001unit school district 308 board of education meeting can i have a roll call please here mrs doyle here present miss morgan mrs moyer here here please rise for the and to the pledge for which it stands indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening i would like to welcome everyone who is personally in attendance at tonight's school board meeting as was stated on the board agenda this meeting is open to the public in accordance with phase 4 guidance issued by the illinois department of public health and the illinois state board of education we are all social distancing per the guidance and all individuals are required to wear face covering at all times while in the school building we will be accommodating those who can't wear a mask by live streaming this meeting at wwe
002so if anyone would like to make a public comment to the board but can't do so in person because of the mask requirement you may always submit a comment in writing ahead of the meeting and your comment will be read during the public comments section of the meeting the directions to submit a written public comment are listed at the top of the meeting agenda we certainly recognize that wearing a face mask for long periods of time is inconvenient and sometimes uncomfortable however it does provide the best known protection against giving the virus to another person and it will be required of all individuals during this meeting if anyone needs a break from wearing a mask during the meeting please feel free to go outside for a break take off your mask as you continue to
003remain six feet apart from others just put your mask back on before re-entering the building please understand that we will be monitoring the building and we'll be asking anyone without a mask to put one on or leave the building we appreciate everyone's understanding and willingness to abide by these expectations for our collective safety and health thank you on behalf of the board of education i'd 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 of the board when the secretary calls your name i ask that you come to the microphone state
004your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and that no discussion of personnel 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 uh jared plogger 2776 la jolla court aurora uh first i'd like to thank everyone here for doing their due diligence when it comes to our students and serving our community i thank you i do want to make sure the record is set straight on a few things a few weeks ago during your discussion on the state of our financial situation an off comment came up that the state had no plan to
005address the economic woes that paint us this time that's not correct there is a plan now you may hate that plan but they have one the plan to fund the evidence-based formula fully is to institute a progressive tax aka the fair tax you may hate it but it should be noted because part of your deficit plan is an expected increase in ebf funds while many of you oppose that progressive tax there isn't really a plan for that increase to happen without either the progressive tax or a very large across-the-board tax increase on everyone under the flat tax this means on november 3rd we may find out real quick if that deficit plan you have is partially null and void if you are one who does not support the progressive tax that is your right however
006if you do not and it fails i hope you will push for a more honest deficit plan for the citizens of 308 to see which brings me to my second point the current fiscal year 2021 budget for the state of illinois is based on borrowing from the federal government if another stimulus package is not passed there could be cuts this fiscal year this is not something you have factored into your budget you may not see five percent of your ebf funds this fiscal year i don't remember seeing this in the budget presentation either which leads me to another confusing point you see i sat with many of you when we made our huge round of cuts last time during that it was clear we didn't cut nearly as much as you would have liked brent
007and now you have changed your tune and stated you only need to cut two million dollars you said this before you voted against the levy if two other board members had agreed with you and mrs swanson would we still have only needed to cut two million dollars we both know the answer is no you would have needed to cut more we both know that to make seven million dollars worth of cuts would probably lead to a pounding in an election year i hate going this route my son goes here too at some point i have to advocate for him and go to the source of what is creating issues here this rhetoric is damaging the integrity of this district brent when you say you don't vote for deficit budgets that isn't true on september 24
0082012 you voted for a budget with a deficit of over 5.5 million dollars that your board at the time worked to cut two million dollars from it started at 7.5 million dollars this sounds familiar to this current year that was eight years ago eight years later there is still not a list of cuts in hand when board members decide to vote no on a levy why at this point reluctantly the current conversation then was to dipping into reserves back then uh where is our goal for building reserves don't blame kofi for fiscal year 2013. this is the theme and we are stuck on replay and the rhetoric and actions are a good part of the blame for those at home please pay attention to this part because in april we will have a new board
009if this new board decides as mrs swanson states i'd rather make cuts than raise the levy this could mean making cuts annually of five million dollars like this year each of the next eight years if the goal is not is to not levy again until we can guarantee a reduction in property taxes that's how long we will need to wait until these bonds lower the overall amount we pay if your goal is to view property taxes this way and fight funding ebf you are looking at cuts between now and 2028 of roughly 40 million dollars you can't afford to do anything if that is your goal if you're serious then these cut options should be showing up in the finance committee so people can see them every year as an alternative to the levy do
010not tell the public you have to do the levy fur first you've been making cuts for eight years at this point don't vote on a levy or cuts mrs swanson vote on a levy or higher class sizes or a levy or eliminating athletics or whatever it is you know it is something don't pretend you have no idea you may have to make cuts if you don't pass a levy after eight years really because you are sending the wrong message to the community if these cuts are viable options why aren't they being discussed in the finance committee before the levy vote either you are not being transparent with the community or you are not being honest with your base which continues to ask for cuts instead of the levy our students deserve transparency not politics at
011play up here thank you tracy johnson as cases rise in our community and in the suburban chicago area how was the district reconsidering or adjusting the reopening plan for elementary students as a parent i'm deeply concerned that the planned fall reopening coincides with higher case levels and therefore may be unsustainable item 5.1 board member comments start this side of the room anything uh i'll save mine for my committee update okay i don't think i have anything updated well i'm sure mr blogger would like me to respond but he's left the room so i guess i won't all right i'm just going to make this comment because i know people watch from home and and i think that the last meeting we had was a tough meeting we have concerns about reopening school for every reason
012covid kids falling behind social emotional issues the expense the safety which really should be still our main idea um but i just want to say as a board member i think we have to continue to communicate among the amongst the board members and also encourage parents and community members to to communicate with us to let us know how it's going at the different stages i've been trying to reach out to people to find out how it's going for their kids and their situation people are being very patient in good sports and supporting their kids and i i cannot say enough how much i appreciate every parent that works hard with their kids that does everything they can to make sure they get the most out of whatever school experience they're in because we cannot educate
013without parents we cannot educate without families it doesn't even have to be the parent somebody has to try and care and get that kid to where they need to be and to to make this communication happen so people who are frustrated who are listening to boardman board meeting tonight i would just encourage them to communicate with people in the district the principals the teachers the teaching assistants anybody that you think is going to make a difference for your kid to help them so that they can get through school and have a good experience communicate do it it's there's no problem with letting people know i've had people tell me my kid is so fragile they have all these problems but i don't want to say anything i don't want to tell the teachers or i
014don't want to email and that is the very thing that you should do that you must do because you have to make sure that your child is protected and kids don't have a way of doing it for themselves so please if you're a parent communicate whatever it is you need people to know about your child and seek the help and then if you don't get it let somebody know that you didn't get the help you were supposed to get or that you were expecting all right thank you item 5.2 board committee reports let's see we have so you wanted first no which one was first the equity committee yeah i'm ready okay um oddly enough the main idea for the equity action committee also was communication um we met for the very first time with
015this committee and i'm really excited about this because i know that people have certain parameters that they think about equity in and i just want to break down those boundaries and say this committee is about equity in a lot of different directions it's about ableism it's about getting kids help when they have special needs it's about getting people to see beyond your skin color or your dress or whatever and just get to the the heart of the issue which is what kind of person are you what kind of learner are you so at the committee we had an intro activity which was very interesting kind of getting to know the people on the committee to see who we had and we really have a great group it's a lot of nice interesting capable experienced people
016and having said that we didn't have room to put everybody on the committee because the original dei committee that this committee drew from in part not holy was huge and so we had to choose about 20 plus people and we did and we we did it conscientiously i'm i'm happy with what we got um we had a get to know you we had some public comments we had the meeting set up for people to attend electronically if they could not come in person and so then we have the separate seating arrangement that we have now so it was very safe but what i really thought was great was we had it miked and we had the technology to make it so that people online could participate people that were there in person could participate and
017you could hear each other there's some suggestions for how to improve that that should happen too and people are looking at a statement uh which we got a draft from naperville but we're looking at our own ideas about how to draft a statement on racial issues and how the district stands on making sure that that does not become an impediment for kids getting a good education in 308 so miss kroner do you have anything else that you can add about what we went over we it was not a long meeting nor was it a complicated meeting we ended two minutes late so that was pretty good and we have an update coming on a little bit well the update tonight is from the dei which is not the same thing um yeah no i thought
018i am looking forward to being on that committee i think it's great and yes and i would like to thank latonya samilton for doing the work that it took to get that whole thing together for us the other night and making sure that it went very well so thank you very much all right finance and facilities all right so at our finance and facilities meeting we um had a presentation by our um benefits company that does the provide their benefits just to talk about you know what our current benefits structured if there's any potential for savings in that area and it was very informational and helpful and lots of great questions were asked i think benefits are a very complicated topic and a lot of people it can be confusing for people and so i
019think communication surprise is gonna is key um with that as well and just helping people to really understand what their options are and how they can make their benefits work for them and i think that was is something that we've kind of asked them to look into what's a way that we can continue to have great benefits packaged because that's a big draw for our employees we don't have the great salary options perhaps compared to other districts we have great benefits and that is something that doesn't always have to cost a lot of money and there are ways that maybe we could continue to provide a great benefits package but also save the district some money so just nothing in that regard is something that's going to happen overnight you know so all of that
020is in the future um we did not have any public comment big surprise but one good thing that we did have was we had an update on our bond restructuring which had just happened i think that morning and mrs tyler told me that i can go ahead and make that announcement um so in our initial presentation we had estimated a savings of 13.6 million through the bond restructuring and our actual savings is 15 million because they sold very favorably so that's pretty yay so what that translates to is a little bit of a savings in property taxes which is always good um yeah that was it okay policy and legislative you wanna i'm gonna give you the quick two dollar tour yes please um so we have several that are on actually you know what
021a lot of these we can mostly talk about when we do the agenda the ones on the consent agenda everybody was fine with there was one and i talked to teaching and learning earlier this evening about policy six colon one three five which talks about advanced placement um and just kind of kicking around some ideas about junior high science um that we'll revisit at some point later on down the road um and the rest of them we'll talk about when we do them for information unless you got something you want to add real quick but everybody was fine and we ran super late and valve runs a good meeting it was good no there was there were there were a number of policies to to go through there was good conversation on a lot of
022them um to take the time to do the read through decide can we work our way through these should they move up to the board or do we really feel that teaching and learning should take a look at it revisit it and go on so um fortunately most of our members were able to stay the extra 15 20 minutes afterwards so we can get that done and push through the agenda so it's a really good group that we have in policy and asking a lot of good questions all right superintendents report 5.3 well good evening board tonight i have some good news to share each year the illinois state board of education holds the annual those who excel dinner at banquet in bloomington illinois to honor illinois educators i was informed by the illinois state
023board of education that the following individuals teams from district 308 were recognized for award this year jackie busher blank parent meritorious service award for the category of community volunteer tyler haymond principal of plank junior high meritorious service award for the category of administrator josh johnson teacher at triuber junior high meritorious service award for the category of early career educator katie lund meritorious service award for the category of student support personnel the oswego east wolf parent teacher organization meritorious service award under the category of team and allie wooden teacher at boulder hill meritorious service award under the category of classroom teacher so uh though the annual those who excel banquet uh it was supposed to be held october 17th unfortunately due to the ongoing covet pandemic with restrictions in place limiting large gatherings this year's in-person
024event was cancelled but i am told that isbe is working on an alternative plan to honor our outstanding educators sometime after the new year most likely virtually so congratulations to everyone just mentioned another congratulations yes another congratulations goes out to the oswego girls co-op swim and dive on winning the southwest prairie conference title for the 13th straight year in a row they also finished second at the sectionals this past weekend so congratulations to the entire team and another great season congratulations to them yes 13 straight conference titles that is amazing and also last week was principal appreciation week uh and the friday was principal principal appreciation day so i wanted to take a moment to thank all of our 308 building principals for all their hard work dedication to the students staff and community of
025308 you know we've got a great group of building leaders and during this tough time they really can't hear that enough so happy principles appreciation week last week and principal appreciation day and finally last week we had hundreds of students uh begin in-person learning i had the opportunity to visit a handful of schools and i had uh it seemed like everything was going very well i talked to with a lot of teachers and i talked with a fair number of students and everyone i spoke to that i spoke to was happy to be back in school so that's my report for this evening thank you mr bauman thank you okay moving on to consent if there are no questions can we have a motion to improve all items under consent i make a motion to
026approve all items under consent including 6.1 minutes from the board of education meeting on october 13th 2020 open and closed session and 6.2 to approve board policies references and legal updates section 5 general personnel five colon one five zero five colon two hundred five colon two eight zero section six instruction six colon one three five section seven students seven colon four zero take a second mrs moyer aye mr lightfoot aye mrs croner aye mr bowman aye mrs swanson aye ms morgan aye motion passes 6-0 okay item 7.1 our board policies for first reading the policies above are being brought to the board for our first reading this evening each of these policies were looked at at the last board of education meeting or board of education board advisory committee meeting are there any questions policy
027two colon 105 was actually being pulled back to committee for further discussion and wording so that we'll come back to the committee for work okay five or discussion or are we moving on we can yeah absolutely you have a question absolutely which one um so at our policy committee for 5 120 it was employee ethics conduct conflict of interest we had discussed pulling out tutoring because it was covered in another policy um we wanted to add a definition which was in another place so thank you maureen lemon for that and then um we have another question but i'm pretty sure it ties to yours so go ahead yeah so my my question there is well twofold first of all some of this language here is in a different color and underline is that additive or
028is it changed text does does it exist now or is this new under outside employment what is in yellow highlighted will be removed before it's approved what is in any color other than just the black font be it red purple blue is is the red line okay so that's this is new new language being added to the policy yes okay so [Music] i guess i have a question around how broadly or how narrowly narrowly we are trying to um curtail outside employment because you know as i read this i have questions like so how does this affect the baseball coach who offers private hitting lessons over the summer to a student who might or might not be on their team the following year how does this affect a band teacher who may offer private lessons
029outside of the school day but in a school facility how does this affect a accompanist for the choir who may work with students on a fee basis outside of the school day are those things that were considered and does it is there does there seem to be a problem or are we trying to eliminate all potential conflicts because i think there needs to be a happy medium right we were our goal was to protect both the teacher and the district from any financial or accusatory conflict of interest again so so again there is in policy already a language regarding tutoring for for a fee to a current student and that's the way my record my my understanding is that it is a current student of that teacher that they cannot tutor for a fee the
030language that was added was in fact kind of narrowing down the language more so as it relates to some of our special needs population where some of the the students that are receiving more care more hands-on caregiving during the day and that is being carried over into the home home scene where that teacher ta is actually at home doing babysitting and caring for a fee to that student that they are caring for during the day and this is to protect again the employees in the district if any any accusatory action should take place while outside of the school so as far as private lessons and tutoring it again the language is for current students of that teacher so have i i i know the answer i'm not i'm not pointing fingers but and i know
031the answer have we has hr spoken with any of the teachers that this is potentially going to affect i do not know if i guess broaden it because if there's somebody that's acting against policy it's against policy right so what kind of conversation the disciplinary conversation or what type of conversation should we inquire again i i know that we we have we have teachers in this district who are part of the music program who offer private lessons those are instructors of that student right in in you know the high school level we have multiple instructors so there's the possibility of it being but but generally those instructions are happening on say their instrument of choice or specialty right so then there isn't the opportunity to say well this student has this teacher so you can
032only take a private lesson from this teacher if that teacher is not proficient on the snare drum then well i guess the safest way to look at that is that there is a policy prohibiting that and there are several music there's like music academies locally there's music stores that have lessons out there that there are other avenues of private instruction that students can can pursue but i see what brent's saying as far as problems because if you have a student who's going to take music lessons and they have to choose well i could choose this teacher who's from the high school or i could choose this private academy person but the high school person is going to have to let me go as soon as i become a current student but the private academy person
033doesn't have to let me go because of this policy so that puts a problem in the way of some of these teachers that are trying to make it go well and also sometimes what happens is those private lessons happen during the school day as opposed to outside of the school day are they for a fee though because then that would be a separate issue if the teacher is giving lessons for a fee during this time doesn't do it during through the school nor through a teacher so but maybe it's worth gathering more information on maybe it's worth res researching a bit more just to make sure that we're not putting an impediment in front of people for no real so so then so i'm understanding then this will come back to committee for further discussion
034is there or how do we determine what activities are open for discussion which what type of tutoring is not allowable by policy which right like i understand i understand the reasoning behind the policy is you're trying to protect a teacher stuff happens and it's you know never intentional you could be the best of friends with this family and then something happens and it's a mess so i totally understand the line of thinking and the reasoning behind that policy but i also completely understand brent's point of view like we're trying to be the boss of everybody and tell people what you can do if this is on your own time then then how is it but as you're an employee i don't know if it's a private solution our job then if we're going to argue
035that for a music student how is that different from somebody in an ap physics class who needs tutoring from their instructor how do you differentiate between the two types of tutoring right because that teacher knows what's being taught in the class and so is it that teacher's job to teach them on district time or is it okay for that same teacher of that same kid to get paid to tutor them outside right i don't i just worry that we're getting so i guess my question would be legally though right right it's not just saying that we we cannot the addition to the policy has to do with those students that are getting more uh actually more personal and more um could it show favoritism if you're i i'm curious to know with the example of
036the band instruction in particular like are the teachers really doing the private lessons with their students i don't i think in ours my experience there's a list of we were provided at the same that my my student goes to we were provided a list of private instructors that are available yeah right and the teachers were not on the classroom teacher the band teacher was not on that list no no no well that's not the case at the high school okay i guess legally because maureen's not at our meeting what what i mean are our hands tight at all are they i mean what's best practice it is it is definitely best practice to maintain your tutoring for pay policy five colon two six one which has a separation that teachers may not accept tutoring payment
037for students who are currently assigned to them be it banned be it ap physics etc because it does create a conflict of interest that you know that i'm not providing the instruction during class but i'll get extra pay and do it outside of class that that's potentially poses a conflict of interest as well as the concerns that you stated of protecting all individuals from you know again other claims of something that might happen in the home outside of the school it blurs the lines which is what you're trying to address with the new policy separate and apart from the tutoring which is already in place so i guess it makes sense if we already have that policy about the tutoring to add something like babysitting because who's to say well we'll just call it babysitting
038and actually i'll be tutoring and you you know i don't know that's why you guys are on the policy committee and not well and that's why and that was the change because they're not tutoring they are actually providing personal care for their students and and these are moments that that really the policy is coming forward because these are leaning into very intimate types of care you're talking about some students that may need bathing and things of that nature so it is important to have this type of language in a policy and keep the the employees of the district out of the home environment especially in that type of function but is it i'm sorry can i clarify though this is it says um but that those does say state that it's on their roster on
039their caseload or otherwise assigned to them for supervision so could they could um if they did not have that st couldn't it be that they might not have that student um during the school day but they an employee of the district who isn't you know at their school in current right but i mean but but so in current care but um i mean but i feel like the point that you kind of made is that it is a you know so intimate situations you know if a if a teacher is going to or wants to offer tutoring in their their neighborhood for for a fee they can do that as long as the students aren't in their care so same as if a may perhaps a ta of some sort who is offering some sort
040of homebound care service in the evening can do that as long as that is not for somebody that they are in care of during the school day but but it but it just seems like if they were a former student um it it seems that there's still some i don't know like that it could still be a you know tricky situation but i suppose that you you know there has to be a line you know somewhere it just seems for those reasons a former student would be a similarly complex situation the language has provided us to us was explained the language that was needed for human resources to kind of do what they would do their job properly and effectively and it stays consistent with the tutoring language as well so i can understand that
041is there is there a consensus you want us to bring it back to committee or are we okay to go forward with the current i think it's okay to go forward unless we're bringing the other the other policy back to committee to re to to you know it's their tan it would go hand in hand if we want to make a change then i would think we would make a change really not to explain to the other one but and i we don't i wouldn't want to do that ready i i'm i'm concerned that we are potentially and i i really do not mean to focus on the band situation it's just one that i'm aware of because i had a student taking lessons from uh someone who was their teacher then has that policy
042infringement been brought forth to the appropriate people to i wasn't i wasn't aware that that was an issue um my my comment here is that while i understand i understand the goal i'm worried about the negative potential outcomes of us trying to manage for a potential possible problem that may not exist in every single area but if we have a policy and it does happen then we have something that hr can go back on if it happens and nothing happens from it because there will be people who will still get tutored from whoever right i mean whether it's band or choir or sports whatever right i mean you you know you like a coach you want tutelage from that coach but i think it i think our point at committee was it just gives hr
043and the district some protections i understand i i'm just i'm also trying to advocate for our students who may not be able to get to an off-site location who may need to have that instruction immediately after school because it's the only time that it works for the family or the student and but if it's right after school they're not getting paid right i mean if it's outside of the school day then they would get paid i don't know our experience even at the high school has been there's a list of tutors and you they'll come to the school like i've taken my kid back up to the school for the private lessons and it wasn't with his teacher though so i don't know and and for a definition of are the students just receiving 20
044minutes of extra help getting through a piece that they're working on or is that student paying 30 for a half hour of instruction after school probably the latter and then it's a different conversation if we're talking about tutoring for fees on property but are we here to police the policy or are we just here to make the policy and if like you said it's here to make the policy there's other channels to go through what it boils down to is that the district is protected because we have this policy in place that says listen don't do this if you choose to do it like you said some people still choose to do it and take that risk and you know but we have the policy saying listen don't not a good idea tony no i
045think we need to move on okay okay are there any other questions regarding any of the policies that have been presented to the board for first reading this evening the only other one that we had at committee was six colon 280 the grading and promotion and this may or may not be one that teaching and learning also needs to take a look at yeah yeah all right that's it okay okay 7.2 7.2 we could bring up the powerpoint presentation okay good evening board item 7.2 is an update on the district's diversity equity and inclusion journey as you all know you approved the board of education equity advisory committee membership at your last meeting as you just heard the first meeting of the new equity committee was on october 21st so tonight latanya simpleton and i
046would like to update the board on diversity equity and inclusion and before we begin i'd like to congratulate the board for making the commitment to diversity and equity by elevating the importance of the conversation to the board level by creating the board equity advisory committee so the format for today's for this evening's presentation should look familiar as we utilized it in our last presentation to the board the road symbolizes a path the path has a past a present and a future so tonight we would like you to join us down the dei path as we honor their past speak to the president and look forward to the future latonya thank you can you guys hear me i'm smiling under here get real close yeah get real close because the louder the better can you hear
047me okay there you go that's good so i wanted to start out by just talking a little bit about what we the term we use in the equity space and we say that equity is a journey not a destination and we use that term because when you think about a journey and how it's defined it says that it's a long and often difficult process of change and development and so i'm always being asked is is equity work ever done when is equity no longer a focus or a priority and my response is always until all students benefit from the way things are that we should remain on the journey we should remain on the journey until the district's beliefs and actions and policies enable all students to have access to to participate in high quality
048learning environments and experience successful outcomes and until that happens we should be on the equity journey and so many of us have been on the equity journey since 2008 so our district started its equity journey in 2008 and we have committee members who are part of our dei committee who've been on the journey just that long i'm one of them and they're a group of very dedicated committed passionate people the dei committee is made up of 60 plus members they are parents and students they're teachers and retired educators current building and district administrators and other members of the community and so the work that we've been doing since 2008 um we're going to come to about 2018 and we're going to give you some i don't highlights no that's all right keep continuing some highlights
049of our journey since 2018 because there have been many great things that have happened since 2008. so the first milestone i'd like to point out is our equity context analysis process and that's just a fancy way of saying to what extent does equity exist in our system within the district equity context analysis is a data collection process by which 30 members of our dii committee committed about eight months of their time being trained and then retrained and and then actually collecting the data it took training to make sure they knew and understood how to interview teachers how to do classroom observations how to do walk throughs of the buildings the data collection process included surveys disseminated for staff and district administrators and parents there was a lot of collection collecting of data and after that
050data was collected it went back to electronically back to our equity partners the midwestern plains equity assistance center all the data was cold as well as data that was publicly available and then it they came back and facilitated a data analysis and meaning making day with those 30 people they took off work many many times to come and to be a part of this process with us and so as a result of the data collection process the the team determined where our areas of focus would be so they determined based upon the data that our areas of focus would be culture and climate student engagement and continuous improvement in inquiry and so those those three areas of focus have informed our strategic planning process today so number two is we established a a student cohort
051and the student cohort is a it's a leadership space of 50 plus students they are culturally and linguistically and economically and physically diverse group of students they are high school students and their service is to bring voice to what is happening in terms of the needs of for equity in our in our buildings they are the voice to determine and to speak for their peers about the equity needs and challenges in their buildings in their community um and so that pla the platform that we have provided for them will this year include eighth graders because there is a lot that happened over the summer and there are a lot of powerful voices that rose up and surfaced out of that number three is the high school students were seated as members of the dei committee
052so the the equity ambassadors as we call them because we're building their capacity to be leaders in the equity space and so what better way to be leaders than to give them a platform to practice that leadership skill and so they bring a very unique perspective to the dii committee and the dei committee work they they are they've said to us that they want to be more than consumers of the decisions that adults are making for them and so by being in this space we're actually making them collaborators and so they are having an opportunity um to amplify their voice they are they are having an opportunity to be engaged in the process and then for us as a committee to act on the feedback that they're giving us then number four is the students
053participate in the circle process so our staff and our students have been given numerous opportunities over the past year to be a part of the circle process and the circle process is it represents communities or a community when you're in the process and it what it does is it brings value to all voices because as we know um in a traditional student-teacher relationship there's a power dynamic there so when you are in the circle process you are all equal you are all on the same level and your all of your voices have value and so what i'm what we found is that in some of these circle processes there have been um some tears because our teachers spoke that they that their perception of a student's experience was not that student's reality and so it
054was a very eye-opening experience and so we're giving our students this language to communicate with their teachers with their peers with their community by giving them the skill set around the circle process number five is adult student equity workshop so we've we've given our students this platform about four times in the last two years and this platform is an opportunity for our students to be heard to and for the district and the schools to act on that student feedback so some of the um workshops have been have involved adult collaborations where our students are partnered with adults to find ways to center student voice and to create socially just school communities number six is the diversity equity and inclusion core team expands and so we have a core team of about nine individuals who guide
055and who guide like the dei committee of and the dei core team is a place where we build the capacity of our core team to be ambassadors as well because the core team is a um is an opportunity for those members to speak to their peers you know the other directors in the um in the system or other principles in the system to talk to them about equity and what that looks like and so we expanded the team and we included avid directors special education assistant directors and an um a and a justice social justice practitioner and by doing so it it allows us to push this idea that we want to center equity in everything we do we want to center equity in every decision that is made and so that means that every
056aspect of the system every department within the system needs to have this idea in understanding that when you make decisions was an equity lens placed on it did you ask the question who doesn't benefit from this decision that i'm making so when i say center equity that's kind of what i mean the spoken word elective so so for those who don't know what spoken word is it's like a lyrical art form it's um it's poetry with an urban flair how about that and this opportunity or an or an elective is the way we build um on our culturally responsive um offerings and so when you have an offering like this it speaks to understanding and being responsive to the lived experiences of all students which makes learning more relevant and effective so number eight a
057district-wide committee created of staff and administrators to develop and support climate for learning so this is the committee of staff and administrators that produce the climate for learning framework that was presented to you all i think it was in september by dr pajasic and so these the three areas of focus that i mentioned that came out of our ecap align with the climate for learning framework so the ninth highlight is um over the summer i guess we've all had a very difficult summer would you say and as part of that um our social worker team of about 60 staff members from the district approached the dei committee and wanted to collaborate with them in terms of supporting our students as they went through the summer supporting them socially and emotionally and so we um developed
058the circle process training for for them we invited in community members who were actually health professionals as well who we felt um were not represented culturally in terms of the um the members of the 308 staff and so we wanted to diversify that staff a little or the or the members that would be providing opportunities for our students to talk through all the things that they've been going through and so we did the circle process with about 30 plus district and community health professionals and now they are prepared and ready when they are called upon whether it's restorative practice is trusted adult survey i think we all know that the studies show that students have a have a better or different outlook on when they're in the building if there's a trusted adult with them
059or if they're if they have a trusted adult and so last year they did a survey um it was a high percentage of students participating in the survey where they were asked do you have a trusted adult and for those students who did not have a trusted adult the there were exercises and activities that were done in the buildings in each of the buildings at the high school level to make sure that every student had a trusted adult and then number 12 the superintendent releases a statement supporting the student voice and dei so dr sparlin in june uh released a statement to the community reaffirming the need for students to feel safe to feel valued and respected at all times he stressed the importance of diversity equity and inclusion and student voice and provided resources
060for parents to talk about race to their students culturally response to sustaining practices and teacher training so over the last couple of months we have we meaning the two avid directors and myself facilitated culturally responsive training for over 550 staff and building administrators to date and we'll continue to train as many buildings as want this type of training and as we find that there's momentum as we continue to train in different buildings that the word is getting around that this is great training for our teachers you know to be to be culturally responsive is when you realize that school is not a culturally neutral space that we all bring our own values and beliefs and norms and ideologies to school with us every day but the idea is to make those um to be responsive
061to all that anyone brings to the building you know our our student ambassadors they tell us that they want to they want their stories to matter so what that means is that they want to show up in their classrooms they want their their their exams to reflect their lived experience or their their the the text that they read or the discussions that they have they want they want to know that their story matters and that's what culturally responsive is when you when you can bring that to this to the to them so that they know that this is not just um your your ideologies or your beliefs or your values but their mind too and then student voice efforts showcased by the state agencies um so the illinois association of school boards featured our students
062this summer in august i believe in a webinar and it was entitled are you listening promoting equity and student voice through student voice at the board table and the the premise of the webinar was that students ha voices are creative tools and the process of creating inclusive school communities and they wanted to hear from our students about what that means to them i mean it was a very engaging conversation the participants on the on the webinar took away a lot of insight from our students and we got a lot of praise for that from from from iasb also our map center partners they hold our student voice efforts up as a model to 13 other states within the cadre in which we participate and they say that we are doing or including student voice and
063and that voice being one of the voices that's so important to change in a in in terms of equity focused school improvement so it's really important that our that our students are part of that and a lot of different districts are not doing that work so i we filled a lot of questions around what is it what are you doing and how are you doing it so we can you know we can take some pride in that so the climate for learning framework was introduced as i said by dr pajastic back in september and for for us in terms of student voice there is a critical component involved in the climate for learning framework and it's uh regarding youth voice and engagement and as part of that process our buildings will have an opportunity to
064implement component four around student voice and we will be supporting them dr pajasik's office and the dii office will be supporting them in terms of implementation and what that means is that they will have the opportunity to to see the vision for student voice and there are three tiers to the vision it's being heard collaborating with adults and building the capacity for leadership and we will be taking them when they are ready to to implement component number four in the climate for learning framework we will be taking them through that process and then of course the equity board advisory committee was established and i just want to give a shout out to the dei committee because it's been their their efforts and their work um and their commitment that has elevated this work to the
065board level and so i wanted to just give them a shout out because they they're they're they very much deserve it and let's see where we go from here this is dr silent all right well thank you very much latonya very well said and looking looking ahead number 17 represents the work of the dei action committee and how that work will be reported to the equity board advisory committee for possible considerations for uh recommendations to the board of education i think the process uh the for bringing items to the board is a very good one it allows for a lot of stakeholders and a lot of voices to be heard uh before they get before any of those recommendations get to gets to the board um so number 18 represents how i a superintendent in
066just a couple of weeks we'll be uh partnering with our student equity ambassadors that latin just mentioned previously and i and other adult collaborators will be working with students to identify equity needs and issues utilizing the youth participatory action research framework also referred to as ypar as we collect and analyze data identify research questions look at key findings and bring about actionable solutions to our stakeholders as you all know student voice is something our dei committee has been working very hard on over the last four last couple of years and i'm extremely excited to be working directly with the students on equity issues and solutions within our school system number 19 is how i will begin the process of engaging in critical conversations with staff on their experiences opinions and concerns to create a more
067equitable and inclusive climate and culture within 308 so i'm looking forward to meeting directly with employees groups to hear them fro and hear their from their lens and their experiences on what we are doing well where we may be falling short and how we can improve as a school district and latonya and i will be meeting with that group in just a couple weeks as well we've got these meetings all set up ready to go um and so the last slide is that is our presentation for this evening um a lot of information as you can see a lot of things have been happening over the last couple of years uh it's really a very exciting time and uh with it within the dei and with the new board advisory equity committee and as ruth
068and tony mentioned we had a great first meeting the other day uh the the group is a very diverse group it's going to be a wonderful group to work with and i just look forward to future board meetings when the port committee chairs will be able to report out to the rest of the board okay i'm going to do what my kids always do when you say do you have a question and then they just make a comment and they pretend that it's a question um when you were speaking latonya i got curious to see if there's any students on school boards so i looked it up and in the in the united states there's 20 or 19 states that could have students on their school boards there are no district boards that actually do
069in illinois as far as i could find and there is there is one which one west aurora you guys have it so this is 2014 so you guys were first maybe i think you know what i said i think they may be one of the they were the first yes they could have been and then nowhere ever there's some states that will not let students be on the school board which i find fascinating because it means they don't want to know they just don't want to know um and some of them are really horrible district or states as far as education so that makes sense that they wouldn't want to know um but i want to say that when i was doing the research i looked up to try to find an article about students
070on school boards and they said you can only read this article if you're a member of iasb right so we are as school board members so i put in my password and all that it turns out that the only article they have on students in on school boards is the presentation that you did this summer that's it so when i looked it up i was like oh i've already seen that um and i just want to say that i'm really happy about all this dr sparlin and that you know i hope that we will not in this same article they talk about the lowest form of student involvement is when kids are present but they're not really involved in policy making they only speak when they're spoken to and they do not bring any issues
071of their own to the group and then they say the best kind of thing is when they're in included because they've been elected by a big portion of the student body they have meaningful involvement they're actually involved in policy making and they're allowed to bring up issues so i guess my only question is is that what we have as a vision for our student ambassadors i think i think so and i don't know if latonya wants us to speak more about this but uh you know kids are in our public schools for 13 years and we talk about stu we you know you talk about student voice but um you know these are we're talking about you know ideas by the students for the students to empower the students in the decision-making process and when
072you include them in the decision-making process they truly have buy-in to what we're trying to accomplish here in education and i've seen it done and it's very powerful when done well and we're on that road to doing it well and i think it's understanding too because as a school board member i have understandings now that i didn't have until i got here right and up until then i could afford to say ah you should do this and you should do that and then when i got it tasted i was like oh you know what it's not that easy i think it's the same thing when you get involved as a student you realize oh these adults they're not just making it up it's not easy to do what we do on the adult side of
073things or on the administrative or teaching or whatever yeah student voice is important and it's a two-way street i think sometimes our educators see it as oh it's just what the students want to do but if you engage students they will you will get the results that you are looking for as an educator because they're engaged they're not just consumers of what we want them to do and say and know but they're engaged i mean these students you you know you from the dei committees the the things that they the their perspective things that we as adults don't even and i appreciate you saying that latanya because you're saying that like once you let them say what they need they learn more and they do better this is not a situation of adults are just
074saying whatever you want whatever you think is best you know to the kids you're saying tell me how it looks from your side and we'll make things so that you can learn so that you can get into your learning and do a good job need to admire yeah problem too so from that perspective now you're turning it back on them and say this is the problem admire it with me because when you do that then now you understand not only your perspective now you understand the teacher's perspective the principal's perspective the district's perspective and then now you have more more to work with in terms of forming your opinions i like how your you use the phrase inviting them to admire the problem with you because i think that one of the things certainly as
075a parent what i'm doing and then i think in our schools particularly at the high school level is we're not just teaching these kids reading and writing but we're teaching them how to become an adult so part of that is teaching them how to communicate their feelings or experience or struggles or whatever it is how to communicate that in a healthy way and then how to then engage in a discussion about that so it's not just we'll do whatever you say i think that's a lot of problems we have culturally right now is that where we lack the art of admiring problems together and if we can teach our students how to do that the sooner the better like how do you have an adult conversation which is respectful even if you're disagreeing we can
076discuss it and you don't always have to then end up agreeing at the end either i think that's valuable too so i think this is great and i'm so happy that we are continuing to make progress yeah and the framework that we're going to be using with our students that are going to partner with dr svarlin is the youth participatory action research framework and that framework actually allows the entire process by which you make a decision because remember i talked to you guys about the the student voice vision so it's first being heard listening to the student amplifying their voice and then giving them the opportunity to collaborate with adults where they're leading and the adults are doing the collaborating so they have they identify a problem they use the conventions of social science around
077um finding out what an answerable research question is then going about analyzing the data you know disseminating surveys or whatever they're what they want to do analyzing the data and then coming back with a call to action to some group you know and so this is all about us building their capacity to be leaders you know we talk about how you know we want them to advocate for themselves so what does that look like and how do you give them the opportunity to do it because they have a voice and we have to empower them to use it and when we empower them to use it then we need to know that we're going to get some pushback some stand up some hey but this is what you taught me to do and this is
078why i'm doing it so help me understand why it is or isn't right you know we talk about social justice advocacy these students tell us we want platforms for social justice advocacy to demonstrate our um agency as social justice actors i want that help me find that so it's a lot that they want i just want to thank you um and the committee members who have been at it for a really really really long time um you know i admire your the stamina and the stick-to-it-ness that you've kind of given and i'm really glad that we're in a in a place that we are moving forward um and i am hopeful and excited about you know all these next steps um so so thank you to um to all the committee members who have put
079in a lot a lot of work um and at times that have in in in times that have been not so satisfying and very challenging so so thank you i have a question i'm not sure because i'm curious so can you help help us understand a little bit more about how we're able to convert testing into the language and the stories that these students are asking for so obviously if we're talking about math that doesn't change unless we're talking about story problems correct well i think what they're asking for is if there's a teacher and he's speaking about math how does that show up in the classroom it shows up in the classroom when the teacher brings the culture of individuals who have made a contribution to math who are not necessarily um exposed or
080like um who knew about hidden figures before the show before the movie who knew about all those three women so it's like that's how you show up that's how the teacher shows that um students culture in the classroom by bringing in the people who made the contributions like there's cultures who have significant contributions in the sciences or whatever bring that to the classroom so i mean in terms of like it being on an exam like you know if someone you know not everybody went to disney world last summer when it when it was available we think we you know when we have privilege we see we don't us we don't see that as anything different that's just our life that's just what we do but some people some students don't get that but on a
081math test or or english test or whatever they're going to say something about disneyland and when you went there you know there were 10 cars and whatever it is those it's like so put something on there that would reflect another person's culture does that kind of make sense like there that makes perfect sense and maybe i just didn't hear everything you were saying because i was thinking about standardized testing and can i throw a word into your conversation yeah narrowing the achievement gap that's what i think about when you ask that question when we talk and we may be having two separate conversations at this point um but i didn't see a lot about that when we hear a lot about diversity and so forth and it's the different ways that different students learn and
082it and it's different for everybody so a group of students is going to perform differently on a standardized test than another group is and how do we narrow that how do we bring them closer together right well right well that's that's kind of where i was going is to say look i i i think that makes a lot of sense to make uh make things real yeah right so if we're if we're going to have a story problem about as you said a kid that goes to disney world versus somebody that you know has to go to the store for mom and buy some milk and how much milk can they buy that all makes sense to me what i'm concerned about is what you just hit on is that that last step is we're
083unfortunately constrained by the standardized tests that are prescribed to the district by the state of illinois or you know larger testing bodies how do we also advocate for that outside of our district you know i think i know faith is on the phone here and i know this is something that she would be itching to get in this conversation so faith are you there we can hear you fine yes you put it by the microphone there um so i know the question seems to be about you know how do you take some of the courses of action that we have here and still also um meet the needs of the bigger [Music] not only about the types of assessments or things that we do but even the curriculum that we use the textbooks that we
084do and a lot of that is really listening to the students in front of you i know we say culturally responsive instruction but it's really responsive instruction how well do you know the learners in front of you and how do you know your impact not just on aggregate scores but by individual students so i hope that you know we can keep going on all the pieces that we're talking about with the student voice and hearing those stories is one thing and helping them um [Music] i would like to see when you meet with the kids i would like to see a core group of teachers who are also meeting with the kids because you can ask a kid to write you a physics problem and you'll get all kinds of examples that you would have
085not think like i still have a question on my test from six years ago about a pet chicken and i would have never thought a pet chicken right but the kids that's their favorite question on the test right and that again is something that as you know as a white female i am not familiar with definitely you know the white part process includes adult collaborators and they would be teachers and individuals who can collaborate with them on whatever equity issue they identify so for sure so i don't go back as far as you do in the district but um um so i became involved in 2013 and back then at that point it's it's as if we were just kind of making some baby steps along the way on this path um some of them
086looking back may have been more symbolic than anything um so this the effort that it's taking the last couple of years to really get this moving the work that's being done the committee work your work everything it feels as if there's finally some traction taking place going in the right direction so it's a lot of great information and and we look forward to many more updates and hopefully a lot of wonderful responses from the interaction the groups the students and the administrators thank you very good thank you board for allowing us to uh present on that thank you latonya well done thank you all right item 7.3 is a transitional english course 7.3 is in regards to adding i should say a transitional english course so heather would you like to share us share a
087little bit about this course and why we believe there's a need absolutely thank you good evening my name is heather kinkade i serve as the executive director of accountability in high school so i'm here tonight to talk about our proposal for the transitional english course as part of the post-secondary workforce and readiness act the pwr was enacted in 2016 and there's several things focused on college and career readiness one of those things is these transitional math and english courses a few years ago we already implemented a transitional math course as part of the pwr one of the major barriers of post-secondary completeness was the need for students to take remedial courses when they arrived at college so what the transitional english course does it serves as a fourth year of english so it earns a
088high school credit but it allows a student to directly enter a reddit bearing course in college with successful completion see or better at the high school level it complements courses that we already offer we already offer dual credit courses ap courses but those courses especially dual credit requires sat act or accuplacer test scores so the transitional english course does not require the course the score so this does kind of round out possible courses for us to offer our students it is built on competencies and performance indicators where the competencies are ones required for successful completion in college it is focused on reading writing critical thinking and analysis as part of the content competencies and then the process competencies being metacognition and those essential skills the focus is on not only college readiness but on career
089foundation is in non-fiction reading with the course having at least 60 percent of evidence-based reading and writing where students are doing claim and evidence writing assessments on september 23rd a group of teachers department chairs building and district administration attended a session held by waubonsie where we were provided the information for this year's transitional english course wabonzi is now at the point where they are accepting applications for transitional english in which we have to get our courses approved for state portability so when our students attend schools in illinois that they would not have to take a non-credit bearing course our official application is due to waubonsie by february 1st we would have that then approved by march 1st our next steps we're here tonight to talk about this course for information but it would be for
090approval at our next meeting because student course selection for fall of 22 is essentially around the corner we do our student course request in november and december so that's why we're here tonight if approved we do have some teachers and department chairs from both buildings that would work on developing the units of instruction and performance indicators in alignment with the pwr transitional english framework that you've been provided i have a question does this cost us money so the only money potentially would be some additional resources the recommendation is not only are there resources provided by the state but they also recommend open source resources so that would be the process of which we would start building the units from there and then we would potentially have some additional resources based on the recommendation of the
091teachers but beyond that know that there wouldn't be any additional cost except for potential resources is this um does so you had mentioned the approval of through um wabonzi in that timeline but is this then applicable to other would this be able to be used by our students to other um colleges so this would be within the state of illinois within the state of illinois okay so any college within the state of illinois would accept these credits with a grade of c or above as a placement into like a 100 level instead of like an 097 because um without this course or proper qualifying scores they would have to potentially get extra class right correct a non-credit bearing course okay so that was kind of my main question because i one of my kids right
092now is in that dual credit class and that is no joke absolutely um not an easy class but and we do have that course that course is for college credit so that he doesn't have to take that level 100 class right which is the point of taking l so this would be so you can enter into that 100 level class yeah as a freshman in college students still need to take placement exams that would they need to take a placement exam um at the at the whatever college that was successful completion of this okay they would be able to okay now they some schools would potentially require an assessment for acceptance into the school but for certain schools require placement scores on top of that this would replace the need for a certain sat score
093a ct score in order to take the 100 level course um when you're entering as a freshman i think it's great because like i said i have a senior and basically what we were told is all of the senior level english classes are hard and require a significant amount of writing and it's not easy for a lot of kids so to have something that is going to help them learn but also help them get to somewhere maybe they thought was not a realistic option for them i think it's great not that it won't be a lot of writing too because i'm sure it will happen and it requires writing as you can see in the framework so so this class would be taught by our current staff at the high school level correct correct both
094high schools correct this would not be additional staff it'd be reallocation of sections so there would be less of a certain currently offered class and then potentially an addition of a section or two at each high school of this so we currently require four years of english that is a state requirement so we already have the fte to cover this course it would just be a change in the number of sections per course that we currently offer is this considered an optional course for students to take or would this be something during conversations with a counselor or other english teachers may be directed or guided that you really need to take this course if you plan on pursuing post-secondary education so this would definitely be a recommendation this would be part of the recommendation process
095right now we do offer as mrs croner mentioned a variety of senior english courses so the students can select based on the genre of study that they prefer but this provides an avenue that we currently don't have so i could definitely see this being part of the recommendation process where this course would be definitely recommended to a student who might not have the qualifying scores to take the dual credit because those other courses are not going to allow that student to forego that zero nine level class at the college level so i just want to make sure that or understand we're adding this class so what are what's the framework what is the kind of process for making sure the students are in that class that need to be in that class so that would
096be both teacher recommendation and also part of when the counselors are meeting with the juniors and doing their credit checks and review um this year we it'll be a fine line if we have sat scores available because we did not have like psat 10 last year so we're really looking at psat 8 9 from their sophomore year or to me their freshman year so it would be really looking at their performance freshman junior senior year in english and making recommendations and speaking with families and that's like she mentioned that's happening soon like i got an email i think it was today saying hey just so you know course catalogs coming you know get ready to meet with your counselor and like three weeks i think it opens up so it opens up on november 17th
097and then uh will close right around thanksgiving and then uh december and january will be the meetings with um students and families about course election for the following year any other questions all right thank you thank you okay moving on to our action items 8.1 any questions i make a motion to approve the destruction of the audio recordings of the closed session meetings from november 12 2018 through april 8 2019. second mrs swanson aye ms morgan hi mrs croner hi mr bauman aye mrs moyer aye mr lightfoot aye motion passes six zero item 8.2 any questions kind of a motion please i make a motion to make available no closed session minutes at this time due to a determination that it continues to be necessary to protect the public interests or the privacy of an
098individual by keeping them confidential second mrs croner aye mr lightfoot aye mrs moyer aye ms morgan aye mrs swanson aye mr bowman aye motion passes six zero uh item 8.3 personal report can i have a motion please i make a motion to approve the personnel report as presented second mr lightfoot hi miss morgan aye mr bauman aye mrs moyer aye mrs croner hi mrs swanson hi motion passes 6-0 um one last statement before we adjourn october was national principles month i know we mentioned it before earlier in the month but again this is our last week so thank you to all the principals and assistant principals in the district especially the obstacles and hurdles that you've gone through this year and our first time principals going through it this year thank you and happy national
099principles month on that note can we have a motion to adjourn i make a motion to adjourn