001i hereby call to order this regular meeting of the board of education for wilmette public school district 39 this monday january 25th 2021. will the clerk please call the roll lisa schneider faves here john caesar ready bring panzika here amy palin here mark steen allen sternweiler aaron stone here okay we'll move on to the pledge of allegiance we have a video of the high chris students leading the pledge of allegiance this evening and we have kelly jackson here representing them in person too thank you for joining us this is jackson thanks um yeah we put together a short video we actually showed the video on friday um we if you recall in october we opened a time capsule that had been left for us um at the millennium and so it was on highcrest's 25th
002anniversary um and so it was really exciting for us to open it and then each homeroom contributed something to remember 2020 by and so we filled the time capsule on friday dr crema scully was there with us and um every homeroom made a short little video that we showed um so i have a few snippets for you and then um one of our homerooms um really did a great job with it they took some surveys and they gathered photos um miss eckley's homeroom sixth grade homeroom and so um they are doing the pledge for us tonight and that comes at the end of the video so enjoy [Applause] [Music] mr rahu's homeroom put in a cup one short story from every student about um what life was like in 2020 and we also put in
003some other trinkets such as a mask um and some incredible stickers hi i'm freddy from mrs albrecht's class and for uh for the time capsule our class made some um some cards for the classic um 2045 to show how our life was in for ms alperstein's class time capsule submission we printed out pictures that would remind us of the 2020-2021 school year hopefully when this time capsule is opened in years to come students will get a little glimpse of what life was like for us during this crazy time [Laughter] hi i'm georgia i'm grace and i'm holly and our mrs to the hms time capsule is example each person in our class made up a collage of something that they thought was important to 2020. so they either talked about a new app that came
004out in 2020 or new electronics that came out and we also honored some people who passed away we chose an iphone 5s because that is the newest and most popular iphone [Music] miss corrigan's class decided to make among us drawing a description of among us to bring out something that we really enjoyed in 2020 our project is a toilet paper art project we decided to draw doodles of interesting things from 2020 like quarantine or black lives matter [Music] hi i'm sam from mrs everhart's homeroom and for the time capsule we made this picture dictionary it has every letter in the alphabet in it there's a picture and a little description of what it is that some for every letter that goes along with 2020. we decided to capture the year by creating a memory book
005we covered the front and back cover with images that made us think of 2020. each student filled out a reflection sheet where they talked about a movie a book and a song they remembered from the year they also wrote a few sentences about what they thought of 2020 hi i'm alicia and i'm sophia we're from dr heidi's homeroom we contributed to the hms time capsule by writing letters to future hawks in the letters we wrote about our experiences in sixth and fifth grade at highcrest middle school we hope these letters are meaningful and encouraging to future hawks thanks hey room 135 had a great idea it's for our time capsule it's gonna be great we all are putting in things that represent us little trinkets that represent our personalities let's go we created headlines from
0062020. hi i'm riley from massage's homeroom and we have created an amazon package with our signatures on it filled with things that we think are memorable from 2020. mrs towson's homeroom 6 feet of 2020. hello future hawks can you read this it's written in cursive does cursive still exist in the 2040s or is cursive obsolete in 2021 our homeroom was ish when it came to writing in cursive is ish still a popular word in the 2040s please check out our artifacts to see our best attempts at cursive writing happy day to you [Music] we are students from miss anthony's 6th grade class for our contractor project we surveyed the students at highcrest we also invited students to submit photos that they want to share with the hawks of 2045 students who need pictures of their
007pets by then now we'd like to lead you in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so i'm i've left speechless that was so fabulous it was a much longer video with 40 homerooms this year but um this was just a snippet we i just have to say we have some phenomenal artists and some really creative thinkers and um if you get a chance to make it back in 2045 and see the cursive writing you'll be in shock and awe but it was a really fun project so thank you so that was just truly terrific let's let's give them a round of applause um i had so much fun
008coming to the opening of the time capsule back in october i know some other board members were here too it was so i know that in um 25 years when they open it um people will be like what because i do think 2020 is is kind of a surreal year or to forget that was really it just made my day which is hard to do sometimes um so i want to make an announcement about participation for remote um public comment if you wish to provide public comment to the board uh remotely using zoom we ask that you register prior to the meeting using the zoom link provided on the agenda participants will have confirmation email response with a link to access the meeting and during public comments i will ask for participants to raise their
009hand i'm actually tony who calls on you and you'll have three minutes to speak please make sure your backgrounds are free from distractions appropriate for the public forum and that you are in a quiet location now i'm going to seek a motion to approve the minutes of the december 14 2020 board of education meeting i moved to approve the minutes of the december 2020 board of education meeting i have a second second the motion having been made and seconded board members are there any comments errors or omissions to the minutes okay all those in favor of proving the minutes is submitted uh do we need to do we need to roll call or we don't okay uh please say aye aye um emotion carries now it's time for public comment the board invites public participation
010at d39 board meetings we will begin with audience members that are attending the meeting in person and then we will ask anyone participating in public comments via zoom to raise their hand i must remind all guests to use the microphone state your name and community of residence and by board directive you are allowed three minutes is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board okay um mr diamante do we have any remote participants who wish to speak we do we have one that raised their hand thank you evita i'm going to move you over into the meeting and then you can unmute and turn on your video should be coming into the meeting again you can unmute and turn your video on she's in our meeting she just needs to turn on
011her video peta can you at least unmute so check to see if we can hear you looks like she's trying to connect us i'm sure everyone can see on their screen about uh click on the microphone icon let's see if we can at least hear you and i just prompted uh to unmute okay can you hear me now can you hear me yes we can we can't see you but we can hear you okay i'm hold on i'm working working on it so how do i get this one enable once why do you have a i don't know i don't know you know what for the purpose of the meeting um as long as we have audio i think uh i mean it's ultimately up to the board but um are we okay if she
012continues or do you want her to try to get her video why don't you just try for like 15 more seconds and then if you can't go ahead and just do audio use because i i've never done this like what what select camera no i don't know what to do it shows that your your video is on in zoom so i would assume it's a setting on your computer possibly having to give it permission go to settings allow zoom open says hold on start my video i just sent the prompt okay all right thank you click on that and see what it does exactly hold on i've got something can you see me can you see me now no no we just see it no next screen yeah sure i don't know what to i'm
013sorry i don't know what to do you can hear me though right so go ahead and make your uh comment okay so um i have three questions for the board um question number one and i also sent this in as an email this week and num first one this week in illinois vaccinations enter phase 1b which includes teachers will district 39 require teachers to get vaccinated question number two assuming teachers are vaccinated has the administration started to consider making changes to their instructional models and finally my third question is there has been talk in illinois about school districts extending the school year to make up for lost construction time is district 39 considering this for fifth to eighth grade to make up for both the cancelled school days and the asynchronous days that are basically
014independent study that's it thank you very much mr diamante is there anybody else waiting to make a comment uh there's not okay so now we're gonna go ahead to board reports um we're going to start with facilities development and uh i will ask um miss pulling to go ahead and give the report on behalf of mr nyler okay great so at our committee of the whole meeting mr baltimore presented and reviewed the construction top project timeline for summer 2021 those projects include the ramona and mckenzie keep 39 construction and the junior high second floor air conditioning along with some life safety work at the junior high all of these are expected to be completed by fall when we start school mr papa nicholas of nicholas and associates provided a budget update for the projects at
015ramona and mckenzie roofing issues were identified at mckenzie and for cost efficiency the roof replacement has been rolled into that project the total budget cost for both schools is currently at 8.2 million the metropolitan water reclamation district reported that the underground storm water systems at each school needed some attention so mr papa nicholas reported that 234 000 of that budget was due to roof replacement at mckenzie and the storm water replacement at both schools he also gave an update about the junior high air conditioning and life safety budget he noted that the project is right now at 60 percent design issuance and he would compile a budget assessment to present at next month's committee of the whole meeting he also said that he would provide bid alternate details for the next meeting he stated that
016he received commitment letters from manufacturers for the unit beds and the chiller should the board not approve the air conditioning project the letters eliminate all risk of penalty for the district and that's the update from facilities thank you very much so now we're going to move to school finance mr c is already thank you president babes so at the same meeting um mr baltimore had quite a starring role um he went through the budget calendar and uh and the resolution that i believe we are going to adopt today um which will be presented in this meeting later on uh mr baltimore also in the meeting stated the capital project's timeline had slated the mckenzie roof replacement for the summer of 2024. following discussions with nicholas and associates and str architects it made sense and was
017cost efficient to replace the roof during the keep 39 construction rather than construct patchwork repairs and then reroof at a later date he said the roofing component cost was a 180 000 mr baltimeier also stated that the federal government passed another round of stimulus over winter break and based on is the rough estimates the amount provided towards education was quoted to be about 56 billion which equates to 210 000 or 50 per student in district 39. um districts would have the ability to spend the allocated funds through september 2022. mr voltmeier stated that he would keep the board apprised of updates on the exact amount to be issued and the allowable expenditures for those funds dr crema scoli noted the allocation of federal stimulus money is not based on enrollment or low income data and
018that district 39 would receive the same amount as kennel worth or avocado that's my report thank you strategy committee mr steen uh so the strategy committee met in the same committee of the whole and we received a report from mrs jackson and ms dominique uh who led a team of teachers and administrators to explore options for how we implement the fifth through eighth grade hybrid model on mondays in the third quarter it included a variety of options some include for instance utilizing half day schedules and continuing with alternate alternative full days of instructions within the hybrid model the benefits and drawbacks to using mondays for alternating in-person instruction were also explored mrs jackson stated feedback from the targeted review of in-person programming including parent and teacher surveys requested a review of half-day in-person learning she
019reported that many options considered for half-day in-person learning and all ideas and logistic consideration considerations such as instructional time content area focus in-person prioritization timing of bus route pick up and drop off issues and time required to clean classrooms were considered ultimately after much thought and deliberation the team found the current hybrid model to provide the best instructional services to students while maximizing in-person learning across content areas and minimizing disruption mrs jackson stated the team began evaluating the restructuring of the monday schedule in a preliminary review um review of alternating mondays between two groups which would allow approximately three additional in-person instructional days over the course of an eight-week order two significant disadvantages to this approach included the loss of the fully remote and synchronous old group instructional days that mondays currently offer as well
020as an equivalent increase in async asynchronous days to accommodate the in-person alternating days teachers value having remote synchronous instruction on mondays as it allows the whole class to participate in foster discussion together becoming more of one united class a survey was recently sent to students to obtain feedback before deciding on how to move forward with the monday schedule and having evaluated all options the team ultimately landed on recommendations to maintain mondays as they are along with the alternating full day schedule for the remainder of the week and with the board's full support the final hybrid calendar for quarter three was published that's the end of the strategy report so we're going to move on to the liaison reports on the community review committee this is bullying yes so the community review committee met on tuesday
021january 5th they are assisting the district with all phases of the strategic planning process so at that meeting they focused on phase one of strategic planning which is stakeholder awareness so after we gave some district updates the committee divided into their three subcommittees one group is researching the best modes of communication another to develop draft communication plan for the community within the stakeholders and another to develop the communication plan for at large stakeholders each subcommittee is working on identifying stakeholder groups and drafting how the district can best connect with families and the community to essentially get the word out that d39 is embarking on a new strategic planning process and they will meet again on february 2nd great thank you so educational foundation dr chris update i attended the educational foundation meeting on the board's
022behalf this month uh the team discussed their silver lining project which is a project celebrating the unexpected and rewarding moments during covid19 the goal is to capture the positive moments that students and staff have experienced students staff and families have experienced during the school year so there are details available on the website they put together a flyer as well as a really nice video that has been used in our classes to generate some support for the project and help students to understand what is being asked of them so we're excited about that project the group also discussed group grants applications for which are currently open uh for teachers throughout the district and then finally the group discussed their upcoming bingo fundraising event the event is modeled after the is modeled after the popular annual event
023traditionally held in person but this year will be held entirely virtually this event is scheduled for february 6 tickets are available online on the educational foundation website because of the unique arrangements for the event this year it is a great opportunity to involve relatives and friends and grandparents even from near and far i know i for one will have a contingency of family members from across all over joining us for bingo in support of the educational foundation and just a really fun evening of togetherness for our community in a safe way so we're excited for that event and i'm really impressed by how the foundation has coordinated the event this year so think about joining us if you're free that night as always those tickets are available at their website and then you can also
024go online to make a donation if you wish and that's about it they talked about a lot of things but those were the highlights great report uh illinois association of school boards this stone yes um most of the news coming out of the iasb relates to the state legislation which is next on our agenda as far as non-legislative information is concerned iasb is sponsoring a number of webinars in anticipation of the upcoming election in april that includes school board school board seats they are having a webinar on january 28th about welcoming new school board members and one on february 11 that provides information to school board candidates terrific well you should keep going and give us the legislative update yes the big news coming out of springfield is the education reform bill house bill that
025was approved on january 11 and sent to governor pritzker it is the educational pillar of the illinois legislative black caucus's social justice reform package portions that will affect pre-k through eight education include required instruction and computer literacy skills starting in elementary school school districts needing to report on educational techno technology capacity and policies and isb assessing all students entering kindergarten with a common assessment tool the bill also creates a whole child task force and a p-20 council to research and make recommendations for both short and long-term recovery actions for public school students in the wake of the coven 19 pandemic and that report is due at the end of this year the illinois senate is returning tomorrow and the illinois house of representatives is returning on february 2nd the combined state of the state address
026and budget address is scheduled for february 17th um so now we'll move on to information items let's start with written communications doctor chromos the board received written communication from avida vulgaris regarding student surveys on monday instruction and low staff participation rates in saliva screening from rebecca and jonathan grarian maja cross jane tomlinson and amy and mike osland requesting safeguard screening continue beyond january and encouraging increased participation onto administrative announcements yes i have quite a few to make this evening so we'll start with the metrics team update in accordance with um the recent decision of the metrics team we are now meeting bi-monthly so we've developed a bi-monthly schedule we did not meet this past friday however the metrics dashboard in full report was updated and published and the sub committees of the team held meetings
027to discuss safeguard screening the schedule and recommendations for february so i will see if i'm able to briefly share my screen i can point to the okay well there we go uh so you'll see in looking at our metrics reopening advisory team page the dashboard has been simplified to really focus on those metrics that we find most important to the decisions that we face at this point we've learned a whole lot throughout the first semester and so we've really been able to condense and streamline and really focus our attention on these metrics you'll see again at the top community spread metrics and at the bottom some of our operational metrics including covid positive cases in the district as we scroll down our full reports continue to be accessible online including those reports that would reflect
028the weeks when we aren't having official meetings we will try to keep up with those reports so people can continue to follow along we have our positivity rights we're really very pleased with the community spread metrics which continue to decline thanks in large part to everyone's adherence to all of the safety measures that we know are important to reducing the spread of cobit 19. we see down here that there's been just a little bit of an uptick uh recently in wilmette so we're keeping a close eye on that but really overall the metrics are moving in the right direction the same is true as we look at new cases per 100 000 and we continue to report our cases here at the bottom any cases that are reported for students or for staff are included
029in these data that are reported here those include any cases that would be found through safeguard screening as well as cases that are reported to us through other testing mechanisms and then finally the kobit 19 cases in district 39 this really is a cumulative summary of those cases that we have helped to process and support as well as those active cases that we see occurring within our district currently again sources for relevant metrics continues to be available here you can see live data as you access those reports here again are some of the most often utilized sources of data and then as you scroll down our communications continues to be provided here those now are only going every other week as we meet as a team and then finally again our positive cases as they
030are reported out by our schools also are linked in here so that anyone who's interested in in following along district wide can access the same information available through this folder right here and so as i mentioned one of the most important discussions that did happen this week even though the team as a whole didn't meet is we had the testing committee the subcommittee of the metrics team gather to review our safeguard screening experiences so far and to make a recommendation with me to the board for continuing safeguard screening so i want to provide the board in our community with a bit of an overview of the district's uh experiences so far in january and then make a recommendation for continuing through february with the same frequency for each of the three cohorts remembering that right
031now testing screening is available for our in-person learners at elementary schools for our in-person learners at the 5-8 campus as well as for our staff so we really took a close look at each of those three cohorts to determine if we should continue with all three of them on a weekly basis if there's some other frequency that might make a little more sense at this time the testing subcommittee acknowledges that there really is not sufficient data upon which to evaluate the program yet we really at the time of meeting had only been screening for two and a half three weeks we really had limited data as of 30 as of thursday when the team met the district had processed more than 3 000 screening tests for participating students and staff from those there were three
032samples that indicated a potentially clinically significant finding and they were referred for pcr testing each of the follow-up diagnostic pcr testing results did not confirm the original screening and so that is something we continue to monitor um so while these case identification numbers appear to be low they also occurred within several weeks of declining cases overall and again we really want to closely monitor what's happening as we continue the pursuit of screening having reviewed the experience the testing subcommittee recommends continuing the safeguard screening with that same frequency throughout february in order to continue to implement and evaluate this additional mitigation tool the team further noted that continuing through february offers the additional benefit of increased peace of mind for staff students and parents additionally it was noted that we are entering a time of potential
033increased community spread or at least risk thereof due to the reduced community mitigation efforts as our communities prepare to open we may see a slight increase in in cases as we adjust to those new reopening and so keeping a close eye on that and keeping this mitigation plan in place seems to make some sense in addition there were some notations of the more contingent variant of the virus that might be potential within our community and so again keeping an eye on that throughout the month of february seemed uh warranted additionally it remains very likely that teachers and school staff will begin to gain access to vaccines in february and so again maintaining this additional layer of protection while we pursue this important public health initiative seems prudent at this point we continue to strongly encourage
034registration and participation we've been really pleased with our registration numbers so far in in a very short amount of time we reached that first milestone of 65 percent of registered participants we now as of today have more than 70 percent of students registered to participate in the program student registration has increased each week and we see the highest participation rates at the upper grades which is what we would expect our older students are much more capable of that weekly saliva screening and again our experts have advised that those really are the groups that we want to be screening more frequently so that is really good news for us right now we have more than 80 percent of staff registered to participate in the program as well we originally anticipated about 65 to 70 engagement and
035so again we're really pleased with our initial overall registration rate and with that continued weekly increase we've continued to communicate about registration and have increased information that we've provided on our website as well as via email we've also enlisted the support of our ptas and ptos to encourage registration i'll also comment we've had some great volunteers to help assemble kits for us in hopes of the board supporting continuing through february so that we have those kids ready to distribute as early as thursday for testing this week so we're pleased with our registration numbers so far we really are eager to see participation rates increase right now we're seeing about 75 percent participation rate and we know that as routines are built and as reminders continue to go out this will become a more regular part
036of what we do on a weekly basis but we are really looking to increase those participation rates so we are catching as many potential cases as possible the other thing that i'll note is uh the screening program at this point costs 11 per test and we have had very generous support from our community parents who have volunteered to cover the cost of their child a few who have covered not only their child's costs but those of another child as well at this point about half of our costs throughout january have been covered by those very generous donations um and and willingness to cover those costs so we really appreciate that we hope that might continue through february but of course people will have the option to opt out of that if they wish and still
037continue to participate in the program finally we understand from our experts that once staff are vaccinated they will no longer they should no longer participate in screening and so we'll start to see some of them fall off as as they gain access to um to the vex to the vaccine and so that again gives us another milestone to hit as we work through february with support for the board from the board i would recommend continuing with the same weekly um schedule through february and then we will again review our experiences at february committee of the whole and make a recommendation to the board at the at your february board meeting so with your support we would very much like to continue with that weekly screening for all three cohorts through february do we have would
038anybody like to express a sentiment either way sounds like a great idea thank you john i think it's it's serving the purpose that we wanted it's making giving us more knowledge but also making people feel more comfortable um so i think it makes sense it makes sense for all the reasons you said i'm particularly persuaded that now is not the time to let go of our mitigation strategies when we have a variant that is more contagious on the horizon i'll make a comment i also support it but i want to let the board know that one of the nice things is that the administration was able to investigate this and get this started before the winter break and what we're finding is now there are other schools who would like to do similar testing and
039there's just not the capacity available so thank you to the administration for getting on this uh quickly enough so that we were able to get in the door before the capacity ran out really positive for those listening eagerly awaiting the results this evening i believe we are still waiting for those results to come in but they will be processed just as soon as they come in that is the one piece that we continue to work on the the lab is certainly um being accessed by many districts right now those that could uh get in before they needed to close the doors and so we're seeing those results coming in just a little bit later than we initially had expected but um we will get those processed either by eight o'clock tonight or first thing in
040the morning so people know before school starts the next update really has to do with educator and staff vaccines um we are working in close partnership with our neighboring school districts throughout neutria to advocate for early vaccinations for our staff among that next round of 1b vaccination so we know that opened up today and we seem to be making good progress that we're not there yet and so i will acknowledge there's some fresh frustration there because we are hearing about vaccines becoming available yet appointments are incredibly hard to get and we ideally would have a coordinated effort so that all staff or large groups of staff would be able to get vaccinated all at the same time as you know we've been working really closely with our neighboring school districts with the cook county department
041of public health the village of wilmette and north cook intermediate service center coordinates with school districts to assist in coordinating the vast vaccine distribution the cook county department of public health has a big task ahead of them especially considering the size and spread of the department's jurisdiction so we recognize this is a huge challenge we have surveyed our staff and approximately 95 of our staff and educators have indicated a willingness to receive the vaccine in eagerness i might say to receive the vaccine some are already seeking appointments otherwise and yet we continue to really work closely to see if we can get our plans for a centralized site approved so that we can administer the vaccine in coordination with our other school districts our emergency service personnel and make sure that our staff all have
042access to that there are priorities obviously among the tiers 1a would cover any health workers and so for us our school nurses our school social workers school psychologists those are all individuals who count as health providers most have already accessed their first dose of vaccine and are currently awaiting their second dose for our staff we as of today have access to the vaccine instructional and non-instructional staff and so we are very eager to have that plan that we have coordinated with local school districts approved we are aware that some of our neighboring health departments have already been able to start rolling those out to their educators oak park skokie and evanston even chicago has started to lay out some plans for that they're in cook county but they have a separate health department and so
043the cook county health department actually covers all of suburban cook county so that really is a a broad area to cover we continue to work closely with them we are very hopeful and believe it's entirely possible that all of our staff who wish to access the vaccine will be able to access that first dose in february which means their second dose would come sometime in march before we get to spring break so we are hopeful those plans will be approved we have a local site willing to host that vaccine distribution for all of our educational staff and support staff and so we are simply awaiting approval from the cook county department of public health as well as availability of those vaccines looks like frank has a question yes um is the availability based on where
044our school district is with which is suburban cook county or where the teachers live or any combination for instance if someone lived in evanston um could they one get a shot and two are there any reimbursement issues that that we would have to approve that we should approve but there aren't any reimbursement issues related to accessing the vaccine individuals can access the vaccine either from where they work or from where they reside it really is a matter at this point of getting an appointment and what we are seeing what our staff are experiencing are that very few appointments will open up and everyone's scurries to gather them people are traveling as far as blue island really all over to access an appointment and the appointments are very very few and far between so again i
045think the plan of the districts throughout nutria township to have a localized site where all educational staff will be able to gain access to that vaccine in one day or in several days on kind of like a group vaccination attempt would be the best plan and we're really hopeful that that gets approved but in the meantime people can go online you can go to walgreens you can go to jewel oscar we've heard of people among our staff being able to secure appointments in that way as well um i've heard from several sources that the especially the second dose of the vaccine can really knock people out for you know a good day or two and so i'm just want to make sure that we're thinking about that operationally especially if we have a large group
046doing at the same time we may have some folks calling in sick for you know a day or two after that yes what we've heard is those two days immediately following the vaccine at either dose can be challenging for some and so again ideally if we have the opportunity to schedule these out on behalf of our employees we could coordinate that a little bit better than if we're having all these one-off appointments being made it's really quite confusing for our staff and problematic for the operations of the school district that said yes those two days following receiving the vaccine we are told could be the days where there are symptoms if symptoms persist beyond two days we're told then we need to the individual would need to seek additional medical evaluations but it may actually
047be copied and so um there's there are definitely some nuances there we are also told and it was a great question asked earlier um if once all of our staff are vaccinated can we then release our mitigation procedures and look to make adjustments maybe moving back to just a traditional school day and what we hear from that departments of public health is that those vaccinations may protect our staff but it's unlikely that our students will receive a vaccine anytime in the very near future certainly not by the end of the school year so they wouldn't be protected from transmission from catching the virus from potentially bringing it home we're also told right now although this continues to be studied that someone who is vaccinated may be still able to transmit the virus and so again
048that's something that still is being studied what we're being told right now is if someone does receive the second dose 10 days after it's unlikely that then they would develop covert themselves but whether or not they could potentially transmit it is still being studied so for all of those reasons we are being told that right now the state guidance will remain the same six feet of distancing wearing a mask regular cleaning all of that will continue to be in play even after our staff are vaccinated we don't anticipate mandating that staff become vaccinated right now we're seeing about 95 percent of our staff interested in becoming vaccinated and so we're really pleased with that number mandating it likely would not lead to increased uh compliance in that regard some individuals may have a counter contraindication
049maybe pregnant or you know there may be some other things going on for them so um right now that those are our plans once everyone is vaccinated i do believe that by spring break we'll have a better idea of transmission we'll have a better idea from the health departments if they are willing to relax some of those standards for us to bring all students back in person at the 5a campus we would need to reduce that distancing to about four feet so right now we're at six feet consistently across our classrooms to have all students come back into the classroom that distancing really would have to go down to about four feet in order to to be able to fit everyone in our schools yeah so um okay so it's kind of we'll see that's
050what i'm hearing about the vaccine yeah the vaccine and then a bunch of decisions would have to be made and come together right so the next decision point will be that fourth quarter decision point and it really will depend on if the health departments um the idph is willing to recommend something different from the six feet of distancing for us to make an adjustment to what's what's happening at our 5a campus we would certainly talk about it and we'll continue to talk about it but it really again for us it it requires the health departments to reduce that that distancing requirement or direction otherwise but at this point we've been pretty committed to following the guidance issued by the illinois department of public health and i'll i'll mention a lot of us districts superintendents in
051my collaboration continue to really look at this really really closely um even reducing for some districts reducing down to five feet of distancing makes tremendous difference for them their structures are a little different their space is a little different for us our analysis really leads us to believe it would have to reduce to about four feet of distance which may be possible it may be that as adults become vaccinated and we learn more about transmission rates between students some of those adjustments may be able to be made so we'll continue to keep a really close eye on it just as we know our parents would love to have students back in campus on campus every day all day long we would as well and our teachers i know would as long as we can do
052it safely like you have the pieces in place you're getting them in place right this teachers will be vaccinated and we will we will you know hopefully continue we'll see monitoring the students right and we should know the prevalence of the you know the cove in the population students so it is another um strong factor of continuing to do screening among our 5 8 campus students as well that may help us to continue to evaluate the prevalence among our student population i will say on behalf of mrs jackson who i know is sitting in the back we do have a schedule that would allow us to relatively easily make a pivot in that direction but we really do need the guidance to address before we could pursue that okay in terms of third quarter planning
053updates dr steen gave a great summary of the discussion that we had at the committee of the whole meeting where we looked not only at third quarter and some of the adjustments on our ar-58 campus for scheduling we also looked at enrollment for second semester today we celebrate the beginning of second semester so we had some new students coming on campus today and getting themselves oriented we had a few students moving into the remote learning environment today who previously were on campus and so adjustments for a portion of our students but for the majority of students they continued on the same path their class assignments remained the same as long as they were in the same program from first semester to second semester so that was quite an accomplishment i know a lot of work
054went into that and we appreciate everyone's support in making that happen effectively we mentioned strategic planning and the crc continues to make good progress on helping us to coordinate that we do expect by february we'll receive a report from the crc helping to guide those next steps and then at the february board meeting if not by committee of the whole we'll have some dates selected for each of those retreats that will need to occur likely virtually but will need to occur in order to get our strategic planning process underway okay in terms of summer planning we heard a little bit about construction we've also been coordinating facility access so we know we have some summer school programming that we offer in district and then the park district also tends to offer it tends to access
055our buildings over the summer as well so there's been a lot of planning happening to coordinate construction facility access as well as summer school like last summer we expect to continue under strict mitigation measures throughout the summer as a result we do plan to offer in-person summer school opportunities but those will continue to be focused on academic learning intervention and boosting so in answer to the question that was asked earlier we won't be extending the actual school year but there will be some opportunities for learning occurring over the summer for our eighth grade students we know that those opportunities also exist through new trier as well so there's many different options that could be pursued we will offer special education extended school year programming this summer we'll offer a basic program for remediation of academic
056skills as well as some opportunity for academic practice throughout the summer we're looking at the dates really focused in july recognizing that after this tremendous school year many of us will need a little bit of a break at the end of june our students and our staff as well so we're looking at running summer school without enrichment between july 6th through july 30th so this is a really focused and intensive program throughout july and we hope many of our students will access it and we hope many of our staff will elect to help us teach those programs as well so we're excited about those program offerings questions frank um yes uh last summer there was um you mentioned boosting but last summer there was a like a two-week program before school started up to facilitate
057getting back on board given that they had at home learning now that we've had another full year of it much much more organized but still a full year of not to the level that we would like things to be um [Music] are we going to reproduce that uh enhance it or are you working on plans for that or what's the what would that look like to parents so a couple of things first of all parents can access the summer school program itself and so that will be that those july dates for the summer program we saw greater participation there than in the other boost program which was like a two week jump start um the two-week jump start though was based on some technologically mediated programming and so we do expect that that programming will
058continue to be available the difference will be it won't have a teacher assigned to really oversee and coordinate that work so we'll be pushing out information to our families um to access some of that practice work that they can they can do if they wish that's our plans right now we we certainly will continue to evaluate those um as we as we continue to evaluate the progress our students are making throughout this year somewhat really a question um what what i don't know much about this which is one asking um what what is our process for um parents who want to hold their kids back decided hey this this wasn't good enough and um and they want to try again so retention is i think what you're speaking of and we don't typically support retention
059the research around retention doesn't show positive outcomes typically if there is though a parent who has a specific concern the first step would be to reach out to the principal the classroom teacher and schedule a meeting sooner rather than later we certainly don't want to wait till the end of the school year to evaluate what's happening for a student and whether some additional remediation or intensive support might be needed but retention alone doesn't have really good outcomes for it we'd rather see someone access intervention during the school year as well as the summer basic remediation program that exists i will turn to katie or to kristen to see if there's anything i missed in that protocol that you might want to add in no that would be as much as what i would say i
060think typically what we follow is the recommendation of progress from the school if they've completed an academic year it would be based on their report card and their progress assessed by the teachers and according to the standards so that's not a typical request for retention after a full year of that grade level has been completed okay then just a couple of other things of note first of all later on the agenda you'll see the revised letters of agreement regarding the povid 19 sick bank the family first coronavirus response act also known as ficra and all related provisions expired on december 31st 2020. we had an agreement to revisit that if in fact that did expire so as a result further delineation of the use of our coveted sick bank days is recommended the original letters
061of agreement indicated the use of up to 40 days for an employee's own coveted illness up to 30 days for the employee caring for an immediate family member with coveted illness these two provisions remain the revised letters of agreement permit the use of up to eight days for quarantine related to pre-approval travel pre-approved travel as well as up to 10 days for child care needs related to covid you'll remember under fikra there were all sorts of um similar but a little more complex and convoluted options that existed for employees and so this allows us to really bring it all under one umbrella and to track and support our employees who might be most in need of um of access to the coveted sick bank to ensure that they have access accordingly so those three letters
062are on the agenda later tonight we also have property tax appeals the district received two ptab notices covering several different pins in uh the board packet includes information regarding the potential refund liability for both p tabs robin schwartz will be intervening on behalf of the district and then we have several foias listed on the agenda this evening the district received the following foias jeff axelrod november 20th 2020 requesting a list of staff who resigned for any reason along with resignation dates documents and letters from october 29th or present he also requests to include including documents about requested or granted um leaves also to send any to send from october 28 to present documentation about suspected or confirmed covert 19 exposure suspected or confirmed cases for d39 staff requested that we provide documents from january 1
0632020 about students partially or fully withdrawn from district 39 schools for any reason the next is jeff axelrod rod excuse me on december 8th 2020 requesting a list of staff who resign for any reason along with dates of resignation copies of resignation letters and documents explaining the resignation send documents about requested or taken leaves of absence temporary or permanent send documents about suspected or confirmed covert 19 exposure suspected or confirmed cases of sorry for d39 staff and students and provide documents about students partially or fully withdrawing from d39 schools for any reason jacob shore december 4th 2020 requested all written communication with the cook county department of public health including notes in communication with ccd ph assuring the individuals were not infectious or contagious when last at school for students or staff ill on november
0649 2020 at ramon elementary school november 11th 2020 at mckenzie elementary school november 13 2020 at wjhs november 15 2020 at ramona november 15 2020 at hms november 16 2020 at wghs november 24th 2020 at mckenzie elementary school november 28 2020 at hms december 1st at mckenzie elementary school december 1st 2020 at central elementary school and december 2nd 2020 at wghs walter keats on january 4th 2021 requested copies of igas and or leases between wilmette district 39 in the wilmette park district for use of ethers property including documents relating to use of high crest middle school by the park district as well as use of the community center now the wjhs resource center include documents relating to use of d39 property by the wilmette park district programs for bell central harper hms howard mackenzie ramona
065w jhs and the mckillion center jody cohen of propublica and jennifer smith richards of chicago tribune on january 7th 2021 requested all contracts amendments memorandums of understanding inter governmental service agreements agreements of any sort entered into between the school district and schools and any law enforcement agencies include all invoices billing summaries purchase orders daily logs and other payment records between the school district schools and any law enforcement agencies from 2015 to the present all records documenting the services of law enforcement agencies conducted at school at district schools from 2015 to present and finally zoe yelsen of smart procure on january 7th 2021 uh had a commercial foia requesting any and all purchasing records including vendor information from october 5th 2020 to present again those foias have been responded to and that concludes the foyer report
066as well as our administrative reports your breath before you move on to the strategic plan yeah i think it fits into the metric but it was a question that came up when we were going through that uh two parts one um one of the items in the metric report is the number of student absences um and i think this is a piece of good news that um in a typical year because of you know winter illnesses and all that type of stuff there's always a certain amount of kids that are absent and i got the impression that this number was at least slightly lower than that so that like one tiny silver lining to uh to what we've been doing i like the way you frame that yes that's a good silver lining um absolutely
067and then a follow-up to that is we spent the last couple years we we've been looking at metrics for student absences and identifying patterns whatever um too early to do that but will we will we be able to collect that information for this year eventually yes we are tracking um absence rates and have to report that just as we would have any other year so students engaging fully remotely are counted as present as long as they're present within their directed activities same thing students in person their attendance is also tracked accordingly so yes that is exactly the data from which i pull as i generate those graphs every week thank you anyone else okay strategic plan thank you we do have an update for the board as is typically our process uh we provide updates
068throughout the school year on september 21st 2020 the board of education approved the implementation of the 2020-2021 39 strategic plan the executive summary report will focus on mid-year updates under annual business sections those sections focus on building school culture and community school safety or science curriculum review and sustainability planning practices and education and miss katie lee is here to give us that report and update thank you katie good evening as you know i represent all of the administrators as we work on this as a team so let me first begin with building school culture and community as we all are aware district 39 values diversity equity inclusivity and understands the impact that school culture has on the development of a deep sense of belonging community-wide students staff and families and as noted in this graphic
069fostering a strong school culturing community encompasses most of what we do in district 39. and so in recognition of that fact we have moved this ongoing initiative to the annual business section of the strategic plan so one area under building school culture and community is the district's commitment to social and emotional learning and for students the district has prioritized dedicating time in the daily schedule to focus on forging connections and continuing to provide instruction targeted to the development of the sel competencies in addition daily check-ins between staff and students have been embedded into the day for both in-person and remote learners so that we're cultivating relationships and supporting student needs for staff the district has focused on building capacity of our teachers through continuous learning on how to attend to students social and emotional needs
070a group of staff members took part in in a new tree or township castle training series focused on the sel competencies additionally a group of staff has been provided professional development on how restorative practices create inclusive school and classroom environments the district sel committee is currently making plans to train a third group on the responsive classroom methodology in order to garner strategies that will further facilitate a sense of community the sel committee is also building instructional resources for teachers and staff to support skill building in the sel competencies this resource will include learning progressions grade level outcomes and lessons to guide the specific instruction of the competencies while offering ways to embed competency development into everyday instructional practices now in order to inform these practices universal social and emotional screeners were given as we do
071for the past three to four years to all students the mindsets essential skills and habits mesh survey was administered to students in grades three through eight while the devereaux student strengths assessment desa was administered to students in grades pk through two the mesh assessment has two components a social and emotional competencies and school environment the school environment is a compositive composite assessment looking at teacher and student relationships school safety school culture and a sense of belonging mesh results indicate that district 39 students continue to have the growth mindset and social emotional skills necessary for school and life success so for under social and emotional competencies in grades three through five all areas of the social emotional comedy series were at or above the 90th percentile nationally with self-management being a particular string with collective scores
072that fall in the 99th percentile for grades six through eight students collected responses indicated that social emotional skills were well developed and surpassed national norms most domains were at 90th percentile or greater with one exception being social perspective taking where the district fell at the 80th percentile nationally and of note um classroom effort and self-management which both fell at the 90th nine 99th percentile nationally the social perspective was it one of interest and the definition that the assessment or the survey takes for that is about how students can interpret the teacher's perspective and take on the teacher's perspective so sometimes we think that it might be social perspective taking among peers but it's actually a survey to gauge how students are able to assess and read teachers in these scenarios so i just wanted to
073make that distinction school environment for students in grades three through five the results indicate all areas are strengths with composite scores placing moment at or above the 90th percentile nationally teacher student relationships and a sense of belonging were areas of notable strength both falling at the 99th percentile when compared to national norms also noteworthy was the area of teacher and student relationship would increase seven percent since the spring assessment was administered we'd like to point that out because it's also true in the six through eight about teacher-student relationships it's one that we've really focused on and worked on in building and so it was nice to see it confirmed in these results for students in grades six through eight school safety was also a strength with comprehensive scores falling at the 99th percentile school climate
074and sense of belonging both fell in the average range of achievement nationally and our areas identified for further investigation and needed growth as scores on those domains fell in the 70th and the 50th percentiles respectively the desa is an assessment taken by teachers as they reflect on their students in grades pk through 2. what they look for are unique patterns of strengths and areas of need the desk is meant to screen students who may be in need of further social and emotional instruction the results on the desktop indicate that 30 percent of 38 percent of students fall in the strength category 59 fall in the typical range while 3 percent were identified as having social emotional needs and it should be noted that many of those students in the 3 percent have already been identified
075and are currently receiving social emotional interventions as always the administrator staff and students continue to add to the list of accomplishments this is one area under diversity equity and inclusivity that is ongoing work although we participate in many of these events or learning this is something that will be continuous and as we grow and develop in this area but some of the examples of accomplishments would be that you know that the teachers themselves the staff themselves have organized their own book clubs and book talks for continuous learning in this area the students across the district participated in unity day on kindness day we have inclusivity teams and equity teams throughout our district and the schools the upper elementary grades five through eight have participated in adl's walk against hate and we continue to engage in
076learning about how to navigate some difficult conversations around one aspect of diversity equity and inclusivity when it comes to identities and people of different groups and being in you know fully fully embraced by every member of the community you know one of the things that i realize about our district is that i'm very proud of our district is the work that we are engaged in is one that we recognize is ongoing we can't participate in one event or be involved in one activity or or learn about a series of lessons that we can implement and think that we have accomplished this task and so that's you know this ongoing work just requires that development in practice so that that's simply something we do but it becomes who we are we also um have dedicated our
077february staff institute day to diversity equity and inclusion so that will be our theme and focus with a keynote speaker by the uh by an author of the name douglas reeves who has worked in education and leadership for many many years and most recently has done much work in the area of equity and has a book coming up soon all right so i need to pause here and i'm going to try to um encapsulate what this example provides all of us you know i think as adults that surround our students in all of the different communities like their families and the school and every grade level from elementary um to you know upper elementary we hope that we could have some impact you know and we've been working on this goal and this initiative for
078a while very intentionally and so i do not want to take away from what you're about to hear as an example of these students but i know that you know we could only hope that we've contributed to their accomplishments and to who these four students are and there's more actually this is just one example truly is a prime example of our end goal so i wanted to pause and really share what was initiated by a group of women junior high school students and you can see them on the screen they're little we got approval um to show them and we also got approval to show this vid short video but i wanted to give you a little bit of background on this so in november a group of students sent eighth grade level administrator eric
079rieses a letter advocating for education around racial and gender slurs and overall inclusion of advocating for educa of others sorry and principal kate dominique and eric recess met with the students to discuss and understand what they would like to achieve the second meeting was held by or was led by bill hicks an adl liaison for no place for hate the students agreed that becoming a no place for hate designated school in the workshops and educational opportunities that come with it would be a great place to start these students have collaborated with the school leaders and bill hicks to adapt adl's no place for hate student survey they also created a video introducing and it's this video introducing the survey and articulating the intent of gathering information the hope is that this survey will encourage both
080seventh and eighth grade students to join them in forming a committee that will work with bill hicks to implement workshops for advisory classes and as a result become quote unquote a legit no place for hate designated school these students believe that it is an annual ongoing commitment and not a check box to mark we have to prove every year that our fight against hate continues and as you can see i'm very proud of this moment that i have an opportunity to share this with you because when we talk about civic engagement when we talk about student agency this is what we're talking about this is the prime example of it the elementary schools where these students have come from contributed their families have contributed the middle school that they attended has contributed and you know
081the current school that they're in some way or form the communities have really helped create a safe environment for these students to share with you and initiate this kind of effort kate dominique is actually one of our panelists so later if you have more questions about this but i'd like to take a moment if you don't mind it's about a minute and 30 seconds of them introducing this survey that they so um just you know developed and worked on so hi my name is miranda my name is marsha i'm sabrina and i'm nathan we're 8th graders at wjhs talking to you about the no place for hate survey the survey you will be taking is a form made up of questions about our school environment and how comfortable you feel we want you to answer
082these questions honestly as possible because we want to create a safer space at wilma junior high if we don't know something's a problem then we can't fix it so please don't feel pressured to answer based on what you think the school wants to hear answer based on your personal experiences why we ask identifying questions at the beginning of this survey we will ask you for the last three digits of your phone number we don't ask to identify who you are we don't ask these questions to figure out which student submitted which form we ask so that we when we all take the form a second time we can see if there was any growth from student to student we don't need or want your name but we do want to see improvements next steps we
083are working with the adl to create a no place for hate school we would like to use your input to narrow our focus on the problems in our school using this form we want to see what most students are struggling with and after we collect the data from this form we will be creating a committee to help combat the problems that students are going through goes for the committee we are looking for students who have passion for making change at wjhs this committee will be creating workshops to help our students learn about the mind about how minority groups are treated within our school and our society we hope to implement to about two to three of these workshops into your homerooms by the end of the year please feel free to email us if you
084have any questions or concerns thank you thank you thank you i'm going to my screen share here oh i think that coordinated i will simply share that i had the opportunity to visit kate and some of the teachers at wghs who are leading the inclusivity team there and it happened to be the first day that the students joined the adults in this team and what you just saw is only a fraction of the passion and commitment and agency these students feel around the work that they hope to accomplish they were articulate and they were inspiring and they were courageous enough to sit in a zoom call with a whole lot of their teachers and their principal and advocate for what they think is most important for us to see and do in schools is our
085next step in in supporting all students and it was one of the most inspiring meetings i've attended lately and it was it really as katie explained um such a sense of pride in the students and the work that they're accomplishing and in our staff in their willingness to hear students and empower students to tackle this really important work so thank you kate for leading this thank you katie for helping to coordinate everything that goes on behind the scenes and i know that kelly jackson had a huge part in this as well so um just much gratitude to everyone just kidding i just want to jump in and use my board president prerogative and just on behalf of all of us say this is lovely this is exactly what we want and the fact that this
086was student-led and then the staff supported the students this was just fabulous so thank you uh huge to eric rieses and kate dominique and everyone else who've just really surrounded these children and can't take a wave though it's a hundred percent them and that's really what makes it the most proud moment is that we have students like this among our missed i think aaron wants to jump into sure gonna say you know i know this has been a priority for the district and a few years ago it was very intentionally taught to the students about being an upstander and these kids stood up it's exactly what we wanted so i will continue and finish a few more slides um another part of our work is parent engagement and so as you can see um on
087this board with the leadership of tony demonte and the family service center and also many members of our district 39 staff we continue to host and offer these educational presentations so one that is not listed here on the screen for you was one that we did at the beginning of the year because by doug bolton building resilience during a pandemic it was very well received by our staff and we felt that it was important that our families had an opportunity to hear as well but topics such as parenting during covid 19 whole brainchild i won't read them all stress management developmental expectations one that's coming up very soon actually in a couple days and social relationships having kids navigate friendships and groups all of these are listed on our district website is also posted to
088the family toolbox if any are interested in these past events the recordings are there um but we'd like to invite and encourage all who are interested to join us in any of these events that are scheduled to happen all right so now school safety the state so this is an annual event where the state of illinois requires that school districts review school safety plans annually and in efforts to continuously improve the security and safety in district 39 a security review was process was established categorizing priorities and phases for implementation during 2017-2018 school year as a result the security measures are revisited and projects are identified as needed every school year and in addition district 39 regularly collaborates with the wilmette police department as well as the fire department so at the start of this year
089we actually identified these goals which are continuation of the 2019-2020 school year i think it comes to no surprise uh to all of you that due to covet 19 related health and safety measures taking a bit of a higher priority um these projects were just placed on hold it does not mean that they're not but at this moment in time when we're providing you an update we just wanted you to know we have not forgotten and it will continue and work will go through the summer so that these plans are are met now for the science uh curriculum review this year marked the first implementation or what was scheduled to be the first implementation phase of the revised curricula for science and the goals were to teach using the adapted curriculum materials elevate science for
090elementary and amplify science for middle and upper grades grades five through eight um typically what happens is that we conduct ongoing discussions with the teachers and gather feedback that would be used to guide any updates or revisions at the first year of implementation we like to reflect on how the lessons are actually going in the use of the resources and effectiveness so as far as elementary as i shared before our ngss which is the next generation science standards aligned lessons are being delivered however elevate science as a curricular resource needed to put me put on hold the main crux of the that adoption was so that students can work closely together and investigate and in light of what is happening that type of learning modality could not occur so what we did was we researched
091and found a digital platform called generation genius that has very rich videos and demonstrations that teachers could do that would still deliver the standards and the lessons that were aligned to them we've received really good feedback from the use of it i think what a lesson learned this year is that we need to be prepared as far as resources for any possible um you know situation and so we are actually going to continue with generation genius as being a supplement to elevate the digital platform combined with the hands-on classroom is really a good peering um so this uh you know we feel that the elementary teachers have become more and more familiar with the standards at their grade levels which is preparing them for a more in-depth study for the way that we would like
092science to be investigated next year so in the middle and upper elementary grades ngss alliance teaching and learning is also underway and the planned use of amplified science is in progress the only modifications are any hands-on labs or experiments if they do not meet the coven 19 health restrictions then those are on pause but they are doing as much as possible the ongoing discussions and reflections shared among teachers in the department of curriculum instruction during grade level meetings collaboration sessions and our teacher surveys are guiding some notes so that we could make some updates and revisions throughout the summer and also to improve for the fall of 2021. so overall the teachers seem to indicate a satisfaction with the curricular resources we've had to deal with a few digital glitches but those are things that
093have been improving over time and they are accessing regular use of those materials in particular several have noted that the online simulations demonstrate science concepts well and something that wasn't there before in our approach to science is the writing-based questions require students to build and express their understanding in argument form and that's been a positive we have found the need to modify some of the assessments to challenge our students a bit more or also provide some support and so those are some you know reflections so far the other part which is a kind of a byproduct is amplify science as we look at any kind of resource we would want them to have a commitment similar to ours which is the equity diversity and inclusion they have a very strong mission statement when it comes
094to that so we were very we're very happy that the resource that we adopted actually is very much aligned with our beliefs as well so for sustainability planning practices in education anything to do with our construction practice i feel that this is our statement of commitment to ensuring positive environmental practices in all of our construction projects past additions renovations undertaken by district 39 were designed to meet and or exceed rigorous energy codes and standards and all future design process will follow suit as well our design and architects str partners is well aware of this commitment they continue to pursue these efforts on our behalf so this commitment extends to all types of projects like the installation of the air conditioning at wilmette junior high the project at the wilmette junior high will include some life
095safety electrical work that is partially funded by a state maintenance grant and in addition str continues to review the status of grants available at this time for construction and conservation but there are none currently so for sustainability practices and education um you know we are committed to these green practices and they've been pretty institutionalized throughout our district um in all honesty you know composting has been challenging to implement this year we are recycling we are reusing what we can we are truly committed to this but admittedly it's not to the level that we are used to and that we have always implemented so you know we are doing everything that we can we just had a meeting with our environmental awareness pto chair and we have some community members who are very invested in this
096initiative and and this goal and we continue to have conversations on how we could improve and one is the devotion to um get you know um continue nurturing this love of nature um which is an unintended consequence which is a wonderful thing um and also just continuing education when it comes to these topics so the go green will met is releasing some professional development or some workshops that anyone and everyone can engage with and we will be promoting that in partnership with them all right i'm happy to represent and there are some people also here that could answer some questions i just want to say it's striking to me that in a year that has presented unthinkable challenges you all have not gone so far beyond just providing our kids education and keeping people safe
097you dug deep and forged forward with all of these initiatives and it's just so impressive um and i personally i just was so struck by everything you said about the diversity and inclusivity piece i um really applaud how willing our district is to look at what's not working in all realms but in this realm in particular um and so i if it's appropriate if uh as you get that survey back that the students are leading i know it would be interesting to us all to hear what you learned and what will come from that but just a lot of appreciation for my end on all of these updates it's always a lot of work and so this year it's that much more anything else and i would echo all of that um you know this
098is this is a great report and and frankly the strategy reports have gotten you just continue to get better so thank you very much um for that i one of the things that was really exciting for me is to see that you know when we do and this was commented i think stone pointed this out earlier you know when we set a goal and start saying okay let's make sure our kids are upstanders then you know we plant those seeds and we get to reap the rewards a few years later that's really exciting um it's nice to see that there are some areas where we can still plant some seed and i noticed on the mesh survey in particular i think the sense of belonging for the fifth through eighth graders was maybe not where
099we want it to be and i know we've been aware of that for a long time and so i think it'll be very exciting to hear what you all think about how to address that which i'm sure you're already thinking about and planning on but i think that is an incredibly important one i think it resonates with me from my own kids experience and i think it speaks to a lot of the um other issues that we're talking about right if you feel a sense of belonging in your school maybe the inclusivity of anybody who's a member of that community becomes a little bit easier so um my first comment is i really look forward to hearing about what we're gonna do about maybe i it's i'll say getting the score up but i don't
100care about getting the score up i care about getting the feeling of inclusivity uh there yes you know i would agree oh i would also um we started talking about this even just you know what what is it about the sense of belonging uh we now have data over three years we can start seeing this as a pretty consistent pattern and one thing um is how they define the sense of belonging is how much students feel that they are valued members of the school community and i think that's a point of reflection for all of us the data does seem to break at sixth grade so third through fifth is pretty consistently about the same and high but then at sixth grade week and seventh grade and eighth grade you can't ignore the fact that
101right at sixth grade is where we have more teachers as being their primary teachers so we have a pr like a teacher for math and a teacher so um whereas in three through five it's a bit more contained and there's this one individual so really trying to understand how students define for themselves value in a community would be one of the things that we would want to know yeah i was just going to share that that's continuously been over the past few years i feel like we keep bringing that up as an element on the survey and it was echoed a couple of years ago in that eighth grade survey that we did it was also kind of echoed in some of those the remote learning survey in the in-person survey that we did where
102we saw numbers kind of fluctuate at the sixth through eighth grade level about how they felt like they were a part of their classroom community and their school so that's been a real challenge for us this year just with all the different modes of learning i think what kate's done with her students at the junior high has been phenomenal in helping them have a voice in that process we're going to mirror some of those things at highcrest we've also been doing some work with identity and just talking about identity and who am i and how do i fit into the bigger picture what's afforded us to do some of that this year has been through we extended our homerooms every day to 25 minutes and really having some of those smaller groups while they may
103not feel part of the bigger group they do have kind of a close-knit community and classrooms and it's enabled us to go in and do more um just uh we call them community circle conversations where you're kind of just talking about problem solving and things like that and it's just been i got to join one the other day and it was just so fun to be a part of and hear sixth graders just talking about their feelings which doesn't happen very often especially these days so um so yeah i think that every little bit counts and every little bit is toward that effort and yes we want to see the numbers go up but i want kids just to say like i feel like i'm a part of this community and and really identify as
104that and that's our main goal so yeah that that makes a lot of sense to me and and i i would just say you know i'm very proud of us for being able to first of all go out and put metrics out there so that we can start to put some facts behind what where the areas are of opportunity but then not over emphasize the metrics and realize that you know the metrics are supposed to indicate something deeper and the ability to you know one of the things that dr chrono scully talked about very early on with us with the board is this sort of growth mindset and how we can we can say you know what it's okay for us to say there's some areas where we can still improve and we're still working
105on it and we'll we'll get better the other topic that i wanted to mention i apologize for taking up a little bit of time but you know when we talk about sustainability and uh the the work we're doing on on recycling and etc i i wonder if there is an opportunity to turn and do something which i see in my other the other part of my life going on more and more and more which is to really think about how our uh impact on climate change specifically and um that usually can be translated into greenhouse gas emissions and energy which is usually the major um contributor for something like a school how we can change that over time so for instance many companies are signing on to uh in a way onto the paris accord
106and so the idea of the paris accord is that you have to um adjust your operations so that the overall increase in global temperature remains well below 2 degrees celsius or even better the a better target is now 1.5 degrees celsius there are a lot of organizations out there that can help businesses governments but even entities like schools to measure what their greenhouse gas emissions are there's something called the carbon disclosure project that does this for a lot of people cbp and it's well-known and i would love to see us sort of take that next step and say okay it's great to be recycling we want to be doing that and you know we there's a lot of things for us to do how do we look out and say especially for kids these this
107age how do we look out and say okay we need to do more than just being efficient we need to reduce the amount of carbon we're putting in the air how do we do that so i would love to see us think about things in those sort of terms of how are we actually making sure that we're going down because if everybody keeps doing the same thing we don't we don't get there at the globe so those are my two comments thank you very much for the report in the work other board members just again thanks um i think it was already mentioned that year by year these reports are getting better which is always what you want to do um from a school district standpoint we have two [Music] goals i think one is
108to grow our our children as people and we've spent a lot of time talking about that and we've made progress and it's an ongoing effort the other is to grow our students um so i wanted to ask some questions about the academic side that of this report um in the in the area of the science i know we've we've done a good job we've built science labs there's been a lot of effort looking at different ways of of teaching science better but when we're all done on the student side the measure of success is how well we've prepared our students for nutrier what levels they get into how successful they are how comfortable they are in those levels so what are the metrics that we have available we're looking at that we plan to develop
109how do we know that we prepared our students better for new trier now versus the past and how do we have a continuous improvement program like we've been talking about in in the social emotional area what's our metrics what's our improvement plan what's our progress reports um in this case on science in particular um i'm actually happy to develop a better more targeted presentation or report for you on this i think in uh for the annual business section we focused on you know those areas i think in the continuing business where it talks about student growth and progress and things this could definitely be incorporated i don't want to misspeak what i can tell you is anecdotally over the years we've definitely discussed how our articulations through new trier has always produced their teachers telling
110us that our students are prepared for you know nutria and all of the of the challenges that they provide for our students so i would like to continue to think about this and see what kind of metrics would be the best measure because i think if you look at where students end up in new trier as far as levels if that is your criteria they're really doing very well do i have the actual numbers uh currently i don't but that's something that we could pursue if that's if that's our criteria of success i mean we're obviously spending a lot of time we're making improvements we're using best practices you've done good work at that but without metrics we really don't have a way of identifying or what we're doing today good but could have been
111better is what we're doing today good but what we did before was even better um are we doing well for our students in terms of other students that are going to new trier there needs to be some kind of metric anecdotal is is is the first step but some you know some measurements some criteria that can be reviewed like a lot of the things we were just talking about on the social emotional side so if i can jump in we've talked about this a little bit and we'll continue to especially as we look at our strategic plan moving forward but some of those metrics that we have relied on in the past include the surveys that are administered to our students after they move on to new trier and their preparedness and success in their
112various levels we also monitor their achievement levels through the map assessment and through the state assessments one of which is a science assessment so all of those metrics you you'll remember are reviewed annually and we'll continue to do that whether or not we are measuring uh the levels that students get into at new trier has been a topic of conversation i know among the board and we haven't settled on that as a as a reliable metric for whether or not that indicates success within our curriculum because there's so many factors that go into which levels students take once they get to neutral but that's a topic of conversation we can continue to have and again as we look at the strategic plan moving forward if the leveling system at new trier is one of those
113top indicators of success we can certainly incorporate that in new ways into that ongoing evaluation it just hasn't yet been chosen as as the premier indicator of success for a variety of i think really good reasons yeah that doesn't have to be the criteria but something that is measurable not from a survey necessarily just but you know something that that can show where we are baseline are we getting better if not why not and so but ongoing work and especially as we present the strategic thing you know the science area you you um you obviously presented are good plans but but that part of it uh what wasn't in this round i will definitely share more data on that really impressive thank you katie a ton of progress and a tough year it's really refreshing
114to not talk about i got to talk about new things it's really great so thank you so much it really i mean i can see the effort and improvement over the years especially a couple years it's really impressive um i i did want to shout out that i i just completely love the the um we call it the parent parent education stuff is is fantastic so it looks like a complete program of work and i've been to a few and i i get a lot of feedback from it's fantastic i believe that yeah tony devonte might be having a side business happening you're right it's been well received it's it's a pro programmatic approach and that and some of the sessions build on one another so we see a lot of the same parents that
115come back it's worked really well and definitely lessons that we can take into the future and how we offer parent programming for sure well i'll have the last word on behalf of mrs sternweiler who i know wanted to be here very much and if she was here um she would be doing backflips to the extent she could on the work on school culture um so i just want to thank you on behalf of all of us but also on behalf of her i know it's near and dear to her okay i think we can move on to annual business wonderful um the fiscal year 2022 budget calendar has been presented to the board we talked about it at the committee of the whole meeting the board will be asked to pass a resolution related to
116fiscal year 2022 budget preparation during the action items portion of the meeting cory could certainly address any questions the board may have but hopefully most of those were addressed okay so now this is another time for the community to address the board is there anyone present and wishes to address the board is there anyone attending virtually who wishes to address the board via zoom just have one parent from before are if you're gonna make another public comment can you raise your hand and zoom so i know to move you over if not i'll assume that you do not have a public comment no okay then we will continue with our agenda um next are our action items the next order of business is the consent agenda under action items are there any items that the
117board would like pulled from the consent agenda mr panzika please proceed with the motions i moved to approve the personnel report dated january 25th i move to approve the attached revised will met educational association wea letter of agreement i move to approve the attached revised letter of agreement with support staff union ssu i moved to approve the revision of the covet sick bank for employees in non-union positions i moved to adopt the attached resolution establishing the school district 2022 fiscal year and direct the superintendent to prepare a tentative budget and approve the attached budget planning calendar as written i moved to approve the accounts payable for bills listed between december 15 2020 and january 25th 2021 in the following amounts educational fund three hundred and thirty five thousand five dollars and eighteen cents o m
118fund hundred and seventy nine thousand two hundred and sixty seven dollars and five cents transportation fund two hundred and eighty 62 dollars and nineteen cents tort fund 137 dollars for total all funds of five hundred and seventy six thousand six hundred and ninety seven dollars and forty two cents i moved to approve the manual checks issued between december 15 2020 and january 25th 2021 in the following amounts educational fund 1 million [Music] six hundred 54 eighty four dollars and three cents o m fund two hundred and forty four thousand eight hundred and fifty three dollars and sixty eight cents transportation fund two hundred and sixteen dollars and eighteen cents tort fund five hundred and eighty five dollars for total all funds of one million three hundred thousand three hundred and thirty eight dollars and eighty
119nine cents have a second second the motion having been moved and seconded all those in favor say yay yay uh opposed do we have to do that by roll call you should yes thank you okay then will the clerk please call the roll aunties are ready frank panzika yes amy paling mark steen yes aaron stone yes lucy schneider fabes yes you guys have it motion carries and thank you mark um conference items old business equity work um just a reminder to be reading our book um and if you haven't started yet to pick it up um the only other thing is i'm not sure if anybody else participated in the heroes mlk workshop on january 17th heroes is an organization uh healing everyday racism in our schools and it was exceptional i was so impressed
120with what they put together and it seemed very well attended um and i participated in i think mr steen mentioned this last time that it was a local history breakout group that was fascinating i think it may even have been recorded i think they said this breakout group was recorded and there were two local residents who spoke about her own community around issues of segregation uh and a new trier recent graduate from glencoe spoke and john jacoby from wilmette exceptional so if you weren't able to be there see uh what they posted online another old business is there any new business tonight yes i'd like to just uh bring up to the board that i've been approached by the wilmat park district they've reached out to discuss access to the bathroom that exists on the
121backside of wjhs this is an exterior bathroom with only access through the exterior so there's no access into the school building it's located on the backside of the school faces the blacktop area that is back there essentially the park district would like to have the option of updating that bathroom and making it available for patron usage during park district events on the play fields back there so we talked about some of the um requirements that would need to be in play for us to enter into some kind of an agreement recognizing that we need to ensure there's not an impact on school or school functions certainly during school hours that bathroom would not be able to be accessible because we use the blacktop so much there's a number of things that would need to be
122worked out um really i'm just looking to make the board aware of this potential request and to seek feedback from board members if either you'd prefer we not engage in this ongoing discussion or if there are certain elements that you want to make sure would be considered as we move forward with this it is a bathroom that right now hasn't been in use for some time it did previously be used it was previously used um for for a couple of different functions but really it seems hasn't been in use for some time so it will require some upgrades um some security elements put in place some locking features those kinds of things but it does seem like a bathroom that may be able to be put back into use with some investment i just had
123a real quick one that i think the idea is good if you have a resource that could be useful um i'm assuming that somewhere in there will look at any liability issues and make sure that uh we don't open ourselves up or that we're covered yes uh that will need to be looked at along with um just ensuring that at some point if if there's some unexpected interruptions on school functions that emerge we need to make sure that there's a discontinuation clause of some sort a great community service have i spent many years on that ball field well in the park district um in it just to be full disclosure they're also looking at installing a bathroom someplace in the community play field so this would not take the place of that bathroom as i
124understand it instead it would just be an additional resource it would allow them to have a little more creativity with where they place the external building bathroom that they're planning on installing as well that is as i understand it i have not studied their plans they're really um they seem to be moving forward uh quite well with their plans but yes i think many people have acknowledged that use would be beneficial any other new business seeing none we'll move on to good and welfare and each night yeah i'll give one this is um just sort of building on uh what amy reported on in the heroes uh you know one thing i learned through that um seminar was that uh there well for those of you who know there was next week february 1st is
125the 61st anniversary of a really important civil rights activity which is called the the greensboro woolworth lunch counter sit-ins so for those of you who remember this is one of many uh efforts to integrate uh uh you know activities in our country and one thing that i learned um uh last week in that seminar is that we have a member of our committee in a community someone who i i don't know if this person wants to be named so i'm not going to name them but i learned that this person was a part of that as a as a young person and as a student and uh you know it's just a great reminder to me that as we look around our community there's a lot of people doing really and who are doing have
126done you know have done really important uh work that we should all be grateful of and and mindful of when we can so i'm i was excited to be able to at least celebrate that in my own mind and again i won't name the person but i hope we'll all kind of celebrate it at least notional yes so a little way of background for this story so i can set it up a reminder to the board an introduction to people who didn't hear me talk about this in august is that i am lucky enough to live in a townhouse complex that has a lot of creative delightful children that i have dubbed the townhouse kids and the other piece to know for this story is that two of the townhouse kids are in the same
127third grade class at ramona so the second week after winter break the school that i work for was still on adaptive pause but the d39 kids were back and i was zooming upstairs in the half of my bedroom that i call my office which is my desk and um it was maybe in the two o'clock hour i'm thinking and i heard this uh high pitched sonorific sound coming from outside that i don't normally hear so i got up out of my chair looked out the window and saw that the two third grade townhouse kids were standing in one of their front yards six feet apart playing their brand new d39 recorders and i was like thank goodness for district 39 and you know it was so edifying because it's a global pandemic but there's still
128third graders playing recorders exactly and in a normal year they would have been piled into a music room with 20 of their peers but this year the two of them are standing six feet apart in their front yard blasting away and it was a glorious thing so yes just thank everybody who works on behalf of our children every day i know how hard everyone is working thank you lovely story any more anyone dare to follow them okay great all right well may i have a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss negotiations personnel and special education i'm i move to adjourn to executive session to discuss personnel and negotiations may have a second second motion having been made and seconded will the clerk please call the rule john cesar ready frank panziga yes amy
129palin mark steen aaron stone yes lisa schneider faves yes motion carries and we are now adjourning the session the time is 904 and for the board we're gonna take a five minute recess thanks