Board of Education Meeting: 12/15

001okay we ready okay all right I call to order the December 15 2022 regularly scheduled school board meeting for district 64 Park Ridge Niles uh Phyllis why don't we start with a roll call Ryan here Soto here here lightovich here Kennedy yeah is here so Quorum carries all present okay so on the agenda for the evening we have the tumor of Jefferson School but I believe um some of the board members may want to go into closed session I move that the board recesses and adjourns to a closed meeting under five ilcs 120 backslash 2 C1 so Gareth had gone to close session under 2c1 second Tom has the second um how about discussion from the board so someone sent me a message saying that um there's talk that the board will move to close

002session at seven to avoid a large group attending and wanting to make public comment Etc um that's not the reason that the motion was made at all and I don't know what this person's talking about but it is a relative of a district employee so yeah and the board can't take any final action in closed session right and the purpose is not to avoid public comment because we're still having public comment when at the same time that we were planning to right so we're not I don't think this is gonna you know we typically do our we typically do our closes in before yeah okay so that's all it is you're just doing it before and I'm just doing a close before is not going to affect public comment in any way so we're going

003to sit here and listen to whoever wants to say anything they want to us okay and I just wanted to clarify that that's not the point that you know because people are just saying that it's being moved to prevent people from talking but we're still you know having all the public comment and that's not the purpose for moving it to the beginning okay so um I I still have a comment if anyone um I just um I believe some people are here for the tour of Jefferson School so I I don't know how that'll work if we move to closed I'm assuming that we won't have the tour yes we can postpone the tour and do it at the January meeting okay we can do the tour at the end of the meeting if people

004are whoever was giving the tour is going to stay if they were already planning to stay or in the community members are here now I'm just saying that and I just want to make sure if we're going to close I just um we just have to be timely just because we have the hearing right at seven that's been in the newspaper we really need to get that public hearing um done about the tax Lobby so just timely so maybe we don't do the tour at the end because if we don't have enough time to discuss what we're discussing in our clothes we can re-convene and close afterwards again if we need more time that's fine further discussion all right what's your roll call ytovich lubinski yes yes so yes Ryan yes Pearl Pearl no we're

005gonna go and closed okay so it is 6 34 and the board is going into closed session uh the public meeting will begin at 7. a new uh construction our new board meeting or our boardroom let us let us start with our roll call here Riles here here here Kennedy yeah okay all right so the board was in closed session for about 20 minutes earlier today under 2c1 which is the appointment employment compensation discipline performance dismissal of specific employees this was in lieu of the Jefferson tour which will be rescheduled for January how about we start with the Pledge of Allegiance Larry can you lead us pledge allegiance to the father of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for

006all okay um at this point of the meeting we are going to adjourn for our public hearing on the 2022 tax levy so is there a motion to adjourn to the public hearing so second all right so Leary had the motion Tom had the second and now let us vote to open the public hearing yes motion carries okay so we are now in our public hearing for the tax levy Adam take it away let the record reflect that this is the 2022 tax levy hearing conducted by the Board of Education of community Consolidated School District 64. Cook County Illinois pursuant to section 23 colon 14 of the school code for the record the board approved 2020 tax levy in tentative form on November 17 2022 on December 1st 2022 notice of tonight's public hearing was

007published in the Park Ridge Herald Advocate notice of this hearing was also posted on the district's website at this time does the administration have any comments about the levy at the time at this time do members of the board have any comments about the levy do members of the public have any comments specifically about the tax levy new this year based on the most recent legislation the district is required to present the fund balances as part of this hearing these are the fund balances of June 30th 2022 in the education fund we have a fund balance of 38 million 495 340. the operations and maintenance fund one million five hundred and seventy four thousand six hundred sixty nine dollars in debt service Transportation 34 154 dollars imrf has a negative seventy thousand eight hundred and

008eighty six dollars while the Social Security Medicare fund has a positive five hundred and twenty one thousand five hundred and thirty six dollars the fund balance in the capital projects fund is seven million 867 461 dollars working Cash Fund has 645 dollars and finally the tort fund has four hundred and seven thousand seven hundred and thirty nine dollars for a total fund balance uh year end June 30th 2022 51 million 267 631 dollars are there any more comments or clarifications from the administration or the board may have a motion with during the public hearing on the tax levy for 2022 and return to regular session so moved do I have a second all in favor aye opposed motion carries okay all right thank you Adam okay all right so now with this part of the

009meeting uh we want to um uh recognize some of our students and staff members and so um first we have ilmea and I think we have a performance I think maybe Dr Olson is getting them out organized [Applause] foreign whatever you would like to do first tonight in front of you we have members of our chamber orchestra we are fresh off our concert tour and and we performed at two local Assisted Living centers on Tuesday which was so well received by the residents and community members Tuesday night there was a concert as well featuring our beginning Orchestra students too so we're really proud of our students hard work they have been practicing they get up at 7 10 a.m twice a week for rehearsal and they practice a lot at home when they're not at

010school so we're really grateful for you and for the board for your continuous support of tonight we're going to eat three pieces for you fresh off of our tour we're going to be performing Jingle Bell Rock Tanaka oh Hanukkah and I hope you are tuning really quickly and we'll be starting early foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign okay so in ilmea awards are next if you that's an acronym one of the money in education Illinois music educators Association Erica tonight we're very excited to recognize 11 outstanding musicians these students auditions and were selected to participate in the Illinois music educators Festival one of the most competitive and prestigious music opportunities in the state

011more than 800 of the finest band and Orchestra students from over 50 middle schools in the North Suburban area auditioned for a position in this All-Star group this was a tremendous opportunity for our students to meet and perform with talented students from other schools students also have the opportunity to work with nationally known conductors the festivals that took place on November 5th were incredible and the students did a remarkable job representing District 64. we're so proud of our student s and students when I call your name please come up to accept your special certificate of achievement and we'll gather for a picture afterwards so please don't go too far Eliza Chaser on violin foreign [Applause] well Anderson's birthday I'm euphonium [Applause] Thomas Dickinson on trombone [Applause] I'm viola [Applause] Marinette [Applause] and congratulations to our

0122022 ilmea participant [Applause] thank you thank you [Applause] just real quick thank you to students all your hard work this is great this is the night where usually a board member says to me we should have this at every board meeting because it is so enjoyable so thank you for that thank you to Erica for all your work and we do know that the ilmea awards are a big deal so congratulations once again to all of our students yeah all right Erica you can see her enthusiasm and to all the Fine Arts staff in the district there's great support for the uh the Arts here in District 64. foreign we're going to continue with celebrations at the meeting and we want to celebrate um our partners to help our construction project to be completed at

013the level it was and a timely completion So Adam thank thank you as mentioned earlier this is our first meeting in our new space and while we've been celebrating the you know opening of the beginning of the buildings from the first day of school we wanted to spend just a quick moment recognizing our partners in this who are with us um as many of you know this is the largest construction project the district has ever taken on um from you know it was a very aggressive timeline from start to finish a lot of planning a lot of hard work by um by a lot of the individuals and wouldn't wouldn't have been able to be done without the support of the board so um I want we want to recognize Studio GC as The Architects

014for the design and drawings of all six of the buildings we want to recognize Nicholas and Associates as a construction manager uh for the to put on the additions for at all five elementary schools to make full day kindergarten possible and we wanted to recognize Midwest Mechanical as a a construction manager and mechanical engineer to have the ability to completely renovate this building to be able to create the Jefferson Early Childhood Center and the district offices and allow us to relocate our buildings here so for the individuals that are here tonight if you wouldn't mind taking a stand if everyone could give them a big round of applause for all their hard work thank you great job we could not have done any of this without all these individuals so thank you okay all right

015thank you again uh so that concludes our staff and student celebrations for the evening and now we're going to move to public comments I think here will want to share a policy before we begin right before your usual um opening explanation for public comments um actually this is Mr rile's idea to read this excerpt from policy 8 colon 30. visitors to and conduct unschool property so a portion of this policy says the school district expects mutual respectability and orderly conduct among all people on school property or at a school event no person on school property or at a school event including visitors students and employees shall perform any of the following acts number one strike injure threaten harass or intimidate a staff member board member Sports official or coach or any other person number two

016behave in an unsportsmanlike manner or use vulgar or obscene language then I'll skip down to number 11. impede delay disrupter otherwise interfere with any school activity or function including using cell phones in a disruptive Manner and then number 16. engage in any conduct that interferes with disrupts or adversely affects the district or school function Larry did you have anything else to say or add to that no I think that covers it hey uh we we need to use good decorum and be civil and especially at this time of the year let's let's try to be kind to one another thank you Carol all right thank you Carol and Larry um and just reminding we have a lot of vested community members here um the board has received a fair amount of email this week um

017and some of the emails have been about public to Quorum and to Quorum at our meetings and on social media and so the board this is a public meeting of the board all of us are neighbors the board members live in the community we are volunteers in these roles and so just wanted to um remind us of that okay um let's provide some good examples to our students and our children on how we can set some good examples tonight and consider the language and words we use just because there are a lot of folks here to speak we are going to have each speaker given two minutes okay so we have the timer up there we want to hear from everyone that is here to speak okay this is what our policy is on public

018comments so let me read this out this is the point of the meeting where we welcome public comments each speaker is given three minutes to address the board comments may be made in almost any matter related to the operation of schools but we ask that you refrain from making comments concerning individual students or staff members the board uses this time to listen to community questions and concerns but will not respond immediately to requests for information additionally the board cannot take formal action on non-agenda items contact the board president by email if you wish to discuss your topic further please come forward to the microphone and state your name and if comfortable your address for the minutes okay I received one of our public comment cards so I'm going to have this person start we have

019Angela Burns if you want to come up to the podium Angela thank you yes we're just because I think they're we want to hear from all the people who want to hear so two minutes you can do it I don't think I can I have to I I timed it at three okay um this is more um I'd like to dress the board this evening as a district 64 parent and educator in regards to the National crisis that school librarians are facing in these times I've been a high school librarian for 23 years I was trained as an English teacher received my Master's in library science and I've been providing an essential service to students including selecting books based on my training and expertise in my field while Consulting with professional journals collaborating with colleagues

020and students providing a safe and comfortable environment for students and protecting students intellectual freedom to choose and read books based on what is age-appropriate and what reflects their lived experiences while providing a window into the experience of others often referred to as Windows mirrors and sliding doors and education book challenges and Bans are not new to this equation in fact you can easily access the list of challenge book bands Books banned from the American library association's website you may you might ask yourself how do I know our librarians make good choices there are many steps to becoming an excellent educator get to know our students and Community leaders get to know the curriculum and policy for collection development have five to ten books that you would worry about when it comes to challenges and bans

021this checklist is the foundation of any decent library because it models the American ideal of intellectual freedom and speech opinions of authors and opinions of Learners should be heard and respected this brings me to the library Bill of Rights for school libraries first written in 1986 and last revised in 2014 the Bill of Rights explains our mission as school librarians the school library plays a unique role promoting protecting and educating about intellectual Freedom it serves as a point of voluntary access to information and ideas and as a learning laboratory for students as they acquire critical thinking and problem-solving skills needed in pluralistic society under these principles all students have Equitable access to library facilities resources and instructional programs school librarians assume a leadership role in promoting these principles of intellectual Freedom school librarians resist efforts

022by individuals or groups to Define what is appropriate for all students or teachers to read viewer here finally some key points to remember because an item is selected does not mean the librarian endorses or promotes it he or she is simply helping the library to fulfill its mission of providing information for all points of view decisions about what materials are suitable for particular children should be made by the people who know them best their parents and Guardians it is their right and their responsibility to guide them family thank you allowing others to and parents do the same this is why you should be proud to have a fabulous Library program in District 64 Community The Librarians are thinking about kids all needs all perspectives and the brave students in this community that need to access

023the information for themselves sorry thank you everyone all right thank you Angela okay [Applause] okay since it's a public meeting I'm going to ask that we have not have cheering or any sort of commentary there the board will need a recess but if we cannot um have that in this public meeting of the board okay uh other public comments if anyone wants to come to the microphone okay thank you if you can state your name and address if comfortable hi my name is Jill buzzingek my address is 1901 South Cortland Avenue in Park Ridge I am a Community member and I am here to support friends of mine who have students at attend District 64. on November 10th um a girls student was in the bathroom using the bathroom and she was adjusting her bra

024strap and a transgender male was in the bathroom stood on the toilet seat and looked over I've been an educator for 32 years I'm not retired now but when I was in education safety was our number one priority at our school I know that lgbtq students have rights but what about the rice of children that need to use a bathroom in a safe manner I am imploring you to take measures to correct this type of behavior safety should be for all students we should not just be conducting you know I know lgbtq students have rights but this child has been violated her privacy she was in a stall in the bathroom and she has rights and she has not been apologized to by this child this other child I know I can't say names still

025gets thrown into bathrooms freely he has previously crawled under the stall when another student was using it so I'm here to beg you to make sure that all students are safe we should all be on the same page in education every parent in this room wants what's best for their child and I'm assuming you want the same and you can't have what's best for one group without considering the other group of students this this teenage girl ladies if you can remember being a teenager it's an angsty enough time in your life and this girl was peered in into her stall okay thank you Dale okay okay please please do something about it thank you okay next Kristen hey I'm Kristen Olson I'm a parent in Park Ridge and I'm just asking the board to listen

026to the concerns of parents without jeopardizing the delivery of Educational Services by threatening the operations of a successful Administration who just received commendable and exemplary designations for seven of the schools any attempt to deviate from board rules puts d64 at risk for greater scrutiny and litigation so please find a way to support Dr Olson and the work he's doing while listening to parents concerns so that we can keep making up for our covid deficits and moving together as a community thank you thank you sure we can take that thank you okay once again I just want to remind we just asked that we um with the board asks that you not make comments about individual students or staff members go ahead sir all right Greg bublets I have two students at Lincoln and one at

027Maine South have been k through eight they spent their whole careers there I'm here to call out bullying and hate that's been expressed in our community that is also occurring in the schools in our parks and in our boardroom I can tell you that a trans student at Lincoln spent much of their last year in one of our middle schools during lunch sitting in the bathroom every day to escape the horrific things that have been said to him I can tell you that students who receive support for Disabilities are still being bullied in the hallways and classrooms just for receiving help I can also tell you about lgbtq kids being taunted in the community one specific case at Centennial full he student was bullied and taunted in front of his friends family and all of

028the adults present and where do the students learn this Behavior they are not born with it they learn it from adults they learn the hateful and harmful comments and from adults at home and at this Podium adults who post things online publicly and I can only imagine what the adults say in privacy of their home in front of their children the children are learning from the adults in a recent board meeting on 11 17 22 several community members called for the removal of Dr Olson ecology to Dr Olson here are a couple of the comments he's a liar manipulative a liability to the district forget social emotional learning and your radical gender ideologies if you're trying to get rid of Christmas you might get rid of yourself first social media postal spreading here say rumor

029in some cases using discriminatory language against transgender students in the district there's no place in our community discourse for this behavior and language bullying Dr Olson our school bed board members is unacceptable that he'd Fallen hurtful comments and false suits about our lgbtq students and community members must stop before something tragic occurs as we know transgender and lgbtq students are more at risk for suicide and so to the board um we have a lot of people in the community that support Dr Wilson and the work he's done so thank you thank you sure I can take that okay next hello thank you Tom my name is Jessica Ishu I am a resident within the bounds of carpenter carpenter school I I studied um Latino theology in at a Catholic University I studied canon law while

030getting my law degree at Notre Dame law school um on Sunday my son was prone on the kneeler and a Pew for about 20 minutes and in Mass yesterday I went to confession in front of a priest all of this is to say that I am a Christian and I celebrate Christian Christmas I celebrate Christmas some might say in spite of my Christianity but I would argue in support of my Christianity I am wholeheartedly in support was in support and am in support of the administration's original decision to be more inclusive about spring sing and holiday holiday sing there's enough going on in December anyway I mean for practical reasons I was for that move um I'm here in support of Dr Olson and I I respect and I I understand that we're not supposed

031to speak of Faculty or Administration administrators by name uh but that's the reason why most of us are here this evening um I'm just made and disappointed with any attempt to walk backwards from diversity Equity or inclusion I'm a part of the 64's Dei task force and I um uh disgusted by the idea that we're using uh religion as really the issue is trying to walk back Dei issues um I'll end with reiterating my support for Dr Olson and his uh reasonable uh measures but even more so his leadership skills in turning around and changing course of action I applaud that and I appreciate all that he's done for this district and hope that he continues to stay here thank you thank you hi my name is Nan Parson I live at 422 Lake Avenue

032in Park Ridge I've lived there for over 50 years and I have to tell you that in the Mylon residency in Park Ridge I've never been so dismayed as I was when I watched the meeting on November 15th and I want to read to you the letter that I wrote to the board and which expresses my strong feelings that we need to stand together behind those who are working hard to make our community a more Beloved Community and that includes this board and our superintendent of this is District 64. I wrote this letter in response to the criticism some residents of Park Ridge have made related to the curriculum followed by d64 schools they would like to ban books limit sex education and get rid of the carefully thought Out programs designed to teach about

033diversity inclusion and equity when citizens want to ban books when they want to limit what young people can learn because they fear difference we are starting down a slippery slope that can lead to persecution and discrimination when we hear about such attempts to control thought we should all Shout Never Again not here I find particularly alarming the calls for the ouster of superintendent Olsen who has done nothing more than Champion the right for young people to learn about the real world I'm also deeply concerned that the parents who disagree with the superintendent resorted to name-calling and vilifying and threatening rhetoric I sincerely hope that the d-64 school board will denounce such behavior and I think you did that tonight and I commend you for that and will not be influenced by closed-minded attitudes of people

034who are intolerant our children need to witness examples of respect and civility in public discourse and need to learn that diversity is a strength I Call On The Board to stand strong against these parents who are in the minority I believe most of the parents of the district 64 student support doctor thank you Nan your time is up okay thank you okay thank you Tony okay next comment come to the podium please good evening my name is Mark Anderson I live at 542 South Washington in Park Ridge I have a 25-year Citizen and taxpayer in District 64 and as a former elected official I'd like to thank the board members for your hard work this is a thankless and difficult job I know I just want to say I support Dr Olson and the Dei

035initiatives in the district education is hard and challenging work and that's why we have professionals doing it not amateurs education is not a job for amateurs for the minority you seem to be disenchanted with the administration's actions on Dei and the like I would just say please remember that we are all God's children including lgbtq people and we should treat one another that way and I happen to like the way the direction things are going here thank you okay next to the podium thank you hi I'm Megan Robert sesterling I have a daughter at field and I'm speaking tonight as a parent and also a 20-year veteran teacher um I think it's really important that we keep our Focus as a board and as a district on what's best for kids we know Decades of

036research tell us that kids thrive in a consistent and calm environment and frankly this constant upheaval in our district impacts them and the removal of our superintendent would cause even more disruption in the immediate term as we would have an interim likely someone doing two jobs who would be unable to really be effective or continue to move the district forward in the long term the removal of a superintendent ostensibly over a winter sing all but ensures that what's a national teacher shortage we will no longer be able to attract or retain excellent Educators to District 64. our district and board need to operate more cohesively this is what's in the best interest of children I spend a ton of time studying the boards of nearby school districts including my own in Northbrook the best boards

037the ones that are the most effective make decisions devoid of personal feelings and personal opinions members come informed but they're open to listening and learning not ready to vote regardless of what new information he or she may gather board members are not duplicitous this is not to say that board members don't have beliefs or opinions in fact I would argue it's the opposite an excellent board member is mature enough to hold her beliefs but also able to hear new thoughts and ideas gather new information and make children-centered decisions based on research and the ethical standards of board service public school is for everyone it's not just for people whose ideologies or affiliations someone agrees with and this works both ways frankly there's people teachers other students parents who myself my daughter and my husband are

038their views are not in line with my own and I interact with them every day and so does my daughter and that's okay that's the big wide beautiful world as I said I've been working in education since 2002 there seems to be a misguided and untrue myth that teachers our unions are pushing a woke agenda in schools I can tell you firsthand and with excellent Authority that is a false narrative and schools the only things Educators and administrators are teaching is that all people are welcome okay thank you Ginger come to the podium hi Ginger Pennington I am children who are now at Maine South that went through d64 schools and a first grader at Roosevelt I'm here to focus on two things first I want to express my full support for our district superintendent

039Dr Eric Olson he has been and he continues to be an excellent Steward of our school district and he conducts himself with amazing composure Grace patience and professionalism under the most trying of circumstances and all too frequently abusive treatment by some in our community unfortunately if we ever hope to emerge from these highly divisive times we are living in and build a more positive collaborative future for our kids which I'm sure we all want we cannot let the kind of conduct that we saw at this board meeting on November 17th or last February for that matter become the acceptable new normal it is not normal it is not indicative of the kind of community of kind of supportive loving Community I know that Parkridge can be and often is I urge this board and the

040chair to insist on civil conduct and speak up when the commentary viewers into personal attack and inappropriate hateful language thank you for for insisting upon that this at this meeting at the start I appreciate the emphasis on good decorum and kindness um secondly oh I'm running out of time shoot this is a very important part so I'll I'll summarize quickly but I asked the sport in this community to show strong leadership and support for lgbtq students in the face of the very hateful rhetoric that's been taking hold on social media and in our schools silence is not acceptable our most vulnerable students deserve more than just polite Silence from this board from Educators and from the parents whether it's in person over email or on social media that is not acceptable parents and kids alike

041have to learn how to express their fears and concerns without demonizing and further stigmatizing already vulnerable children it is unacceptable and frankly very much shows why we need social emotional learning empathy conflict resolution patience and the ability to deal with problems in a mature way thank you okay thank you next come to the podium please good evening I'm John Orlando on Elmore Street and I have two young girls at Field School first I want to thank you all for your dedicated service to the community I'm here tonight in person to voice my unequivocal support for Dr Olson I had the privilege of participating on the Strategic plan committee led by Dr Olson in October of 2020. the committee was comprised of teachers administrators parents and community members Dr Olson chaired the committee through a two-day

042process that was open transparent inclusive and fair it was highly professional and I for one was proud of what the committee achieved in such a short time only achievable due to the positive tone that Dr Olson fostered and as a career strategy consultant I've seen good and I've seen bad process and this was a gold standard October 2020 as we were building the Strategic plan we also found ourselves entrenched in the covet pandemic anyone who found themselves in a leadership position at that time found themselves in unchartered territory and we all found ourselves challenged by increasing political divisiveness turning communities against each other looking back I for one am glad that Dr Olson our superintendent during this very challenging time as a parent I felt assured that my children's schooling was being thoughtfully planned I

043felt heard and was adequately adequately communicated to and evidently the board was happy as well given your recent decision to extend Dr Olson's contract which leaves the holiday sing my girls are having fun getting ready for their parts in next Tuesday's holiday scene a Hot Topic a political hot potato for sure botched communication maybe but not a capital offense so I'm asking the board to honor its non-partisanship nature to rise above politics and be wary of wolves and sheets clothing trying to exploit a situation for ideological gain because a vote by the sports dismissed Dr Olson will be a vote of no confidence in this board to be nonpartisan which is what the majority of the d64 community expects thank you okay thank you John next please come to the podium thank you for your

044time uh my name is Logan cook I'm actually a relatively new resident of Park Ridge my children at 10 Field Elementary including my son who does full day preschool and is thoroughly enjoying it so thank you for that um I must admit I was pretty surprised there was a call for Dr removal as superintendent or Dr Olson a superintendent of our district my family chose to move to Park Ridge because of the overwhelming exceptional public schools that we have here I think that our success is due to the continued alignment of strategy between the superintendent's office and this board the focus on continuing to evolve and Advance our educational goals through our strategic plans must continue to be this District's Focus I think it speaks volumes that in November you have a teacher's assistance Union

045who supported publicly Dr Olson during a negotiation of a contract and then you as a board of course back in August four months ago voted unanimously to extend the contract of Dr Olson there are members of the public that are never going to agree with you on today's society is littered with people that are looking for papers and excuses to fire people I would encourage you as a board to keep your focus on supporting our superintendent's Administration while they work to achieve the Strategic plan's goals and push education forward for our children if this board were to remove Dr Olson it would be a self-incriminating vote that education isn't the goal of this board we'd be wasting tax dollars on a comprehensive search uh we'd be handicapping our children's future by pivoting and resetting our

046strategic educational initiatives and additionally our our District staff deserves better than firing their leader without cause in a time where there are less teachers than ever um you know on top of that if if we're looking for a serious candidate to post that how seriously would someone take our our district knowing what Dr Olson was removed for you know I agree that Traditions are sacred but we need to uphold the tradition of ensuring that every kid walking through the front doors gets the best shot at education we can provide and I think if we move the bar this low to make a change it's super superintendent we may as well be running a circus thank you thank you okay next come to the podium please thank you I'll be brief my name is Matt Talbert

047I live on Hamlin Avenue I've lived in Park Ridge for 10 years I have two daughters that go to Carpenter and I'm here to express my support for superintendent Dr Eric Olson the schools are some of the best in the state and it's part of the reason why my family lives in Park Ridge I think to remove him would be a major mistake and it would move a major element of Excellence to our schools but one thing I want to point out that I'm nervous to say is I'm a Jewish person it's kind of scary to say that these days and I want to thank Dr Olson for making my daughters who wear their Hanukkah sweatshirts to school feel much more included these days that's all I have to say I just wanted to extend

048my support thank you thank you next to the podium I am Carol Hill and that go to Washington Elementary School and also one that goes to Maine East High School I'm also the senior minister at Parkridge Community Church and I sent you all a letter of my support for Dr Olson as well with all of my rationale with a lot of words so thank you for taking time to read all of your emails this week I want to say I support Dr Olson I also support the importance of social emotional learning that has been so crucial to our children especially after a time of pandemic I support the work of diversity equity and inclusion because our kids are coming from lots of different places and they need to learn how to understand listen and learn

049together with children and adults who think differently and speak differently and worship differently than they I had no problem with there not being a holiday sing although I'm gonna go and cheer on my kids and all the other kids next week but that's not my issue and they can sing in Spring and in summer and in fall and in all of the seasons and if you want to come to my church and worship come on over you're always welcome but can I also tell you I'm deeply concerned at how we protect and care for our students especially those who identify as transgender or non-binary they do not have an easy Journey as a child who understands their identity as different than what the world sees and finding ways to give them support and safety should

050be an utmost priority for this District we need to take care of the safety of all students yes you should be able to go to the bathroom and feel safe in the bathroom but that that certainly applies to our transgender kids and our gender non-conforming children as well and I hope that you will do the work as a board to look at different policies to ensure the safety for all children but especially our most vulnerable kids and that transgender Community thank you thank you if you can state your name and address of comfortable my name is Alex Waters and I live on Goodwin Drive I have a carpenter student and an Emerson student I'm here tonight to express my support for Dr Olson and for the leadership of the district this has been an incredibly

051difficult few years to be in school administration and I also admire his Equanimity in the face of some extremely difficult situations I also support the efforts to address behavior thoughtfully in the schools I support the diversity and inclusion efforts I also spent all afternoon wondering whether I was brave enough to say this but my family's not Christian um my husband does not come from Christian traditions and so we're just as happy we've enjoyed the holiday things but we're also happy to have the spring sing we think that's a thoughtful tradition when I was in elementary school I was told to my face every day that I was a pagan a Satan worshiper or just plain evil and so it was really I moved away from that community so that my children would never have to

052hear that and so it was really hard to hear adult members of our community say that in public comment in a school board meeting um so clearly we have a ways to go I do appreciate the efforts to include songs from other traditions in the holiday sing but I think we will have achieved true inclusion when my kids come home and say mom today it's Rosh Hashanah today Mom it's the first day of Ramadan when we are really learning about the Traditions that are important to other cultures there are inclusive ways to do it my kids had great fun writing about a Japanese New Year's tradition in their share a holiday tradition papers for class um you know throwing beans at the demon to chase it out of the house always gets really impressive looks

053from the other kids um and I'd like to see us continue to learn about others traditions in a kind and welcoming manner even if that means that we have our community musical in the spring thank you and I want to thank everyone I've really appreciated the decorum this room and we're able to share different opinions in a productive way my name is Andrea Klein I live at 1120 North Lincoln I have two students in the district and I've already written each and every one of you about my feelings about the matter that most of us have spoken about tonight which is the issue of fiscal responsibility continuity inclusion and diversity implementing the street strategic plan and our leadership through that I would like to read you a brief expert of a book that is being

054questioned at Field School dad pulls in the driveway and cuts the engine but doesn't open the car door he turns to me Lily that's what you want to be called right my name never sounded so wonderful I blink back tears right she showed me a statistic 43 percent of transgender kids try to kill themselves dad sniffs again hard then she said would you rather have a dead son or a live daughter oh Dad I put my hand over my mouth she explained the kids who get a lot of love and support have a much lower suicide risk while this book is um from Lillian Duncan by Donna Gephart and is the work of fiction as far as I know um I did look at the statistic while sitting in the audience and from the National

055Institutes of Health which I know statistics from health organizations can be controversial these days 82 percent of transgender people have considered suicide and 40 percent of them have um tried so I'll leave you with that food for thought okay thank you Andrea how about other public comments hi there if you can come to the podium state your name and address if comfortable well my name is Irina vanis and actually today I'm here to ask the board to replace superintendent Eric Olson um I believe that his poor handling of kids eating lunch on the ground in cold weather his decision to cancel holidays and for absolutely no reason his decision to hire a CRT consultant without anyone's knowledge or approval his unwillingness to draft the comprehensive policy on who is allowed to use what bathroom which

056actually led to an ugly situation at Lincoln as we all know his incompetence when it comes to timely communication with parents especially with serious issues such as Washington School bathroom filming incident that we did not find out about on time and his constant blame shifting instead of fixing the problems I think those are more than enough reasons to uh you know assume that he is not fit for the role as a superintendent thank you thank you Irina okay other public comments nope hi there if you can come to the podium and good evening my name is Rachel georgakis I am a life and I'm also a parent of two District 64 students I have a child at Carpenter and then I have a child who receives speech services at Jefferson I'm also a school counselor

057in a neighboring district and I want to address you as a board today as an educator regarding the calls to dismiss Dr Eric Olson I'm concerned about the lasting impacts this decision would have on our district nationally teacher morale is at an all-time low and I worry how a sudden and meritless change in leadership would affect the morale of our staff it tells our teachers administrators and staff that their passion and profession could be on the line if a small yet vocal parent group seeks their removal that is not a message we want to send as a community especially during a nationwide teacher shortage we want high quality teachers to work in District 64. countless research studies show the impact teacher quality has on student learning just as in other Industries in education people research

058the districts they apply to with numerous job openings right now quality teachers and administrators including prospective superintendents are going to a chose to apply and work elsewhere the loss of talent would directly and negatively impact student growth I am already concerned about that with what has happened in this District over the last year with the rhetoric and the discussion and the lack of transparency that seems to be happening our community I hope we keep Dr Olson but I worry long term about the impacts um that a change in leadership would disrupt and it would disrupt a lot thank you thank you Rachel okay any other comments okay oh is there another comment yeah if you can come to the podium please you just made it and the nick of time I'm not sure if I'm

059going to want to make it here so Jillian is by saying please state your name if you feel comfortable um so really tonight my name is actually the silent majority uh who knows that the dealt consultant who was hired behind the school board's back is training our teachers and community members to take pictures of people who speak conservative values and to make sure that they find out who these parents are so they can spot them in the community these trainings label me as a dangerous Fringe parent whose sole purpose is to intimidate and antagonize the board someone who is too far gone to be reasoned with so to not even try it seems to be working too from what I see as I saw yesterday I saw someone expressing their concerns around the sped program

060it was called the disgusting person part of a disgusting hate group for having a difference in opinion I can't imagine why people would be so hesitant to say their name and speak up can you be on defending the reputations of the concerned parents here who are being unjustly attacked I'm also here to express my concerns around the training that our dealt team has received from a non-board approved consultant everyone here would of course be in favor of learning about diversity equity and inclusion and I would stand up against anyone who is truly against those things however that isn't the real issue the issue is The Who and the how this is being taught having actually gone through the materials myself my opinion is that The Who and the how were politically motivated and not diversity

061Equity or inclusion motivated since Dr Olson not only hired this consultant but also sat through these trainings and continued to believe that the divisive and political motivated materials presented Were Somehow appropriate for a school environment I sincerely questioned the judgment he must have known members of the community but also find material these materials questionable since he had sent the contract to the local isbe office rather than billing the consultant directly this was clearly an attempt to make the contract slip through the cracks it didn't even turn up in a foia request diligent parents had to ask many additional follow-up questions to track this invoice down I know okay out of time can we close it up Joey I'm sorry okay we all have to pick our battles in life and shots have been fired at

062my children and yours give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted the time to act is now before it's too late thank you Joey okay all right other comments and thank you if you can come to the podium state your name and address if comfortable hello I prefer Natsu thank you um I'm very uncomfortable with the leadership of the school in the past few years I really do feel like many of us have been discriminated against and we feel uncomfortable so now this morning I opened up an email we get reminders about every flu pink eye covid and everything else but when it comes to peeping Toms or kids looking over the bat voyeurism we have to rely on Word of Mouth that builds distrust

063we want to be able to trust you we want a superintendent that we can trust we want a board and administrators we can trust we're trusting you with our children this is really important I understand that trans children have rights my 22 year old was raised with a trans child I saw from the moment that this five-year-old boy walked in my home that he was a little girl however just as just so these girls deserve to feel safe in school I don't see anyone saving them I don't see anyone going out of their way to make the women and the girls in our district feel safe or comfortable we've had multiple issues when does it end are we waiting for a rape a sexual assault because really no one wants that to happen there's not

064one person in this District that wants anyone to suffer that type of um issue it's just life-altering so I really do believe that there have been many things that have transpired from the way the kindergarten budget was kind of sprung up on everyone to the CRT advisor not really being a group thing it was kind of like snuck in dealt with snuck in we really are asking for a more transparency and we the community deserve it and if we can't get it we have to find a way to get it through someone else and I appreciate your time thank you okay anyone else for a public comment yes if you can come to the podium please I'm going to modify the speech I wrote Today a little bit and just focus on an important topic

065transparency parents in this District are just not informed enough I'm going to give you an example there's construction at Franklin a lot of people don't know that construction's not complete every day we walk through mud every day we walk through a construction site I see buses being unloaded in the middle construction field basically when was the last time this district has updated the parents of Franklin when was it you think we deserve to know when our playgrounds are going to be up do you think we deserve to know when our kids are going to be able to walk into a school without walking through a construction site my daughter was one of the classes where outside one of the classes when the gas pipe was hit what what mitigations are being taken so this doesn't

066happen again no communication no transparency I really don't have any support for it for a superintendent that cannot keep the parents in forum that doesn't value the parents enough to inform what's happening outside their school holidays seeing is just another one of the issues where parents were left in the dark and rumors start will rumors start because parents are not being communicated what's happening so the only way we find out things are happening are from other parents from construction workers that tell me oh it's not going to be done you know that's how rumors start and how leaders stop rumors is by communicating thank you uh thank you next please come to the podium state your name and address if comfortable it's Jamie I have three children that go to Washington School my call is

067again to that transparency Factor um I've emailed multiple times about the Washington incident for updates about best practices ways that we can improve in the future so this wouldn't happen again what's being done how it's being looked at who we're getting advice from and was given nothing except that it's in the hands of legal now that's not what a parent wants to hear I'm looking to you for reassurance that my most valuable possession my children are safe and you can't tell me how you're going to look to make changes or who you're going to look to to make changes extremely disappointing also with kindergarten my son is the only half day student in his class didn't start out that way slowly more and more kids joined full day wonderful we are so excited to offer

068that that Park Ridge that we finally made it there but it's super disappointing for the lack of transparency to not find out that your child won't be included in the parade or the class party or now we find out that my son has made it to primary challenge he can't do that unless he's a full day friend how does this achieve inclusion inclusion is more than what your consultant's concept of it is inclusion is every single child in this District matters for all these reasons I don't think you are a good fit I don't think you're capable of communicating or working with parents that are asking for this much thank you Jamie okay hi there please come to the podium Hi Megan fleischel uh I live in Niles I have a child who is a

069fourth grader and then two other children who have gone through District 64 and are now in college and in high school um I've been in this District consistently for 10 years so I know what it's like to have gone through different superintendents different principles we have a very in my home school of Franklin this is our fourth principal in 10 years and we finally have someone who knows every child by name she and her assistant principal are consistent their communication is good and my kid coming from the pandemic feels supported and loved and nurtured and that is because Dr Olson has hired these people and so I'm here to say I think it's I support Dr Olson and I also want to know what is the plan if there are board members who want him

070gone do you really think you're going to get qualified superintendents or teachers to come to our district because they won't so that's all I gotta say okay thanks Megan all right how about any other public comments Danielle are you coming up okay thank you emails couldn't get another sitter for yet another school board meeting so my daughter is here with me she wanted me to come up and speak so we're just saying hello and just to remind you you know all my emails and you have all the information foreign thank you okay anyone else okay I really appreciate the community and willingness to share a different opinion to do it in a respectful way and it shows good examples for our students okay so that concludes our public comments and uh now it's the point

071of the board meeting where we have our Spotlight on Franklin Madam chairman can we take five minutes please yes so let's uh yes there's anyone out is that okay yeah okay so the board's going to take a five minute break so we'll resume at 8 20. thank you for your patience then um thank you for the nice community that was happening and the audience there and now we will go to um Kristin to Spotlight on Franklin [Applause] there we go good evening everyone thank you so much for allowing Franklin to be the spotlight this evening I'm really excited to share with you all of the amazing things that we've been doing so far this school year um you know I would like to just start with how I started the school year with our teachers

072so as you know we start the first few days of school with our staff to do some staff professional development come back together from our summer and kind of kick off our school year so this year at Franklin Miss Burke and I we started with our staff asking everyone to be reflective to think of the best teacher that you have ever known we ask them in their notebooks in their pens to write down that teacher and list three characteristics that describe what this person contributed to your life or the life of your children and then is there a favorite memory or experience you remembered having with this teacher and really through this exercise our staff got the opportunity to share stories and smile and reminisce we have lots lots of Staff members that went through

073District 64 themselves or their children went through District 64 but really what we came to discover together is that the characteristics that we found were really that everyone felt loved we felt loved by our teacher we felt special we felt seen so through that I shared with my staff that my mission for them this school year and I shared this also on one of our early days with our new staff that joined us in District 64 is to be the teacher that leaves the mark on the hearts of their students and inites their passion for learning which really is all of our goals regardless of what our position is at Franklin we want to make sure that we are making a lasting impression on our students and encouraging them to be the best version of

074themselves be eager to learn seek information and grow from that we talked about that our theme for Franklin this school year is to make our Mark and how we can do that as a staff and how we can do that as a team and what that might look like for our students and our community so as a whole school we have decided that we are going to be making our mark on our Franklin Community or maybe even greater good and what we can do to support our community and see that to kind of kick that off with our students Ms Burke and I went through to each homeroom and read this book and I would encourage you to read it if you haven't if you're unfamiliar it's called the circles all around us and really

075what this book talks about is how small actions make these ripples or circles around you and sometimes we can't even see how those small actions can make the difference in other people's lives and one of my favorite parts of this story I'll just read this little excerpt to you is in the circles all around us everywhere that we go there is a difference we can make and a love we all we can all show so as students we talked about in our time together when Miss Burke and I were going class to class what are the things that we can do that could make a difference our students brainstormed all sorts of things right it's the kickoff of the school year so making a new friend being kind smiling at somebody asking if someone's okay

076looking for ways to help out in our community and through these ideas our students will be able to develop ways that they were contributing back to Franklin and really feeling a part of our Franklin community so throughout this school year we've been generating a list of all of the ways students staff community members have been making their Mark and certainly this isn't a comprehensive list but these are some of the big things that our students share that they're the most proud of they're really proud of the book donations that they were able to do we've done a winter gear donations for those less fortunate Gathering mittens and hats and gloves we've done food donations this year the students loved kind the kindness week challenges we have a student developed green club that they are very

077our students are really proud of we've done letters to Veterans we have Kinder and fifth grade buddies that our fifth grade leaders are really proud to share and student council opportunities also our staff is making a lasting mark on Franklin and that's by supporting various District committees we're piloting curriculums we're looking at new ways to improve our instruction at Franklin we have had a handful of new staff join us the last two years so through our mentoring program we're able to bring new staff members into the district 64 fold and Franklin family we have a district organized tutoring program for our English Learners at Franklin and before and after school student check-in that has been developed through our social worker for students that are displaying that they could use another adult connection that would benefit

078them we have staff members staff stepping up to lead clubs based off of student interest we have Girls on the Run and we revamped our entire whole school positive behavior system for students towards the end of last year to implement and roll out this year that has been a really big hit with our Franklin Falcons similarly our community is amazing um we are so fortunate at Franklin to have so many people want to be involved and come back year to year to support us and there are ways that we've been able to support you know give back to our community members as well so for instance we did have a a graduate of District 64 come back and ask if we could partner with them to complete their Eagle Scout project and of course we

079want to give back to the community and in turn they were able to give back to us our community has put together book drives and food drives Toys for Tots we have volunteers coming in weekly to lead book clubs for our students and math clubs we have various different community volunteers coming in whether it be to come in to help Pizza day for our PTA we have some retired teachers that come back and volunteer their time and want to support our community and their growth of students without pay because they love Franklin and they want to be a part of the Franklin family and our students and our families have come forward hearing of different events that have happened in our Franklin Community asking to support some of our less fortunate community members and because

080of these actions these little things that keep building upon each other we are able to see all of this benefit and joy that is bringing us to give back to our community but that doesn't end with just our Franklin community and our staff and our students it also extends to you so you've left a lasting mark on Franklin as well with the rollout of full day kindergarten this year I get the benefit every day of seeing the five and six-year-old smiling faces join me in the lunchroom going out to recess having these wonderful opportunities of an extended day we've also had our new kindergarten wing and our construction and being able to benefit from having those spaces to have our learning happening and the conversion of our MPR has been life-changing for Franklin having an

081additional PE space and lunchroom space has been able to allow us to have so many more grade level opportunities and gathering places for our fam our Franklin family that we haven't had prior and if all that's not enough all of these things really impact each other to make sure that we feel connected to one another that we feel supported in our work and we feel like the Franklin Community is one that we are proud of and one thing that we've celebrated at Franklin this school year is around October we found out that we were received an exemplary designation from the state and I think back to what last year Meant For Us and how much growth we've had to have made to be able to receive that and that is done by all of us

082working together it's done by us feeling connected as a school Community it's done by our staff supporting each other our families and and staff being Partners together for our students and it makes it makes a huge difference when we feel that connection and we feel that making that Mark together our students feel that when they walk in the door every day which helps them be ready to learn so we had the opportunity to make a short video of how our students feel that they're making their Market Franklin that we wanted to share with you because really there's no better way than to hear it from your kids [Music] because she says hi to you foreign over George and Georgie why is because they're just really good friends [Music] Miss s helps me when I get

083hurt Mr Baker helps me it make good choices [Music] my friends made on marked because they always helped me either when I'm hurt or or I'm sad [Music] let me play at recess right now I am thankful for miss cubas and miss Reese because they helped me through get um CFC because I went into the Excel program in skip through grade they taught me how to know to do it [Music] one of the people who helps me as Crosby because she's really real then she helps me if I was sad and another person is Julia because Julia um helps me if like I need help and we're together like on my homework or something [Music] at Camp Duncan we did this fun thing in the Rocks climbed and it was a very tall rock climbing

084room and I was unsure of myself that I could get to the top but I heard some of my classmates under me cheering me on and that's when I knew I could get to the top foreign [Music] I'm grateful for my teachers because they teach me and my friends because they always play with me and they're really nice to me [Music] foreign so just to conclude quickly I'm truly so proud to be part of the Franklin Community it is an amazing place and our students being able to make an A Lasting difference they feel proud of themselves our staff is so proud to be part of the Franklin community and our community our Greater Community our PTA our neighbors it really takes all of us together to make this amazing place for us to all

085be and I know that our making a mark this year is going to just see ripples to our future years so thank you uh thank you Kristen [Applause] can I can I make a comment there Kristen thank you and uh you are one of the best in in we appreciate you that uh I love Winterfest they used to do it at Franklin every year I would love to see one of us to come back and my kids didn't go to Franklin but we used to drive from Roosevelt Community to Franklin to go to Winterfest every year so just keep that thought in the back of your head that was a lot of fun every year all our schools are great but my kids went to Franklin uh I think I I think when I started

086on this board they were in first grade now I have one a freshman at Maine South and an eighth grader at Emerson so I've been through you know eight years of sitting on this board and watching my kids watching that was like almost brought me to tears uh and I just want to thank you and everyone before you on making Franklin an amazing place it really was a great experience for my family and for my children and I I'm glad to know that that you're continuing that for Franklin okay other questions questions or comments well Kristen it's clear I mean there was the community spoke about you we received emails about you and your team however as a true educator you gave me homework reflect on my teacher and read a book so I'm going

087to put that on my homework list so thank you thank you okay um next we have the meeting agenda uh is there anyone from the board who wants to move anything around or make any changes okay all right so let's move on to next item on the agenda and Adam is back up for the adoption of the final 2022 tax levy resolution this is an action item thank you again thank you again earlier this evening we had the official tax level hearing um back in November we presented the tenant of Levy and you have all the appropriate documentation in place the certificate resolution for the levy itself the appropriation for the extension as we've talked about previously because of inflation where it is this is the first time that the tax levy hearing was mandatory

088because we're asking for um an increase of over five percent as I mentioned at the November meeting the district will only get what it's entitled to so the CPI is five percent plus any new construction and again the levy is at a point where it is so that we can capture all the necessary dollars so that we can have the necessary funds to run our district in from an instructional standpoint and allow for all of our staffing and programs and do all the things we can for our students if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them at this point I have one yes um so this this tax levy the one that you're talking about the uh just the tax levy itself not not any additional uh supplemental tax levies the only

089difference between this tax levy this year and previous years was the necessity to request more than five percent based solely on the interest rates and not at not having anything to do with any additional money that we needed to do projects that would be on that that would be on the next Levy correct this is like like past levees we are only 11 for CPI plus new construction it's just because CPI was over five percent p-tel limits us to five percent so this is why the overall Levy will be over five percent that's the only difference so in the past we've had public uh hearings on this anyway correct but doing it again this year the only difference is this year we were required to do it correct in previous years we voluntarily did it

090correct for transparency purposes in this District we've always done them but we weren't required to to do them this is the first year that the district is required to do that and if we if we did not go over the five percent this year how would that affect our district we would be leaving we would not be able to capture the necessary funds that we were were entitled to and because of the way that the tax levy Works each year the extension is compounded on the previous year so we'd be living not only money on the table for this year but potentially leaving money on the table for years to come so whenever whenever a district does not take full advantage of that Levy in that year it not only impacts the district finances that

091year but every other year after that because every year compounds and if we didn't if just for some reason this board said no we're not going to do it we're we weren't going to do it at four percent all right three and a half percent and that compounding problem year over year would cause our our books to be severely unbalanced and correct unable to pay our obligations what would be the option for this board at that point we would have to potentially go into a event eventually eventually if the uh well uh either significantly cutting staff or programs or going out for a limiting tax rate referendum to be able to capture more funds okay so for anyone who's going to write me an email and say you've been on this board for eight years

092why would you ask these questions now I knew the answers to these I was hoping that you would say it out loud so that whoever's listening can understand the position we're in based on the economic environment and what the needs of this District are and no matter how much it pains everybody to spend taxpayer dollars there's some Necessities that have to happen in this district and unfortunately these levies help us get there agree other questions comments okay does someone want to make the motion I move that the Board of Education of community Consolidated School District 64 Park Ridge Niles Illinois adopt the attack adopt the attached resolution number 1302 providing for the lobby of taxes for the year 2022 resolution number 1303 to instruct the county clerk how to apportion the 2022 tax levy extension

093reductions resolution number one three zero four authorizing tax for Illinois Municipal Retirement purposes these resolutions and supporting documentations will be filed with the Cook County Clerk's Office Gareth had the motion second uh Larry head the second any further discussion from the board uh other than that that was most probably one of the most difficult motions I think I've ever had to read you did good thank you Gareth for taking that on okay all right let's take a roll call vote yes okay next item the on the agenda is the adoption of resolution number 1305 authorizing a supplemental tax levy Adam you're back so very simply and we talked about this last year when we went out and sold the bonds um this resolution is necessary just to make up for uh the supplemental Levy to

094make up for the Gap to be able to pay the debt it's a small it's a small amount of 107 000 but again based on statute we're still we still need to pass this resolution all right questions from the board the what caused the necessity of this supplemental because when the when the original resolution was passed last year we did not know what CPI was and then when CPI comes out um that particular Levy is based on is connected to CPI so one CPI was known we work with Bond Council Elizabeth Hennessy who you've met we come up with a figure which was 107 000 and then we passed the resolution so I know last year when we we went through this bonding we talked about this but um this is just part of the

095process we just need to fill the Gap in 107 000 spread amongst the taxpayers while it is you know something a cost to the taxpayers uh that amount of money to all the taxpayers is a very small amount so yes we need to fill the Gap so we we correct me if I'm wrong uh every year we don't know when we're when we're doing this we don't know what exactly CPI is going to be correct and when was the last time we had a supplemental tax levy that was requested of this board uh we we did do a similar process back in 2014 and I believe back in 2016 also and what would what would you say if it wasn't for the additional uh funds needed to complete certain projects that we've taken on over

096the last year year and a half with this supplemental tax levy have been necessary yes because we we always need to we always need to fill the gap when you sell the bonds for the first time you're always going to have that small amount of Gap that we don't have the funds for because the CPI is not known at the time that the bonds are sold but wouldn't the Gap have been less because it wouldn't the Gap have not been there if our bonds weren't so high the Gap would have been less but there's always a gap okay even with the CPI of one percent it wouldn't have been 107 000 it would have been significantly less than that but there still would have been a gap and there still would have been a need

097for resolution just like we've had in previous years okay any any other questions all right give yourself for another motion okay this one's a little easier I moved that the Board of Education of community Consolidated School District 64 Park Ridge Niles Illinois adopt the attached resolution number 1305 authorizing a supplemental tax levy to pay the principal of entry and the interest on outstanding limited bonds of the district this resolution and support and documentation will be filed with the Cook County Clerk's Office Gareth had the motion is there a second Nikki had the second further discussion from the board okay uh go ahead one more the the actual appendix four that I'm reading starts off with on January 13 2022 the Board of Education issued General Obligations limited tax school bonds Series 2 2022 to pay

098for construction projects to implement full day kindergarten renovate Jefferson School and move the district office CSC to a new administrative Center connected to Jefferson not knowing the CPI that would be used 2002 to increase this Debt Service extension base a supplemental tax levies needed to make the bond payment that one paragraph as I read it tells me if we do none of those things if we don't do the construction for full day kindergarten and move the SC we would have no need for this for this uh supplemental because it basically says the reason for it is because of those well yes but the reason the only the entire reason that we borrowed the money was to cover the construction of right to cover the construction of 22 million dollars not 38 million dollars so I'm

099asking the additional money that was needed because of our our uh mistake in in estimating the cost would we had that not happened would we be here discussing this supplemental level yes yes the supplemental Levy is still to pay the difference in The Debt Service fund so whether it was the 25.9 million because the 38 million the difference between the money that we receive from the bonds and the actual cost of construction was not paid for by additional bonds was paid for by our fund balance so that that little Gap from the bonds that we borrowed is what this supplemental Levy would it is covering so the the increase of the construction project has nothing to do with the supplemental Levy the increase in the construction project was covered by the fund balance unless we

100use the fund balance to cover the first 22 million and not have had to got had gone to these bonds then we would have avoided the hundred and seven thousand it's all it's all where you take the money from and how you take it so it's the additional the additional funds needed do affect the necessity of this if you were to just reallocate where you took them from except you can't transfer the money in and out of The Debt Service fund as simple as you can through the education fund or the O M fund the money that's in fund balance that we use to pay the construction projects did not come out of The Debt Service fund this resolution is because The Debt Service fund has different rules and we need to treat that fund

101differently and that's why we need to do this resolution no I understand that I just want to clarify that I understand that right now this resolution is absolutely necessary right I'm just saying that it could have been avoided this this resolution could have been avoided I would disagree okay any other questions for the from the board okay let's take a roll call vote no yes thank you okay thank you Adam okay um next on the agenda and this was connected to some of the public comments tonight we have our legal counsel presenting um the legal issues involved with transgender students so Michelle take it away works for you all right well good evening everyone thank you for having me here tonight um as Denise said I'm here to talk about supporting transgender and gender non-conforming

102students I know that you have my materials in your packet so you've had an opportunity to take a look at what I've provided and what I plan on talking about tonight so I will do my best to summarize I want to say in opening in being here tonight and speaking about this topic all over the state I just want to say that I understand that this is an emotional topic for many many people so I want to acknowledge that but what we're here to talk about tonight are two things one the law so federal state law and guidance documents that really frame why the board currently has a policy it's 710 equal educational opportunities that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity so we'll talk first about that the framework for

103the policy and why the policy exists then after we go over the law that applies to supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students will go through the Practical guidance that stems from that when we talk about supporting students and Facilities Student Records extracurricular activities we'll talk through how the law then applies to those supports in the school setting and break them down into different categories so with that I just quickly want to go over terminology so two definitions for you here transgender just so we're clear on the definition is a person who has a gender identity one's internal sense of gender that is different than the person's assigned sex at Birth so the sex or gender listed on the person's original birth certificate when we use the word cisgender which is not on the slide but

104cisgender is a person's gender identity does align with their physical characteristics assigned at Birth so that's the difference between transgender and cisgender then gender transition which is the experience by which a person's person goes from living and identifying by the sex assigned at Birth to living and identifying as the sex consistent with the person's internal sense of or gender identity so let's go into the applicable block let's start with federal law so we have Title IX of the education Amendments of 1972. so there are various anti-discrimination laws at the federal level that prohibit discrimination on protected category status Title IX is the anti-discrimination law at the federal level that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs and activities obviously as a public school district you receive federal funding as a

105result you are subject to Title IX when we look at Title IX in the language and Title IX just so everyone is clear and really the legal issue here it hinges on this phrase on the basis of sex so no person in the United States shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in we deny the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance when we talk about supporting transgender students lgbtq students it is on the basis of sex that is at issue when this has been litigated does sex Encompass the word itself gender identity and sexual orientation so that has been the issue that's been litigated in the cases that I'm going to go over today but here in the state of Illinois

106we have the Illinois Human Rights Act so the Illinois Human Rights Act is a state law and the state law expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity so there's explicit language in our state anti-discrimination law that provides that protected class status to those when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity and that is different from state to state I want to be clear on that so our state law here the Illinois Human Rights Act defines sexual orientation as the actual or perceived heterosexuality homosexuality bisexuality or gender related identity whether or not traditionally associated with the person's designated sex at Birth and again gender identity is specifically included in that definition of sexual orientation we also have the Illinois school goal which obviously governs all school districts in the state

107of Illinois the school code prohibits bullying including bullying on the basis of sexual orientation gender-related Identity or gender expression so that gives you a very very quick overview federal law state law applicable to supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students as you probably are aware if you followed even just for a moment the litigation on this issue and supporting transgenders students in schools there is significant case law here in the state of Illinois and all over the country so I'm going to give you a brief summary of the applicable case law OCR complaints guidance documents that have come from the litigation that we've seen in this area but please feel free to ask me any questions as I go through so first just to go through the chronology back in 2013 so I'll almost 10 years

108ago we have a case out of Palatine High School District 211. we have a complaint with the office for civil rights so just so we're clear on the office for civil rights that is the agency that is connected to the Department of Education that is responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws federal anti-discrimination laws against any entity that receives Federal funding so public school districts and community members parents students can go file complaints with the office for civil rights if they feel that their rights are being violated so that's what we had here we have a transgender female student who filed a complaint with the office for civil rights to compel District 211 to allow her access to the female locker room after being forced to use a separate and isolated facility this investigation went on for

109years eventually the office for civil rights back in 2013 found that that policy of requiring that student to use a separate facility violated Title IX it was discrimination on the basis of the student's gender identity initially the district refused to comply with the office for civil rights directives OCR their leverage as an agency is to say to a school district we are no longer providing your federal funding for the time that you stay in violation of our anti-federal or our anti-discrimination laws ultimately the student the district reached a settlement where the district allowed the student to access the locker room consistent with her gender identity and the student voluntarily agreed to change behind a private curtain I want you to remember that because that will change in a couple slides when we talk about 211

110again next in 2015 you may have heard of Gavin Grimm in Gloucester County school board so this is a transgender male student who was denied access to the mail facilities at his high school so this case was litigated back and forth in federal court it was in the fourth circuit so we have the seventh Circuit Court of Appeals here in the state of Illinois this is the fourth circuit so the federal circuits right underneath the United States Supreme Court so this case went back and forth finally in 2020 Gavin is now out of high school in college but the fourth circuit rules in favor of Gavin saying that his denial of use of the facilities that align with his gender identity was in violation of Title IX after that ruling the school district appealed that

111decision to the United States Supreme Court and if you recall from civics or if you're an attorney and you know the Supreme Court they have discretionary authority to review appeals they don't hear everything they decide what they want to hear what was important about this case was the Supreme Court's decision not to hear it meaning that that was implicitly stating that there was no issue with the four circuits ruling there there was nothing the Supreme Court felt that they needed to review next 2016. this is particularly important for us here in the state of Illinois and something we watched back in 2016 because this is our seventh circuit right so this case is very very important for us as an Illinois School District so this is 2016 filed by a transgender student requesting access to

112facilities that aligned with his gender identity it's a transgender male according to the complaint the student was denied access to male designated restrooms subjected to daily surveillance and threatened with disciplinary action if he continued using the boys restroom the complaint also alleged the district considered a proposal that all transgender students be made to wear bright green wristbands in order to monitor their restroom use School administrators refused to use a student's preferred name and pronouns and the school's repeated isolation of the student from his peers on overnight school trips so this is up with the seventh circuit on a motion for preliminary injunction filed the student seventh circuit held at The District's policy in Kenosha was a likely discriminatory and a violation of Title IX in the equal protection clause granted the students a preliminary injunction

113to allow him to use the facilities that aligned with his gender identity Kenosha did appeal that case before The Supreme Court made a decision on the appeal it settled with a significant financial settlement to the student as a result next we have a dear colleague letter in 2016. and the reason I raised this letter this was at the end of President Obama Obama's administration this letter became somewhat of the Genesis for the guidance documents I'm going to talk to you about in a little bit from the Illinois State Board of Education I talked earlier about the different areas where we support transgender students when it comes to facilities when it comes to records when it comes to extracurricular activities pronouns gender transition this really became the start of those guidance documents it talked about identification

114sex segregated activities facilities and educational records which I'll break down more in just a little bit so now we have 211 again in 2016. we're moving quickly we have a group of students and parents file a lawsuit against the federal government so the office for civil rights and District 211 to reverse its policies adopted after that 2013 OCR complaint I spoke to you about just a couple minutes ago for allowing a student access to facilities consistent with their gender identity in 2019 so almost three years later the students and parents ultimately dismissed their case after emotion their motion for a preliminary injunction was denied and really the argument here from parents for privacy was the rights of their cisgender students were being impacted their right to privacy by transgender students having access to facilities that

115align with their gender identity and time and time again when we've had at least in this jurisdiction that argument raised whether it be the office for civil rights the Illinois Department of Human Rights whether it be the northern district of Illinois have said that the discomfort of students cisgender students does not then outweigh or I should say this not only the discomfort but the hypothetical threat of safety theoretical threat of safety did not outweigh a transgender student's right to use the facility that align with their gender identity so we now have a new Administration this is under President Trump 2017. this dear colleague letter withdrew everything I just told you that happens with under President Obama's administration which we see with the Department of Education from one Administration to another Administration there's usually a flurry

116of guidance documents about a variety of things when one president leaves office which then are revoked or rescinded by the next Administration depending on who's in office so 2017 this happens and essentially what this dear colleague letter says is we are leaving this decision to the states you have anti-discrimination laws in State and State law you can make a determination on how you want to support transgender students within your States 2017 we have 211 again this is a transgender female student who filed suit to gain unrestricted access to the girls locker room so if you recall 211 back in 2013 they resolved their office for civil rights complaint by the student voluntarily agreeing to change behind a privacy screen or in a private stall still having access to the locker room that aligned with her

117gender identity but not unfettered access so this student sued on those grounds meaning I I should have the right to unfettered access to the locker room that aligns with my gender identity so after multiple years of litigation the district ended up settling the case and paid the former student a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and since that time District 211 updated its policy to reflect what you have in policy in 7110 equal educational opportunities that says that the district prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation we had a variety of Illinois Human Rights Commission decisions so the Illinois Human Rights Commission governs actions filed under the ihra the Illinois human rights act at the state level so we have two school districts that were found to violated the ihra uh by

118denying transgender students full access to high school bathrooms and locker rooms just a note on the Illinois inclusive curriculum law so this passed in 2019 was effective July 1 2020 which requires all public schools to include instruction on an adapt and Structural Materials to include the historical contributions of lesbian gay bisexual and transgender individuals so after all of those cases guidance documents OCR charges we had our 2020 isbe non-regulatory guidance which I've provided the link to that document here this was issued by the state board I think in May of 2020 which was two months after we were in the midst of school shutdowns during the covid-19 pandemic so this came and at the time because there were so many other things going on it I would say Statewide it didn't get the attention that

119it might have otherwise but I want to remind districts when I talk about this topic that this guidance is here and it has been here and it does go through just like that 2016 dear colleague letter those different areas of supports in schools that I'll talk about in just a moment and a quick question about um guidance document so um isby suggests a couple of like minor policy revisions to that seven colon ten so the districts that you represent have they been doing that which revisions are you supposed to specifically so they included a red line version of seven colon 110 and it added certain words um like it added the word gender before gender identity yes and then stuff in parentheses and then also had a gender expression and so it basically redlined yeah

120I think we have the old version pretty much like of seven colon ten and we haven't I don't think updated it pursuant to this is be guidance because I think the ISB guidance was not in press you know and we generally do it press tells us to do so I have your policy last being updated in April of 2021 so I think it does include I just looked at it though but I um hold on let me just look again hopefully this um let's see it does say April 21 2022 but then after the word um so I'm just looking at the red line so after the word mental disability is B says to add gender we don't have that um let's see we have gender identity then we don't have the so we it

121looks like we don't so should we basically is what I'm asking so I and I don't have the isby guidance document in front of me but is it the words gender expression um they added gender they added um after the phrase gender identity they added whether or not traditionally associated with the student sex assigned at Birth then they added gender expression um it looks like they made little tweaks that we didn't have and then Plus for like sex Equity they added um a sentence to the first paragraph that we do not have that sentence says students shall be supported in a manner consistent with their gender identity this will include but not be limited to use the restrooms locker rooms and other facilities that correspond to the student's gender identity we do not have that

122portion you don't have that language in parens what's most important in your policy is that you do have a Prohibition discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation which is in line with the Illinois Human Rights Act you can most definitely as a board decide to add that additional language based on the ASB guidance okay then I guess that's something the policy so maybe the policy committee can look at that thanks so I just want to talk about two areas of current litigation uh where I see litigation likely continuing when it comes to supporting transgender students and gender non-conforming students and that's in the cases of Athletics and parent notification so we have litigation now that's going on across the country on transgender student athletes participation particularly at the college post-secondary level but

123I do bring in the materials this OCR letter from 2020 that was filed in Connecticut and it was filed on behalf of three cisgender females so remember cisgender who allege the performance of two transgender students prevented the female student athletes for placing first and second in a variety of events so OCR at that time held that Single Sex and sex segregated athletic teams should be based on biological sex at Birth not on gender identity now this letter was later rescinded under the new Department of Education under President Biden look at the date of the letter but there's litigation going on everywhere on this Theory issue I will say here when it comes to IESA so the Illinois elementary Association of Athletics and ihsa the high school those organizations make the determination on where the student

124will participate so the school district supports the child in providing each of those organizations the information but that's not what if they're an IESA or an ihsa eligible sport that's not a decision the school district makes the associate Association makes that decision but I will say essentially stay tuned as these cases continue to be litigated because I would expect more guidance On Athletics and athletic participation in the very near future so now we have 20 20. the United States Supreme Court this is Bostic versus Clayton County and some of you may have heard of this case it did catch quite a bit of attention so the U.S Supreme Court held in Bostic that an employer who fires an employee merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII which is the anti-federal or anti-discrimination law

125that prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of a protected class so you may ask me why are we talking about Title VII what you've been talking to us tonight about Title IX the issue is back to that word of sex right so the U.S Supreme Court clarified that sex is defined under Title VII protects lgbtq employees from discrimination similar to decisions based on race Age religion or national origin so that word sex does encompass gender identity sexual orientation as protected classes now this decision did not explicitly extend its analysis to cases that are brought under Title IX I want to be clear about that or Title IX related claims on the basis of sex but after this decision many felt that if the Supreme Court were to hear a similar case under Title IX

126the decision would be the same so in June of 2021 we have a notice of interpretation from the United States Department of Education using this Bostock analysis the office for civil rights will enforce Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex against lgbtq plus students including discrimination based on sexual orientation and discrimination based on gender identity so we know that our Department of Education now stands interprets bastic even though that was a Title VII decision to enforce Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex including sexual orientation and gender identity a couple cases about staff refusal we've had several cases all over the country where educational staff teachers refuse to refer to students by their preferred name and preferred pronouns this was out of Indiana southern district this is cluji versus

127brownberg Community School Corporation this case is in front of the seventh circuit right now oral arguments have happened so we're waiting for a decision on that so stay tuned but this was filed in 2019 by a former music teacher who resigned after refusing to abide by school policy requiring teachers to address transgender students by their firm names and pronouns the court in its decision rejected the employee's allegations of religious discrimination so the employee's rationale was it was against his sincerely held religious beliefs to refer to the students by their preferred names and prefer pronouns and in directing him to do so and threatening his dismissal as a result for failing to school follow the school district's policy that was retaliation on the basis of his free exercise of religion so the court in this case

128held that a name carries with it enough importance to overcome a public school corporation's duty to accommodate a teacher sincerely held religious beliefs against a policy that requires staff to use transgender students preferred names when supported by a parent and a health care provider we have more guidance from the Illinois Department of Human Rights in 2021 again non-regulatory guidance but again this pulls from all of the cases we just discussed and the guidance documents from the Department of Education School may be found to have engaged in discrimination when a school fails or refuses to enroll a student denies a student equal access to full and equal enjoyment if its facilities goods or services or permits or fails to prevent severe or pervasive harassment of a student the discomfort or privacy concerns of other students teachers

129or parents are not valid reasons to deny or limit the full and equal use of facilities based on a student's gender related identity and that goes back to the parents for privacy case I discussed earlier in that argument schools must allow every student regardless of gender identity to wear any clothing or makeup that is appropriate under the dress code even if doing so does not conform to gender-based stereotypes this is the other area of litigation that I see continuing and I guidance here is probably forthcoming as these decisions are decided but parent notification is a very nuanced topic when it comes to supporting transgender students and what I mean by that specifically for students that are coming to staff and asking for supports in schools and parents are either unaware or unsupportive and how to

130navigate parent notification so we have a case out of Wisconsin and this really does highlight the interplay between students rights and parents rights because of course parents retain educational decision-making Authority for their students until they reach the age majority until they're 18. so in November of 2021 we have parents that filed a state and complaint alleging a Wisconsin school district's policy that allows students to use their affirmed names and pronouns without parent consent so in June of 2022 the court denied the district's motion to dismiss citing the parents complaint demonstrates a potential violation of their rights as parents to direct the upbringing of their children in a sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss so again that's not a decision on the merits of this but it survived a motion to dismiss because there is

131potential violation there of those of parents rights with that policy of when there they need to know did you say this was going this was going up has it gone to the seventh circuit no so this is actually interesting so it's just Wisconsin law correct okay but I'm going to talk about several other cases that are in different jurisdictions jurisdictions in just a second do you have a question you know what and I guess kind of in that let's say and I'm just thinking of a scenario right now A Middle School school student tells a teacher call me this name this is my preferred name and I know sometimes the middle schools here do joint teacher right parent-teacher student conferences and so should the teacher call the student the preferred name that the student said

132or the original name that the student had what what is your suggestion there so this is a decision that the district needs to make with its student support personnel as to when we're going to make parent contact and I will tell you this differs from District to District as to when we are reaching out to parents and it may not be a one-size-fits-all approach to making parent notification yeah we're considering the developmental age of the student you know decisions we make for a five-year-old may be different than decisions we make for a 13 year old that's coming to us and asking us to refer to them by a preferred name these are all considerations that we have to take in not to mention those students who may say to us if you tell my my

133mom there's going to be significant repercussions for me at home or if you tell my mom I might hurt myself so we're always in these are so nuanced and having these conversations and meeting a student where they're at and deciding how we're going to handle it with a case-by-case type of approach I understand right now that there's a case in Alabama where they notified the parents the mother and the stepfather the the natural father found out about it later is now suing the school district because they failed to notify him so how far do you go right now with the litigation that is playing out the case that you just referenced and I'm going to talk about another one in just a second we I I'm advising all districts to make a decision on parent

134notification if we're going to notify parents from the time students come to us and ask for preferred names and preferred pronouns are we going to work with the student on preferred names and preferred pronouns and then notify the parents when it comes to facilities or other support requests it's a discussion that your buildings should be having but should also be directed by your student services staff who have the clinician experience and and know through their experience on how to work with students that are going through such a significant in their lives you know and Michelle just to clarify the notification you're talking about it's a notification to a student who's transitioning it's to their parents not like the parents in the whole class I mean so the parent notification is just that student correct okay

135it's I mean in this goes to the core of student confidentiality so Amy take this make this even more about maintaining confidentiality for all students regardless of transgender status we as a school district we are required by law to maintain student confidentiality when it comes to really anything educationally relevant about our kids and as students transition is something that reading all the guidance documents and litigation that is ensued from this is something that you know we could face significant risk if we're disclosing a student's transition or gender identity so to reiterate a student's sex biological sex or their gender identity is not anyone's business other than that student and their Guardians so there are times I'm a lawyer right there's going to be an exception to every rule if a student's life or safety is

136at issue you know we under the law have the opportunity or the ability to disclose information to make sure that a student is safe so there may be a situation where we would have to make a disclosure not necessarily even about gender identity but generally about a child to make sure that they're safe based on what they're telling us but yes we should be maintaining the confidentiality of our students that are transitioning or have transitioned so it is not the right of another parent to know the sex or gender identity of another student in the class we should not as a district be disclosing that information without that parent's consent so I have a couple of questions but since we're talking about this one it is so we have to come up with a we

137have a policy but the policy is extremely vague and it doesn't really tell any any one of our Administration on how to handle this and after reading that policy I wouldn't fault someone in our Administration if they didn't do it exactly right because it's not very very clear as to exactly what you're supposed to do if I was working for this district and I had to make a decision on the Fly I'd like to really know exactly what I'm supposed to do so in the issue of parent notification I'm glad Denise clarified that we're talking about parent notification of the child correct not parent notification of the rest of the district who for some reason thinks they have the right to know this is about the parent the notification of that child who has come

138to us with a private conversation and now we have to decide whether we're disclosing that to those parents or not it gets so you you mentioned it very clearly that if there's a accelerating circumstance that would cause us to have fear that this child might you know be in danger in any way whether to themselves or from somebody else we may want to consider trumping whatever our main decision is or our our go-to decision is but our go-to decision in this District should be very clear and it is by recommendation of you and anybody else I'm hoping correct me if I'm wrong that we do not disclose what the children say to us to the parents and less a lengthy discussion is is had and we bring our attorneys into it before we decide to

139go to those parents so very clearly to our Administration and to everybody and to our community if a child and I'm hoping children are watching this as well because know that if you come to one of our teachers or our administrators and reveal something that you want to remain private buy our own policy and by our own law we are going to keep it private unless we feel that that child is in danger and then even then it will not be a decision made lightly to inform anyone meeting the parents it would be a decision that would be very well thought out and discussed thoroughly before that is done is that a clear statement on parent notification of a child when it comes to the community no no when it comes to the parent forget

140the community this is nowhere near the community has in my opinion has no right to the to the know of individual students very good so I'm I'm very clear with that I I have no right to know which to and even if I have a child that's in that child's class I have no right to know which student identifies which way and what they're asking for and what they want and what they need none of my business kind of I kind of follow it along with you know the medical HIPAA you know uh issues none of my business I'm talking about the parents I want kids in our district to know and I want parents in our district to know parents of these kids and I want everybody in our district to know that our

141policy is the recommendation to us is if a child comes to any of our administrators or teachers or or building personnel and divulges certain information about themselves that it will remain private between that person and that child unless someone makes a determination that will not be made lightly that this child is in danger it's just being litigated right now parent notifications being litigated aside from the litigation as a district we have to come up with something until the litigation until the litigation is clarified uh we either have to make a decision as a district if we're going to you know spit in the face of of roll the dice or if we're going to come up with something solid that we're going to adhere to until litigation tells us exactly what we have to do

142I that is an accurate statement and that's why I would also suggest to the extent you are thinking about a policy on parent notification I would wait I would come up with ground rules within the district as to how you're going to notify parents and when but because this is going on I would take a position on how we're going to handle students coming to us on a case-by-case basis when we're going to make parent notification what staff on the Continuum when it comes to requests for supports because for some of our students they may come and ask to use the facility that aligns with their gender identity and say I don't want my mom or dad to know or my mom and dad don't support this but developmentally they don't understand that if they

143start using that facility their peers are going to notice right staff is going to know and it may inadvertently get back to their parents anyway right so then we've created potentially an environment at home that is not what we intended due to that lack of parent notification so these are things that we just have to think through so I'm glad you I'm glad you clarified the difference between coming up with not a policy but general rules correct so I I agree with you that a policy should not be set in stone since litigation has still not cleared itself but I I still firmly believe that we owe it to our Administration and our teachers who are at the front line who have to deal with us on a daily basis to have a clear General

144guidelines that this District board and administration agree on so that there is no confusion so that that teacher doesn't feel or that administrator doesn't feel like they overstepped or understeped or they're getting scrutinized by the community later for doing something wrong no come back here and say you know it's not on that teacher it's not on the administration it's on this board who discussed it with whoever they needed to discuss it with and they came up with these general rules these General guidelines so I think it's that's my my opinion I'm going to blow through mine real fast so that I don't know can I just just piggyback off that and then we'll get back to you so is that kind of what Tom's not a policy but maybe procedurally procedures is that more in

145this gender support plan is that more of where that that lies where I would suggest that the district start is the Illinois Association of school boards press where you receive your policies has a sample administrative procedure in supporting transgender and gender informing students that outlines it's a place to start you know obviously we can work with you to revise it as you see necessary but it's a place to start on these supports and how we're going to manage these supports so that's what I would advise we start from and then to your question about a gender support plan which I'll talk about in a minute that would be something that we would address in those procedures the use of a gender support plan and whether the district wants to use that in working with transgenders

146and I'm going to sit back so how long is this going to take not long there are there are many issues and then sub issues and then so many circumstances that we can't not we can't touch on all of them however I'm I'm a big proponent on letting our community know certain things but obviously not about individuals and their individual situations I think that this District can avoid a lot of the issues if we take your advice have a general guideline that then we just put out and say if a student comes to us with a gender specific request I want to use this bathroom or I want to use this is how we're going to handle that we are going to allow them or not allow them or we are going to assess we're

147not going to assess blah blah blah this is what's going to happen uh this is how we're going to handle our athletes this is how we're going to handle cisgender requests because we have now the issue of since we are not going to or potentially not going to refuse a transgender or one of the other uh acronyms or I'm not quite sure what they all are General non-conforming it if if we're going to try our hardest to accommodate and we're going to do it because of case law and because of whatever and because it might just be the right thing to do we also have to consider the cisgenders who may come to us now and they have the right to say well that's great I'm happy for this person who's getting you know the

148right to use this but now I don't I don't I want to I want my I don't feel comfortable I don't feel comfortable I want I want accommodations correct and that's going to be a problem for this District because if we now have 20 30 cisgender individuals telling us that they want their own bathroom we don't don't have the funds to create this many bathrooms so is this going to be a long conversation and it's going to be something we're all going to have to kind of peel the layers off of and work with however to start athlete comes to us and says I want to do this here's our guideline child comes to us and says I want to do this this is how we're going to handle it uh if a child and

149this is the you know what I'm good the only I have one last question and this kind of is the Crux if my child comes to you tomorrow and says I'm questioning myself questioning certain things I want to use a girl's bathroom or my other child comes to you and says I want to use a boy's bathroom is that something this you're recommending this District does immediately that day or is it something that is going to take a process what is that process help this district and myself understand because at the same time that we can't create policies that question individuals who are questioning because that just doesn't sound right to me but at the same time we can't just have children walking up to somebody and saying this morning I feel like using this

150bathroom and then just allowing it to happen on the fly so I think that's one one thing that I think this board might me on this Board needs a lot of guidance on on how that looks when a child does make that known to somebody how do we handle that do we make them do psychological tests I mean they can't do that no no and that's why and that's why I said it very sarcastically because I'm sure there's people in this community that feel that that should be happening and I'm sure there's people in this community that feel that that shouldn't be happening but at the same time do we just allow somebody to wake up that morning and say I want to use a girl's bathroom and it being you know a biological boy

151who just says that that morning and then how do we protect ourselves of a district questioning that child to identify if this is a real request or just some kid trying to play a prank and get into a girl's bathroom or a boy's bathroom and I think that is something that I need help with sure no and I understand and I will say I've been working with will tell you how many times I have to say in my practice I've not had a call where that's actually happened where a student comes in and is either doing it out of jest or is playing some sort of prank so I want and I and it doesn't mean it can't happen no no I want to clarify that wasn't the reason for my question the reason for

152my question was not that at all it was if a child comes to you that morning and says I want to use a boy's bathroom or a girl's bathroom are you recommending that this District say okay here's your pass so that's not my recommendation okay for a variety of reasons but I want to start from which I think is clear from what we've talked about so far tonight is that in order to not run a foul of Title IX or the Illinois Human Rights Act we have to provide transgender students with access to the facilities that align with their gender identity that said it should be done in a supportive way so that means what are we going to do when a student comes to us and says and maybe it's a student that's already

153asked for preferred names and pronouns right so we're not at facilities yet preferred names and pronouns and maybe as a district were supporting that request and we haven't made parent notification yet in this theoretical or hypothetical at the point that the student asks to access facilities especially at the elementary level it is my recommendation that our parents are involved in that discussion before the student starts using that facility so to be clear to the community no one is saying that a child wakes up that morning requests something and this district is just going to be like sure here you go sign off this is something we take very seriously this is something that we're we're it's not only take it very seriously for the purposes of not trying to violate Title IX or get sued

154but more importantly we realize that we have students who are going through situations that may be confusing to them and our goal is to assist them get through it and and we are going to do that to the best of our abilities and no parent in this community should feel that this District or probably even 207 for that matter are just going to be handing out hall passes to whoever wants them to go to whatever point of the school they feel like going to that this district is going to take every single request take it seriously address it address it individually because every situation I'm sure is extremely different from the next it is and and and it's going to be a thoughtful process and it's because it has to stay student-centered right at the

155four of this is making sure that the child understands that the decision to use that facility may result in questions have we identified a staff member that that child can go to in the event that they do feel uncomfortable or they're getting questions about why they're using a particular bathroom it does need to be thoughtful right so which final final thought which I believe a guideline that this board signs off on before we can actually make a policy would be extremely important for not only our teachers for our administrators but also for the parents of the community to understand how this is going to happen and understand that it's not going to a request by one child is not going to negatively impact their child the minute one child makes a request and at the

156same time cisgender individuals are also advised of their rights parents are are advised that hey if you do feel uncomfortable these are this is the process that you can take to help your family feel more comfortable if we just have those guidelines kind of out there and understood by all I think we can avoid a lot of not only issues within our schools but also issues between the multiple different this uh opinions on this matter in our community and that's my final thought you you had something a while ago no I I think I I hear what Tom's saying and the only thing I would I would say I knew about the administrative guidelines and I found those impressed before from the axis that that I have from being a policy Committee Member the problem

157is they're not transparent and they're not out there so the community can't understand what this process currently is in the district and well I would I would just say what Tom said but maybe instead of economic guidelines because we we we as a board we form policy I would just call it maybe a principles-based policy rather than a rules-based policy and and that's what I think we went ahead and I'd like your idea of of using a starting point of using the administrative guidelines I think it's a place to start most definitely there are other districts that have FAQ documents that attach to seven one zero equal educational opportunities there's different ways to get the district's position to the community so it can be more transparent as you said and I I've worked with many

158districts out of the press administrative procedures to fill in some of these nuances or these more difficult conversations parent notification being one of them that you could also look at when you look at the Press APS if you start from there yeah um I would start in District 64 too and making everything you're doing mandatory training for teachers and staff that's that may be difficult but that's something you're going to have to do you know what I think some of these language us knowing appropriate language and speaking that way that communicates a lot and I hear Tom on you saying you know like a plate like you know if this then this happens but it's hard as you said it's such an individual I mean if you've seen students transition it's really the timelines individual

159how they go about it I think it's a really so it's hard on you know if this this I don't I don't think they have like a locked up approach to this is impossible no no I I I yeah and I I don't think that's what you're saying okay so you got it I was not there's no chance that we're going to be able to say if this happens we do this I just think that a general whatever you want to call it policy or pre-policy or I don't care what it's named a general to the to our people that this is how we handle these situations if a student asks for uh for accommodations we are going to accommodate them but before we accommodate them there's going to be a process involved and we

160don't even have to explain the process because that's individual to the the you know the child asking for it in their family uh but that lets our community know and our Administration everybody else know that it's not something that just happens instantaneous when a child decides that day to ask for something that it's a that we are careful about it and that we we care about the child's needs we care about the community's needs we care about you know the district's needs and we're we're looking at it in a holistic uh holistic way and the same thing goes for every other category I touched that and the only thing I'll add to that is we also have to assess where the student's parents are if they're supportive or not so yeah and that's something that

161needs to happen very very quickly as a student starts to ask for these two these supports so Michelle given you agree because this whole program is going to be tied to bullying that we got to move pretty quick because it's going to fall in The Bullying Arena the longer we take so you know our guidelines or principles or whatever they are is going to have to include some type of timeline and and and talking about that given all the you know I sounds like we're not the only School District dealing with this right in in terms of why hasn't that been the you know press come up with something a little bit more firm or is it because all the litigation that's going on the guidance does its best bet try to reports and what

162we need to do based on the litigation and the guidance documents but it's silent for example on parent notification it doesn't even touch it when we have a student that's not supported by his or her parents or a student that hasn't told his or her parents so it's you know it's left to us to figure out how to navigate it and I think it is in part as you said to this litigation that is unfolding and this tension between supporting students and making sure we're student focused and student-centered but also respecting parents rights to raise their children the way they see fit until they turn 18. what more comment so even the part I was talking about in a case in Alabama right now you notify the parents that the child's living with the guardian

163parents you know we have to figure out how far do you take that hey do you ask so Mom knows and The Stepfather knows and we all know there's divorces and so you ask Mom do we need to notify Dad or Mom you're going to notify dad or you know in just in that light I think we have to say do we want to notify parents the student may have two dads you know and so I just think we can't even use Mom and Dad I just think you know you may have made one parent who supports and one who doesn't and a parent or a child that is you know lives with you know with one parent it's a divorce or there's a Parenting Agreement there's it can be incredibly nuanced yeah it's just

164not it's not just parental notification it's parental permission whether we're gonna you know when we talk about consent for changing records or changing what we have in power school or student data management system so the all things to think about it would actually ask the parents for permission no I think we currently do so it is it is so what I was hoping that we can get and put together as a board with a lot of your guys guidance I just want to also warn that we have to be equally as vague as Illinois and the federal government the reason why this is all so vague is to protect themselves from litigation so we have a vague policy right so even but ours is so vague that our community doesn't know where it points and

165what it does so I don't think I'm not advocating for a policy I'm advocating for just a kind of a a general explanation as to you know this district is going to do this this this and this and that's it and each case is going to be on a separate but yes everyone know that if a student comes to us and asks for accommodations to use a locker room we are going to do everything in our power to make that child feel comfortable and know this know this now so that when you find out three weeks from now or a month from now that a child is using this bathroom because you heard it from your child because we're not going to send memos out every time this happens we're not going to tell you

166know the community by the way we got another child who asked no that's we're not we don't want to do that that's not I don't think it's fair to the child or to just to be bringing attention to it every time so if we just do it once now and just remind our community that hey this is we're going to do everything we can and it is Our intention to help these children feel as comfortable as they can in the situation that they're in that we're going to do this deal with it now the community can say I don't want to deal with it and if they don't want to deal with it they can come and knock on my door they can yell at me they could yell at Denise they could yell whoever

167they want or they can get up and move or they can stay here and be miserable but at least they know that this is what we're doing and this is how we're doing it that's all we got it Phyllis you're on you've been dying to go question I'm just because I don't think anybody in here is saying we're not supportive of them but what do you do to support the cisgenders who say I don't feel comfortable with these guys or girls changing in the bathroom or the or the strict pair like how do you how do you navigate the two and then also my question is like you said we can't say this child is identifying differently but they speak and they talk and it gets out in the community and then the community Riles

168gets mad at Eric or us how do you address that so I think part let me answer your question in two parts and your second question first how's that I think you're doing that right now tonight by having these conversations about why we're we have a policy that says this and why we're supporting transgender students in response to your first question about cisgender students and privacy concerns we offer those students the opportunity to use a single stall facility or to change but what if there's like 20 kids and we don't have 20 they're like they're going to change in GE and we don't have to what do we do for are they going to miss half the PE class because they're changing one by one so I haven't had that happen again I haven't had

169that situation where there's been so many students that we haven't had the ability to accommodate them typically when conversations are had about how to make that child feel more comfortable there's ways that we can accommodate all children to make sure that that happens okay it'd be nice to clarify that a cisgender saying that they're uncomfortable sharing a locker room with a transgender is not the same as a transgender asking for the permission to use the locker room of how they identify because I know people that argue well how can you tell a cisgender that they have to go use a single use bathroom when you can't say that to a gender or to a transgender or and I think it'd be nice for somebody who knows more than me because I don't understand fully how

170that works either to explain that hey those two are not the same requests they're one is a little different than the other the transgender is not saying I feel uncomfortable in my locker room they're saying I feel more comfortable in that locker room or that's where I feel I belong where the other student the cisgender is saying well now I feel uncomfortable here so help me feel more comfortable and yeah sure you feel more comfortable if you're not sharing with that person so here you go here's your individual locker room we just made you comfortable enough correct so I think that that the community needs to understand the differences there as well and that's the reason why I raised that parents for privacy litigation with District 211 because that argument when it's it's Advanced when

171it's litigated it's it's just been it's not been successful in front of an any agency in a court in our jurisdiction and also the theoretical or the hypothetical threat of safety not articulable but that there could be a threat of safety to students in allowing a transgender student to use a facility that's the one I forgot to read so I agree with you when it's a when it's a uh uh what did you call it you call it a I've used lots of words tonight why don't you look forward the the uh the perceived threat of or of safety as opposed to the actual threat when it crosses over and it becomes an actual threat for example in our situation in this District where a we have a I want to be careful about talking

172about any yeah so but okay and generally if let's say let's say we do have a situation where you know the the perceived threat or the the fear of the threat actually turns into a threat how does this District handle that we would handle it as we handle any student misconduct pursuant to our student discipline policy there's a little difference though there's a little difference because so if I so if I'm a student if I'm in a bathroom and I I kicked my buddy in the butt while he's peeing in a urinal would be a little different than if I'm in a bathroom and an individual who is biologically not the same sex but identifies in that bathroom kicks me in the butt while I'm at the urinal if it were to happen if it

173were to happen in the first scenario you're not no one's going to call for that child to never use that bathroom again I I would in that situation look at the misconduct the same no but but help me help me understand this if I I just don't want to use the wrong terms that's why I'm pausing here so I'm just going to be very you know and please no one take offense to if I use the wrong terms if a biological boy who's not transgender and kicks another biological boy who is transgender in the bathroom in the butt the discipline up until you know years ago was not to not allow that uh that boy to use the bathroom it was detention it was whatever blah blah blah uh if a boy you know Got

174You Know Me growing up we used to you know look underneath the toilet stalls all the time at other dudes and and laugh and you know talk about whatever and we were never it was never even a thought of not being allowed to use that bathroom but in a situation in today's situation it's a little different if so unless you're telling me it's not different I don't think it is so if a so if a non-biological individual who's using a bathroom that they feel most comfortable in uh violates somebody's privacy in that bathroom it's handled and treated as if that non-biological child was a biological child I think so there is no issue there there is no issue of privacy at that point and we treat it like the same way you still get to

175use that bathroom but maybe not I think it depends on the egregiousness of the misconduct it depends if it's a pattern of misconduct no matter if it's a cisgender or transgender student we may make alternative bathroom arrangements or devise a safety plan it just depends on the situation but the status as being CIS or transgender isn't determinative in the disciplinary decision so that's that's what I wanted to hear out loud so that everyone can hear it regardless of what your biological sex is once you've been allowed to use a bathroom that you're that you choose to use you are now fully considered and treated the same exact way as anybody else that's using that bathroom so whatever you so so everyone understands that if a biological boy peers or tries to look at somebody while

176they're using a urinal is the same exact thing as if a transgender boy looks at somebody while they're using a urinal no no differences with the attorney caveat of every situation is different right okay so everything is general in general it could be bullying and harassment that ties to an action like that which would it could potentially go a different way but voyeurism is viralism assault is assault okay correct it's good it's good to have that conversation and have everyone hear that because it makes sense one more question just and it might be my ignorance so if it is excuse it are these kids that are identifying differently or transitioning do they have medical records that go along that the school has provided so that there wouldn't even be an issue like we just know

177they're coming in and they're going to use this bathroom and that it is what it is so some students will have medical documentation because they have had medical intervention to support their transition some will not and the expression of their gender is enough to to then accommodate their requests for supports is is the expression angle of it maybe you're getting that in a bit because I think I slayed in the slide that seems to be based on non-regulatory guidance there's been no like solid legal kind of decision around that so the I'll go back to the ihra so the Illinois Human Rights Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation the IRS the idhr so the agency responsible for enforcing the ihra I apologize for the acronyms takes the position

178that gender expression is just an individual's expression of their gender is enough to qualify for that protected category which group was that the Illinois Department of Human Rights so it's just a department they got no legal they're not it's not even a judge it's not it's not they enforce the Illinois human rights act right that's the first layer yeah and if you're not happy with their decision then you can go to court but nobody is nobody has decided that or determined that because in in the Kenosha case which is federal there one of the the the seventh circuit and reading that rule and was very much focused on um not focused on I guess say but mentioned the fact that the the student had a medical diagnosis so that that's why one of the reasons

179they seem to find in the favor of that student was was it they had a medical diagnosis and the school board didn't have a policy so they they were kind of both of those things seem to be important at least to in in that in that legal framework or argument or or opinion is the word Christian actually had a medical diagnosis that dealt with his kidneys and as a result of the school district's position that he could not use the facilities that aligned with his gender identity he had to use a facility that was very very far from his classes and then when he was not allowed to use the facility that aligned with his gender identity he was not going to the bathroom which caused him significant significant medical issues due to his underlying

180kidney condition okay so what it's this is coming back and the way I'm framing in my mind is like we have a policy on Equity right on it but we don't have a policy on is Gateway to that Equity if you get what I mean it's like there's got to you know principles in how to access the equity if if you feel inequitable I guess is the right the front so I think that's kind of maybe where the way I would frame this is that we need Gateway principles and when you say Gateway meaning how students approach the district or approach staff approach who are supports and then the co and then what happens at that point in time I think that was similar to what yeah that's talking about we talk about guidelines or

181what however we refer to this document where we're going to lay out our response so I know that I've been up here for a while and I want to talk briefly about different supports and wrap this up but I just want to talk about the non-regulatory guidance I've given you the link that has the different areas of supports but requests when we talk about accommodations for transgender and gender non-conforming student obviously they can come from students we haven't talked much tonight but they will come from parents there are many supportive parents who will come to you directly and ask for supports within the school we're looking at a student's age potentially different approaches for elementary school students versus Middle School versus High School we've talked a lot about parent notification and parent consent so my

182advice always is that no one staff member administrator is making unilateral decisions regarding a student or parent accommodation request this is not an island or a silo this is a team-braced approach to supporting students to make sure we're thinking about those nuances or having those discussions about supportive families we know what the student's individual circumstances are and I know this is happening now but your employees are notifying your building Administration to the extent they are getting these requests to work through it as a team can I can I ask Ed I hate to ask too many questions we get you can get in a swap here and drown but uh Larry can you talk on your mic just to make sure thank you I'm no I'm bad about that yeah but uh but when we

183hand a student off to District 207 do wait do we have a responsibility in 64 if it's a transgender student to notify the next District so typically what we do is we have a conversation in an elementary like this where they're transitioning to a high school district about what information we're sharing with the high school district we'd have to obviously have consent from the student's parent to share that information with the high school when the student transfers and some students will and parents will feel differently about what information goes to the high school district so this slide just talks about a process which is what we've been talking about when we receive requests for supports we're determining whether the student's parents are supportive we're Consulting with staff we're thinking about the home impact environment and

184discuss risk factors we're always remembering our mandated reporting obligations depending on what the student tells us about the home environment and we're making decisions based on what that level of risk or threat may be for that child so affirm names and pronouns we've talked about I think Denise raised a gender support plan that is a formalized framework that documents how we support a student in school with preferred names and pronouns records extracurricular activities facilities that is a document that the district can use it's not a requirement there's no requirement that we have gender support plans but it is a formalized way to maintain all of that information in one place just a note on confidentiality we've talked about that as well your board policy is up to date we have the ability to disclose directory

185information for all of our students sex cannot be a part of directory information that we can disclose without parent consent so directory information we provide all parents the opportunity to opt out of that disclosure its name address basic identifying information we provide notice to families on a yearly basis that we can disclose your child's directory information unless you opt out the law used to include sex as part of directory information that has since been removed in both Federal FERPA and the Illinois State or school student records act so we're not disclosing a student's gender or sex without Parent Directory information to whom so directory information is just basic identifying information that we can disclose for example to your PTA right without parent consent to potentially a newspaper and we provide parents with notice of that

186on a yearly basis what we can disclose but we also give parents the opportunity to opt out of that disclosure they can let us know on a yearly basis if they would not like us to disclose directory information okay because you know I I found um I think I've seen teachers in Fair in the various schools in the district being very weary about like you know because kids want to invite other kids to birthday parties and sending out email addresses like they all say oh you've got to do that yourself so I don't think I didn't realize that we they could release that we don't release directory information let me be clear okay but we have the ability to do so so long as we provide notice of what it is so what directory information

187is and what and the opportunity to opt out of that disclosure but the important part for this discussion is we cannot disclose gender or sex without consent from parents so we've talked about expression we can't require a medical diagnosis a surgical transition or a treatment regimen as a prerequisite to recognizing a student's preferred gender again this comes from the guidance documents that we've talked through we're using pronouns and names consistent with a transgender student's gender identity we talked about a gender support plan I've talked about Student Records this is a place where I will say my recommendation is before we make changes to records we have parent consent to do so you know again this goes back to parent notification but parents retain education decision making Authority and if we're changing records without parent knowledge

188again this is a teaching moment for our students our their parents are likely to find out if we weren't to make parent notification right because records are going to go home well the student's preferred name we want to make sure the student we're having that conversation with the student and notifying parents before we make those changes um just a note as of 2018 we an individual can request a change to their birth certificate without proof of medical intervention or medical transition so you may receive a new birth certificate at some point for a student it doesn't require any sort of medical transition to make that change isbe allows schools to input a transgender individual's gender a name of choice into CIS so it is be allows for the preferred name so long as the student's

189identification number Remains the Same we've talked a lot about facility access so I'm not going to belabor the point we are going to allow trans students to under students access to sex segregated facilities consistent with their gender identity but as we discussed any non-transgender student assistant or student may request reasonable access to private facilities based on similar concerns and based on the case law we discussed we're not requiring transgender students to use individual user facilities change behind a privacy screen or a stall we can make these facility options available to all students we've gone over that now when it comes to schools events and clubs we're providing the same opportunities for transgender students to participate in gender segregated recreational physical education class activities I've seen districts move away from a lot of sex segregated activities

190I used to be far more prevalent but to the extent they still exist we're allowing transgender students to participate in the sex segregated activity that aligns with their gender identity except the sports thing you raised earlier well and that leads me to this slide so remember with ihsa and IESA they have policies regarding transgender students and they make the determination of a student's participation overnight accommodations and field trips I don't know how many we have within the district but we don't so but if we did we're supporting them in the uh with rooming and the lodging that aligns with their gender identity aren't we doing Camp Duncan it's only one day now it's not overnight anymore and then finally I list we've talked a lot about seven one or seven ten these are the other

191policies that relate to the prevention of discrimination harassment and bullying and then inclusive instruction in section six and with that we got through all of the material that last that last section is a great start for what I was asking for because it really pretty much touches everything so I think that would be a great start for this board to work with and we can use this and start from the Press administrative procedures to really start from the basis of those guidelines that we've discussed tonight oh one question that this doesn't talk touch on is there a requirement by law or by case law or recommendation on other students requirements in using students uh uh preferred pronouns so if if like so it's a it's a you know a question and a concern if a

192student is requesting to be identified under a certain pronoun and another student just refuses to do it uh what what does this District have to punish the refuser can we punish the refuser should we punish the refuser it we have to look at it as potential bullying and harassment depending on how obviously we're not disciplining students for making mistakes right but if the student is refusing to refer to a student by their preferred names and pro preferred pronouns in an effort to harass a student in an effort to intimidate the student then we would treat that as we would any other egregious action of harassment or bullying I think if they did in a taunting way but you know the question is who's who's going to make that determination I mean yeah he's asking for

193the pronoun is is going to be you know sensitive to that no matter what if you know yeah another child three times doesn't use the pronoun at what point do you determine whether it was three mistakes or whether that other child is doing it on purpose well and in the impact it has on the transgender student you know every student's different well I mean and that's where I get a little you know very sensitive with this one because if a child makes a mistake three times that it's truly a mistake three times it in my opinion it really doesn't matter how it affects the other child because it was a mistake it doesn't it wasn't it doesn't matter because we made offer supports to the transgender student but it doesn't mean we're going to discipline

194when I think when I say it doesn't matter it doesn't matter on the on the level of disciplining the child who made a mistake three times but especially your younger students they're going to make mistakes and that's developmentally appropriate and it's not anything that would be considered bullying so basically this District should just take on the the uh ideal of of if I walk up to a student and call them redhead and I continually do it when that child has specifically told me can you please stop calling me redhead we would discipline that child that continued to call that kid redhead when we say discipline I want to make sure we're clear on what that means that doesn't mean suspend yeah yeah there would be some sort of discipline there or discussion or intervention and

195this is the same thing if a child continually uses the wrong pronoun and if they're doing it on purpose then we want to jump in and try to solve that but we're not but the district needs to know that we're not in the business of punishing children for making mistakes correct this leads to a little bit of a paradox because if you can't tell other parents about this kid's confidential transition but the students is being of their kid is being punished for failing to you know say you accuse them of bullying for not using the right pronouns how do you talk to the parents that and say in your kid's bullying because they're not calling that kid by the right pronouns because you can't tell them they're not calling that kid by the right pronouns

196that's a bit of a paradox well we're balancing protecting confidentiality but also dealing real life right if a student is transitioning in front of their entire class then obviously everyone is aware of what the student's legal name was before the student transition what their preferred name now is so we have some leeway to disclose you know obviously the entire class knows right so the parent likely knows based on what the student is coming home and telling his or her parents but when it comes to I think the confidentiality piece is really important when you have a student that transitioned let's say in kindergarten and now we're talking about middle school so the students that know the child only know the child since their transition so we're really trying to maintain that student's confidentiality due to

197that transition that occurred years ago this is just a maybe I want to put it is a legal Minefield this whole topic but a lot to think about and it's incredibly nuanced and there's still litigation as we've talked about um but but being I think whatever we're doing no pun intended has to be fluid in terms of you know as the legal situation changes over time we have to adapt and change but the key thing is I think my mind is solidified and I appreciate you coming today is to really really think about as a district that we have to be transparent so everybody whatever we determine these principles are and is to you know is to be transparent so everybody in the community understands that this is not something that's willy-nilly it's done through

198a process and we we go through that process and as I said that process may need to change over time I I assume that once we do the guidelines and the principles or standard operating procedure that we might want to have you review it of course happy to do it no yeah moreover I think we want to emphasize that we're supportive I think that's the bottom line is that we're supportive and student-centered at the end of the day in our you know our language can convey our support of using they are using you know parents just any of these inclusive terms because you just don't know you know so yes this has been super helpful thank you thank you thank you for having me this evening oh thank you Michelle I think we did though

199want to have a discussion as the next steps if that's before we move on I agree 1 000 because I think I think it's imperative that we not just hear what we heard today and then not talk about it for the next four months many districts haven't had to deal with any transgender issues many districts have had multiple transgender issues I think the biggest failure is when a district just Waits until they get their first transgender request or so I think we should just have this discussion figure out how we want to handle our quote-unquote policy guideline however we want to call it and draft it up get it out to the public put it up on our website and everyone know you know that this is how we're handling it and I think it's

200pretty clear from the discussions we had today and ones in the past that this district is is moving in the direction of wanting to be you know supportive of and then just trying to figure out how to handle it on a day-to-day basis and and make sure that the community understands how it's going to be handled and everyone's comfortable with it so if I think we should continue moving forward and getting it taken care of before it becomes a situation where we're rushing to get something done or for no reason do we want then to to send it to the policy committee as a starting point or or would you like something different well if you guys are not I mean we're being recommended not to make a policy so I don't think we should

201send it to the policy committee so it can never be just my opinion so it could never be construed that it was intended to be a policy I don't think we should be making policies until we have pure direction this should just be a guideline and I don't want to make it look to the world if we send it to the policy committee and then the policy committee responds to us it almost makes it look as if we're but I would yield to our attorneys to give us advice on that yeah this is your policy committee work on administrative procedures no they just do the high level policy yeah then probably you'd want a separate body to deal with that then if that's not typically in the scope you certainly could ask the policy committee

202to do it with the guidance and and directive that we're not creating a policy we're doing a procedure but maybe you just want to have a special committee kind of work on this and charged with this to bring something back can you guys just do it for us and we can read it we could give you a first draft I I said that yeah we would probably typically do is give you a draft there would be a lot of the issues in there there may be blanks in there with options like hey here's where you need to make a choice but I think this is important Tony I just have written down this is procedures not policies so the board can be involved but definitely the administration and other components of the district if it's

203procedures which is not well two things I mean yes the administration should definitely be involved but this is such a sensitive topic that I do think a lot of districts want a board member involved too because it is a pretty high profile kind of but not solely you know too in addition Michelle do you have anything to add to that or no no okay and I think the administration and I'd love to see some public facing Communications on this maybe you know on our website that where this information is easily accessible to all stakeholders families in the districts that that people are aware of the supports that we do provide and you know some of the legal aspects of their rights I agree and Denise I I really like the makeup of this board for

204this specific topic so I'd like every board member to have input not just one so then get a first draft from Michelle and then yes and then we'll regroup whenever the in a month or two of thank you Michelle thank you I really appreciate it Michelle okay next on the agenda A6 is e-rate projects and MJ is going to help us out with that okay does anyone need to stretch for a moment okay um well thanks for your time tonight um as as my memo had stated the district is planning on two Network infrastructure projects for this round of the federally funded e-rate program so for our first project the district is in need of upgrading its Network firewall appliance which is like the Gateway into connecting the outside internet connectivity service to our internal

205Network since now the district has a 10 gigabit pipe with the Illinois Century Network or the ICN this actually falls in line uh nicely with our refresh cycle that we had planned for the firewall about seven years ago so as mentioned in the memo um included in the bids for the firewall are three-year subscriptions for standard URL filtering threat prevention as well as a a four hour premium level of support the four hour premium level of support allows us to obtain a replacement firewall within a four hour time frame should our firewall become non-operational um currently the district does run two firewalls with the next day replacement plan and the reason why we went through that is at the time we had a smaller bandwidth and we just felt like it would be um best

206for the district for to have a second firewall that we could Implement in case one had gone down um but at this time in the district's current situation with a larger bandwidth we are recommending that we move to just one firewall since the cost of a firewall increases when we have more bandwidth to have to handle so we felt that keeping the two firewall scenario would be cost prohibitive at this time so going with a four hour premium level support would allow the district to achieve similar recovery time but at a lower cost structure uh so lastly over the seven year period since our last firewalls were put into place there have been many developments on management tools for the two firewall scenario that would enable our technology network manager to more efficiently in time

207and attention manage the two appliances but again we felt like we could save more money without having the cost of these management tools and to firewalls and all the subscriptions that really uh the one firewall scenario would be appropriate at this time is there any questions about that what What's the total cost uh well we're getting bids right now we're estimating uh this particular at about 100 K before e-rate discount so you've gone out for bid we're going out right now yes what you haven't you haven't gone out yet uh we we are in the midst of going out and getting pricing now uh which in our January meeting I'll be bringing forward the results of our bidding process MJ could you just do a little bit of review because it's different than we would

208except it's in another way so just to make sure we're clear just the highlights of what is the process when you have to get pricing oh so the e-rate process we fill out what's called a force form 470 and that gets posted out um in terms of like the the details and the scope of work that we're looking for then we have then that goes out and gets posted through the schools and Library Court core corporation that handles this whole e-rate Federal funding program so with that then we receive then bids from anyone out there who wishes to bid on our scope of work and then we determine most of the cases it's you know lowest bid but whatever is going to fit for uh our scope of work that is needed and then I'm

209bringing that to you in January and with our recommendations so when you do that are you saying you want this Palo Alto firewall 3 400 when you do that is that right the right one that that when you do that bidding process you say I want that type of firewall right how do we know as a board that there aren't alternative I don't know if there's a Palo Alto 3 000 or parallel to 4 000 or or a different brand altogether two thousand how do we know as a board that that um that what other options that you looked at before you narrowed it down to the Palo Alto firewall 3400. uh well part of our process um is as RIT as the I.T department is to know about all of that and to research

210and and find what would be the best fit for what we're trying to achieve in our Network so at this time going out to for a yeah as good stewards of taxpayers right if if if say that was you know something that did 99 of that but was 80 you know 80 000 instead of a hundred thousand like that's where I'm I'm lost I can't you know I'd like to kind of understand like this if you went with a different a slightly different solution could you save a lot of money or is it just not I mean there's trade-offs for for all of that and so uh I can get you that information if you'd like we've done our cost comparisons and we've also done our study of what it is out that's being offered

211out there and what specific functionality and capacity that we're in need at this time just understanding that you've done that is great I just like but is there was there another option considered that was significantly lower or were they all pretty tight were they all within about ten thousand dollars yeah they're all they're all generally pretty tight there are some particular things that we like about the Palo Alto device as well as having used that having use and are very familiar with that device we like the control that it does provide in comparison to other things that might be out there yeah so that's helpful okay thank you good questions any other so the second project for e-rate is the continuation of our switch infrastructure um refresh and while this project has been in our

212scope for the past few years I've brought this to the board over the last couple of years we've run into lately a lot of huge delays with product manufacturing and shipping and so even though we're ordering this they're telling us it's a 12-month you know delivery and even when 12 months come by it's we're still waiting for stuff so um with that said we have had to cancel orders we haven't been able to refresh our switches in the schedule that we would like it to be at this point right now and in fact one of the models just went end of life while we were still waiting for it to be delivered so we're trying to juggle all of that while still maintaining a good you know proactive structure in all of this because we

213don't want to be stuck with a huge price tag in the end so we are coming to you again to try to upgrade our and refresh our switches at this time hopefully we'll be able to get as things recover and we're seeing it recover that we'll be able to at least do this project this summer as well and the cancellation of of the stuff that you wanted to implement do and due to the lack of availability of it didn't cost us anything no it didn't cost us anything we just ended up not buying it okay um any other questions so this is not an action item but it'll come back in January right an item okay all right all right thank you MJ thank you okay um Now we move to our summer session report

214and approval for the summer session 2023 so Lori come on up it's always nice on a snowy rainy night to turn our eyes to Summer um so about this time of year we start to plan for uh summer school and last summer you might remember that we had a reduced program that was presented at Lincoln middle school so um because of the construction across the district so we had a program that was about one-third of the size of our typical program we served about 600 students and while we typically try to break even we made about fifteen thousand dollars in profit um next summer that was a 14 uh that was that last Summer's sessions were composed of two 14-day sessions this summer what we're proposing because of the way some of the holidays follow

215fall is two 12-day sessions we have holidays this coming summer on June 19th and then July 4th is a Tuesday and because July 3rd is a Monday we've typically closed on that day because we have a very low student attendance and people are usually traveling over that long weekend um so we'd like next year to move back to our more typical program of serving kindergarten through third grade students at Washington school and our fourth through seventh graders at Lincoln School we would hire a principal for Washington and continue to have our 12-month Middle School assistant principals support our students at Lincoln um we would run the same registration process as we have in the past and maintain the same refund process as we have in the past we would like to increase tuition to 135

216dollars for each 12-day session we haven't increased pay for staff in five years and we're starting to become that competitive with other schools in the area that hire summer school staff so we'd like to do that [Music] um and then of course after April 15th tuition would increase from 135 dollars to 155 dollars last year uh tuition cost at Lincoln for those uh 14 day classes was 130 dollars of course when we moved to two buildings we significantly increased the size of summer school and we have those additional staffing needs that become fixed costs so tonight we're asking that the board approves these recommendations and then we will move forward and finalize the course schedule and begin uh hiring staff and Lori just kind of in general is most of the summer school staff within

217our district or comes from other districts or is it just kind of it it varies from year to year we do have teachers who return each summer and we have staff who have taught enrichment courses who have returned each summer but it does vary any other questions from Lori yeah um last year we um we had it in Lincoln because of the construction yes one of the I think one of the reasons that we didn't have to hire much administrative staff which you mentioned um and that helped keep the costs down so we flagged um just curious could you explain why we're going back to the the two two is it is it space it's it's space constraints if we want to have a more expanded program so last year we did get feedback from

218parents that they were missing some of the expanded program that we had had in the past um especially for our k-3 students it's nice for them to have uh I think lots of different opportunities last year when we were at Lincoln we were trying to keep the majority of our kindergarten and first grade classes on the first floor and so that really limited that that kind of programming so just in order to expand it we'd like to have it at two schools and then that does then necessitate a need for two principles two custody audience to nurses and and a more expanded staff do you have some projected numbers in terms of enrollment we do have projected numbers but one of the things that makes this year a little bit tricky is for the past

219several years we have run sort of atypical programs right because of construction last year and then prior to that obviously because of covid so as we return to a more typical program this year I'm being a little bit conservative in my estimates because my fear is that people may have found other things that they would prefer to do in the summer also this summer we don't have grant funding for basic skills classes as we have in the past and sometimes people will sign up for a free basic skills class if their child has that need and then they'll sign up they'll pay for enrichment classes beyond that so I just want to make sure that that we can sort of meet our fixed costs with these estimates and then next year I think we'll have

220a better sense of what what a typical summer school enrollment will be based on this year's Baseline and we can decide where to set the price at that point we may just be able to maintain this current lower price do we have a program to support families with children and summer school that are poverty line yes yes we do I know we do but yes oh yes public to hear that yes and and Larry to your point we advertise that in the brochure and every summer we get phone calls from parents in the business office and I work together to accommodate their requests and again this is projected to to break even that's the intent and always the intent yes yes so we and I anticipate that we will thank you anything else for Lori

221all right if someone wants to this is an action item does someone want to take the motion of communities Illinois approved the recommendations of dates and fees from the 2023 summer interim session Phyllis had the motion second and Nikki had the second further discussion from the board okay let's take a roll call yes thank you Lori okay next we're moving on to uh A8 on the agenda and it's the first reading and policy approval of policy seven colon 70 which is attendance insuranceing um anything we want to talk about here on this do we want to take the motion and then have a discussion I move that the Board of Education if Community Consolidated School District 64 Park Ridge Niles Illinois wave a second reading and approve the revisions to policy 7 colon 70 attendance

222and truancy tonight on its first reading to comply with legislative changes and isbe requirements Tom had the motion is there a second a second sorry okay I'm going with Phyllis all right so Phyllis had the second okay how about discussion from the board and these policy thoughts go ahead yeah I I think the real only you know I think substantive change that I saw that affect other than some legal things and Reporting requirements was around the attendance at a Civic event um as being an excusable absence would that include something because it it defines it in the footnotes a little bit but it's a little vague would it include something like if because we don't give veterans day off so if somebody wanted to go to the memorial the memorial and see the ceremony you

223know or that would count as that that's that's what it meant okay so it's vague so that as you said it's kind of vague so um but we can certainly do that in that case and that that that yeah that would be a Civic event yeah yeah okay anything else okay if there's not further discussion let's take a roll call yes yes yes okay next on the agenda is A9 our Personnel report and so Jones making his way up here if anyone has any I don't know if Joel you want to say anything or if anyone has questions for Joel sorry uh this is pretty straightforward but I'm happy to answer any questions other than Personnel reports that the board might have Kristen leaf she did we shouldn't allow Miss Hernandez to retire agreed yeah

224we need to keep her okay anything else for Joel it's a short person I'll report today um all right if someone wants to have the motion I moved at the board of education of of community Consolidated School District 64 Park Ridge Niles Illinois approved the Personnel report dated December 15 2022 noting that the Personnel report is based on the recommendation of the superintendent and not upon the board's direct knowledge regarding any of the specific individuals selected for employment is there a second second all right Nikki at the motion Tom had the second any further discussion from the board okay real call yes yes yes yes yes Pearl yes thank you okay thank you Joan okay next we have the consent agenda uh first or are there any items that need to be moved off there

225from the board before we take them as a group okay all right why don't we take the action item I moved at the board of education of community Consolidated School District 64 Park Ridge Niles Illinois approved the consent agenda for December 8th which includes bills payrolls and benefit approval a financial update for the period ending October 31st 2022 approval of intergovernmental agreement with the city of Parkridge for crossing guards and destruction of audio closed recordings none you know did you say the adoption of the school calendar did I miss that I didn't hear that yeah this is a separate uh that's what it should be in there because it's in the consent agenda can I can I propose a friendly Amendment so yeah let's let's do an amendment we can add it thank you Gareth

226if it's a friendly Amendment if you accept it then we don't have to vote on the amendment thank you okay okay so we now have the school calendar is in the motion so Phyllis made the motion is there a second second all right Tom's got the second okay for the discussion from the board question on the intergovernmental agreement with the city of Park Ridge Crossing Guard Services so we're uh just to clarify the the cost sharing portion of it uh is due to you know trying to we're we're both hiring people to do the same intersection what do you mean explain that well so the the school district agrees to pay the city an annual amount equal to a percentage of City's actual cost of hiring a crossing guard for a city intersection so this

227this agreement uh identifies intersections as City intersections or School intersections and we are uh we are going to share we're going to pay the city is going to actually hire the crossing guards to work those intersections and we're going to pay half of it uh my question is is the city's cost to hire the crossing guard is the same as our cost to hire those crossing guards the city has outsourced the crossing guards to any frein and we're splitting it with him 50 50. right so but currently we're not doing that currently uh this year we are they have uh because of the trouble that they had last year um finding crossing guards they had to Outsource to Andy Frain um we're paying them we've been paying them but uh because the cost of antifrain

228is so much more than the cost of an average uh crossing guard next year that cost is going to increase and we're going to split at 50 50. so up until this intergovernmental agreement were we hiring the crossing guards no we were still using the city yes the the city always hired the crossing guards and we always paved the city the difference was is the city used a higher crossing guards individually or now they're hiring a contracted service through and ufraine and we're splitting at 50 50 with them were we always splitting at 50 50 or was the city paying for it we were always we were always paying and we probably weren't splitting at 50 50. but because the increase is is significant the a new agreement is that we're going to split at

22950 50. correct and on the we're still going to high the city is going to also handle School considered intersections yes we're not going to hire we are we're not we're not hiring any crossing guard City hires all the crossing guards and we never hired crossing guards because we always hired them for us correct and we always paid 100 of the school required uh crossing the school intersections we always paid the city it's just they would the percentage was a little different the percentages is higher now than it was in the past so I guess my question is is hired by a lot higher by a little I mean going up from approximately 25 000 to almost a hundred thousand so Higher by a lot higher by a lot because Andy frame in contracted service

230because of these struggles to get crossing guards and last year Dr Olson and I met with the police chief multiple times trying to find other ways and trying to find individuals to work and we just couldn't find them we put ads in in our newsletters all last year too uh effects of the market but we've we've always used this we've always used the cities across the guards to do crossing guards for us whether they're city correct City intersections or School intersections correct and now it's just that we have to make a new agreement with the city because the cost has been exacerbated by a lot correct is our percentage going up I'd say so I'd say so I'd say so I mean at the end of the day I mean it's it guys at the

231end of the day the taxpayers are paying for it one way or the other whether it's coming up from our budget or there and and again in all the conversations last year if there was an another way to go about doing this we definitely would but unfortunately because the market and uh being so hard to find crossing guards there is no other way and this and it's a tremendous safety issue and we talk to the parents all the time about the need for crossing guards I mean in reality it's just who's who's paying whose books does it show up on correct it's all coming from the same it's all coming from it's all coming from the same Source it's all coming from the taxpayer Source these books are so it's one more reason it's not

232though because we we have a we have a we have a district that spans Two Towns so it's not coming from this these are the Parkridge this no this all park right yeah but but the taxpayers who elect us come from Park Ridge Niles uh he's well he's saying that the The Crossing oh you're sorry the crossing guards are servicing Niles as well effectively that eight that that additional eighty thousand dollars has been shed amongst both Park Ridge residents and Niles resident a certain portion of Niles residents so just just to make it clear that that it's not that's not exactly true thank you for correcting me because that is a very good point um and just out of curiosity because we you know we do have a school in a couple of schools here

233in Niles like didn't Niles provide any and what's that deal if they do what's up but we don't have crossing guards at we don't have crossing guards for Emerson or Jefferson which is in Niles so all the crossing gods are in a park rich people when you go across Oakton they're Parkridge they're all the par they're all Parkridge Crossings the line is right on Ogden right so it's it's Parkridge crossing guards does Emerson not need crossing guards we we don't have we don't have them do we have crossing guards for Lincoln uh yes but I I it's more at the intersection of where uh where Lincoln is Washington so I think it may be more for Washington than it's for Lincoln technically but Emerson has a crossing guard at Oakton yeah yeah but is it

234is it is it the Nile side or is it the Park Ridge side no but I'm just saying I don't want to say that Emerson doesn't have there's there's someone helping students cross it open like Oakton and no there is but I know there's a human there I know there's a body there right I'm trying to figure out where where that body came from and Ukraine because it was spawn in this one uh unfortunate unfortunately sorry what's the reason Gareth I I don't know I just like I mean a little bit more okay who said who set the percentage who set the percentage the city manager City Finance director um I don't know which city I I do not know which individual from the city I don't know if it's a city manager or City

235Finance director who discussed the mou with the city of Park Ridge um did they just say Here sign this no no no not at all we met so uh there's an in so there's an individual from the finance department and there's an individual from administrative services that we had meetings with to discuss this it was not the city manager I could tell you that okay Adam did I say it there's a challenge for us on waiting on this can you talk about that a little bit uh the uh they wanted the agreement in place by December 31st so I guess my my reservation is normally when we're dealing with mousse we just okay they're brought to us I mean typically you know we have an mou with the park district hey talk about it are

236we gonna are we gonna share using the same uh you know the same chemicals on our Lawns and we have a small discussion on it I would I would agree that the timeline was just this one just kind of sprung up and it was kind of you know like all I almost I almost missed it I would agree that the timeline was rushed but that it was not rushed on the district's doing this up they put our back again but no it shouldn't shouldn't it have been shouldn't it have been an actual action item instead of just in consent agenda for us to actually discuss I'm trying to figure out how it ended up like lumped in with bills payrolls approval of financials the last the last time we did the IGA with where we

237do the IGA with the park district we've done another consent agenda but we discuss it we have conversations about it like it's brought to us and says hey you know what the park districts want wants to do this what do you guys think how do you this was this is I I I'm not just I'm I'm just procedurally the last two igas we did with the park district we did it on the consent agenda okay the city's Council fiscal year ends December 31. I don't think there's any other reason why they would want to push first and and you yes you are correct so they can they can wait till the next fiscal year there's just budgeting is just going to be a little bit messed up um so so I'm gonna I would you

238take a friendly amendment to remove that item from the okay but then I move I move that we amend the original motion to uh exclude the mou of the city of Park Ridge on the Crossing codes I'll second Okay so so there's a motion on the floor to remove the um intergovernmental agreement for the crossing guards from the consent agenda it was introduced by any board member because you're making a motion to table that item so you are asking for it to be removed yes I am you can do that in it okay so now for meeting does that motion take precedence of it okay then I moved the table the mou okay okay consent agenda knows everything else first you have to resolve the motion to table first okay so now the issue is

239it's out of consent agenda right and now we are voting on whether we want to table it or vote on it or vote on it but why are we why do you guys want to just table it I mean the agreement's already made and we need Crossing those I well because we were told that the the uh the difference in what it used to cost us to what it's going to cost us is rather significant and not okay so so we would I think the reason the table it is to discuss yeah and maybe have another conversation with the city to see if we can negotiate something that is not so drastically expensive to us or there might be other things we want to negotiate with the city too but why why should I mean

240if we get that the number went up but we don't know so if the number went up from 20 000 to a hundred thousand but we were paying 20 of the twenty thousand why are we now paying 50 of the hundred thousand why don't we just pay 20 of the hundred thousand so I'm more I'm more concerned that our percentage sharing I I get that the number went up if the number went up we still pay the same percentage we used to pay and we we cover the difference of the increase the city came to somebody and said we don't like the deal that we had in the past we want a a better deal for the city and I I think what Gareth and I are saying is we like the deal we had

241in the past and we want to have a conversation with the city and find out why we have to change the deal I want to talk to an Alderman and figure out what what the deal is and and and what the deal used to be what the deal they want right now and then and talk to them about it that's what I I want to who made that decision yeah okay that makes sense but does that affect us having crossing guards for the rest of this year no but it I don't know for sure it may be possible that it may impact us not having crossing guards in January not to say that that isn't the reason not to do it I'm just just so the board's aware if we don't accept OU does the

242old mou continue or do crossing guards just go away yeah I guess the old contain the old mou continues from what I understand unless the city is going to do something that is probably not what the city of Park Ridge would do which is just say okay well we don't have an mou we're out of mou so no crossing guards for nobody I do not know for sure okay I trust you know I imagine they have a contract with who they Outsource with for a year that runs because they only signed in the summer they have yeah they have a conscious what I do know the city I do know the city as a contract with Andy Frain and it is it is a one plus one plus one what's a one plus one plus

243one right they're going to do a year with the possibility of another year and possibility of another year expire I I do not know they entered into it I do not know I do not know if it's a December 31st or if it's June 30th okay so that's a big you know difference because if it's June 30th we have plenty of time to talk to them and so no no I think you're going to vote but then I have a question afterwards yeah call the question let's yeah so we're voting can I can I just clarify this wasn't a Friday member at one point I think December two yes yeah and then it was in the board I had the agenda a week early so I just wanted you know it just didn't come up

244yesterday so I just wanted to throw that out in the realm of communication no one said it came up yesterday so now we're voting on the the tabling motion to table okay roll call I vote Yes to table yes Pearl no B no why television no yes so that part of that okay so then question yeah just on that no question for board members I think I heard from uh Gareth saying that he wanted to talk to an alderman so is am I taking that as board members are going to interact with the city council and get back to Administration or is Administration going to talk to city council I think uh I would I want to talk to them from the political standpoint of okay they wanted politically and if they've approved it but

245you should also talk to the administration over there okay I'm going to wait for you to get some answers as to why the percentage was so drastic yeah I'm only interested in you dealing with the city manager or the City Finance director and as to why they want to bump it for twenty five thousand to a hundred thousand okay over coffee I'll probably talk to some aldermen but it has nothing to do with what you do okay and I I don't think the question here is is the cost the increase in costs because we know that that's probably necessary to get quality uh it's the it's the split that I'm wondering why what was triggered what triggered the split it could have been easily said hey guys just just so you know your percentage is

246going to be the same but your cost is going to be higher because we have to hire more expensive people I would have been I would have been voting on that right now but now that we were also asked to increase our our contribution to it and I was just wondering I'm wondering why all of a sudden they want us to help out pay more percentage Yeah I I agree because there was certainly a safety issue there's a lot of intersections when unmanned um it last year so I'm all in favor of them finding a solution and I understand it costs more money but it's all about the split okay thank you very much for clarification okay so now we have the other okay so now we have the motion for the consent agenda agenda

247minus the intergovernmental agreement okay so any further discussion on that okay let us take a roll call yes yes yes yes okay next we have approval of minutes um from the November 15th special meeting and then November 17th most of the close and the regular so I want to make the motion I move that the Board of Education Community Consolidated School District 64 Park Ridge Niles Illinois approved the minutes from the special meeting on November 15 2022 the closed meeting on November 17 2022 in the regular meeting on November 17 2022. all right Larry the motion is there a second Phyllis says the second any discussion from the board okay roll call yes Pearl yes yes Kennedy yes Ryan yes okay um next we have um other information and Eric you are on for that

248I first just wanted to thank the board for enjoying our inaugural meeting here at Jefferson so um thanks for your participation in that and then I think Denise maybe there we wanted to do a follow-up on Triple I yeah so I don't know um if Carol or Phyllis and then I can share a few of us attended triple I any what you gained from it you want to share something from there um so I attended sessions on related like discipline safety um other legal issues what's helpful though is that um what is it I ASB right they have all of the slide decks and all the information is handouts sorry I can't talk too well I thought um those are all available for download on the website so I could circulate that or I'll give

249you guys the link for that I think that would just be the most helpful because you can scroll through whatever topics you're interested in so that's available even if you did not register but yeah there are a lot of hot topics related to you know and I I think one thing was disciplined too because since the pandemic a lot of students are having you know problems it's not just our district it's Statewide and then it was interesting um talk to people in other districts too and surprisingly one superintendent I believe from another District said oh the pandemic brought us closer together because they're on the same page about not following certain mandates and things like that so it was you know very a very different experience in other areas of of the state and we're

250not necessarily really exposed to that too much up here Phyllis I actually attended a session on diversity and inclusion because I wanted to learn more about it and understand it better for myself personally and I found it to be completely informative they did have a QR code you could check out that you can download and check out different documents and it was extremely informative I think more people probably should do a little more research on that diversity and inclusion and it would have a better understanding it I mean it did a lot for me so that's the session I attended I had lunch with Denise and a 207 board member and I like Carol said I enjoyed there were other districts I thought I was also a delegate so there were 787 schools there um

251or there's 780 something school districts in Illinois there were like 400 almost 500 there voting and it was nice to see and talk to other districts and see their perspective and like Carol said I think the downstate committees and school boards got closer together because they're so much smaller and they probably didn't have the politics that we have going on here but it was nice to hear from other school boards and attendance and teachers and I think other people on our board have given the chance you should do it try out some sessions I missed Adams because I was Voting at the same time that his presentation was going on but it was a good time it was informative uh yes and I would um yeah Phyllis and I went to lunch with the new

252um appointed uh District 207 board member Ed so it was good to have some relations there and I love the um the keynote speakers one of them which is I think uh connected to what we did tonight they said good conflict is like there's passion complexity curiosity which is I think what we had tonight where high conflict is rigidity certainty righteousness contempt maybe violence and so I just appreciated how the conversations were went tonight in the the public speaking so it was a great chef the chef did a great presentation too I loved it so it was on Sunday so go and Adam did a great job I was there to heddle him and you know yes to support you there okay all right um how about new business any board members have new business

253okay um and on the agenda was that the aboard was going to adjourn to a closed meeting uh is there do we need to go to a closed meeting anymore I don't think we need to right anyone from the board okay so that is um so is there a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second okay thanks we'll say Nikki at the motion and uh Tom had the second and it is 10 59 p.m December 15th and the board is adjourned