001okay mr bauman here mrs dawn here mrs croner here mr lightfoot present miss morgan here mrs moyer mrs swanson here please rise for the pledge of under allegiance indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening i'd like to welcome everyone who is personally in attendance at tonight's 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 a 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 www.sd308.org so if anyone would like to make a public comment
002to 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 not 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 and take your mask off as you continue to remain six feet apart from others
003just put your mask back on before re-entering the building please understand that we will be monitoring the building and will be asking anyone without a mask to put one on or to 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 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 that you come to the microphone state your name for the
004public 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 thank you cheryl lontarati hi my name is cheryl lonzarotti i'm a recess supervisor at boulder hill i've been there for three years i understand the reasoning of your obvious decision i look forward to returning to work and being with all the kids when school starts in-person learning i have volunteered for any help you might need thank you tanya harris voting in a democracy is when a group of people have the right to choose who governs over
005them voting at oswego east is when the administration leads you to believe your voice is being heard for years the black students at oswego east have been asking for their voices to be heard they even wrote a book about it yet there are still some unfair and unjust practices in place and no one is willing to get to the root of the problem for the black student association to have an organization it has always been up to the students to find a sponsor but this year that changed the students were led to believe that their voices mattered they were led to believe that they had a say in their organization for a reason that no one has yet to explain the administration at oswego east went outside of the district and picked someone to be
006in front of our black students does the administration usually take it upon themselves to appoint a sponsor for clubs school district 308 has yet to put out a statement of unity solidarity and a zero tolerance for racism school district 308 has yet to set the tone for when the students return to the buildings school district 308 we are asking for you and your building administrators to be fair our black students are living and seeing racism at an all-time high as a parent i would to see the administration at oswego east be transparent and not have secret voting not take the voices of black students and stifle them and most importantly i would think that the administration at oswego east would want to make the clubs a comfortable and safe place for the black students especially
007during this time of high racial tension and not give someone they don't know access to them pamela hampton i think we can all agree that the percentage of black students in this district are suspended at an alarming rate i would like to speak with you today about reasons why the board and district leaders should do all you can to correct restorative justice practices for black students in this district benefit for this school district provides a layer of student support to correct behavior boost retention matriculation and graduation rates builds social emotional development eliminates the heightened sense of distrust between black students and white teachers there is restorative justice funding available to school districts if we look at the disproportionate number of black students being taken away from educational instruction we should look at the notion that
008all teachers are not equipped to be socially available to black students and families blank junior high school recently hired a restorative practices counselor dr kitchen i would like the board to consider hiring a restorative practices counselor at every junior high school under the leadership and guidance of dr kitchen for the purpose of all restorative justice counselors to be on one accord this district is lacking in black support staff and if you truly want to give the black students in this district a chance give the black students the support and guidance they need which in turn has the great potential to assist with closing the achievement gap in the racial climate of the world what a great statement sd-308 would make to be proactive in ensuring all students in this district have an opportunity to succeed
009our students should not go back into these buildings the same way they left please remember your silence speaks volumes key one of the louise my name is that's am i good now okay i'll restate my name my name is kiwana maurice i've been a resident of the school district for over 18 years i reside at 2529 lambert drive in aurora illinois i look around at this um school board our elected officials and i see many of you whom i elected and i'm here today to voice my concern as a parent as well as a civil rights activist you know equity is not a novel idea to district 308 we've been dealing with equality and equity putting in plans since 2008 plans were revamped 2018 and we have seen limited progress our nation our state our
010county we were rocked with the actions of george floyd not only with that we were also met with the pandemic but what was our response as a school district how can we lead i get a little bit teary eyed when i think about we have a statement that says we are a we provide world-class education i would hope that would be a district where all of our students would be would feel accepted so as these things occurred in this unprecedented time i waited to hear a response from school district 308 i waited as i saw district 203 roll out a statement june 25th of 2020 indicating their resolution reaffirming districts 203 commitment to equity for all students and overcoming systemic racism and ending racial justice i waited and i saw 204 made a statement then
011i waited i saw even joliet make a statement and had not heard a statement from district 308 where all of our children reside where all of our children want to feel respected want to feel valued want to feel cared for and i sent a letter to dr john starlin i sent a letter to many of you that's sitting here on our school board so what i am asking as our neighboring districts have made statements commitment to equity for all students making this a place where all students black students hispanic students students with disabilities students who have issues that we are yet is yet to be diagnosed that they feel good in this district what are we doing it's not hard or if it is hard it's good work why do we wait we shed our
012tears we know that it is a heart issue why do we wait to address policies and practices that make this district great whereas my neighbors they're not moving to district 204 they're not taking their tax dollars this is a good district this is a good community so what i'm asking our school board is to consider is writing a commitment statement writing a resolution the illinois school board it's not novel to them you all attend those meetings and they have conferences for the past two years in regards in looking at equity so it is my hope that you all will consider making a statement and a stand against racism and oppressive practices within this education institution our neighboring districts are doing it setting best practices surely we can set best practices but that's my hope as
013our i'm hoping as my children return to the an in-school environment that they're going to be perceived valued and know that this is a great place to be thank you katie hayden i'm just gonna be looking at my paper because my glasses are fogging with my mask so please don't feel disrespected in any way hi everyone my name is katie hyden i'm attending tonight's meeting because i'm a concerned parent of sure children with learning differences and i can i'm sorry one second i'm attending tonight's meeting because i'm a concerned parent of children with learning differences and a concerned ceo of rhk construction unfortunately unfortunately remote learning is not working for our family or our company it's affecting us and so many others from every unique situation as a local grad of ohs 05 and having
014been involved in helping build our community and surrounding areas i'm sorry i have to apologize again i'm always thinking of creatively ways to advocate for special education resources and the trades i'm voicing these concerns today not in anger but as guidance that the board should consider reviewing for their remote learning plan from the one-size-fits-all scenario to plans to protect our community families and to help build up our local and surrounding economy one of the questions i have for the board is why are the children expected to go to continued lives when their education cannot be completed during the live working families like us and so many others need to have the option for decreased lives and flexible schedules especially when we all have multiple children and those of younger ages it does not work with
015everything being at the same time my older teens must help with their younger siblings when we are working we all feel we are pinned to the wall with this attendance check and deadlines for work my family's mental health and i'm going to say that again my family's mental health is important to me and this this is too much for all of us and i won't begin to mention how it's impacted my business and having to ask my general contractors to have flexibility in our performed work schedule because the students are remote learning for sd 308. i'm going to continue off on another question i know i'm not going to read them all off because we still have other people to consider i mean consider so i'm going to go down to question number six why
016is it that only children with ot pt and speech are allowed for in-person services we need to bring back all the teachers to the schools and integrate them so school services for children with learning differences can come back in west aurora brought their kids back who have autism and severe learning disabilities kalan schools are doing a hybrid option and so is yorkville oswego we are going to bury our families if we keep hurting them like this families will begin to leave the area we are trying so hard to build up like our surrounding communities then all this new construction will be for nothing and how can we bring in more revenue which we're always talking about how can we bring in more revenue to support our schools and our communities when we don't support the
017hard-working families locally one other thing that i would like to bring to the attention being a parent of children with learning disabilities is why are these children ineligible for some of their in-person services and did you know that even though they're ineligible for those services they are eligible however through district 308 to test them for their iep services that are mandated through the state of illinois even though they are not eligible to come in the school for their services but they are eligible to come in for testing so even though they have been out of school for almost six months almost six months without their in-person services do you really feel those standardized testing scores would be a true reflection of those students capabilities without their services for almost six months so at this point
018that's all i have to say thank you for reviewing the document we are proud supporters of our community and giving back to the local area but i'm very concerned about the children in sd 308 especially those in the special education department those with learning disabilities or disadvantaged homes thank you so much tennis blue hello can you hear me yeah okay um i guess my first comment if anybody ever was wondering why we need capital reserves this is a primary example of where it would have come in handy it's like it's an emergency fund and it would have been very nice to have had that okay i want to talk a little bit about your last meeting on the bond restructuring and maybe a few other side comments on stuff like that i mean i've watched
019your meetings and i i have a little different take than you guys and i know i think you all have your set opinions sorry this thing keeps coming off and i i don't know i i didn't see the same things that you guys were talking about in the meeting i mean i looked at the different scenarios and over the years some the range is somewhere between 1100 and 1300 dollar tax liability um depending on which scenario scenario you do one two three well two three four okay the question becomes i know you all struggled with this the other day which one do you take actually i like a five i'd like to see it drawn out much further i think future generations should pay for some of the buildings that they're going to use okay
020i've been here a long time i paid for new generations coming in a lot of the people that have been here a long time have already paid for new generations coming in they don't use the facilities at all and i think anybody that's going to use it should be paying for it i know i know you're you're all talking about we save 600 here or we save a million here uh i kind of question that analysis only only from the only because you're talking about uh what's the word for it now a non-referendum bond well as soon as you do that you just added money you just added about a hundred dollars a taxpayer i assume you're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of the 13 million dollars for a non-referendum bond that's what we did
021the last time and it's about to expire i mean if you look at this really what we're saying is every five years we're going to do this that's the trend you're setting so every five years this is going to come down the line because you need the money for something okay if you look if you look at the chart the bar charts the bar charts don't show the non-referendum bond at all it's coming off i know the bar charts do not show the non-referendum bond impact except for the existing non-referendum bond so you take that little piece and you add that on top to all the different charts that you look at if you're talking non-referendum bond so the scenario where you save 100 well you spend 100 as soon as you go to non-referendum
022bod net effect zero okay the 500 i don't know where the 500 is i looked at all of those i see differentials of a few hundred one way or another but i didn't see the 500 i mean they're all somewhere between 1100 and 13 until you get to the out years okay i didn't see this 500 likes unless you're talking uh you know around 20 28 or there's a period there where things go down and they go back up in the existing one maybe they're talking about that i don't know so the question and and obviously i mean your first your your choice is a roller coaster ride i don't think anybody wants to do that okay scenario one i i don't know what it buys you if you're talking this whole thing is like
023a holistic approach you don't look at this piece you don't look at that you got to look at the whole thing and what's your plan are you going to do non-referendum bonds if you are you put that together with what your bond structure is going to be okay as to which scenario you want to pick and see how that all plays out i'm guessing this the board is leaning towards non-referendum bond if that's the case then you should look at that in addition how that impacts the bond whichever scenario you choose for bonds okay you should see what impact that has i think i'll stop on that part right now okay i have a few other quick comments i've seen that there's ask a pleaser going to be there's going to be like a thousand
024there's a thousand fewer students i kind of sent a little email on that a little bit already there's an opportunity there to save a million and a half if you're willing to you know reduce staff by around 30 teachers and i know the board always has issues with that but sometimes we have to look at this as part of the grand scheme how we're going to save how we're going to put everything together you know we've got to look at this this is 80 percent of our our budget we've got to look at this stuff okay um i think a lot of times thank you um i have to go i got to get up four in the morning i mean no disrespect thank you jason mesenko hello board members my name is jason macenko
025i thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight i thank everybody in this room who came out to make a public comment it's important it's obviously important to you individuals i also would like to say hello to district 308 whoever's listening to online i thank you for the correspondence over this past weekend sometimes emails can get a little tricky i am passionate about this and what i'm passionate about is my son who needs to be in school he's in the stars program he's been placed at homestead he'll be in kindergarten this year he has autism when we found out that bear had autism it was a school that gave us the awareness of what was going on it was a tremendously scary time for us tremendously scary i can still i don't think i'll ever
026remember all right i'm sorry i don't think i'll ever forget the principle that helped us out early intervention came in it was a godsend my son had serious sensory issues early intervention was able to get him into a place where he was at least able to be evaluated down in joliet with easter seals when he was eligible to go to brokaw he still wasn't ready his sensory issues were still out of control was not ready to go into the classroom our family decided to use aba therapy every day somebody came to my house rang my doorbell multiple times a day for a year people in my home helping my son with me right alongside them because i stay home i stay home to help my son and to help my daughter aba ran its course
027for my son he was starting to show signs that he needed something more so he came back to brocaw he was assessed and placed into the stars classroom my wife sarah and i knew this was the right decision for bear he was done with aba and now it was time to get him into the classroom that we desperately wanted him to have bear exceeded to excel in that classroom he needed that pure interaction he's such a great kid he's a rule follower at school sits down when he's supposed to sit down gets in line he finds it so exciting he's motivated to learn motivated at school to learn with his peers the stars teachers in this district so far at brokaw and at homestead i would equate to the marines of our armed services the
028best of the best so this is our remote learning experience running away from the computer getting him back trying to turn the microphone on so he can answer a question but he already did and now he doesn't want to answer it again and there he is lost again these children cannot learn in front of the screen this is a public health crisis much like coronavirus i pulled up and i don't come to oswego east often because my children are so young i don't need to know about this place yet there's a bunch of kids filing in the back for something they're all in line coming in what are they doing here a bunch of kids coming in a district 308 building don't understand are there lives or health less at risk than the stars students
029and the special needs students that need in-person learning immediately this is a health emergency much like the coronavirus is we can't ignore one health emergency while we fight another the cure can't be worse than the virus please help our special needs students out with an immediate return to school we are desperate it's so important thank you wayne harshberger good evening my name is wayne hershberger i sent quite a few emails over the weekend i can count three responses exactly three responses coach whipple two athletic directors i can count one phone call i expect better leadership out of this board of education and this district administration professionalism is reading an email and hitting reply i got it we'll get back to you being unprofessional is not responding to email after email after email okay i talk
030to colleagues all the time friends family friends co-workers since june i've had many people bug me during work hours does the board always look like this all your meetings you need to go watch the videos okay my friends and colleagues are implying you look like a bunch of clowns up here okay when the district administration comes in with staff work it's not completed staff work i sent you a document on what completed staff work looks like if i came into a business meeting as unprepared as a dis administration i would be told stop leave we'll follow up with you on how to be prepared the next time you come in front of us okay this whole thing is difficult for everyone right i get it we need to take it seriously we need to show
031the stakeholders the citizens and taxpayers scenarios and cookie crumbs on how we got to the answers you can't say just trust us we're smarter than you are so i've sent emails and emails on how to approach things i don't get answers that's why i'm here tonight okay saturday morning i was out here out front okay ohs how many oe cross-country runners chose not to wear their masks i asked two of them where's your mask oh we're by ourselves we're good then one of them goes oh my mask is way over there what took a picture talked to head coach the head coach of oe cross country blew me off well they're supposed to wear the mask then he lectured me about taking pictures of underage athletes and wandered off and walked by his team it
032didn't say a word okay i think some of that's taken care of but here's my question the ads like oh we'll recommunicate the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result so what are you gonna do differently if you can't get the student athlete to wear the mask you're never gonna get anyone else to wear a mask does that make sense your senior upper class men will set the tone for the rest of the student body if you don't get them going in the right direction you are done what i'm asking you all to do is look in the mirror look asking the district administration to look in the mirror are you really prepared to lead this district and if you're not find the door and let
033somebody else you know uh all right item 5.1 board member comments start on your side i can go first um i just want to say to the community and the board members that i've been thinking a lot about all the options that we have in the future one of them is continuing remote learning and the good reasons why i think about that being a good option is because of safety a lot of people are either fragile themselves or they have fragile people in their families or they have considerations of how they're supposed to keep going if somebody gets sick and i know that some people think that coronavirus is just not a big deal i have people in my life who think it's not a big deal but the problem for me is that when
034i think of being off work for eight weeks with an illness or being off work for two weeks and then being just not feeling good for a while that's a pretty serious consideration for a lot of people so i think that we need to keep that in mind as we go forward the second thing is that the cost of remote learning is less than the cost of in-person learning and i know that that should not be the overriding factor but in a district like oswego where we're having some financial difficulties i think that's an issue for all of us as board members and another one is that i know that remote learning there's a continuity of education so in some cases where people feel dissatisfied with what their situation is that could be a continuity
035of a bad situation for some people that either choose really heavily to have remote or they like what they're getting that's a good thing that it goes through the year and it's continuous um i've been trying to learn more about our plans as a district to do the return to learn and i won't say anything specific because i don't know fully what the district's plan is yet but i want to say this there's a lot of people that say those teachers need to get back in the classroom and i just want to say this that teachers are not lacking courage they go into classrooms where there are ringworm runny noses lice coughs hand foot mouth disease and i can tell you a lot of other things that i personally have had students with right there
036with me we're not afraid to go to those things we're not afraid to get those things but this is something different and so i hope that everybody who's out there listening just give teachers credit for the fact that they do run right into the midst of a lot of difficulty to teach kids and this is one of the times where it's hard to do that and it's hard for a good good reason having said that i keep looking at the logistics of trying to come back and i think that we have some people in the district who can think this through and try to find a way to make it logistically possible for families who really need to have in-person learning or really desiring personality for that to happen but i have to say that
037i hope as a board member whatever those committees come up with those teachers and those people on the committees that they're really listen to and that people really hear how they feel and how they see it and how they know that certain things will work and others won't and i mean everybody teachers cafeteria office custodians you gotta listen to every stakeholder group and parents and kids because if you don't your plan is probably not going to go as well as you want it to so the logistics are a huge concern for me once that logistical piece and that is my biggest piece i am a very practical person i believe in in being realistic and being practical once that's addressed i think that the special ed kids are a major concern for all of us
038that we want them to get back into school because it is hard to learn on a screen because it is hard to feel as connected and as happy and excited about school as you do and i would hope that what we can ask from the other parents in the district is if you don't get the turn to go in person or if not everybody gets the turn to go in person that we can try to be reasonable and see why that's okay why maybe the special ed kids get to go back or the k through two kids get to go back or some group gets to go back but maybe not your group and that we would have some patience and understanding and and credit for having a plan that at least includes some of
039the folks that need that that situation and then the last thing that i'll say is just that i think there's some really exciting things coming up with diversity equity and inclusion i think that what i long for as a board member is that these kids come to school and no matter where they come from if you're poor if you're of color if you're different in any way that you meet a caring supportive environment where people are not making excuses of why they can't help you out because pretty much what i've seen 30 years if you really want to help somebody out you'll find a way and if you really want to be a problem you'll you'll find a reason why oh well i'd like to treat them equally but this is why i can't i
040think most of the people most of the parents in our district most of the staff really try for that and there are some bad experiences and we have to fix those and we have to have good conversations but i really want the action to take priority i want it to be where we come up with some action where the kids see it the staff sees it and it really is meaningful and it's not just us saying oh we believe in that of course we could say that let's do something that shows that we actually do care about that that's what i think so that's my comment for tonight well not now i'm phil compelled um i'll be brief um you know i we heard we've heard a few impassioned comments this evening and we're all
041well aware of the impact of remote learning not just on kids with special needs but all kids and it was interesting i think we all kind of individually got an email from from someone over the weekend but it was sent directly to each one and and my response back to that individual was i don't think there's a single board member that doesn't want to be back in person and and i think sometimes that's lost on on some members of the of the public um we want to get there and we will get there um there's but there's a process to it we are looking at and considering all sorts of different things i'm encouraged every day when i read a different article about a different school district that is either started online and is now
042returning in person or started with some sort of a hybrid approach and the sky is not falling i'm not discounting the severity of covid or the risks but what i am saying is is that other districts have found ways to make it work we will find a way to make it work and i'm excited for the next board meeting when we're going to talk about this more detail i think i share their comments i think we need to get back to work but i think the first step is getting teachers back in the building and i think i don't i like i can appreciate tony's logistical i more of a throw the kid in the water and see if he can swim instead of dipping my toe in but i understand that doesn't work for
043everybody that's why we're all different but i honestly believe that we have to get teachers back in the building because we have to figure out how to make that work and once we can figure out teachers and buildings then we can start bringing in sets of kids into buildings and we can't wait until october or november or december we have to do that now so while i realize that we don't have a meeting until the 30th to hear the plan that's where i'm at we've had um another successful week of remote learning in our house i said it at our last meeting i'll say it again tonight that it's gone better than i thought it would the teachers the the experience we haven't had any uh connectivity issues it's it's working however the concern that
044i've had from the very beginning i've stressed it over and over again the students that we're gonna lose the students that this is not going to work for how many bears are out there he's not the only one and i thought about this as i was taking a break between our meetings the size of this building is immense and our guidelines are social distancing and masks and if out of our 23 buildings we don't have a way yet to help the bears that are out there that are identified in the space that we have with the staff that we have i can't wrap my mind around why we can't have a handful of kids as tony said if it's not your group yet be patient but we have to start somewhere and if we can't
045have we haven't figured out a way to have 20 bears in a classroom yet or in a building in this district to get them the help we need years students like that have been worked with repeatedly over and over again and how long is it going to take to get these kids back into the door or back up to that that performance level that they were at after months and months of of not having that pushing that guidance that's out there so yes it's going great it's at least for our personal experience it's going great i know that there are families out there that this is working well that we could survive to january do we want to go the whole year no absolutely not but it is working for some people that's working out
046well but we have to figure out a way to help the kids that it's not working for and get them the help they need whether it's not in the building whether it's it's a homemade it's somebody we have to do better we have to do better so kudos and thank you to the staff that are pushing it 100 percent i know you i know they're out there i know they're doing a great job thank you thank you thank you but we have to be able to help more people out there i i will also be brief and just thank those of you who came to speak tonight and those who submitted comments online we always appreciate community feedback um i guess i will kind of echo matt's comments a little and one thing that he
047was saying kind of struck me as what is equal in this type of situation is not necessarily always what is fair and i'm just thinking about my my kids are i wouldn't say things are going great i don't know if they would say it's great but they're fine they can deal i'm not concerned that they're going to fall way behind but i definitely have those concerned about certain populations of our student body and i hope that we will not be so concerned with the fairness of everybody getting to go back at the same time in at the expense of really what is doing the right thing and there are going to be people who are not happy because we all just want our kids to be in the building i mean i want my kids
048to be there because i know that that's where they want to be as much as they complain about going to school they can't wait to get back to school i'll just i'll end my comments here i kind of like being able to go last but i kind of hate it because like everyone says the things i already wanted to say so then i have to sit here and think of some other ones that i want to say in a different way about the same things but i think what what i saw most represented tonight in our community coming to speak or via email is that what they're feeling is a need for a more which on the one hand we all we all know this this is the basic if we wanted to do school
049remote we would already do it if that was what was best for kids learning environment we kind of get real concerned about kids that need early intervention that don't get early intervention we get concerned about kids that don't get preschool who need preschool because those ages those years of brain development can't get got back and i think i can pretty safely say that the people that are responsible for those areas in our district are lying awake at night worrying about that i having met these people um but that doesn't change that this is something that that i also feel we we really need to be working toward as quickly as we possibly can for for the kids that we don't want to lose because we could lose them either because of situations that they're not
050able to connect or because of different educational challenges or or just availability of devices um i hope that when we see this plan at our next meeting we are able to to see that we have already been able to take steps toward getting kids more than what they're able to get this week that each week we'll see a little bit more progress but one of the other things that this this situation really really really highlights in a district our size is the disparity in the educational experience and that disparity is for a variety of reasons um be it race be it socio-economic income uh be it school boundary be it attendance capacity of the building you're in we have a lot of our community that falls into a specific need that still needs to get
051addressed even though it's not a majority need so one of the things that i was very excited to see that the board and i we were all in agreement that we wanted to do and that i do want to make sure that i mention is our addition of our board advisory committee we have our finance and facilities advisory committee we have our legislative and policy advisory committee we have our teaching and learning committee and we've added a fourth committee where currently applications are available for any citizen who would like to apply for our diversity equity inclusion board advisory committee so that we can start to add our board level in each of our opportunities take some time to think about how how will the experts how will the subject matter experts just like in our
052other areas how will they remind us to think about some of these areas and i think that especially given the times that we're in we're looking at how do we keep kids in front of a screen and yet we want to give star tests because we kind of have to know how far behind they are but at the same time we know that they're still getting behind sometimes it's there's there's not a real good answer this week but hopefully as we progress through the weeks and we get through the processes that just take time with this big place we are able to include as we hope we will our new board advisory committee in all of our subject areas and i know that tony morgan and ruth croner will be the chairs of that committee
053and that we will be taking a look at approving those advisory committee members in october um besides that i had an opportunity to observe from a safe place but yet very close up some elementary learning even though that's not in my own household and it's it's it's a tiring thing and it's not just one kid when you have this sometimes in houses you're doing multiple kids when you're with special education students i've seen you know households where yeah you really can't work you have to sit with your child and it is disruptive and it is not what's best for kids and and there is fear that goes along that we can't get that back so hopefully we can just kind of move forward as safely and fast as we can which i know everyone shares
054these same feelings so that's what i got item 5.2 superintendents report well good evening board i'd like to start off with a couple congratulations to staff and students i'm proud to announce that we have seven students who were named semifinalists in the 66th annual 2021 national merit scholarship program over 1.5 million juniors and about 21 000 high schools entered the 2021 national merit school program uh the nationwide pool of semi-finalists represent less than one percent of high school seniors so congratulations to ohs students liam fitzpatrick kyle twodowsky and ohs students nicholas alonso autumn bartle kayla fichtel porter lee and paul ricken so congratulations to those students i'd also like to say congratulations to sd 308 first grade teacher pam click pam teaches at churchill and she was nominated and selected as one of the american
055girl pandemic heroes pam was nominated by two of her students by uh by going above and beyond during this pandemic and there are over 1 000 people nominated uh for this and pam was one of five who were selected for this award so congratulations to pam uh this week is also national arts and education week during this week the fields of edu arts education joined together in communities to across the country to talk about the story and the impact that arts education has and the empowerment of arts education so i'd like to thank all of our sd 308 arts teachers for everything they do for our kids on a regular basis as president doyle just mentioned we've posted and are seeking committee members for the board of education diversity equity and inclusion committee and that
056application process is open until september 23rd and we will approve the board will approve those uh those members on october 13th and lastly i'd like to share that our return to in-person planning meetings are going well and our next meeting has has been mentioned on september 28th we'll be presenting with that to the board what that plan looks like along with some potential dates to implement the plan to start bringing our kids back to in-person learning in our schools that is my report for this evening thank you thank you i do think that when we're able to have people back in person i would love to see mrs click bring herself and her new friend in yes it's pretty cool the the the dial that looks like her the american girl they made a custom
057american girl doll complete with a churchill club lanyard and tote bag i saw that i saw the picture in the paper it was very very neat yeah yeah that's pretty cool i just wanted to say dr sparlin when you say return to learning in person you mean that there will still be a choice for remote learning and that there will also be yes there will be correct i just want to make sure that we're clear on that to people because i think for people that are afraid that's a very important part of the thing yeah no i appreciate the clarification tony but yes there will be there will be a choice item six approval of the consent agenda can i have a motion to approve i make a motion to approve all items under consent
058including 6.1 minutes from the august 31st 2020 board of education meeting open and closed session and 6.2 to acknowledge the foia requests received by the district second mr lightfoot aye mrs croner aye mr bauman aye mrs swanson aye mrs doyle aye ms morgan aye motion passes six zero item seven item seven point one tonight we're going to present the climate for learning framework that we've been working on and faith is going to guide us through the presentation thank you for the opportunity uh as the slide deck is being pulled up i did want to make sure that the board knows that this is work that was completed last school year before the pandemic we had a group of administrators and teachers that gathered together to really create a vision for where we wanted to be
059with our learning environment and while we built this with obviously in-person instruction in mind when we talk about social emotional learning uh and how that fits in it is ever so more important as we also do remote learning so i'll talk a little bit each slide after this is one of the components so you don't have to worry that you have to read that from there but again this is a common vocabulary for us to use from early childhood all the way through high school it exemplifies some of our best practices and there are a lot of great things already happening in sd 308 there are also some big opportunities for improvement and some of our schools really excel in some areas other schools need assistance and by having a common vocabulary and a common
060vision of what we want our learning environments to look like we will be better able to create professional development and support and monitoring them so there are seven components uh the very first one is explicit social emotional learning instruction and for those of you that might be viewing it from your living rooms those are the things when you're talking about mood management where you're talking about how to take a break when you're talking about those types of things in the social emotional competencies they have to be explicitly taught and that's early childhood all the way through transition component two is explicit instruction on behavior what are the expectations that we all want from our students and how are they shared and re-taught component three is this integration best practices are for learning instruction to not
061only have that academic learning target of what we wanted to accomplish in this math lesson but also the social emotional learning component that we're looking at what does teamwork look like what does that how are all those social emotional competencies interwoven into perseverance with our academic program component four is critical student voice and being able to listen not only to the aggregate of our student voices but to individual student voices to address things around equity to know our own impact on how we are doing for all of our students and then involving them in helping us solve those problems and teaching students to be civically minded to be able to not only respectfully talk about their experiences but problem solve together to make all of our school better i could give a week long on
062component five having that supportive school climate and that's culturally responsive instructions that's building relationships we talk a lot about it at the beginning of the year but it's crucial to revisit that and continue to go on of what does our learning environment whether it's remote or in person look like to be supportive a key component of that is engagement and we created this document and you'll see a column it's not only for what student engagement looks like but what is it for teachers what is it for building administrators what do we as district administrators create for our learning environments to make sure that our learners whether they're principals teachers or students how are they engaged how are they in a sense of inquiry where are they with a sense of inclusion six is staff social
063emotional learning if staff are not taking care of themselves and also have a good stance on where they are at socially emotionally it crumbles so we have to make sure that we have trusting relationships within our adults as well component seven is supportive discipline we have to talk about restorative practices yes consequences and those types of things are important but just as important as how do we learn from those how do we work together to solve those conflicts and resolutions so they don't reoccur so we did the initial training on this from my porch in april with all of our administrators but we revisited that in the last week and then all of our principals and our instructional coaches and assistant principals have been given a lot of tech tools and we modeled that and
064they will be using this over the next few wednesdays to talk about with this with their staff as well and part of that is having staff identify the things that they already do well but also the areas that they would like to have continued work in and that will help map out our future for what type of professional development we will continue with for this school year are there any questions i just wanted to ask you to explain a little bit more about restorative justice because i think when people hear the term they think it sounds like a soft approach to kids who are misbehaving and i just want you to clarify what that does mean as far as the end goal so restorative justice and practices you still have the consequences in place of
065a regular system that if the behavior warranted a suspension or the behavior warranted you know whatever that is that still happens but it is talking about and getting the group together if it was a conflict between students or if it was a conflict from student to teacher getting them in the same room making sure that they've heard each other out that there are apologies or next steps what is going to be done how do they respectfully listen and understand both perspectives to move forward and to restore that relationship piece uh as you move forward and the end goal is target behavior that they learn to behave in the way that is expected at school and expected in a civil environment right correct okay i just want to make that for sure clear that came in
066along with senate bill 100 correct that was part of that there had been things prior to senate bill 100 around peer mediation and conflict resolution but yes so um one of the things that i was curious about is how having to now add in students who needed these things more how is this adding into this framework where are you looking to roll this out what kind of um additional mentoring professional development are you looking for for our principals for assistant principals so that they're able to adequately help our staff as they prepare to deal with these increased needs in these ways so one of the things that we added for this school year was a director of social emotional learning and a critical component to the beginning of the school year was a presentation just
067on that and then we walked through and built a online collaborative presentation to go through our principles and assistant principles with so they could use that same presentation to then provide it to their staff then we're providing some ongoing pieces of what that looks like but the next critical step is for our own staff to identify what they see some of their needs as and then creating more professional development that as i talked about our engagement practices that is they decide their choice they decide where they want to go because some some of our staff are fabulous at differ of these areas we wouldn't want everybody to sit through the exact same presentation so there would be those different choices but we also have to take care of our teachers social emotional learning and not
068put as much change on them right now as we would have done in february and march of last year when i mapped out how far we would be because we've had a few other things to do is there a thought to integrating i i know that i do this because i don't have time i integrate some of the social emotional learning into a regular lesson so if we're talking about something i give them a chance to share something that maybe is on their mind or whatever is that what we're trying to do in the current climate so that yes and we've actually established some things especially at the elementary level where there's a time into this day even during during remote learning to do social emotional learning pieces and to your point president doyle the
069what our staff is really hungry for is some instructional technology pieces so we taught a lot of instructional technology through using the climate for learning as the content so that we would be able to do both of those things and how are we going to be monitoring growth and achievement just like we differentiate for our students and we're differentiating for staff how are we going to be monitoring so some of that is right now by teacher reflection but also our administrators are joining google classrooms and looking at what that looks like and then my main push for how we will be monitoring this is to listening to students and to creating whether it's through the work of the equity advisory committee but having different ways for our student voice to be amplified so that our
070students and our system are getting the feedback from how we are doing uh to our most important clients our students and i just think that all of us can do a check-in by randomly talking to kids in our community when we run across them and say do you feel like people in the district care about your well-being any other questions thank you very much under item 8.1 we have financial statements are there any questions from the board regarding item 8.1 nope okay item 8.2 tonight is a first reading of the policies that have been provided policy 2 colon 265 is a new board policy which is a title ix sexual harassment grievance procedure i've asked maureen to present to the board this evening because there are some changes to existing policies due to this new
071one added regarding title ix and i found the best covered by the board's attorney so maureen thank you dr sparlin good evening uh as dr sparling just said title ix there was a final rule that just became final in august and one of the obligations of all school districts across the country based on that is to identify an individual designated as the title ix coordinator who oversees title ix title ix is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all educational activities and programs and we had a conversation uh last week and recom the recommendation is that val patterson be the title ix coordinator and um and so one of the requirements under the law is to get that in writing as quickly as possible so it's in all
072your handbooks on your website disseminated to staff students parents unions applicants employ it covers both employment and students and so rather than bring these to the through the policy committee it was my recommendation that title uh title ix grievance procedure 2265 and then all these others that have some reference to it be brought to the board for first reading so they can be adopted as quickly as possible i was on the state committee that put these together for press and so there's really not much for your policy committee to do it's really it's it's all legal these updates any changes to uh human resources procedures things like that for accountability for um disciplinary changes beyond what are in here uh these are all things that we've already been procedurally following these are the policies to
073catch up to that is that my understanding i'm sorry i'm not understanding the question lori that's really more for dr sparling though we already do all of these things the simple the simple question is we already do all of this these are just following up to create the wording on the actual policies themselves okay correct yes yes there's a quite a bit of professional development that'll go on here that maureen will lead the district administration through and then we will take the rest of the school district through as well i do want to mention your current policy 7 colon 180 which is called closed campuses my suggestion is that can be deleted because if you look at your current policy 7 colon 90 released during school hours covers that topic and then we can make
074what your current policy 7 colon 192 the bullying intimidation and harassment policy for students make that 7 colon 180 and then it's in alignment with what iasb recommends and they're through their press service policy and procedure committees thoughts you do these more i think the only problem we had the last time was who was going to be the coordinators well and that was my only question on on this piece how often do these grievances come forward how much time does it take up because there's a very qualified person moving forward to to do this but what i what i fear is is it something that's going to add even more on to the director's plate it definitely will or is it it definitely will there is under this law effective august 14th there are certainly
075new obligations whenever there's any allegations of sexual harassment before even if no formal complaint is um ever filed and it can be it can be an allegation about a high school student it can be about a second grader it doesn't it can be employee etc and there are obligations on the title ix coordinator to meet with that person and ensure that they're supportive measures offered by the district in every single situation so in a district of your size that could be significant i mean i i agree it's a needed it's a needed spot uh the the focus and the attention is necessary again i just want to make sure that we're not piling too much work on the director's plate that that's all or if it has to be so i mean as long as
076everyone's on agreement in it and that's great you you got my support for that spot but i just want to make sure that we're not that's what we were trying to avoid the last i think when we were looking at some of these policies earlier we were trying to avoid adding more to what i think the answer to man is time will tell on on the uh workload and uh because it it this could be a full-time job it's just you just don't know this there it's become there's a lot more work with this new policy and that's like i said that's why maureen is going to be walking uh the administration through all the professional development we had a meeting last week and we'll continue with that and roll it out for the rest
077of the district i'd like to pause real quick heather moyer who is absent this evening due to a work function so she has the ability to call into the meeting um is now participating in the meeting via phone with mrs groener did you have something heather i'm going to have you on speaker i'm going to have you state your name heather moyer thank you so from a legal tense standpoint if this gets to be too much for miss patterson at what point is the district gonna say you know we need her and safety and students and i'm sorry what's the last part of that we need to what at what point are we gonna say we really need to give this job to somebody else and then how quickly do we have to adjust the
078policy if that happens we can adjust the name within the policy at any time correctly yes once the name doesn't have to come to the board once the policies are in place you can change who yours title 9 coordinator nondiscrimination coordinator complaint managers etc that can be done administratively okay i guess also the thought i would have about that is that my hope is that much like when we included the satellite food pantry that the need for this position will not be great as always i would hate to see this need to become a full-time position any other questions under item 8.2 thank you maureen and thank you for your work on the state committee for this as well okey-dokey action items item 9.1 approval of bills for payment can i have a motion i
079make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of three million four hundred and twenty five thousand five hundred and forty two dollars and 83 cents as presented second mrs swanson aye mrs doyle aye ms morgan mrs croner aye mr bowman aye mrs moyer aye mr leighford hi motion passes 6 0 item 9.2 i make a motion to approve the ppe supply and equipment bid in the amount of two hundred and fifty seven thousand two hundred and seventy dollars as presented second mrs croner aye mr lightfoot aye mrs moyer aye ms morgan aye mrs swanson aye mrs doyle aye mr bowman aye motion passes seven zero item 9.3 i make a motion to adopt a resolution authorizing a reduction in force and honorable dismissal of educational support personnel second miss morgan hi
080mr lightfoot aye mrs doyle aye mrs swanson aye mr bauman aye mrs moyer aye mrs croner hi motion passes 7-0 i'd just like to add that hopefully we will need these positions again sooner rather than later and that i thank the individuals involved for the support that they continue to give our district 9-4 i make a motion to approve the personnel report as presented second mr bauman aye ms morgan aye mr lightfoot no mrs moyer aye mrs croner aye mrs swanson aye mrs doyle i motion passes six one can have a motion to adjourn i make a motion to adjourn all in favor i we are adjourned