001awesome welcome everyone welcome everybody uh to the december really scheduled school board meeting kim could you do a roll call for me please sure karen anderson here tammy hines here john long here greg meyer not here yet scott little cam here greg o'connor here lisa schumacher here all right we have a quorum let's go on to item two welcome visitors we have a few folks here from hamrin and um and on to public comments i think we have three tonight that uh dr gruselli is gonna make those calls for us right now please hello yes we speak with miss fist please hi this is courtney coselli with columbia schools at the board meeting hi ariel great and you indicated that you would like to address the board so i am trying to give you that
002opportunity uh before you if before you started just want to for our record you need to uh state your full name and i need to make you aware of the three minute time limit okay all right whenever you're ready you may begin okay um hi i am lauren fess and um there is just a couple things that i wanted to address tonight um first game just wanted to give them a shout out and how great the job they're doing you know with everything going on uh it's been crazy and um i just appreciate all the hard work second items um that i'd also like to address and it also has to do with the teachers um is i guess the disappointment that i feel over what i'm seeing and their consideration for just their overall
003health and safety so not only teachers but also staff as well um you know every day they're putting themselves at risk um just to be with their children and so i'm posing the question to the board that you know when are we gonna make their health and safety a priority every every conversation i've heard the board has in the last couple board meetings um they're thinking of the students which i appreciate i have two children who attend school and um you know without the teachers though my kids and all the kids in the district find any success um i just can't imagine the stress they're feeling and and that goes along with the principles as well the heavy amount of letters we're receiving uh the phone calls that we're getting for classes being quarantined you
004know late to the evenings um i just want the board to be aware that yes education children should come first but the teachers and staff matter too and then the last time i wanted to make was recently i saw your posting for new remote teaching positions and was hoping that the board was going to address that tonight and what that means um the kids who are going remote no longer have their current teachers who's creating those lesson plans who's grading who's making all the videos for all those remote kids if your answer is the teachers you know how many tasks are we going to give these teachers they're already i'm addressed i can't imagine and asking really to do two jobs in the pay of one i can't imagine asking any more from them on
005the other hand if you're asking a newly hired staff um you know are they going to be qualified to do that job to do a teacher job and then just remind them that in your return to school plans i've posted on the school website it does indicate that remote students will be instructed by columbia teachers and so i hope that whatever decision going forward you're including your teachers union and any decisions that are being made not only for the school district but for before the children as well and and that is all so i appreciate you guys giving me time to speak thank you have a good night thank you [Music] hello yes i speak with mrs corey please hi henry this is courtney castelli i have your name dad as someone who would like
006to address the board this evening yeah that's right courtney um if you would just for formality safe when you start if you could state your full name for our board record and then you have three minutes for addressing the board so whenever you're ready do you have the floor okay sure thank you my name is andrew mccory and i appreciate the opportunity that he can offer my opinion we currently have a seventh grader and a senior attending in person hybrid and my position is that you know there's there's no meaningful replacement for in-person learning monday through friday 8-3 and unless you personally have a child at home attempting to learn under the current condition you absolutely cannot fully appreciate the impact this is having on a student um despite the extraordinary time and that's being
007put forth by my personal children's teachers the kids are struggling daily um i am most worried about the middle school grade six to eight and you know although there are exceptions the vast majority of kids that age are too immature undisciplined and unmotivated to be learning you know truly online they're not engaged and i'm not going to take some heat from my own 13 year old son or say anything but we are expecting them to learn the same way my two college sons are um they they need the routine from waking up every day going to school and sitting face to face in a classroom it's really difficult to create a meaningful relationship with a teacher by seeing him or her in person just one hour a week total um and until those kids create
008a relationship they don't have any sense of accountability for the quality of work they were doing and usually for the lack of work they're doing um i don't lulu has never had grapes like this before he's never been unattended difficult about school until now and i i can't even begin to describe the level of stress this is caused inside our own home it's you know daily issues of corporate missing assignments technological frustrations and i guarantee you our home is not alone so if if fifth grade can be all back at cms monday through friday you know right now it's 12 70. then six through eight something can as well that building is designed with white hallway separate wings you know so and we're surrounded by schools in our county and even in our own towns
009that are successful going monday to friday eight to three and august uh with regard to my senior i mean she's attending classes that have anywhere from three to seven students in her class on days that she attended and on thursdays and i'm sorry on wednesdays and thursdays there's one student physically sitting in her english class i mean that's crazy to me so assuming those numbers would double if the class wasn't split by last name anymore that is still a very small class and obviously they can distance appropriately no parent that's sending their kids back to school believes they will be six feet apart and we're fine with that you know under these circumstances if the kids are given the option to opt out full time which so many are then the remainder of kids can
010be optional opt-in you know monday from eight maybe initially eight to twelve that's an eight degrees and you know i know i'm close on time but i could go on but i i just wanted to share those feelings and and you know and i and i appreciate so much what the teachers were doing but um anyway so i appreciate your time i thank you thank you mrs corey thank you hello can i speak with jessa please yes yes sir hi jessa this is dr castelli i am calling you from the board meeting you had emailed me and indicated that you would like to address the board and so just to give you a little bit of direction before you start make sure you say your full name for our records and then you have three
011minutes to make any comments you wish to make okay thank you all right go ahead and begin so my name is giovannetti and i'm a senior at columbia high school and first off i wanted to start by saying like to all my teachers that have me in class and are listening to this please don't act differently towards me because i'm simply just expressing how i feel and how a lot of my other classmates feel um so i wanted to give some quick insight to the board into what most students at the high school are going through so the student's mental health at the high school is seriously it's deteriorating our days are determined by what assignment is due we feel it so we aren't working towards anything it's just the due date that day speaking
012of the seniors the only thing the seniors are working towards is graduation and even then people have stopped caring if we even get a ceremony or not they're all just kind of done with this fear um everyone wants to leave because we feel as though we have nothing left here for us anymore we haven't gotten anything special for us stone while everyone still feels bad for the class of 2020. um i was talking to my friend the other day and she mentioned how last year she was going above and beyond on all of her work and all of her assignments and now she's doing the absolute bare minimum and i think everyone i know can relate to that and our teachers are noticing too as they've addressed it multiple times um parents are really worried
013for their all remote kids because their grades are falling and they don't know what to do there's no one at home to hold them accountable because they're at work um one of my big points is that i think us students deserve math breaks teachers have their plan periods where they get to pull down their math while we have to wear them from 7 45 to 12 45 street and i have a tendency to pass out so i do get very dizzy at school and i know many people do as well my mom did actually contact the school about this concern and was and was told that because we're not in school for a full day we don't need math breaks math breaks which i believe is extremely unsympathetic and simply not true because math do
014decrease your oxygen levels and my mom actually did a test where she tested my oxygen and after 30 seconds with my mouse gone my oxygen level had dropped drastically another issue is that [Music] with us being in school and i know that some people don't agree with us being in school i feel like a burden to my staff and my teachers and i know a lot of other kids feel that way they feel as though the teachers because they have to work with the kids in school and at home they just don't want to don't want to work with the kids at home i feel like when i'm remote my teachers are only talking to my kids in class and so i just i don't think that's fair to me due to the fact that
015i want to be in school i don't want to be at home my last year of high school i had to spend sitting in my room not motivated trying not to let my phone distract me my sister distressed me or my parents distract me who were working from home um i think that plays a big role into my mental health as well as my other classmates so i think that's it all right thank you very much jessica [Music] on to item three correspondence uh we do have a presentation from cameron illinois okay where do you watch all right and i think um met about a year ago at this point um i work with train you did that hbac project this summer um and then this is larry irwin he's with illinois and we just
016wanted to take this opportunity to come congratulate the district on their project this year you guys received a check for about 187 000 from ameren a couple weeks ago which results in 76 000 kilowatts and 992 000 pounds of co2 gas removed from your environment so this is a great great award for your district um we do a lot of these projects and 187 000 is definitely something to be proud of so the 76 000 is actually the amount of savings you'll have every year on your energy bill on this project granted it was a very large project so we were more than happy to provide you with this incentive payment please don't hesitate to do more projects that's part of my job i actually am my company's a contractor we're the third party administrator
017of what used to be called the akron energy program that's now just called the american online energy efficiency programs but we have if you're an enamored customer on the residential side there are things that we can do for you certainly on the business side we love these kind of projects i have a goal every year so many kilowatt hours of electric savings so many therms of gas savings and i also have a spending target so as long as we don't color outside the lines as long as it's legal i'm more than happy to give away as much of this incentive money for our energy efficiency project so i just wanted to present this to somebody we we do need a picture we've been i've been told i need somebody to take a picture so my
018folks in peoria can be happy so you know okay that works thank you yeah all right yeah if you can just uh forward that to us email to us that that's yours absolutely look at that i wish we had another real one to commit to you and i don't blame you for cash now it has been deposited yeah and i know there's a lot of work involved in the district's part and on jessica's part so i just kind of sit by the side things to happen and help deliver the money i won't say i came into this project uh late in the game but it was really good working with with both of you so thank you thank you for your patience this year it's been a year like no other thing yeah it's crazy
019time so hopefully what money we can provide you to the help thank you very much thank you very much thanks for the invitation on to the consent agenda well you've got the minutes and all the reports you will see at your desk regarding the personnel you'll see that we are hiring three nurses that puts us by a nurse at every building we're excited to see them starting so they've got those you'll also see that under the certified personnel we've got two individuals that we have selected for remote instruction to answer the question on the phone they are certified teachers they've got their license they've got their pbls they are going to be columbia teachers employees they're just going to be doing remote work for the classes that can't really be synchronous as you can see
020we are still looking for three more second grade third grade and a special ed remote so we've not been able to fill all those positions and that is somewhat cause of concern but given all those facts and with this knowledge uh administration recommends the board group the consent agenda as presented can i ask a question are we going to look at hiring uh remote instructors for the upper grade levels or are we just concentrating no just for the ones that have to be asynchronous the other ones the remote kids would be logging in and following along supremacy so really we're just looking forward for the grades that we don't feel should be um secrets it's hard for a kindergartner to follow along any other questions on the consent agenda seeing none let me entertain a
021motion to accept the consent agenda as presented motioned by prayer second by tammy hines can you do a roll call vote for karen anderson yes tammy hines yes john long yes greg meyer yes scott middle camp yes gregor connor oh lisa schumacher yes motion carries on to the uh next item which is uh communications and administrative reports uh principles report we have enrollment in the packet principles report yeah hi bye hi hi mr duggan uh principal at parkview um i just want to share a few things with you first uh our pta held their christmas craft night on december 4th and talking with katie jansen and jerry mead they said it was a huge success they were outside that evening was cold evening there was i believe six adults and four middle school students helping
022out deliver they prepared over 300 bags of crafts and snacks and people drove up and and they handed them off and they said it was a great success a lot of people came and picked up crafts and on their facebook page you can see pictures of students with their crafts and they look pretty happy so it's nice for pta to provide a safe fun and free event today our staff and students enjoying some holidays here by participating in a christmas trivia game over the phone we called it 12 by 12 at 12 12 o'clock today i uh actually all the schools asked a trivia question to staff and students and the 12th caller to the office with the correct answer won the prize so they had enjoyed that had a lot of fun at my
023school mrs denn's third grade class was the winner um unfortunately it may or may not have knocked out our phone system because we had i think over 170 phone calls within five minutes so uh yes yes so uh kudos to trend ron our tech guys for getting us back up and working so staff and students don't forget tomorrow is pajama day so we get to work pajamas to school tomorrow i also wanted to thank parents for keeping their children at home when they're exhibiting symptoms it's really very important if they're exhibiting any kind of symptoms to keep them at home just on the safe side we've seen too many times where somebody has come to school with known symptoms and even just the smallest thing is a cough can end up being a positive which
024in turn quarantines an entire class so you're talking about sending your kid to school with a symptom can affect over 20 families so please be considerate of that on the safe side just keep them home finally i wanted to let the board and community know that i'm amazed every day of the commitment and dedication of our teachers and staff who make sure they are providing exceptional education for all of their students both in person and remote teachers are working harder now than they ever have before they're exhausted and they do look forward to the christmas break like many of us uh even though many of those teachers over this christmas break are going to be working on new lessons they're going to be grading late homework assignments and getting their classrooms ready for the second
025semester my staff and i appreciate the numerous emails cards and messages of support from parents that recognize all the hard work that we put into this year it reminds us what we are doing is working now is it working for 100 of the community no it's not but i don't think any plan that we come up with in this pandemic is going to work for 100 percent i just wanted to let parents and students know that those letters and emails mean a lot to us so our teachers are going to find a way to make the next phase of returning to school work but we want it to be safe and we want it to work well so for that to happen we feel like we do need more time thank you thank you i
026don't have much to add in the world of curriculum right now we've been just working on the return to school plans mainly however i will say that second semester we are hopeful that we can continue where we left off before covert started in some way or fashion so that we don't completely lose sight of that goal so i've already reached out to people that were on that committee to see uh just to kind of give them a heads up and if they um weren't comfortable because it's really going to be difficult to do that virtually being in person that we can find a replacement for that and then i do have one of my members going on maternity leave during that time so finding a replacement so that hopefully will start in februaryish [Music] one
027thing i do want to point out is that we have made the decision that parents can change their selection for how their child is learning with us that being remote in-person hybrid depending at a natural break in the school calendar which would be a quarter or semester or whenever we change the play so we have a natural break coming up and i will be sending out an email probably on the 22nd that is asking parents to indicate if they are wishing to change their child's uh learning setting for the third quarter so the beginning of second semester um in that email i will share data that has been requested i've had numerous parents ask that when i send that out that i include data related to the number of staff that are positive have been
028positive the number of students and the number of isolations so i will put that in there because they feel like they need that information in order to make an informed decision um and then we will ask for that to be i think uh ms johnson and i decided i think the 29th of december to get that return to us by the end of the day so that we can spend the next day updating the system so that way when the teachers start getting ready and are coming back they have accurate information on who is going to be in their classrooms so that will be pounding their way so we definitely need that response if you were planning to change we only need a response if you want something different um so that'll be coming out
029so look for that email um and i think that's it for me great thank you uh yeah we had one foyer last night to try and update you on all those uh the suspect uh iea really but through suspect they asked for the legal fees that information was given in a timely manner i would imagine this is just one of those things that ia has mass produced and districts around her open place i also want to say you know with that check it it's a nice upgrade that we've done to our facilities they did the roofs as well just recently and eagle view um really proved crucial they went up there and they did more work than they expected they were going to need to do they did stay within their budget and we allowed
030them so much money but they didn't do it and they said that you could just the insulation you could bring out they were surprised that we weren't already experiencing leaks and with the freezing confined to come this winter we probably wouldn't have a lot of issues so i'm really glad that we were able to get that done and then finally we're about halfway through the school year this first semester is almost over um it's amazing to say that i want to say thanks to everyone who's been patiently waiting with us through this process this year has not been ideal it's not been anybody's dream um it's been an unique one everyone's had to adapt and there's been no perfect plan as mr negan said you know it just isn't a perfect plan we're trying to
031do the best that we can for everybody that we can look at the big picture but everybody has their own slants their own interests their own desires and focused in on their area which is great we want them focused in on that area we need to take a step out and look at the big picture what can be done through 12th grade it's been exhausting people have been working extremely hard for it we've had a lot of meetings going through this process i just want to thank everybody and and say that you know let's have a joyous relax and holiday because just got three more days friday monday tuesday so i just want to say thanks to all the parents all the teachers all the everyone out there thank you items for action uh approved
032early graduation for students you have 11 students names within your packet they have met i'm looking at dr costello that met all the requirements reeves has sent that over to us and uh this is this is normal this time of the year so the administration recommends the board approve the list as presented so i would entertain a motion to uh approve those students i'll second motion by karen anderson second by john long could you do a roll call vote for him please kim tammy hines yes john long yes greg meyer yes scott middle camp yes greg o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes motion carry so those students are approved for early graduation on item b approval of the 2020 tax levy adoption uh this is something that was presented at the last board meeting
033do we have questions thank you okay uh as as mr gertie said are there any questions or concerns from the board at this time great seeing none i'd entertain a motion to approve the tax levy as presented motioned by lisa schumacher second bye second by tammy hines rule caller over me please kim jong-un yes craig meyer yes scott middlecam yes greg o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes carries on to item c approval to open accounts for deposit with uh dietrich bank yeah our our treasury read uh doctor he's been doing a lot of work looking at what we can do for our best investments um right now the investment uh as a public entity we're limited we can't speculate too much or take too risky of investments we've got to be
034pretty conservative however he got out there and he's looked into dietrich bank can give us a point four five percent versus the 0.08 we're getting correct so uh the recommendations we open the future bank this is a nice because it's not even a cd it's going to be a you know so you're not going to be limited on time or anything so it's really flexible for us and it's a larger percent increase but we need to have the approval to have an accountable future and for those of you who aren't familiar with dietrich bank they've bought i guess the illinois side for first bank so they're right there on main street just up the street here so they're a local end any questions any questions about opening the deposit account for dietrich banks seeing now
035they'd entertain a motion to approve dietrich bank for direct upon our district deposits as um as presented promotion by gregor counter second by second by karen anderson greg meyer yes scott middle camp yes greg o'connor hi lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes john long yes great motion motion carries on to item d the approval of the first reading of board policies this is updates through press issue 106. any questions on the first reading of these board policies seeing them had entertained a motion to approve the first reading of these board policies as presented i'll make that question motion by john long second bye second by greg meyer before we take a vote kim i just want to reiterate that this is the first reading and we have an opportunity to read through
036these and ask and make any changes for the second reading second hand did you wrote for me please kim scott middle camp yes craig o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes john long yes greg meyer yes okay great question carries on to item e return to school plan did you want to watch yes we've talked and talked and looked at the key thing that we're trying to do here is to get a more normal school day for our students want them eight for three and when i say eight to three that's in very general terms it'll actually be you know 7 15 something to whatever you know but i just could call it eight to three for general purposes this plan will allow k-5 be here every day from eight to three
037monday through thursday friday we'd like it to be eight to twelve thirty okay um we are going to have to hire some remote teachers who will be certified staff members will be our employees they'll be working in the grade level teams to ensure that the instruction is right there with everybody else six through twelve getting out of the hybrid the two things that you really mentioned to us often when um you know when you speak with parents is that um they want their kids in school every day they want them to attend school every day and they want them to go to school every day they also would like them to have morning and afternoon positions now there's two ways to go about this the first one is just to let everybody in to which
038the contact tracing in the health department is not wise the other way is this creative way where we'll have half of our schedule in the morning from eight to like around 11. noon to three would be the second half in the middle we would let the morning kids go home and we'd pick up the afternoon so on monday and tuesday eight kids would be in the morning for their first classes in person and the b kids would be remote they would then go home the b kids would come in to be in person with the a kids being involved wednesday and thursday the b kids would be in the morning eight kids remote and in the afternoon the eight kids would be in person because remote and then friday would be eight to twelve thirty
039as it is now with alternating a or b and remote this side steps the need to have deals at the stools it sidesteps a lot of things we would like to start this on february 16th that's the day after president's day there's a few reasons we're picking that date but right now on january 4th i want to be clear on this we've not been asked every time we've ever gone remote we've been asked by the health department to build a vote we've not been asked to go promote after christmas and so january 4th we will come back exactly as we are right now okay k5 8 to 12 30 6 12 hybrid 8 we also need to hire lunch supervisors we've got two of our teachers done we need three more we've been hitting the
040bushes we've been uh contacting schools and i'm hoping a lot of december grads haven't gotten around to getting their applications together and we're going to see an influx here but we do need to hire those positions we also want to give them time to get in to be with the team and really understand the curriculum look at what they're doing so february 16th will be your time once we uh enact this plan 6th through 12th will be coming every day either in the morning or the afternoon right now on thursday if a a kid gets sick we don't have to quarantine anybody because an agent on thursday hasn't been at the school for over 24 hours then coming every day we're gonna quarantine six through twelve probably twice as many as we're going to hear
041we understand this that's another reason why we want to wait until february in february it'll still be cold when it'll be starting to warm up it'll be through most of the january and early february cold and flu season the vaccine will also have to have time to work its way into first responders and and hopefully our numbers will see start going down finally uh eight to three is a long time without masks for the little ones as it was brought up by our student i uh tested the world o2 which i did this excellent science project there but it's long for the kindergarten eight to three is a long time they're going to need mass breaks you got to have to go outside you'd like to get past a lot of the really cold weather
042again i don't think it's um i don't want to wait till march i'd like to do a defensive and so you know it's that balancing can we get them in earlier we push it off later forgive with the mask breaks that's another reason to wait till february right now 8 to 12 30 would continue as i said one of the big things that people are saying is they're struggling the kids are struggling and they need to give them more help i can tell you my teachers are struggling as well they're trying to get the kids that are struggling to attend those hours in the afternoon they they're asking their parents to you know it's just the kids aren't signing in they are wrong there needs to be consequences for those kids in my opinion but
043we need that assistance we need those relationships between the teachers and the parents to try and get together and get those kids to do what needs to be done um those are really the key reasons um as far as a plan as i said this plan gives k5 here eight to three it's a foundation kindergarten first second third grade i mean if you look at long-term issues yeah i'm not thrilled with the high school struggling that the high school should be in more what a high school student at least has those foundations to get the early learning the little ones i think is just crucial so this plan gives that eight to three hair i love them it gives the six to twelve at school every day it has them attending classes in the morning
044and in the afternoon it's the most like real school that you can get it while keeping the wheels safe keeping the contact tracing reasonable until we get these masks off and we can go back to business as usual i don't know where else we would change it this would be the huge expansion um the good thing about this taking this big step instead of trying to implement a bunch of different changes is you make this change and you probably be set for the rest of the school year unless somebody tells us we can start having meals with the middle school and you don't have to worry about these masks i'm optimistic that that will happen but i'm also a realist and i know that those are the different options so my administration team we've worked
045with the teachers we've had a lot of conversations we've had a lot of discussions on this we believe based on our experiences this is the plus plan so i'm recommending that we go with this plan on february 16th 2021. i have some questions um so on the friday the a and the b was alternating back and forth between the morning and yeah you don't think that's to be like total confusion um that's a lot just i think to seem to keep track of can you not just [Music] yeah the one thing i can tell you though with the hybrid there's been you know every every time you've done this there's been concerns that the kids or the families won't be able to you know there'll be confusion with the a day and the b day
046this is just the damage i think i think you know we'll set up calendar and then um with the kids coming a in the morning b in the afternoon i expressed this to you when i we spoke that i've heard that there are a lot of high school kids that have jobs that are working their jobs and not necessarily being remote so do you think that really if if you're an a student and you're only attending school for a few hours and then you're getting a couple hours off and you're supposed to go home you're supposed to sign up for the afternoon that all of these kids are disciplined enough if their parents are working that they're going to sign back on to be remote the rest of the day and not a get together
047as a group of kids or going to jobs or just decide that hey i attended school this morning i'm done i'm good i can take the rest of the day off yeah i totally think it'll be done and this is why right now what we're seeing is they come in 8 to 12 30 and they go through all of their periods so they've taken all of those classes in their mind school's over all the afternoon they're supposed to be doing their work and going to the meetings with the office hours with the teachers it's not a scheduled day it's it's it's too new for them what we're doing is we're doing only four classes so when they're done in the morning and they go home for lunch and it's not a couple hours it's gonna
048be an hour and a half maybe an hour um minimize that as much as possible they're gonna have their lunch it's gonna be an extended lunch break but then they're gonna have the whole afternoon classes that are scheduled and one of the things is that you know education's a full-time job it should be going from eight to three what i like about this plan is they've got commitments to actual classes that they haven't gone with yet in the morning and the afternoon so i do believe that the kids will come back and do it and if they don't we have truancy procedures that we can go through to get them to do that now the kids aren't going to like this because again like you said they're working jobs they're gonna have to change their
049hours but i don't think school should be aged 12 30 it's not a half a day thing so i do i think that the teachers not the teachers the students will come in the afternoon because they haven't had their class yet they know that they have to attend the classes no i'm saying i know that the afternoon wants to come but i'm just thinking more like the ones that are there in the morning that they necessarily will go home yeah they have to walk in they have to attend the class you have to attend remotely or in person and if you don't then you're going to be trimmed and we'll have to deal with that office hours we don't have the same stick that you can do with the truancy they have to attend their
050classes office hours are not a requirement correct correct but attending attending classes remotely is a requirement yes and basically if they would go in the morning and then not attend in the afternoon basically what they're doing is only going every other day to a particular class and they won't if they're only going to attend that class every other day they're not going to cut it well yeah they're going to be written opportunities but they're not going to be able to make the grade in the class at all right if you only go every other day how about the bus schedules will it be modified at all to accommodate the vacuum the uh april becker and and the bus department has done a lot of jobs of doing that right now what it looks like is
051they're going to be dropping off and it's going to be very normal to what it normally is i'm going to be dropping off and picking up at the same time and having them sit up i also have a few other things i would like to recommend as well that we bring the sixth to the eighth kids back from the eighth degree just like the fifth graders are and i know that it's it has been said over and over again that the lunches are the problem um there can be workarounds for this i mean lunches can be staggered every hallway has every hallway the middle school has their common area that can be used for lunchroom along with the cafetorium along with the lower level that is storing how much stuff does this district need to
052store that we cannot open up some of that space or why not they juggle the schedules a little bit and you make a standard lunch time for everybody like some people have at their jobs and you eat where you're at it's just it's like a sack lunch for the rest of the school year to provide that you eat where you're at you bring in more lunch monitors so that the teacher gets their lunch break the the issue with the lunches is um the lunches aren't the big issue if you do lunches then you're saying the kids are there all day right and so are we going to have all of them in all day or are we going to go back to them being in all day and while for the a kids on these
053days and the b kids on those days we want the kids in every day the lunches is the middle of the time that will be just that'll be the only time missing it's not instruction okay the real issue is that in sixth and then it's not departmental it is departmentalized in fifth grade and down everybody's in a self-contained class and so the the movement of those kids like if you get a kid sick in the fifth grade you might take down the whole class right now they're really you know kindergarten first when you have to do more group work and more hands-on stuff it does take down the whole class in fifth grade you don't take down the whole class you take out a good portion of it if you did that sixth seventh and
054eighth grade you'd be doing that for every class that they attend because when a kid goes home sick you gotta go to every one of those periods and so the um the sixth seventh and eighth grade until we can stop quarantining you can't have them come in all day so if we stay like this the rest of the school year you believe that we're fine with just keeping the kids on the schedules that they're on don't i don't think anybody would say this is ideal but it does allow the whole day to be instructional it does allow us to be safe with the quarantining with the lunches um to bring everybody in six through eight i think at this point in time would just be um dangerous but we've looked at this these schedules and
055we've looked at what other districts are doing look at how it can work for us and we believe this to be the best plan but i i mean i work in belleville there's schools over in belleville when they say that they're still they're hybrid or they're taking some hours off on different times it's they're not going all day long it's not the idyllic world that we think pre-coded how would it be different than what ics is doing because they're six seven and they are all in how would that be different because the classroom sizes are still similar and they haven't had big issues they're a private school do they change do they change classes they do and they have well some of the kids do right but not all not all of them all right
056it would be all but how would that change it though because we're not having a lot of kids go out i i don't i can talk to mr carr it would just be interesting to be able to compare that because i'm concerned too with the sixth seventh and eighth graders especially on the new schedule because my eighth grader i could never trust him to be home alone and log on when he's supposed to and a lot of these parents are working and they're not able to micromanage their kids during the day and i think that's that's right now they're doing the same thing right now they're at home on their remote days doing the same thing logging in how is how is how is what they're doing on their remote days any different than what
057they're gonna need to be doing either in the morning or the afternoon well it's gonna be all day i mean they're gonna have to do their morning routine and then be responsible for doing something again with that little break in between versus okay mom wakes them up at 8 30 they're done at 12 30 and then it just right now what they're going to have is our consequences of truancy if they don't do it and so we'll go through that process with them but ma'am sixth grade i don't even i wouldn't even leave my sixth grader home alone but then right now with the hybrid schedule you'd still be in the same situation you need to have some kind of figuring it out so maybe that maybe there's so much there's so much more immature
058at that age six seven eight when we get to high school there's a little bit higher level of maturity so i mean that's a lot for these kids to be responsible for yeah and what i'm saying is that the next logical step in my mind after having a lot of discussions is two to the morning and the afternoon i don't see that any different as the kids logging in or not logging in you know the parents aren't there now on the days that they are remote it's the same situation but they're having to be responsible for stuff for just four hours right now and with the new system it's going to be all day are you talking about remote can't fully run healthcare no i'm talking about hybrid so if they're hybrid kids let me
059let me understand what you're saying so let's pretend that it's the orchid of 83 coming in so be the a day person uh so that in the morning on a monday comes in until in person doing that so they're there with their teacher or whatever and then ride the bus pick up whatever get home get something and then they log in so they're really being having to have that maybe self-motivation or that self-drive or whatever you want to say or maybe they don't have that and they need that person to be kind of proud of them but they'll need them for the last four hours of it so it's still i think the same duration of if they need additional adult support um when they're independent at home it's still the same amount of time
060i just think it's depending on if it's in the morning or the afternoon because at least half of that day they're going to be direct face-to-face with the teacher in person but at that time would that make sense are they going to have longer class periods than with this high school plan [Music] whereas the middle school has eight so you'll see more of a change at the high school in minutes per class than you will is in the middle school there will be an additional time um but not at the middle school traditionally the class period is about 44 minutes with this it'll be 35-ish i believe and at the high school the morning classes will be around 40 something and then the afternoon will be 50. so they will see high school a drastic
061increase i think that this plan will give us an opportunity to get kids back in on a daily basis and my understanding is and the conversation i've had is our administrators have put a lot of time and thought into this a lot of research it's not just a feel-good plan and we've got to have some confidence in in our administrators decisions and by going with this plan and getting it in place it's going to be much easier to transition to all in as we go down the road and get closer to the end of the school year and this would be a plan too that we could get into that we wouldn't be swapping plans in and out and this might be more of a long-term plan could i recommend that um the may we
062break this up into parts of a lot because i am totally against the february 16th date i expressed that to you when i spoke to you i thought about it more i i'm completely against starting this in february um i told you i'd like to see it start when you come back from school but i know we can't start on january 4th but would you consider like a two-week period when we come back on the fourth it takes us to january 18th which is a holiday the kids are off on that friday the 15th already starting it in january 19th the february is a better date for a few reasons one i don't think that we're going to have the i mean we're setting up interviews right now for the next teaching we've got to
063interview them and select them and then one time with them to be with the teachers um there's also two remote land planning days that are united calendar already before the february which gives those remote teachers time to really dive in and work with the teachers so um i know you don't like the february 16th i can tell you right now that if we do it any earlier the education's going to suffer it's just it's not going to be a very good plan they're going to um it's going to be pushed and rushed and it's not going to be implemented to the best of its ability the teachers are going to work their butts off and the administration's going to work their tails off and everybody's going to do everything they can to try and make
064it work but it's it's just it's hard to explain what goes into grade level teams and articulation and the creation of getting a new teacher involved with the team and working on this there's a lot of things going on and i get the the six to eight argument i don't think that it would be wise given our school size and our dynamics with what we've got to do what ics is doing as far as the date it'd be very hard not to do to do this any sooner we also don't have a single we haven't had a single person apply to do any of our lunches we've never had uh lunch monitors at the middle school it's always been the administration and the support staff meaning the guidance counselors and social workers which they would
065still do that but that would not be enough um and so we would have to not only hire if they were to stay in each of their classrooms i forget how many we you know we're looking at down here but then there we have another single person applied to be a lunch room supervisor or not even a luncheon just one supervisor classroom supervisor to be able to make that happen and we have to have that definitely there to make it work um where are we advertising all over the place uh kim is a guru of getting that out there and recruiting every possible she makes phone calls everything so um many of the applications that have come our way have been through um her efforts of reaching out to people and making those connections so
066we really appreciate that um and so we're hopeful that we can get the remote teachers because obviously that isn't important but the lunch part it has to happen and we haven't had anything and we will have a contract issue if we don't and i you know obviously nobody wants to go down that path but we also i mean it's going to be important for it's important for those teachers to have a duty-free lunch you know it's not important just because of you know whatever they need that break in an elementary setting they don't get the same as the upper grades get so they need that time to be able to sometimes just go to the bathroom and shoot you know so we can't expect them to sit there in their lunches and do that so
067we need the time to get the right people in place i know nobody in here wants to sacrifice the quality of people we have taking care of our children and we've been very impressed with some of the applicants that we've got other ones they're they think that they're remoting like from japan to help us out or something you know we're like no this requires you to actually be in our building these people will be in our building this isn't a work from home and situation they're going to be part of our team they are hired and we need that time it to make light of that i think is is i don't know not productive any other questions or comments i i think the titan is the step in the right direction i don't think
068it's the end-all be at all and i wouldn't like to see that through the entire school year i think if we're moving in the right direction i could get behind it at least but i i do think the biggest problem from the parents that i hear is in that middle school range where i think those kids are they're in the queens i think they're the ones that are kind of getting left out the high school kids seem to be able to adapt a little bit better the younger kids are getting in person the middle school i think it's kind of there's a lot of foundational things too if those kids are still learning that i i know you guys have put so much time and effort into the plane and i like most of the
069plans i would just like to see six through eight being addressed as well i will make the note that that will be the next piece as we continue to move forward look at options i had some conversation with courtney and said you know maybe eventually one of the first phases could be to bring sixth grade back in and one grade level at a time versus all three grades dumped in at once so you know there may be stair steps to getting getting them all back in would that be a possibility and then have the end date be in the fed world high school kids and maybe stair second a little bit so it's not all at once and overwhelming yeah i think right now what i need to do is wrap my head around what
070we're doing in february get that set and then what we can do is we can start talking about moving from there and hopefully numbers will go down and we won't be having as many cases and having all the quarantine issues if we can get past the quarantine issues we could get past this you know another thought too and i do think that this happens at ics where the teachers may go around to the kids that mostly stay in their room like today i substituted at parkview as and i have art cards and so i went from class to class doing that and that's maybe what instead of the kids leave in their classrooms the teachers go to them in their homeroom class and that way only the teachers are moving and non-kids that may work
071in sixth grade but it won't work instead of the eighth grade and the reason being is that none of them necessarily have the same scheduled classes okay so we could i mean that may however one of the big concerns that i do have and not to say that it couldn't be worked around so when i say that i don't mean that but one of the things i want you to consider in this is that we have students who have iups who go and get services and when you have let's say the math teacher come around to the cart and my kid has an ivp in math so that teacher comes up that kid has to get up and walk out in front of everybody and everybody knows where they're going that when we talk about
072self-esteem and we talk about middle school years that is a huge concern and i can empathize because we have a lot of families that choose not to get their child's services because of what they perceive to be the stigma i know i i won't make it a secret that i have a child you know who has a disability now that's a different scenario but there are a lot of students who that would be absolutely devastating to be able to do it totally calls them out so that is a concern i have for their well-being for that and it doesn't work as nicely as it doesn't look the same at an elementary school as it does when you start getting into into middle school as such and then when you sixth grade their electives are on
073a like a requirement schedule much like what eagle or a parkview does but when they get into seventh and eighth grade they have those choices and i know we've had the conversation about maybe taking those away because we're in a pandemic but you also need to consider that some of those choices that they take are the a and b classes of technology spanish and german that eventually lead them to get those college credits that we are have our program based upon when they get to the high school and those um i forget what it's called but they get an award we get a couple of oh my gosh it's a language award what's it called by literacy thank you i'm like i got the dude right here come on so that would be detrimental to
074that program we would probably end up losing our high school german program et cetera or it would be drastically affected if we didn't do because we start that interest and then they jump in and then we can push them to those ap classes that would be odd and i think that that would not be wise i understand it's a unique situation but i think we need to look at a bigger picture sometimes the interesting thing for me and i i just had this realization because you know you've said before about the whole the teacher's need and everything and we've had a lot of really good ideas that get brought forward and you start as you start thinking oh that should work and then what happens is that you have the discussion you start realizing oh
075yeah trying no we don't group our kids all together we you know and that's one of the things that we're different than ics because we've got more kids at a grade level and so we've got to group them some are good at math some are good at reading some are good at this someone for the day and so the kids don't have the same kids in the classes and so there are details and i can just disturb you we have gone through a ton of ideas and sometimes i really bring it up i remember this conversation that we had before you know we brought it up the first time about the teacher's movement i said oh yeah okay and then oh yeah that's right we don't have the you know and so all of these
076ideas that we're talking about you know it's you say this is the issue but really it's not just this thing like lunches being the issue it's how the lunches interact with the rest of the schedule as the shared staff is another huge thing you know why does the middle school and the high school and the elementaries need to work kind of in synchronics well a because of transportation but b we've got staff members that teach at the high school and at the elementary schools you know band and music and it just there's a lot of working parts and you know i i i'm not saying don't keep questioning and say well why don't we do this and why don't we do that because i'm looking for all the great ideas what i'm telling you though
077is we've spent this whole year kind of playing with various options and various ideas and the smallest little piece of sand can start grinding away the education we're here for the education of kids we want the education to be as good and as great as we can do it and to get that articulated by the teachers to get i mean they're all working very very hard a really great job in some really bad situations it's hard to engage you know i today i addressed the faculty and the staff um damn great people were there and one of the things that they said was a teacher said you know how do i better engage the kid that's remote you know because they're still trying to figure that out and if you look at other stuff you
078know this is a high school teacher saying i need to better engage those remote kids if you look at our high school a bunch of them are remote they're choosing to go remote because our teachers are engaging they are getting what they need there are kids that are struggling i'm not saying this is a perfect system for everybody but even last year before kobe i can guarantee you there were kids in our district that struggled you know what we've got to do is find those individuals pick them up and move them along um here what we're doing is trying to come up with a plan that can work with all everybody and all those interests all those pieces and we've talked about a lot of different details and there's for every thing that we chase
079there is a specific reason why we haven't gone and done it because we love to see the six to eighth graders in as well you know it's just it's it's frustrating and because you want to do more but sometimes you say okay this is what i've got this is what's going to work and move it forward and then and then we'll start working on the next step the next stages so i do like what karen said though maybe look at sixth grade get six the next then seven and then eight and start working on that as soon as possible once you figure out how to do it with sixth grade though you're gonna know how to deal with seventh and eighth because those systems are very similar and so i i i get that idea
080of kind of easing into it but i also get the idea that once you have the solution why would you do exactly what to do well it sounds like some of these were a little bit different maybe yeah that's down the road right now we need to look at what we're going to be doing now and going forward and making a decision as far as when we're going to go back in and what what plan we're going to say and i do want to say the administration has done a fantastic job and that follows the other comments you guys have spent hours and hours and hours and i know parents especially if you're watching from home it's easy to sit back and say you should do this you should do that i said the logistics
081of this thing is a nightmare i'm always one that there has to be a way i don't want to hear how we can't do it i want to hear how we can't do it there has there's always a solution that we need to come up with and i know there's a lot of frustration during the faculty meeting that i ended a day with family the rest of them you know i you can hear the frustration in the teachers they really want to get this done and they want to do it but you know it's kind of shocked to me too that a lot of them the sentiment was our board is not taking in their feelings into consideration and i personally want to say that you know i have the most respect and admiration for
082teachers for me that's the first thing for the truth i am one i want the kids back in school i think that's what's best for the kids that's why i view my job here is what's in the best interest of the kids just because i push for that doesn't mean that i don't respect the teachers i i want i don't want them to take unnecessary risks or whatever but at the same time we have to focus on the kids at the same time too with board members you guys all know we're not just dealing with one group of people the teachers or the administrators or the public or the kids we have to take all this into consideration and i know i have several conversations today with parents and a number of teachers as well
083that that want the kids back and you know there's there's so many different sides to this and there's no perfect deal but my goal is that i just wish we would keep pushing in the right direction even if it's baby steps i know there's also mentioned some frustration on the number of changes that we have but unfortunately that's the world we live in we have to do these changes we have to adapt we have to keep moving you know we're shooting at a moving target and we have to keep moving and adapting and you know i just uh i just want to i appreciate everything that everyone's doing you know we all have the best interest in mind and i think gregory said you know keeping the kids best you know is the best interest
084and what's right for the kids but if we are burning out the staff burning out the teachers we're not keeping the best interests of the kids at the front so we have got to be sure that we are really taking care of the teachers the staff the administrators so that they are able to take care of and educate those kids so i think that you know if you don't have that good back background and basic foundation of a strong staff and a healthy staff kids just aren't going to aren't going to be able to learn so yeah we keeping the teachers needs and concerns that the front is very important as much as i agree with you though education also starts at home and we gotta i can't forget about the parents i mean the
085parents aren't the primary educators of our kids teachers are great you guys are teaching a lot of things but it starts at home you have we have to work with our kids and take the village any other questions on the plan at this point seeing none i'd entertain a motion to to accept the plan as the administration recommends implementing the plan on february 16th tuesday following president's day motion by greg o'connor second bye second by karen anderson any other questions i have a roll [Music] lisa schumacher no karen anderson yes tammy hines yes yes john long yes greg meyer oh scott middle camp yes motion carries on to discussion i don't believe we have anything at this point board president's prerogative i just want to say talking about these going back to school plans returning
086to school whatever we want to call it i think taking these incremental steps is the way to go we just keep keep working towards that end and and hopefully by the end of the year we'll you know all of that is there any executive session session okay so we're going to pass that up there's no action as a result of the closed session since we don't have any on to the last time on the agenda uh german i've entertained a motion to adjourn so motioned by john second bye second by karen anderson roll call vote for me please kim lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes john mall yes craig meyer yes scott middle camp yes craig o'connor motion carries the meeting is adjourned thank you everybody you