Berwyn South School District 100 Board of Education Meeting

001morning hi everyone thank you so much for coming to the uh meeting of the board of education for district 100 i'm president andrea dressler and i called the meeting to order at 7 10. could everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance can i have the roll call please andrews dressle here dawn here lopez here him and us here steinfeld here gonzalez motion carried thank you i will um first uh give secretary lopez the floor to read public comment that was submitted to us via email public comment in person individuals i'll read the policy just so everyone is aware individuals appearing before the board are expected to follow the guidelines outlined in board policy 220 or 2 2 30. in lieu of an in-person appearance please submit public comments to the board of education with

002public record listed in the subject line or in the email in advance of the meeting public comments received before 5 pm will be read at the regular meeting emails received after five will be read at the next board meeting okay we received three public comments the first one to the board of education late last school year the pto started working with a group of teachers on a joint project to focus on inclusion and anti late last year the pto started working with a group of teachers on a joint project to focus on inclusion and anti-racism as a part of the curriculum for all grades at irving through this work the team was able to create a personal development program based on courageous conversations about race from professor glenn e singleton which helps organizations develop strategies

003and systems to address bias and racial disparities the teachers also worked with the four recognized social justice standards second photo below from teaching tolerance and organization that helps educators bring inclusion into the classroom we are happy to share this with the irving community as the teachers have already started putting this work into action with our children this may be a good starting point for the discussions around bias training for the entire district thank you to nicola german kayla stenstrom tricia stevens ann cummings julie smetco and erica coppers-harris we would like to recognize these individuals for working so hard and bringing this enrichment to our students sincerely stephanie perga irving eagles pto president good evening my name is lauren mastriani and i have been a sixth grade science and social studies teacher at freedom middle school

004for the past two years my experiences and treatment while at freedom have been extremely toxic and in my opinion this toxic work environment starts with freedom leadership district 100 prides itself on being a family but how i have been treated and have witnessed others treated is far from that definition family means uplifting supporting guiding giving care and protecting we have been told through this pandemic to give grace to our students and families from leadership but the same grace has not been given to teachers during this pandemic many of us have had to witness family members dying increased stress and anxiety fears and worries that we have never had to before as a community we should not only be encouraging support verbally but showing it through our actions this year has been difficult and hard on

005everyone we have had to change everything about the ways we normally operate and the ways we normally do things there is no such thing as normal anymore since the pandemic teachers have had to step outside their comfort zone and try new things in an effort to best serve our students we have jumped into new technology and applications with a lot of trial and error with this said i have been incorrectly evaluated this academic year and procedures were not followed correctly according to our contract we are supposed to be formally observed twice with one informal observation i have never been informally observed by mr ojeda my evaluator he has never been in my classroom or zoom to ever see me teach or engage with my students he knows very little about my abilities strengths weaknesses and

006relationships with my students i was extremely surprised and upset when i was asked not to come back to freedom even with a proficient rating on my summative evaluation when i brought it to the attention of leadership there was no attempt to rectify or make the situation right i was told it was not administration's job to help teachers in areas that we needed improvement on it is this type of mentality and lack of proper leadership that will continue to cause the high turnover rates at freedom middle school two years ago when i first started i was one of 20 plus new teachers hired at freedom this high turnover rate is something that directly impacts our students their learning and their middle school experiences it was not my choice to leave my students this year i am

007saddened that they will be the ones to suffer from this toxic working environment at freedom and the inability of those in charge to make changes it is my hope that bringing awareness to the working environment will help current and future teachers at freedom thank you for taking the time to listen to my concerns and experiences respectfully lauren mastriani and the last one i am a mother of a daughter at pershing school i know that pershing is looking for an assistant principal and i am not sure how much involvement the board has on hiring but i ask that you take into consideration someone that is not only qualified but that is someone that the children can see themselves in i grew up and attended district 100 for most of my school years and cannot remember one

008office staff member latina like myself i see the same thing 20 years later at my daughter's school all but one office staff is white while the staff members do a phenomenal job i want my daughter to grow up feeling empowered by not only her family but by staff members i am also urging the board to vote no on the ridgeland estates i see no good coming from this and i ask that you keep the kids first when making this decision and not a vote for the machine i also ask that the board members that work and receive a paycheck from the city to be excluded from the vote at as it is a conflict of interest thank you teresa ruiz thank you would anyone from the public like to make a comment please step up

009to the podium and turn the microphone on so that you can be recorded on the camera good evening my name is jonathan palace i live in the third ward i have two daughters one of whom is going to be attending piper in the fall i've lived in berwin for 11 years and i've also had the esteemed pleasure of working for district 100 for several years many years ago at kaminsky um as i had moved once i moved to berwin and and i started becoming aware of some of the issues affecting students and education um i started getting more involved in some of the initiatives that existed to address those challenges that was when i met elizabeth jimenez elizabeth jimenez has been involved in advocating for students and residents of this community for as long as

010i've lived here in the time that i've known her she's always made decisions based on the input of the community not through open forums or listening sessions but through real conversations and making herself available to everyone at any time i emphatically supported elizabeth when she ran for school board and was happy to see her become a part of the leadership of our school community elizabeth and i have not always agreed but we have always respected each other her commitment to equity and justice has always been a source of inspiration for me and i've learned many times how what i thought was the right way to do it was actually the white way to do it elizabeth and many other people of color here in this community have shown me over and over how my perspective

011isn't the same as the students and the parents that i served i'm concerned about the board's decision to elect andrea dressel as the as the board president elizabeth is far more qualified as an educator and an administrator than miss dressle she has more years of experience on the board she has more experience as a community activist in and around berwin advocating for the rights of latinx families these are the people that berlin south serves and we need someone to show us the right way not the white way in addition to my concerns about the election of mrs dressle to the school board president role i have additional concerns regarding tonight's vote about the ridgeland estates project the mayor's office has expressed great support for this project while many in the people in the community are

012opposed to the project um each week at our at these meetings at these uh sorry every month at these meetings the folks who have spoken have spoken against the richland escape estates project i wanted to probably express publicly express that i do not support this project however more importantly i believe that andrea dressel and sarah lopez should recuse themselves from this vote both of those these board members have jobs working for the mayor's office this poses a conflict of interest and your decisions could be influenced by your employer whether intentionally or unintentionally to be fair and transparent i would like to echo the other folks who have come month after month and showed up and encouraged you both to recuse yourself thank you for your time hello my name is rhonda mejia i'm a bourbon

013resident i currently reside in north berwin i used to reside in south berwin i currently have family members in south berwin they attend district 100 schools my experience through the school district 100 about 15 20 years ago was not pleasant um my son our family were one of the few hispanic families in the area uh specifically speaking in first ward our experiences through irving were not ex were not pleasant as well and i personally do not wish that on anybody i realize that a lot of hispanic really just anybody any people of color are probably currently still experiencing some of these things um and it's and it's hard it's hard to hear you know 20 years later same stuff is still occurring so i've typed up a statement with your permission um good evening um

014according to the 2019 illinois report card south berwin school district 100 is comprised of 84 percent hispanic 9.6 white and 3.4 percent black students as of 2020 within this district 67.2 percent of those students are of low income and 30.3 percent are english learners yet 88 excuse me 88.3 percent of the teachers within this district are white 11 are hispanic 11 percent are hispanic and there are no black teachers in this district these facts are important because they demonstrate the makeup not only of the student body but also those that teach it it is important for our children our students to see themselves in the faces that educate them in the faces of their teachers their school nurses the vice principals the principals the superintendents the school board members and any persons in any position

015of power or authority people that look like them understand their struggles and challenges that they face not only in school but also in life they need people in these positions that speak the same language as them and their parents i never had a hispanic teacher until i got to high school my son didn't have a hispanic teacher until he got to high school that's relatively six years ago it's sad 84 of us are hispanics in berlin we are the majority not just in berwin but across the states so the mentality that uh you're in america learn english all this stuff that echoes that sentiment should be done and over with that being said our school districts should reflect a truly diverse group across the board that is accurately accurately represented representative of the community they

016serve diversity cannot and should not be limited to just the token diversity attracting diverse pool attracting a diverse pool of applicants should be a top priority when hiring to fill all open positions our community needs actions that support the best interests of the majority of the community members and not just the select few your actions should follow those words and all those objectives and all those plans should be followed with actions i would like to take this opportunity to remind us that this board has a fiduciary duty to all members of our community at this and that the seats of these of this board should not be utilized as the passage to city employment or political connections our community deserves transparency they deserve commitment and a trustworthy relationship from the board members our community deserves

017to be confident that our elected board members understand their duty and will act responsibly in the best interest of the school district according to the illinois association of school boards as elected public officials you the school board hold a fiduciary position and all the duties and loyalty of good faith to your school districts the fiduciary duty requires the board members put the best interest of the district ahead of his or hers own personal or financial interest as the illinois supreme court has noted the fake quote the faithful performance of the official duties is best secured in a if a governmental officer like any other person holding a fiduciary position is not called upon to make a decision that may advance or inquire his individual interest that is city of chicago versus kane therefore first i

018publicly ask that andrea dressle and sarah lopez recuse yourselves from tonight's vote on the item number 14 on tonight's agenda regarding the approval real estate purchase and sell contract and shared easement agreement between district 100 and casper development also known as the original estates housing development ms you currently are employed as the city accountant and ms lopez you are the blight um supervisor or inspector due to your current positions i believe there is a clear conflict of interest if not also ethically secondly i would like to ask that other members of the board vote no on the approval of the real estate purchase and sell contract shared easement agreement between the district 100 and casper development again also known as the ridgeland estates development project if you vote in favor of this project you will

019be sending a clear message that you are not truly vested in the community that you were entrusted to serve the ridgeland estates will offer a few additional parking spots for the staff of freda middle school in exchange for more gentrification and displacement of some of our current community members the original estates is not meant to look out for the best interest of the school district or the community members it's not taking into consideration how this project will negatively affect our most vulnerable community members your neighbors your friends your family so please vote no thank you [Applause] thank you for your public comments i i just want to note that policy 2 2 30 does limit us to 20 minutes of public comment and limit each individual public comment to 5 minutes so by my measure

020we have about five minutes left well i'll talk fast then um i just want to say you know there's been a lot of negative thinking going around about the richland estates and um you know i've been hearing this we have to take this offer this is all we got um i don't think not only is this negative i think it's very inaccurate and it says what people really think about berwin um that this is all we have to take that we're kind of bottom feeders if any of you know the real estate market has been booming this year and there's a housing shortage and it is not slowing down anytime soon berwin is very is especially hot and i don't understand why we're giving away the largest plot of land we have to one developer

021that doesn't even have a website we can't even look to see what he's done before who this person is i have to say that i mean i too was salty about this because i went to the focus groups the whole community asked for a park we thought there was going to be a park there i know how easy it is to get grant money i know how easy it is to get free technical assistance i mean i know how you can work with different governments with different non-profits that we could have had this happen but you know what it didn't so i'm i'm over it now but i would say at this point why are we rushing this if we're going to not do the kansan approach of getting grants like a normal like what

022you would call the democratic party does get grants get federal funding to bring to the community by the way we don't have a grant writer in the city and we need one because it's only tax dollars that pay for all of our services one grant writer can bring in double or triple their salary in money to the city if we're going to do a free market approach which is putting it out to the market which is what we call traditionally republican then let's do it all the way let's just not give this out to one developer put it out to all developers and i ask you at the board i think that um i think overall i've seen a lack of creativity not not necessarily on your part and a lack of um positivity i

023mean we have a lot to offer in this community you can go back and say we just want to see what else is out there ask other developers these are our needs for the community even if they're going to put in a housing development that's fine this is what we want show us some different plans why are we settling on one person thank you [Applause] hi everybody it's ironic that lady that works for the mayor's office is trying to limit us from talking you got to reconsider and give us more time for other people to talk to and i try to be as quick as i can so they can talk i'm very disappointed in school board i want to trust none of you if your tongue came notarized this was an opportunity for you

024to fight for imminent domain for freedom that's that school the kids go from ridgeland the east through an alley or whatever to go to have some outdoor activity shame on these people that voted yes and he's got an elected seat i promise you that you'll get voted off on the next election i promise you we'll be there and we're going to remember that and people that work for the mayor's office wherever you are besides you you got to recuse you so i agree exactly with the first two and the third persons talk 100 well they can hear me if you vote yes on this development we're going to vote no on your elections on the next election good evening everyone my name is marisol brambila i've lived in berwin for about 15 years i'll make

025this as brief as possible according to dr candy kennedy a racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups an anti-racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial racial equity between racial groups anti-racist is someone who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea they express the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing and supports policies that reduce racial inequity tiffs are not anti-racist by any means the way tiffs are disproportionately distributed across spatial boundaries is not anti-racist i urge you to vote against the housing development project that leads to the increase of racial inequity between the racial groups here in berwin i also think it's important that members with conflicts of interest abstain from tonight's vote voting against the

026proposed development project is the only way the school board can promote racial equity another way of doing this is by increasing racial equity among the districts and board education itself our schools are composed of 84 percent hispanic students all in all the majority of our student body are in a large sum students of color these children and families deserve representation in the form of school board president that can communicate with them in their primary language one that is qualified for the position and one that is an educator by trade i urge you to stand and contin to expand and continue the focus groups on anti-racism please keep the community posted on when the next anti-racist conversation will take place anti-racism isn't just a policy it deals with actions decision making and sitting with discomfort that

027ensures biases don't go unchecked i continue to work on being anti-racist every single day of my life and it is something that i will probably continue to do for the rest of my life and i hope that we're all doing that within ourselves regardless of what we look like thank you and have a good evening hi everybody um julia fort president for 16 years former board member i just want to say briefly that committing to anti-racist work is all or nothing it cannot be occasional or inconsistent please let it be all in lead with the equity of our kids and mine thank you very much we do need to move on with the rest of the agenda and now we will move on to the is i will allow 10 more minutes for public comment

028and then we need to move on with the rest of our meeting hi everyone my name is anna torres i am a berwin resident um so while many well from well for many of you on the board the last year has been a year of social awareness thanks to the black lives matter movement for many and our community this is nothing new so last week i attended the community feedback session on your anti-racist resolution i've been thinking about your resolution for a week and what policy in action means for me so as a berwin taxpayer as a sister to an 11 year old who will soon be attending heritage what that means to me is to have the police removed from the district 100 schools so in case you don't know for many black and

029brown folks the police do not provide safety as we've seen on the news throughout this last year police actually cause our community's harms i've attached a list of school birds across the country that have already voted to remove police from their schools school boards in san francisco oakland st paul and seattle have all voted to terminate contracts with police or agreed to not renew contracts so if you are truly trying to put your anti-racist work into action removing police from our middle schools would be a great step and because i know that the board encourages community engagement i look forward to the next steps regarding policy change um and because in a district that is majority latinx we do not have a translator i also um translated this in spanish for folks like my own

030mom who would not be able to understand anything that went on this entire meeting has [Music] san francisco oakland saint paul seattle ann bottado paradis los contratos de la policia para renovarlos santra tando de poner in practical trabajo anti-rasista eliminated gracias hi good evening uh first off congratulations to all the retirees because i just realized it's really packed because you're here so awesome job thanks for serving d100 um for the school board there's a few things i want to talk to y'all about the first is your slip is showing i want to talk about the meeting that i got to be here in person for where it was very evident the biases as well as the um how do you say resentment towards one of your other school board members i don't know if you're

031aware but all your faces show it in the way in which that when elizabeth tojero jimenez speaks brings anything up around community initiatives all of you have a face all of you roll your eyes or say okay and dismiss her it is upsetting and discouraging to treat another board member like that especially someone who has committed a lot of time and energy to making d100 as equitable as possible and so i want to say shame on you if you've ever been part of anything like that in terms of belittling anything that she's put forward that is necessary to talk about and i don't want you to get it twisted either i recognize that like i very much have been a colleague uh to elizabeth especially when we ran for aldermen um and it has nothing

032to do with any of that it is just very evident in meetings and i think that is disgraceful secondly i want to get into the original estates if you have not paid attention to city council meetings if you have not paid attention to the last zoned boarding meeting which i don't know who even goes to that anymore right um it is evident that the community does not want this um we don't want it in a tif district we don't want it out of a tif district we don't think that this is actually beneficial and i know that y'all have all driven up ridgeland and have gone during the school hours and have been stuck in traffic or seeing kids trying to cross the street families trying to get across the street um it's miserable and

033so why would we put our children um in situations that would make like their quality of life uncomfortable um also i don't think this is actually a good developmental idea if you actually think of it i don't know who's buying a four hundred thousand five hundred thousand property paying fourteen thousand dollars in taxes to look at like construction is tacky and we don't need to be tacky so let's not vote on something tacky right also i want to also get into the anti-racism stuff i really appreciate um having the community meeting the listening session i thought the group that was there gave a lot of great insight i think the board was really receptive of it and so i want to say thank you so much for creating that space and i want to also

034implore that we do better and how we're doing outreach to the community for that because even though i thought it was a pretty nice turnout considering all things we can still do better and there are so many voices that were not heard there and my fear is that you may see the same six seven eight nine ten people that have very similar positions and think oh it is just one group of people and not realize that we are also very well connected to our community and we hear the questions the concerns the curiosities and we don't all have the capacity to write an email before a board meeting especially if we're not told not about the board meeting but at least about our listening session and so my hope is that you will do better

035and how you're notifying the families someone who was there in that meeting made it very clear that when y'all want to do a bake sale a fundraiser anything like that you will call people the voicemail send an email send a text hey how you doing what's good you know do that for something around this especially if you actually want feedback for this resolution i also want to echo get cops out of our schools that's tacky cops do not make any of us feel better and if we're saying that we need full-on police officers with guns and tasers in our schools to go against what 13 year olds 12 year olds 11 year olds that's disgusting because you think our kids are threats they're not going to be the ones that are going to take care

036of us we're going to take care of us and so i would also employ us going forward to think about other ways that we can provide de-escalation and intervention services inside of our schools instead of continuing to have police officers in our schools i also want to bring up and maybe you don't know this but like the city of chicago for example when when cops are in our schools anything that happens with students there is a record that happens a record that is k-pop so by the time they're 18 and graduating they already have like this unofficial record and so they make any mistake at it makes everything worse for them and it already puts them in a situation where it's literally the school-to-prison pipeline right and so i'm not quite sure what bpd does

037with any of that information if they record any of the information and i'm curious if y'all know that and what they're doing with the information of any of our students who may be having issues and what does that mean for them when they turn 18 19 20 years old are we setting them up for failure because we think that children are threats so with that being said i want to thank you for your time thank you so much for extending this opportunity for us to continue with open forum thank you thank you very much we need to move on to the superintendent's report at this time that's okay i'll be here next time all right we are now moving on to the superintendent's report which is begins with one of our favorite nights of the

038year which is recognizing the retirees people who have dedicated years and years of service to serving the students of district 100 and serving the south berwin community we are extremely excited to share and celebrate with them tonight and have people that they have worked with for quite some time share some information about each of them so we those that are reading for the retirees if you could note who's next on the agenda and come up to read with each recognition and retiree and what we will do is hand each one board member at a time we'll be able to hand flowers and a gift to our retirees so we'll do that we'll call up one board member at a time so andrea if you would like to start with our first retiree and b maldonado

039is going to share some information about lucia carrera good afternoon and do we want lucy to come on up here and stand oh yes absolutely all right so you can come on down stand right here face your friends oh your beautiful flowers all right picture moment i hope i can get through this lucy all right so many uh many hands uh were part of creating this piece because um lucy is that that beautiful light so impact service gratitude that's what comes to mind as i think of lucy carrera and the impact that she has had in district 100 and the berwin community lucy has spent over 20 years of her life in education all of those years in berlin south even though she had a successful career in banking she knew something was missing starting

040out as a single mom working as a substitute teacher there was no doubt in the minds of the administrators who worked with her that she had a spark for education she was immediately hired as a kindergarten bilingual teacher when we first had our first bilingual program she spent most of her career there molding the lives and the education of these young children as they started their educational journeys in our schools she mentored coached and developed great friendships with teachers throughout hiawatha school and across the district anyone who is anyone attended her teach like a pirate professional development sessions when she became an english as a second language teacher from novice to veteran teachers attended she had you up and about learning the latest professional development strategies you would leave and easily try out those strategies

041the very next day in your classroom and your students would think that you were a rock star all because of lucy as a member of the daisy committee she worked with a team of educators parents and administrators to help guide the development of the district's first dual language program she supported the committee's efforts and this led to the establishment of dual language across four district schools impacting hundreds of children from a variety of backgrounds until her very last day she has continued her impact as a dual language by literacy coach when she's not in district 100 we can find her serving the berlin families as a member of st leonard's parish she has dedicated her life to service by planning countless events for the families of berwin residents raising funds for the church delivering meals

042to many families during the pandemic if you know lucy you definitely know her family her husband javier and her three children former district 100 students and very successful children marco becky and andy because they all welcome you with open arms lucy spent many years in kindergarten and knows how important the lessons learned in kindergarten are to prepare you for the future we would like to remind lucy of a few of the lessons from the book all i really need to know i learned in kindergarten take with you these words into your retirement live a balanced life learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some lucy gives light and helps people shine brightly themselves lucy es la luz de verwein she will be greatly

043missed congratulations lucy so we will take a break after all the retirees so we can actually go and speak with them and thank them so we will take that break when we're all finished so next up will be honoring joyce [Applause] caulfield don't bother you already wore it it's fine it's it's in this speech okay joyce just put it on it's in the speech it's your night it's your night no over here let's go it's not my night nice and close all right i write a speech but i'm totally gonna go rogue probably in the middle of this um i was gonna do a roast but i decided to be nice so okay anyone that knows joyce caufield first we have to know her name joyce caufield knows she is a force to be reckoned

044with she cares deeply about students all the students in d100 and has a crazy crazy strong passion for our environment in case you didn't know she definitely walks the halls of pershing checking recycling bins versus garbage cans and the teachers know when she's coming and they try their best not to disappoint joyce something i fell in love with about joyce is her direct manner you know me that makes sense but everything that she says and does is followed by her why and everything in her why is what she stands for um so her direct nature is coupled nicely with her why behind everything she said sorry i know i was gonna go rogue since i've known joyce which is easily 15 years or more all right yeah no i know you've been i know that

045but i think i've known you for like 15 right yeah first couple yeah because you weren't purging right and you left me right but i still knew you all right sorry i've had conversations with joyce some of my favorite um conversations with joyce were regarding her learning to pick her battles yes yes lots of those um what is the most important to joyce caufield thing is she always comes back to what is best for the kids and she can always prove why what she's doing is best for the kids and why you should do just what she is saying you should do um the kids and cultivating good citizens um is so important to joyce this is a characteristic that we will all miss joyce is the type of staff member that dives into every

046single thing she does um and sorry i went rogue again dives into any and all needs within our school she is literally a superhero that is here there and everywhere when teachers get get to have joyce working in their rooms or with their students in some way they are happy because they know that their students are in the best hands and that joyce is a workhorse that doesn't rest until her job is done and anybody that's in education knows that never happens it's never done joyce has had many nicknames over the years but my most favorite she will always be positive polly to me that was when pbis first started in our district and that's right that's when she got her nickname so it's been a while um she will forever and ever be a

047pershing panther and we will miss her more than she knows i am thankful for your impactful years of service and it must be said i am also thankful that i will not have to return to pershing after a bears packer game um to be greeted with those atrocious green and yellow colors now that you're leaving us choice um enjoy your retirement joyce you deserve nothing but the best and remember that if teach that teaching bug rears its dirty little head in your direction you will forever have a home of pershing because we're really going to miss you so our next retiree is not here this evening but we are still going to read about her and we were able to deliver her gift today so we're honoring suzanne crosdale thanks congratulations joyce and lucy and

048all the rest of the retirees um so lucy's at home hopefully watching the video stream hi lucy and to all you irving eagles out there supporting her um we all have a story and we all have stories within our story it's my pleasure to give you a look inside of a few stories about susie crosdale's life where does suzie's story begin she grew up with her five siblings and family members in a family apartment building uh living with her parents and her five siblings shaped her life story very early on susie learned to give in and give up sometimes too wisdom grit and empathy for her journey susie married ron who unfortunately passed away too early more wisdom grit and empathy for her journey susie raised her three boys eric bryan and sean being the

049youngest of three boys myself i know this scene all too well there's a special place in heaven for a mother of three boys no doubt this experience gave her more wisdom grit and empathy susie is devoted to her religion and her church our lady of charity charity which is right across the street from her home susie's faith gave her much wisdom grit and empathy for her story susie lost her eyesight in one eye that adjustment and experience gave her even more wisdom grit and empathy for her journey speaking of her eye and this next part i got her permission to share susie ellis always tries to share a good joke with our staff and gives us all a good laugh when we seem to need it uh susie is at her funniest when she uses

050some of her self-deprecating humor when i first met susie she was quick to tell me that she had a fake eye in my first month as principal she set me up she suggested that we show her fake eye to one of her students i remember thinking to myself how's this going to work will susie bring an extra eyeball to school does susie have like a drawer of eyeballs at home or will she just pop out the eyeball on her head um i walked away puzzled thinking man that'd be next level if she popped that eyeball out of her head um only to hear susie giggling on her way back to her room all jokes aside susie managed humor with what had to be one of the biggest adjustments she ever made more wisdom grit and

051empathy for her journey on to susie's chapter and her story of starting as a paraprofessional uh suzie began working in school district 100 at piper school in 2001 she moved over to irving in 2007. she's a team player she adapts to whatever schedule or assignment she's given she's a cheerleader for her students and has helped some of our most needy students grow you couldn't count the number of students and staff that susie has positively impacted to use a church phrase that will resonate with susie well done good and faithful servant that is her legacy for this chapter in the story the best way to describe the timber that susie is made of is relating to this recent incident earlier this year irving needed some support in our pre preschool room to help a student with

052autism i looked around for someone that was able and willing to do the work with this very active and high needs four-year-old i knew susie was the right person for the job susie agreed to take on the role she could have declined and that would be perfectly understandable being that susie is at high risk is in a high-risk category for contracting covid and was about to retire in a few months who would have blamed her for not wanting to jeopardize her health but she didn't and that describes susie she's all in on helping our students and performing in her role to the best of her ability although the years all through the years susie has brought that wisdom grit and empathy to us susie you will be missed your story is not over you're just

053moving to the next chapter enjoy the eternal saturdays that lie ahead not really sure where the camera is but the irving door will always be open to you i hope you come back and visit often please bring some of that yummy homemade banana bread when you do thank you next we will be honoring bernadette gardner [Applause] so anyone that knows bernie knows that she asked me to speak for at least 15 minutes all about her today bernie has worked in district 100 for 34 years and she has shared her talents across all core subjects her career began teaching sixth grade at hiawatha and when heritage opened in she established room 216 as her home so i think she's probably the only teacher that could say they spent 22 years in one classroom and now i

054understood this year when she was always every year adamant like just don't make me change rooms i don't care if it makes me teach just let me say them 216. she has taught reading language arts science social studies and has positively impacted the lives of thousands of students many of our students and their families have come back and said oh my mom was in your class as well um so she is a a recognized force at heritage she has a very calm presence she's always professional she's always at work early she's one of the first people here in the parking lot um and she has a great ability to impact the lives of students and some students who are really struggling at school her classroom management skills and the mentorship of new staff is something

055that i think is really commendable and if you've ever been a part of her classroom we're going to deeply miss because sometimes i think that's the hardest to teach or help and bernie is really really good at it throughout her years in district 100 she has endured a lot of ups and downs and changes and celebrations and every time the pendulum swung bernie went right along and i think this year the last couple years she has been put through the tests but she's always remained positive and she is just here to work and and dedicate herself to those students learning she always has incredible grace and endurance regardless of the obstacles she remains positive and is a good source of energy for her team to continue to move forward so now that she has reached

056this top of that mountain we are so happy that she can relax enjoy the view and do traveling because we know that's what bernie wants to do it seems fitting to share an irish blessing in our well wishes for bernie so if you happen to be at harrington the last couple weeks you would have seen that there was a shamrock painted in her parking spot because just like she has room 216 she always parks in the same parking spot as well may good luck be with you wherever you go and your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow congratulations and thank you for all of your years of service to heritage and district 100 heritage will always have a special place in our hearts for bernie and we look forward her to coming back and visiting

057thank you next we will be honoring deborah gilbert [Applause] good evening it is my pleasure with all of you tonight to celebrate members of our freedom family that are retiring this evening at freedom we're a family and as you all know you have family members at the same time you can absolutely love someone you can be really really upset with them and with our retirees tonight as upset we are that they're leaving we love them so much and we're excited to celebrate in them with them tonight our first retiree for freedom tonight is dr debra gilbert she joined bst 100 some 32 years ago and she served first started her career pershing and she moved over to freedom as soon as it opened getting to know deb is getting to know someone who loves what

058they do she brings her love and passion for science to each and every one of her classes she's worked tirelessly support her students and colleagues in talking to her and if you do it for just about five minutes you'll understand that she is calm cool collected caring sweet all the things you'd want to have in a colleague a teacher and a friend she is someone that everyone at freedom can count on she's a quiet confidence that builds on those around her in her retirement she is just going to be taking on a different role in education which those students there will be just so fortunate to have her with with them i know that i am joined with the freedom family when i say thank you deb for years of service to our students the

059many years of friendships and of course we will see you soon because once you are always part of our family you always have a welcome spot at freedom congratulations deb next we're honoring janna's hamnet hebda she's not here with us today we delivered her gift this afternoon but we are still going to speak of her tonight good evening tonight i am honored to celebrate with all of you jan hedda's retirement jan started her career at piper 20 years ago in first grade and never looked back year after year jan continued to be a beacon of light for so many of our staff students and school community one of my favorite chants that i would often hear from her classroom was when she would ask her students can we do it and they would all chant

060in unison yes we can with their fists in the air when students were in miss hebb's class they felt empowered and cared for she instilled the values of independence and risk-taking dan was always curious and learning herself a true model of an amazing teacher despite this year having its many challenges dan was not afraid to conquer zoom breakout rooms seesaw and even simultaneous teaching even though this is not how we ever imagined her final year of teaching would be she took every day as an opportunity to get to know her students and their families jan your belief in your students and others is what made your classroom a magical place your students were able to escape into an adventure as jack and annie do in all of their adventures in their books and imagine all

061the possibilities that life has to offer your sense of adventure and curiosity about other cultures provided your students with an opportunity to open their eyes to china the iditarod and everywhere in between we cannot thank you enough for all of your dedication to our district from co-teaching to school improvement to pbis the talent show teacher mentor your fingerprints have lost a lasting impression on so many of us and we are so very grateful for having worked with you we hope you enjoy every moment of your retirement traveling to so many wonderful places we know that many more new and exciting adventures wait for you and we cannot wait to hear about them congratulations jan all right we have another freedom middle school retiree welcome up and honor gina heffner hi gina gina grace district 100

062some 28 years ago with her presence and since then she served students at hiawatha heritage and then finally landed at freedom as a teacher's assistant if you ask anyone that works with gina they would tell you that she is far beyond a ta she is an educator a friend a colleague a cheerleader a team player someone that you can count on anytime any day to do anything that needs to be done in getting to talk to her about this speech i found out two really interesting facts first she spent 26 of 28 years working directly with one teacher dawn langhammer even more interesting to me was that she actually was one of those support staff members working in dr haves classroom when she was a teacher as well so i almost joke with gina that

063dr haves should be doing the speech instead having gina as a member of her team has meant we have a colleague that will do what's best for students no matter what is asked i'm not quite sure why she is retiring because it seems like she actually will be busier her children her five children are already booking her up to be working full time with her 10 grandchildren so to me i said gina you can just stay it seems like a lot less work and you might get a break from the craziness that said i know gina will enjoy her time with her grandchildren and make a huge impact in their lives just like she's done for our students i know that i speak for the rest of the staff when i say thank you gina

064for years of service to our students the years of friendships and we expect to see you around freedom still congratulations gina all right we'd like to welcome up amy lazaretti currently assistant principal at piper [Applause] i know i'm trying not to okay good evening on behalf of our district it is my pleasure tonight to congratulate the first ever assistant principal of piper school miss amy lazarhetti on her retirement amy started her career in education as a self-contained special education teacher she has proudly served our district for 19 years as a pioneer in our in our inclusionary special education models and practices she has always been a visionary her passion for being a voice for every child has been an inspiration to all of us amy was a second grade special education co-teacher at hiawatha she

065loved teaching second grade and often shares how she believed it was the grade in which students came into their own she marveled in their curiosity and was inspired by their individualities while at hiawatha she mentored many special education and regular education teachers in our co-teaching model developed a classroom community that was was often a frequent spot for visitors her students learned the values of acceptance understanding and empathy in her classroom she gave her students a voice her teaching partners a new perspective and she empowered parents with empathy and empowerment showered her parents with empathy and empowerment when amy decided to take on an administrative role in our district she quickly became one of the prominent faces of piper school she influenced the lives of hundreds of students and countless staff her visibility her visible leadership

066is seen throughout the school day and she has worked tirelessly to develop relationships with students and families here at piper because she understands the importance of strong relationships with our school receiving the whole child award for supportive environment it solidified what we have continued to stand for at piper school her mindset of developing the whole child was always at the forefront of her decision making no matter no matter whether that was during an iep meeting while supervising recess or even planning with our school improvement teams over amy's administrative tenure she has strengthened our mtss process dedicated countless hours to piper school events and supported ever district initiative with her whole heart amy always found time to read to classes be a check and check out mentor play kickball at recess and even take time to

067listen to others always her smile and laugh are contagious i know she's not laughing right now but it is when i reflect on amy's impact in d100 i think of this anonymous quote never underestimate the valuable valuable and important difference you make in every life you touch where the impact you make today has a powerful rippling effect on every tomorrow in attendance tonight we have amy's husband ron and their two children tony and pauline to the lazaretti family i thank you for sharing your wife and mother with us for all of these years please know that we are forever grateful for her dedication to our district especially piper school amy you are leaving a legacy behind a legacy in our district leading with compassion and grace for all students i cannot thank you enough for

068all of your support for me over the years as being a cooperating teacher my assistant principal and friend i am honored to say you have had a rippling effect on the way i approach every tomorrow i know this is just the beginning of your new adventure and on behalf of the entire district we want to wish you a retirement full of health relaxation and happiness congratulations amy next we are honoring graciela picazzo she's not able to be here this evening george good evening i'm here to honor grace picasso graciela she's been with the district for 15 years and anyone who knows her she's worked around the district knows that grace is funny she's got a great sense of humor but we also know that she's a fighter so right now she's recovering from surgery and

069she wanted to be here and if she could be here she would um but grace has had hits a lot of ups and downs in her life where she's had she's been a single mom for most of her time that she's worked here she's held down two jobs and if if you know she has a larger than life personality we're going to miss her she's she'll be back substituting when she recovered she's gonna want to come back as a substitute custodian and she really loves working here so we were praying for a speedy recovery for grace and congratulating her on her retirement and we'll see her again soon [Applause] all right and we'd like to welcome up marcia sakura congratulate her on her retirement so marcia has dedicated 35 years to being a speech and

070language pathologist with 23 of those years of her career in district 100 she has served multiple thousands of students and in multiple schools across all grade levels she has worked with during her career for the last two years we were fortunate enough for marcia to get moved to heritage full-time and i know that that move was difficult because she was used to working with the younger children for the majority of her career and uh i think walking into middle school is probably a little bit scary and unknown for this is how i'm going to finish my career uh but we were so lucky to gain marcia at heritage um if your child needs any speech assistance you're going to want marsha to be their speech pathologist she has worked with numerous students including our dlp

071instructional students she gives them a voice she goes on community outings even the last year throughout zoom she would read her stories engage them with experiments and conversations she would attend field trips with them and the students always enjoyed when marshall was in their class as well as just her laughter marcia's sense of humor and expertise in her craft will be greatly missed by everyone at heritage and in the district i know she spent many years at irving and their staff are also joining us in the celebration today marcia truly believes that every child deserves a voice and she has had a huge impact on the language growth and confidence of thousands of students he has some remarkable stories of students who maybe had no words were non-verbal or five words and now in in

072seventh and eighth grade are speaking uh fluent sentences and are um very strong in their language um through and she's worked with them she when she came here then she got to follow some of them and so she's had them for their entire school career so far so if your child talks back you can thank marcia um kidding aside marsha's proficiency knowledge and dedication to her students will be greatly missed we wish her well through all her upcoming travels and hope she stops by for a few visits between trips congratulations and bon voyage so we want to take a quick break so that we can visit with our retirees but before we do that if all the retirees could come up over here so we could take one photo with all of you together and

073then we will we'll celebrate you thank you yes come on up for a photo just right over on the side beautiful [Applause] oh yes thank you everyone who came out to honor our retirees tonight we'll give you another moment and then we will reconvene our meeting we left we left off at the uh during the superintendent's report and up next on the agenda is the consolidated district plan oh all right thank you so the consolidated district plan after that exciting evening we're going to chat a little bit about how we apply for all of our grants that we receive through the federal government merna do i have to turn it on or anything okay right there we go okay so the consolidated district plan covers a variety of grants lots of them are title uh

074title grants you know title one title uh let's see title three so which is the uh language acquisition um some idea so special education some preschool uh so there are a multitude of grants that are covered by the by the consolidated district plan why does this look a little bit different maybe not my apologies all right so this particular consolidated grant is a way to streamline the federal grant application um and it's a way to kind of manage the process so that we're reducing the burden of the people who are applying for the grants you know a lot of times we all had to you know write our own grant individually this consolidated grant allows us to collaboratively write one plan but it hits a variety of different a variety of different grants and so

075what we do first is we we engage in a district needs assessment we look at a variety of input from our key stakeholders parents community through a variety of means right surveys we look at all of that data you know in addition to like our student information based on for example test scores or assessment and you know pieces like that we engage with our private schools uh we communicate with them and we ask them if they want to be a part of the um of the plan we look at preschool we look at obviously i mentioned the student performance data we identify some key professional development that we may need in order to engage in the plan and then we we cover some other pieces foster care and things of that sort if if we

076need to so the way that we're doing this consolidated plan it allows us to really support the planning and grant management process looking at multiple funding sources so like i mentioned you know idea language acquisition and obviously title one and we want to make sure that as we're writing our plan that we use these funds these federal funds to meet our students needs and so this digital plan we submit to the illinois state board of education and obviously isb knows that we're doing this through a collaborative process would you switch it for me marna is that all that there is on that one okay yeah that might be uh i wonder if that's a different one do you want me to send it to you or who do you want me to send it i'm

077gonna send you something i think that that there's pieces missing from this presentation i'm going to send this to you just so we make sure everything gets covered and so i can keep going you know as as this is coming up so bottom line with the consolidated district plan it's reducing any of the redundancy that we had to do like a lot of us had to individually identify some of the data and we would have to kind of do it on our own all of the grant managers and jenny will talk to you about like who the grant managers are when she does the financial report and so each of us had to do um like and apply for a grant individually and this consolidated district plan allows us to all work together so that

078we're just submitting one to the state so again reducing any redundancy and obviously it is based on some specific goals some things that are required in the plan you know some of them most of these actually are goals that the grants have and so we have to meet as we're writing this as we're writing the consolidated plan we have to meet those goals and then we also include our district goals in the plan and we um you know we make sure that all of the activities and all of the pieces that were adding to this address our students and our student needs did he get it oh and let me see if as i'm going through there's anything that i haven't kind of talked about she's this is great modeling right for technical difficulties for

079our students race under fire i think we're getting it up here b okay yeah there's just one piece you know rather than have me read it all to you that way you can see it there we go there you go that looks like the one there you go okay so we've gone through a couple of these already the items in red are the pieces that we do not apply for so even though there are 12 federal grants there are some that we do not apply for just because we don't necessarily have students that would meet those needs for example we're not in a rural district and so we wouldn't apply for that the general this is based on this particular act gapa and so it tells us you know those pieces that we have to

080make sure that we cover uh you know we want to make sure that we're addressing the needs of our students you know specific barriers to their education so maybe gender race national origin color disability or age and so forth so i talked about that needs assessment and all of the information that we look at in terms of you know what we do to address you know the specific points of the grant the other piece that we add is the illinois quality framework and supporting rubric uh early childhood surveys that we we use as we're engaging in this our five essentials survey i think i mentioned some of the other ones oh essa are site based and how are we spending funds at each specific school site we look at that as well some plan specific

081these are kind of some you know these are the things that we cover in the plan and i think i talked about most of these and the schools that we specifically meet with and invite to participate are non-public schools in our area but also schools who have students who live in our area but attend their schools and so this year there were actually a couple of more that applied and that want to be part of of this particular process and so this is a piece in terms of the specific goals that the plan covers so the first three student learning learning conditions and elevating educators so all of our grants cover these specific pieces how are we improving the student outcomes how are we improving the learning conditions and what our students you know the

082environment that they that they attend and certainly our teachers you know we invest a lot in our teachers and identifying professional development activities that they would participate in to to support their own instruction and their own professional learning and then our district goals since we write this particular plan we write it now for next year these are the goals that we have been working on as a district but i do want you to know that these goals are being reviewed right we're currently undergoing a process with a variety of district administrators with teachers with our coordinators and we're reviewing and we're adjusting these goals and so these specific goals we will be reflected as we revise them will be reflected on the following year so next year in may when we come back together to

083discuss the plan the updated goals will be on here but for this year because we write this now we use the goals that we have that we have had and thank you all for that technical uh the technical difficulties any questions anything that was unclear in this little piece and so as you're thinking when you're when jenny kind of goes over this snap crankshaft that is a specific reflection of this consolidated plan and this consolidated plan is a yearly approval by our board of education so every may we'll be asking you to approve it and we will be doing that for the following year all right can i ask a question um i don't remember which page uh you mentioned like the different steps that you would take and it also um said um that

084you would take stakeholders input how would that be how would that look so we do a lot of surveys our principals do a lot of parent coffees and so through a variety of of those kind of activities we would identify kind of what our families are needing our b-pack and thinking about what our b-pack is working on and what they might need or you know as our directors are working with their various community parent groups those are the people that are involved that that we would uh we would look to them to kind of help us out and so it would not be with all the stakeholders only within the ones that are within the school uh no it could also be um again are you saying with community members oh i see some other

085ways if they are going to be in those meetings how can they be involved yeah so i'll defer those pieces to mary mary does you know some community engagement and forums and things like that with community and so any information that is brought up through those pieces does you know come in here but certainly this plan is written specifically for the children and meeting the needs of the children in our district um and so that's that is what uh the lens kind of that we use okay thank you thank you be so we're just going to do a brief update here tonight around what we expect and what we're planning for for next school year so obviously there's still a lot of unknowns but we do we are starting to see some more information coming

086out about next school year oh there we go hold on so as you know um the governor has stated we are on a path to phase five and what that looks like is is that testing tracing and treatment are widely available these are this is information taken from the state site all sectors of the economy reopen i think the key to this piece is that there are new safety standards that will be in place that we do not have yet and i think that's the important piece that last bullet point there are all sectors of the economy will reopen with businesses schools and recreation resuming normal operations with new safety guidance and procedures so those are the safety guidance and procedures are the keys that were were waiting for further information on so last week

087there was a resolution that was released by the illinois state board of education this resolution stated that that at the end of this academic year the intention is that the state superintendent will declare that schools return fully in person learning for all student attendance next days next year so that is currently is a resolution we anticipate a full declaration again if the public health conditions stay this are favorable that is what we would expect it does include options for remote instruction to be available for students who are not eligible for vaccines and are under quarantine so what that would mean is if some a student had to go into quarantine that we would provide support for that student around their learning we also know that there could be some medically fragile students and those are

088specific programs that we're actually working on with wes 40 in looking at some different options for districts to consolidate and work together around students that might need some remote support due to being medically fragile or specific circumstances so with that information in mind and again we always say that this is tentative because if there's one thing we learned this year nothing is certain and so these are tentative plans right now but our goal will be to start the regular school calendar have a regular school calendar which would be the start date of august 18th that first day of school is a half day of school for students our plan is to return to a full day five day per week in-person schedule for our k-8 students our preschool programs some run on full days and

089some run on half days depending what program the students are in so those would resume based on the programming current grade level curriculum so we will we we will continue to so if a student is going into fifth grade next year we will work on their fifth grade level standards and scaffold and provide supports for students who might need additional support in their academic areas as as the board knows we have thankfully for for approving some additional positions for next school year so we will have increased academic support for students we've added math support teachers at all of our elementary schools as well as some additional el support and for social emotional supports we're adding an additional couple of social workers as well so that this year we did add additional nursing staff which we

090anticipate will stay consistent for next school year as well we will be and continue to offer options to support student learning if if a child is quarantined again or medically fragile and what we're really awaiting is that new safety guidance and procedures i know that some of the biggest questions right now are around what will the mask policies look like and what will the social distancing policies look like and how far can kids sit together at lunch and we don't know that yet and so those are those are things that we're continuing to plan for and principals have been having conversations at their schools um you know if we have to have some type of social distancing at lunch what could that look like so we will continue to plan for that and obviously readjust

091as new guidance continues to come out so these are some of the things that you know we want to make sure that our community knows it's on our minds it's in our plans but we just don't have the information right now so are we going to have to continue to self-certify every day what specifically will masking and social distancing look like kova testing we anticipate we will still have our kova testing program available at our schools but we're not sure what current if there will be changes by the cdc or idph around quarantine again i mentioned the lunch procedures as well as the timing there's been lots of questions around will there be vaccinability for children under 12 we obviously don't know the time frame on that we've also been asked will it be mandatory

092for for students to have vaccinations we have no information right now indicating that that would be the case but as we have more information we will absolutely be sharing that with our community remote options again as i stated we are unsure of what those options will fully look like we have seen a significant decrease in quarantines within our school district last week we had was the first week in a very long time that we had zero um having to quarantine so we'll continue to to follow guidance on that and also regarding transportation and meal service so transportation we await further guidance on how many children we can have on the bus that will certainly impact the number of routes that we might need to have and could change some of the pickup and drop-off times

093that kids are used to because we may have to run additional routes and meal service that will will obviously continue to provide meals in our schools and we're waiting for clarity around pickup and and meal service that we've been providing for the community um what we wanted to make sure and that we want to share with our community is what we know now and so what we know now is that our plan and families can plan for a full return to school barring any changes in current health conditions this this is the information that we have right now that we will be sharing with our community does anybody have any questions all right i'll see oh yeah i just have a question of if there's been any planning about having vaccinations in the schools i

094know that for adults they had a program at the middle schools and if you know if there would be planning for that in advance even when it's approved for younger kids but to have it in place ready yeah so there has been discussion around that currently we are working with morton east to refer families to the clinic who is now offering the 12 to 12 and up vaccination the pfizer um the group that we worked with on the clinics here just about two weeks ago they are in continuous contact with us i think to officially plan it we have to wait for notification that it is going to be available but we are confident that if it becomes available we've created some partnerships that will be able to either offer that within our district or

095work with surrounding districts to have a location where families can conveniently go to get vaccinations any other questions all right um next on the agenda is foias we had we did not have any foias this month the dashboard is available in board book that highlights our staff attendance student attendance we are in the midst of registration we're really encouraging our families to make sure they register so we can effectively plan for next school year and know the numbers of students that will be in our classes and i will turn it over to jenny for the financial report thanks mary so i'll just jump right in with financials revenue for the month of may is 3.6 million our bank balance as of today is 44.6 million our cash flow report uh is up on the screen

096actually could you make them dark again george yeah thanks thanks okay for the month of april our revenue was 4.7 million with total year-to-date revenue of 49.4 million our expenses month to date were 4.3 million our year-to-date we're 40.7 million and our fund balance at the end of april is 43.3 million looking at our grant snapshot i'll pick key back onto what um b said earlier so if you can scroll all the way down so on the far left hand side wait come back up a little bit okay on the far left hand side are all the different grant managers and the next column are all the different grants that we have and then i have listed whether they're federal states or local grants then the total grant amount the total expenditures how much we've

097received so far and then what we're waiting in payment for so you as you can see that bottom figure i don't know if you can see it from there but our bottom figure for grants is 8.1 million which is fantastic for grants coming in that's a conglomerate of b and myself and jeanette and amanda and ryan kozin all coming together and and bringing grants in um speaking of grants we have an opportunity to write a grant for possible electric buses but more on that coming up later at another meeting but lots of great grant opportunities tentative budget patrick we'll go to the next one and let's go to the bottom of the second page all the way down there you go okay so this tells where our actual is up to april which mirrors what

098we set what i said earlier our total expenses to the end of april are 40.7 million our total revenues are at 49.4 million so our that far right column let me back up the left column is the budget that was adopted back in september the middle column is what our actuals are through the end of last month and the column on the right is our tentative amended budget that was approved last board meeting but will have the final will be in june so if you can patrick go to my last slide it talks about the budget timeline so here's your budget timeline by may 30th you have is your deadline to display your budget amendment for 30 days we do ours early we do ours in april and then we have it on display for

099over 30 days june 30th is our deadline to hold the hearing and adopt the amended budget for this year it says prior year but it's this current year and then it has to be submitted to the state before june 30th august 30th is our deadline to display and approve the tenant of a budget for next year which would be fy 22 and then that has to be on display for 30 days we do ours in july so that we're ahead of the game and we have it on display longer than our 30 days september 30th is the deadline to hold the hearing for that budget which will be next year's 22 budget and has to be submitted to the state by the end of the month and that concludes my financial report oh wait i'm

100going to back up i've forgotten my notes next month i will kind of give a history of where we've been budget-wise where we're headed budget-wise and i would next month there will also be a resolution so that we can begin discussions on talking about investing we were in a we were not in a position as you'll see next board meeting when i do my presentation we were not in a position where we could do investing we're now at a position where we could do investing and it would be wise to start looking into different different methods that we could do that and that concludes my report thank you jenny i am looking forward to next month's um okay so up first on the president's report is the report on the equity and anti-racism resolution which

101is a standing report every month so last tuesday we held a focus group to solicit community feedback on the first draft of the resolution for the newest board members that are here i want to first note the purpose of a resolution itself it is a formal document that solidifies in writing important decisions of the board so not just for us the seven of us but for all future elected and appointed board members so in this case the decision would be to apply an equity and anti-racism lens specifically to our work as board members through the actions within the resolution so it's very much the concept of board work versus school work for anybody who might have read the art of school boarding resolutions also authorize committees such as the policy committee to make sure they

102are scrutinizing policies up for review and the creation of new policies around equity and anti-racism so as i stated in the focus group a couple days ago i have full faith that our policy committee would hit the ground running in doing this type of work which is great and a resolution of this nature would ensure that that continues regardless of who is on this board in perpetuity or until a board of education would decide by majority vote to dismantle something like this so the key points of the feedback um i feel like the community was very honest in their feedback with us and they felt competent sharing so the key points of the the feedback were an improved definition of equity more specific actionable items including an accompanying policy or policies milestones for review and

103that the language within is too academic and failed to reach those we serve and that we fell short on our outreach would you concur with that thank you so i just want to add that there are not a lot of resources available for school boards that are starting out in in this type of work specifically in governance there are many resources available for self-study and for districts um but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of governing a school district there's as i said not a lot of resources so it's kind of like we're building the bus as we as we as we drive it um but i have full faith that the board that we have right now is really in a position where we can make good progress in this area and

104while it may never be everything that we want it to be i think that we have got to start somewhere so that's uh that's what i have for the report tonight um for next steps elizabeth and i spoke i after speaking with a couple of different board members i feel like everyone wants to get involved and provide feedback on the resolution itself so we discuss the next steps kind of mirroring the way that we do policy and and operate in policy committee so over the next weekend i will send the draft to all of the board members and over the next three weeks you can provide your feedback on the draft to either myself or elizabeth so that we are creating clear lines around oma and and once we have received feedback and suggestions on

105all of the items within it then elizabeth and i will meet and come up with a second draft so in guiding the board and how they how they digest the first draft the most important thing is that we're we're applying the feedback that the community gave us to creating additional items within the draft does that make sense okay that's it is there anything you wanted to add i think i just want to add that um at least in my opinion i feel that we should continue the conversation with um and it's just based on the information from one of the attendees on the tuesday meeting um that's about the outreach that we did as a school board members to invite community members to this meeting and she made a statement and like all i remember

106i don't remember her name um and i think you told me you know her um that in the in the space that we were in the people that were present we're privileged to be here because we understand the language but there were many people in our community that was not present and their voice was not heard so for me i would want to continue that conversation with the community so that we can invite those that are not we're not present and then meeting and that we have their voices because otherwise i feel like we are oppressing them uh by not doing the outreach but again that's my opinion and that's the only thing that i would probably add to that okay thank you may i ask a question really quick um the communication that went

107out about the meeting was it translated it was okay i just wanted to make sure okay can i ask can i ask a question um elizabeth i appreciate what you just named about community community outreach and so uh i think one question that i had was with regards to the members that were here on that tuesday will there be um will we reach out to those same individuals for us like feedback on the second draft knowing that they've seen the original first draft and how will we solicit other members of our community i'm through survey or whatever i'm just thinking about to your point how are we going to have more voice in a diverse democrat demographic group that we already existed um so i guess that would fall under the next next steps so

108once we have a second draft that has been vetted by the board um then we can reach out and we can have a public hearing so that the whole board can be present and receive the same feedback from the community if the board if the board wishes to do that yeah i'd like to mention something as well i i appreciated what was stated earlier by one of the community members in a sense of how do we market this how do we get this really out in the community um you know i know it was posted on facebook which is great you know wonderful but how do we do it in such a way perhaps thinking how do we do it in such a way to elizabeth's point to include other voices who may not have

109had the opportunity to have been at that last one would probably be my my contribution into this topic right now i have a question um just about getting um it kind of feeds off what joelle just said as well about um soliciting this feedback how is the is the purpose of it to reach out beyond the school community or is it just parents so if we were to do a public hearing then that would be published through all of the statutes in oma the open meetings act and it would go out to the community as a whole for them to solicit to solicit their feedback in a hearing you mentioned that it was a focus group was there any effort to try to make sure that there was representation from different groups or proportionate representation

110from specific groups that need more representation in berwin specifically about our demographics or was it just randomly whoever could come on short notice so the communication that went out from the district went out to anyone who is enrolled in our email notification system is that accurate yes thank you um so that might be that's definitely parents but it might be anybody else who is signed up to receive district emails so anyone in the community can definitely do that the scope correct me if i'm wrong the scope of a notice of a public hearing is a little bit broader is that correct yes those those have to be posted um and so they are posted on our website if it's a community meeting and then they're posted physically at the location of the meeting does that

111answer your question i guess i was just specifically wondering about this as a focus group of whether this was worse was there solicitation of certain underrepresented groups i would not say that that was a specific endeavor um i feel like i did note that i was made very clear by the community that we fell short in our outreach but we take that as critical feedback for us to to utilize going forward and as a learning opportunity this is the first resolution that i've ever written and i i i take i try to take the feedback that was provided very seriously and i want to ensure that as we move forward that we as board members we are the representation of the community so soliciting their feedback and taking it seriously is our job and while

112we might have missed the mark this time i take the feedback very seriously and want to make sure that in the future we are doing our due diligence in that elizabeth is there anything you would like to add and i think that um based on joel's uh comment about one of our persons that spoke is that many of our families may not even though it was in english and spanish many may not have the ability to check emails or is not something that they regularly do so not many do that in addition to that many may not have access to that email or may not even be on the list to receive emails so many people were not aware of the meeting and what i actually someone called me and told me that they found

113the email and it was in their um trash or it was in their i don't know what the other name the stamp is pam so they didn't see it until someone tell them like maybe you should have checked that so many of our parents that's at the list that is some of the feedback that i have received that i they have not received many emails and then when they check they find them in the spam so i and i think because another uh comment that i received was that two days or or even some people received it on the same day but i know that mary mentioned that it was sent friday and then it was sent again on tuesday morning i believe and many what they were saying at least a couple of people

114that i talked to they told me they it was too short of a notice for them to just leave everything come to a meeting and that's difficult for the latino community especially when we have when they have children because they need to find a babysitter or or bring their children and i i don't think i saw anyone with children maybe one one mom and it was her first time and she said i've never come to a meeting i just want to know what i what i'm going to do here and so i she didn't even understood what the process of the board and what the meeting was about so i explained to her before i go so this is what we're going to do today this is not a board meeting and i explain it

115so i think many of our families are navigating the educational system is difficult and that's where i think the communication that we are sending in the is affecting that as well because they are not they can they don't do not follow or do not understand the system here in the united states so um and i just want to say that i'm i'm happy that our district is moving forward with that family liaison position because a lot of important emails go out through the email list and that email list goes out to do you know how many thousands of individuals get that email so we do have emails for all of our families because that's really where even we send our report cards and especially during this virtual setting if we didn't have an email we

116were reaching out specifically to get emails because that is how we're communicating so it's over 000 oh sure yes definitely so if there is kind of that communication disconnect we definitely have to address it um for this is very important but also for information regarding their students and and their schools and community events getting parents involved we know that parental engagement is one of the best ways to serve our students so i'm glad that we are moving forward with that family liaison position because i do think that that can help and then we also have um these lovely ipads that reach into everyone's homes there might be a way there to utilize our new seesaw software to better communicate with parents as well yes and i just also wanted to mention that we are sending

117out a survey to our families before the end of the year a communication survey so that they can give us feedback on the best way to send communication to our families so that will give us more information coming back from from hopefully a large majority of our families that can let us know this is the best way to share information is it is it the website is it social media is it email phone calls and so that will be helpful i think in the next steps as well and i also want to add that i remember a board meeting where it was consumed right in the beginning of covet um we were all in zoom and there was a child asking in in english can my mother be in present in this meeting can my

118mother be president if you some of you remember so many of our families just by sending a message there's going to be a meeting they may not understand that it's okay for them to show up to the meeting or there is maybe this meeting is about something so that's maybe that's something that we are continuously advocating for for them to understand and to maybe use language that tells like you are everyone is welcome i don't know what is the language but i do agree with you with having the family liaison is going to be a huge advantage for that engagement mary that's still an open position correct family liaison is still in open position yes it is still an open position we have a few applicants and we will wait until the pool gets larger

119and begin uh the interview process thank you i want to mention one more thing about this i think that this is when i heard about it as a board member and as a community community member i was super excited about the conversation that was being had so i know you mentioned earlier that you may some marks may have been missed and but it's a learning opportunity just the fact that we have a platform to build on is exciting so props to you and your props to you elizabeth for beginning this organization because it gives community members something to look forward to and yeah we take the constructive feedback as an opportunity to grow and learn so it's what we do with what we heard and we build off that and i look around at the

120board here it's so diverse i i love the representation that i see so even tapping into like the different elements of of the board and the uniqueness that they bring to be able to elevate what you started so i mean yeah we have learning opportunities i'm just excited that that platform was set for us to build on okay moving on to the iasb resolution i'm turning it over to board member dawn okay hi guys um so i sent you guys an email kind of outlined this process um i will uh kind of go through it really briefly with the timeline um so basically um and i'm not sure i kind of want to find out if this is the first resolution that district 100 has brought to iasb so for those of you guys out

121in tv land this is how we change things at the state level so iasb is a huge organization that over 800 school districts belong to and every year they invite school boards to create resolutions that could be adopted as their position statements if a resolution is adopted as a position statement iasb has four lobbyists in springfield that will advocate for those positions so this is how we make change not just in our school district but across the state and so i have opened it up to board members that if you see something that you want that you think could be changed at the state level let me know i will help write a resolution and submit it and advocate for it get finding resources to support it so this is the resolution that i brought

122forward i'll give you a very quick very quick history of it so um last year policy 660 crossed our cross our board we were there to review it and this policy outlines our social studies curriculum and i very quickly noticed that there is no mention of native americans in u.s history and genocide in uh contributions of ethnic cultures and i just thought that that was a mistake and so i reached out to mary and she did assure me that our our teachers are teaching about native americans which is great um but i wanted to change the policy anyway and we did that and that's great and she told me that that policy is directly reflected from the social studies curriculum guidance doc from izb so i reached out to isb and started talking to them

123about getting that guidance doc changed they told me that curriculum comes down from the state level so here we are we're going to the state and we're saying hey this uh mandated units of study that outline social studies curriculum for all the schools in illinois makes no mention of native americans guys i think that needs to be addressed so this is the resolution very simple the illinois associative school board shall support legislation to amend the illinois mandated units of study guidance act to include native americans indigenous people for schultz studies content and u.s history statement of rationale learning about native american history culture and current events can help take us can help take a more comprehensive view of american history connect us to one another inspire empathy and see the whole picture rather than viewing

124our society through a limited point of view simple straightforward to the point so if we are agreed that we want to submit this resolution to iasb we will vote on it today i will submit this to their governmental relations staff then in august we will present this resolutions to the committee board members are welcome to join me mary or your designee can join then the the resolutions committee will either recommend that other boards across the state either adopt this as a resolution or not adopt it then it goes out to all the school boards that are members of iasb which is over 800 if they adopt it as a position statement then those four lobbyists go to springfield and they lobby for it i'm also i have a meeting with representative west out of rockford

125who is working on native american curriculum for schools that use native american mascots and i'm going to ask him to broaden the scope of that piece of legislation so that's where we're at guys it's exciting thank you very much just to point out that a iasb resolution is up for approval it is item g in the consent agenda all right moving on to policy policy did not meet this month thank you um and legislative report oh and um don i'm i'm not gonna i don't wanna amber i don't wanna step over you but i just wanna remember uh that we have the illinois association um school board is planning on the enjoying conference this year for november 19th to the 21st and the registration starts on june 8th okay just reminded okay legislation um just

126today house bill 12 passed the senate uh the senate voted 47 to 3 it is expected that the governor governor will sign it this bill would help support staff uh since it will reduce the minimum threshold from 1250 hours to 1 000 hours for fmla um this bill i actually this was brought up by the illinois education association so we worked on this bill and we pushed it and that's how i received the information today because we we were work we worked on this bill for our staff members so senate bill 654 has been filed but not yet adopted this bill requires 30 minutes of daily recess in kindergarten through fifth grade um it's very likely that it will pass if some of you know the original time that was asking was 16 minutes but

127because there's school districts and of course it is saying that there's no flexibility for school districts to implement this so therefore they are pushing and there's uh there's still some areas that they are asking for 15 minutes or 15 minutes in at one time and then 50 minutes over time so it hasn't been decided but it has been filed but not yet adopted bills that has the senate those are senate bill 817 and this one provides that the school uniform or dress code policy adopted by school board or local school council should not include or apply to hairstyles including hairstyles historically associated with race ethnicity or hair texture senate bill adds as a goal of the whole child task force recommending legislation policies and practices to prevent learning loss in a student during periods of

128suspension and expulsion including but not limited to remote instruction bills in senate committees week of may they'll pass in a week of may 17 house bill 2778 allows school districts to have holiday school improvement days four times a year in lieu of improvement days with the students in attendance house bill 3114 creates a state education equity committee to address system systematic inequalities and ensure each and every child is equipped to reach their full potential house bill 3230 allows students who is a victim of gender bias violence to transfer school immediately for their safety a house bill 3281 allows the school districts to teach a unit of instruction on the process of becoming a natural u.s citizen [Music] bills that have house they are in the house committee senate bill 508 provides a tax in districts

129agreements extension base shall be adjusted whenever all assessments increase or decrease due to to issuance of a certificate of error a decision of the board or review or a decision of the property tax appeal board results in the over-extension or under extension of texas for the last preceding levy year senate bill 517 creates the high cost special education funding commission to make recommendations to the governor in the general assembly for an alternative funding structure in the state for high cost special education the students that is aligned to the principles of the evidence-based funding formula senate bill 814 creates a new teacher induction and mentoring program that aligns with the illinois with the illinois cultural responsive teaching learning and learning standards and requires a school district with their bargaining representative to make a choice between their

130current mentoring program and the one set fourth in this bill senate bill 1747 establishes energy transition zones to encourage green energy enterprises within the text incentive effective january 1st 2022 and that's all i have thank you okay moving on to action items up first is the consent agenda excuse me oh there was no correspondence oh i'm sorry there was no court thank you there was no correspondence this month now moving on to action items up first is the consent agenda items may be removed from the consent agenda on the request of any one member items not removed may be adopted by general consent without debate removed items may be taken up either immediately after the consent agenda or placed on the agenda at the discretion of the board anyone do you want me to just

131point out a couple things on the consent oh yeah that'd be great so we have a couple of items there for approval for the asbestos abatement at kaminsky so that as you know is part of our summer projects but that had to be bids separately so those two bids are on there as well and then also a purchase of a sonic wall nsa 9650 and so that is to help well maybe i'll just ask jim to say that better than i can but that is to to help with our accessibility with internet access go ahead jim no you're doing just great so the the sonicwa is a firewall and our current firewall protects us from the outside on the internet all the bad things that are out keeping our kids safe but it also allows

132our kids to to get to the internet in the last year we've upgraded our internet speed to three gigabit our current firewall can handle up to like 1.5 to 2 gigabit so by upgrading we um eliminate that bottleneck and actually take full advantage of the speed that we have from comcast that we're paying for with the rate funds so it's just kind of the growing pains of the network it was definitely a planned expense in the near future we should be set for probably the next 10 years with that device so it seems like a big number but it's going to last us a long time any questions about that thank you jim that helped clarify it better than i could so thank you and then we have on there the fy 22 ymca agreement

133which we approve each year the ymca does utilize our buildings for before and after care and so this is a contract that we work together with them on each year to make that a reality it looked a little bit different this year obviously we had approved a contract that was more specific around remote learning this one is kind of back to our original contract and in hopes that we'll be able to take advantage of the before and after care as we've been able to do in the past okay can i please have a motion to approve the consent agenda a motion to approve the consent agenda i'll second uh motion made by jimenez seconded by andrews all the role please andrews aye russell aye don aye lopez aye jimenez aye steinfeld aye gonzalez aye motion

134carried thank you very much um and then up next is the approval of an intergovernmental agreement between district 100 and the city of berwin to provide reimbursement to the school district for a parking lot paving and construction of a sidewalk and lighting for shared use by school district the city and the public is there anything you want to expand on yeah so basically um if you're looking at k and l this is specific solely specific to the school district obtaining a small plot of land next to freedom middle school to create a parking lot and also to create a safer space for fire access to our buildings so these particular agreements are around that particular space it is not around a development it is around creating the parking lot space for freedom middle school creating

135that sidewalk in the back that will give better access to a baseball alley and having lighting there and that will be able to be utilized by the school district the city and the public and the agreement is reimbursement to the school district for that the the payment of that parking lot as well as an agreement to continue to work together to beautify the area and make it a more welcoming area surrounding freedom middle school for our students thank you very much and um the second piece well i guess we should call the roll and then discuss the second piece okay um so i i will entertain a motion to uh uh approve or i don't i'm so sorry item 13 on the agenda i'll move all right motion made by dawn seconded by i'll second

136thank you seconded by andrews on the call of the role please andrews nay dawn aye jimenez nay steinfeld nay gonzalez nee abstain lopez up stain all right thank you very much motion fails all right moving on to item 14 approve the real estate purchase and sale contract and shared easement agreement between district 100 and casper development llc to obtain title to a parking lot at freedom middle school this is so this is a real estate contract for us to purchase the space for the parking lot in the area behind freedom middle school um as motion or i'm sorry item 13 has not passed this would be an out-of-pocket expense for the school district and there would be no reimbursement from the city of berwin can i have a motion to move forward on this item

137i'll move to move forward on this item thank you oh second but can i say something really quick yep okay so freedom middle school has a very small parking lot and no accessible access to baseball alley which is a play field freedom middle school serves the needs of 607 children and 75 staff that work there the fire trucks only have access to one side of that building so if there is a fire in that building the firefighters can only fight it from one side we are not able to use freedom middle school for family events for the families that go to that school for those students which hold the fourth highest number of low-income students not in our district but in all of berwin and now that this is going to be out of pocket

138i still think that having an accessible access way to that baseball alley being able to utilize this school for family events like we do here at heritage and having fire access to multiple points in that building to keep our children safe is worth the money and may i please remind people that we do not have control over our neighbors property just like if your neighbor next door wants to tear down their house and build a whatever you can't stop them because it's not your property so one way or the other this estate thing is going to happen we do not it's not in our purview to stop it if we do not buy this parcel of land we lose fire access to that building we lose a parking lot and we use we lose the

139accessibility of that playfield that's what we're voting on we're not voting on to create ridgeland estates we have no power over that that's going to happen either way and if the contractor the development group does pull out and that area remains industrial i want us all to remember that it's an industrial area right next to a school anything can go in there that pollutes the air that pollutes the water that has semi trucks coming and going okay all right we're not gonna okay anyway i still think that now that even though it's out of pocket and it's probably going to cost us a good three hundred thousand dollars for the safety of our i think we should still do it secretary lopez can you please call the roll roll call andrews nay john i [Music]

140nay steinfeld nay gonzalez russell aye lopez i motion pills um up next announcements i want to announce uh based on my vote uh while i agree that our staff deserves and needs a space for parking and i agree that the surrounding area around our schools need to be safe a safe place for our students to walk and i also know that as a school board we do not have a say or power as to what the city council does i also know that we can control our neighbors and we give in excess 24 hours for people that are going to be living there is not safe for our students in addition by me saying yes to something like this it's saying yes to gentrification and push out of my community of my the people in

141my community that's something that many of our residents are feeling they are being pushed out as a person of color that is discrimination and that is just gentrification so that's the reason i even though i i understand that we need it but and we have no control of what the city does it to me saying yes to that is saying yes it's okay to do gentrification and push me out of berlin so that's my comment so let's say that i'm sorry the announcement portion of this meeting has begun and it is not an opportunity for us to share our opinions um i do have an announcement tomorrow is the graduation ceremony at freedom middle school for the eighth graders that are moving up this year it begins at five is that correct at morton college

142yes and i would also like to announce it as part of the personnel report sally ziegler was approved as the new assistant principal for irving elementary school for next school year so we want to congratulate and welcome sally all right thank you for that mary and um i will entertain a motion to adjourn a motion for us to adjourn a second all right motion made by jimenez seconded by dressle call the role please andrews hi hi john hi lopez aye jimenez aye nine foul aye hi thank you everyone in attendance and again congratulations to all of our retirees this year you