001Tuesday, September 16th, 2025. This is a regular board meeting. Can I get a roll call? >> Remy Dean. Remy Dean. Walter Hood. >> Timothy Lock here. >> Roy Mickens, >> present. >> Willie Ray, present. Lata Sales. Lata Sales. Latoya Mosley, present. We have a quorum prayer with the record. >> We're going to ask everyone to stand and bow your head, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your mercy and your kindness for waking us up this morning, giving us the reasonable amount of intelligent and the activity of our limbs. We ask that you bless us to make good sound decision where the board is concerned. These things we ask in Jesus name. Amen. >> Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One
002nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Next, can I get a motion to adoption of agenda giving the board president discretion to take items out of order or in executive session? >> Make a motion. >> I second. >> Motion by Walter Hood, second by Willie Ray. Roll call. >> Walter Hood. Yes. >> Willie Ray. >> Yes. >> Latana Sales. Lata Sales. Remy Dayne. Remy Dayne. Timothy Lockett. >> Yes. >> Roy Makings. >> Yes. >> Latoya Mosley. Yes. >> Motion pass. Recognition. >> Good afternoon everyone. >> Good afternoon. >> I have I'm pleased to share a number of recognitions with you. First of all, Darion Miller, who is a 10th grader at East St. Louis Senior High School has been chosen to serve on this year's Illinois State Board of
003Education Student Advisory Council. Darion is just one of 21 students statewide selected for this very prestigious role. The council members will will engage in monthly activities, collaborate with educational partners, and conduct research to develop recommendations that the state board of education um will receive next spring. And I'm proud to say that Darion is also a member of the superintendent student advisory council at the high school. >> Excellent. >> Lincoln Middle School um teacher Esther Spells has been awarded the Edward and Esther Haywood Caring Educator Award by the Charles E. Fleming Foundation. This honor recognizes her dedication, compassion, and commitment to going above and beyond to support students success. So we celebrate that with her. Additionally, Nina McClean, who's now the assistant principal at Officer Elementary School, has been chosen by the Illinois State Board of
004Education to serve as a facilitator for the Illinois Affinity Group Network in partnership with Teach Plus. This in initiative works to support and retain educators of color across the state of Illinois. Miss McClean, who was also named our the Illinois 2025 Southern Regional Teacher of the Year last year, is one of just over 40 facilitators selected statewide and will receive a stipend upon completion of the program. So, it's a wonderful honor for her. East St. Louis School District's summer meals program was has received the USDA's Turnup the Beat Bronze Award for excellence in providing high quality summer meals. This nutri this national recognition honors sponsors who go above and beyond to serve meals that are nutritious, appetizing, and appealing to students. And a creative feature of our program in partnership with Chartwell's food service includes
005delivering periodic meals through the food truck. Um, making access fun and convenient for our families during the summer. And this marks the second consecutive year that our district has earned the bronze award distinction. >> All right. All right. Our school district human resources department has also been recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education as a bright spot for its innovative efforts to address teacher shortages through the teacher vacancy grant. As part of this recognition, director of recruitment and retention Melanie Hood will be interviewed by the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative um to share the impact and successes of our district's work um through this grant funding. And last but not least, I'm pleased to share that community development sustainable solutions, also why also known as CDSS, has been awarded second place in the
006statewide governor's hometown award for its transformative parent mentor program within our school district. In 2024, there were 54 parent mentors who volunteered daily across eight of our school campuses, each serving an average of 3.2 hours per day. and contributing nearly 576 hours per year. Collectively, those dedicated parents provided more than 31,000 volunteer service hours, supporting student learning, enhancing teacher effectiveness, and improving school climate. Uh the parent mentor program is rooted in leadership within our local community. um often with the parents who who volunteer are um their very their very own children are um attend that school campus. They are trained and supported by CDSS and these parent mentors partner with teachers to strengthen the instruction and foster positive relationships within the classrooms. So, we want to cor congratulate our CDSS partners and parent mentors on
007this very well-deserved honor and we thank them for their continuing partnership to strengthen our schools and communities. You may see um in the upcoming months that there's going to be a sign posted that we are that governor's hometown uh second place award winner in the state. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Good job. >> All right. Next, can I get a motion to approve minutes of the July 29th, 2025 special board meeting and August 19th, 2025 regular board meeting? Get a motion to second. The motion by Walter Hood, second by Roy Mickens. Roll call. >> Walter Hood. >> Roy Mickens, >> yes. >> Willie Ray, >> yes. >> Latana Sales. Latana Sales. Remy Dean. Remy Dean. >> Timothy Lockett. Yes. Toya Musley. Yes. >> Motion pass. Presentations, reports. >> Uh,
008no other presentations or reports. >> Okay. Next would be u public comments. Open statements for uh public comments. The portion of this meeting is reserved for comments from the public in accordance with policy 2230 public participation at board of education meeting and a petition to the board. A maximum time of 30 minutes will be allowed for all public comments. Individuals must have submitted the public comment form 30 minutes prior to the meeting in order to address the board. Please limit your comments to three minutes or less. The board president may shorten the time for each speaker. If multiple individual wish to speak on the same subject, the group will be required to appoint a spokesperson. Names of the students or staff are not allowed to be disclosed during public comments. Neither the board nor the
009superintendent will respond to public comments during the board meeting. the superintendent or a design may follow up separately with the speaker and the board as appropriate. First uh public speaker is >> I have man Patterson. >> Good evening everybody. >> Good evening. >> All right. All right. >> Uh thanks uh for having me here. I want to thank the board East St. Louis uh and superintendent u Mr. over. Um, did you know that 1,200 children go missing every day in the United States of America? One of the riskiest times that these children can go missing is on the way to school and the way home from school. I heard that the AfricanAmerican female is the most abducted child amongst all races. My name is Raymond Patterson. I have a free stranger danger awareness program. more
010than just strangers. For preK through fifth grade elementary school students, it's my passion now to save the lives of children. The story goes like this. I only got a few minutes. A child was walking home from school. Fourth grade child. They found her a thousand miles away from her home. >> She had been abducted. She had been raped, sodomized, beaten to death, and murdered. I had addressed a particular curriculum coordinator to try to implement this program. I was too late. I'm coming to the board to let you know that I'm implementing this program, Stranger Danger Awareness Program for elementary school kids, preK through fifth grade. My question is this. What do we have in place to teach our children how to make it back to school on Monday when they left Friday? I would like
011to meet with the person in charge of curriculum in this district. My program, Little Life Skills, is already in this district right now and is doing great. Thank you. Great. Thanks a lot. I have Lily Douglas. >> Lily Douglas. >> Stanley Smalls. >> Good evening. >> My name is Stanley Smalls. I'm with the Amalgamated Transit Union. I'm one of the assistant trustees here and I'm speaking on behalf of my members that work out of Caseyville. Um, I know there was an incident here a month ago where I don't know what's being told, but they're frustrated and they have nowhere to turn. And I don't believe um the email I got today was the appropriate response. Although I do respect the opinions, but I'm here to tell you a storm is coming, right? Because you cannot
012continue to mistreat people and treat them less than because you believe something, right? These are professional operators and they have expounded a bunch of loyalty to their employer because you have one right across the water paying about $6 more and they've stayed and they're being abused every day. I was there last week and I watched somebody the greater woman and tell her I would get my sisters to jump you and they coddled him because he's a friend of the company and only suspended him for a day and a half. We cannot rely on hey let the contract talk. They're your their employee. They bear responsibility to you guys. And every time they mistreat my members they're hiding behind y'all. We're we're we we are only asking to meet with y'all to get a clear understanding
013because as it stands, we're really ready to draft paperwork to say y'all guys are the joint employers. Every time they mistreat or fire or do harm to my members, they're saying they're doing it at the direction of the school board. They're not saying it verbally. They're putting it in emails. I've asked to have all the parties sit down. I'm not I'm not scared to say what I said to them to you. We need to get in the room and fix this because our members ain't trying to walk off the job. They're not trying to strike. They're getting ready to quit. Period. We're going to wake up one day, whether it's a Monday or Tuesday or any day of the week, and there's going to be no bus operators. I understand there's a lady on Facebook
014right now. She's ripping district at 189 because her child was left because there was no bus. And the reason why there was no bus because they're packing these children onto buses now. because my members don't want to come to work no more. It's not safe. It's hostile. And I'm asking you guys to get your employer in order because a storm is coming and we've warned them. We would like to work with you, but we won't run from this. We will protect the men and women in Caseyville at all cost and we hope it's not a cause of stopping buses. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Richard Rule. >> Good afternoon. >> My name is Richard Ruel. Good afternoon, >> superintendent, board, all the other members. >> I the chairman of
015the Chamber of Commerce here in East St. Louis. I've been trying to get a program into the schools carbon know uh for the last two years which would be sponsoring a scholarship program for the juniors and seniors at East Side and we were going to use a t-shirt program where we changed kind of the model or the emblem that they can have something to be you know proud of. This one it says that you know I actually designed it for whatever uh sport that we want to pretend in. And then you have championships. We call it city of champions champion city inc. On the back you have a motto that says where champions are born legends live and greatness is found in abundance. The other one it says true champions. Troop champions know the price
016of greatness is full price all day, every day. No sales, no discount, no layways. This was just going to be a a program to get the seniors involved in helping them get scholarships. That was part of it. The other part was to introduce them to the FEMA recovery program. It's called community emergency response program. If you see disasters out here, you know, FEMA don't usually call folks to have uh volunteers because they already train them. Last in 2020, I had a program where we helped the juniors in Lincoln and the seniors in East Side. I took them through one class where they learned the skills for disasters. Those skills are taught for free. They get a bag. They learn how to prepare for disers. whether it's tornadoes, whether it's fires or anything at home. The
017reason those programs I think is important for the school because it's kind of a gateway to a FEMA job. FEMA also starts people out at $54,000 a year with a high school diploma. Usually, once you learn that program, you can work your way up to $114,000. I've been again, like I said, I've been trying to get it into the schools for almost two years now. This is going to cost us the city the board nothing. We were going to volunteer our time and our resources to bring this into the schools. I have a pitch deck I've given to one of your one of your administrators and I've been waiting for, you know, to come and do a proper presentation. I didn't want to come in and bombard y'all a few minutes like this to do
018this. But I'm really serious about getting this program into the school because I think it'll not only be vital, but it can help them give their own idea about doing entrepreneurship because the other program we got them how to not only how to make these, but how also to sell them. That's my title. >> I guess you get the gist. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. She hints. >> Okay. One one spokesperson >> and we need a couple of more minutes. >> One person one of you guys going to represent >> United for change. >> Ma'am, >> we're here to talk about transportation. Come on, Trish. >> I really want to thank uh Sydney and Mrs. chairman for meeting with us on Thursday. And this is our group and our parents who want
019to tell their story. Miss Coy is not talking tonight cuz she upset. >> Okay. Hi everybody. Um so I came to address the busing issue. Um I received a email on the 4th, another one on the 15th about delayed buses. These emails are coming after 8:00. My daughter waits at the bus stop at 6:30 in the morning. That's that's two hours late for to be notified and by that time I'm already at work. So my question is what is the school board's uh short-term resolution for this? What's the long-term resolution? Uh because it's not acceptable that our kids safety is at risk because they can't find a a bus company that will handle I guess the load of of routes that they have. Um the group has met with members of the board already or
020of the school and we've discussed this issue. They say their hands are tied, but that's not a that's not acceptable. You know, it's not acceptable for our kids safety to be overlooked because I mean I I just don't understand. There should be some We've been fighting for this issue since I've been a part of the group since last year and this we've we've been fighting for busing issues and it seems like nobody's concerned about it. Um my daughter's safety means the world to me and I don't think that you know people should be saying we busy or whatever the excuses are. Nothing is acceptable. A resolution is what's acceptable. You know for somebody to take the time out to actually think and come up with some resolutions. If that means handling things with the bus
021company, do that. If that means finding another bus company that can handle it, um ride share services, something. My son paid almost $30 to Uber my daughter home on the fourth because I was at work. You know, we don't have that kind of money. And I even we we we even started taking surveys of people in the community. Kids are telling us that buses are not coming to their neighborhoods. They're having to pay to catch the city bus to school and home. Nobody has extra money in their budget for something that's supposed to be covered by the school district if they're getting funding for that. It needs to be handled. You know, you have a responsibility to the community and it needs to be taken seriously. And I'm not going to take any more time.
022>> I mean, you get the gist of what I'm saying. >> Thank you. >> Thanks a lot. We just have one spokesperson for per for per um one spokesperson. She just spoke for you guys, right? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah, I will. We don't normally uh respond, but I will let you know we have done. I I really um hate to see that there's a lot of turmoil between the bus drivers and their employer, but we have met with a group of uh people uh two groups actually regarding what the issues are. After that, we looked at the bus driver's contract with their employer which is not the school district. We met with them and we even partnered with them. They they explained that there's a shortage. So, we even came up with an incentive
023program that was approved by the board for a hiring bonus, a hired incentive as well as an attendance bonus. Well, that hasn't yielded any real positive results at this time, but we did offer that and they matched what we put in what we put in for the incentive bonus as well as attendance. We had another meeting with them last Friday and we let them know that things just don't seem to be getting any better. So, we put them on notice that we're getting ready to put out an RFQ or RFP, a request for a proposal from other bus uh companies, bus companies. Uh some are um bus companies, some are private entities that can provide transportation for the routes they can't cover. There's approximately about 10 routes they don't have drivers to cover. And the
024drivers, the issue is is really with their contract. Um, what they're doing is when they pick up additional routes, I guess the contract says, or no guess to it, I know it that they get paid to additional hours, but that's not from what we hear. It's not what's happening with the bus company. So, what we hope will happen as we look at the language, I would hope that there would be a grievance because the contract does have a grievance clause in it. And then if the grievance is not settled satisfactorily according to the bus driver's perspective, then it will go to arbitration and let an arbitrator decide. But it's really it's it's frustrating for us because these are not our employees, but they do provide services. So that's what we're doing right now. We we're
025putting them on notice and they've agreed to allow us to reduce the cost of the contract based on the routes that they can't cover. So, we're in a process of seeking other providers for transportation. We're calling them supplemental providers. The other thing, Can I finish, please? The other thing uh that we're that we're going to put out is that any parent that wants to take matters in their own hands and provide transportation, there is a way to do that. It used to be, but the laws have changed that they would get paid reimbursed directly from the state. Now, the district will reimburse the parents for that expense. And there's a process for doing all that. That'll be explained at a meeting for parents that want to do that. and then we'll get our reimbursement from
026the state. The reason uh they made that change is so the parental reimbursement could come quicker rather than waiting till the end of the year. That's when the state board, the Illinois state board used to pay parents at the end of the year. Parents were frustrated with waiting so long across the state. So now districts have the authority to go ahead and pay parents and get reimbursed at the end of the year by the state if the guidelines are are adhered to which they would be. >> Ask a question. >> Yes, you can. >> Who will be in charge of that reimbursement? Because we submitted reimbursement two years ago and none of our parents got reimbured. Excuse me. 2013. >> That's why you hate to that's why you don't have to respond. And now it
027has gotten tripled worse than it was then and now. And we're concerned about our kids. Are we going to wait something >> again? Miss Coy, >> we holding the district account. >> Mrs. Coy, I just told you we're putting out proposals to go to other transportation companies >> to take care of the routes that they don't have drivers for. Two years ago, reimbursement was provided by the Illinois State Board of Education. As I mentioned a minute ago, the rules have changed. The district can provide the reimbursement now, which we will do. So, the reimbursement will be quicker and we don't know what the issues were when two years ago someone submitted something to Isby. At least I don't have that information at my fingertips. But the rules have changed. So the reimbursement process will flow
028through the district and then the district will get its reimbursement from the state so parents don't have to deal with the state. >> Okay. Let's move on to the next next comment. Public comment. >> Thanks. >> You're welcome. >> Out of public comment. >> Just out of public comment. Okay. >> Can I address something about the process? >> Make it very short. >> Yes. Superintendent, I understand they showed you their version of our CDA, >> but I'm sure they haven't showed you the emails. This is the reason why I'm asking to meet with you because I have a plethora of emails from them when there is grievances filed. They respond and said, "We're not going to arbitration. We're in the process of having to sue them." So, I understand what you're saying that there's a
029grievance process, but when somebody is due $2 and they're not getting it, that that hurts because these people have real time. >> Sir, it's not our employers. our employees rather. So you have to go through your employer. It's not even our contract. So that's >> it's not these are people from your districts as well. >> I understand that. But we also have to follow the guidance of our attorney who knows what contract law is and we can it's inappropriate for a school district or any entity to intervene in a contract dispute with someone that doesn't work for the district. the we don't the their checks does not say east St. District 189 both parties. We're not asking you to have we're asking you to sit down with both parties. You already sat down with you
030sat down with your employee, right? We're asking you just to sit down and hear both sides. >> Okay. I will I I did get your response and I will respond to you by email tomorrow. >> Thank you, sir. >> You're welcome. We need to go in executive session. >> Uh not from the >> administrators. Superintendent reports. >> Thank you. the real stuff they want. >> It's not our employees. We can't do it. I need a motion to approve by vote action items 12 A, 12 B, 12 C, 12D, 13A, 14A, 15A, 15B, and 15 C. >> I make the motion. Second. >> Been motioned by really Ray, second by Walter Hood. Any questions? Roll call. Willie Ray, >> yes. >> Was Hood. >> Remy Dean, >> yes. >> Timothy Lockett, >> yes. >> Roy Mickens,
031>> yes. >> Mostly, yes. >> Motion passed. >> Need a motion. What did public um Wait a minute. Where was that? Is apparent present. There was uh one one action item 12A to deny a parent admission. >> She's not here. >> She to be prohibited from school because of some inappropriate behavior. Is this okay? She's not here. Okay. >> Rita Wright. >> Sarita Wright. Serita Wright in the audience. If so, we would need close session for that purpose. >> She's not. Okay. 12A. The board of education's decision. We're asking the board of education for approval to deny Serita Wright admission to school events and or meetings and prohibit and prohibition from entering district property pursuant to district board of education policy 8 col 30 for a period of one year to include including September 5th.
03212B reading of all resolutions by heading only. 12 C resolution number 091625 adopting the FY26 tenative budget for the East St. Louis School District 189 12D architectural services agreement number two with Insight Design Studios for basic design services and supplement and supplemental services for the project to expand and renovate the CTE building that is a DCEO grant funded project. 13A financial report for the month of August 2025. 14 A personnel committee report addendum contracts andus 15 A buildings and grounds report and addendum 15B curriculum committee report and addendum and finally 15 C finance committee report and addendum. Can we have a motion please? >> I'll make the motion. >> Been motioned by Remy Dane, second by Walter Hood. Any questions? Roll call. Remy James, >> yes. >> Walter Hood, >> Timothy Lockett, >> yes. >>
033Roy Mickens, >> yes. >> Willie Ray, >> yes. >> Lata Sales, Latana Sales, Latoya Mosley, yes. >> Motion passed, >> Mr. President, that does conclude my report. >> Okay. Ne next item will be um old business. Any old business? Any new business? Next board meeting will be October 14th, 2025. I get a motion to adjourn the meeting. >> I'll make the motion. Motion by Remy D. Second by Willie Ray. Roll call. >> Remy Dane. >> Yes. >> Willie Ray. >> Yes. >> Latana Sales. Latana Sales. Walter Hood. Yes. Timothy Lockage. Roy Mikkins. Yes. Victoria Mosley. Yes. Motion passed. Means a journ. All right.