you to vote to retain the current grading policy next is a letter from sarah warehain dear boe as a concerned and involved parent community
068member who also happens to work as a district employee i would like to share my voice as you begin this evening's meeting after watching every board meeting up until this point i have a question for this board as a whole what is it that you are trying to build for the children of this community i'd like to point out that it's much easier to perform demo demolition and tear things down than it is to design and build and improve this is true for physical structures and also for educational experiences and environments for children right now from where i stand i sadly do not see much building of anything i see a refusal to allow a highly qualified and highly compensated superintendent to perform his duties as evidenced by your refusal to either approve or advise
069on improvement goals i see a refusal to allow district students access to amenities such as tutoring services and shield testing and tonight you have a vote on the agenda about pbg a vote that concerns me because i do not see the board is having a backup plan in place if the majority decides to vote against a very involved way of teaching learning and assessing that is still in the refining status stages of implementation is the goal of the board to return to the formally used industrial model of education while that's a familiar and even comfortable version of school to all of us adults i'd like to point out that sadly the days of being able to secure a good and lasting position down the block at chrysler with a high school diploma earned with percentage
070grades seem to be over the world continues to change whether we like it or not our children face a very different world than we than we did and for one would prefer to give my children every possible opportunity to learn to be flexible engaged in lifelong learners pbg in this district has areas for improvement without a doubt but i would hate to see this get shut down without and at the very least both a solid replacement plan in place that takes the needs of all of our children fully into account and a timeline with which to implement the new plan so as not to cause damage to student educational experiences to be transparent my opinion is that the larger structures for something great are already in place with pbg it's just a matter of adding
071the finishing touches and refinements no demolition needed in closing i ask you to again consider my focusing question what is it that district 100 board of education as a team is trying to build for the children of this community i hope to see the answer to my question reflected soon in discussions held in discussions made by this board thank you for your time sarah warham district parent community member and employee next is a letter from natalie rhodey dear district 100 board of education members over the past two years i've both emailed and had conversations with each of you about my concerns and opposition to proficiency-based grading proficiency-based grading is about the grading it's about how we score students it's about it's about one two three four it's about it using a system that requires translation
072to a's b's c's why because a's b's c's is what all of the top universities and colleges our graduates attend use all of the transcript transcripts we send out include a's b's cs and gpas we keep hearing many of the same talking points regarding pbg some come directly from the district's pbg website but to be honest teaching to clearly define standards does not require pbg communicating performance to these standards does not require pbg accurate meaningful and timely feedback does not require pbg students being at the center of learning does not require pbg if we are national leader in proficiency based grading as our website states and on in one of only 25 districts nationally certified to the marzano's high reliability framework then why don't we have solid quantifiable data to demonstrate our outstanding performance i
073have yet to see data and metrics that confirm proficiency-based grading improve student achievement but what i do see is our districts ranking in the state continue to decline rest assured i am not the only person opposed to ppg in fact many teachers oppose it as well these teachers however have been silenced by the fear of repercussions for voicing their opinions i will share with you in their own words what some have to say teacher number one quote pbg and the current grading system have had a negative impact on students pbg is even more subjective than a traditional grading system and it is like a foreign language to students and parents this change has been a huge setback in student achievement i hope for the sake of the students families in this community that we return
074to traditional evidence-based grading end quote teacher number two quote teachers students and parents are all having a hard time understanding the grading conversation i am spending hours going through every student's grades to make sure all grades are converted and calculated correctly end quote teacher number three quote students have become complacent conte content with mediocrity a two is fine this will resonate into their future in the decisions they make end quote teacher number four quote i was sold on pbg when it was communicated that the traditional system advances students with gaps pbg is supposed to only move students on on when three is achieved we have not been able to effectively intervene with the number of ones not even considering the number twos they just move on the gaps are even larger also it seems to
075go at the end of the year is quote as few ones as possible number five teacher number five quote athletic eligibility is difficult to determine end quote teacher number six a two can end up being anywhere from a d to a b percentage grades left little gray area and i would always let students reassess even before pbg end quote teacher number seven quote a lot of times students will just say i'll take the two they'll give up trying for a three because they consider two passing there is too big of a gap in the two scores students do not understand if they are close to the one or the three students are not as motivated by a three as they would be from getting an 80 90 or 100 if a student gets a two
076on one assignment and a standard and does not and does no other work for that standard and power gives them a two high school students suffer the most many are trying to get scholarships and this grading system does not help them to be able to do this districts around us like hananiga have students that get traditional grades and weighted grades for accelerated classes there have been more failing students since we went to the system parents still don't understand what these scores mean if you are going to stick with standards-based grading then you should at least consider using percentages so that parents and students understand it better teacher number eight and this is the last one even though this isn't this doesn't get to the very end teacher number eight said quote parents can keep up
077with the changes and are less involved and ask less questions about parents can't keep up with the changes and are less involved and ask less questions about performance kids have no understanding of the system because of the yearly changes end quote there is additional but we have run out of time for mrs rody okay the next one is um [Music] is a letter from a letter that was forwarded by natalie rhodey from her daughter l rhodey my name is el rhodey and i am an eighth grader at bellevue south us students have our own opinions about perform performance based grading our opinions have not been considered at all in one of my classes our teacher explained to us how grades are converted at the high school level this led to us as students asking about
078ppg on our own multiple students asked how they could talk to someone about it and how how to get it changed students want to reach out about their dislike for it but are unsure of how to do it additionally why use pbg if it is eventually converted into letter grading in the end many students are still very confused with how it works even after multiple years of this with grades that are threes to one point fives to twos we are unsure of the in between this gives no clarity to where we need to improve on and adds to confusion this is not only a problem with the numbers displayed but with the grading itself when viewing standards or progress reports we see twos threes or maybe ones we have no idea where we need to
079make improvement there is a lot of gray area in the end with a two we do not know if we are right at a two if we barely missed the three with letter and percentage grading this is made a lot clearer letter and percentage grading fill in the gray area that pbg has percentages can range from any number one to a hundred and there are many other letter options like a minus b plus or c's for example this is much easier and much clearer for students to understand where they are at with specific standard or topic the standards can still be used with a better working grading system pbg is not required to keep using the same standards that we have percentages and letter grading can easily be used with the current standards ppg is
080the main issue although it comes with smaller issues like empower and success maker when my class of 25 students was asked about their grades unempowered 23 said that they did not like it at all meanwhile with success maker i myself and many other students in my classes have received the sun the sum of the same questions multiple times so far this year in both math and reading i myself and another person in my class have had math removed from our success maker program because we have maxed out of it it is only november and this program does not help add to our learning performance-based grading is very difficult for students thank you for taking the time to understand this from a student's point of view even though we as students might not get to decide
081in the end we should at least be given a voice on something that impacts us firsthand okay we have two more so i'll read two more and then public comment will be closed dear belvedere school district 100 board my name is courtney i'm a mother of four district 100 students i have one at washington academy two at belvedere south middle school and one at belvedere high school i have served as a pto president at washington academy and i have been very active in our schools and community i have many concerns regarding the pbg system i have tried to be open-minded and i have studied how this grading system works honestly i still do not think it is best suited for all students my own students all learn very differently i have two very intelligent sons
082who have tested honors and above average i have a daughter who has an iep for a learning disability and i have a daughter who is more of just an average student i believe the pbg system is designed to be an okay source for any average learning student i believe it does average out the above average students and it fails on our learning disabled students with our original a through f grading scale our sons were straight a students since switching to pbg they now receive twos and threes their work ethic has not changed they are still equally as intelligent as they were and they still test above average so why do they seem why do they seem so average i believe this gives them less to work towards the days of quote for every a you
083get i give you five dollars is gone end quote and the quote straight a end quote title is gone you have averaged my sons out with every other average student and then there is my daughter she is beautiful kind hard-working and so competitive however she does deal with a learning disability she does not let this hold her back and she still tries her hardest and gets her work in she was an honorable student before the pbg system took place now my daughter can barely keep her grades past a one or two the system has completely failed her with her iep she should not be able to fail in a class last month she was marked and eligible for sports the one thing she really strives at is and makes her happy how does this happen
084with an iep it happens because my daughter will never be able to master a class or even come close to mastery she was diagnosed with adhd she does not have the behavioral factors but severely lacks memory retention and years before the pbg system was implemented my daughter was so proud of herself for her grades making honor roll bringing home that sticker for my car that said i have an honorable student now we got progress reports and she seems so discouraged let's not forget to mention that the teachers are having a hard time keeping their grades up to date i get notices that my kids have eyes when in reality the teachers haven't entered their grades yet this causes me to address the grade with my child in a stern manner just to find out that
085they did do their work and it's on the teacher's end i do still have one more child who is in third grade she is my more average learning student she's also in third grade and really only has a year and a half of normal learning nine years old and has received one full year of education it is hard to tell how the ppg system will work for her long term as of now it is fair for her i can't say i will feel the same in years down the road overall i do not feel ppg is the best grading system for all students i feel you are letting the majority of our kids down give them more to work towards stop averaging our kids out hope you take my family's personal experience with the pbg
086system into consideration during the discussions tonight thank you courtney whit peterson this is an addition to the original letter in addition to my original letter i wrote i have since received my child's most recent report cards these were very confusing both my sons in middle school received ones or 1.5 both students test above average and i was so confused and upset i did address this when they returned home come to find out the highest grade capable of receiving was exactly what they had which in my opinion without backstory looks like failing how does this reflect long term i understand the class has not reached the end of the lesson plan so they have not mastered it but shouldn't they be graded on where they currently are and how they're currently doing this is so discouraging
087to the student and parents i requested pbg has voted to stay you take into consideration adding on letters grades to the number grades as the high school still currently does i also wanted to address my daughter's report card she is a sophomore at bhs she received a d in class but it said quote on pace i addressed this with her and her teacher to which i found out she should have had a b and power reported the grade incorrectly how can i be ensured that this grade has been permanently corrected and is not affecting her gpa and power has been glitching all year sending out incorrect information and causing problems for teachers students and families how will this be corrected i would also like to add we have amazing teachers and staff in district 100
088my children have had teachers who have gone out of their way for my children and others to ensure their education and safety i have always been proud of the teachers they deserve to be treated with the most respect and kindness please do not fire these hard-working loving and outstanding teachers and staff because they choose to not get the kovid shot this is their right as a parent i stand with our teachers and staff let them choose what is right for them everyone within k-12 has the capability to receive the kovitch shot if they are at risk or wish they put the protected shouldn't need to be protected from the unprotected thank you for your time courtney whitt peterson at this time public comment will be closed and we'll be moving on to our board of
089education committee reports there we go okay business services committee mr buker do you have anything you would like to add or highlight in the business services committee report hey mrs houck does anyone have any questions for the board business services committee members okay moving on sorry my kids are home by themselves this evening next uh curriculum committee mr zicker do you have anything you would like to add or highlight from your committee uh report no i don't it's fine it's it's as printed if you if they want to look at it it's in the minutes four documents miss mayville no just one thing i'd like to draw attention to item four mr stucker accurately um described the importance of the board approving the course catalog on a tiny set process here that we need to
090follow so that students can register for classes on time so that is an item on the agenda tonight i believe catalogs are on there if anyone has questions or comments about any of the teams of the course catalog please talk to admin on the next week um we've really got to get course catalogs approved at the next meeting so that things can proceed on a timely basis thank you does anyone have any questions for the board curriculum committee members okay uh moving on we have a staff presentation on the grading and promotion program last month we heard from belvedere high school in our current grading and promotion program and tonight we'll have a presentation from belvedere north high school yeah we're on for those of you who don't know today is national school board appreciation
091day um i know that you guys don't necessarily do this for the great pay or all the praise that you get um but rather because you're committed to our students so appreciate that i think it deserves a round of applause just to get started here thank you regarding pbg um i just want to acknowledge that change is hard it's taken years to get to this point without a doubt actually over a century we've been doing the same grading system right so um i understand that change is hard and it does take time to work through it change is not easy but if we think it's better for kids it's worth it right so you've requested some data and how is it working right and um not how does it work but how is it working
092so first thing i'd like to just discuss is pbg practices and what they do is they really push students to master skills not just skip over them once they do not master them so for example if a student does not do well on their first test all right that's aligned to a standard uh they have to go ahead and in a traditional system they get that c a d f whatever it is they move on hopefully they do well on the other test and then they boost their grade right in our standards-based system or proficiency-based system all right that is not necessarily how it is because gaps are created all right what gaps are created and learning those then carry out so in our proficiency based system we push our students where they have to
093master every single standard in order to earn the a what i'll say is that our students have met that expectation we have had more a's or an increase in students who have earned a's since 2015 16 to last year so is it working our students are going ahead and pushing themselves to master these standards i know many people might be thinking okay it's great inflation right because we're giving them the extra chances to do that it's also been evident in our ap program so our advanced placement testing program advanced placement tests are given throughout the entire world students everywhere take the advanced placement test our curriculum in these classes are specifically aligned to the skills that students will be tested on so students are going through the tests they are constantly in feedback or through
094the class i should say they're constantly getting feedback okay here's you know what area you're doing well with here's what area we need to go ahead and improve on and what i'll say is that because of this feedback we've seen a drastic increase in the amount of students who are passing at a three or higher on advanced placement classes and i'll say this out loud just so that everybody here can hear in 2016 our pass rate was 39 on ap exams 2017 was 25 2018 41 2019 38 percent in 2020 we had a 48 pass rate on our advanced placement exams because students knew where their gaps were as they were going they're being pushed towards mastery in these areas and in return we're seeing higher pass rates last year we also had a 48
095pass rate mind you this also happened in the middle of a pandemic the last thing i would like to point out is that we've had more students passing these tests and taking them than ever before in 2016 we had 100 students take pass in 2020 we had 274 students take take tests in 2016 we had 39 kids who actually earned college credit through ap tests in 2020 we had 131 we also had 89 who did last year many people worry about our students how will they do once they go to college and they have to take that one test right now our students are performing better on this one test than they ever have previously the second point that i would like to go ahead and discuss is just how the goal of implementing pbg
096has been a goal of the district ever since you adopted the hrs framework ten years ago and level four of the hrs framework is standard space reporting the ahrs framework is the focus of every school school improvement plan so each school has their own school improvement plan we're working through the hrs framework right so that's been it for the last 10 years and then pbg was added to strategic plan in 2019. any changes to pbg are moving away from it would undermine both the district's strategic plan and each elementary school middle school and high school's individual school-based improvement plans it would leave us as a district without a vision and schools without goals it will create mass uncertainties for our schools as a whole which will negatively impact students and staff and the community as
097well therefore changes should not be made in regards to implementing pbg until both the district's strategic plan and hrs have been evaluated reviewed and then the district leadership determines that is now time or that they no longer fit with the vision of the district if we go ahead and do this before that we're going to be overstepping we're going to be lost on where we're really going this is a critical step that we absolutely have to go ahead and take so those are just a couple of points i wanted to share the next question that you guys had is how is it working and i have some teachers with me who are going to go ahead and share their experiences as far as how pbg has been working and impacting students in our classes so
098mr avila you can go ahead and come up to mike mr villa is our el teacher and dual language teacher at belvedere thank you and good evening everybody how's everybody doing good all right so my name is daniel avila and i teach social studies el and dual language at belvedere north uh the population that i work with uh are english learners and a lot of the times this population is underserved this is a big consideration when it comes to pbg ppg has created more equitable opportunities for my students that i serve to become more academically successful and many times these students they don't have any academic support at home and they only need it and they only get at school so i please ask that you guys take this into consideration because if you guys
099look around here the parents of those students are not here so i'm like the only one that actually comes here to kind of advocate for them as a teacher i'm now better able to assess students mastery on a skill from a simple conversation to a complex project i am better able to determine what a student knows and doesn't know and since i see the students more than once a day sometimes i can use evidence from other classes to show that the students is proficient in a standard as of today i don't think i know a better system of grading that creates a more fairness for my students than pvg so i please ask you to consider your decisions thank you good evening i'm amanda newman from belvedere north high school and i teach anatomy microbiology
100and biology i recently gave a traditional multiple choice exam to my biology students and the results were about what you'd expect 30 percent of my students did really well mastered all the skills under cell transport that our team required of them 50 percent of my students mastered vocabulary component and were working towards the level three and twenty of my students needed to master a lot more than that however upon reflection with my plc team we determined that this traditional test and short answer quiz was not an accurate test of what this group of students knew why because traditional schooling insists that students have good reading and english comprehension skills this is not the majority of my student population in my biology classes of the seventy percent of students that scored low on the multiple choice
101exam forty percent struggle with basic reading and english skills in essence i test them on these skills not what they knew about cell transportation so the next day i reassessed these students with modeling and illustrations during an oral evaluation and guess what 80 percent of these students now mastered that content just to be sure of our results my biology team further assessed students with a pbg based project learning assessment whereby students use the knowledge of cell transport in a hospital triage setting all of our students demonstrate a mastery of the skill and were so excited about their success the best part of this was seeing the students faces as they got their results and discussed how cell transport affected the human body the best part is meeting with my biology team and sharing these stories
102and knowing that all of us found success as we accurately assess students with the same skills across the board the best part was knowing that parents can know what their student learned and not wonder what an a a b a c or d indicated if these students and the best part was the oral evaluations and communication with each student the best part was leadership communication skills and empathy displayed by students as they perform the non-traditional assessments but this is the system you're voting to get rid of a system that provides equity and equality for all students a system that works for bilingual and special education and students that struggle in traditional school settings over the past four years pbg has promoted student success which makes students want to come to class more traditional school sets
103students out for failure and causes a lot of students to not want to come to class but with pbg in at least four years there's been a huge increase in the number of students of ethnicity taking microbiology anatomy health occupations courses these glory students wanted to become nurses and doctors and i did not see that prior to eight years ago with the traditional system maybe one or two of my students of ethnicity were in these classes now these students make out 50 percent of our classes and they're finding success that motivates them to keep going after high school sadly this is the system that you are voting to erase you are voting to go back to an archaic schooling that ensures success of only students who would find success no matter the system by voting
104against pbg you favor those student populations that have resources at home to succeed by voting against ppg you leave majority of our students behind and send the message that you don't care about them or their success you are sending the message that the only students worth reflecting or for our time and effort are those that have those extra resources i urge you to reconsider your agenda and vote to keep pbg and therefore vote to keep education equitable in district 100 vote for pbg and vote to empower all students and families thank you before you begin speaking i'd just like to ask the public that when someone has the floor please keep your comments uh quiet to yourself we have someone speaking and everybody gave everyone else the same courtesy thank you all right good evening
105my name is caitlin lavercob and i'm a spanish teacher at belgium north as well as the content leader for the world language department with my time here today i just wanted to take a few moments to share the impact that pbg and skills-based grading has made in our department from a teacher's perspective to begin while adapting to pbg has been full of new experiences and though i was hesitant at first the process really is working and improving learning for our students the primary reason i say this is because students in world language classes with ppg are being held more accountable for their learning than ever before in the traditional system i saw so many students slip through the cracks without actually learning much spanish at all they would do the absolute bare minimum to get
106a 60 in the class and then move on without another thought i truly believe that the traditional system is why it's so common to hear people say that they took four years of a foreign language but i don't remember a bit there just aren't enough checks and balances when it comes to grading in percentages with pbg the thought process has changed students are no longer scraping the bottom of the barrel on retakes to get a point or two more they're being held accountable to perform the necessary skills of speaking and knowing a language they have to they have to meet standards determined for their given course rather than just memorizing the bare minimum of their vocab and grammar now with our prioritized standards and scales they have very clear criteria to meet and it is
107helping them to understand where their strengths and weaknesses are within their learning i can tell you from personal experience that my students are learning better and are stronger spanish learners with pbg structure than ever before they can speak and write more they're using context clues and previous knowledge to comprehend speech and written texts it truly has been a wonderful thing to see and the students are thriving they know more about their skills rather than just accepting a percentage grade which doesn't give them much feedback on what to improve upon or what they're struggling with bbg allows students to have more ownership of their learning and that leads to better understanding what they can do in turn which makes it more useful in the real world along with student achievement the consistency i've been seeing among
108grading practices has been awesome before the use of skills in the plc process of inter-rater reliability i used to worry about how other teachers were assessing their students compared to how i was i would worry that i was doing something wrong or that i was missing something that needed to be assessed on with so many components to assess it was common to hit some aspects harder than others which left students with a deficit in a certain skill most of the time that was probably speaking and or writing since those are the productive skills since adapting to pvg all the language teachers have had the skills and standards available for us to make sure all of our practices and assessments were aligned i no longer have to worry about what i'm teaching in comparison to others
109or vice versa because it is all well documented and prioritized not to mention that the grading styles themselves are more consistent too because we have common assessment language via the scales that allow us to be uniform when grading assessments the level of rigor is predetermined and the students have a goal right off the bat by looking at those scales because of that i believe there is much more consistency now in grading between teachers and courses meaning that when a student gets a three by mastering a skill they deserve it because they truly are proficient in it that being said thank you for listening to my perspective it is much appreciated thank you hi guys my name is emily chambers i'm the agriculture teacher at belvedere north high school and i've been the agriculture teacher for
110eight years now and i can 100 say that most of my growth as a teacher is due to ppg and the conversations that it had um i look back at my first years of teaching at belvedere and i think why did i do that why did i give a hundred question tests that was multiple choice and based on solely their knowledge of terminology why did i look at that kid and tell them that their understanding of livestock is based on their ability to name every single bone in their body as pbg kind of evolved in my classroom it turned into conversations it's not their ability to memorize that a green stick back fracture is partially through and occurs in young animals it's that conversation that occurs they can look at a skeleton and say this
111skeleton has a green stick fracture and it can lead to a conversation of what does that mean for the animal yeah you can identify that fraction or fracture but you can have a conversation that means that the animal's probably young it's going to heal quickly it's gonna be okay and that's still viable livestock that's a powerful conversation to have with a kid it's not asking them to memorize it's asking them to have that problem-solving skills we can go out into the greenhouse and they may have bombed an assessment they might have known they might have struggled with understanding me and me asking the question but when we get into the greenhouse they look at a plant they say hey chambers this plant needs to get fertilized i say why and he said well it's turning
112yellow which is a nitrogen deficiency right boom 4.0 3.0 sorry 3.0 right there that's that conversation you just did it and i get to look at that kid and say you just did it you just had that conversation you were able to communicate that reasoning of why and that's what's important even if he had to look up okay it's a nitrogen deficiency what does that mean we need to get nitrogen in the soil we need to fertilize we need to do it on a regular basis let's make a schedule let's make a calendar those are the powerful conversations that are happening and that's how it's made my class evolve into something where kids are problem solving i know a lot of the pushback from the community is just not applicable in real life but that
113is real life problem solving is real life and that's the skills i want to teach my kids is how to problem-solve how to figure out what the issue is and how to fix it thank you don't worry i'm the last one my name is my name is david zimmerman i am a theater and english teacher at bellevue north high school i know that the colors don't represent that i didn't think this through today um but i did just want to start with uh they always say we're doing a speech unit in my class and so we always say you start with a speech with like a personal story so here we are um so when i was in high school i took a comment i took a chemistry class and on that first test i
114got it back i've been straight aside my whole life i got a 72 got a d wrecked me it didn't mean anything to me though i didn't know what it was that i did wrong besides like i really royally screwed up like the elemental table matching part uh but because of that it like wrecked my semester grade the entire year did things like about 100 in tote bags for extra credit i met with the teacher every single morning in tears and got a perfect score at the end of the semester all so i could just get an a minus it meant nothing to me and i didn't want to do that to my students when i went to education i didn't want to get something back and then have no reason why i got that
115grade or not and so in my classroom in using pbg we focus on student agency and ownership when it comes to our grades uh we have parent-friendly language that have been worked on uh of these scales they've been made to streamline and prioritize grading but i show those scales to my students at the start of every unit i show them at the start of those assignments i transparent with them and i say this is what i'm grading you on from there we create criteria um like i said we're doing a speech unit and so we determined that in order to achieve a 3.0 of course i needed to have a plan i needed to clearly practice i i needed um to bring my materials because i was doing a demonstration speech and i needed to
116make eye contact and i needed to speak loudly and clearly all of those things and so they knew if i did all of the criteria that we created as a class i would get a three if i didn't i did some of it most of it i got a two like they knew what they were supposed to do that meant that at the end of each of those speeches this past week they were able to give themselves a grade now like i said we pri we brought these scales into existence to streamline our grading process because an a a b a c a 72 on my chemistry test or a one two three still kind of mean nothing right all these grading systems are still arbitrary but we created the scales to streamline it and
117so teachers could focus on the thing that they wanted to do which was teach and provide quality feedback even just today i spent several hours before i came to this meeting writing quality feedback to students about their writing or their performance on a monologue in my class because that's what i want them to use in order to reassess now like i said this is about agency and ownership which means that they can use that feedback to then reassess in the same way that i received comments from a boss about my about my work ethic and what i can do to improve upon that now that also means that it's upon the students uh to then take that feedback and reassess some of them don't they don't i promise you because they don't and and and
118that's not something that i as a teacher can control i can encourage them every single day to do so but it's not that's not going to happen but like i said student agency and ownership is something that i strive for whether it is a piece of writing or speech or presentation or otherwise now as we've heard multiple times from the public comments and uh whatever we've been working on this for over 10 years and so like i said they've been working to create a grading process that then focuses on the feedback but if this grading system is voted down tonight as mentioned some of the public comments what is the backup plan once again the traditional base grading system that gave me that 72 on the chemistry test that made me feel really bad about
119myself but didn't tell me what i needed to do to improve it um but also i came into this uh district three years ago and i was thrown right into the pilot pbg program if this is taken away i'm once again going to struggle just like i did three years ago to try to figure out okay i guess this paper gets a 93 and so while all of these grading systems are arbitrary i just want to say that the focus is on the feedback and so i thank you so much for your time and i hope that you consider that in your decision tonight thank you thank you to everyone who came and spoke from north um does anybody want to give any additional follow-up to anything mr frisbo obviously any time that you roll
120anything out right there's a lot of questions there's confusions things like that and i've had great conversations with many of you throughout the last couple weeks with many parents in the last couple weeks i think we just need to continue the conversations i think we're starting to see different people's perspectives a whole lot better and we're starting to solution or find solutions to them so i think that's a big thing to me to do changes got to work together on it and continue conversations and keep working together on it and that's what we're open to so um it's not anything else we know that we are humble enough or at least i hope i'm humble enough to recognize that yes there's areas to grow right we always want to grow so let's let's continue to
121do that with this whole um system so i mean if you guys have any questions feel free to ask if you want to continue on feel free to continue on but i appreciate your time and thank you guys for everything you do mr friesman it's totally okay if you say i don't have this information um but in relation to the ap tests do you know what your enrollment is in your ap classes um i can look it up and send it to you as far as the enrollment in the ap classes yeah so um i know that our the number of tests that have been taken have been rising um and they're rising over that time i know after last year we this year we have a drop in them um currently um so yeah
122and a little bit that might have been due to the kind of schedule we ran last year for a lot of kids hadn't even had a chance to have that accelerated class during second semester to know if they're ready for the ap so um yeah that's a actually one of our scorecard goals is to increase enrollment in vip classes so i can get that too though from over the years thank you yep does anyone have any questions i do have one um i asked this last month at bhs so it's only fair i ask you guys um the staff we've heard a lot of things about empower and how it works on your end can you guys speak to that maybe just real briefly how it's working for you um so i'd say the first
123time that progress reports went out um we did have an issue with the 3 and the 2.5 on how empower would lower it by half a point and some of us did not go back and reset our standard grades to what they should be but that was corrected after that first time so that was the issue i think that a lot of people got upset about in the public was dropping that down to a 2.5 and then a 2.5 if you have two straight across the board that obviously means a d versus having like threes and twos can mean a b um so i think that's where a lot of the the issues arose from that but since then our instructional staff has been really good and they sent out videos to every single teacher
124on how to correct that problem to make sure that it wasn't happening again and so from that time the only issue that i've seen that i can speak to personally is like if empower has a glitch that happens and then it gets corrected um mr carson sends an email out and we you know we hear back that okay this is going to be fixed so other than that i mean i meet with my students once a week we go over their scores for everything so they're aware of where they currently stand in any given week and that's usually on a monday and now monday and wednesdays because we have win on tuesdays and thursdays so the kids then know okay do i need to sign up for win if i've got a two that i
125want to make two or three then they know that they can sign up for that so after that initial progress report came out and we had those videos to show us how to correct things i have i can only speak to myself that i haven't had an issue since then i know um one of the issues that people have with empower is the fact that the algorithm for estimating their current grade is wonky sometimes um i'm not gonna say i like that um but i personally enjoy um looking at a kid and kind of looking at that system and kind of figuring out okay thinking about that hit individually and adjusting his grade because i know the algorithm gets off and i enjoy looking at it and saying where really where is that kid um
126because the point system i mean it automatically does that for you you can't really adjust it you can't change it um so i personally enjoy that aspect of empower of being able to look at all those 3.0 activities and say where's that kid at where what is really realistically what how how are they meeting this standard so i i enjoy that aspect of empower house for north totally fine yep thank you okay uh moving on to board committees discussion regarding board committees yeah um i asked miss read me mike to put this on the agenda and we've got yeah it is on um i asked ms reidnie mc if she would please add this to the agenda and it's not something that i want to spend a whole lot of time on tonight because we're
127gearing up for a long one anyway and i think this is something that could be better be addressed at a future board retreat or training um something where we're looking at um but it's a sort of circumstance where the board's kind of coming together and looking at um what we do and how we do it and how we can do it better but at some point i would like to have a conversation about board committees what what our goal is with committees what purpose they serve that may vary between committees i think policy committee is pretty straightforward i suspect that policy committee operates pretty similarly in most districts it has a pretty defined purpose goal review policies we've impressed new press policies um entertain changes to policy i think curriculum and business services is a
128lot more undefined and i think we as a board since i've been on have never really done much work or have much discussion about what we want from committees and what we want to see come out of committees i think this would be a good time for that tonight but generally speaking this would be a good time for the board to have that discussion since we've sort of changed the structure of committees we have community members on committees now we have more staff members on committees now they've gotten quite a bit larger which will affect i think what the committees can do and how they do it um so i just um kind of have been thinking about this um as we've now had probably four or five curriculum cities and that's the only committee
129i've ever served on i've attended the other committees theoretically but i've only ever served on curriculum so i just want to make sure we're making good use of our time and our resources with committees so i don't know if we have any board training coming down the pike or board retreats plan but if we do i think that would really be something that we could stand to put some thought into definitely something that we can consider and if retreat is too far down the road we can always bring it up for discussion moving on next is the consent agenda are there any items on the consent agenda any members of the board would like to take out for separate consideration hearing none do i have a motion to approve consent agenda items number one through
130eight remember mayville made the motion and member herrera seconded the motion to approve the consent agenda items one through eight as presented any discussion at this time i would like to acknowledge the following donations i ilmea member and festival fees of 650 from belvedere north high school music booster association for belvedere north high school music department roll call please miss mayville mr herrera mr bucher mr zickert mrs whitcomb hi mrs houck this is reid nemec aye motion passes next we move on to roll call action items do i have a motion to uphold the suspension for student one one one five two zero two member mayville made a motion and member herrera seconded the motion to uphold the suspension for student one one one five two zero two one dash a any discussion roll call
131please ms mayville aye mr herrera mr zicker this is whitcomb mr bucher mrs houck this is renemic aye motion passes 7-0 do i have a motion to approve the termination of employee 111521-1 remember mayville made the motion and members zickert seconded the motion to approve the termination of employee 111521-1 any discussion roll call please ms mayville aye mr zicker mr herrera mrs houck mr bucher mrs whitcomb this is read nemic i motion passes do i have a motion to approve the termination of employee 111521-2 remember whitcomb made the motion and remember how seconded the motion to approve the termination of employee one one one five two one dash two any discussion roll call please mrs whitcomb hi mrs howe mr herrera mr zickert mr bucher miss mabel hi this is renemic i motion passes do
132i have a motion to approve the termination of employee one one one five two one dash three remember whitcomb made the motion and member zickert seconded the motion to approve the termination of employee 111521-3 any discussion roll call please this is whitcomb aye mr zickert ms mayville mr herrera mr bucher mrs houck this is reid nemec hi motion passes do i have a motion to approve the termination of employee one one one two remember mayville made the motion remember how seconded the motion to approve the termination of employee any discussion roll call please ms mayville aye mrs howe mr zickert mr bucher mr herrera mrs whitcomb mrs reed nemech hi motion passes [Applause] moving on do i have any member will any board member willing to accept a nomination to serve as the district 100
133delegate to the iasb delegate assembly on november 20th of 2021 okay avail then i'm assuming you would accept the nomination okay do i have a motion to accept the nomination of mrs mayville is the district 100 delegate of the of the iasb delegate assembly for november 20th of 2021 remember herrera made a motion and member how seconded the motion to up to appoint mrs mayville as the district 100 delegate of the iasb delegate assembly for november 20th 2021. any discussion i only just got my only question would be i wish i appreciate mrs mayville being willing to step up and do it i just wonder and there's 23 different i don't know what the right word would be to say initiatives i'm not exactly sure what you're what we're calling them is there discussion to
134be had about we're sending a single delegate to represent the the position of the entire board is that am i understanding that correct so how do we have discussion about those 23 items before friday or saturday but it's this weekend right you could do that right now yeah we would do it at a board meeting i understand you didn't do it last meeting yeah if we want the district represented okay so the motion on the floor um is uh to appoint mrs mayville as the district 100 delegate the iasb delegate assembly from november 20th following that we could have discussion in regards to the board's recommendations regarding how she should vote or represent any other discussion yeah can i answer can i add something um so i did this um a few years ago and
135i i said this last month too i truly believe this is something that i mean this is part of our board work you know every district is able to send someone and this is i mean this is important we represent the community on many different things and this is something that we need to go and do at our level this is a board level decision so i definitely think we need someone there like i said i did it and it's important stuff if you want to do it again i do not i don't disagree that it is or isn't important i'm too new to you know and i appreciate you saying what you know about it i just um i just frankly feel it would be really difficult to be informed enough to know what
136position to endorse or or take you know now i mean literally now so i mean i guess we'll have that discussion and maybe everyone else has already reviewed it all and is fully prepared to speak into what they believe the right position is and that's that's great i don't see a list of them so those were attached last month under board discussion there's a category iasb resolutions another discussion roll call please mr herrera mrs houck mr zickert this is mayville hi this is whitcomb mr bucher mrs reed nemech aye motion passes in regards to the new resolutions there is a list regarding new resolutions there's amended existing resolutions reaffirmation of existing positions new belief statements and amended belief statements um opening up discussion in regards to how we would like mrs mayville to represent the
137board um we would open up discussion now as to which of the new resolutions there are one through 16 which of the one amended existing resolution reaffirmation of the existing positions which are four different resolutions a new belief statement and an amended belief statement we would like her to support or oppose on the board's behalf um just by way of background as we do some new board members we've done historically in the past is the whoever was superintendent at the time typically reviews the resolution um draws ones to our attention that people are particularly important or maybe particularly controversial um provides a recommendation um in the past we have not sat at a board meeting and gone line by line federal resolution certainly if that's the board's um sports prerogative if they would like to
138do that um i would note that on the agenda for the october policemen did they give a recommendation we um we can look at the particular um resolutions that he called out separately we can look at all of them i would add on that in the past since i've been on the board we've never specifically elected a delegate at a board meeting holly was not elected at a board meeting okay she just volunteered um we got an email that said this is coming up this is for a review these are some things does anybody want to do it but it was an email it wasn't discussed at a board meeting but we just we've discussed the resolution how we want the delegate to act at a board meeting no not usually we have done it
139in the past before i distinctly remember doing it on um resolution number two the voluntary concealed firearm here it was at a board meeting yep so it was fun and interesting and we voted on it i believe i believe one vote so in i i do so in regards looking at dr wiestman's recommendations let's start there we'll go to dr releasement's recommendations in october does anyone have any discussion in regards to his recommendations dr riesling could you give us some insight as to your recommendations so yeah so generally i recommended that the board support the resolutions committee so the illinois association of school boards puts together a committee of individuals that represent school districts and school boards they look at all of the proposed resolutions and then they make recommendations so generally my what i
140said was i i would go ahead and follow the resolutions committee recommendations accepting resolution number two uh resolution number two calls for voluntary concealed firearm carried by district employees this has been proposed several times in the past the delegate assemblies rejected this and the resolutions committee traditionally has recommended against this but they didn't they didn't about face this year and are recommending that the resolution be adopted it would give school districts the ability to put together qualifications that allowed if followed district employees to carry firearms into the school so i i disagree with the resolutions committee on this strongly um so i would say i would recommend you go against the resolutions committee my recommendations on number two but the rest of them i would propose following the recommendations reasoning for standing in opposition to
141that particular one as it relates to the about phase or yeah so i don't believe that employees should be given the ability to bring concealed firearms into schools i think to be honest i think it's foolish to think that an employee that can participate in an annual training uh can safely and effectively utilize a firearm during a crisis event at a school um the resolutions committee it when you read their reasoning it seems like they're acknowledging that in the past they didn't support this but have come around and switched perspectives mostly i my interpretation is mostly because they're looking at it uh from a local control perspective and they feel like if there is question about whether or not legislation should happen legislation should favor local control so regardless of local control decisions i do
142believe that our students and families enter schools and other school districts and are subject to the safety policies of other schools when they visit those schools for most often it's it's athletic or interscholastic type competitions and so we may be able to we might fight for local control but in this case local control means assuming and putting our children in schools that can adopt their own safety protocol and i just don't believe in that safety protocol personally i think there's more risk than benefits and having those firearms brought into the school by employees i hope that i hope that helps if i could just add um i agree with you dr weissman on that that was probably the big hot button the year i i was there um tons of speakers the press was there
143it definitely is it's very close every time so if we do nothing else i think we should come to a consensus on that and be represented at least with that one line item i also want to add quickly i am opposed to any school board members being paid for anything whether it's child care or salary so that's just my two cents but i i wouldn't want to go in and vote in favor of that that's resolution for 4. any other discussion we'll start with dr wiestman's first recommendation regarding resolution two that calls for voluntary concealed firearm carry by district employees i'm a strong no on arming our teachers um no offense but um it that doesn't make our kids deeper so strong no on two um i see him in this house i would say
144in regards to the concealed carry um i do not at this time feel that it is the right thing for our district to do um i think that it's a very hot topic do i think that other districts would benefit from them especially rural districts possibly but in regards to our own district considering we do have um you know we do have our sros in our buildings um we do have others in our buildings that have been um that have gone through some training so for me that i would agree with dr uh eastman's recommendation for resolution number two in regards to being paid um again i would agree with mrs help i don't think that we should be paid i don't think it should come in um i think that that kind of starts
145to split hairs about um you know where your loyalties lie when you start getting paid for things um but that's my personal opinion um in regards to the cannabis sales i'm not real nuts about that um that's my personal opinion on that one [Music] so that's where i'm at on that mr zickert mine with dissenting from the resolutions team on two and i have no problem with four honestly if i had a young if i was a young parent and it indicated that there was a reason you know that that child care was a reason for me to have an issue with being able to be a board member i i don't really see the sticking point but i'm fine with the collective voice if you know if we don't vote yes on that but
146i don't see the same um i don't see an issue with making it easier for families with young children to be able to serve by having child care reimbursed for district functions herrera all right well i i would support dr riefmann's recommendation on resolution for that matter and i do i you know i do agree with with holly from that standpoint on resolution number four resolution number 10 cause for using cannabis cells to fund schools um yeah i mean people are lighting up there's a new gender new revenue you're right a new revenue stream why are we not going to take care of that and take advantage of having that pay for for severely underfunded schools especially around the state and even around here so yes if that's going to be law that that you
147know there are legal marijuana sales why wouldn't we might win schools get out of that so so i'm supportive of number 10 so resolution two that's all i got that vote for a pro pot [Laughter] well i don't know about that but if it's gonna be let's get paid for [Laughter] so it regards to resolution two four five nine and ten to go with dr wiestman's recommendations um the board is uh in agreement with opposition to resolution number two um the board is not in support of paid child care um the in regards to cannabis sales to fund schools i know not mr herrera and i mentioned that everybody okay with supporting that okay um and then let's see so we got a support on that that and oops and number five remote virtual school
148board open meetings dr weissman do you have anything to add on that one other than recommendation okay everybody in support of that okay number nine okay so support number nine support number ten so we have opposition to number two and number four support for number five number nine number ten anything else okay mrs mayville i've got my marching orders you want to hand that mrs mayville there is a sheet for you if you want to perfect do you want me to abstain from the other ones is that the expectation or do you want me to go ahead and follow the administration's recommendation on the other one i just don't administration sorry if they weren't specifically pulled out then but again i that's just because i don't feel like i've had enough time to really review
149them and if the ones that were pulled out were the ones of priority or that were prioritized for evaluation i mean i will note that number three is school board member compensation and pull that out for specific but it looks like number three is actual school board member compensation well for me yeah i'm guessing that's a no from all of us [Music] alrighty okay next do i have a motion to approve the district goals as presented second member herrera made the motion and member mayville seconded the motion to approve the district goals as presented any discussion roll call please mr herrera ms mayville aye mr buker this mrs houck mr zicker this is whitcomb mrs reed nemic i motion passes do i have a motion regarding the mou with boone county health department no motion
150will move on do i have a motion to approve the extension on the mini bus lease as presented [Music] member mayville made the motion and member bucker seconded the motion to approve the extension on the mini bus lease as presented any discussion i just don't see the agreement attached am i missing it i don't see the agreement and what month was it i'm sorry i just wanted to go that's dr brown i think there was a little bit discussion whether to do a one month or a start sorry a one year or a two year last month we thought we were going to do it one year is there a benefit to doing the two years or where that was changed did you note any any other major differences between the last contract and and
151this one then discussion provided that there aren't any major changes other than last known as three years two years so it would be the same two years last one that's the letter that was presented at the committee that was from them that outlined all of those things yeah yeah another discussion roll call please ms mayville hi mr buker this is whitcomb mr herrera mrs houck mr zicker this is reid nemec hi motion passes do i have a motion to approve the first reading of the 2021 property tax levy as presented member mayville made the motion and remember herrera seconded the motion to approve the first reading of the 2021 property tax levy as presented any discussion roll call please aye motion passes do i have a motion to approve the tutorme.com agreement as presented remember
152herrera made the motion and member zickert seconded the motion to approve the tutorme.com agreement as presented discussion um similarly to the paper contract i mean the the agreement does state that it's subject to california law so that's some concern for me um i'd like a little bit of information on the 2500 setup fee because when you calculate that in obviously that increases the price from 27 an hour to 30 an hour um we also are i don't say giving away but not that's the wrong word but um they're requiring the ability to use our branding our district branding we have a policy 825 that says we can but we have to understand we're giving them the right to do that or we are are we and are we okay with that and then lastly they
153are going to bill in 15 minute increments so if we're at 15 minutes or four at 16 minutes it's really 30 or 31 it's really you know 45 and um you know i i don't know that that's an issue necessarily it's better than some that are first minute is the is the 30 or the hour so i mean it's better than that but um so i have some concerns about you know those things we know if we're going to integrate into our learning management system for this or if it would be a csv upload of the students i don't know that initially most likely they will integrate with our google directory google student directory google our learning management system so that wouldn't be like mastery connect and power correct if they're going to integrate with
154something they would integrate with our google student lists and that would give them access to first name last name student email anything else uh possibly student id their class roster teacher names possibly i'd have to go back and find out exactly what happens in those sinks i'm sorry i saw there's a couple choices on here the short term versus the long term the trial part what's the what's the minimum we could do or what's the trial testing part considered that was one of the things is we passed this on because it seems like there's a pretty low uh fee to try it short term and see how it does basically and see what kind of activity we get with it um see if it's worth that why personally i think i could support the lung
155i'm sorry i could support the short term one i'd be a little reluctant to do the long term without seeing what it's really like then we could always it's really that good we can continue on what's the 2500 setup fee uh what did they give us an idea of what that why what that's for so you know yeah usually the setup fees just are acknowledgment that uh it takes effort for them to do that initial sync to meet with administration and onboard them so it's generally just it's just setting it up to set up the pace for them to set it up was there discussion as to how we're going to progress monitor this to see if it's worth continuing on after we're done with the 500 at the business services midi level that's the
156question like how how does that happen right and do we see data that shows us that that's a question so we do we do get detailed information on the number of minutes students are logging in how many students are logging in the average amount of time they're logging in um in an hourly system if we use the whole 500 hours then it's a lot of our assumption is if the students are using the hours then we would continue to pay for hours if they're using the service they're not using the service then we'll never run out of that initial purchase of 500 hour the 500 block if we do run out of the 500 block then we'd have to do a new contract this isn't just uh automatic correct provided that provided we can see
157information on how many students are accessing it what students are accessing it and have data like that um that that's my big question so as long as that question can be answered i'm okay to see what it is in the short term another discussion roll call please mr herrera mr zucker mrs whitcomb hi miss mayville aye mr buker this is houck this is reid nemec hi next do i have a motion to approve the continued use of the grading and promotion practices a through g as outlined in the superintendent's annual report regarding the currently utilized grading and promotion system member mayville made the motion and member herrera seconded the motion to approve the continued use of the grading and promotion practices a through g as outlined in the superintendent's annual report regarding the currently utilized
158grading and promotion system discussion please no discussion i think so so i just um you know generally i think some of some of the good feedback i got from a board member was that we need to make sure that the board understood that this wasn't just initiative coming from dr wiesman and that other people could speak to it which is part of the reason why we asked why i asked that the high school principals identify some teachers so i appreciate their time um i think you know i think it's fair to ask did we hear from a select group of teachers today i think you did and last month i think you did when we put together a strategic plan uh five years ago we looked at where we wanted to be and i think
159these teachers represent that you heard from last month and you heard from today they represent where we want to be they're the the best representation we have of where we want to be so generally good instruction is good instruction it doesn't rely on a certain grading system or a certain grading book but the practices you heard about from teachers are what we're trying to support and i think there is a lot of benefit in looking at structurally what structures exist to support teachers with good instructional practices that's what we're attempting to do with many of the efforts behind proficiency-based grading it is an initiative meant to be a stepping stone towards competency-based progression which we are not at um but uh that is how we see ourselves getting there um but generally you know big
160picture i think our efforts as a district are to support teachers to be the best they can be i do believe the system does this and supports teachers to be the best they can be for all of our students [Music] having to speak first is always in difficult position on this i think that i've talked to a lot of people on this issue i've talked to a lot of parents i've talked to a lot of teachers i've talked to a lot of administrators there's a lot of passionate people on both sides i used to say talking about grading is like talking about religion and politics you're going to get very very passionate opinions it doesn't necessarily mean one side's right or wrong but they're just passionate and what they believe and i believe that even
161though i've heard a lot of varying opinions and a lot of difference a lot of differences in how they think we ought to proceed as hard as it is to believe i think everybody has the best interest of kids in mind no matter what side you're on i think they're looking out for what they believe is in the best interests of kids we might not all agree on that but i think that's what the that's what the ultimate issue is so then it gets down to what to do and how to proceed i had a uh not that this matters but it just goes the way i'm talking now is that i had a really close friend of mine passed away today and the one thing i always remembered about him as a board member
162when i was at winnebago was that he always said everybody's going to know what tony capraro believes in when he when they leave and it's important people know that and i believe in this case in this issue like this it's important for people to know where you're coming from good or bad they need to know what you how you're going to vote like you are and why and and give criteria for that and like i said i've had a lot of experience with this i have friends that are really really passionate about it i had a long conversation with a really good friend of mine for four hours over this that was really an intellectual when i thought a very good discussion it was really hard but it was really good because i think it
163brought out a lot of opinions from two people who really feel very passionately about learning in kids i've talked at a lot of board meetings for a lot of years probably too much some time i i apologize for none of that because i do think i did it in what i thought was the best interest of kids but you know that's neither here nor there i guess you can everybody can have an opinion on whether it was or it wasn't i look at this and i struggle with it i struggle with to do with it because i look at the two scenarios and what's going to happen you know on on this and i've heard from a lot of them from people who are passionate that say we're fools for even talking about this and
164we have no business delving into these things and that it's all going to be chaos afterwards i don't necessarily ascribe to that but that doesn't mean i'm right either i think i like a lot of parts of this i like the things the teachers talked about i think all the teachers i've talked to a lot of them say we like a lot of components on it even if we don't like everything we like the standards we don't want to go back to the old way we believe our grading practices have really evolved and are evolving over time and we don't see ourselves ever wanting to do that again were the boxes of kleenex and stuff like that was that urban legend no did it happen all the time from a majority of the teachers i'm
165guessing probably not but it did too often was the old rating system a great thing in my opinion no it had a lot of problems too just a lot of it was we were used to it and we we became accustomed to that over a period of time so i think you know we have to look at that in the in that way too my problem with this from the beginning has been the roll out of it i think that as we progress through i would have liked to have seen more things done along the way to benchmark how we've been doing or at least have an end goal in mind and say you know what this is where we wanted to go this is how we're gonna progress monitor ourselves or whatever as we
166get there now i agree the pandemic happened i agree that in some cases there's not a lot of recent data to use on that i can't argue that but on the other hand it would have been nice to have known okay if we didn't have the pandemic what would we have used and what was our end goal and what were we going to look at at the end of the day i don't want to throw the baby out with a bath water by any stretch of the imagination you know that's that i mean that's i want to do what i think is in the best interest of kids but i also look at it is for me to have for me personally i'm only speaking for myself in order to have this work it needs
167the support of the community it needs the support of the teachers and it needs the support of the kids the two things that have really bothered me during all these conversations is i've talked to a lot of teachers that really think it's great i believe them and i think they really believe that and i don't i'm not saying they're totally wrong i've talked to other teachers who disagree passionately i've talked to golden apple principles of love it i've talked to golden apple teachers that don't so i mean i think i think it you know we're always going to get that but i think the one thing we need to look at is two things we gave a survey out and asked the kids what they thought and the kids didn't give the answer i wish
168i mean for something like this to say we're in a good place with it at this point in time i'm not sure we got the answer we should have i also talked a lot of teachers with kids in the district some are really supportive of it and some aren't so i think that's an issue because we have to have those people on board for this thing to work what i would like to see as we move forward is there are a lot of things i don't think we're as far apart as a lot of us believe we are i really believe that but i believe we have to work together to come up with a solution that works for everybody that for whatever reason the point we're in now i'm not sure it works for
169everybody but i don't think we're that far away from getting it to work for everybody so i think saying that we're just going to throw everything away and forget about it over 10 years is ludicrous but i also think we need to take time and get input from people who have valuable input that don't have problems with all of it but small parts of it and try and work with them to come up with a solution that's good for everybody that was that's where i'm coming from so i'll go next um my comments are not meant to be any more than my perspective and how i'm basing my decision here tonight it does not diminish in any way not meant to diminish the work that anyone has done from students all the way up to
170administrators all the way up to community members up to parents i understand that there are lots and lots of passionate people here in our community we have passionate parents we have passionate students we've heard from some of them this evening we have administrators we have teachers that are very passionate i've spoken with a lot of people i've read a lot a lot of the information that i can find i've read through all of the information that we've been given as a board um and what i do know and i visited some schools i visited schools last year i'm not specific to looking at pbg but try to visit schools at least once a year and what do i know in the past month that i may or may not have known before not all students
171are pre-assessed on all standards are consistent across schools but evidence to meet the mastery is not consistent outside of building level plc's grades are at teacher discretion that was on the bottom of a poster that i saw in two different classrooms in a school i was in last week students are not included in plcs to assist in development of assessments though teacher evaluation systems typically rely on students helping with those assessments there are way more standards per class than the 8 to 12 priority standards that the district 100 students are expected to master in each class there doesn't appear to be very much differentiated data between the previous grading systems in the current grading system not all classes have a 4.0 level work the ones that do have 4.0 level work do view it differently
172so there's inconsistencies there possibly understanding of core con content is divided into a set number of individual skills versus entire content habits of work at the middle school level are assessed on a one two three four scale um that scale is not provided to students or parents in all cases habits of work at the high school are meets expectations or needs improvement the elementary level uses one two three four um secondary uses one two three four however um they also get feedback on point fives one point five 2.5 a majority of students that were surveyed about their thoughts on the current grading system so we did get um quite a few secondary students that gave us their view on the grading system i found that a score of a 2.0 means approaching mastery though a
173student could be just above the level of 1.4 or just below the level of a 3.0 but as grades go could be getting a b c or even a d standards can include multiple objectives so knowing what a student might need to work on either from a parent's perspective or a student's perspective if they're receiving a two could be unknown unless a separate conversation is had between the parent and teacher or possibly the parent and student if the student can answer that so in all of that not one individual including myself could answer the following with fidelity what was the district 100 goal and plan for implementation of pbg what were the progress monitoring data points what was the schedule of our progress monitoring and where is district 100 on this path and how will
174we know when we've met the goal for implementation so all of that in a collective would indicate well i'll be voting no this evening i ask a lot of questions and i got a lot of information and i appreciate the fact that dr weissman provided a lot of detail i read every link i was provided both in the document that's attached as well as in separate emails that we exchanged i sought out teacher groups i sought out teachers i was sought out by teachers and parents and i had every conversation that i could think to have in addition to reviewing all of the survey results that were provided the survey results um i i asked roughly two and a half weeks ago uh if we intended to survey teachers and i was told no and
175i did so because of some troubling trends in emails that we received from teachers that indicated that they felt they needed to be secret if they couldn't in fact be in support that they couldn't engage in robust conversation or dialogue about it because there was repercussions and fallout if in fact they did um and that was concerning to me so i thought well then let's provide an anonymous way for them to give us feedback that wasn't that that didn't happen um and i repeatedly heard from um parents who said no one asked us no one asked us no one asked us so i asked if we were intending to do a parent survey likewise i was told no we were not so the only real survey data that was left to evaluate with any rigor
176was the one that was provided to students and i was frankly and i said this to the principals with whom i spoke and some with whom i spoke shared my surprise i was admittedly very surprised when by a margin of nearly three to one in the secondary education buildings students return the response what grading system would you prefer 71.6 percent of them said traditional base grading [Applause] now whether or not the surprise that i had was warranted or appropriate i i don't know relatively new to the board member but it trended along the line of my own students personal experience they're not in school anymore so they're not affected in a way that makes this any in any way you know reflective of their their situation or issue but i was more surprised by the
177fact that some of the responses i got from both teachers who were surprised and principals who were surprised by that was why would students be leaning in that direction when many of them especially at the middle school level haven't been in anything other than pbg for quite some time and that response and that question from them was also very compelling to me if in fact that is true and historically we would look back and see that that is true that their most recent relevant experiences in a system that they don't have confidence in that's troubling as well and then i think if we don't have partnership and buy-in by everybody by by teacher groups by in majority i know 86 of the 600 roughly 600 certified teachers we have had an opportunity to participate oh
178every teacher had an opportunity to participate in the i believe they called it rounding um which was the feedback opportunity yes it was after hours and it you know we don't have an expectation or do we have the right to have an expectation that teachers would you know stay after school um but i asked some were they given an opportunity to prove you know to participate virtually did they send emails in support or with their concern but only 86 of nearly 600 certified teachers participated in that practice or which led me to request you know are we going to do a survey of them maybe there's another better way you know that's not very representational right 15 16 percent of of teachers and then the trend line on student achievement is going the wrong direction
179and everything that i it has been provided and the links that i've seen in the report card data that's been presented in the information that's been provided by teachers um and lastly i i don't see it really as a pilot and and um that's disappointing to me um but in some of the answers that i got from an administrative level um you know i i really wanted that differentiated data that data from those initial pilot classrooms 50 teachers and then 70 and then 90 and then the 120 to say okay what were how were the kids in those classes performing differentiated against the kids who were not in it that year and the following year and the following year and i i asked for that and i appreciate the candid response that i got but
180the response that i got was that we didn't keep that because we were always planning to move forward how can we be planning to move forward with something that we didn't fully vet was working and so i've said well was never really a pilot then it was simply a graduated rollout of a foregone conclusion and it doesn't seem to track with the idea of a pilot which is the intention would be to evaluate whether or not it would move forward having said that i think there are outstanding teachers who both support it and there are outstanding teachers who have significant concerns about it at an individual grade or tier elementary versus secondary and there's fantastic teachers who stand in opposition to it entirely has there been great sacrifice by individuals within the district from an
181administrative pers you know from from administrators down to teachers absolutely have they done so in good faith believing that they were doing the very best they could for students absolutely have those teachers who have said i have such significant struggles with it that i've written letters and or made phone calls to say i stand in opposition to it absolutely there is no one involved in the process that is standing up and saying anything other than what they believe based upon the information that they've been provided based upon the information that i've been provided and everything that i've researched both provided and independently sought out tonight i'll vote no well one thing is for sure is there's a lot of confusion um and that's okay right um when things initially start out they're never perfect nothing
182really ever is perfect in life until it's fine too and we get there we make progress on it um so do i think pbg is perfect no but do i think in the long run there's some potential opportunity there i do think so i do have some questions for for the administration here um just for some clarification for some students is this i mean this is the first full year roll up in the district is that correct correct is there as every student previous to this year been exposed to pbg or not i guess is the question so has every student been pre-exposed to bbg priorities or could this be the first year that some students are actually in pvg this is this is um the majority of our students have have had some type
183of experience with pvg there are some students where this is the first experience they're having but for some students it's the very first time yes yeah and so for some of these students it's new to them too right learning something new is going to be difficult i could understand perhaps maybe why their surveys they have come out their way up just you know it's kind of surprised us right i think even mr zickert meant the same thing surprised by the results of the student survey um i say that all to say that over the course of the year just the trend lines have been going down i think we've been seeing that but perhaps that's not entirely due to pvg and so i think that the data that we're seeing both pro and con is
184pretty skewed to be asked if you ask so the data that we saw earlier you know both pros and cons to ddg um while it's great that uh that we that we're seeing the uh ap scores going up and the you know number of a's going up that's great i'm not sure we could necessarily tie all that to bbg and i'm not fairly sure we can tie it back to the other traditional drinks just to be honest with you and the other you know to say that uh the course of the last 10 12 years that the district performance has been going down has been attributed to pbg is a little unfair too and skewed if you ask me in my but one thing is for sure and you heard this when the northern illinois
185buildings trades union which represents 15 000 construction workers and operates 20 local apprentice programs here in the state lane start getting involved with these types of academic decisions for the future right the future of the workforce the future of our students the future for them the ability to pass apprenticeship programs and they mentioned it to sell themselves this is a real world example of a system like proficiency-based grading where applicants are encouraged to improve and try again this also reduces the barriers to young people joining the trades because they were more likely they will be more likely to meet the minimum math and reading requirements programs like proficiency-based grading lay the groundwork for students to be successful making it more likely that they'll have a meaningful career in our community so there's a real concern
186out there right in terms of economic development in terms of careers in terms of jobs here in the community because if if programs like this and employers can't find the skilled applicants that's a problem here that's a problem throughout the throughout our region and let's face it are our students better off with the skills that they need to master to enter these programs to pass some of these aptitude tests to pass these apprentice programs aptitude tests and others that's real world folks that is real world the real world is asking us to meet this challenge um i know there's a lot of confusion i think that there's been some strides that have been made now you know we're able to see grades on progress reports we're able to see grades on end of the semester
187report cards which ultimately will correlate to gpas um and so i know there's confusion around that but again as i mentioned nothing's perfect one thing i could you know i think we would agree is that yes there probably needs to be a lot more training for everybody involved we're all stakeholders and that means you know from from the teachers spending quality time working through this understanding this to the to the students themselves and the parents themselves as well i mean rome wasn't built in a day oops it took time and so you know i say that to say you know you know with time i think we can get there with the appropriate feedback and stakeholders i think we can get there but to throw it all throw it all out and the progress we've
188made and of course you know there are employers there are folks that are asking us to better prepare our students for the workforce that's real life that's a you know that's a real life call to us all i have for now [Music] discussion um i have a couple things to say um i i agree with a lot of what mr zuckert said um i found interesting and sort of promising um not necessarily that i think we're going to vote the same way tonight but perhaps we're not as far apart as um as everyone thinks we might be and i think with respect to the emails and the parent comments that um i've received on pbg you know it's hard to quantify it but i do feel like like 95 of the um issues and the
189negatives and the complaints um are legitimate issues where we can improve um this is we are not at a state of perfection and no one um no one in this room is trying to fight and i think um i was not happy when the board changed the policy um so that the grading policy becomes a board decision i still am not happy about that the good thing that has come out of it is the dialogue and and hearing from parents and hearing from misty tonight who you know does not like pbg but when she talks about it i think yes that is something that we need to look at yes that is something we need to look at and those thoughts are getting to the right ears because of this discussion so i appreciate that
190i think the emails and the feedback that i received from students were developmentally appropriate for i think mostly high school students they had a developmentally appropriate understanding of the system they had a developmentally appropriate i think focus on on how they perceived the system working for them their priorities are not always the same as our priorities as parents our priorities as educators but it was good to get the perspective from the kids because some of them did have issues that i recognized in what my own children say to me and i'm sure if my son was surveyed he's a senior um he would have been one of the 71 percent who didn't like pb um you know when the board was talking about changing this policy um i expressed a lot of concerns about that
191and what i heard was it's gonna be based on data don't worry it's not gonna be subjective it's gonna be based on data data data this will be data driven data driven and um i don't know if i have a different understanding of the word data than my fellow board members or or if their perspective on that has changed um i guess in the technical sense surveys are data that's an interesting way to run a school district by popular vote but i'm sure um you know sure we could do that when we look at and and mr herrera touched on this a little bit i'll go a little farther with it when we look at i'm going to steal um when i miss these exhibits when we look at the um you know the sort
192of trend line for district 100 achievement going down nobody thinks that's great no one's pleased about that um and and there seems to be this um this sort of jump to assume that that is the fault of pbg so um boy it's been a long time since i took statistics but um there's certainly um some words that still kind of are knocking around my head correlation and causes so you may see this trend line going down and you think oh goodness well you know that kind of started happening around the time the district started piloting if you also look at what was happening in the district at that time our population of low-income students has gone from approximately 13 percent back in the um back in the mid 2000s to where it sits now um
193at close to 50 strong correlation between academic performance and income um the proportion of english language learners in our district has followed the same trend line as low income as the low income trend line if english is not a kid's first language they're going to struggle more in all their academics and again correlation causation two different things i'm not going to say that any one of these factors is responsible for these trend lines and i think it would be irresponsible for any of us to claim that we know exactly what is responsible um as far as other data we've heard many many anecdotes pro and con pbg teachers parent students i think that is not a manner in which i would choose to run a school district as well i think going back to the
194you know as a board it's really nice to be told that we're doing a really good job and everyone loves everything we're doing and i'm sure admin loves that too but but frankly the um the useful information that we get from our constituents is often criticism and and we've received a lot of constructive criticism on our grading policy if the board votes down the grading policy which i don't know if you've all looked at the district-wide grading and promotion system there's a ton to this other than pb yes we changed the policy and we all know why we changed the policy it was to address pbg we're talking about any of this other stuff in here but if this board votes down the grading system tonight we're taking an axe to an entire system here
195an entire system it doesn't all have to do with pbg when what we should be doing as a board is saying okay dr wiessmann we do or do not approve of your grading philosophy here's the philosophy here's the policy we're a board we set the policy here's the policy under which we expect you to develop a grading system we give the surgeon a scalpel we say here's what we're hearing from the patient we're hearing that kids are bringing home d's on the report cards and then the parent calls the teacher and the teacher says oh it's not really a d empower is an important isn't reporting that right okay fix that with your scalpel you don't need to take an axe to this entire trading policy in order to fix things that need to be
196fixed now the board also should take into account that we have heard from and we've talked a lot about the people who have talked to us tonight um and we've talked a lot about the teachers who we did receive emails from teachers who are anti-pbg i want to dispel this notion that teachers are too scared of reprisals from scary dr weissman um if they speak up about being against pbg we did receive those emails i got him you can foil their public record um they're there so so let's just kind of put that to us um we've received an endorsement of the grading system from the superintendent from all of his assistant superintendents from the director of career readiness from the quality assurance director from the director of curriculum from the principles of all 11
197of our schools from numerous instructional coaches numerous teachers and we've been asked by the president of the bea to keep the grading system they're the professionals we set the policy and we let the professionals so i think i was on the curriculum committee for the last six years until recently and i think dr weissman would be the first to tell you that i have been one who have had many questions about this grading system as well um but it's kind of like miss mayville said i mean you know i love the feedback i love the conversations i'm having with people um i appreciate you know i know misty alicia i've talked to you guys many times about this i appreciate the way you come in here and you're giving us valuable feedback and and you're
198giving us some solutions and you're telling us you know if you're gonna do it i think at least if you're gonna do it go all in do it do it i appreciate your passion for the district i appreciate your passion for our kids we all have it we all do we wouldn't be sitting up here if we didn't um i have questions i do i have for the last few years but as miss mavis said and and i voted against changing this policy a few months back because that is the administrator's job it's not our job we are in charge of policy and they follow the policy um as much as sometimes i hate that um we are not here to micromanage and i feel if we if we put an axe to this as
199ms mayville said that's exactly what we're doing and i'm afraid what's going to come out of this okay we're done it's gone now what and is it now my decision to decide this because guess what i didn't go to school for this i know nothing about this um that's why we hire a superintendent so there's bigger conversations that maybe need to be had um if it's a problem with the the his grading i mean that's a whole different conversation like i said three months ago so the reason i'm going to vote the way i do is because i am not in favor of the reasons we changed the policy i think that it is the board's work is not this well i waited till last because i'm the person who requested the change of this
200policy and it wasn't something i did or came up with in a minute anyone who knows me knows i won't buy a pair of shoes without reading reviews on them and doing my research and trying to find out exactly what the best one is and why i'm going to get it started four years ago with questions to this board which the board was different at the time about grading at that time and the answers were okay but as as time went on my oldest son graduated in 2020 and i found a lot of the same things some of the people talked about here today um about how it affected your application to college how it affected your uh entrance and direct direct admit programs how it affected the dollars you could get uh money off
201of your school those are real things that affect everybody you know it can be drastic to your family and and those are problems in the system um you know and one thing i do want to say in all this uh uh our teachers are awesome and i thank all the teachers that talked here today i know some of them miss noomi's rock star and i wanted to thank them and all the emails i got on both sides from the teachers in some ways i i feel you know bad for the teachers because on the implementation side of this i don't think we've done a good job at all um carla you referenced you know throwing this all the way i don't know if anybody said to throw it all away i echo matt's um comments
202i've heard good things about pbg and i've heard bad things about pbg what i will say is i spent an unbelievable amount of time reaching out to people to ask their thoughts first and get their feedback on pbg uh from teachers from parents um from all kinds of people a ton and ton of time i will say this i think parents have been kind of eliminated from the equation of pbg and i think that's wrong because we've been doing it how long how much parental input have we gotten i don't think much at all and i think that's wrong parents should be part of the education process of their kids and when they after 10 years can't make heads or tails of their kids progress report or they get a d and then the teacher
203said no it's a b or it's a c or whatever to your point carla at the curriculum meeting you said you couldn't even understand it yourself and that's not my word well you said to the effect that you got your your progress reporting anyway mr booker please continue on and anyway calling on other people also um the the the point of the teachers i've talked to after going over this and in the last month it's actually pushed me more to the way i'm going to vote i found many of their arguments were very very compelling and i learned things that um don't work in the system that i never even thought of so it's been a very long journey i've spent a lot of time doing it and i want to find out more from
204teachers on both sides because i think this dialogue would not have happened and the reason it's happened is because in my opinion the actual reason this came up was because there was no checks and balances in the system that was my main reason for writing this that is why i sent it in it was not solely on pbg when i asked every one of the previous board members and i asked dan who's watching over this who is telling us is it doing good is it doing bad who is doing this and and no one had an answer i did you had an answer but we didn't have data we didn't have anything to support whether it was going well or not did we i'm still waiting for all this data that we're going to use
205to determine but that's the point you they didn't progress monitoring any of this the whole it's my time to speak okay i'm just waiting to hear about the data the data would be what you should have done if you implemented the system for 10 years and you would have progress monitored each way and when you did a pilot at the lower levels you take that data and you make sure you have it buttoned up and working correctly your progress monitoring how does that work in this this isn't please continue with your comments this is my time okay i'm just curious to know let me know what i can think looks like if you don't want to explain that that's fine i just did anyway um and talking to everybody uh it was very interesting to
206hear and and to to for you to say that all the teachers who aren't for this uh aren't afraid of coming out and telling their decision stop misrepresenting what i said you said all of their you said all the teachers tom you said all of their emails are there and you can foil them people out in the audience you don't have all the feedback i've received from teachers you don't they can follow any of our emails i did not if the teacher talks to me on the phone they cannot foil that if i talk to a teacher when i saw them they cannot further i did not say what you said i just said anyway the bottom line is this isn't something i just came up with overnight it's not something i didn't research it's
207not something i didn't talk to lots and lots of teachers parents and people about the overwhelming majority and that's who we're here to represent when we're here to represent the parents the teachers the students of this district [Applause] so that is why i will vote no thank you where's the data exactly where is the data for what we're going to replace this with i believe ms wickholm stated how can we move forward with something that we don't know is working so what are we going to move forward with when we have all this data to support it so what what where's the data when we talked about this before i was assured don't worry carlo we're going to base our decision on data we're going to base it on data data data data so this
208is the fact that we are basing it on what the majority wants which again interesting way to run a school district and you don't really need a board to do that you can just send a survey so so as long as we are going to say how can we move forward with something that we don't know is working i want to know what we are going to replace this with that we do know is working and how do we know that that whatever it is is working so is it possible at this point to call the question sure so i'd like to just say i know when she call the question then we vote on whether or not we're going to there's no more discussion after you call the question i asked them further i
209asked if it was possible to call the question so my question is is that a possibility my question is that something that can oh it's theoretical yes it can i certainly don't from being able to speak i also want to be sure that we maintain a level of civility amongst ourselves i think we've done relatively well if we could just maintain the idea that no one is against anyone else this isn't a us versus them this isn't a you versus me this is a conversation where i people have come to a collect tour to an individual decision based on collective information that each of us have interpreted through a number of things it's not that i think it makes you wrong if you vote to approve it and the reality is if the vote tonight
210goes in a direction that the system as the the um the motion indicates is affirmative and it continues to go forward i'm not going to be up in arms and scream and yell and rant and rave and carry on and say oh i we didn't win the reality is we were voted in to represent individual voices and or collective voices rather and to do so in the most integrous way we can and i believe each and end of every individual is trying to do exactly that i do have some questions yeah you had some questions yeah i do have some questions for clarification um at the end of the semester students get a letter grade yes at the end of the semester do the students receive a gpa yes in high school in high school
211okay in high school that's where it matters right for applying to college and scholarships and that's always based on the end the semester is that semester so i guess i'm just i'm finding it uh hard time maybe you can help me understand this um because you mentioned it's it's hard for students to apply for for colleges or not get the scholarships maybe that they're applying for or maybe perhaps it was brought up there's brought it up earlier and and told you how the academic money they get is based on letter grades and if your letter grade is off by 0.1 in the system it can change the dollars that you get absolutely so it's just letter grade is off would that mean that the student didn't meet the standard yeah i don't i didn't understand
212how that related would would that mean that the student did not meet the standard my question was the same how how would so what i'm saying folks is that if the student met the standard perhaps the desired grade would be achieved so i mean i you know folks i think that's what i think you hear discussion amongst is amongst the board members currently thank you so you know i just again yes there's confusion out there folks i i completely understand it but as this proficiency-based grading system is designed right it's designed to help the students achieve and master these skills to move on and progress and so i guess you know for my students in my kids you know if they really want achieve those threes and and so on and so forth we're gonna
213make sure we're gonna we're going to master they're going to master that skill to achieve that yes and understand that when they do that they're going to have hopefully their desired grade at the end of the semester at the end of the year that's what we're that's what they're striving for right help me understand if i'm wrong because at the end of the day they want to achieve some uh this will be the last thing i say and yes i would move that we vote um or anybody else can finish up uh you reference before the the trade union and that that uh and it's it's fine that they allow people to take multiple times to to get into the trade union okay the data the only data we have is where our kids are
214performing and they're taking the same test that everyone else in the state takes right so all those kids in those other school districts that are scoring higher on their tests they can apply to those same trade unions right and that can get in the first time in the second time or maybe our kids are getting in the third fourth or fifth time because it's a it's a competition once you're done with school and life right and right now we are not meeting the burden of our kids to have them in the top half of the state right that's the data that we have that shows to us so we need to do the best we can to be objective acknowledge our deficiencies and come together to find a way to do it better because we're
215not doing it good enough that is my point i just wanted to provide a little bit of clarification because if i believe correctly the normal buildings trades unions they were more interested in in having their their applicants master reading and math skills to get into their programs thank you ready nick um so at the end of the day yes we wanna we wanna we wanna measure we wanna measure progress right we wanna have some measurements for this but we don't have data that's conclusive for the entire district that was involved with pbg because some kids weren't in in pvg some kids weren't piling so it's unfair to say that the the what we're looking at today and especially last year and what we're seeing this year well that data is already skewed already due to
216the just the covenant and the effects that we've had and then in the educational system but again i go back to and i tom i'm a proponent i want to see some data too i want to make sure that we're getting the collective data for all the students that are currently at right now district-wide now we can get now we have a baseline to get basic district-wide data and how they're going to perform going forward because right now it's been a little bit of a hodgepodge of a pilot here and a pilot there and some did it this year and some did it you know it's it's it's not consistent data is what we don't have but i think we have a baseline this year going forward now that we're district-wide to start measuring what
217the effects are and the student achievement going forward again which is that's why you're proposing that you know we continue on because we don't have you know we don't have the data to say otherwise that it's not necessarily working because the data is not there where it's not consistent for us to base that decision on just one thing really quick finally i i we got a letter a while back from from a lady who i have no idea who she is i don't mean any disrespect by this because i i read it and i i took it to heart i'm i'm sorry i think she called us out on i don't know who she was calling out she might have been talking to me because i apologized to her it was me i i fully
218said let me know what i need to do better um she was very disappointed in the behavior of the board all of us collectively and i think that we model things for kids and we model things for the public and the public does as adults too and i think we have to be able to agree to disagree we have to be able to talk respectfully which i think happens 98 98 98 of the time i think the problem is though when a dozen kids see that and they think that's okay and i think we have to get to the point where we may not agree on everything and we won't we're not going to agree on a lot of things like i said grading is like religion and politics it's really a disagreeable subject but
219i also think we as a collective group of adults everybody in the room needs to understand kids watch this and kids will see this and we need to set a good example for them too because at the end of the day that's just as important as sometimes what they learn academically too because that is the real world too so the motion currently on the floor is to approve the continued use of the grading and promotion practices a through g is outlined in the superintendent's annual report regarding the currently utilized grading and promotion system roll call please miss mayville hi mr herrera mr bucher this is houck mr zickert this is whitcomb this is read nemac no motion fails so what now next we're moving next we'll be moving on to do i have a motion
220to approve the revisions to the existing board of education policy 460 purchases and contracts as presented member whitcomb made the motion and member zickert seconded the motion to approve the revisions to existing board of education policy 460 purchases and contracts as presented discussion yeah why what are we doing here why are we doing this like our meeting's not long enough like do we need to [Music] have more contracts come to the board for discussion and kick over to the next meet and kick over the next meeting why why are we doing this well the policy already calls for all contracts to come to the board um in the first paragraph it says right of comments and so the contract language that changes in the paragraph that talks about uh allowing for a single year contract
221not to exceed 25 000 that that would be that would come in underneath the um third paragraph under standards for purchasing a contract so they all will come before the board all contracts are going to come before the board well that's already there that's not changed that's not changing so all contracts are going to come before the board well they haven't been done right but are they going forward well they should have been the language calls for that now i would hope so as it's called for by language how many dr brown how many contracts does the district better into every year over 100 over 200 okay and this is um going to do what so going forward all contracts are going to come for an up or down vote before the board i just
222want to make sure i understand but the policy says all contracts mr herrera can you and turn on your yeah thank you so just to read it um i think what it's specifying is is all contracts over 25 thousand dollars are to come to the board um i think that's how we kind of agreed to it and it was kind of confusing we went back and forth and the policy committee understand some of the confusion and around this so i i can see it kind of i'm still so there were no changes to the policy language as it relates to all contracts shall be approved or authorized by the board so in paragraph three the addition was and single year contracts for supplies so the adoption of the board our of the budget authorizes the
223superintendent or designee to make purchases budgeted supplies equipment services and single-year contracts for supplies equipment and services not to exceed 25 000 that's the change we identified an internal inconsistency in the policy and did not fix the internal inconsistency in the policy what internal consistency are you concerned wasn't fixed all contracts shall be approved or authorized by the board that wasn't identified in the discussion as an inconsistency that anyone believed needed to be addressed is it inconsistent i mean i i read it as inconsistent with the other language in the policy i and i thought i read somewhere that that was identified as confusing and inconsistent i thought i saw that somewhere in policy committee meeting minutes but i could be wrong so maybe i can speak to that i was at the policy committee
224and i i sent a request after um there was a question that came up and um dr wiesman and i discussed it and i said if there's if there's inconsistency or possible ambiguity then you know board policy i'll ask the board the board policy committee to look at it and from there the committee looked at it and that is as a committee how they determined how to make it less ambiguous so an answer to your question i don't know in regards to how you're reading it but that's how the committee has made the recommendation in relation to moving forward the committee felt that in the language it said all contracts are to be approved by the board so from i just want to be clear so going forward all contracts are coming to the board
225yeah supporting the current policy language okay we're not doing that now but we're going to do that moving forward so policy oh sorry so yeah i would like to clarification on that as well because my interpretation of the verbiage before the changes were that the board had to either approve or authorize every contract authorization came when you approved the budget approval was required if something was happening outside of the budget so we were not bringing budgeted items to you for approval because we felt we were authorized to do that approval formal approval came when something was either outside of the budget or if we just felt like it was important for the board to see something the way i'm interpreting it now is that if something is under twenty five thousand dollars and budgeted for
226and i have the authority to purchase it if it's over twenty five thousand dollars or we have not budgeted for it unless it's an emergency that would need formal board approval i think it will miss mayville's initial question was are more contracts coming to the board i think that will result in more contracts coming to the board than we currently have now well all contracts i would like some clarification on that yeah so what what do you look what clarification if you could ask maybe a specific question so i'm getting mixed messages on if this means that all contracts are coming to the board or if things that are over 25 000 are coming to the board what was the intent the intent of the committee was to clarify that there is a provision now
227made that indicates that contracts single-year contracts over 25 are subject to the approval of the superintendent or their designee that's the difference or provision there so it there it doesn't change if there's budgeted supplies equipment if we were very specific about the fact that no one's looking to say if you need light bulbs you have to come back to the board those are budgeted supplies that are in there if there's a contract that you need to enter into for a single year for an expenditure of less than 25 000 then you would have the authority under this policy to enter into that contract for a sum to be spent of less than 25 all other contracts all contracts are going to come to the board for approval for all i mean i could we maybe
228i don't know if there's a rush on getting this passed or not but maybe we could the committee could maybe tell the board attorney what we're trying to do here and he could craft language so that the policy we pass is what the committee is intending to do would be my suggestion so if it doesn't pass then we can certainly evaluate whether or not we want to go forward with making additional changes to the policy or not the committee spent a significant amount of time with all stakeholders and people represented from you know the various stakeholder groups within the district and the recommendation came for the policy to come forward as it is and for first reading last month then we're here for a vote if it isn't if it doesn't pass and doesn't vote
229if the vote doesn't go in that direction then we can take it up from there or there are provisions if it does pass to you know for that are outlined in policy for ways to address it additionally if that's the will of the board i just want a policy that says what we're gonna actually do well i think the policy said that but we weren't following it the policy said all contracts come to the board and contra all contracts weren't coming to the board but they will now that's the end time that's i didn't write the initial contract to follow policy and the change in rega the change in regards to the beginning was not changed because that was the intention of the policy then why do we specify later on that some contracts the
230administration can just do without approval because contracts specifically weren't stated lower in regards to once once the budget has been authorized or what author or excuse me once the budget has been approved that then the superintendent is authorized to make purchases supplies i think i think what what distinguishes it what we thought distinguished the difference there is that contracts could be approved or authorized so that or authorized part that's that's where the 25 thousand dollar part comes in okay so it's not the case that all contracts will be coming to the board going forward if a contract is a one year contract under 25 000 after we've approved the budget then no it would not come to the board okay that's different i think than what i was hearing before and i think when we
231pass policies we should know what they say and have a common agreement on what it's going to do so thanks for humoring me with my pedantry go for it dr wiesen are there any more questions you have because you you were you had some questions around understanding this or what no i understand this i my understanding is that we will continue as we have been doing with under twenty five thousand dollar purchases that are budgeted for anything above twenty 25 000 will bring to the board no the way that it's written is only contracts only single year contracts everything else if you've got to buy a hundred thousand dollars worth of light bulbs that are budgeted for once that has been budgeted for then that doesn't come to the board only single year contracts over
23225 000 would then obviously not fall within that second category and bump up to contracts coming to the board okay roll call please mrs whitcomb mr zicker mr herrera mr bucher miss mayville no this is hulk this is renemic hi motion passes next for the following discussion items the first one on the discussion is care solus mr buker this was something i believe that came through uh business uh services committee if you could start off the discussion if there is any discussion didn't please um this came through a couple times and i decided we decided to move it to the board for discussion um i believe we had four questions we wanted answered um on it that that we were going to get answers for tonight and then have discussion on it to see where
233what everybody thought in relation to the care souls program does anybody have any questions in regards to this in regards to the new question there was new questions and also answers to questions from the october business services committee meeting um mr buker if you want to shine any light on that in addition or if anyone has any questions so at this point this fits under twenty five thousand dollars and it's budgeted could we could i just enter a single year contract with them if it has been budgeted for do we but we budgeted for this creek in the budget that we have approved if it had been budgeted for it was under 25 000 then yes and we've approved the ester grant budget through um through the full budget so we don't need a board
234vote on this we wouldn't necessarily need a board vote on this yeah that that would be my request is that right but i do need your blessing because we did say that we come back on on this for your blessing yep they're i think we put them in here they're actually listed i'm we're on board documents um my only question is is just making sure that we have progress monitoring on this so we know how many people are using it um when we run out of money are we going to leave people high and dry or is there kind of like an exit plan strategy for how we'll provide that afterwards there are no other questions we'll move on to county school facility tax bond and interest fund abatement and proposed additional abatement mr bucher
235that came from business services any discussion or questions fcc mma filing an annual post issuance compliance review looks like this will come for discussion um at the board serve our business services committee meeting in december does anyone have any questions regarding that next high school courses this is something that we do annually correct dr weisman yes and we try to give the board a heads up uh the month before so there are questions we can work through those um so we can get this approved in december just for mrs mayville mrs mayfield's request i know she was right on this because they do need to know in december so i think if we want to reflect for a month the two i would i'm just personally suggesting this so don't take it like i'm supporting
236her against anything is that global studies was one i think it's because it's new you may want to ask questions on i'm saying it's bad i mean i it's just one to look at i think the other one from past experience that i had when i wasn't around on the board but sat through the meeting the only other one that i saw that would require that would that created any kind of feedback at all was accelerated english 11. i think if you have any questions on those between now and december i would ask questions on those too or whatever else you want but i think mrs mayville was right dr carson needs no answers on those in the summer either way and that information goes through dr wiestman correct yeah generally if you have questions
237you can ask me but um i'm happy to connect you with dr kirsten as well next the 2023-24 school calendars discussion on that that is something that will be coming for a vote i believe in december correct and before that comes for a vote that goes to all four of the unions okay anyone have any questions on that next substitute wages so um this is just a discussion we're looking for some board feedback on this staffing does continue to be a struggle for us as a school district um dr eddy here in a second can give you fill rates we are considering um but would like some feedback on whether it's useful to come back and [Music] propose different salary structures for substitute teachers and substitute nurses specifically um generally there's staffing shortages all over
238the place and this is one of the things that school districts are trying to do to accommodate those staff and shortages so i don't know dr 80 if you've got our fill rate most recent authority our most recent fill rate is 57 so that's from the beginning of the year which is pretty uh comparable to other districts that are in the region so uh one of the things we we have started discussing is whether or not to bump up some of our our our sub rates uh maybe even provide incentives and that so that's those are a few of the things that we're going to look at and uh and bring back to you probably next month yeah so i don't know if anybody has opinions on whether that's a good idea to look at
239or bring to you the times in the past there have been a couple times in the past i can think of incentives for retired teachers one of them except for subs who have worked a certain number of days a year have those incentives in the past increase when we've done them have they benefited i'm not really familiar with what what they've done in the past with that so a lot of times what you get is uh you'll get like an initial jolt of people that maybe were considering or weren't considering it maybe when we initially paid for like their licensing fees that might have gotten somebody a couple people over the hump um so to be honest the districts that we're talking to even though they pay some of them pay their substitutes more than
240we pay they're still have the same fill rate so that's we're not necessarily positive that's going to change things but our current well it our regular sub pays 110 um and then our retired teachers and long term subs make 130. last time we increased that i know we did that not real super long ago what when did we increase what did it increase from before but we just we increased it uh just going into this in this new school year i think our previous rate was was 100 so we bumped it up like 10 bucks so in the current school year 2122 is the last bump and it was about ten dollars correct it's uh now 110. uh as far as pay goes uh we're somewhere in the middle rockford's a little bit higher than
241us um i think harlem is a little higher than us and some but it fluctuates too because depending on like if it's a half day sub full day sub uh retired teacher they they've all got different pay for for different types of of subs and it's not it's not the same i mean ours a lot of what we do is different than other districts and so it's not some some of the sub categories are not direct comparison so the easy the easy ones to look at are just the regular long term uh half day retired teachers all the all the districts tend to do something with that have we have we talked to kelly to see if they have any input you know do they manage districts higher sub bill rates can they distinguish so
242i have talked to kelly a little bit about it uh but ben and i actually have another meeting this week and this this is on the agenda to do that and that is one of my questions is if you can give me any uh feedback on that from other districts like that have done that and if that's helped at all competing with other districts who use kelly because doesn't harlem use kelly rockford uses kelly so would that just kind of start kind of the stair step like oh belvedere increasing okay now we're going to have to be honest with you yes it probably probably could do that my concern would a concern going forward would be once we up it is what we up it to we can never go back and be like oh
243guess what um we don't have the money or now we have a lot of subs which probably isn't going to happen but now we have what we need we're going down to you know 130 or whatever once we hit some place we can't go back i think it'd be i think it would be it would make it hard to do that yes i think i think one of the problems i just bring this up very briefly is kelly from my personal dealing just recently as a agent i was on this one for an i9 for hasn't part of it is their user friendliness i think it's kind of like calling in the clock not the call centers but it's kind of like push this for this push that for that you don't get a real
244person get their answering machine and you may or may not get called back then you get put out of you know forwarded to a website so i think some of the not that many i'm talking a handful but a handful of people i've talked to said that's been part of the reason why they don't want to mess with anymore just a user friendly it's not anything to do with the schools anything to do with the experience just with stuff like that and maybe it's just the one-off yeah and you know i appreciate that and uh any time that i've gotten some of those complaints and it's just been a handful i've brought those to him and he's been very responsive i do know that in the level above him there was there was a change
245uh in uh in some of the employees there and i think i think we did take take a little bit of a hit initially when they made that transition and so i'm hoping that will improve so possibly not just looking at increasing pay but maybe thinking outside of the box what what can we do to make us look because let's be honest everybody is calling kelly they're not necessarily calling each school district so that might kind of keep us inside a box yeah i'd say see if they have any ideas i mean shortage is like a problem that we okay moving on to the rift joint committee agreement that will be coming to us in december correct yes and again this is just something we do every year through team uh we have to do
246it in december and it just it basically just uh outlines uh if we were ever put in a position where we would have to riff uh it gives it gives kind of the pecking order you know starts basically with lowest seniority uh and on and on up and so this is just it's just a standard thing that we do every december just so we're in a position if we ever have to do something like that that uh we've kind of got our marching orders for how we would go about doing that the upcoming contract renewals and reports as always is listed dr wiesman do you have anything regarding that okay and moving on to administrative reports dr wiesman [Music] so i just want to take my time uh today and recognize uh dr brown for
247his work here in the school district um dr brown is going to be mad at me that i'm calling him out here but um he is one of the hardest workers i've known in my career i think his financial expertise has saved our taxpayers a whole lot of money and brought financial stability to the district um i don't know if people know everybody knows that greg's a really great asset for the school district as an employee um but i don't know if people know that he's also been on the board for the rock river valley food pantry for growth dimensions the boone county council on aging the community foundation the community building complex of boone county he was an active community member and supporting the district before he started working here he ran canvassing committees
248and public relations committees for 15 years helping pass referendums for three elementary schools one middle school and high school um he um has been involved with habitat for humanity since 2007 i think you can still see him sometimes volunteering for cheerleading competitions which blows my mind i would never think that greg would spend his weekends at cheerleading competitions until i got to know his family a little bit better and i realized how how passionate they are just about the kids and the good experience the kids have uh and that program um so i think greg is the um i think greg is the best of the best i think he's uh a humble and dedicated servant in the community and i appreciate the work that he's done on behalf of just trying to make sure
249our kids have good places to learn and he promised me he'd take a welding class with me once the atc opened so i'm hoping we can still see him a whole lot um not only as a neighbor but still around here in belfair so um i um just want to make sure everybody knows how much i appreciate him and i love him and the work that he does um we did uh we have american education week happening uh we've got a handful of different ways that we're trying to celebrate teachers this week at the district level um sending some goodies out to the teachers this week and celebrating them on social media so appreciate i know a lot of parent organizations do similar things and there's a lot of celebrations in the schools happening especially
250it's been a rough couple years for our teachers and then finally just under superintendent comments i would say that we um dr brown did a lot of research on different opportunities for screening coveted 19 screening outside of the shield program we did find a couple out of state screening opportunities they're all pretty expensive right now we're focusing a lot of our hopes on a federal program that dr brown's working with the health department on to to try to bring in some type of screening option uh for the families that are interested in that let's see i think i also we also appreciate the board as part of the education week for board member appreciation day and all the work that you do i think that was also mentioned here today um our fall housing report
251is listed here that i want to call out we are seeing the [Music] um probably the fifth year in a row where our enrollment has declined uh this isn't surprising it's something that we saw when we did the demographic studies a few years ago so that's something that we'll have to keep an eye on and something that the long-range facility planning committee can look at i think that i think that's all probably that i would add unless anybody has questions on any of the reports that are in there [Music] you got five um again i'd also like to thank greg no idea no idea what we're losing um an incalculable loss when we hired dr weissman the board at that time told him there's one employee you can't touch and that's dr brown and that's
252not any slight on any of our other employees it was a non-negotiable and fortunately dan was smart enough and had the humbleness to not be threatened by greg's knowledge and skill and familiarity with the district and as a team they've really been a force i warned you this would happen i warned you so this will be part of this board's enduring legacy i'll be around remind people of that i just want to say really quick i worked with greg for six years and i enjoyed working with greg for six years um as a principal and then in the central office we worked together four years here and two years as a principal he is really good at what he does um back in the days and put the cheerleading part that was back in the
253days when his daughter was in cheerleading actually bhs and north were pretty close back then they were they were going kind of back and forth and then it kind of went the other way a little but just a sports analogy because i'm a sports kind of guy at bad heart even still is that the one thing you always say about people is you don't want to follow the legend you want to follow the person who follows the legend and that's i think about that with greg in this one is that finding those footsteps is going to be very very difficult i think it's very very difficult to follow that say dr brown i would very much like to indicate my appreciation for your professionalism your dedication to making sure that everything is done in the
254best needs of the students um i believe that i have heard you say if it's good for students just you know give me the go ahead and and we'll find we'll find the money we'll we'll figure out how to do it um and uh the students in your next next district will benefit greatly from that and i appreciate everything that you have done to be prepared to lead committee meetings to provide information to go the extra mile and saving millions of dollars as recently as just a couple months ago uh for the taxpayers um i'm glad to see that you're not leaving the community because the community we hope to see you in the community the community i feel can still benefit from your leadership within the community and i just wanted to say appreciate
255everything that you've done and good luck with with your next adventure just say real quick i really appreciate everything you've done greg i've been on here a long time i've seen the difference you made and i i'm really sorry if i have a feeling that we had something to do with you leaving and i just want to tell you i'm really sorry about that and wherever you're going they're very lucky to have you well i haven't been around very long but i have found that every question i've asked you you've been transparent to answer you spent a great deal of time going over all of the different funds um you know 30 or 40 minutes one day just to answer questions not specific but general um i've benefited as a taxpayer obviously before being any
256party to service on the board um and i appreciate that there's never been a question that you weren't willing to answer and or follow up on if you didn't know the answer and you know what comes next for you is obviously going to be a huge obstacle and an opportunity for us um and it sounds as if from people who have been around um it will be big shoes to fill and um hopefully you will coach them to some degree in the way in which you depart i'm sure being as elegant as the way in which you have worked to make the transition for whomever attempts to fill your shoes is able to do i've only known greg for six months as well but on the business services committee i thought he's done a fabulous
257job which i've sung his praises more than once at our meetings and he will definitely be a big loss i wish him the best um i think we try to uh just recognize in the look ahead we got some items we talked about today that are going to be on the agenda next month high school course catalog middle school courses sales tax abatement the school calendar um let's see we've got the joint annual conference this weekend that we talked about and i've got some committee meetings coming up that are listed as well and that's all i have i'd also since this is board recognition month even though um pam ashens is not an elected member of our board she is um our recording secretary she is a member of our board um she is at
258every board meeting she's taking notes she's letting us know um letting us know what needs to be done and who needs to do what and i'd like to recognize her for her recent completion of education and training for her administrative professional certification at this time the board will be going back into closed executive session to discuss our to continue our discussions from earlier do i have a motion uh just a second know what we're discussing okay so do i have a motion to go into closed executive session regarding section two heading c exception sub number one of the open meetings act to discuss the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body and sub number two collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or the representatives
259in sub number 11 litigation when an action against affecting her on behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending before a court of administrative tribunal whitcomb made the motion and members zickert seconded the motion to go into closed executive session roll call please mrs whitcomb mr zicker mr bucher mr herrera mrs houck ms mayville mrs reed nemech hi to adjourn the meeting remember herrera made the motion and member zicker seconded the motion to adjourn all those in favor say i i all those opposed nay meeting adjourned at 10 55 pm