SD308 Board of Education Meeting (7/12/2021)

001school district 308 board of education meeting can i get a roll call mrs doyle present mr gatewood president mrs johnson present mrs croner president dr moreno present mrs simultan present mrs swanson present please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for justice we're now going to take public comment on behalf of the board of education i would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our residents and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system residents interested in speaking to the board this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name i ask

002that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback in order to hear from as many community members as possible comments have been limited to three minutes per person and a total time of 45 minutes comments received i apologize we're going to um since so many of you joined us tonight we are going to prioritize those of you who are in person tonight although everyone will be responded to there is no discussion of personal matters or responses to questions are permitted the board does not participate in discussion during public comment follow-up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you denise get here good tears thomas naninga hello and thank you for giving me the opportunity

003to speak my name is tom nanegay and i am the father of two children currently enrolled in sd 308 i just have a couple of concerns that i would like to comment on as it relates to the district's potential mass policy for this fall i support our parental rights to make decisions that are in the best interest of our children regarding facial masking viral testing health records and or the use of coven 19 vaccines i strongly oppose any mass policy that would require the mandating of masks wearing by anybody whether they are vaccinated or not i have read many studies in the last six months that have proven to me that long-term mass usage is unhealthy for our children here are just three of the conclusions that i have found in my research testing shows

004that mass become contaminated with bacteria parasites and fungi including dangerous pneumonia causing bacteria inhaling graphene which is the substance used to coat mask was identified as a potential for early lung toxicity in rats and per a research letter that was just published on june 20th of this year in the journal of the american medical association carbon dioxide levels were measured in children and found to be four times the osha permissible limit of co2 co2 exposure in just nine minutes the youngest children had the highest co2 values those are just some of the medical reasons for me to conclude that wearing masks are detrimental to our children then throw in the psychological factors such as the well-being of children that are highly dependent on emotional connections with their classmates and teachers add to that masks can

005have a negative effect on speech and language development in our children we need a policy that gives parents a choice to have their children wear masks or not to wear masks if vaccinated i ask why the unvaccinated kids are being asked to wear masks i thought the vaccine was supposed to protect us there is just no science that shows that it's that effective while there is overwhelming evidence of children wearing masks poses a much greater risk to their health our school district does have the ability to make mask wearing optional our request you as our board respect the guidance from the cdc ispe and idph does not equate to a mandate under title 23 of the administrative code the illinois state board of education is not in a position to force reward or threaten any

006school district or local board of education regarding said agency guidance the same rule applies to isbe on any stipulated guidance the word strongly encouraged that is used in the most recent guidance doesn't even mean a mandate i ask have you seen the rest of us we go in the surrounding communities there are no masks anywhere go to walmart no mandate restaurant no mandate as i walked into this building no mandate anymore but our district could vote to keep the mandate mandate in place i asked but many school districts school boards and school districts have been voting to make mass optional three more illinois school districts just announced their masks encouraged but not mandated policy as of late this afternoon i hope and pray you do the same as for the choice of parents to vaccinate

007or not vaccinate our children is just that parental choice interrupting um the three minutes is up if you just i'm on my last sentence i strongly oppose any attempts to segregate our children whether by forcing unvaccinated children to wear masks sit in different areas from other children or apply quarantine rules in a different matter i hope and pray that we take a look at school at choice for our children thank you jason hudson [Applause] the next person jason hudson [Applause] hello good evening my name is jason hudson and i'm a community member here in oswego thank you for letting me speak and giving me the opportunity to be heard this evening my first order of business is to thank carrie and i apologize if i mispronounce her name um sunspillin for her fantastic work regarding

008the community's foia requests she's done it in a expeditious time frame and she's done an excellent job in ascertaining and adhering to the laws um some of the critics claim that you know foia requests go into great detail about it cos costing us money district money taking out efforts towards their educating their children you know recent information discovered with the foia requests hope to dispel the notion of this and it's going to show that certain activities of employees of the district are cast costing them more money actually than the actual foia requests um in the past four years that there have been over 1 million let me repeat that again one million emails containing the word trump or biden in employees emails now i recognize as should the board and the and the district members

009um you know some of the emails are within district guidelines right they have to use them for curriculum purposes and they have to use them for any kind of student you know student committees however there were several that are abusing and violating the district policy such talking politics in the workplace emails are from both sides of the political spectrum and they range from simple encouraging emails to downright vulgar and profane language in in the emails you know there have been a couple occasions where district employees are using district resources to promote done non-district rallies this has to end there's no place for politics or agendas in our school district amongst their employees you know i really wonder what a history search would do on some of these employees emails or some some of their computers

010in some of their text messages you know recently there was an event um that was had district employees emails that promoted and put the word out about the incident of the unfortunate incident that happened at portillo's recently right and we all didn't want that to happen i don't think anybody did but it was it was put out on district email and i i applaud the people for going to that and voicing their opinion just like we are here today right i think that was fantastic um but at that meeting there was certain disrespect to some of the oswego village board members and there's actually violence that was promoted at that meeting so we had teachers and students that attended that meeting and they were subject to that and i think that's the wrong message that

011we need to be sending to our students especially coming from a district email it opens up it opens you guys up to lawsuits and you don't need that um and lastly i because i only got seven seconds left on the shot clock here i want to leave you with this there's there's going to be more foia requests i implore the district's human resource policy or human resource people to take complaints against these district employees very seriously and i also hopes that we can eliminate inappropriate and misuse of district emails on taxpayer dime at our students expense during working hours or non-working hours you know we need to keep politics and agendas out of the workplace and have a laser beam focused solely on educating our students who as we all know are behind due to

012covet and learning so thank you thank you christopher casper can i come to this one yeah hello um while i recognize the cobia vaccine is not mandated to return to in-person learning i'm very concerned about the need to mask unvaccinated children the science proves children don't need mass and if people are vaccinated we should not worry who is and who isn't every person has the right to choose what is best for themselves and it's not my business it's time to do its best for our children and that's going back to school on mass and with no restrictions the illinois state board of education the school superintendents school boards teachers and staff are not medical professionals and have no lawful or legal authority to require any individual or student to wear a mask to prevent illness

013the illinois department of health does not have the lawful or legal authority to mandate require or force any individual to wear a mask to prevent illness the cdc is an advisory agency to the executive branch of the u.s government it only advises and possesses no rule-making authority federally or within the 50 u.s states the cobit vaccine is experimental it's not fda approved and it's only authorized for use for emergency use so it's not fda approved vaccination cards issued by local health care personnel as the result of being vaccinated are not lawfully mandated and are not legal documents and have no legal authoritative value a citizen's individual medical choice to refuse to wear a facial covering to refuse an experimental and untested medical treatment by vaccine or a parent or guardian's choice to exercise the same

014for a minor child is the protected individual medical and conscious choice and right and is protected by illinois law and should not be violated or infringed on every single thing that's done in the public school system has to have parental consent whether it's giving some kid a tylenol because they have a headache or permission to go on a field trip or watch a certain movie and now we're telling parents they don't have a choice when they have to mask their child and that's just not right give the power back to the parents let them choose what they feel is right for their own child please make math optional for the return to learning in the fall thank you dominic castillo i am here to speak on behalf of we the parents throughout the district to

015oppose masking and vaccine for both students and staff as a requirement for in-person learning as we enter the third school year third school year impacted by covid it is now time for the board to put common sense and reason before fear and panic over the last 18 months the message has been the virtue of wearing the mask not for your own protection but for the health and safety of others so people messed up however beyond the virtue what about efficiency inconsistencies abound in what how where when mass are being applied let's be honest none of this has been consistent making the safety argument questionable at best photos of students as well as teachers in the schools this summer blow that narrative to pieces this this simply just doesn't make sense anymore there's no science with

016the inconsistent masking what goes on my child's body is my choice the vaccine surplus ensures availability for all sd 308 staff comfortable receiving them no more excuses however our students range in age from early childhood to senior in high school weighing the risk of an emergency use vaccine on their developing bodies that aren't nearly as vulnerable to severe complications from covid should be left to the parents what goes in my child's body is my choice public schools should be an unbiased and neutral environment for teachers and students mandates and politicized policies open the door for a toxic learning environment teachers i worry for you too and how you will be treated many of you have been too afraid to voice your concerns i am here to be your voice tonight we stand with all teachers

017who feel they cannot speak up due to the virtue signaling going on as a pro student and parent choice group we the parents of oswego 308 do not co-parent with the state government since the start of this pandemic we have spent countless hours advocating for return to in-person instruction and improved virtual experiences for remote learners board members you were elected to represent all of us not half of us all of us and our students the choice is the next step forward into normalcy we need choices thank you zoey gremlins soy woman [Applause] can you say the name again she's coming hi i'm zoe werman and i'm a senior at ohs and i want to speak on the student perspective i came to this meeting not expecting to speak but decided this topic was too important

018to ignore face masks need to be required at school i can still remember when the pandemic started and i saw teens wearing masks in the hallways in an attempt to stay safe that was then when the case numbers were lower but this is now now we have to worry about the students who have immunocompromised family members and who are immunocompromised themselves we shouldn't put that burden on young children and teens we shouldn't let them worry if they are the ones to bring home the deadly virus we shouldn't leave parents to tell their elementary students about with the delta variant which is sickening young children across the nation even if those who choose to wear masks wear masks people will still be scared masks are the most effective when everybody wears them they are the universal

019protector for all of us vaccinated or not we have new variants to worry about now i think i can speak for every student when i say i want to go back to how things work i want to see my friends i want to see my teachers i want to have a normal senior year however the only safe way we can return to cheering on our football team is by wearing masks we can't guarantee that everybody will be vaccinated but we can protect our community from any new variants to come and hopefully have a potentially normal school year a school year where we don't have to shut down from an outbreak a school year where students can resume sports and clubs and a school year that keeps our community safe i know for a fact i'm

020not the only student with his viewpoint i know i'm not the only student who wants to return to a sense of normalcy but who also doesn't want to worry about covenanting so please i urge you to ask the students rather than the parents what they want and consider will we feel safe we may be minors but we still deserve a say [Applause] hello public servants i am 18 and here to tell you unmask the children [Applause] i was a high school student and i can tell you firsthand that your students do not wear a mask outside school all restaurants and public buildings are no longer requiring masks and no one wears masks with their friends your continued math mandates into perpetuity are useless completely and utterly useless if you want the vaccine by all means

021get the vaccine and if you don't want it that means you don't want it if you are a kid 14 to 18 who wants the vaccines then you can get it and parents of kids under 12 can get it too kids under 12 are not dying of cobain significant enough numbers to justify forcing them to wear a mask plain and simple if parents wants their kids mask fine but that should not force other kids to have to wear them as well we are free in america and we must be free to wear and we must be free to wear whatever the hell we want to on our own damn face it is it is tyrants who force people to comply and we will not let the school board force us or our kids to wear

022this piece of crap enough unmask the children [Applause] [Music] and onto this please watch your language thank you i'm sorry now on to the sex education that is being considered in springfield it is gross and disgusting that anyone in this state believes that elementary school children need to be seeing pornographic materials and if any teacher shows any child pornographic materials the police will be involved thank you brad [Applause] brad thanks to you all i didn't expect to speak and to be honest with you i hate being here even though i've been here twice in the last year i don't have any dislike or hate for any of you i barely i don't don't really know any of you except dr sparlin who i occasionally email in a fit of rage i don't know anybody here

023and i don't know the local politics of all this i i don't i care about one thing and that's my six-year-old daughter i don't want her growing up wearing a mask the rest of her life [Applause] people are entitled to their own opinions they're not entitled to their own facts and the facts are clear hey masks don't work period i was quiet when you misspoke covet does not impact children you want to know a couple things that are more likely to kill a child than kovan riding a bike and yes the flu despite how many times we hear it's not it's actually more deadly than covid for children so it's my understanding that you guys can vote this down tonight that you don't have to pass any type of guidance that the state of illinois

024gives and i appreciate your perspectives but i ask you with all my heart not to force children to wear mass and not to make many of us make very difficult decisions about where to raise our child our children so the question i'd leave you with you know there's a lot of questions of um you know why wouldn't we have children wear masks why would we what is the reason can anybody explain to me what the reason we would force them to wear masks are there's literally no risk and it's terrible for them i've raised the daughter i know it's terrible for her i've seen her have bouts of anxiety last year because she couldn't see her or talk to her friends and now i you know i have to get used to her trying to

025communicate with other six-year-olds who don't even have developed language skills trying to communicate non-verbally and you know just express a smile to one another so i just ask kindly to all of you that you please vote against this guidance tonight anger hi my name is inga danos and i'm here to speak in support of parents students choice rather than discrete mandates regard regarding mask since the beginning of the pandemic there has been liability concerns what if a staff or student fell ill with covet what if lunchtime became a super spreader event what if god forbid someone died is the district responsible what is the district what if the district gets sued what ifs after a year and a half the data indicates scovid does not spread to schools especially for k through a kids while

026the the advertised effects of quarantine measures including mass on kids mental health is well documented in fact many neighboring districts have followed the science and lifted the mask requirements i'm also here to remind you the oath you all took when became a school board members it says i do solemnly affirm that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of a member of the board of education of oswego unit school district 308 in accordance with constitution of united states the constitution of the state of illinois and the loss of the state of illinois to the best of my ability it says nothing of a government executive orders it says nothing of following cdc guidelines or isbe guidelines per illinois school code 5 ilcs 5-5-2 3.2 isbe can't withhold funding to public schools contingent upon

027masking there are no laws in place to stop the school board from making mass optional public health prices are nothing new the measles mumps chickenpox smallpox lice hong kong flu h1h1 etc schools did not close what is the novel this time is the unrealistic zero transmission model for a virus with a 98.9 survival rate life is returning to normal as you consider your vote look around at all the things that are going on there's public pool pools are open games are being played tonight i'm asking you relinquish control back to the families of school district 308 and allow us to make the private personal health choices that are right for our individual families vote against the mass mandates thank you for your time kevin [Applause] kevin de bolt not sure i said that last name

028right anybody here named kevin last name starts with a d hi i'm raj pillai thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in front of you i'm actually not in in this district my children are not in this district i'm actually uh from the neighboring district of uh plainfield 202. the reason i'm here is i want to speak to you and uh implore you similarly to how some of the others have however here's here's what i want to start off saying is that you guys as a school board are legally liable i mean the science is one thing but you're going to be liable because there was a bill that just went through the house and it didn't pass it was called hb or house bill 2789 it was basically trying to take authority

029away from the school boards and give it to the isbe in order to mandate masks and it was under the threat of schools losing funding and this was all under an emergency the bill did not pass which means that this bill went through the house because school boards already have the authority to mandate or not mandate masks otherwise the bill would not have gone through and the bill didn't pass so the fact of the matter is you guys do have the authority to make mass optional and based on the inconsistency that's out there of what the illinois department of health or the idph has done basically what's happening right now is we're in phase five nobody is wearing masks it's essentially optional in every single public or private establishment yet we're not going to do

030it in schools it is inconsistent it is opening you up to lawsuits and i've got thousands of parents behind me we have many different groups now we're combining those groups and you are going to be under the threat of lawsuits and i want you to protect yourself stand with the community and if you do not there's going to be higher risk to you as school board members because you have to open your mouth and say that you stand with the community and like someone said not half of the community all of the community and based on those inconsistencies that i mentioned i believe that it's best to give people an option otherwise again not only the science you get under legal liability so this i hope is a friendly warning because it's going to be

031much harder if you don't do the right thing thank you [Applause] joanne johnson evening and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak i've had five children that have been put through the school district my son graduated this year and his graduation picture has a mask on him and i cannot even see his face my youngest daughter is starting high school this year and this decision will actually determine whether we continue with this district or not [Applause] i [Music] i cannot say enough to the educators the teachers and the love and the support that they show our children each and every day but there is a line between a parent's role and a school's role our role as parents is to determine what is best for our children's health it is our role to

032determine their morals and how they treat and respect others within the community regardless of their color their religion anything about them as martin luther king said you judge people based on the contents of your of their character and if you don't like their con the contents of their character you just keep walking because it's really none of your business [Applause] the cdc has failed us over and over again and as i said at a school board meeting before that everything has become politicized and our children should not be caught in the middle of what is going on politically between this side versus this side um i am also one that if my kid comes home or i get a call from a teacher regardless the teacher is the one that is going to get my

033backing sometimes life isn't fair and i teach my children that life isn't fair you have to adjust however there is no adjustment and there is no crossing the boundaries of the united states constitution which is absolutely being trampled on with our rights i'm old enough to remember when my brother had the chicken pox and i was the one that had to put the calo drill on him because my mom was hoping that i would get the chicken pox young enough to where it would not impact me the reality of it is that our children are 50 percent more at risk of dying to get the vaccine than they are to actually go through covid and i respect the young lady that came up here but i will tell you what we are teaching our children

034with this whole thing is that they are to be fearful and that is not not how i want my children to grow up rick garachy rick karachi good evening my name is rick geraci and i'm a grandparent of two children who go to school in this district and my wife and i are very involved in their upbringing we take great pride in helping them and assisting them i have to tell you that i'm just going to say i endorse the things that i've heard this evening from people coming up here i'm 76 years old and i grew up in america in a free america and before my very eyes i'm watching that freedom disappear it's being dissipated by all the rules and regulations that are coming from people you as board members are elected by

035us to represent us i think from what i see and hear from this crowd the vast majority of those people want representation for an option for mask and not a mandate so my only request is that you represent these people you listen to them and you vote according to the way they want you to vote and abolish this masked mandate thank you amanda ralston amanda wilson superintendent dr dr sparlin board president dr moreno and district 308 school board members my name is amanda ralston and i am an oswego resident and the parent of two students in school district 308 i urge you to all vote to end mask mandates at sd 308 schools for the upcoming 2021-22 school year regardless of vaccination status rather allow students staff and their families to determine for themselves whether

036to continue using face masks kids have been everywhere this summer without wearing masks they've spent time with friends and extended family on vacation and around oswego they've been congregating at church eating out at restaurants and shopping in stores all without face masks why require them to put the mask back on just because they're within the walls of an sd-308 school building further should the board decide to require masks only for unvaccinated students and staff it would be an even bigger mistake than mandating them for everyone i'm concerned that bullying and discrimination could ensue against unvaccinated individuals should the board decide to require masks only for the unvaccinated parents who decide that their family will not get the covert vaccine likely arrived at their decision after hours of research and consideration it was not a haphazard

037or lazy choice and medical freedom is an individual right that should never be infringed upon bullied or discriminated against [Applause] members members of our elected school board you have the power to make this decision on behalf of the people that voted you into your position do not base your vote on how much money our state will give or threaten to take away from our district allow families and individuals to decide what is best for themselves i haven't even touched on the myriad science-based reasons why keeping our kids in masks is a terrible idea we've heard a bunch already tonight but just vote for masks to be optional for all sd-308 students and staff regardless of vaccination status right at the start of the 21-22 school year and beyond let's get back to the business of

038learning and growing and being in community with one another again the way a school year is meant to be thank you i only have a first name anon e-n-a-n we're at 45 minutes this will be our last comment for the evening good evening i'm the brother to two sisters that are at the austria east high school and i personally believe if you're unvaccinated you should be required to wear a mask this needs to happen because of the delta variant that's come across our country right now i'm indian i've got tons of family back home right now that because of the super spreaders and because of the delta variants everyone celebrated way too early and guess what everyone is suffering for it and everyone is paying the cost now we can't have the same thing happen

039here because it was so difficult to shut down the first time and because we never really shut down because we kept on saying it's gonna be six more weeks it's gonna be six more weeks until we're done guys it's been two years i've lost internships i've lost work because of this i'm just as tired as you are if everyone just stopped for six weeks stayed inside and got this done with we'd be done but it's been two years we could have been done hey excuse me ladies and gentlemen [Music] the people who are speaking also gave you the same respect but instead we're here at the opportunity to stop the delta variant and to even either get vaccinated and get our rates up to 70 percent so we can achieve herd immunity and get done

040with this thing or wear a mask and protect your friends and protect the people that are scared because trump rushed the vaccine he was the one that helped it and everyone cheered when he did that was the big news that he cut down on regulations and red tape but now when the vaccines are here and when there's finally an end everyone refuses to just get done with it or accept the consequences of not doing it others were saying that they teach their kids life is tough and has consequences these are the consequences of not obeying public health guidelines and how many years have your kids been getting vaccines since when did everyone turn into anti-vaxxers and since when did this become such a weird discussion to have that's all thank you so much for your

041time thank you [Applause] [Music] is there a security hey please be respectful of one another thank you for those who have been ladies and gentlemen if i could have your attention please we have a we have a long agenda and there is an agenda item that we will be making a decision on so let's please be respectful so that we can get through our agenda to get the agenda item that i think most of you are here for okay thank you okay thank you we're going to move on now to 5.1 board member comments am i the only one making a comment this evening no no you can kick us off though all right i will do that um good evening dr sparlin dr moreno ms dolquist miss lemon ms studer and the oswego 308

042community this weekend as you can imagine we have been deluged with emails regarding the mandated masks of mandated mass wearing in schools i will save my comments for crt for our next meeting i would like to thank the parents guardians teachers and administrators many of them are sitting here this evening that sent respectful thorough and expressive emails most helpful for me were the emails that explained how their students were affected by wearing masks or the students and families that are concerned about what strategies we have in place should covert rear its ugly head again these emails are helpful and reflective of what your neighbors and parents fellow parents feel and it helps us understand beyond our own personal lenses what is not helpful and what i will not allow are the adversarial threatening demanding rude

043disrespectful emails that have been permeating my inbox my facebook messenger and as one message stated do what's right if you know what is good for you that is unacceptable our children are watching our children are listening and that's what we're teaching them there are boundaries that must be respected if you choose to call us names threaten us we have the right not to listen many parents have stated to us this week that we work for them the taxpayers this is a misconception and so i'd like to take a moment to explain illinois school of governance and the role of the school board taken directly from the illinois association of school boards and i quote public education is the responsibility of the state the state shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public education

044and services to carry out this constitutional mandate the illinois general assembly enacted a body of laws known as the illinois school code that statute prescribes how public education works and what shall and what shall take place in the public schools the courts have held that the general assembly has absolute power over education subject to limits established by federal and state constitutions it is impractical for the general assembly to formulate policy for each local school district thus the local school board is an agency of the state's sovereign power with respect to public education furthermore the local school board is subject to regulation both by laws enacted by the legislature and by the promulgated rules of the illinois state board of education otherwise known as isbe the local school board is the vehicle through which the will

045and aspirations of the people are translated into educational programs and educational services upon the local board rest responsibility for the local school system this is basic to the principle of the american public school education many parents sent us a copy of the oath that we took a copy of the duties and powers of the board of education i will save you the time and effort we all know the oath that we took we the code of conduct that we promised we are mandated for training we understand our role very well i see both sides of this topic i know it's incredibly important for everyone to have their student be in an environment where they can truly learn and we all know that it hasn't been ideal for their last couple of years but what we

046really need are to understand how your children are experiencing learning their learning outcomes how effective our board policies are working for the benefit of the students and the staff if you see something wrong we want you to tell us we don't want you to not bring it to our attention we will not shy away from this discussion but we must have respect and civility for the betterment of our students and our staff our kids are watching they are listening let's be respectful thank you [Applause] sure i can go next um thank you jen i will echo many of your comments i appreciate how many people have come tonight to express their thoughts and perspectives and opinions i i like seeing an audience full of people at board meetings it's important for you to understand what's

047going on in the community as a whole and but especially in your kids education and you don't we don't see a crowd very often that's for sure um and i have also appreciated all of the very respectful and helpful emails that we have received and many of the comments tonight have been very well thought out and respectful and i definitely appreciate that but i'll also echo what jen said and i don't appreciate threats that's totally unnecessary um i'm not going to threaten you or your children we are up here to do our best with the information that we have received and we were yes elected by you to make decisions for your families but based on the information we received from the district and not because of public opinion we want to know public opinion

048we want to know what you think and what you feel and what your perspective is because we all have different family units and come from different places but like jen said that's to do what you want us to do that's not our job many of times those things align but it's just not so thank you that's all i have for right now thank you hey i'll jump in as a teacher of course i will thank you kids bully because parents bully [Music] listen i have i have witnessed no hold on a minute okay and then we all have different opinions i got it we have we have many different opinions on what is okay listen there's a whole group of people up here that are sitting up here without masks that's what i see and

049what i see is a community who's passionate about it and i wish that you come back and are as passionate about school funding all right listen i just hold on i just got a friendly warning from someone to vote a certain way who doesn't even live in this community so [Music] okay we gave ev all of you a time for your public comment i'm just going to ask that you be respectful and hear the board comment you're right i am addressing you and i should save it for public forum you are 100 percent correct so i will vote my vote this evening knowing that i represent the entire community not just one part of it thank you thank you so school starts in about a month and i just want to encourage our community as

050a whole not just the folks here but i'm assuming we've got a few online more than we used to have when we would total about 13 viewers that there's going to be a lot of sign up sheets that come our way as parents and i'm speaking for myself too sometimes i feel like i'm good i don't need to sign up to help with this or that but we make the community that our children grow up and just as much as our educators do and we've had a singular focus for the last 18 months on a global event that we've never seen before and it has been all-consuming for pretty much everybody i think and i'm pretty excited to see that we now have options and we now have knowledge and we now have a lot

051more ways to go about things which is what we normally would do in schools what i would encourage everyone in our community to remember is we have all of these options and we start to return to whatever our now normal looks like be it masked unmasked vaccinated unvaccinated sick well or anything else in between that we remember that we create the community for our students we can sign our name to sign up sheets and give two hours of our time and make the schools a better place and share our children's lives with them and do something that will also help them succeed in their educational future because parents who volunteer are more likely to have children who succeed so i would just encourage our community as we get back into another school year i'm seeing

052sign up sheets everywhere i would encourage everyone to take a moment and sign up for something to help out their kids schools that's it [Applause] hi everyone i want to thank everyone for coming tonight and for advocating on behalf of your children i want to acknowledge the many emails i received and read if you if you wrote to me up until four o'clock when i was getting ready i responded to every single email and i will continue to do so i do want to give a special thank you to all of those who express their opinion no matter what it was in a kind and courteous way and as miss johnson said those that really detailed how masks have impacted their children were especially helpful and i really appreciated that because we do want to

053hear from our community we do want to know what your opinions are and how our decisions impact your children we may not always agree but we can always treat each other with dignity and respect and i want everyone to know that countless hours discussions research and listening to all of you have gone into preparing for tonight's meeting and at the end of this meeting whether you feel like you've won something or you lost something just please know that the board will always do their best to listen and to make what they believe is the best choice for all of our children and that's why we're all here every single person in this room right now cares about our kids and that's what we're here and that's what i really really want to see us unite

054over i hope that as time goes on we can really heal as a community and really come together and and support all of our children and especially their education i'd really like to get past this and focus on education again i really do appreciate all of you coming out i also want to recognize this month as disability pride month and just let all of our students our parents our everyone in our community with disabilities know that the board cares about them and recognizes the value that all of you bring to the community and in doing my research on this month i found this quote from america's disability community that really i thought summed it up best and it says the month is a chance to honor each person's uniqueness as a natural and beautiful part

055of human diversity so thank you [Applause] thank you dr moreno adam 5.2 is the superintendent's report so good evening board today is july 12th and in five weeks we will be welcoming our staff back on august 16th and 17th as we prepare to welcome back our students to the 21-22 school year on august 18th the district and building level administrators have been working extremely hard to on our back to school plans and we are looking forward to full days five days a week for the upcoming school year we have a lot of information to cover this evening and i will have much more to say and the topics later this evening so i will reserve the rest of my comments for them thank you 6.0 approved consent agenda um 6.1 minutes from previous meeting sorry

056and 6.2 my apologies i make a motion to approve all items under consent including 6.1 minutes from the june 7 2021 board of education meeting open and closed session the june 26 2021 board of education workshop open and closed session and 6.2 to acknowledge the foia request received by the district second mrs simonton hi dr moreno hi mr gatewood hi mrs swanson aye mrs croner hi mrs doyle aye mrs johnson aye motion passes 7-0 item 7.1 is for information item item 7.1 is financial statements does the board have any questions regarding the financial statements that are presented this evening item 7.2 as information regarding bids that went out on the projects listed for the cooling tower projects for the wheatlands thompson bed narcic and oehs and rooftop duct work for ohst dr pepsi yeah thanks

057dr sparlin i brought two guests with me today so i've got uh rob ellison director of buildings and grounds and i've also got um charlie johnson's uh who is our architect from kluber so if there's some questions we'll be able to answer those for you and they're down at the podium in the dark there so thank you um basically this item the cooling tower project for the wheatlands for thompson banarsik and oe oehs the way that we bid this package was there's a combination of things in there number one is it's the actual cooling towers for the schools but it's also in looking at the cooling towers we noticed that there were some some support issues as well when we bid the project out it was kind of a package of kind of a facility

058assessments that we've done over the previous years and we've had a variety of capital projects identified as such these are kind of the last few trailing projects and two things have happened since the time that those projects were identified number one is that we've kind of reevaluated and taken a look at reprioritizing some of our capital projects and needs and number two we also have the impact of the pricing structure that have come back with the bids due to covid and the lack of being able to get materials and things like that so the bids that we got were were higher than what we expected to receive and so based on that we're just going to share with the board that we we are going to look at reevaluating the bids and we're going to

059look at resubmitting those at another time when the bidding market will be a little bit more favorable to those projects so at this time one thing we wanted to assure the board too is that there's nothing in critical failure nothing is going to fail as a result of this we will still be able to get through our winter season with the chillers that we have with our with our fall season with the chillers that we have and we don't have any concerns with the equipment going into critical failure at this point so to give us that opportunity to rebid that equipment would be a good thing for the district um so with that we were wondering if there were any questions that the board had that were specific to this project that takes away most

060of my earlier questions yeah thanks ali i was just wondering what is the why such the gross over by like 30 why what was the issue with that yeah good question we had a conversation about that when we broke up the bids what it is is there is um the duck top on top of ohs they're looking at insulating that making it more energy efficient and the uh the insulation materials and the labor for doing that work the amount that we need to insulate the ohs ductwork um came in much higher than expected okay so um and uh it came in it came in twice as much as what we expected my understanding is there's generally a sheet metal issue going on kind of all over the place making all of this stuff more expensive

061much like the wood one i like waiting if we can and and the reason too we're going to ask the board to do this is we did we did bid the package out but we bid it as kind of one bid and so we don't have the option of saying well we like these numbers we'll take this work and we don't like these numbers we won't take this we need to reject them all and when we re-bid we will rebid with the potential to select what we want to reject and what we want to proceed with great and one more question will that come out of the esser funds you know what no that word that's actually those are dollars that um those are dollars that can come out of capital improvement but i i

062know what you're what you're getting at and the one thing is working with the the esser grant it's projects that and you're talking sr3 those are projects that directly have an impact on the on the air quality of the learning environment so we'll work when that when the s or three dollars become available we'll make sure that we earmark projects that could fit in that category okay the one other ask that i would have is when the bids are resubmitted to us for consideration can we know what you considered for each bid in order to make the decision beyond cost yeah i think and that's what um rob and charlie and i were talking about is we'd like to give the we'd like to give the board an update on this is the work these

063are this is a facility plan that we're looking at going out on bid for so rather than waiting for the bids and saying these are the bids for the work that we put out you'll know what work we're putting out to be bid on so i think there's just been with with this past year there's been an enormous amount of change and things that we've had to keep up with that some of these more routine items kind of fell off the radar got it and one one addition to that and when you when we after the bid is done and you come back with your recommendation we just want to know beyond cost how did you pick the the vendors or contractors that you saw absolutely good and so john also will we be able

064i think with the fact that you've um now have a better idea of what the estimates are based upon the cost and the things that have require those costs to go up we'll be better able to determine you know what the amount should be versus being so far off from before yeah yeah true and that's what i was going to say is a lot of these projects were they were kind of specked out at an earlier time and so when we did go to bid this was a little surprising but we also had the specs so we thought it was responsible to put that bid out there to see what we would get in return so this was a good exercise for the district to engage in absolutely maybe if we wait those prices will

065come down on some of the yeah or at least be separated out so we can we can pick and choose yeah thank you thank you dr bexsey all right item 7.3 is an informational report in regards to our avid program tonight we welcome drew munsinger and ali anderson to the board so drew and ali the four is yours for the presentation on avid alrighty well thank you very much for having us tonight we kind of look at this more of a as an update for those of you who have been around a while um and have heard the term avid before and for those of you who are new and maybe your what is this uh system of support that we have here in district 308 um and that's really what avid is is a

066system of support for all students the average mission avid actually stands for advancement via individual determination and its mission statement is to close the opportunity gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global environment and i would say not only just colleagues college success but also college career and like ali likes to say life success as well so all students going through our district how can we best prepare them for the next steps in life drew could you uh speak into the microphone a little bit more so those at home here thank you thank you so really our timeline here is we started bringing in avid strategies around 2014 through the high schools and we started to grow with ninth grade and then started to add avid strategies into school not

067only in the elective but also among all grade levels in the high schools and those avid strategies which we'll cover here in a little bit and then also the next year we started with junior high bringing in an elective and then also working with all the schools to start to bring average strategies into all the different curricular areas it's been integrated into all district 308 buildings and ally's going to talk a little bit more about elementary and how that works a lot of it is professional development that we give to teachers that we train in-house and you know which are best practices and how teachers can then take these practices and fit them and customize them into their own curriculum so it's not saying do it this way it's what would you like to teach

068how would you like to teach it and what are some of the best ways that we can help you get there and here's some things that you can try and hear some things that we know are successful we've also had a couple showcases at south berry and ohs and fox chase these are showcases where schools from around the area including several states iowa and wisconsin send people to come and see our schools and all the different effective strategies that we have and that we implement into the schools and they kind of come around and they look at some of the avid elective classes they go into other classrooms to see what does a socratic seminar look like in english class what does a philosophical chair discussion look like in a choir class on things like

069that so we've been very successful in promoting all the great things that our teachers and staff are doing around our district all right so um why avid for 308 two things that we really think about is that we want to advocate and empower for all of our students so what do they need educationally and how do we allow it so that they understand those things they advocate for themselves what works best for their learning and really start to create those student facilitated classrooms instead of just directly teacher led at all times and really the largest part in working with elementary and moving into six through twelve we look at school-wide so it's not a separate curriculum it's instructional practices and we'll go into some of the examples that teachers are weaving in throughout their instruction

070so it's not an avid time it really is i have this math lesson and this is what i want to get to i'm going to infuse these instructional practices that i find to be successful into the lesson that i was already teaching and so when we look at it again we talked about the integrated instructional strategies really building relational capacity but not only just the teachers really um getting to know their kids but building that community in the classroom so that the t the students feel confident when they're having a socratic seminar or they're having a conversation about something that they learned that they can make those connections to themselves those connections to their peers and they feel comfortable talking and sharing within their classroom college career and life readiness we want to make sure

071that we continue to strengthen having college career and life ready students not just eligible students avid elementary i always think about this academic skills become academic habits and there's so many things that we know students need in life right so we know that they're gonna need to collaborate with peers in whatever job college career life situation that they're in but do we directly show them how that's done and do we regularly practice that in a safe environment with what we're learning thank you my clicking assistant i appreciate it i can't multitask up here um and so again kind of continuing we really thought to look at critical thinking and inquiry not just asking questions but what types of questions are we asking the kids we talk about with our elementary kids you know are we

072just finding the question in the book or are we really thinking and using what we know plus the book or are we thinking about our own personal experiences connections with maybe a character here's something that we're learning we want them to have the confidence to learn the confidence to talk with one another the confidence to share their ideas and it's okay that i'm sharing and maybe listening collaborating and then sharing a friend's idea also kids are really great at talking about what they think what we practice a lot of like tell me what your friend said and building on those skills um growth my mindset and that resiliency to um really you know even if something is harder or something didn't go right the first time how can we critically think again to try it

073in a different way so teachers are supporting students k-12 with the avid school-wide on insisting on rigor all curriculums or all things that we're doing in every class every content area how can we think even deeper how can we continue to challenge all students and then breaking down their barriers if kids know like you know i learn best in this way so that might be a barrier that i need to know how do i advocate for that or how do i share that with my teacher and my peers and know that about me so that i continue to learn in the best way for myself aligning our work so using common language whichever content area that we're working in or if we're having kiddos and we're practicing you know giving eye contact when we speak

074to someone in kindergarten we're aligning that work all the way when they go up whether it's a socratic seminar in second grade or it's a socratic seminar in 12th grade and really aligning those ideals for the kids advocating for what the kids need and really advocating for that engagement of their learning so it's not just teacher driven but it's advocating for them being engaged in their daily lessons and then just learning their stories and that goes back to what i said kids knowing kids building those relationships between teachers and kids and kids all right and then when we hear about avid it's like what does that mean in the classroom right and so these are the um acronym wicker are the five things that we look at and when we talk about writing it's not

075just the writing process it's also starting to think about what does it mean to write like an artist versus writing like a historian versus writing when i'm writing a narrative story but it's also writing to reflect so thinking about what we've learned and what did we learn from that what did i do what was interesting about that what questions do i have or how might i apply that to my future like how am i going to use this kids always have that question and it's such an awesome question and allowing them that space to think about that inquiry so that critical deep through thinking not just that surface level thinking and asking a question that's right there in the book but really getting kids to question and you know i've talked about like when the

076kids are when our kids are little they always ask and think in questions we all have our little ones that are constantly asking questions in the back seat and we want to continue to grow that work we're having kids question and think in life as opposed to sometimes that they turn into those periods at the end of a sentence like they we lose a little bit of that and so we want to continue to develop that collaboration is huge college career life we all know that we collaborate in everything that we do so really working on what does collaboration mean with both verbal non-verbal taking turns and really truly listening let's stop and pause before we respond to show the person that we really truly heard them before we gave our response and then again

077reading reading to learn not necessarily just strictly reading in a curriculum but what does that mean and how are we really digging deeper and i think ellie did a really nice job of talking about how wicker really permeates everything that we do k-12 so it's not just at a specific grade level or specific content area these are skills that we start in kindergarten or pre-k and we work with teachers to embed these kinds of skills through everything that they teach to make their lessons even better we have great teachers and they're doing amazing job teaching these students it's the level of support that we hope to bring to them to make them even more incredible teachers and so with k-12 or pre-k-12 with wicker and all these strategies then we also start at the secondary

078level we start to actually have what we call the avid elective and that's where we bring in a specific subset of students that we go and find to be a part of this collaborative group of family um for lack of a better word uh that starts the secondary we begin right now in eighth grade where we go out and we ask our teachers who are these students we kind of have a a set guideline it's it's not hard it's kind of kind of loose who are the kids that we know are good learners who are maybe having grades right in the middle maybe they're not the top of the class or maybe not in the bottom maybe they ask good questions or maybe we know they're just really smart but they just kind of sit

079in the back and don't really raise their hand because they don't have that confidence yet and so we seek to find those students and we have teacher recommendations and then we bring them in and we give them an application with a bunch of different questions like tell us about yourself what are some things that you struggle in what are some of your strengths the kids who bring the applications back we go through an interview process and we really get to know the kids know their stories and listen because every student's story is different and we really start to find those kids once again avid you know the via individual determination who are those students that really have that grit and that drive to want to be better and then we select them for the elective

080and so really what we're trying to do is not is is really bring them into these wicker skills and really bring home the fit the fact of how do you take and use notes how do you collaborate get lots and lots of hyper practice of collaboration and asking questions and saying maybe i don't know this but could you help me work through this program and so that's really where the avid electives comes from and hopefully they stick with us from eighth grade all the way in through graduation we try to go for 100 post secondary success to and through right so our average class size for our elective right now is around 26. many of them are going to be first generation um college going students not all um just because not everybody's story is

081the same and so what looks good on paper or what looks maybe uh different on paper is not necessarily the story of the students um but historically they are underrepresented underrepresented and underserved and those are really the students that we're looking for that maybe just need that extra system of support and that's really what the elective is for and just to add on to that so that's those two things i talked about the school-wide that's k-12 right so that's all students getting these instructional practices then the elective is for students that can also use these additional um support systems of support every day as an elective so that all students are getting these things and then the elective is more of an intensive curriculum of certain things preparing them for a college career in life

082and so when we talk about going out and finding kids especially that are historically underrepresented and underserved you know our next um graphic here just kind of illustrates that we've if we look at our sd3 three-way demographics versus our avid secondary demographics you can see that we change a little bit and um so we are trying to find students who are maybe on the margins or we are trying to find students who historically may have not been given the opportunities um to be challenged in a way that we know that they can so histori and we are also right now you know we're fairly heavy female to male ratio and we run about 42 percent uh economically disadvantaged where the the district right now is about 25 so a lot of our students come from

083already behind in in some things and so those are the types of students that we know once they have those tools to go out and find a job or go to college or go into the trades or go into the military right after school that's life-changing for them and hopefully that's then generationally changing for their families going forward one of the great things that we look at is every year what do our avid seniors do and this year even during the pandemic even during not all instruction all online half online we still had our avid seniors awarded and offered over six million dollars worth of with the scholarships we have i believe upwards of eight to ten kids going to school for free because of their academic merit and the things that they've done um

084and i and i think that in this situation it's just going to get better and better and better because of the types of skills of system of support that we do with these avatalectic kids i can't say enough about them they are they're tremendous they've heard everything that um they strive for some of their stories will break your heart but man are they great kids and they really represent the best of what 308 has to offer so we'll keep it short with that that's just i asked the teachers to give us a snapshot of the kids every year kind of as a family album so uh that's evident in a nutshell right now true ellie thank you so much for the presentation well done i'm sure there are a few questions that the board may

085have so board uh go ahead and ask your questions mrs doyle sorry i've just been around a while since avid started so i have a few questions because i've seen the evolution of this in 308 from just being at one school to being at all of the schools and being implemented district wide and i've seen over the years some of these things change a little bit and so i have some questions first though i have to say especially mr munsinger i know that your students do feel like they're part of a family we have the privilege of having several speak here a few years ago and these are really truly amazing kids and you create something very special for them at oh so thank you very much for everything you do i know you go

086way above and beyond for them my question here is that we've seen this change initially this had been primarily for underrepresented students who were it used to not say mostly it used to be for first generation and that's kind of evolved so i'm kind of curious how that's happened to um tell us why is it called avid it's it's advancement via individual determination but this is a company and this is the service that they provide why do we use that service and maybe that's a faith question um and third why do we start with a teacher nomination um to me that's always seemed to be something i'd like to know more about because if this is via individual determination why do the teachers limit which students have the opportunity to apply for that individual determination

087so those are my three questions awesome so let's let's start with your last question first um i think we start with the teacher nomination because they are the ones who see these kids all the time and so for us just to look at test scores or just to look at economically disadvantaged kids and just pull those kids and put them in a list i think does some students a disservice because we are trying to find those kids who maybe sit in the back and maybe don't fit the typical profile but the teacher recognizes hey there's there's some greatness in this student and so i'm going to nominate that student where they may have not been thought of as a potential person for the avid elective so that's what that's one aspect of that we don't

088just sit and look at teacher nomination but we do bring in all sorts of things once we get names we generally start with about 150 names at each junior high when we start to select a group that boils down to about 26. now why does it boil down to about 26 i think was part of your second question is we are looking for that individual determination you may have two students who look the same on paper and maybe have similar backgrounds but one is determined to change their story and those are the students that we want to offer all the supports for not that we don't want to offer the supports to the other students but that's where the school-wide aspect of it really comes in so those both students are getting systems and levels

089of support but we want those kids that when they find barriers in front of them they overcome them they don't just hit the barrier and walk away and say i'm done like that's that's that second part and then to your third part um which i believe is why was it originally mainly first company why this company oh why this company i can take that if you want to so um when we all attended the first avid training when we went it was one of those where you know sometimes you're not always not every training is equal right so when you go everyone was like wow that was amazing and through avid what they've really done is they've taken actual tangible things for teachers to do so we know that um i can have socratic seminars

090but what they've done so well is provided examples step by step for from primary all the way to 12th grade try this try that there's lesson plans there's differentiated based on each kid's needs there's different tools to use and such a variety and not only just you know elementary's got all these things junior high's got all these things each content area has got all these things so it's really the wealth of what was provided in the training and um they're awesome about allowing us to then take that and do what's best for our district and allowing us to then in-house train so like drew and i do the majority of the teacher training and what's so impactful about that is in my job i am able to go in and model and work with the

091kids and work with the teachers and pull in actual artifacts for the teachers and then we have these discussions of like this what's what this is what works with our curriculum and in our district and so they also allow us to do that now where we can build that capacity within our district what works for us i guess i have one last question then i'll let everyone else ask because i know that i think i know the answer to this already what's with the big binder yeah right i'm actually glad you answered that because avid is not about the binder but the binder is a physical thing um that we see and avid is so many more when you hear these kids academic language of like i hear what you're saying but i have a

092different point of view and building on however the whole um idea of avid again goes back to those academic skills that we're teaching to create academic habits so we know organization is important and we know that being organized no matter what you do in life is going to help you to be successful but we also need to understand that we want to directly show kids some ways to be organized now avid is not an avid binder it's actually referred to as an organizational tool so nowhere in the avid bylaws or whatever there are does it say it has to be a binder and in fact many teachers have said hey this works to do um perhaps a folder for them when we have a take-home folder or what does our backpack look like i also

093will honestly tell you i think that's an area for growth for discussion there's not one way to organize and just like you would differentiate in any other way i think that's something that we need to look i know there are kids doing it some kids have crepes because that works better for them so that was one thing that was an idea that a lot of teachers really liked when you're a third or fourth grade teacher and you know that the kids have everything in their binder and when you ask for a pencil you no longer are missing kids for five minutes as they're diving into their desk to pull out a pencil it's like wow and so it's more of a hey we know that everything's all set let's work together what do we need

094to refill you don't have glue in there let's put more glue in there so that you're set up for success however area of growth and teachers are differentiating what's best for kids it's teaching them how to be organized that doesn't mean you have to be organized with the binder and i think we'll probably grow on that now that we are moving to one to one and we're going to really start to leverage those those digital skills and really kind of see how do we move away from the tangible into the digital world as well do we know if it's going to be 100 success no but we're this is this is the next evolutionary step that we see for this district in terms of that and i've been talking with fifth grade teachers too like

095let's show them everything so that they can pick what's best for them because that's what the whole point of it is right as we thank them to organize their learning oh sorry yeah no thank you very much i i appreciate the the passion and the explanation um you've answered my questions hi ellie and drew um thanks for the presentation and you know there's a saying that i can show you better than i can tell you and i love the fact that these presentations are great but i've also seen the students in action i've seen socratic seminars in the elem at the elementary level and those awesome stories drew that you talked about um at the ju at the high school level and at the junior high level and so where can we see this in

096action that's actually an outstanding area of growth for drew and i think to make that more um represent or more shown for families a lot of times what teachers will do is and and this is an area that we've also trying to increase it's like the kids are doing these awesome things but they don't even realize maybe that's like an avid thing or they don't even know how to say that so teachers are starting to put more into their newsletters like hey we did a philosophical chairs that's an avid strategy and it allows us to agree and disagree in an organized manner or this collaborative structure four corners allows kids to get up and get movement in while they're learning so i honestly that's a fantastic way other than what the teacher has told you

097that is definitely an area of growth that i think would be too great to build on and at the secondary level as once again we welcome anybody to come in and see all the different differentiation skills and and systems of support not only in the regular classroom but also in the avid electives so if you want to come and see and sit in on a 48 minute avid lesson or have an elective class period we would love that so then you really start to get the feel of what it is once again i we can explain it all to you but once once you actually are in that room um and and i know that uh miss dalques and dr strong have been in there and they could be like ah yes now i'm starting

098to see what you guys are talking about so we would love that anytime so can i ask you a question that goes with that so how can we take it from those one or two classrooms and get it out into the whole district like what do you need from this board to get that expanded so i i would say what we need is just the continued support from district to allow us to uh work with teachers and district directors and uh the the different uh curriculum specialists and the principals and the department chairs to give us the time to sit and look at curriculum and how can we infuse these avid skills and systems and supports so it's time is really what what we need that'll be the best way for us it i would

099also add the climate for learning framework where we're talking about what is good instruction um uh drew and ali and i that seems like so long ago that we actually sat in my office and did that but came up with expectations for engagement not only for our staff to provide for our students but our principals and assistant principals to provide to teachers during their trainings and our commitments as district administrators on how to train principals on best practices and instruction and engagement and then we've built classroom walk-through schedules to visit every school this year with a whole team on having people and administrators visit schools other than their own to do more of that monitoring and the implementation and seeing that's what we're talking about when we're talking about a really good instructional practice um

100and spreading the successes that a lot of our schools and staff are having to be more district-wide because so as a teacher i hear what you're saying and i also know that teachers sometimes are not the best sharers in the world so i think that when we talk about doing these walks and when they talk about bringing these people in and having the time i think it would be like let's take a unit and let's send it out to the entire district and then let's bring everybody back because i don't want to make more work for teachers i don't want it to feel like more work but i want it to be more i guess defined work so this is very awkward because you're directly behind me so i'm gonna try and not get whiplash

101but i do have several questions because while i've heard great things about the avid programs particularly at the high school level my personal experience and the experiences that have been shared with me it seems more like um a corporate america type situation where at the corporate office they're up here and they've got all these great ideas and it sounds so amazing and on paper it's like yes let's do this and and then you get to to the local location and they're like we don't really know what what's happening here how how is this um being implemented in a positive way and i was happy to hear i'm sorry it's so weird here we go that you are taking lessons learned and that you have teachers who are starting to recognize oh maybe this form of

102organization is not great because my experience had been we had the giant binder and it gave my kid back problems and and that was in fifth grade he still has back problems and now he's in high school and i sort of blame the avid binder and i maybe might have told the teacher that if i see this binder come home again i'm going to burn it um i have two kids that had binders also yeah that does not did not work for my kids learning styles but they were told that they have to get like that's the message you have to get this binder and these tabs and you have to organize it in this way and it has to be this size and and when i said oh we're we're going to differentiate the

103use of the avid binder and get separate ones for each class because that's the way my kid learned i was asked please don't do that and i said oh no work not asking permission i'm just letting you know that's how we're gonna do it so i i hope that we will move towards teaching more than one method of organization all three of my kids use do something different right that works for them and i and i think it's really important that everything we do in education is about differentiating to meet those learning styles except this and also the note taking like i appreciate that we're teaching them how to take notes and i like you know that there's like a form that they use to take the notes but what if they don't take notes

104most effectively that way so i hope that we also can expand that a little bit yeah and for sure because avid again is about whether you're taking notes it's not about necessarily which way you set up the notes you might be mind mapping and drawing and you're going back and adding so i think that's just one again us growing and saying like okay you might have learned this one thing at a training but there's also different ways to in adapting in that way also and i just want to say um while i appreciate all of administration's enthusiasm for this program and i really appreciate both of you being here tonight um i echo what ruth's saying and as you're saying there are more than there is more than one way again it's being said at

105the top that's not how it's being delivered and when i talk to the administration they love this program and i am speaking more to how it's weaved through k through 12. but i i don't know i personally don't know a student or parent that that says something positive and it usually is about the binder or the notes and i do think we're putting such an emphasis on differentiation in our school and equity in our school you know being being a psychologist having that background and you think about kids with learning disabilities and kids with other issues and they do all learn differently so i would just really love to see that expanded and i know you already said it's an opportunity for girls so not trying to hit you over the head with it but

106and i understand that and the binder and the in the notes you see too and there's and that's why um it would be awesome to see all of the collaborative structures where kids are getting up and moving and they're talking within one another and they're conversing and seeing those opportunities to see like these are the visuals that you're seeing versus like all the learning and rigor and other things that are happening in the classroom that might not be as like visual right or maybe presented in a structured way by teachers where it's this way and this is the way we're going to do it yeah and i don't i'm not saying that there are no parents or students who like the program please don't take it that way at all and i'm sure that the

107um you know the the stats for the elective and for people graduating i mean we of course want to see that i just think that we can make some tweaks to how we implement you know k through k through 12 to just that differentiation piece so agreed yeah i have one other question because i think you probably are going to have another question about statistics and i know you had asked earlier but my question is how how much is is this something we pay for is this grant funded is this like that's my question it's grant funded faith do you want to add on to that correct so we have a title ii federal and state combined grant for professional development and the school fees that are part of that process and being in the

108avid membership are part of that we do have teacher salaries for the electives that you know take up that section but as you think of whatever those students would have during second period they would need a teacher of something else if they weren't in that so i think sometimes people look at well how many avid teachers do you have and that's a cost to the district but those students would also need to be in a different class if they weren't in avid so by far the vast majority is grant funded and if i'm going to talk about statistics but if possible if there's any other data that we could see about the benefits besides going to college and we've also talked about the military and trade school i'd like to know more how that's being

109encouraged and how many students are going on those tracks as well if there's other ways for us to measure whether it's increased grades or you know reading and math things like that it would just be helpful for us yeah and one of the things that we're starting to work with administration as we look at school improvement plans like okay so this is the school improvement plan what instructional practices through avid are going to be like our action goals or our steps in order to meet those and so that's been really fantastic the last couple years really embedding those so that they are able to use the instructional practices that the teachers are enjoying using in order to get there and the kids again engagement is huge we need to get those littles but you know

110what we need to get the 12th graders up too and moving and talking as well can i also ask one more question so i know that it's teacher recommendations but what about parent recommendations so we've had halves um we do allow or i shouldn't say allow we do have self nominations so if a student says you know what that sounds like something i really want to be a part of we absolutely um encourage students to say hey why don't you consider me and we they become part of that same process as all and we've actually taken kids into the program based upon that's that determination factor like i i want to do this and then they go in and and we interview and they they come through and they answer the questions about their lives

111and we kind of really kind of see if it's if it's a great fit and uh some of our most successful students have been those ones who have self-nominated themselves so um you know that's that's historically something that's been very successful drew how well do we get the word out for the self nomination for the students so that starts um in seventh grade because we start to talk to the seventh graders for eighth grade year and so that happens um once we hit around february we really start to talk up hey this is an elective and you have the self-nomination process and through school announcements um and school website and things like that we have the we put the self nomination out i believe most junior highs have put it out in their school newsletter

112with a link or something like that i believe each school does it a little bit differently and then at the eighth graders then we also say hey if this is something you want to be considered in high school maybe you didn't get in or work part of it in eighth grade but you want to continue and want to try this thing out once again we put that into school newsletters and things like that and we've had eighth graders self-nominate themselves and become part of the avid program in the high schools as well can we also maybe start that in ninth grade because my seventh and eighth grade students would not have said hey you signed me up for that mom i think that there's always once again it's always it comes down to yes absolutely

113we can we can talk to ninth graders and say hey may hear something we wouldn't want to add you know students as juniors because they're already learning all these skills you know one on top of each other but definitely we can bring students in another neat fact is that we have students from around the country that maybe were in an avid program in california or in florida and they come into our school district as soon as we identify your part of avid we bring them in right as family like there's like if that's something they want to continue we make sure that we work with their schedules so that they can continue being part of our avid family so that's that's another big nice benefit can i ask one more question about the access part

114when you have the mandatory meeting that precedes there's a mandatory meeting that's required of all seventh graders who'd like to apply to be part of avid how do you make sure that students whose parents don't read the newsletter or have an email or in any way shape or form participate because sometimes these are the students you're trying to reach how do you make sure besides just a mention in in ela which i believe is how it currently happens that that they know that they can apply for themselves because i i do believe that there is a conception that it has to be through teacher nomination is that something that we could work to broaden absolutely i think every school especially the secondary level has a coordinator kind of level position where they're kind of in

115charge of their schools along with their administrator um working on that and we can definitely make sure that that's something that is uh fine fine-tuned so that once again we're trying to find those kids in the middle maybe some of the kids that don't raise their hand maybe they can't come to an evening mandatory sure what worked really good this the following year is we got everybody on a meet and so we would interview all of our students you know at home through google meets and that's how we did a lot of our interviews and i think that we can also continue that not only if they can't make that meeting night then we have this new technology available to us and i think that that's offering up more possibilities as well thank you drew

116thank you ellie appreciate you being here today can we change binders to trapper keepers they're back i think that's a different company and you gotta buy a different license for that oh shoot okay item 7.4 is in regards to our district equity statements uh at our last meeting the board had asked the administration to work with our attorney on the phrasing of the statements that were discussed at that meeting the board asked us to make the suggested adjustments and to bring them back to the boards that's what we've done for this evening after this evening the administration will take the adjustment adjusted statements back to the board as equity advisory committee to review and once that's been done we will bring those statements back to the board for final review the information has been provided

117to you we've made the adjustments from our last conversation more mrs lemon and ms dogquest worked on the suggested changes are there any questions on the changes that have been made no but thank you guys very much for working to adjust that conglomeration of random thoughts yes ditto i just i want to clarify slide six okay i just we had talked at the meeting about potential legal ramifications of the wording and we fixed it okay that's it any other questions regarding the equity statements that as as they've been presented all right item 7.5 is an update on our return to in-person instruction for the 21-22 school year we felt it was important to bring this back to the board as we work on putting the finishing touches on the plan for the 20 to 122

118school year and faith is going to take us through this evening's presentation thank you for stalling long enough until i got there so i want to give you important updates for the upcoming school year the state and the resolution has changed guidance since we first gave information uh back in april and may we continue to get updated guidance even now so would like to highlight there we go uh both the changes which there are none for our in-person plans but there are some ramifications for our remote learning uh in fact you'll see a change here that instead of it being called remote learning it's temporary distance learning so let me just remind everybody for in-person instruction that we are talking five full days at regular school times and hours with lunch this has built in

119some time at the start of the school year to have some extra welcoming and activities around safe and nurturing climate because some of our students have not been here for a year and a half and then as you already heard a big emphasis on differentiated instruction we had some students that did quite well and achieving some of their academic standards and we also had students that struggled so while differentiation is always important it is going to be very critical as we all come back together i now like to talk about temporary distance learning the new guidance requires that remote learning only need to be available for students that meet both of these criteria that they are one ineligible for a vaccine and they are on quarantine and the quarantine that the state is speaking about

120is that temporary quarantine that would be around 10 days probably not even 10 school days because usually you have some weekends maybe two that are in there as we thought about what is the right thing to do on that we wanted to provide that remote learning or as i'm saying the temporary distance learning for any students that are on quarantine so we're not having to ask families whether you chose to be vaccinated or not or whether you were eligible for that or not we want to provide that opportunity to all of our students if they have the unfortunate event of being on quarantine so how we want to do that is again it's only available to students that are on quarantine that's why it's temporary distance learning at grades 6 through 12 temporary distance learning

121would be provided by the classroom teacher if you think back to how we did during remote learning and the teachers had students that were in person and students at remote there will be the same type of activities where the classroom teacher would allow students to listen in and our participate through google meets and again it would be that short period of time that students are on quarantine at elementary we remain convinced that it would be very difficult for a teacher to teach in-person and students remotely at exactly the same time so for that reason we will have at least two staff members that would be when they don't have students that are on quarantine providing uh substitute and teaching services but when we did have students that were on quarantine they would provide at least

122the two hours of daily instruction that are recommended from the state from a teacher to keep them going in their literacy and math activities as well as learning activities that students could do on their own the funding for these two positions that we would be doing this would be coming out of the esser monies so we did have 25 parents that completed our request for in-person exemption form and since the state changed that guidance all 25 applicants have been notified and we've talked about that because all students will need to attend school in person in the fall i would encourage as there are questions about any of our plans for the fall we do have a link that my staff is answering usually within 24 hours even on the weekends to ask answer questions and

123we are really looking forward to returning to five full days in the fall thank you faith does the board have any questions on the update faith just provided i have a quick question if a parent had a question um in regards to remote learning about hey can i get a note from my doctor saying that my kid needs to be remote learning would that be the type of question that they should be submitting on the website that we we have been answering uh some of those questions there they can also call uh and talk to our district nurse or talk to me but having a doctor's note saying that you need that would not open up the opportunity to have remote instruction for a lengthy period of time again this is for students that are

124on quarantine in the past pre-covered if there were really extenuating health circumstances there is homebound tutoring that parents could look at you know with a school team and whether that's a possibility but the state requirements and things around that are much more reduced that is an hour a day of instruction and tutoring to help with activities and even that option is not meant to be used long term or as a replacement for instruction okay thank you have a question specific to elementary so i guess my concern is because all of the elementaries went out i mean be in the same place at the same time if using a remote teacher would be the best way to do it or using their actual classroom teacher who either digitally sends home what they did that day with

125a video or so we're looking at some combinations of that if you think about a student that someone is an example of chickenpox they were out for a while you'd have some activities that go with that but we're also providing and are required by the state to provide at least two hours of synchronous instruction from a certified staff member so it cannot be just activities that are sent home for families to do on their own may i touch on a couple common questions that i've been hearing um lockers i i know right but it's a thing new guidance just came out this weekend so we're still working through all of that and we will be giving full detailed information on what that looks like but because the state and was even kind of unclear on

126some of those things we want to work with our staff and our building personnel to determine the right exact way to do that and then push out mass communication on what that would be not try to answer that here with my best judgment and then have a whole lot of people that need to be included in that communication and decision not part of that we can trust though that you'll have a decision yes okay so that's all i wanted to be clear on we'll have a decision on pe we'll have a decision on lockers we'll have a decision on buses all that good stuff in good time how many pages was this guidance this time i didn't count the pages it was it was was it longer than last year's no it was [Music] right

127i feel like i went through it faster but sometimes honestly i'm used to reading them now so i don't know that prompts a question that i have too unless you're not done um no i'm good and this is probably a question for you theresa who's also behind me hi have they has there been updated guidance about quarantining rules and well that's a good question so there was some guidance released several weeks ago but then with the new guidance that was just released over the weekend and some additional clarification since then the state is anticipating releasing an faq document that hopefully will go into a lot more detail in regards to the quarantine the decision tree that we've used in the past to guide that hasn't been updated by the state since may excellent so maybe

128that will come with the information about lockers we hope we'll get a lot more detailed information yeah it is much much shorter compared to what we had received in the past okay great thank you okay and will that also come with what is our plan should a building need to quarantine entire sections or have we come up with some plan for that already i feel like that was last year's plan i think they did that once we will be updating the full safety plan to address all those same topics that we had last year based on the guidance that we have and so it's kind of rolling out piece by piece right now so we will be updating that and it'll all be maintained on the return to school fall link on the district homepage

129and you'll make sure you've really told everybody where to look for that when it's ready to go yeah i'd be surprised what we won't be surprised by the first day okay no well it'll be done by the first day is my question i did send an email to dr sparlin and teresa today and dr moreno just suggesting that everything needs to be covered parents need to understand when the data if the data changes the kind of if then um scenarios decision trees and that i would really like it to be as accessible on our website and pushed out and over communicated because i know that i've gotten a lot of feedback about um i didn't i didn't know that happened i didn't know that went out um i don't know where to find that so

130i did um kind of i did drive them crazy today i'm just asking for that if if should should there be a spike you know when we go back to school a month in what are the parameters parents need to understand what those parameters are ahead of time as they are getting ready to make enrollment decisions registration decisions in or out of the public school system but we owe them all of that information up front and communicated very very well we will do with the caveat that we know that the guidance could change any day any minute any minute of any hour of any day and sometimes all of them yeah and you guys have done a phenomenal job of of pivoting and making sure that you get that information out and we'll support you

131in any way we can all right thank you information item 7.6 discussion of face mask guidelines for the 21-22 school year i'm excited to report that every school and department across the district is busy planning for the return to school next month which i as i said earlier will be five days full days per week just this weekend we receive guidance from the 21 22 school year from the illinois state board of education which is based on the health and safety recommendations from cdc adopted by the illinois department of public health this information is important for us to have and to review as we develop and finalize our plans and procedures i am pleased that the information released by the state board supports the school district's local control and discretion in regards to cover 19

132mitigation measures my recommendation to the board of education is that the district not mandate masks be warned [Applause] but rather to follow the cdc guideline guidance that recommends masks for unvaccinated individuals the only exception is while traveling on a bus since that requirement is conveyed in the cdc order which calls for all passengers students and adults to wear a mask while traveling on a bus so my recommendation is based on the low community rates of cova 19 a large percentage of our population being fully vaccinated vaccinations available to most to those who are most at risk testing readily available throughout our community in the presence of cleaning and sanitization supplies in all of our classrooms throughout of our built throughout our buildings we will continue social distancing between individuals to the extent possible in all

133spaces along with reporting the tracing and tracing all cases of kova 19 following quarantine guidance from idph and the kendall county health department as your superintendent i believe in the in the importance of fairness in the experience of all students in school so that is equitable and mirrors their experience and opportunities outside of school our district's detailed plan this fall will be shared within with the parents staff and community as those components are finalized i provided the board with my recommendation along with the recent community metrics and all the documents i've received from the state superintendent it is now the board of education's opportunity to discuss this topic and later this evening take the action to determine how our district will approach masses in schools so dr moreno the floor is yours item eight uh

134action items item 8.1 uh can i get a motion for the approval of bills for payment i make a motion to authorize the payment of bills and the amount of three million nine hundred and forty one thousand four hundred and seventy nine dollars and thirty six cents as presented before i second can we clarify that nobody wanted to have a discussion on sevenplaces does anyone want to have a discussion on that item sorry i'm good well i had one statement that i wanted to ask and it pairs with the the return to person in person instruction and i just want to make a point of clarification on our point well point of clarification in the return to school plan that we're going to present and given the recommendation that is being made if for some

135reason based on the criteria that you have specified for why we select it to go optional with mask if for some reason the the impact of that decision starts to take a turn will the guidance for in-person learning be very specific in regards to the markers and the milestones that if these things happen we will then regress back to either mandating mask and then progressing or digressing in the opposite direction will that be clear so that not only everyone in the community will know ahead of time that we're doing this with the fact that you know as dr sparlin stated you know these are the reasons why i'm making this recommendation but if these factors change then we're going to respond accordingly will that be also outlined in the eugene that was my exact um

136communication to dr sparlin today was that i feel like this is the cart before the horse like we're approving something before we have the plan the full plan so um and dr spoiling said he's meeting with the health officials this wednesday yes correct wednesday to understand what those numbers are but i i had the same confusion to be honest yes so eugene to answer your question if we saw differentiation or spikes or different things happening as i had mentioned to in some of my comments earlier that we will if we have to revisit this we would revisit it it's important for you know for families to ensure that they're not sending their kids when you know to uh when they're not sending their when their kids are not feeling well or showing any of the

137signs or symptoms of coven to to keep them home and uh at least we will continue to uh hope that students get vaccinated i think that is the city that is the cdc's recommendation and we also understand that's a personal choice for parents and students to get that vaccination but we will pivot if needed if those on the metrics if they change so i'm just i'm just one last comment one step further is not not that we went and i i hope that it doesn't because a lot of people were impacted but i'm just saying that since we now have forethought of what happens if it does can we create a plan now so that when that's what i'm saying if it happens then we know exactly how we're going to respond and we don't

138have to come back and have a conversation about it but that's surprising yeah it's not a surprise and so that the district will be ready with some you know based on prior learnings over the past 18 months we at least have something in place and of course we can you know just excuse me manipulate the previous plans based on what we know now but i just i don't want us to have to to come back to to talk about the plan that we will make unfortunately if it was that yeah i know so that's i think i believe that's some of the conversation for wednesday with the other kendall county superintendents okay perfect and i would imagine that being that i think everybody here has now been through a pandemic we've got a little bit

139more experience in what those metrics need to be and what those metrics mean frankly in the community um does it just mean that 500 extra people went and got tested and that's why the numbers look higher or lower is that the other or or is it something different so i guess my my concern is that you know this has been such a polarizing issue i think it was just over a year ago we had our very first board meeting where masks were being used and that was at our board retreat last year and at that time the guidelines were just becoming clear that they were required in every school building and i have to be honest with you since the first moment that happened i cannot believe the antagonism over a piece of cloth it's

140fascinating to me because it it crosses over whether it makes sense to wear it whether it works whether that's at the other but it also is is interesting to me that it has consumed our community to the divisiveness that we will then bully other children or bully the children of friends or bully their parents or believe board members or bully anybody over their personal choices on what health precautions they want to take so what i would like to caution and recommend to all of our students to all of our staff as we come forward is you know what just let everyone make their own choices that's the point of having freedom you do you if you want to wear a mask wear masks but let's not be cautionary to the children that do or don't

141wear them and let's just let our lives return to education and one last one last point and while i appreciate that lori there is an entire um grade level of students that cannot be vaccinated are elementary kids and um i i try very hard not to bring my own situation into things but i have a nine-year-old who i will not i won't vaccinate yeah for a long time until i understand you know what the ramifications are and i think it's very important that we understand those that those staff members are around those students that can't be vaccinated and they go home and they have family members at home and and so forth so um that it's it's hard to say you know no for no for this group and yes for this group so it's

142very tough to give an answer for all these grade levels um that's where i'm i'm struggling i can totally respect that because that is that is an entirely different set of circumstances than i would find myself in right and i appreciate it yeah and i appreciate that you bring that viewpoint in because it's very valid um and i wish i had an answer to that too i think for me the only thing that that makes me think about it differently now than i would have a year ago is the knowledge is that we have this year behind us and that we have more options and a year ago if i remember right we were still pretty darn sure that it could live on this mouse for a couple weeks and we were really sure that

143we should just not touch anything yeah we're watching our mail right in the mail oh is going to tell the best like pandemic stories forever um but in any event um i i do want to say though that i appreciate your opinions and i appreciate that they differ from mine and i appreciate that we can have this respectful conversation same but my last comment i'm sorry was that it wasn't even about the mask it's about all the other mitigation uh efforts that we're actually taking and i don't want us yes sorry it's about all the other mitigation efforts that we're taking and i don't want us to minimize those or neglect to do those as well as you know if if your if the recommendation is to make a mask uh optional but i don't

144want us to neglect all of the other things that are still necessary in order to make sure that our kids at all levels are safe that's you know eugene that's a very good point those layered mitigation strategies need to stay in place this is one strategy that we are taking off the table and that is also following the regulations so you know the increased ventilation systems report uh you know symptom reporting exposure exclusion frequent hand washing sanitizing um three feet three feet distances exactly uh all those types all those types of of uh mitigation strategies we will continue to do and continue to emphasize and enforce got it i think just a proactive plan for what to do when things or if things hopefully if things change i would also like to pay particular maybe

145attention to the kids who are wearing masks for a variety of reasons given [Music] all right i would just like everyone to be sure and to feel safe and respected at school and i'd also like to remind parents to encourage your children to wear them if they're not vaccinated if you make that choice for your family that that's a good piece of advice but it's one that your family needs to work on what they believe about that okay are we ready to move on thank you all right uh 8.0 action items 8.1 approval of bills for payment can i get a motion for the approval of bills for payment yes i make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of 3941 dollars and 479.30 cents as presented second mrs croner aye

146dr marino aye mrs johnson aye mr gatewood aye mr swanson aye mrs doyle aye mrs simonton aye motion passes seven zero can i get a motion for 8.2 approval of face mask guidelines for 2021-2022 i make a motion to approve the face mask guidelines for the 2021-22 school year as discussed second mrs doyle aye mrs swanson aye mrs croner aye mrs simultan aye mr gatewood hi mrs johnson i'm abstaining dr marino aye motion passes six one two six zero six zero one thank you [Applause] 8.3 can i get a motion for the approval of high school graduation requirements i make a motion to approve the proposed high school graduation requirements as presented second second mrs swanson aye mrs simultan aye dr marino aye mrs croner aye mr gatewood aye mrs doyle aye mrs johnson aye

147motion passes 7-0 8.4 can i get a motion for the approval of envision 308 i make a motion to approve the envision 308 plan as presented second mr gatewood aye mrs johnson aye mrs doyle aye mrs swanson aye dr moreno aye mrs simonton aye mrs croner aye motion passes 7-0 yay 8.5 can i get a motion for the approval of building administrator contracts i make a motion to approve the building administrator contracts as presented second mrs simonton aye dr moreno aye mr gatewood aye mrs swanson aye mrs croner aye mrs toriel aye mrs johnson aye motion passes seven zero uh 8.6 can i get a motion for the approval of district administration contracts i make a motion to approve the district administrator contracts as presented second mr gatewood aye mrs johnson aye mrs doyle aye

148mrs swanson nope dr marino aye mrs simonton aye mrs croner aye motion passes 6-1 8.7 can i get a motion for the approval of personnel report i make a motion to approve the personnel report as presented second mrs croner aye mrs johnson aye dr marino aye mr gatewood aye mrs swanson aye mrs doyle aye mrs simonton aye motion passes seven zero um make a motion for it just say it as it is where okay sorry um 8.8 can i get a motion uh for the potential action arising out of closed session i make a motion to affirm dr sparlin's may 17 2021 uniform grievance decision second mrs doyle aye mrs swanson aye mrs croner aye mrs simonton aye mr gatewood aye mrs johnson aye dr marino aye motion passes 7-0 can i get a motion

149to adjourn i make a motion to adjourn second i