001so you e e e call please a here ful presid pres Gorman here Hil here papis here FY here Nolan here let's go ahead need a motion in a second to approve the agenda move second aif yes Fulk yes Gorman yes Hil yes pepus yes buy yes Nolan yes motion is carried let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge of aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands na with liy and justice for all it is quite cold thank you all for coming out tonight I my office was 41 degrees when I got there this morning so patience a little bit chilly had to get some space heaters in so I appreciate I appreciate you all coming out go ahead yeah thank you guys I know it's
002really cold I appreciate you all coming in uh tonight it's cold and bearing this school day today so I didn't hit the number so I feel like we we made the right call so thank you guys all for coming out I will start with public comment Gan Meyer Jean Meyer Christian patriotic American read the items in the agenda 4f g&h and from 1118 of Mr aef's Blog the price of freedom is eternal vigilance I believe citizens of these United States of America have to get involved in political bodies at all levels of government Dr Nolan said there are not been a contested School Board race in a good number of years and after the covid shutdowns public attendance was nearly zero a perfect setting for our board and superintendent to begin to feel like the
003school district and the students belong to them shame on us for allowing this shame on them for taking advantage from my husband and my first school board meeting two years ago until just a few months ago this board had very little discussion and just a rare and singular no vote getting better yes it seemed to me that each of you was pretty much Following the Leader um and an unspoken agenda millions of dollars was wasted as if they were pennies on a new high school that voters rejected three times no apologies have been forthcoming the board is imp floating as it should be when the situation leading to Mr vot's resignation happened when we do something wrong either by mistake or intentional as we all do an immediate apology and correction of the error not
004doing it again repentance is needed it may take parties stepping down from a position or a job because trust has to be earned and maybe we might lose trust in you how can you as a superintendent and as a board make it right what happened to Mr vote and he was a conservative and you guys replaced a liberal for a conservative I think that was the plan I don't know you guys got to help me here I'm asking for the entire board to look critically at the evidence we do not want to Witch Hunt not just the hearsay of each party having read all the materials once I'd have to read it all again take notes and then do research and that's what you all need to do Mr afif's accusations seem detailed but please
005check them out for truth Mr Gorman's reputation reputation seem quite General check out his accusation that Mr aif had been assigned some Schoolboard training which he never did please check out all the accusations with proof you can present to us we want to know you're doing the right thing the public has demanded accountability and transparency we need to clean house of individuals who continue this reprehensible behavior of hiding things and making their own decision in ending two quotes here nice is not a virtue and If Everyone likes you you stand for nothing I'll be praying for you guys [Applause] thank you uh Kelly Cameron oh you're sure okay frat vote Fred vot former School Board member d301 resident thank you for this opportunity to speak to you tonight the memorandum written by Jay aifa posted
006board book is accurate my intent is ADD context and Clarity to a meeting that occurred on May 31st with Dr mongan Mr Gorman and myself I was invited to a meeting with Dr mang and Mr Gorman by an email with a puzzling subject the subject was simply titled meeting at first I thought this email was a fishing attempt because it lacked a clear subject next I opened the email the text of the email was so vague that I had no idea what we'd be discussing at this meeting I assumed that this email was crafted in such a way with a vague subject without relevant keywords to H Foy attempts and door to keep me flat footed during this meeting at any attempt I'm sorry at any rate I accepted the invitation to this meeting when
007I agreed to meet I asked about the meeting's purpose in turn I received a second email from Dr mongan and she still didn't provide a clear reason for this meeting as the meeting unfolded it was unfold the discussion was centered on my engagement with the community and my violations of the oal office furthermore I learned that Dr mongan pulled and read all the emails I had written as a school board member the Catalyst of this the Catalyst was a text message that I sent to a community member that alluded to them to a forthcoming announcement on board book in short Dr manga wanted to see if I was engaging in clandestin activities with the community my communication with the community was acknowledging emails and offering sympathy and or empathy to the center I was told
008that I shouldn't be responding to the emails that I was receiving from the community in the me switched to a different topic each week Dr mgan sends an email to the board titled weekly updates one weekly update contained a section about new legislation in Springfield regarding dual credit this law would have a direct impact on me as a professor in turn I forward this email to a colleague in great haste because the impending leg legislation also impacted him as it turned out this weekly update also contain information that Dr manga and Mr Gorman interpreted as fura at this point the focus of the meeting shifted from my interactions the community to this weekly update with a possible furp of violation now Dr mongan led a discussion where she explained how I violated furpa in turn
009Mr Gorman said that he wanted to talk about the possible next steps were the possible next steps I asked he said I could resign immediately if I didn't resign he refer the matter to the board for more action if I still didn't resign he would refer this matter to the King County Superintendent of Schools and asked for my dismissal I want to be sure that I heard Mr Gorman accurate ly I said we all need to be speaking clearly and precisely at this point I said did you just ask my resignation Mr Gorman confirmed that he was asked me to resign from the board overall I was bullied and backed into a corner Dr mongan and Mr gourman took advantage of me being caught off guard and naive furthermore during this exchange Dr Morgan mongan
010alluded that ECC would like to hear how I violated furpa on their system it was uncalled for and extreme abuse of power to threaten my employment it was clear to me that if I didn't abide by their wishes that I would pay therefore seeing no options I resigned under duress it was agreed by all parties that I would resign sting personal reasons and this matter was closed thank you there is PK hello my name is PK Park as many of you know uh I am a candidate for school board um I'm running for school board uh because I have a vision for what our district can be um and uh I think we need to reconstitute the board with people that are committed to a positive Future Vision I could spend my time my three
011minutes hinging people in this room for apparent misconduct but I think there'll be ample opportunity for that to happen in the regular agenda and from comments from other people in the community and so instead I'm going to talk about something uh that is about my future Vision which is also on the agenda which is accelerated programming um I believe for us to become the leading District in King County we need to expand the breadth and depth of academic programs for students across the spectrum that includes higher quality Core curriculum better opportunities for special education and other needs for remediation and also a more variety in programming for advanced Learners uh on today's agenda in 5f we have a topic for a new program for kids in grades four through eight um you know I I
012personally was a frustrated parent in the district because of La lack of opportunities for advanced Learning elementary school I was introduced by my wife to a number of other parents who were similarly frustrated for many years about the lack of opportunities for those kids to progress at their natural ability um and being stuck in the Core Curriculum uh and I want to thank uh Miss Burk cck Dr burkmeyer for agreeing to meet with us in October uh as a group of interested parents uh to listen to us and to respond to feedback we provided um uh representing a larger group of parents and other constituents to begin developing a stronger ccum for advanced krade learners the proposed academically Advanced learning pathway is not a complete solution to all of our curriculum gaps but it is
013a step in the right direction and speaking as a member of the community on behalf of others in the community we remain interested in working with you um along with other parents and teachers to refine details of the post program and develop strategies to address remaining gaps uh in District policies and practices versus state law federal law and uh Regional best practices um in my remaining time I'll cover a few recommendations I'm not going to hit all of them because of time and then I'll hand out to the board and to superintendent MMO which includes other points my first recommendation is to form a formal Advisory Group including parents and teachers with relevant knowledge and experience this is a great opportunity to demonstrate the district commitment to transparency and Community engagement in developing new programs
014secondly articulate that broader Vision that includes Ela and dmth acceleration within each building and fully accelerated Advanced curriculum across all subject areas IE gifted program which might be in a magnet school uh third engage an expert resource so in other words articulate the broader vision and then show that this is a step towards that broader vision and there going to be other things we're going to do to address the remaining gaps third engage an expert resource for example Northwestern Center for talent development which has worked with many school districts in the state to assess the district's current programs help identify those gaps and recommend policies that align with state law requirements and best practices regionally fourth address the disconnect between the stated policy for single subject acceleration which looks to be aligned with State law
015versus the lack of awareness engagement awareness engagement recent years by teachers and administration at some district schools uh this may involve reviewing building based practices across buildings and promoting best practices for identification of prospective students communication with parents and engagement of building based teams uh that should be involved in decision making uh next uh we should okay yeah have to wrap up sure uh assess the legality and compliance risk in using Behavior assessments such as Basque 3 to determine eligibility uh Basque 3 can be a proxy for determining certain protected things like um autism syndrome or ADHD or the things that are protected under Ada uh and that could subject the district to Legal liability and I have other points which I'll hand out which you're welcome to read thank you Mike MC uh first
016off I'd like to explain you know my position and why I'm here um you I just uh it's about the buzz in here it's about the taxpayers in Plato Township and the money that they spend they spend thousands and thousands of dollars to support what you're doing here and they do expect to get something out of that and I read the memo that you uh was going through um between the two board members here and my impressions are when I read this it's like two school children throwing stones each over basically over there some minor infractions over here and there's no leadership to bring anybody in where's the leadership in the board where's it at where's it been happening because this ends up ultimately costing the citizens of ploh money we if the home values
017go down and you know the whole economics of the situation but that's where I'm coming from is the economics the situation um good schools C certainly good for good property values the one thing I did agree with here um when I think Mr a wrote here at one spot here it says um the law the oath of office and the board policy make it clear that the board meeting should engage with the public uh in a fome and open manner to hear the community's concerns and we just don't see that there's no transparency last month I mentioned to the board that I felt you very disrespectful to our citizens and that's because you don't have the transparency I watched the President yesterday have a news conference while he was signing uh executive orders and he
018said during that news conference he said why don't we negotiate a deal right here right in front of the media that's what transparency is all about but this doesn't happen here why again I'm going to reiterate I see two people throwing stones at like children in a schoolyard and I see no leadership we expect more thank you Virginia Romano good evening everyone thank you for allowing me to speak um I've just got a brief comment regarding the centure item and I'd also like to speak about another agenda it's item 5D um but as far as I'm concerned we've got a lame duck board until our election April 1st it's my belief that with only approximately 80 days or less before we vote for four new board members it would not be a good idea to
019remove anyone from their positions for the obvious reason of the time it would take to appoint and install new board members I'm also not in favor of replacing our superintendent due to the same time constraints and other concerns although I'm grateful for Mr aif in taking a stand regarding the situation I feel it's a little too late and with my political spin on things I can't help but think this is a ploy to hang on to his seat on the board there's more I could say regarding the subject but I'll refrain as there's plenty of others commenting on the subject and with all the evidence in in the agenda it's I don't need to say anymore um so um I would like to address the fees that are placed upon the parents in the agenda
020item 5D this is called school fees my rhetorical question is why we pay approximately 70% of our property taxes going to our school district you've whizzed away close to $10 million of our tax money on a new school building to the tune of a quar billion dollar that were defeated three times and overwhelmingly I might add perhaps this is customary and at this moment I don't know how much additional Revenue these fees actually bring into the district but I can't believe these parents don't pay enough in taxes that they have to pay these additional fees especially when we've had a few truth and tax taxation hearings through the years for over and above our customary Levy percentage that's about all I have to say thank you very much D chman good evening uh it's important
021to dra uh to address the board and Community tonight after reviewing the agenda and materials provided the allegation raised by Mr aif are not surprising the cea similar concerns have been raised repeatedly um over the years with the Union sharing numerous instances of the Behavior now being alleged that said the details shared by Mr aif are deeply concerning the question remains what more is needed to prompt meaningful change hopefully this is the turning point for far too long bullying intimidation fear and the complete lack of respect have become commonplace under the leadership in this District whether it's a teacher advocating for their rights under Ada or administrators facing verbal hostility in their meetings the pattern of toxic Behavior persists there have been some instances where some current board members have sworn at insulted and made
022members of our negotiation teams cry one current board member even referred to our chief negotiator as deaf during anou meeting members who file grievances have seen their evaluations drop or have even lost their jobs this trend has been felt personally by Union leadership even though the same evaluator was assigned evaluations began to decline upon taking an active role in the union Excellence is no longer recognized speak up and you become a Target even giving public comment as I am now at board meetings is labeled as unprofessional nearly four years ago concerns were raised by CA during a board meeting about the extension of the current superintendent's contract it was pointed out that no input was sought from teachers students or Community regarding this decision the extension was pushed through right before a new board was
023elected um denying them the opportunity to have a say on such a crucial matter so where are we today four years later we have the worst retention rate the worst teacher to student ratio ongoing struggles with passing referendums and an in AB ility to retain staff on committees the list goes on it is clear that change is no longer enough what is needed is a complete overhaul the potential changes discussed tonight cannot Mark the end of this process a continued comprehensive overhaul is essential for the benefit of the student staff and entire community of 301 thank you mul thank you first I would like to um thank Mr aif sometimes descent or taking the risk to share something going on behind closed doors is what leadership looks like nobody can appreciate better than I taking
024hits for taking those steps so I appreciate you I'm here to raise concerns about how Larson and Darby the district's Architects were awarded a $4.2 million contract without your direct approval on the board this agreement was made without a written contract without review or approval by this board in direct conflict with Section 10-20 D21 of the Illinois school code which requires school boards to approve contracts for expenditures exceeding $225,000 the district's assertion this work was covered under a master agreement with them in that was signed in 2014 however this assertion has three issues first the master agreement covers work on existing Elementary and high schools not a new building the second is the agreement contains a term of 30 months from the date of agreement we're well expired now and the third is every project
025supposed to have detail scope Insurance terms outlined in a project exhibit addendum that's executed Dr mangan's memo to the board dated November 15 24 requesting your approval of a new master agreement for Larson and Darby stated and I quote the b133 free agreement with Larsson and Darby was prepared as a master agreement with the intent the parties agree upon project authorization exhibits for each project this is our practice unquote yet when I asked Dr mgan why no exhibit was ex executed for the proposed new high school she said I was not involved in a decision not to execute a project authorization exhibit for the proposed high school and Larson and Darby did not raise the issue with me going forward I'll be informing the district's Architects that a project authorization exhibit must be executed before
026design work begins on a project Dr mangan's response seems to imply someone else decided not to execute one who was this person Dr mongan was responsible for directing Larson and Darby's work on this project they met regularly in a steering committee meeting throughout 2023 who gave her authorization to direct Larsson and Darby why would an architect perform work for that amount without a written agreement who was responsible for this an explanation that no addendum exists because the architect did not for one is unacceptable it's not their responsibility to protect our district from liability it's the duty of the superintendent and this board and it's enshrined in the school code Dr mongan has pointed fingers at this board essentially claiming that because you approved fiscal year 24's budget and subsequently approved payments to Larson and Darby
027if so facto you approve this project however approving a budget with a general line item does not equate to explicit approval of a $4.2 million agreement without a written contract or proper liability safeguards her interpretation circumvents the transparency required under state law and District policy and it shifts the responsibility for oversight onto this board while bypassing necessary procedural steps and the school code between June and July 23 you'll see in your packet something changed between the district and Larson and Derby their invoices for the new high school project shifted from hourly billing to billing against an outlined $4.2 million phase fee agreement as you'll see in those invoices and some of those pages are double-sided I apologize so my questions are what were the terms this agreement who negotiated it how was it negotiated there
028has to be phone conversations emails texts or other records that support some meeting of the mines to occur here a meeting of the mines has to happen in order for there to be a contract particularly in the absence of a written one who did Larson and Darby take direction from why would they Greenlight a project of that amount without a guarantee of payment or terms of liability are you all comfortable with our superintendent committing millions in taxpayer dollars to a vendor for work without following State Statute without your knowledge and without securing explicit board approval required by the school code we elected you to safeguard our district and be good stewards of our tax dollars and this has happened on your watch based on her answers Dr mongan suggests this is your problem because you
029paid the bills without question and the it's the architect's problem for not asking for an addendum none of these excuses excuse flouting a school code requirement that you were required to give approval on that agreement our community would like answers to those questions thank thank you move on to the uh consent agenda motion and a second of required to discuss and approve the consent agenda so second included in your board packet are the revenue and expenditure reports uh revenues are currently at 4.25% compared to 41.4% a year ago um expenditures are at 46.6% compared to 4 3.86 a year ago this month we received $ 76,2 2449 for eight home starts um no transition fees came in and then the bills payable reports for both Central and Northern cane are typical for January questions Fulk
030yes Forman yes Hil yes pepis yes fuli yes aif yes Nolan yes motion is carried uh motion to second or required to discuss and approve the revised minutes from the November 18th 2024 regular board meeting moved second anybody any comments on that the submited language with the revised minutes that be tabled to this month anybody have any questions no comments no go ahead Gorman yes pil yes papis yes FY yes aif yes Fulk yes Nolan yes a motion to Second a requireed to discuss and approve the vet affiliation agreement with Anderson Humane clinic so second so I'm here today to uh inform you that Anderson Humane lowcost vet clinic or care has uh agreed to host an externship as we continue to expand and create those opportunities for our students as you know each and
031every single one of our vet tech Clinic students needs to complete those hours to get their certification so this is a new location that we have not had in the past but again the reputation of our program and the commitment of our faculty have been able to get this location on sounds good Hil yes papis yes fuli yes aif yes Fulk yes Gorman yes Nolan yes motion is carried uh Motion in a second are required to discuss and approve the bus bid so moved second Dana go for it um included in your board packet you also have um bus bid specs um and the recap they were sent out to five different companies for the 25 26 and 26 27 um school year um this was our big Big Bus bid um for the yellow
032buses and the activity buses um we received one complete bid um we did have a second bid that came in if you look on the recap we had Midwest Bus Sales with a um no bid because they bid the 71 passenger instead of the 78 passenger um so we had asked for the 78 passenger um the price for the 78 passenger which there's 46 of them that's the biggest um count this year um the price remain the same from last year's bid so there was no increase on the 78 passenger buses last year this year um but if Midwest Bus Sales could get the 78 passenger they said that their price would be $33,600 a bus Which is600 roughly 6600 more than what Midwest has so it puts in perspective that we do have a
033fair bid for Midwest Transit so we're recommending that the um School Bus bid for Midwest Transit be accepted for um Le year one two and three for the activity buses through those for three years um without the air conditioning and Midwest Transit is who we usually use okay questions no pepis yes fuli yes aif yes Hulk yes Forman yes henil yes Nolan yes the motion is carried uh motion is second required to discuss and approve the proposed changes to the 2526 school calendar so moved second with District leadership team to go over the calendar that we discussed last month a few changes came out of the DLT so if you have the calendar in front of you going to changed the last day which is June 2nd to be a half day students and half
034day for teachers versus the full day on the thir uh that would shift the students coming back um actually extending their day one day for half a day versus being done the first to allow for that it also allowed us to add an additional teacher in service day U which you'll see was added up on September 26 which is a Friday it's a teacher Institute dat uh that we would use for district professional development and then we would move the half day that was on the 24th of September to the 25th so they're back to back you have a half a day and then a full day um on that calendar if you look in September um also if you see we sh the end of the semester uh we had the end of the
035semester in January we're shifting it to be before winter break um and that really aligns allows us to better align with the regional programs as well as to align with Al Community College the other challenge we have is anybody that's new to our district that's coming in any students new to our district coming in at January they come in with two weeks left of class and really don't have anything to to instruct at the high school or at any of the levels um so it we just help with transition of those um also sh the quarter end dates to be at the um end dates based on the change of the semester for semester one and so at the bottom you'll see the breakdown of quarter 1 39 days quarter 2 38 days and then
036quarter three and quarter four are extended to 46 and 51 um respectively uh we did also have conversation there was a conversation last month at the board level regarding the 29th day which is that day kind of a week and a half in we have a four day week and a 4 day week and that Friday off uh teachers really felt that that was a huge asset for them gave them Great Value to be able to do the work that they need to do um so they would like to keep that 29th dat uh which we do have there um and then there was a lot of discussion surrounding pushing that date back to the 11th of August uh but the committee felt that because we've already put this out parents may have already selected
037that teachers are already expecting it that we look at that for the following year the 26 27 year and still keep the August 18th 19th date standard which in line with Geneva 304 but not in line with anybody else it's our partner districts and we had talk about this for 50 minutes by the way in DT this is a long conversation I don't think we're planning on taking the whole meeting so I mean you know I shared my perspectives as a parent we had different levels there we think um there was obviously not a unanimous decision on anything but I think there was a we did a general consensus and I think by the end it was it was pretty close to everybody been fours or fives put at our five finger um kind of
038agreement and so I think you know where we settled even though subtle changes I think that especially pulling in the extra day on the September 26th having like a full um a PD day there instead of the unused day essentially after the last day of school which is clean up and you know so they were a lot of them were appreciative of putting a day five six weeks in for more support and kind of formal structure day there any other questions what day is graduation for seniors thank you that's okay so that works out that's oh what about next year next year probably around the same we probably don't have it yet or similar depending on when we get it's yeah probably the same week so we'll be able to get with second semester starting
039in January they'll be able to start their second semester classes get through get through AP testing and we're good so that's great anybody else no FY yes AI yes Fulk yes Forman yes Hil yes heis yes Nolan yes the motion is carried uh a motion and second are required to discuss and approve the censure of Jeff Gorman so moved second so I wrote the mo uh the memos um in support of this I brought this to the board's attention um it brings me no joy to write these memos and um to bring this issue before the board but um these are facts that came to light serendipitously on December 7th I had a conversation with Dr Nolan and uh he brought up Fred vote Fred vote was not even on my radar at that time
040uh he talked about his resignation and uh why I didn't take issue with the underlying reason uh for him resigning and I said well God what what are you talking about and I reached out to Mr vote I spoke to him and I learned about all that has transpired that I memorialized in this memo and I found it shocking and appalling that a board member was approached by our colleague and asked to resign without ever Consulting the rest of us that he was threatened with censure without ever Consulting the rest of us that he was threatened with removal from the board without ever Consulting the rest of us how it's being done now is what I would call a best practice in how it's supposed to be done you give somebody do process you give
041them notice you give them an opportunity to respond and you conduct that business openly that was never done here now in order to vote for the motion for censure what you need to do my colleagues on the board is find that Jeff failed to inform the board of this alleged breach of the student confidentiality information even to this day we have not been advised of that let that sink in even to to this day we have not been informed of what that was he knew about it he failed to let us know he failed to let us know that he and Dr mongan met with Fred vote on this issue and then when he was in the meeting he threatened him with censure he threatened him with uh going to the regional superintendent to remove
042him from the board he had no authority to do those things the most he could do is what I did was is to bring it before his colleagues and say this is what I think should be done that wasn't done so if you find that he did these things or better yet failed to do these things then the only reason able vote on a vote for censure is yes now I wrote the memo and I sent it to my colleagues including Jeff on January 7th gave him ample time to respond he did respond he responded at the 11th hour right before the material went to the board book for publication and if you read his response it's telling in the response he says that there is public there's the school business official business and then
043there's a private conversation his meeting with Fred he argues was a private conversation the private conversation let the SN in was initiated by Esther Mion using her Schoolboard email sent to Fred vote at his Schoolboard email CC Jeff Gorman using his Schoolboard email and then convened the meeting at the district offices and in the meeting discussed student records and board conduct we would have to suspend all logic and reason to come to the conclusion that that was anything other than official School business how could you come to any other conclusion that was the response that he articulated in addition to ass alleging that uh this is all political and that I'm actually the one who's committing uh improper conduct and we will address that at the appropriate time when his motion for centure comes up
044but to vote yes for this censure you have to find that he did not inform the board of the things that he was supposed to inform the board of and that is clear so I'm can I can I ask I'm gonna ask a question of you eser I'm curious so in um I'm gonna be careful here so did you receive guidance for anything that you you two did whether it was from that meeting otherwise did you receive guidance from our legal team yes did you follow the guidance I did follow the guidance okay so Esther I also spoke to the legal team did they tell you not to tell the board they never said to not tell the board did they have tell Jeff he shouldn't tell the board but the issue was we' agreed
045with Mr vot to keep a confidential so you entered into a private agreement with Mr V to keep it confidential does that agreement negate your duties to the rest of the board that's what he was he requested that of us to keep it private I pardon that was requested of us by him to keep it private but not to let you guys know and and you you seceeded to that well obviously well I think but so I I mean I appreciate the language but the converse is also true in the memo right did the lawyers say don't share it no did they say you definitely should share it no no so I mean I think you know it just if you're living in a space of some sort of you've got some ability to make
046a decision there right if we're not being directed uh specifically I would say one way or the other to absolutely share or absolutely do not share right um I think that that absolutely does give you some discretion right just based on the legal right what the what the recommendation was and to be fair this is you don't do educational law I don't do education law right like if the lawyers recommend it X Y or Z I think that does you know open the door to make sure and say to just allows a little bit of wiggle room there right yeah I that that's my I mean that's my take on it no I your point is noted if you look in the bills this month alone and whatever the last month's bills were we paid
04726 to $28,000 for our attorneys we have a retainer agreement with the attorneys for $300 a month and we get unlimited consultation for certain things for $300 a month so $26,700 somehow fell outside of that that amount we are going to the lawyers and we are hanging our hats on what the lawyers are telling us when we should be exercising leadership at the superintendent level and at the board level and basically handing it off to the lawyers and say well the lawyers told us well I've been practicing law for 30 years uh lawyers will tell you what the parameters of what you can and cannot do lawyers are not elected members of the board lawyers are not the superintendent they give us advice on what the legal landscape looks like what's allowable what's not allowable
048what's legal what's illegal but we have our responsibilities as board members and as a superintendent to know we need to inform the board of these things the fact that they didn't say you should go inform the board shouldn't be necessary when it's a board level issue so we had a conversation with Fred and it became private when he asked us to keep it amongst ourselves no matter what he said this evening that's what he told us I didn't threaten him in that meeting Dr Mangan didn't threaten in that meeting I never I never really heard the word censure before you brought it up like last month or the month before so and then I reread what the attorneys had guided us and it was in there but it never even came up so so no
049matter what you think Jay that's not what happened there the the other thing I want to understand is like you found out eser about this um this uh alleged violation of student Student Records you you shared it with with Jeff right board president as the board president why didn't you share it with the rest of us there's lots of things I share between the board president and myself okay so you were relying on him to let us know I conversation with the board president and we we dealt with the situation and then it came up it FR no that I I I I totally understand that so you told the president and the president didn't tell the rest of us Argo the centure and how did you find out that Fred forwarded that email how
050did you get access to his emails well first of all every Everybody inside of sub 301 we can access emails no I understand you can access part policy which policy is that I'd have to go look at the policy but the the the our board policy does not allow you access to the emails we don't have a privacy interest whereby if there's a legal issue that those emails can be accessed via a subpoena or a Foya if it's not subject to an exemption but your is it your position that you can read all of our emails it's it's our position that we have access to any email that is sent to 3019 you have access to it we have access you read the board's emails no I don't read them unless there's a reason to
051read them and did anybody give you permission to read Fred votes emils the issue that arose prior to this gave rise to me looking at is there other issues that have been shared that were confidential unfortunately in that search we did find information that was shared that was confidential regarding student information as well as other information five of the I mean six of six of the yeah six of the seven of us up here were part of the situation which that was discussed and we were all present with the exception of Jennifer who was not on the board you were quite frustrated with that too to be fair Jay I I was uh Eric the issue that came up on May 1 was an issue that we discussed here I didn't give anybody permission as
052a board member nobody asked me to read those emails I will tell you right now it is not appropriate for the super superintendent to read my emails as an elected Bo period and of story it is not [Applause] appropriate it's not that's not up for discussion right now eser is not on you're right absolutely absolutely Jeff thank you it's about you so the issues are your failures because you were told about this alleged uh breach of student confidentiality records you didn't tell us about that you didn't tell us about your meeting with Fred you didn't I did tell you about the meeting with Fred I called you after the meeting I called every board member after the meeting no you didn't I did absolutely not I it was requested I look at my phone records
053and send them to I mean I got a call on June 2nd when I was at an airport saying what that he resigned that he resigned for personal reasons but that there we never knew of a meeting where this was all said we we all got that same call like he stepped I mean I'm sure Morgan you got too that he stepped down for personal reasons but that was the gist of it and then it went on to talk about what we'd have to do to get another board member on but J just said that I never told you we had a meeting with him he didn't didn't tell I Mee with he resigned that he just resigned correct what he just resigned we had a meeting with him and he resigned people resign all
054the time they l literally say I've got for it said for personal reasons and I know around that time that Fred did have personal reasons going on I think it was the um someone had had a heart attack or something so there were things going on at that time that's what I alluded that to but not anything more so don't mean to interrupt go ahead no I just said I wasn't going to argue about it that's what I said call so I would I presented the the information as clearly as as as can be there was an alleged breach of student confidentiality Jeff Gorman you was made aware of this as the board president Dr mongan says I made Jeff because he's the president aware of it none of us ever heard about this again
055we were not told that there was a meeting we were not told that he was threatened with censure we were not told that he was threatened with removal from the board that is not something that we authorized the only time we've ever done that is right now through a process with due process given to Jeff giving him notice letting him know giving him an opportunity to respond to which he did respond by saying oh that was a private conversation which happened to use District resources via email with the superintendent calling it holding it in the administration's Offices please we will not suspend common sense and call that a private conversation when it was school business I'll say a quick statement I adhere to the established iasb protocols while respecting another board member's right to privacy
056as Fred asked not to speak of that I acted as directed within my role I acted responsibly and within my elected role and respected another's right to privacy janate centure serves only to express his personal grievances against me my 14 years as an elected volunteer on the board I've never faced such accusations nor have I been accused of wrongdoing because I've always conducted myself with the Integrity the district deserves jate as an attorney should appreciate that in any organization some decisions are role specific especially when they involve sensitive information I did not threaten him you were told of a meeting so the things you're saying you weren't told didn't happen or you were told that so I think the the you know I got brought into this that week before Christmas uh the other a
057week before holiday and you know it is I'll be honest Jay and and because every email is DJ DJ DJ DJ we know there's been a lot of commutation among four of you I'm not saying together I'm not saying any Oma violations are happen but it's clear that there are four people of the seven of us a group that I'm not in that are having a lot of conversations and making plans that's just that's upsetting to me I was not informed of a cent until our conversation I talked to D before you did not ever use the word Center this is you did not ever you did not use the word Center you said you were going to talk about the concern Jay first time I heard that word was my conversation with Jay on
058I I do have concerns that there was an opportunity to meet with Esther and me present with one of the two of you you chose to not get a different perspective you took one perspective of three people that were at the me and you based everything around that maybe that's what actually happened I don't know maybe you could have talked to these two and or me me and one of you and you could have at least understood context and Jay you should know you don't talk to one party in a three- party situation and draw consensus from that so that is that is like one with the process with the frustration and concern that I have that there was a willful decision to not engage that's that's concerning to me and that that choice was
059made and that everything's kind of wrapped around you know that conversation um and you know with uh with Fred I spoke to Fred very briefly on Saturday morning did not interrogate him did not ask any questions when he said is there anything you want me to know able to come to the it was probably a seven eight minute conversation on Saturday I think it was Saturday morning and you know I left it the B I know if he was coming tonight so I appreciate the fact that you know he came in exercise his right to talk in Open Session um and I just think you know I think a lot of this has blown up I think a lot of this is uh very large I mean it's gotten to be so big I understand
060the concerns on some people's part but I do think there is a a part of this which is was this willfully deceptive right like I think is something to be said for intent right um and even the idea of kind of threatening censure threatening is a is a big word um I mean I think if you lay out the options to somebody with the potential options given a concern I don't think that's threatening um if that's what they are saying is happened and if somebody's provided with some options after somebody brought up a wrongdoing in a job or you like you said like happens like sometimes people make poor choices and there are unintended consequences for that um and so I think even if something happens on accident sometimes there are consequences that are not
061ideal um and it feels to me the way that this is worded um and the pontification that is happening from my perspective in in the in the thing itself in the in the momento itself that there is not even an insinuation but an outright statement that this was intentional and I truly do not believe it was intentional um again not that there can't be consequences for unintentional things to be very clear my children know that at home right like just because you did something and actually didn't mean to doesn't mean there aren't consequences we know that teachers in the classroom sometimes that happens we get that um and so it feels to me like there is a lot of conjecture about that intent and I'm curious if any of the four of you you guys
062haven't said anything so I'm curious what your perspectives are on this I come to this obviously I wasn't here then so I'm coming in from an outside and I actually haven't I've been not engaged with this because I haven't talked to anyone in I don't know let's see it's January um I guess for me it's two things one what is the role like because you're meeting was someone do you is your role 100% you have to share it with the other board members if someone's leaving that's my question I don't have an answer if someone's I'm sorry leaving if if if someone's resigning and you had a meeting do you need to is it the role like of said president of here whatever do you have to share the details of that meeting I know
063the request of privacy what's what's the parameters there like if someone's resigning based on things that happen second is if there was a something with a student record which that's where my brain goes right should that be shared that would be my question that would be more of the security thing that IC yes yes that's my biggest concern so again trying to dance around you know any specific issue you know in a situation where somebody unintendedly shared in unintended manner shared information in whatever capacity um there are what are the different things that can happen so you know again generically if an email is sent with information and somebody forward it on you know that's a different expectation for followup than somebody who deletes it than somebody who went to the spam folder and they
064never looked at like are there different outcomes that would occur in a situation like that and did this end up being a fura violation well this is in Israel isra and fura it's an Illinois student record act an Illinois student record is unlawful to share anything relevant to Illinois Student Records uh you guys take that oath as a board member you know you cannot share anything relevant to Student Records um in addition that student record was part of that weekly update that was shared with a third party um I did reach out to third party third party assured me that they did not read it and did not forward it to anybody um and so as working with our legal team to find out if there was a necessity to notify parents they did not
065feel like you have guidelines to follow under furpa under the guidelines we did not have to notify the parent uh because it did not get shared further from that individual who's confirmed back to me an email U because it's an unlawful act for them to share it and so the variance of what can happen here is very broad right it can be all the way from having a ation uh in terms of taking him in front of the IB Illinois associate School Board uh like we do when we meet with them for a conversation as a whole board it can be um having them Cent like we just like you guys are doing tonight it could be them you know us making legal we could actually sue them for sharing student information as a board
066choose to as a district to sue them uh because it's student information that is like the top end of an act that we should not be performing we get trained in that as employees uh we're trained in as Board of Education when you have student information it has to be kept extremely confidential um and so the the range was very very Broad in terms of what could have been done so that was never shared with anyone else on the board at the time that's my question and and again I guess the hypothetical for me would be if it was found that there was an isra violation and or fura do you feel like that would have been shared with us because there violation or that I mean it's good I mean what would be I
067mean obviously we don't share everything with the board the board is it's not like I come to you the board on every single thing that happens inside of our school system absolutely U we only bring big things to the board things that are going to be impactful that could cause like litigation those types of things because the person resigned their position it was it was done it was a position that was done and no necessity to have to bring it to the board to notify you can go ahead and finish you go first you goad the only issue that I have with with how this is conducted is one not knowing what was going on or what the violation was not being told that that uh information was passed on when there was a prior
068meeting I believe it was that same month that came up with something being disclosed and everybody here who was part of that meeting I was not part of that meeting I was out of town was given that information and given the decision of like what to do how do you guys want to handle it you sat and discussed it whereas in this occasion there was nothing brought to us to sit and discuss how we want to handle it it was handled without the rest of the board's input those two situations were completely different I know the one I'm saying that the same process did not happen it wasn't the same process if you you weren't there um I believe you were not present for that meeting um that meeting and the board can address this
069we had no idea how information got out to the community we only knew that information went to the community that was between myself and the Board of Education only even my cabinet members did not know the information and so when we were in talking about like where did this come from who how did this get out there we did not know and we had no idea and so we waited and there was some silence until so we got a board member who said I did it that's how that came up that was entirely different that was a a conversation that something got out we weren't sure how and that's how that came about and then there was discussion after we that person said I did this then we had conversation as a board i w
070to um say something I want to clarify ER Eric pointed out something that if if true would be bad that you know you listen to one side but not the other but if you read my memo and yeah I'm lawyer so I footnote everything and there's an extensive footnote in one of them I sent an email to Esther saying hey I want to know more about this uh meeting I want to know more about this breach of uh Student Records um and so we set a date for the meeting de and I were going to go to that meeting and Esther said well I want want Mandy to be there so she can take notes and I said absolutely that totally makes sense to have a notetaker I would just like to have contemporaneous copy
071immediately after the meeting before they're edited I didn't get a response and then the next day I got a response and said well I need a list of all the questions that you're going to ask and I can't meet with both of you because I need Eric to be there J what does this have to do with my Cent again it it has it does I'll I'll tie it up WP it yeah yeah I'll tie it up yeah thanks I know when I get to the vote for your centure um so I asked for the meeting he said no I I I can't meet with you unless you give me all the questions that you want answered and Eric can sit in on it I said I'm a board member D is a board member
072the two of us are looking into this issue we want to have this conversation but if you don't want to meet with us we'll find another way and then I submitted a Foya and I got information about some of the things that I wanted to ask you questions about I asked to have the meeting constraints were placed on me that would violate the open meetings act if I if I complied with it I chose not to go that route I chose to get a foer to get the information that I needed and I got the information all it like way late because I guess we don't have a policy of checking our spam folder um but I did no I did do that and second and second of all and second of all willful means
073intentional yes appreciate that I know yeah yeah yeah yeah no and and yeah you you you make a great point just like you did on uh December 7th which brought us here willful means intentional it doesn't mean malicious Jeff has told us he would wanted to keep it private whatever the reason was that Mr vote asked him to keep it private is immaterial he intentionally kept it private that is willful now the fact is you can't keep information that is belongs to the community uh on the board private because one party asked you to so that is willful in that it is intentional it was intentional not to tell us about the meeting not to tell us about the violation therein lies the willful component which is absolutely critical to the next motion I do
074want to clear up one thing because I know as a parent listening I would be wondering about this but I know we just talked about the student privacy and what are the certain things that we should be doing and we mentioned in that that we didn't notify the parent and and that sort of thing but according to fura and isra and this is something that I would think would be for this because I know in corporate this is how it is um you are supposed to notify the affected parties you're supposed to tell them the details of that breach the affected parties would be the parents and that student actions are supposed to be taken to outline what steps the district is taking to mitigate that violation and there's a rights notification notifying the parents
075and will students of their rights under this including the right to file a complaint so it sounds like those things weren't done and that's why I'm a little confused when we say okay there's a student breach we don't tell the parents we don't tell this we don't tell any of the student or any of those people but yet it still rises to the level that we have to go after a board member and get him off the board that doesn't make sense to me it can't be either or it has to be both like if it is that bad then not only do like you said we talk to have a private conversation with Fred but we should also be talking to this particular student's guardians or parents about this and that didn't happen and
076I think that would cause me concern as a parent because again how do these parents out here know that if there was a violation against their Student Records they wouldn't know apparently because we're not telling them so I think that's something that need to be said I mean according to La that's not true we should have gone further than that anybody else I I just I think that none of us were you gota you got to look at both sides to this and we don't have a clear you know we wer in the room so we didn't go after Fred there wasn't bad at all it was a conversation and then it turned into a private conversation when he requested it not be shared amongst board a yes Fulk no Gorman no pil yes pepis
077yes Puli yes Nolan no the motion is carried um a motion of second required to discuss and approve the recommendation to remove Jeff Gorman from the Board of Education and refer the matter to the regional superintendent so moveed second so I'm bringing this motion as well and we don't have to belver the issue it's based on the censure and the Crux of the issue is was the conduct willful and we talked about that it wasn't an accident it was intentional they wanted to not tell the rest of the board whatever the reason may be but they chose not to tell the rest of the board about the student violation the records violation and the meeting if we have and and and this is so important like I I asked as to the question you you
078found out about the student record violation why didn't you tell the rest of us you said well I told the president and then if the president doesn't tell the rest of us how can we operate so and he has by his own admission told us today that it was you know it was intentional he says that he was asked to keep a confidential and with all due respect to Fred vot what he wants doesn't dictate what the law and policy and the school code requires and as a board president as a superintendent you need to understand that so it is willful and it's appropriate to ask the regional superintendent to take action when somebody conducts himself in a way that willfully ignores his duties as a board member so if you voted for the censure
079and you believe that the conduct in that censure the subject of the censure motion was willful it was intentional then it makes sense to also vote Yes to recommend removal com no I don't want to hear why anymore but Fulk no Borman no Hil yes papis yes HBY yes a yes Nolan no and just for clarity at this point so this is referred to the Roe superintendent it's at their discretion to follow through correct whatever they do so just to be clear with everyone this motion this motion refers it to the Roe uh and then we comply with their decision decision essentially on that yeah uh a mo and second are required to discuss and approve the cent of J Thief sove I'll second so this is my Cent so I'm not an attorney so
080I don't have all the legal jargon to say but the section three in my centure really goes into detail of why I'm censoring him um I'm not going to read those and bore everybody with it I'm sure everybody's read those at home U so that is the guts of it and I know it's a 4-3 board but that's my point that I wanted to bring up he's doing these in retaliation for me I guess he has an issue with me over the years um so so be it um I do think that you're taking advantage of your role I do think that you're doing this for public um you know a spectacle to be honest and uh be it what it may if it works for you it works can I respond are you done
081I am done go ahead yeah as somebody pointed out during public comment there are 80 days left there is there's no benefit to the spectacle the there are people that are going to make their decisions come election day one way or the other based on four years of of of of work product this wasn't even on our radar until the issues that led to the initial motion per centure and when that issue happened we learned about this what was what was the option just ignore it just ignore the willful violation of board directives just ignore the uh failure to notify us about important business of the school district just ignore it for what purpose I mean there are limits to what you can do in a collaborative fashion when the information isn't being shared with
082the rest of us then you have to look for other avenues and here's the thing this motion for censure and this motion to recommend removal this is proper process it's way more than Fred vote was ever given he deserved to be treated in the fair way that Jeff was he so it's not about spectacle it's about Fair Play It's about due process the due process that was even denied me I mean come on folks on this board I wrote that memo while on vacation because I wanted to make sure that Jeff had enough time to read it and to respond to it his motion for censure memo literally got to my inbox at 3:30 on Friday I didn't even have an opportunity to respond the way he had an opportunity to respond but that's all
083right because due process is something that I value that's why I brought the motion for censure that's why I brought the motion to recommend remove if you think that it would have been better to just ignore this if you think that it would have been better to have these conversations in Clos session where it's not appropriate if you think that just talking about it privately in group chats in violation of then vote for the Cent yeah Color Me guilty but if you think that when you see something wrong you need to do what's right then you vote against this motion for censure else I think the issue though is that and I know you use the word as skep you know that it's like a like a carnival or something yeah skeptical thinking um I
084guess holding each other accountable is that right and I think that you know I think Dave Chapman got up and said it I think the fact that it seems like it's just seen as we're just going to sweep some of this stuff on the road we're not going to hold each other accountable we're not going to have these conversations the community already thinks that we're just a yes board we just file in line and we go along with everything that and that's the problem now we're finally in a situation where we're holding each other accountable we're trying to have these conversations that we should be having and instead it's almost ridiculed I mean that's how I feel it's almost like ridiculed like I I think um public was you know two school boys fighting no
085it's it's two people that may be having a disagreement on something but it needs to be shared in front of the community so the community understands I feel like we are too busy trying to hide things or put things behind closed doors and that's why we're in this whole transparency thing now I would I know as a board member a parent I would want to know what's going on and I think the fact that it just seems like it just keeps getting made fun of that there's a real issue here and this is the time that we bring it forth and we discuss it and we talk through it honestly I got to be honest with you Jeff when I saw it I looked at it as retaliation because you literally wait until the last
086second and then you said something and even when you put your centor in I mean I don't know if some of the other board members noticed it I just didn't see anything in there with basis like there wasn't an actual example of what he had done wrong the one example that wasn't there was that I guess you know you had done things and we had to have a um an actual board retreat that you needed to be at and you didn't go to that's not what happened and it was literally just a regular board retreat he wasn't told that be there by discipline or anything like that and so again it's just things that we're just putting in here and and ultimately hiding and it's it's time for us to stop doing that it's time
087for us to start holding each other accountable and having these authentic conversations that's where we are I completely agree with that and I think that the the idea that you know even using they were hiding I mean we as a board have talked I think up until probably September I mean we would talk as a board about the idea of transparency um because that's you know it's a buzzword these days not just here I'm just in general right this idea of that and I think that transparency is giving people information that that is appropriate to know transparency is not Absol abute I firmly believe that especially at this level I do not need to know about everything that happens in every school in every situation that is not my job as a board member I
088think it is fair to say um and I'd be really curious to know um getting some feedback from other areas school districts too right the relationship between a superintendent and now me obviously the relationship between a superintendent and a school board president is fundamentally different because of conversations that happen at that level we know we know that that that is something that happens every seven people don't get called about something that requires one phone call right um there are times that obviously we do have to talk about everything but to be honest I don't need to hear about everything that happens in this office as a board member or as board president I trust that we have a superintendent and there are principles that escalate things to the board to the district can we please
089monitor the talking up there please thank you so that there things happening at the building level need to come to the do and then it comes to us great I mean we don't have principles reaching out to us directly about incidents we have had teachers reach out to me everybody said A Teacher Reach Out was something great and what do we do we pass that information along right I I have no concern with the idea of transparency I'm not willfully hidden anything I I was accused of surveilling people in the community for God's sake because I shared concerns that community members had with our superintendent and apparently Eric Nolan is surveilling people now which transparency to me is taking the concerns that I see in the public and sharing them with necessary people that is
090what I have always done whether it's an email form a teacher in a building you all know some of the things that have come and and that's that's what I view as important as you know I view myself as a conduit we'll talk about that later with the um later about communication with the community that's what I view myself as I think that there needs to be a fundamental shift right um in you know how conversations one onone like I sat with Esther for an hour and a half at PK to go over the agenda because that's what you do before right I'm not going to call all of you we're not going to have a phone call about going over the agenda for a board meeting right so I mean I think there's something
091as simple as that um the complexity of this situation I understand that that can be a different situation altogether but I think we might have to fundamentally talk about what do we expect what do individual board members expect right and what do we as a group of seven expect in this regard so to your point about transparency and communication I have no concern about that but I think that might that might signal a shift um and again be different than what historically has been done which shouldn't necessarily be what it's done but be clear about that I mean we can be dynamic we can change we can learn great we have to be open to that um I I do want to express Jay that while you were talking it seemed to me like you
092were presenting a case to these people here and you're supposed to be you know talking to our board members so it seemed to me like it was very clearly you were you know I wouldn't say spectacle that's not the word I would use but you're very clearly representing a case in that way which I wouldn't necessarily agree with because it's ultimately for us right right and I would disagree uh vehemently with that representation I am elected by the voters who repres you know are in the school district as are you as all all of us are I'm speaking to you all and to them there's a reason why there's a gallery and there's a reason why it's called an open meeting it's because the public is supposed to be here so if I'm speaking about
093an issue that impacts the school district which my motions did yes Eric I was speaking to you and to the other board members and to Dr mongan and to everybody here and to everybody watching on the internet yes I [Applause] was are you gonna say something well like I was looking at you no I'm going to let it go for now okay anybody else Gman yes Hil no papis no buy no aif no Fulk yes Nolan no uh moving on information items uh DLT so I was a member of the DLT team that we started up again in January we already talked about that the calendar is essentially what we talked about so that was the I think 52 minutes 55 minutes of our meeting um almost and so that was kind of what we
094came out on I can't even remember what the last few minutes were that we talked about talk planning we also yeah we also talked about getting a calendar already for 2627 nice and early and trying to mirror what we did for 2526 because the teachers really seem to like that so we are hoping to uh address that sooner rather than later to get a calendar out there earlier for again the year after next already but we did talk about moving the data considering ear oh right right for the future but not changing a start date now yeah no no uh Mor okay Jeff feel free to jump in if you want on this one for the community advisory team um it's a group of community members and two board members and some Administration and it
095was kind of just a good discussion about um the district strategic plan for like the next five years that was developed through looking at opportunities weaknesses and threats within the district and what we could move forward and how we want to start you know making a better strategic plan it was brought up by a few of the community members that they want more than just a five-year plan they don't understand how we can just do a five-year plan we need to be looking at 10 15 20 years out with the ability to kind of shift and adjust as needed um there was a lot of discussion on the referendum taxes enrollment uh pros and cons to using outside consultants for facility planning curriculum reviews and other analyses within the district versus what the pros and
096cons would be of us just kind of doing that kind of stuff inh house so there just kind of like a big discussion of several different topics and no really One Direction of anything coming out5 minutes on one topic no several different things that I'm looking forward to this committee to see what the community brings and what's uh important to them from month to month uh Jeff facilities yeah the facilities advisory committee also known as Fe um Dan spearheaded that uh purpose of the facilities committee is create an open dialogue between the different departments such as TCH building and grounds the board um building admins there was I think 30 people included in that um ideally the topics discussed with guide conversations at the community advisory team C which Morgan just talked about and the
097DT the district leadership team um so uh AIDS in preventing repeat conversations we kind of relay the information to those other committees or other teams uh we set up future dates so through the end of the school year we decided to meet on Tuesdays so or THS now you can't even remember um Tuesday Tuesdays yeah first Tuesday of the month and so we meet before Oh my gosh yeah before both of the other ones sorry um talked about future capital projects discussion uh they like to start bidding the pro bidding process in March uh to get to be able to go ahead once the school year is ended if we wait then we can't really start in the summer so that would at that uh there are two documents to Aid in prioritizing future projects
098one's a 10-year Health Life Safety document the other one's a districtwide capital facility Improvement plan um the hlc is required by code so it says improvements have to um we have to remain compliant in our updates to certain things facility Improvement plan it's a wish list pretty much um and it goes out 10 years um so that was updated for 25 to 26 so there are some priorities capital projects hbt roof is the number one priority about 1.2 million Louis lake hbac at about 1.5 the Athletics the CHS Stadium about three and then CT needs some Paving done so that comes in about 400,000 there was discussion on planning for future growth um whether or not to use RSP or to use somebody else what do we do with that um we have to remember
099that when we add classrooms it's not just core classes there are specials so if we have 30 classrooms that we add that doesn't mean they're all going to be for math science um you know the Core Curriculum there has to be room for other things we'll have more kids and they'll be wanting to do electives so also need for mobes that's $1.6 million in costs so do we keep tossing money at mobiles or do we come up with another plan and Dr mgin suggested creating a financial ro road road map regarding the growth opportunities um and close the dark architect RFQ request for qualifications Dan suggested uh collaborating with the oh man Josh Campanelli from shells mcnut to create an architect RFQ also so um that should be getting started shortly and I think that's
100pretty much all I oh he wants to have two architects one for the larger projects and one for smaller projects so you want to throw anything else out there Dan yeah I probably took more than that all right uh I'm gonna push the uh CCC the curriculum committee to uh Dr Burke Meer who will talk here coming up about uh Accel programming Also let's have director po come up to write an update on the approval of and plan for funds received from the school maintenance project Grant as well as the update on construction and maintenance projects um so uh we brought to the board uh Mr angle um our director of Grants brought the uh um maintenance project Grant to the board last month for approval we were awarded that so that's a $50,000 matching
101Grant um we're working with uh what we brought for that Grant was looking at some classroom door locking mechanisms and modifying some of those um at some of the requests of our teachers um so we're going to work through EPC and our facilities committee to look at doing those with that Grant it's a matching $50,000 Grant um the project we specified is roughly $120,000 to complete that work at Prairie n's uh Central Middle School in the high school so that'll be the project for that Grant thank you and facil um facilities update um it was a joyous day the high school kids got to use their addition instead of just the eighth graders so they were ecstatic um so that worked out well our staff worked hard um with the high school admin and the
102teachers and stuff to get those spaces ready for the kids so that worked out well um knock on wood we weathered the uh freezing freezing cold weather today we had few minor issues here and there but nothing catastrophic so again our staff our buil buildings are in great shape and we were able to support being able to have all the kids in school today which I think is great um some projects we did over Christmas break um at the high school um looking at some of the stairwells and stair treads off of the U balcony we replaced those stair treads over the break um we completed a little bit of remodeling work here at the district office as well as some of our normal cleaning and stuff we do um a lot of our staff
103utilized the way the holidays fell so we probably had onethird of our staff out on vacation um over the break which is great for them to be able to have that opportunity and we want them to get that time so they utilize that a lot so we didn't get as many things done as we like but we got a lot of stuff done and we're ready for kids right after the Break um as Mr Gorman mentioned we're still working through the RFQ we want to make sure we get a good document out um to get that to get the most qualified vendors to make sure we're asking the questions of those vendors that are going to most benefit our district so unfortunately we haven't got that out yet we've got a draft document we're working
104through we're going to hopefully get that out really soon and we'll take that through the facilities committee and then we'll have those discussions um with the board once we get those documents back question for you so the is the RFQ out there and we're just waiting for the answers we have we're still drafting it to get it out we're still drafting it yep so I've been working with with chales mcnut and with some of my other partner districts kind of just talking through questions and making sure that that we want to limit the scope of what we we don't want to leave a broad stroke we want to ask questions and them to provide information that's going to benefit our district and what we need from them and with the concept of looking at two
105architects which is an option that we're throwing out there in the RFQ we want to make sure that we're directing them in their organization into which pillar they're going to fit into so we want to make sure we're asking them the specifics that are going to benefit us so it's taken more time than I would have liked that makes sense what are you thinking as far as timeline you know getting it out to the market and then what does that kind of look like it it pro with the best case scenario it'll be out minim it's got to be out a minimum of 10 days we'd probably like to give them two and a half weeks we're hoping to get it out in time to bring it to the board in March that's kind of
106my timeline plan right now if everything works out it would come to the board in March so that would give the facilities committee time to review it our district admin team time to review it and then have those final con conversations with them and I want to go back to when you're talking about the new addition so then is it safe to assume we're not using the mobile at the high school that's done and when does that get pulled away works so the the plan for those classrooms was to take to push those teachers out of the mobile into classrooms and any mobile teachers that didn't have classroom space we worked with high school admin to get those teachers into classrooms so they had an effective place to teach the plan for that mobile is
107which is a rental we're going to be that unit will be remov this summer so it's just the first floor it's just the first correct we're using the 10 classrooms on the first floor currently correct that's enough to yep yeah that's that's working well we worked you know a lot with high school admin to make sure they had the space they need we've received the furniture I believe Tech's got stuff up and run in the second floor we're we're getting that so as soon as the time we need that we'll make that available thank you any other questions thank you yep uh school fees Dr mongan share an update on that so annually would you bring this in front of the board to talk about school fees um we are not looking to change registration
108fees we're pretty much in line with the the districts that neighbor Us in terms of uh registration fees the technology fee was put in place when we first started doing Chromebooks probably a decade ago a cost of the technology has gone up tremendously for Chromebooks so we are going to look at that and see what other districts around us are um are doing so we have that out there currently looking at that the other things is the high school course fees so for specific course fees like Photo some of those special course fees that there's costs that are for the supplies and demands of the students usually those students are taking their course pay those course fees we're taking a look at those as well from our district so that will be coming forward kind
109of a better analysis of how neighboring districts look um for the board meeting in February and hopes to look at if we have recommended fees to have that go in place within time for registration in March how many classes would that includ well we have some lab fees we have art classes photo classes it's more of the technical and of course there's those kinds of things um is Patrick here okay driv that is is by state mandate but the other ones what do we have about 15 classes that get fees okay and do we look to zero out essentially like the expenses for the based on fees or we like we're not even close I mean I think that if we get you know somewhere on 25 or 30% we're doing pretty well um I
110think our Tech fees is the one that really has great deal that's been a big hit for us okay when you bring that forward are you going to be able to show us like a sideb side comparison to like what we're paying now why it's going up to what it is and what kind of in that number okay and how other districts look and how the other districts look yeah okay uh Dr mongan for few board policies here so uh in the consent agenda a lot of board policies came through the consent but 2270 when we met as a policy committee this one's a brand new committee this year uh I mean sorry brand new policy this year it's dealing with discrimination harassment of race color and national origin it's a new state law uh
111that went into place and a process that we do for anybody uh with a race color and national origin obviously discrimination is prohibited we did have discrimination laws already in for policy but this is specific to this group that they put in place it has specific parameters for what is prohibited conduct as well as how to make a report um for a complaint and the investigation process um so the investigation process actually sets off by the um non-discriminating coordinators or complaint managers um which is Dr hog and then we also have Shane berkem who's for the female and the male is Taylor Ruiz um they are the complaint managers and then that one would go directly to Illinois State Board of Education which is requiring us to subit any uh claim um underneath this board
112policy so as you can see it's completely red it's a brand new policy um due to a law that was placed in this year as well as then you'll see um 510 and 520 those just came forward not because there are massive changes but primarily they were married up against this board policy so we couldn't bring them PL some language from put it in well and they're citing it so we wanted to make sure that it all came together for information that it'll come for forward uh next month for Action all right director burme information on accelerated programming connect connect you can see it correct I'm on so I'm going to talk tonight about um our academically accelerated learning pathway program I'm going to update you just on where we're sitting currently and then some
113ideas that we're bringing forward for options so philosophy the why behind all of this it's really about providing all students um that are displaying highly Advanced competencies intellectual cap uh capacity to be able that goes beyond our core instruction providing them those students with opportunities that come in a variety of different ways it could be differentiation it could be enrichment and it could be acceleration so it's a variety of different uh different components um in addition to that it's really an alignment to our accelerated um placement program which is legis legislation that is brought forward that gives us some guidance on what needs to be in place we uh need to have an early entrance to kindergarten we need to have early entrance to first grade we also can provide grade acceleration that can come
114single subject that can come in whole grade level and then also what I'm proposing to go forward with um is academically Advanced pathway for our fourth through eth grade students that's an alignment to Advanced coursework that we have come alive in our high school so currently um we do offer early entrance to kindergarten that's in place been in place for the past couple years there's a process uh that needs to occur that's for students that miss that September one cut off so they're just beyond that um parents may choose to uh request that referral process go through the screening and if applicable and eligible they'll go into um early entrance for kindergarten that same structure is in place for early entrance to first grade the stipulations are by legislation you must turn six on or
115before December one of that school year so we can't have kids that are are after that December one cut off they would not qualify for early entrance it also does outline that students have must have been in in a non-public school they've attended that through their kindergarten school year and also been um instructed by a licensed Illinois teacher those are pieces that are outlined in in the um proposal um there's a screening process that occurs we do ask that by May 1 anybody that's interested in early entrance to kindergarten or early entrance to first grade submit that request to the building that that student would um attend that gives us may to do the screening process that involves um academics that involves intellectual capacities it does take a look at their social emotional Readiness what
116we don't want long if we fast forward these students that aren't ready for something and then they're struggling social emotionally or behaviorally so we really want to adhere to are is this a right decision for students so those pieces are in place I did outline the um eligibility criteria so we're looking at 95th percentile or above for our fall Norms that's kindergarten as for first grade um and we're using our math assessment so our Universal screener that we do for anybody that walks in the door reading and Mathematics those assessments are are provided to our students from an intellectual capacity we're looking at the Whisk assessment and we're looking at a composite score of 130 or greater that tells us that they have the capacity to do to work at that speed and to acquire
117those skills and then like I said earlier the Bas for the behavioral social emotional work read indicators Shane can you um elaborate on the behavioral aspect like what does that mean yeah so are they socially ready um are they able to attend into a classroom um there's a there's a h it's a bass screener so parents are going to complete it this is administered through a psychologist any like our first grade students that survey would go to the first or the kindergarten teacher in a nonpublic school they would complete that and then there's a rating scill that is completed on our end by our psychologist just and rates that up so they're looking at any kind of risk factor indicator we don't want to see a student that isn't ready to acquire those skills or
118being processed in that into that classroom I think one question I have for you on that is you know it's just kind of my experience that sometimes some of these children are that are gifted or you know Advanced you know they're bored right and so because of that they might be like I was in school cutting up in class right like doing stuff because I was bored and I needed to do something and and mess with people or whatever so it's like what what do you do like when that occurring like is that something that's kind of like a knock because that's again like sometimes that's just because those are within the realm of typical functioning behaviors okay they're looking for things that are outside of that typically functioning Behavior to indicate that that student
119wouldn't be set up for Success some of the cut up and fiddling and things like that is age appropriate so we're looking for things that are outside of that realm that would student wouldn't be successful long term and so the V specific looks like internalizing behaviors depression anxiety externalizing behaviors disruptive behaviors right and so meeting a critical threshold and that's what we already do right what we use for our you know as part of our uh full uh assessments for kids who have a um a case study right for 9 or something like that I just didn't want them to be weeded out because maybe like you said they're they're bored because of that you okay also indicated in this in the uh accelerated placement Act is the opportunity for students that are twice exceptional
120because there are many students that are very very very highly um academically but they're struggling with some of those social skills so it's it's taking all of those pieces into account teacher recommendation that's why it's a team that comes and sits down it's not just a psychologist psychologist writes out that report but part of the process though is also the parent sitting down with the school administrator and myself often times come comes in what's going to be the right fit it's taking feedback from our students that are going to be um early entrance to first grade where what's their functionality been like in that nonpublic school how are they functioning in that classroom setting it's taking all of that feic into place it's not just looking at numbers yeah that's a critical piece right but
121you're also looking what's going to be successful this for the student long term what we don't want is kids entering into that door and then they then they struggle right there's noit pie we really want to get that sweet spot so they can be successful when I was at Central and I was in sixth grade there was a nine-year-old that we had in sixth grade with us I was 11 she was two years and I was a young kid I mean I turned 18 half summer after I graduated high school and so there was a kid who was almost two full years younger than me in sixth grade nine for obvious reason she did not function in that cold that's the risk and two chronological years that's very typical Public School setting that EX in
122other settings but I mean like that's ultimately what you want to avoid is kind of plopping them in somewhere where they're not ready to manage all of it well enough right not perfectly of course correct so pass early entrance to kindergarten at first we also currently have our compacted math program that begins at sixth grade um we're looking for students that have really strong mathematical skills problem solving conceptual they're getting that content um this does also in increase our algebra Readiness by 8th grade so the goal is to get all those students by that time period algebra Readiness so that they're on track for a advanced placement into the high school the curriculum outcomes for that sixth grade teaches all of sixth grade and half of seventh grade content seventh grade does the other half
123of seventh grade and all of pre-algebra so they're set up for math one and e8th grade um the entrance criteria for that is we're looking at our I unfortunately by fifth grade we don't have it we need to have it earlier than that so we're pulling our fourth grade I scores we're looking at fours and five so meets and exceeds as well as then we administer the coat in the springtime of fifth grade to all students we do a screener and then select students that hit that criteria 85 and above take the full battery we're looking at an seven or higher on the coap so again you want to make sure that they have the capacity to be able to work at that level and then again looking at common assessments for fifth grade5 percentile
124um or greater on units 1 through six questions on the compacted the other end so we do have grade acceleration that can come in two forms single subject or it can come in whole grade um acceleration what we would call as a grade skipping um this is really for students that go beyond the core so you want to make sure that they are set up had the capacity to be able to skip that content and move to that next grade level this is again looking at multiple data points and is done at that building based decision that team in the building first so as students historically performance academics grades all of the puzzle to that child is is looked at if core is not enough they need more that building based team would be making
125those those decisions together that would also include some more data to to make that decision so we're looking at um the intelligence scale 130 or greater for the composite and then the Wyatt um for the achievement and that is 130 as well on the composite score so and I did also indicate through teacher conversations what's happening in the building what's going on with that student from a behavioral social emotional lens what are those indicators are they set up for that success in skipping erck had mentioned you know do you want a student that's two years either Advance push forward and then social emotionally um are they you know in the right spot so those are those are questions and conversations that occur at that point in time so future planning because we're missing something fourth
126through eighth grade eth grade we really don't have a whole lot else there so this is an opportunity to grow what that programming could look like this did go forward to CCC this month uh we do not historically meet in January we're we're meeting every other month so um some information went out to our entire committee um asked for some feedback and the the response to that for the committee was we don't need to put another meeting on the books but we can GA gather our consensus um remotely so we did send a survey out gather that and um over arching the committee either had fours or fives um in agreement to move forward and to bring this forward here this evening uh feedback so the reason why this is coming forward here is is
127is twofold it is compliance with our accelerated placement act as well as then we're hearing it through our SWAT analysis we're hearing it through curriculum meetings we're hearing it through uh different opportunities that I have had with staff where people sitting um and this need to really drive in and figure out what can we do to additionally support our students that are high functioning beond the um this this is coming forward this evening so the way this process the pathway will be designed it's an integrated learning experience so you have your core grade level standards but how can we take them deeper what can we do to advance that how can we integrate content areas how do we build problem based learning experiences to drill down not just fast forward but to really build the
128capacity for our students and give them that opportunity implementation will go a roll out process over four years um the goal is to start with fourth and fifth grade this upcoming school year school year 26 and then the following year uh school year 27 add sixth grade so you have fourth through sixth grade the following year school year 28 you'd add seventh grade so you'd have it fourth through seventh grade and then full capacity would be school year 29 through 4 through 8 me when did you say this would start next year just in fourth grade just in fourth grade fourth and fifth grade I'm sorry fourth and fifth grade would run beginning this next year and do we think that we're ready like and only reason why I'm asking is because I I know
129typically like with programs like this it kind of takes a little bit of time to really kind of get together I know this is something we just kind of started so is this something that we could really take on and be successful and and really um I don't know like is the foundation there where we could actually pull this off that soon the goal would be um to get some hiring the hiring process to begin and that scope and sequence and curriculum development to be alongside those teachers that are teaching it this is not something that's going to be done to them it's not an alternative or you're accelerating it but you're going deeper so it's not taking away fourth grade standards it's not taking away fifth grade standards but how do we make them
130better how do we go deeper how do we make from an Ela perspective more enhanced components the research lens from a different perspective taking Ela and connecting it with social studies content which is a great way to go deeper Math and Science it's embedding those pieces so the goal is to get the hiring fee started early earlier than later as we're entering into spring months here and then to build that enhance that as we're working this spring and summer kind talked about this a little bit but um curriculum outcomes this does not take away our compacted programming that begins in math this would be an additional piece an additional layer like I mentioned um the curriculum process would begin with the staff members in partnership with myself and our larger curriculum team what is that
131going to look like how are we taking our current resources and going deeper um embedding those problem-based experiences our Steam and coding those things to build up enhance this this this uh program a year one school year 26 fourth and fifth grade it would be academically Advanced Ela and math starting in the Middle School you'd have honors programming so sixth grade honors for ELA sixth grade honors for math seventh grade will be the same seventh grade honors for ELA seventh grade honors for math um with our Capstone being English one honors at eth grade and then math one honors at eth grade which we currently do not have um so this what the proposal would be year one begin fourth and fifth grade two two academically Advanced learning classrooms with two academically Advanced instructors or
132teachers the location would be PB looking at our enrollment and current space that is the building that could um could house this um and to build this program as strong as we possibly can with this program we would be asking our students to attend PB full-time so you may qualify in ela only you may qualify in math only or you may qualify in both but we are asking if you're CT current CT student you would be attending this particular program at where it's housed currently it's h would be housed at py um in that structure so students would attend 120 Minutes roughly is what we're doing for e Ela those students would come out of their core classroom their home room and go with the teacher that's teaching this particular program for ELA and then
13360 Minutes to be pulled out for math so then if they have to be at TV then are we busing them from whever correct yes okay so eligibility uh we're looking right now actually was when I was working on this earlier I had pulled our fall data for map and we were looking at anywhere between the 93rd and 95th percentile for students to build this program just looking today and we are in the middle of our map window right now so it's not quite done um but we're looking that we would maybe even be able to push our criteria up a little bit higher which is comparable to our local surrounding districts usually when I'm looking at um District 25 and looking at St Charles and districts around us they're looking at 95th percentile and
134above for acceleration or Advanced programming I was dropping it down to 93rd based on our current number so we will be somewhere between 93rd and 95th is one of our eligibility criteria that again is on the maap growth for ELA reading and then the math growth for math um and then the other piece that we would want to consider would be the coat and looking at a full battery stay n of eight or again compacted had seven or above we'd be looking at a little bit higher so it stay n of eight or above and that would be administered this spring so I mentioned this to Esther on Friday um what I've dealt with in 303 with my kids who are not meeting the criteria they are very frustrated parents who cannot believe that their
135kid did not make it and are we prepared for the number of people who might essentially file appeals my kid take the coet again um and how you know they're just like with us and you know giving Services you might be one point off but you're one point off right like are we prepared to kind of deal with potential frustration with kids if we have a criteria threshold that is not met and sticking with that yes um my experience today we have had early entrance for kindergarten and early entrance for first for the last gosh four years and there's every year I I have somebody that is calling and wants to meet to go through that appeal process to walk through this is what the data has outlined these are the reasons why this is
136our eligibility criteria that's that's the only opportunity we have for that kind of appeal now is for that specific for small it would be expanded right um and I think it's just about clear communication these are the outcomes and this is the why behind it it isn't an arbitrary number that has been chosen it is looking for indicators for long-term success all of these pieces are critical for that Kat is all about thinking patterning are you making sense of it it to be a student that is has the capacity to work at that level your brain is thinking that way and so you want to be able to indicate and share there's the reason why um the last piece I gave is just a sample um schedule that possibly could work we know instructional minutes
137is three are 300 and so I just split out the teacher one and teacher two the goal is that either either one of those teachers fourth and fifth would teach a little bit of both so you may teach fourth grade a section of fourth grade ELA and then a section of fifth grade ELA and vice versa so this just gave a kind of a rough a rough outline of based on 120 Minutes for ELA and 160 minutes for math um what that structure could look like as well as at the elementary level we have something called Elevate roughly about 30 minutes 20 to 30 minutes based on um Age and and grade level that's kind of like our intervention at the core so level teams they could do it in house they could do it
138across the grade level but students are getting targeted specific supports on where they're sitting this would also be another opportunity for that elevate teacher or I'm sorry that um academically Advanced teacher to pull those kids out too so again what they were working on in that Core lesson problem based you know you you made that cross-curricular component that would be another opportunity for them to work on that as well in the current fourth and fifth grade opportunity questions educator you me oh it was very it was awesome probably asked all you did I think you took all the questions for me all of them no it's great I I think it's amazing and and there's a difference between accelerated and gifted that you have to remember as well yeah we don't want to go faster
139we want to go deeper yeah okay thank you sorry I couldn't show it thank uh Dr mongan with the proposed boundary change so um as Shane mentioned right now prayview has the most space country trials in Harvey Thomas have increased uh dramatically this year we had a 6.4% increase so far at Country Trails this year and a 4.4 um at Harvey Thomas uh we just got a pretty large increase in flux here that's coming through after the first of the year um and so trying to accommodate for the um subdivision that's directly across from Prairie NES middle school that's going up that we have not anticipated it was still marked as not in construction but it has broken there's currently five houses being constructed there's 74 Lots there and it's the West Point Garden currently
140West Point Garden goes to Howard be Thomas um so it's my recommendation that we take that 74 Lots we cut it and we take it to prayview there's no families impacted that that way uh they haven't moved into the district yet the houses are still going up so there's zero impact on a community or family member they might be used to going a h every time we have to shift um so my recommendation is going to be to change that boundary shift to cut off um as you can see from the picture where those 74 lots are going directly across um from how far is that from P it's pretty close to P I reached I reached out to there's an adjacent Farmland that goes between the lot to pray you I did reach out
141to the owner he's not nearby he's not responding back to me trying to see if we can get a sidewalk for Walkers versus Transportation I may likely have to go through algen to see if we can't get some kind of eement to allow us that um but I wasn't able to so far I've not been successful reaching that party so as of right now without a walkway they would have to be yeah it's not nler road so just the danger of it yeah and with the 74 Lots if by some chance like everybody moves in with kid that needs to come to PV can PV absorb those 74 not very well no um right now I mean they are still over capacity but they're not over capacity as high as our other Elementary buildings uh
142so likely would have to be a mobile unit if that's where we land we're also talking about the accelerated program going to pray so we're not moving two teachers there as well and we're cognizant of that but currently country TRS and Harvey Thomas cannot obsorb anymore we're going to have to do mobile un Lightly for next year is that something that we're considering using the mobile unit that's coming from the high school to reuse it it's we've read that and it's not in very great shape it's pretty old I don't know how long we've had that mobile unit but I know how long we've had it for so mob and it's only two classrooms we've been putting up four classroom mobile units which provid us a little bit more space challenge with PB is the
143parking U with a mobile unit we have to put one up because it's already pretty land locked in the parking lots going to take up parking spots so we'll have to come up different the other questions right next discussion of board member engagement with the community so uh this is um a memo that I wrote explaining why I think uh uh we are in some of the issues we have uh in terms of lack of uh um a feeling that uh people are hearing uh being heard and um I can tell you that um the board policies that exist right now the school code none of that prevents each board member from going out into the community and engaging with the community talking to the community having you know like meetups in the community but
144for some reason historically this school district has looked upon that negatively I know this from personal experience because I tried to do this early on and it was met with a huge amount of resistance and what I did was I said I want to I'm Gonna Be A Country Donuts at a certain date and time uh if you want to come talk to me uh about whatever the current issues are I don't know if it was covid at the time or it was a very specific it was a very specific schedule that you were there for you would already Express what I have an issue with he already expressed a very specific perspective right and and so so I had a very specific perspective which every single board member has a right under the Constitution
145federal and state to have and this is exactly the point the fact that I had a perspective and that I was meeting with the community to hear from the community was somehow seen as inappropriate it's not inappropriate it's Absolut abolutely appropriate I have the right to have an opinion I have the right to engage with the community I have the right to hear from the community I have the right to share my point of view with the community when the issue comes to the board if there's a vote then I have a right to Advocate and then we have a right to then we vote and when the vote is taken if I'm on the losing end I have to abide by that decision that is how public service is done and we're not doing
146that in this community so without belaboring the point if if there's if there's any issue on the board that you want to debate what the US Constitution the state constitution the school code the uh board policies uh require I'm happy to engage in that conversation but I think what would be more helpful for all of us is to talk about some of the suggestions on ways to move forward to have a more fullsome engagement with the community now Mr per you know you came up and you talked about the Committees like an ADD and that was one of the suggestions that I had outlined in my memo I wanted to have more uh Community Town Halls we talk a lot about om as being an impediment to having these uh Town Hall meetings the open
147meetings Act is not an impediment to having more discussions in the community what the open meetings act says is that if you're going to have a meeting where majority of the Quorum three or more people are getting together so if we just decide to do a town hall at uh CHS in the auditorium and there's going to be three or more board members you just need to post it you say we're gonna have this conversation this is going to be the discussion and you can have a town hall where the community can actually have a dialogue with us as opposed to just coming to these meetings and speaking to us I would love to be able to in an open setting where there there are teachers representatives and parents and taxpayers and us talking about
148whatever the issues are right now what we're limited to is uh Mr Chapman comes up and he tells us you know a perspective from cea I have no opportunity to engage him in a discussion to ask questions it's it's a public comment and that's fine there's a place for public comment but there's also a place for dialogue and we need to come up with that um another thing that I think uh that that I suggested I brought this up in a previous meeting we need to I I think what we need to do in order to foster a better understanding of where we are as a school district is to engage an independent professional to do a comprehensive set of surveys look at our past plans survey the teachers survey the administrators survey the community
149members survey the parents survey the board survey all the stakeholders and get a like a comprehensive assessment of where we are as a community when Esther you do the the um you know the the the the the engagements in the community we hear what you're hearing and then when Dave and Kira come and tell us what the teachers are saying I'm having cognitive dissonance because I'm hearing two very different things and so I think if we can step back and do multiple things including you know like engaging an independent professionally administered survey company to really get a fome sense a complete sense of where the community is in a way that people are willing to give their their feedback because they know that it's confidential I think we'll have a better sense of whether what
150Esther is hearing is accurate what CA is saying is accurate or maybe something in the middle a little bit of both um so I think that we need to uh going forward come up with a concrete set of plans to engage some of these ideas I put these ideas out here I'm curious to hear what the rest of the board thinks I think what I heard about you guys who listening to life I think that's fantastic like you guys would hang out a two different places had an issue with anything like that I mean I engage with people all the time I go to watch baseball games at Playdoh Center people are coming up to me asking me I'm at Old Republic doing slots at 3 o'clock in the afternoon before my kids get home
151from school somebody sitting at the bar hey Eric I saw Kelly Cameron at the rising lights you know thing we talked for 25 minutes in May of last year because we happen to be at the same fundraiser right so I mean you know that's something that I do organically and I think to your point about like what it might look like if that were more formalized I think that requires further discussion and exploration right but I think that's just something that happens for me personally uh based on kind of the things that I try to go to right whether it's a sporting event or my kids being in their own sporting events that kind of is something that already happens for me personally and all all seven of us have very different versions of Engagement
152with the community my kids are in seventh grade right like your kids are two are out one so like everybody's in different stages there too so that's going to shift how the organic stuff happen happens and then you know what what else that would look like so even for youj the idea of suggesting like we do a you know so we post a meeting and something like that and so what would what would you ultimately be so you'd want the back and forth what would your goal be apart from just kind of generically um you know being able to have that component of it that we don't have admittedly right we know that and that's frustrating for people for understandable reasons right so would it be your goal that a town hall would have a
153specific Focus because I think you know it could be dangerous to go into a meeting dangerous meaning like you have a finite amount of time right and it could you could lose focus and you might not get anywhere on any one or two specific subjects because 20 people might have 20 completely different things to engage about so that's something that I would want to think about what would that look like right um so that's just something I think we continue to think about yeah no I I totally agree with you that um you know that uh if you if you do a town hall Maybe on certain subjects if you do a Community Coffee in public spaces it could be that more like open-ended um and uh to your point like you know you are
154very active like you know so you are meeting all types of people in these different things other people absolutely I mean like my my eldest is a senior so I mean you know like she'll be done but I mean like I spent the my 10 years if you weren't a wrestling parent I probably didn't engage with you that much I mean all my time was either coaching wrestling or going to my kids wrestling events so I was getting a very tiny segment of this very growing community and so to me it was like all right I can I don't need permission to talk to the wrestling moms and the wrestling dads you know about whatever it is that they're feeling so if I say hey I'm gonna go to Country Donuts and I'm gonna be
155sitting there having coffee come and talk to me I mean I don't think that that's any different than if I'm sitting at donuts and somebody recognizes me and comes up and and talks to me I wouldn't say oh oh I'm sorry you know what you can't talk to me about Schoolboard stuff because you know I'm not supposed to no I'm gonna have that conversation for Me Maybe people don't come up to me as organically as they do you and so they're like oh I don't know you know he's sitting there having coffee at Country Donuts I don't want to bother him but you know if I put it out there that hey I'm gonna be there come and come and talk to me maybe they will that's what I was doing then and I thought
156there was okay to do uh but you know what that got a lot of push back so can I ask the timing of it being on the agenda now because that was like two years ago so like what I'm curious about that timing right why are we having this conversation now supposed to because we did talk at February of last year we came up with again six of the seven of us established board protocols right and we all agreed we talked about it uh and there was about a variety of things by this is one part of that to be fair um so we kind of came up with established I think nor Norms is the right word we can use we we came up with some some some uh squishy Norms but uh they
157were not at the level of policy and Eric the reason it's coming up is because this issue is Evergreen it's never resolved it's always coming up I mean you know Morgan maybe you could speak to it uh you know it's it's it it came up with you um what are you particularly you know like to visit to visit the schools oh yeah visiting the schools what is the big deal about that question you know like I to answer your question Eric it's it's a it's not uh oh that was two years ago because obviously I mean Jeff still thinks it's an issue he thinks that I got remedial directives that uh you know I shouldn't do that which never happened but but uh you know obviously it's still an issue if it's still being used
158as a cudle every time I try to speak up so what I want to do is I want to have this discussion here because one of the things that we could do is we could add to the board policy that clarifies yes no individual can speak for the board right as as a whole no individual can you know commit the school district to anything but every school board member not only has a right should in my opinion have an obligation to go out and engage in the community in other school districts the board policies are written that way yeah and so you know that's one of the reasons why I thought we would have this discussion so we can kind of think about that and maybe come to a h a point where we say
159okay let's go back to the policy committee and try to flush that out and see what that looks like and put it together so that going forward whoever is serving on the new board will have a clearer set of marching orders to say yes I can do this I cannot do this I cannot speak for the board as an individual but I can Advocate what I believe is important in my individual capacity as a parent a taxpayer and a Schoolboard member because remember the law says that if you disagree with something that the district is doing you can use every lawful means to change the direction and one of the lawful means is dialogue so so again what would what would a next uh step B right so are you wanting to look specifically at
160policy so like developing language in that regard I think we should look at his recommendations and figure out if there was a way to add them to policy add them to our board policy like that these are certain things that we can do because I mean I at least from my side and I've heard this more than once the community doesn't see as as folks that can be approached and that we're accessible like when they send us emails we don't respond you know when they you know because we've been told that that's the board president is the one that responds right we're not supposed to respond and so for a Community member that doesn't know that that's what we've been told they're like well geez what the heck like did did the board get it
161did they did they hear me do they not agree and so I want I think for me I just want the community staff whomever just to know we are approachable they can talk to us and In fairness not with administrators over our shoulder because even though he went to Country Donuts Esther was with him so I have to assume the dialogue was a little different people that showed up might have been different we want the community to know that they can come and talk to us that we are accessible that we're not just over here stand offish that they can't approach and unapproachable that again we're they're elected officials they should be coming to us with any concerns they have and they don't because of the way that we've kind of shown ourselves that needs
162to change so to your point what's changed I don't know how many times that we've heard it from babd or just people in the community they can't come to us that needs to change because they should be coming to us so what in his recommendations can we adapt what are we comfortable with that we can add like for example a new business section like I there are boards that have that within their agenda like is that something we want to take a look at um Town Halls coffee talks whatever I think we need to kind of look at some of these and add to it so that we can be in front of the community more than we are and set up set of guidelines and Norms is what you should be kind of looking
163for I guess if when I'm listening hearing that's what it sounds like yeah I wouldn't say it'd be more this is what we have to do but this is what we all age right we agree put in there anybody can do whatever they want from now yeah and again even in the board protocols that we agreed to again in February part of that that language you just said right again noteboard number speaks for any I mean got not Board number speaks for the board and that's you know hopefully all understood at this point I think um as far as visiting the schools though it was just more or less a courtesy to the teachers yeah what we talked about about to that last year as well it was you couldn't do it somebody who historically
164my administrators that are in here know that I but prior to this I would show up have him take me around and just be like it's totally fine I'm Eric I'm colloquial right like it's fine and so when we had this decision discussion a year ago now I email my building principles I email Esther I CC her so she has never said I can't go I'm asking my principles is it okay if I show up between this time and this time and if they're busy and they show up unexpectedly I might drop off the donuts or chitchat with the office staff and then I go right like that's that's what I need he you just said I'm going to come between this time and this time I'm going to come on this day like there's
165so many parameters around it I'm choosing the parameters though de I'm saying the parameters were set in front of us when we were at that at that board retreat the parameters were set as far as what we had to do and how we did it and you basically just to show that example those are the to just notify somebody that you're going to be on site not just show forget we can't walk around the buildings no we have to be we have to be guided now right so so you're taking somebody else away from their work and that was that right that's that's a real that's a real thing that I that I didn't think about but I previously would walk around the buildings without anybody and then we had a policy change and we've
166followed that policy change um and so again as somebody who as far as I'm Weare is in the buildings more than anyone else I have not found it to be cumbersome it adds one extra email that takes eight seconds to send okay I think it's helpful for the building principles I think it's again Esther is not I'm not asking permission I'm asking permission of my principles who I think appreciate the fact that I'm checking in with them to see if it's feasible to even come in but but Eric we know that Fred and Morgan wanted to go in in early in their term and do that and Esther you wanted to know why tell tell them what what it is that they wanted to learn uh like you wanted to screen it I'm like I
167don't need to screen it if I want to go visit I'm going to make an an appointment and uh I think that's appro to make the appointment to make sure you don't just show up and say you know principal or whomever you know is this a good time and then you know but I don't have to screen everything through the the the the superintendent's office and and and and that's what was happening that was all before our meeting a year ago in February and that's part the conven through eser I I've never been asked what I'm doing cuz I CLI because I make it clear why I'm going to the school so you know again um and I think the idea of um if if you want to sit in the classroom that's one thing
168I think that's a concern right I we don't need to be sitting in classrooms I'm not an educator why is it a concern I think it's one why is it if a teacher invites you in to see what's going on I didn't say only if a teacher invites them it has to be an educator inv thec if you show up in my classroom like and just hey well normally I mean people have ever come on in learn some math let's do it but like I think it's wonderful to be able to see like what's going but you have to make sure that the educators are inviting you I agre I'm on the they don't feel like that they can reach out to us and invite us in I don't have a problem with that that's
169a problem too that they're fearing us it sounds like they are fearing us coming in why would they reach out and invite us the ca invites us all the time they actually get schools for all the board members yeah we have schools but that doesn't mean we're invited no so Karen do you want to speak we're not we can't we know we can't we cannot have the back and forth right now yeah to my point this is a kind of conversation if we were having Town Hall we can have this conversation and now we can't there you go so what was that CMS showcase that you went to you went to some hey uh over at uh CMS yeah what was it h Fred and I went in the spring but it was like a
170it was just parent it was just a showcase for students and what was going on you and and and and Essa you wanted advanced notice before uh like Morgan and Fred went you you took issue with them going you said well why didn't you to let me know why why I mean we're parents we're we're taxpayers and we're Schoolboard members it's a if it's a public event where parents can go why why why do we have to clear it with you it's not it's following the protocols that we've established our lawyers said there are no protocol there's no policy on that we agreed on it I don't see can can you point it point it out to me February 22nd 2024 that's what we agree to and those are the same similar yeah I mean
171we can so what um so again I wases anybody have anything specific as far as what as far as what Jay's recommendations are so like look uh like what one thing that I would recommend is that um like d and I both serve on the policy committee yeah um you know we will go back I I don't think any existing policy needs to be changed because the policies that I outlined in the memo that talk about you know there should be one spokesman with the media all that should stay those are all reasonable and and effective and useful there should be an overarching policy that says you know all all board members May you're right should not be shall May engage with the community in a manner that does not circumvent the school code or
172other board policies and then you cross reference all the relevant ones that exist to limit certain dialogue between like you as the president and the media or etc etc um so there should be that policy so that then we know what it is that we can and can't do so I I I I recommend that we do that and um I recommend that we you know like investigate like we can like talk to the community like uh um you know I I don't know um is iasb might have some recommendations these um uh education schools at NIU UIC uh Illinois State maybe they have like uh programs that allow you to uh you know where they come in and they survey school districts I don't know uh but I've heard that there are um some
173good not for-profit organizations that will come in and do these comprehensive surveys I think one of the decisions that we should um we're not committing to it but one of the the outcomes of this discussion is let's look into that let's dig into that and see what would it cost what would it entail bring it back to the you know the next board meeting or the meeting after that however long it takes to get that information and start the ball rolling so those are some my ideas you pass down that propos the what we have this is from the ISB right yeah so I don't know if we want to reach out to ISB again because that's what we agreed upon but he doesn't like that now so that's I mean yeah to be fair
174that was guided that was Guided by them and so we did agree to it at that time and again I so like I don't have any issue with any of these things like uh these things are all you know very fine yeah I think the town hall is good I think so too bring the town hall I think the mixed committees is good I think we should have mixed committies um made up of board members and community members um all that basically everything on here so okay add everything on there uh enrollment report so any questions on the report enrollment uh you can see that we 5,13 students um we did have additional 13 students that just joined us this last from when M count it which was Wednesday to the end of the month
175so we're at 5126 at the end of this month po so foring us uh last month uh M Walch we received a request for communication between Tod Stern and Sheila borma regarding uh e-learning or remote learning in 2019 or 2020 we comply with that request with redactions Mr Ally we received request for information regarding submission of interest in serving on the community advisory team and selection criteria and process comply with this request with redactions um Miss TKA we received a request for a copy of the report of the most recent water sample test performed by Pace Analytical services for Central Middle School we able to comply with that request the dat received request for purchase order information from January 1st 2020 through December 2nd were a to comply with that request miss Warren received a
176request for communication between EST members regarding individually identified students between November 1st and December 18th reest was denied and we cannot releas individual identifiable student information Miss wter received a request for communication between EST board members and District staff regarding isb's property tax relief Grant we a to comply with that request and Mr feif we received request for a number of items related to the resignation of Fred vot the Board of Education we to comply with the request of three actions as Allowed by law uh a motion and second or requir to adjourn Open Session and move to close session for the following exceptions 2c1 2c2 2c9 2 C10 2c1 and 2 c21 so second Hil yes papis yes FY yes aif yes Fulk yes Gorman yes Nolan yes thank you all for coming for