001I am reconvening into open session Township High School District 113 regular action meeting on Tuesday, February 20th at seven p.m. A roll call, please. Mr. Pira. Yes, please. Mr. Braza here. Dr. Elliott Schermer here. Mr. Heineman here. Mr. Nader here. Mr. Newman here. I would like everyone else present to identify themselves. Executive Secretary Tom Krueger, Chief Human Resources Officer. Michael Locke, Assistant Supervisor Gilm Instruction Assessment. Karen Warner, Director of Communications. He might be busy. Polly Mahanjusan, Sub Finance. Debbie Finn, Principal Highland Park High School. Ron Casbom, Chief Information Officer. Mira Antti, Assistant Superintendent, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Bruce Law, Superintendent. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended to move item 2B, personal notice before, I'm sorry, 7B, personal notice before 7A. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Yes, please. Opposed? Abstention?
002Motion carries. Okay, first item on the agenda is the President's Report. This serves as my first President's Report. It is especially meaningful as the business of the meeting tonight is to approve the contract for our new Superintendent. And so I want to take a moment tonight to state the work of the Board, what we do and what we don't do. The Board sets goals and priorities for the professionals who manage the day-to-day operations of our district. We do this in three ways. Oversight of our one employee, the Superintendent, by adopting district policies and serving as fiduciary agents of the district. As we stated in our communication last Wednesday to students, staff and caregivers, we take actions that serve our students and that align accountability with compassion, all within the framework of our district's policies and
003procedures. A Board should not, and this Board does not, hire, evaluate or manage staff, set or develop curriculum, including choices of curricular materials or instructional methods, or make daily management and operational decisions, such as how to deliver instructional minutes. This Board is committed to a continued productive partnership with the DEA and with all of our other employees to put our mutual interests and respect for each other, our students and the community, at the forefront of all decision-making. A couple of other items of housekeeping for, as the President's report, I did want to make sure that everyone was aware that the Board seat vacancy application is still open and will close on March 1st at 3 p.m. You can go to the district website to see the form for applying. And second, I also wanted to
004make sure that everyone in the Highland Park High School world was aware of the survey that recently went out to parents and all and staff and students and everyone that is related in that process so that a profile of a principal can be put together. I know that focus groups are also happening this week for the Highland Park High School principal job. And that is my President's report for the evening. Moving on to Administrative Information Reports, Dr. Law. Thank you Ann. So February 26th through March 1st, I just want to let the Board know it is Public Schools Week. It doesn't get a lot of press Public Schools Week, but it's really, really, at least it's important to me. I think it should be important to all of us. Public Schools is an important public
005good. Public schools, unlike private schools or the way other schools work, we take all students who live within our attendance area and we provide them the best education available in order to allow them to pursue what they want to do in our case after high school. And I think it's worth celebrating that we have this thing in the United States called Public Schools and February 26th. Since 1981, this has been a public holiday. I just want to point this out as we point out these various weeks that keep coming out in the second semester. Next week is Public Schools Week. After that, we have some good news. There's an award called Those Who Excell. Illinois State Board of Education let us know that we have a member of our school community who's been selected for
006the 2020 For Those Who Excell and Teacher of the Year Award. And this award is going to Dan Kim for Meritorious Service. He's a teacher at Deerfield High School. That's very interesting. And the award of Meritorious Service, these are presented for educators who have shaped, I'm reading from, shaped their school community for the better. I think that certainly represents Dan's work. So congratulations, Dan. I'm glad that it'll be recognized. The other thing, last thing in my report, I know the board has gotten a lot of emails asking about science and so I wanted to just give the board a little background information. If you have questions, feel free to ask. The question is how we're offering science labs. Not if there are going to be science labs, but when they will be delivered. Currently the
007way it works is when students have class, there is a class that they set aside in their schedule in order to be able to have a science lab. And this is the question that's come up. How are we going to manage it? This issue I think has been discussed at least since I've been here and I'm sure it predates me. So as the board knows, in March we're bringing a staffing recommendation. This is the most important thing really that administration that we do. And so we want to pull this into this discussion because, just want to make sure the board understands, when students select courses, those courses are divided by a number. It creates the number of sections for that course. That and those, the number of sections in a course, let's say let's take
008English for example, would be divided by five and that's how we get an FTE. In science we divide by four and that gives us an FTE. Now I want to make sure that everyone understands. Science teachers, because of the lab periods that they teach, they teach the same number of minutes. It's not as though science teachers work any less hard than any other. That's not the case. But as far as the staffing recommendation goes, and this is why this is really important to us right now, we need to know when we're going through sectioning how we're going to be doing this. For example, if you had eight classes in English, that would be 1.6 FTE because eight divided by five is 1.6. Science sections would be 2 FTE because eight divided by four is two.
009So that difference, that point four difference is really important to us as we go through sectioning because, as the board knows, we've talked about this with the finance committee, we talked about this with the board. We have an FY25. We're confident that we have a balanced budget. We're worried about FY26. We've discussed with the board how important it is that when we, in a year, when we have 22 retirements that we're able to solve the budget deficit for FY26 because we don't want the next superintendent to be faced with a budget deficit in her first year. Now, I can use a pronoun. In the past, I've been saying their first year, but not in our first year. So we're trying to sort this out. So the buildings are still working on sectioning. That rolls up
010to district office. We work on it. We spend a lot of hours doing this. The building spent a tremendous amount of time doing this. So we, nothing is final yet. This is really important. This is, at this point, really the direction we're going and it's really a proposal for how we're going to move in the future. But we should be considering that we're in an era in which increasing number of demands are being placed on students, whether it's world languages, career pathways are going to be placing demands on students or all of these things are increasingly placed on students. We really need to be concerned about whether our students are able to take a robust series of electives so they have a well-rounded education, they're able to pursue passions. Right now, what happens is because
011they're in a science lab, that prevents them, that science lab class prevents them from taking an elective. So we're, this is one of the things that we are concerned about and are also trying to factor in. Now I would like to recommend to the board that we have a, I know you have already have a special meeting scheduled on March 12th, but if we could add the staffing recommendation on to March 12th, that would help us. Not only because staffing is such a big, big task, but also it would give schools the opportunity for students who are eligible to take an elective to be able to do that and we can factor that into the staffing recommendation to the board because that is the, that is the board's responsibility is to approve that staffing recommendation
012on March 19th. So that's, that's, we will be coming back to the board with staff recommendation and of course it's happened in the past as it should. The board has lots of questions about decisions that we made that got us to that staffing recommendation number, but if the board could add a staffing onto the agenda for March 12th, that would, as I said, help us with staffing and also for students who are in a position to add an elective would be able to do so. Seaheads nodding, so it looks like March 12th, but to reiterate, nothing is final yet. We're still in the middle of this and also I'll let the board know the DA requested to impact bargain this issue and of course, you know, anytime the DA wants to discuss something, of course
013we discuss it. Any concerns they have, we'll do that. I want to really be careful here because I don't want to start, since they've requested to bargain, I want to bargain in public, but I do think some background information for the board given the emails that you got would be, hopefully would be helpful. If you have any questions about that, I'm happy to. You had mentioned that it would give kids the opportunity to possibly, you know, particularly when we also hear about all of our fine arts students that always feel like they can't take all the classes. I understand that would allow people to take an elective. Would we also be allowing our students that needed to get more help to have a study hall or to be able to get things like that during
014those, you know, we all know the students that typically are very active before school or after school having the time during the day to have a structured time to get help. Would we be allowing that as well? Yeah. I mean, right now, I mean, and we should, we should be clear about this, that the, when students are not in their science lab, then they're in study hall. That is an opportunity for them to, to get interventions and help them. Then it's, it is time that we, we use, but it would, we're, we want to be really thoughtful about this. And then of course the DEA has concerns, the DEA has concerns and of course we'll, we'll address those. But we also need to be thinking about students and their total high school experience. So yes,
015if there's students who need interventions, then there may be a reason for, I don't know if we're phasing this in to start with certain classes and not others. We know that if AP science class, we don't think for the 24, 25, we know that their lab structure is going to stay the same for AP science. So it's, it's a, it's, it shouldn't be coming to the board like this. This is not the way that should work, but here we are. Any other questions? There's some questions about the fact that kids have already chosen classes for next year. As a part of this, there'll be some manner of mechanism for that to reopen or- Right. That's why that extra week, I mean, as I said, we've not decided, you know, nothing is final yet, but if
016this would be part of that decision to be able to say, all right, students, for students who are eligible to take an elective instead of being in a study hall, they may choose to do that. And it could affect when, you know, if they're taking early birth, not taking over. There are a lot of things that could come into play here that, you know, we think would be a benefit to students in their total high school experience. And those electives could be another science or- Oh, sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. It could be on science class. Sure. Well, yeah. And our students take a lot of science classes. So yeah, absolutely. It is definitely important from the board perspective that you and your team continue to work with the DEA to make sure that we do
017have an implementation plan and a communication plan that meets the needs of the students and their educational opportunities. Yes, absolutely. And I think the umbrella of that execution of the plans need to be within the staffing constraints and the timeline that we're currently running. And that timeline, you know, is by April 15th, if we're going to have any layoffs, you know, what we call in school a RIF, reduction in force, that has to be all completed by April 15th, statutory requirement. My preference would be we have absolutely no layoffs. I mean, that is really, really important to me that if, you know, we have a budget situation that we have to address and we are going to do that, we've talked to the board about it, we know what our directive is. But to do
018that without laying anyone off is extremely important. I know to me personally, very, very important. I think it's important to most people that we figure something out other than depriving someone of their job in order to solve that. And when we have 22 teachers retire, we have an opportunity to do that. Any other questions, thoughts? All right, we're moving on to public comments. The Board of Education has a public comment period for a maximum of 30 minutes. We welcome your comments and questions and give them serious consideration pursuant to Board of Education Policy 2-230. Public participation is not intended to be a back and forth discussion between the public and the board. Questions asked during public participation may be sent via email to be answered subsequent to the meeting. Please limit the length of all
019comments. Do we have 25 people that are speaking? Yes, we do. We have. Yes. Okay. There are 25 people who signed up to speak. I have a quandary because we need to move on to the rest of the board business and we want to hear from the public. And so I'm wondering, in order to maximize the number of participants in public comments, I am going to be limiting each comment no more than two minutes so that we can move through the list. All right. The first public comment, Mr. Escobar. First off, everyone in this community and on earth knows there are three minutes. People prepare their comments for three minutes. To come here now and say two minutes to do that doesn't make any sense at all. You guys have plenty of time to sit
020here and hear the results of the decisions that were made. I'd like everyone to know my name is Marty Esger. I'm the president of DEA, but I'm also a longtime member of the community. I'm a parent of four Highland Park High School students, three grads, and a current senior. And I've been a science teacher at Deerfield High School for 31 years. And I want everyone to know for the record that, you know, I suggested that the appointment of the superintendent not happen at this meeting. I'm very sorry that it's happening at this meeting. We really do look forward to working with you and are happy to welcome you, I guess, with our comments. But, but anyway, I want that very clear. And the board was also apprised that this very well could happen before the
021public agenda ever came out. So I just want that on the record. I'm going to throw out a lot of what was said here, because I have to respond to what was just said up there. So I called the meeting February 9th on a Friday to talk to Bruce. I called the meeting. And when I went in there, I was told that we were going to single period science for the upcoming year. There wasn't this, well, we're still working on it or anything else. There was none of that. As a matter of fact, when I returned to Deerfield High School, the principal in my department chair had requested to talk with me to make sure I knew what the decision was going to be. It was a decision. And everyone needs to know it was
022made at a meeting the day before I was told the meeting was the decision was officially made the day before in a meeting. I was told the next day. Superintendent Law then was out for a full week on vacation. And I'm sitting here with this news that is important to teachers, to departments in DEA. I have to talk with people. This is not my news to share. With all due respect, how dare you drop that on me on a Friday and not have a plan to share that news with everyone. That following Friday, the science departments from Highland Park and Deerfield were going to get together so that we could help Highland Park figure out how this would all look doing the Deerfield schedule next year. And we were going to go into that meeting
023and go through all of that and not even know that this decision had been made because it was made on a spur of a moment with no plan, no communication in line. I had to ask the principals to put out something so that we knew the news officially. That news should have come from Dr. Law. And if there's a week vacation, that should have come after the week vacation. That is huge news. This affects so many people in other departments. DEA has requested to bargain not only the impact, but the decision itself. My question and everyone's question is, we just negotiated a contract. How come this wasn't brought up then? I want the board to ask yourselves what new information came about that would have required that this be dropped right at the beginning of
024staffing for the following year. There was a big retirement year, right? You've known that for five years. We submit our retirement notices four or five years out. It's not new information. The contract was signed early in the year. All the information necessary for this, you knew months ago. And right at the beginning of staffing, this is dropped. And to act like this is all still in flux, oh, we're still trying to figure out. Yeah. I tried to ask the principals because Dr. Law wasn't available. What is the plan? What are we going to do? And they couldn't tell me because they didn't know. There was some talk about, well, AP Sciences would probably still have lab periods. And that was as specific as it could get. I mean, shame on you. This was the most
025poorly executed decision ever. And it's a big, huge decision. It is not a light, minor little tweak. And to sit up there and go, well, some kids can now take electives. Ask yourself this, everyone. If you take electives, you're not going to have that period. See, right now, we lab only two days a week. The other is time for kids to go make up tests in the testing center, to work with MTSS, to get interventions. Next year, we say there's a study hall, but the kids are going to enroll in that period. And they're not going to have that free. And there hasn't been a single discussion. How could this happen without a single discussion of any stakeholder? Because I know what kind of work we did to make sure every stakeholder could weigh in
026on what we desired in a superintendent. All the groups interviewed. Not one word to anyone. Thank you. As you'll see, I let Mr. Escargo until, excuse me, Escargo until he was done speaking. I've asked Ron to put the minutes back to three. However, we're going to stop at the 40 to 45 minute mark because we do need to move on to other items. So we will move through this list as we have done in the past. We will welcome emails from, and your speeches can be emailed to us if we're not able to get to you. Mr. Escargo is very clear why we have the meeting tonight to appoint our superintendent. And he's very clear on how we could have had our next meeting with an open forum and the ability to have more people
027speak. Who is next? Ms. Murray. I appreciate the comments that you made and I'll try and stick to three minutes. However, I will start out by saying that those of us who came tonight prepared to speak publicly, took our time to really think through those thoughts. We communicated with each other to try and understand how we could best communicate. And I'm disappointed that there wouldn't be time and that the timeline for staffing, the timeline that happens at the schools, I'm very, very intimately aware of how tight it is. And I have to say that that is the problem with this decision. You do have work to do as a board. You have, you need to hire a strong superintendent, a competent superintendent. And I'm very concerned that because of the way that this decision is
028happening, I'm back speaking before the board again. In 2022, I shared with the board how disappointed I was that working conditions were being changed the day before school ended. An email came out from Mr. Krieger about changes to the working conditions. We came in mass at that time, expressed ourselves as eloquently as we could and as respectfully as we could. But I'm back here tonight saying exactly the same thing. My name is Shannon Murray. I have been in the past an administrator. I am currently a teacher. I've been a club sponsor and a coach since 2004 in this district. When I came to this district, I was trusted as a professional to learn my craft, support students and my colleagues. Then in 2015, I took the step of moving my family here. I am a
029local community resident. My kids are giants. That was by design. All right. I have a graduate who's studying engineering now at University of Colorado. My son is headed. He's a senior and now I have another kid that lives in my household who's a senior. And so I'm just deeply disappointed to be here. I feel like the trust that we've been provided as a department and the experiences that we've provided to kids and quite frankly, the respect for my professionalism has been completely undermined. I feel like I get an email in the middle of a workday when I am in front of kids interacting with kids. And that's kind of hard for me to admit that I do check emails in front of kids because we get things that are timely that we need to know
030about. I was a part of the lockdown last year. So we intermittently check all the time to find out if there's something we need to know. In the middle of class, we get emails stating that there is a major change to our classes next year. I can't even imagine how that happens. We've talked about this since I got here. It hasn't changed because we found that it would be a bad idea to change this. And then suddenly it's just popped on us that we're moving to single period science next year. There was no rationale. There was no plan. There was no communication. Except for this is what you're doing next year. And as a teacher, I'm in front of kids. They're what matters to me. And I have a student who comes to me and
031says, hey, my mom just texted me. Do I need to make a change in my schedule? And I have to say to that child, I can't really talk to you about that right now. I'm sure we'll figure it out. But I need to remain professional, even though everything that I work toward has just been undermined. Do you really think, Dr. Law, that we can make the kinds of changes you're asking us on a whim? Yes, labs can happen in a variety of time periods. They can. Sometimes labs take 15 minutes. Sometimes when kids are in the midst of problem solving, doing it again and again allows them the time they need to figure it out. That's the benefit of lab time. And I've got to tell you that in talking with my daughter today, who
032is at CU Boulder as an engineering student, she graduated in 2020. She was a COVID learner. And in her entry level engineering classes, she said kids, scores of kids dropped out of engineering. It was just too hard. Do you know why she's told me that she was able to make it and that she is a female engineering student in her senior year? Because she had experiences in lab that allowed her the iteration, the design, the kinds of things that allowed her to be in lab, to have those safe experiences that require more time. I'm not looking to take anything away from anyone else, but I will say that we need the time to allow kids to have those kinds of experiences. I think some of my other colleagues are going to speak to what colleges
033expect from kids in science. I think you really need to hear that because it takes more time to learn this. Thank you. Mr. Pujara, again, if I've extended back to three minutes and I understand that you have all worked on putting together presentations, if we can please try to keep it to the three minutes, that would be appreciative because then we'll be able to get through more people. Thank you. Hello, my name is Kanal Pujara. I'm in my 30th year at Highland Park High School. I'm a member of DEA and a teacher of calculus-based AP physics, seed mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and physics honors. I've taught algebra survey, co-taught physics survey fundamentals, physics survey, regular physics, honors physics, and all the levels of physics at Highland Park. My experience of teaching all possible physics levels
034has led me to understand students on the wide spectrum between concrete and abstract thinking. I've taught students with middle school reading and math skills all the way to college level. I want to be clear on this point. I do not support extended time only for AP science class labs. The majority of science students should not be left behind without lab experiences to enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are important in all areas of life beyond high school. Your decision to give additional lab time to only AP science courses creates more inequity that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are trying to remedy. The decision of single period science classes with lab time disenfranchises the majority of students and our marginalized students will be negatively impacted the most. Through this decision of moving to single lab
035period science for all but AP, the district is mirroring elitism and inequity that's happening around the country. Science education research supports lab-based science classes. Lab-based experiences provide concrete connections with abstract concepts and challenge all students to become problem solvers and critical thinkers. When I started here in 1994, our district was committed to making educational decisions based on evidence-based research. I implore you to make an informed decision based on analytical thinking. Please do not rush to a rash conclusion without planning or forethought about the implications. In spite of all this, I'm proud to be a teacher in district 113. I hope that you reconsider this decision to move forward to move forward with single science periods next year. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Matzko and I do apologize in advance that I'm sure I will say
036names wrong and I apologize for that. That's fine. My name is John Matzko. I teach honors biology, anatomy, and physiology and neuroscience at Deerfield High School where I've been teaching since 1995. My family has been teaching in district 113, 112, and 109 for a collective 100 years. This is the first board meeting we have ever spoken at and there's a reason why. I'm also though not going to speak about my role as a teacher at Deerfield High School. There are far more eloquent people who will be able to do that and speak to you on that matter. I'm going to speak to you as a graduate of Deerfield High School because denying equal time for science students by only allowing it for AP students, the people that you would have eliminated that time for would
037have been me. I was an average student. I never took an AP class. You're also denying the same sort of thing as my two children who went to Highland Park High School. As a parent, the way that they were able to get through school was because they had wonderful teachers. Two of them are right here. It was not because of just great teachers though. It was because of time and opportunity. The time and opportunity that I was also afforded when I was a student at Deerfield High School. But I'm also speaking to you as a taxpayer. As somebody who has been in this district for years, I want to know you've come to us twice asking for money to refurbish classrooms for the explicit purpose of laboratory needs. What has changed? I don't think it's
038that time and opportunity has changed. What has changed? Is it your commitment to the students? Do you have some other feeling about how science is supposed to be done? You've asked us before for money twice. I have given you money twice. It will not happen again. You do not want to be in the position of having teachers in your district advocating against future situations where you are going to be asking for money because I will not be made a liar a second time. Thank you for your time. Ms. Pepsnick. Was I close? Pepsnick. Thank you. Hi, my name is Kathy Pepsnick. I'm a Masters Plus 60, 27-year veteran science teacher in District 113. I'm a member of DEA. I've been a club sponsor. I've been a coach. I've co-taught with special education. I've co-taught with
039other disciplines in the school. I have spoken to you before, typically when I'm concerned. At the May 24th, 2022 board meeting, I shared some neuroscience with you. The human brain perceives change without explanation as threat. I am overwhelmed by perceived threat. I have to tell you that my trust in District 113 higher administration, I categorize things as a scientist, so I consider higher administration, I consider building administration, and I consider department administration. That's how our DEA climate surveys often happen. For the first time in my entire career, my trust in every level of administration has been broken. I am in pain. My trust in the board has been broken. Tonight, I'm going to share other research with you. There is a researcher named Brene Brown. She has gone viral with her research on shame and
040vulnerability. I'm going to speak about one of her pillars of trust. That pillar is integrity, choosing courage over comfort, choosing what's right over what's fun, fast, or easy, and practicing your values, not just professing them. I do a deep dive into research when I go into threat. I love professional development. I have my rudder for rigor. I have my cognitive processing styles. I have my guiding principles with me. I would like to share something really, really important with you. In a board meeting in February 2022, I found it interesting that the board was not a directive because in all of my research, I remember the board directing a discussion of schedules. In February of 2022, there was a presentation done to the board, and part of it I'd like to make sure is read. As
041directed by the state of Illinois, starting in 2024-25, two years of laboratory science is required. The state definition of laboratory is students should have opportunities throughout the process to design investigations, engage in scientific reasoning, manipulate equipment, record data, analyze results, and discuss their findings. That requires time. I'm also shocked that it was stated tonight that the time is the same. Teachers in science teach 251 minutes, not 206. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hoyer? Hello, my name's Jeff Hoyer. I've been a science teacher at DHS for almost 30 years. I have a couple of questions tonight for the superintendent and the rest of the school board about the sudden removal of science labs this fall. Eliminating science labs will remove over seven weeks of instruction in science per year. This significantly is going to lower the
042chances of our graduates to compete in college and in their careers. Google the best jobs in America, and you'll find over 80 percent of the highest paying jobs are in the STEM field. Why would we do anything to reduce the chances of our graduates to compete in those areas? My first question is for the superintendent. Why would he make such a major change in the curriculum in such a short period of time? Anybody who works in a school would realize it takes years to make a change of this magnitude, not months. Did we learn nothing from COVID? You all remember that. The teaching and learning dropped dramatically when we were not given the time to prepare for a new way of instruction. Second, Bruce, have you crunched the numbers to find out how eliminating lab
043periods is going to affect the budget in the future? If students have another period free, they're going to sign up for more classes, which means we have to hire more teachers, which is going to cost the district more money. How can we afford that? When you've already told us that we can't afford to have smaller class sizes or to hire the aides that we need now that the survey classes have been eliminated and all those students have been dumped into the regular courses, talk to any of the teachers who are trying to pull that off right now, and they will tell you that the regular classes have slowed down by two to three weeks per semester now that we don't have the survey classes. Add that into the loss of science time, and we are
044talking about over three months of science curriculum lost. Three months. My final question for the whole board. These are questions you need to ask yourself before every vote. First, why would anybody buy a house and move their family into this district? Second, why would a high-quality candidate apply for a job in this district? You see, your decisions are going to affect where people live and work for three decades, not just the rest of your time on board. District 113 used to be one of the most desirable places to work in the state. Unfortunately, District 113 has been embroiled in nearly a constant stream of turmoil for the past 10 or 15 years. This has seriously tarnished our reputation. Madam President, as you take the helm, it's up to you to steer the ship. It's up
045to you to regain the respect District 113 used to have, and it's up to you provide the quality of instruction that our students deserve. Thank you. Ms. Newman. Hello, Board of Education and District 113 community. I am Michelle Newman, a long-time District 113 science teacher and current MTSS science interventionist at DHS. I am here with DEA to shed light on the impact of eliminating science lab periods from Deerfield and Highland Park high schools this coming school year. I wasn't always a high school teacher. Before becoming a teacher, I was a research scientist working first in academia in Boston, then in the pharmaceutical industry in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was an exciting time being part of history, contributing gene sequences that culminated in mapping the human genome. I spent every day in a science lab working with
046the scientists from all over the world, Turkey, Thailand, Poland, Italy, China, and the U.S. Although we all spoke different languages, we shared a common passion for scientific discovery, the methods for discovering inheritance patterns for neurological disorders and diabetes. Every week we carried out investigations. We presented our findings. We analyzed data, interpreted patterns and trends, used computational models, and asked more questions to plan out further investigations. These practices that I just mentioned are being applied in the real world by scientists from all over the world and are also the bedrock of the next generation of science standards, NGSS, which were designed to prepare students with real world applications. So from the NGSS home page, the goal was to create research-based standards for students, but also to give educators, and I quote, the flexibility to design classroom
047learning experiences that simulate student interest in science and prepare them for college careers and citizenship. Simply put, science and therefore science education is central to the lives of all. Yet, we were made aware this past Wednesday that we will be transitioning to single period science classes. Why would we take away time for students to collaborate and safely acquire laboratory skills that prepare them for life beyond high school? It simply doesn't make sense. The decision to eliminate science labs was made unilaterally, and the impact will be felt by our students when they attempt to pursue their interests beyond high school. This is an era where education, industry, politics, countries, the entire world is talking about the importance of STEM, opening the doors to many different careers, engineering, science, research, but also applying it to other careers
048in law, politics, and education. Taking away science lab time is not what is best for our students. It's a poor choice. You shouldn't do it. History is watching. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Ms. Hernandez, thank you. I'm trying to say the next name so we can keep going through as quickly as possible. Hello, my name is Heather Hernandez. I'm a Highland Park resident, parent of two future giants, Highland Park high school science teacher and DEA member. Clear, effective, transparent, and respectful communication is an art, but also a necessity. Clear communication involves notification of all stakeholders when a major decision is being considered and to seek input from those stakeholders. It is not announcing a decision before the staff, students, or parents were even aware a decision having a major impact on all of
049these groups was even under consideration. By making a decision this way, it is impossible to gather input from stakeholders who could express concerns about the impact of such a choice. Effective communication is carefully thought out. It is best practice when giving difficult news to do that face to face so that those can respond to immediate questions and concerns by those impacted. It is not sending an email with relatively little information in the middle of a class period during a school day after outside community members already had this information and shared it on social media. It does not create chaos. By notifying only science staff members to a change in planned science schedule rather than the entire school staff and community, counselors were also left unable to appropriately respond to parent concerns and parents did not
050have access to the information they needed for their registration concerns. Transparent communication involves the decision maker taking ownership. It does not mean that someone other than the decision maker should be announcing the choices to the stakeholders. It does not mean leaving our counseling department to handle responses and information released to parents though they had no part in the decision making. Respectful communication acknowledges the impact of a decision that will have on the stakeholder groups. Respectful communication demonstrates recognition of the fact that staff has spent multiple years and countless hours at the request of the district to design curriculum to de-survey courses, never once having it notified that they would have a significant reduction in course time. Respectful communication is not thinking that this can just be completely thrown out and modified in a matter of
051months for every single course in a department. This is disrespectful of the time and energy that went into the planning. Respectful communication acknowledges that a decision will have a major impact on student course planning and school experience and provides a system to handle questions about those concerns. The communication I received about science class time came less than two hours after receiving an email from the board indicating a commitment to a continued partnership with the district 113 education association and with all of our employees to put our mutual interests and respect for each other students in the community at the forefront of all decision making. How poorly timed. The actions of this district this week have been in complete opposition to that commitment. If I'm honest, I'm tired. I'm tired of the district saying there's a
052commitment to good healthy processes and communication and then actions that fly in the face of those words. I'm exhausted showing up to make the best student educational experiences I can in spite of rather than because of the actions of this district. Thank you. Obinger. My name is Barb Obinger. I have taught here for 33 years. I have two kids that graduated from DHS. I live in the community. I'm a DEA member and I have prepared comments that I'm going to pitch because they've been said and because I am angry and insulted. We were told years ago we're going to desurvey. Okay, this is a difficult decision. This is something that's going to take us time. We were given some time. We have written the team that I work on. We have rewritten an entire science
053curriculum every year for at least two to three years. That is a huge undertaking. We asked, we asked what's going to happen with double periods. We ran it up the chain and we were not told that this was going to happen. Now we have a curriculum that we have written ready to go for next fall for when we actually desurvey chemistry and we have to throw it away and we have to start again from the ground up. I'm one of those 22 retirees and I have spent two years not celebrating that I'm going to leave this place. I love this place. I have spent two years trying to put this curriculum in the very best place I possibly could so that when I leave my co-workers and my students can still progress and feel really
054good about what they do and I don't know how I feel about retiring now. I don't know whether I'm happy to wash my hands of all of this and walk away or whether I feel like I should stay and fix it because it's screwed up. I was the kid in high school who didn't have lab. I walked into my first college class and I was devastated by the laboratory chemistry that kids knew how to do that I didn't. I had no idea how to catch up with my peers but I did it. I don't want to put another kid in that spot. I'm so thankful my two kids aren't in that spot. They know what they're doing. My daughter is a mechanical engineer. It's a theme. It needs to happen. It's the right choice for
055kids and for the staff. What have you done to us? Thank you and I'm sorry Jamie Staszarowski. Thank you. Got you. Can I blame it on your handwriting jokingly? Can you say your last name again for me? You can just call me Mrs. Stasz. Mrs. Stasz? Okay. Staszarowski. I'll say it again right now. My name is Jamie Staszarowski. I'm a DEA member with 18 years of dedication to teaching the students of Deerfield High School. We just started a chem club by the way. Also very fun. District 113 sent me and seven others to Harvard two weeks ago for one week to learn the process of something called instructional rounds and how it might fit in as part of a school improvement strategy. It was amazing. Much of the work we did focused on the instructional
056core, which is about the interplay of teachers, students, and the curriculum. If you disrupt one part of the instructional core, you disrupt all parts. We read about countless examples of what not to do, like when districts make unilateral decisions and just expect the rest of the instructional core, the teachers and students, to adjust. It's like no roadmap, no plan for professional development, no conversation with the people implementing the curriculum, and in effect, disenfranchising the very people, the teachers, and the students who are doing the cognitive work in our classrooms every day. On February 14th, we were informed that our lab minutes would be cut. The communication was woefully inadequate with no concrete answers beyond the terse three-sentence email of slash science minutes. By the way, I have an email drafted to the Harvard facilitators to
057add one more example to the what not to do column. Next generation science standards require us to teach content. It's called disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, SEPs, and cross-cutting concepts. To do this with fidelity and consistency, time is a very important factor in designing science curricula to meet all parts of NGSS. Time is an important part of doing science. There is a reason why a PhD in science takes anywhere from three to eight years. Less instructional time translates to diminish rigor, depth, and breadth in our curricula. In chemistry at DHS, this change would equate to removal of three units, which in turn means less opportunities for science and engineering practices, and less SEL opportunities. We teach it. It's infused, like working in collaborative teams. That's an SEL. That's part of your castle wheel
058that is naturally infused in those lab experiences. Let me put this in terms that may hit you in the gut like this announcement did for me. This reduction inevitably correlates to lower ISA, Illinois science assessment scores, which is heavily based on NGSS and is now part of the school report card. Loss of instructional minutes in our first-year courses will have negative effects on our AP science stats if our students even opt to pursue advanced placement courses without the lab experience of their first-year courses. That will in turn tarnish our school's rankings, rending our district less appealing to prospective families, and quite possibly reducing the board's revenue streams. All this in a world facing existential climate changes, requiring a workforce with knowledge and skills in science and engineering. Less science in high school, less science majors
059in college, less scientists in the workforce, less ability to solve problems that plague our society. God forbid we have another pandemic. Science got us through that. Immediate action must be taken to rectify this egregious misstep and prioritize the educational welfare of our students and the integrity of science education in this district. Thank you. Alex Goodman. Thank you very much for having me tonight. So I'm Alex Goodman. I am actually an alumni of HPHS class of 2009. My brother, Jacob, is also an alumni from that same time, and I am currently a climate data scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and my brother is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So both of us have had some of our fondest memories at the science classes that we have taken during our time
060as high school students, and I think it's no exaggeration to say that without those experiences, we would not really be able to be where we are today, and we're not the only ones. Like for example, even at JPL, where I work, I still see John Grunsfeld's name in one of the chairs in the mission control room, who's one of our most distinguished alumni from HPHS. And to be honest, I kind of want to provide just a little bit of my perspective as a student here. So I'm kind of confused when I kind of heard the news about this incident. Even when I walked in, I was very happy to see many of my former teachers, and I was very shocked to hear that they were, the way they were informed about this decision and not
061given even any reasoning, and then we didn't get to hear any about what the reasoning was for this until tonight, and that this reasoning is supposed to be related to having, to reducing lab time for the sake of students being able to select more electives. And to me, this just sounds like, I mean, sorry if I'm rambling a bit, but when I was a student, I don't remember a single instance where anyone ever said to me, you know, I really want to be able to take this elective, but because of all this excessive science lab time, I just can't do it, you know? No, seriously, I've never had it. So it kind of strikes me as trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist, and it doesn't sound like the faculty members were certainly not
062consulted, and it doesn't sound like the student, there's any objective data from students to support such a major change to the curriculum that's created many successes, and I'm glad I get to be able to get some time to speak about this today, and I'm sorry if I'm again rambling a bit, but thank you for having the time for having me. Thank you. Jason Tenenbaum? Jason Tenenbaum? I have prepared remarks on a different topic that I will be deferring. Um, my name is Jason Tenenbaum. I was raised in Deerfield. I was educated in District 109 and 113 and went to Deerfield High School. The first time I'm hearing about this issue is as soon as I walk in today, like perhaps many here as well. To further credentialize myself, after completing my time at Deerfield, I
063went to Northwestern University where I received a bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry. I went on to the University of California Irvine where I completed my PhD in synthetic organic chemistry. Subsequent to that, I received a post-doctorate from, again, the University of Northwestern. My daughter is a sophomore at Deerfield High School where she has two lab classes, biology and geometry lab, and she takes two electives in fine arts. I am horrified to hear that the district is considering a plan to combine science curriculum and dramatically reduce science lab opportunities for all students. This is the opportunity in which students get to first learn, experience, and partake in true critical thinking activities that will serve them going forward. I cannot think of a more backwards move than to suggest that those activities are not first and
064foremost in our children's education. I realize my daughter's situation is anecdotal in an N of one. She is indeed very passionate about the fine arts, not as much in science as I would prefer, but I definitely support her going into that direction because first, without science, without lab, the need to teach people critical thinking, we will lose that ability in our community population. Without the arts, we'll have nothing to think critically about. I want to thank you all for your time. I want to thank you all as educators. I remember very fondly my teachers here in science, Mr. Thiessen, Mr. Malik, Mr. Moscow. And my last second, if you're not familiar with what an N of one means, go back to science lab. Matt, is it K-R-A-C-H-T? Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is
065Matt Crocks. I've been in a science teacher in a district for 12 years. I've been an educator for the past 25. In all my years as an educator, never have I felt more disrespected than I have when I received the email indicating that next year's science courses would be a single period. No explanation was given, no warning, no consideration for the impact it would have on the science teachers and the students of our district. How is this supposed to make science teachers feel? It does not make us feel like our opinion is respected. It does not make us feel like we are part of a team. It is divisive. Consider how much time went into scheduling decisions for next year. Shouldn't this decision have warranted a similar cohesive decision-making process by a team of educators
066based back by data-driven decisions? This decision will affect the amount of content we can cover. We are expected to prepare a program. How are we expected to prepare a program for next year with the amount of time you have given us? May the teachers here teach two to three sections of science. Think of the amount of work that that entails. Our current programs cannot be taught in single period science courses. This is a significant change to our curriculum and our programs. There are labs that can only be accomplished in 90-minute periods. Those will have to be cut. Just as last week, my students built, in my freshman physics science class, my students built a Rube Goldberg device with 28 steps. It's a very frustrating assignment and we were able to accomplish that in a 100-minute
067science course and literally as the bell was ringing is when we were able to push and make all, I got a video of it, it's great, all 28 steps and at the end when we achieved the whole point of that machine, after 28 steps was a pop of balloon, the entire class erupted in excitement. Those are the type of experiences our students will lose by cutting out double period science classes. The last time I stood in this room was to receive an award for the, for my chemistry, sorry, to receive a district award for the labs that I was running in my chemistry class. So, things to consider. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Julie? Egglight? Sorry, yes. Good evening. My name is Julie Egglight. I've been a teacher at DHS for the past
06822 years teaching our freshman physics pretty much every year. So, I'm speaking from the lens of a freshman physics teacher and let me first say that I love the freshmen. Most people would not ever say that but those are my people and I just, I love it. So, physics is kind of fun too but around the same time we transitioned to a new schedule of which we lost a chunk of science minutes. I believe it was about 30 minutes a week but I can't, I'm not totally sure but okay. So, we'll adjust the curriculum accordingly and we carefully chose which content we needed to eliminate. We were also charged as freshman teachers with building in more science skills for the freshmen. So, we set up a framework for that and where we could build into
069those already that thinner curriculum but okay. So, again we adjusted accordingly. Over the past decade students have come into the high school with increasingly greater needs when it comes to study skills becoming more efficient learners and just overall seemingly kind of less prepared for high school. While this was never a specific district initiative we have worked to incorporate more of this guidance in our daily practice. A few years ago we were told that lab minutes for freshmen on 100 days needed to be added to our other lab day. That's making them 101 minutes. I'm going to tell you that's a long time for any human to spend trying to learn anything but again, hey we will adjust accordingly. And then this past year the district said we were out of compliance with the 70-30 rule.
070Okay, so rather than problem solving to make sure we are in compliance and putting the students in the best learning environment when it comes to standard physics. We were told to just put them all together no really specific guidance on how to do that. We had really no professional development whatsoever but okay we will adjust the best we can as freshman teachers and I can tell you for a lot of these kids that really belong in a survey level class it's not going great for them. We are trying our hardest but it is not the ideal environment. And now lab time. We don't need it anymore is what we heard a week ago. AP does but for the rest of you the message to us is that it's not necessary. Okay, so my question really
071to you all is what gifts because we have some choices to make as science teachers. We're going to lose about 20 hours of contact time a year. Do we then cut out the teaching study skills and learning and just how to be better learners. Do we cut out all these awesome project-based learning labs that we do that take time they take extra time. Or do we cut out six weeks of content because something will have to give if we make this adjustment. And again we will do it but we would like some guidance then on what you would like us to give up because these kids are going to suffer from a learning of science standpoint and if we are telling colleges that we're giving a standard year of physics that should be what we're
072delivering. But by taking this away I don't feel as an educator of 26 years we will be doing that especially with our freshmen that have so many other needs entering a high school. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Juliana is she out is she out in the hall maybe or Juliana I'm sorry. Hi my name is Juliana Ganastra. I am a junior at Deerfield High School. Sorry my voice is a little gone. I've done a lot of singing over the past week. I am pretty much a poster child for the DHSR hall here. I am involved in couriers. I am involved in band wind ensemble. I'm involved in the theater classes here. I would like to talk about Brittany Kenyon but first I would like to address the whole science topic that we
073are we have been talking about. For the past three years I have been able to make my schedules work with being in the most amount of electives as possible clearly. I am really looking forward to all of my arts classes but recently I have been participating in my early bird chemistry class the most. It's my first period early bird class so I really enjoy waking up and going to the class every single day and I think that my environment in my chemistry class is something that my theater classes or my choir classes don't necessarily have. The environment is although it is more academic there is ways that the environment is more comfortable for me and even though I'm not a great science student I would like to say that all of the science experiences that
074I've had will really stick with me for the future. Like when are you going to say that you've literally dissected a pig? Like I'm not going to have a chance to do that ever again unless I like go to a farm but anyway moving on I would like to talk about a teacher that is currently on leave, Ms. Brittany Kenyon. She is the theater director at Deerfield High School and she has completely changed my life. Walking into Deerfield High School as a freshman I didn't know what I wanted to do. I worked with kids with special needs over the summer so I was like I'm going to go to special education I'm going to be DHH teacher that's what I want to do and then I auditioned for the musical and was able to participate
075as an ensemble and featured ensemble as Firmacera in Fiddler on the Roof and that was my first real experience as someone who has participated in a real musical. I would say the middle school musicals don't count because they don't but then moving forward I decided that I actually really enjoyed being part of the production and would love to do more so I auditioned for Annie my sophomore year. I auditioned as Annie being like a relatively small person. I'm wearing really tall shoes right now so you're not going to be able to see. I'm four foot eleven so I've always auditioned for the smaller characters like small Alice, Annie like all of the smaller characters but I've always with Brittany Kenyon as my director she's always seen more within me and seen more regarding my talent
076and not who I am as physically as a person which is something I really love about Brittany because although I'm so sorry I'm going over my time I although I am a lot of directors I was recently a part of the Illinois high school all-state production of Shrek the musical which is like a bunch of people who come in from all over the state and I was called back for small Fiona teen Fiona all of the little roles and I ended up playing a Dulocchian which is like if you don't know it's like the the you know the short guy I was one of his little minion people but so I ended up being that and so that was very very size physically traded but Miss Kenyon casted me as Miss Hannigan and Annie where
077Annie was about four inches taller than me and I had one of my orphans like about a foot taller than me so there was that I was just recently played Janice in Mean Girls where again everyone is taller than me but I think a lot of it has to do with the diversity and inclusion that she has brought to the program and I really really miss her thank you thank you thank you chambers this is chambers chambers good evening everyone my name is Stephanie Chambers and I have been teaching science at Deerfield high school for 22 years I am speaking tonight as a member of the DEA and on the decision to eliminate science lab periods next school year and while what I may say may have been stated I cannot emphasize enough how important
078this is to us all to be here and to thank you for allowing the time for us to share our words regardless of what the decision is or will be it is once again the blatant disregard of our district goals and established processes that is worrisome if you visit our district website under about district 113 it clearly states our goal and I quote to model and instill transparent respectful and collaborative communication among and between all of our district stakeholders as well as to build and maintain an environment for students and staff across the district that is collaborative supportive respectful inspiring and motivating end quote for years now the DEA climate survey has put a spotlight on our district's need to improve in all of these areas communication climate and culture yet here we are again
079reeling from a decision made seemingly in isolation then communicated through email during the school day not even by the person who made the decision we as science teachers who are experts in our field were not consulted on this decision nor invited to take the table to talk about the many potential implications of this decision and its recent history will show once decisions are made here from above there is zero accountability in providing resources to successfully implement any new initiative as you've heard we are struggling through the latest initiative to desurvey our freshman courses with little to no equitable supports in place but the most incredulous piece of this decision moving to single period science classes is that it was made without any reference or rationale based on curriculum science pedagogy or best practice it is
080completely irresponsible to make a decision regarding curriculum without collectively consulting your expert science staff your building curriculum committees or your superintendent of curriculum and instruction but this is exactly what happened the science departments were made aware through an email that we will be losing science instructional minutes this fall for reasons we think but were not confirmed that have nothing to do with what's best for kids but rather to possibly make the daily bell schedule easier for some to follow next year as i stated or excuse me as i started my comment with regardless of what this decision is or will be our district has once again failed to model its goals for transparent and collaborative communication that fosters a positive climate and a culture of respect tonight i share my utmost disappointment in our district
081leadership and my complete lack of faith in the district's ability to do what is best for our kids thank you thank you john glick yes yeah all right hi i'm john glick uh representative parents i first want to say thank you to all the educators that spoken tonight they uh their passion gives me assurance that my kids are receiving the best possible education uh these are prepared remarks i'm completely unprepared and that's a reflection of how fast how hasty this decision has been made or will be made i mean we're talking about serious implications to the future of our kids and we're talking about science right what do we what do we learn scientific method right scientific method i don't see any scientific method being applied to a decision like this right i mean let
082me let me let me see i took notes here first of all i want to thank aunt jan shout out aunt jan i think one of the educators here i think you talked to her maybe uh she texted me sunday night saying this was happening like that's not a way you run a business okay mr superintendent uh mr law dr law you said there's a disconnect between well-being well you said that we're making this decision for the well-being of our students so we they can have more electives to me that's a disconnect i don't think we're really fully understanding the pressures of a student today i don't think we're really looking at what this district and the 109 one uh district that we come from putting on our kids let's think about their happiness let's
083think about the social pressures that they have putting an opportunity to take more classes isn't doing that what i want as a business leader is i want students that are prepared for the world to solve problems i want them to be able to enter an ambiguous situation use the learning that these educators are instilling in them at a young age to be able to solve that problem i don't see that with this board i don't see that with this decision i'm asking you to do your job go back to the table and figure out why are we making this decision is it a budget issue sounds like that's the case go back do your job sharpen your pencils and find a better way to present this information and for the love of god treat these
084educators better they do so much for our students so i appreciate your time and i hope you answer all the questions that have been raised tonight thank you mr simic mike can i ask uh you it's gonna ask you a favor um i have a feeling i know that you're my sense is you're probably speaking about the new superintendent would could i move through the rest of the staff that's focused on this issue and then make sure that you have some time when we get to that portion of the agenda okay they i really appreciate that thank you so much uh david winters gonna talk about the uh issue with the dhs theater director britney kennan but you've already heard me so there was some students that came and came too late to sign up
085and with your permission i'd like to yield my time to one of those students who's talking the same issue erica can you uh please say your name so that's on the screen thank you um i am erica i am a senior at deerfield high school and i'm here to speak on behalf of our beloved teacher miss britney kennan um i'm not exaggerating when i say that miss kenyon is one of those that makes school a good experience you like so you'll be walking into her class you'll be feeling down having a hard day and just walking into that class makes it feel just infinitely better you feel accepted you feel welcome um it's it truly can have the potential to flip your day around and make it infinitely better um and i'm sure many of
086my peers would agree with me she's beloved for a reason she has done so much for the arts community at our school sparking passion in students towards theater however she also teaches us to engage critically in the information that we consume gathering the information forming our own opinions she encourages us to advocate for ourselves and what we believe in and in fact right now we are working on a theater for social change project um we don't get to see this in a ton of our classes i am extremely happy to be able to be included in this type of education and be able to incorporate the arts into that in that class so we feel free to express ourselves we need more teachers like her and i am extremely disappointed that she has come under
087fire because she is one of the most wonderful people in that building i urge everybody to think critically about the position you are putting our lovely teacher in just like how she teaches us to think critically she makes so many of us feel safe so it is extremely upsetting that this community is making her feel so unsafe thank you thank you william love william love is william's going to speak william love okay mr winter thank you for giving your time i appreciate that um as you can see that i have four more people on the list so we are obviously moving through the entire list um this name is hard to read so it cannot be blamed on my pronunciation is it a linda gorsky or linda goresky i again goresky top hello sorry i
088would like to uh give my time to uh dhs theater student edna kramer she's a senior great come talk to you thank you and then you can say your name yes i'm added kramer i'm a senior at deerfield um and i came to just talk about a few things um i wanted to start off by talking about lab periods because all three years of high school since this year i have been taking an early bird class lab period physics chemistry and bio and this year i am in class for where's miss chamber miss chambers i didn't go to school today so sorry um but um i wouldn't have been able to take any of my arts classes and graduate with 42 credits if i couldn't take my bio classes with those lab periods um uh
089i've been really i was really upset all of high school about you know i wanted to be in a corollary and i wanted to be in chorus and i wanted to be in acting and um to be corollary you have to be in chorus so that's two periods and then acting's the third period and so i was like trying to figure out all of these things and early bird was really the only option and summer school was really the only option if i wanted to get these all done and that was the reason i was able to find so much success in the arts and now on my college journey um all these colleges continue to ask me like why do you want to go here or what do you really want to do and
090as a person who wants to go into the arts it's really scary to say oh i want to be an actress because it's maybe not very realistic for some people and um instead i say i want to be successful in any way and i think that a lot of teachers and a lot of people at deerfield have taught me how to have compassion and i think that the compassion that i have learned and the empathy that i have learned through my teachers is what will drive me to be successful like ensured success and the compassion that my science teachers have taught me that britney has taught me that my chorus teachers that all of those people at school have taught me is i think what will lead me to success but i think that without
091those wonderful teachers without the compassion without the without the work that you're doing because i truly think that the more people who have empathy and um who care about their students are the best kinds of teachers who genuinely want to know about their students are the people who i want to come to class to every day so the last few weeks have been really hard because my last period is a period with britney miss kenyon and it's what i it's what keeps me going like i don't love to be both my parents are teachers but i don't love to be at school it's hard for me to get through the day and being there the arts is what keeps me there so um i think it's important that we're treating the treatment that i get
092this compassion that i receive from my teachers are the same compassion respect that the students are giving to the teachers but also the community and the parents and everybody because their health is just as important as ours thank you thank you esthar blanche is she out there i'm gonna is she out in the hallway there okay okay um barry metzger hi good evening very impressed you got through this list as quickly as you did thank you um my name is barry metzger i'm a resident of dearfield i also am a graduate of highland park high school a long time ago i was a very eager theater student back then and we had an amazing teacher named barbara june patterson uh who really changed my life and many of my classmates lives she encouraged us to
093take chances and really push the limits in terms of acting and theater and really for someone who was not a great athlete this was my way of trying to get through high school um and it became just a wonderful experience and she was an amazing teacher and she truly changed my life i have three kids who have gone through dearfield and my youngest ella is currently a senior every day i watch ella reminds me of my experience with barbara june patterson as it relates to her theater teacher mrs kenyon she has truly changed ella's life yes i'm biased because ella's in theater yes i cried every day that i watched her in the musical mean girls it was just an amazing experience to see her do mean girls on the stage at highland park because
094the theater was shut down at dearfield a stage that i got to perform many plays at highland park i just can't tell you what an incredible experience that was and yes we owe a lot to britney kenyon i don't necessarily agree with everything that went down but i do know this britney kenyon is an amazing teacher has had incredible positive impacts on many students and has changed lives and you can't say that about a lot of teachers and so just wanted you to hear those slots she's an incredible person i hope she comes back real soon thank you so much thank you blanche you were in the overflow room yes it wasn't quite i had to run and then they wouldn't let me come in that way and it was yes i did thank you
095okay um thank you for letting me speak my name is blanche esger um i'm kind of here i was i was retired from as a department chair last year from dearfield high school um i'm a community member my husband already spoke so i'm not going to go into that same thing i'm kind of the pollyanna of the group i truly believe in this district when people ask me you know where do you work i'm proud to say i was from dearfield high school it's a great place my kids went to highland park high school thank you so much for all of the teachers i can tell you straight out and i cried last time i spoke to you guys too so just you know i have problems um but my kids absolutely love their teachers
096at island park high school um they all the students that i hear from and i had a lot of students that come back to me and talk to me they all tell me how well prepared that they are for college and how they find success and they give credit to the schools because we're amazing so just so you know we're lucky okay living in this community is amazing i want to thank the teachers for their hard work i want to thank that my son is a senior and so he's gone and i appreciate everything that you as a whole have given to my students and i want to apologize for the students if this goes through with the science teachers because i am so sorry you will not have the type of education that my
097students had because it was amazing so i just wanted to say i'm sorry that that's happening to you but i am so thankful for what my kids got so selfishly i win thank you marybeth nower hello i am marybeth nawor i am a science teacher of 30 years and a parent of two kids who graduated from highland park high school um i want to reiterate what a lot of people have said earlier about how fantastic the science program was here both of my children chose to pursue degrees in science not just because they wanted to but because they could and my daughter was adamant in her chemistry class at u of i that had she not had the rigorous chemistry course that she took here many of her classmates who wanted to pursue a medical
098degree as she's doing dropped out and rigor we know comes from contact and so i'm not sure how decisions are made when i hear the teachers speak um it's shocking to me that science teachers were not a major part of this decision to have this impact on the curriculum uh it makes me sad as as a former science teacher uh teaching science is really hard and with the new science standards that extra time is increasingly valuable when you decide to cut budgets and i understand in the real world we all have to live within a budget do not cut something that is going to affect student achievement that is the last place you cut so i'm not sure what the budget looks like and where there's some other wiggle room i'm also not sure about
099fte's and are you transferring science fte's to something else but you certainly need to include your stakeholders when a decision of this magnitude is being made the other thing i would like to say is i spent my 30 year career teaching science at lake forest high school and i may be the one glimmer of good news in this meeting tonight because i had the privilege of working for dr holland who i know will be the new superintendent in this district and i want to guarantee these beleaguered science teachers that she is not going to be the kind of leader who is going to make a decision without full impact or full input from the people whom it is most going to affect so i'm here to bring some good news and say that she is
100one of the most dedicated passionate educators that i've ever worked for or with that she will bring integrity to the district clear communication it's not that she won't make hard decisions but those hard decisions will be on a firm foundation of good research and what's best for all students thank you thank you okay all right do you want to go now okay let's go i'll start out by saying now for something completely different mary beth said a few things there so i've always been a big fan of dr law my name is mike simek i'm the superintendent of district 109 and the former superintendent of lake forest school district 67 and 115 and it is in those capacities that i speak with you tonight i will i'd like to congratulate dr law on his upcoming
101retirement i have always been a fan and always will be and i'll save my compliments for another time uh for my friend and colleague tonight i'm going to say thank you to the board for a decision you're about to make that is a really good one so something a little bit different than what you've been hearing so far you're putting uh the word service in public service tonight so uh the board will appoint shayla holland as superintendent of schools in district 113 and while i was not in the room for her interviews i am still confident that the board and stakeholders found themselves spellbound as they engaged with a formidable leader before them for your benefit i'd like to share an experience i had many many times during my six years with shayla at lake
102forest high school we'd walk around the building a great deal and one of the things that always struck me and i heard this from my daughters as well is how important it was i have two daughters how important it was for them they have women in roles where they imagined themselves or so they could imagine themselves and that's what i saw as we walked around the building on a consistent basis is the look on kids eyes when they interacted with her it was absolutely inspiring because they could then see themselves as a woman in leadership and it was so impressive every time i can tell you that no one will take her role more seriously devote herself uh devote herself more more of herself excuse me or more earnestly engage with all members of the
103school community whether they agree with her or not then dr shayla holland and finally your decision tonight will benefit districts 109 112 and 106 i want to assure you that bright days for our partnership lie ahead and i am beyond thrilled to have shayla holland as my new neighbor thank you thank you moving on to action item 7b personnel notice it is recommended that the board of education approve the personnel notice as presented is there a motion so moved is there a second and is there any discussion roll call please oh i'm so sorry no go ahead actually okay uh roll call please mr braza hi dr eliot schummer hi mr hinderman hi mr neater hi mr pierre yes please miss newman hi motion carries now on to action item 7a approval of the 2024-2027
104employment contract for superintendent of schools of township high school district 113 it is recommended that the board of education approve the 2024-2027 employment contract for shayla holland superintendent of schools for township high school district 113 as presented if i have a quick thing that i'd like to go through i'm still learning my robert's rules of order and i apologize i just did not do that tonight we are excited to have the agenda item of the approval of the three-year contract for the new superintendent of our district dr shayla holland effective july 1st the appointment is the final step in a thorough and comprehensive five month long search following the announcement of our current superintendent dr braz dr bruce law's retirement at the end of this school year we are thrilled to welcome dr holland to
105district 113 and i am honored to stand next to her as her first board president dr holland is a transformative and visionary leader uniquely qualified to propel district 113 forward not only are her credentials outstanding a doctorate in urban educational leadership from the university of illinois at chicago a master's from de paul in social and cultural foundations and education an undergrad in secondary ed from northwestern as our current superintendent said she is the most knowledgeable person about high schools that he has ever worked for worked with in his tenure or as stated more directly by dr holland in her interview with us high schools are her jam dr holland currently serves as the assistant superintendent administrative services for high schools in naperville district 203 in this capacity she advocates for educational reforms that not only
106enhance growth and achievement outcomes for all students but also to redefine the very nature of learning and teaching in the modern age prior to d203 dr holland served as principal of lake forest high school where she championed a culture of inclusivity and academic excellence leading significant efforts to foster foster a school environment where every learner can thrive dr holland began her career at evanston township high school where she spent the decade layering laying the foundation of her educational philosophy as both the teacher and administrator i want to call special attention to statements made by two of her references first is superintendent dan bridget from her current district naperville 203 who said that dr holland is one of the smartest committed and skilled people he has ever worked with she is a strong leader who leads
107through collaboration she is more than ready to be a great superintendent and the second is from a gentleman we just heard from mike simic from our feeder district 109 who was her superintendent as he said in lake forest when dr holland was principal of lake forest high school he said that she took the lead in successfully graduating kids into general education increased student engagement through aggressively expanding student activities and successfully d-level classes she truly cares about students and demonstrates in a way that inspires everyone around her he can't think of a better person for the job dr holland will begin spending time in the district this spring we thank her current superintendent dan bridges for understanding the importance of her working with building leadership administration and dr law now in preparation for the fall tonight
108is about welcoming dr holland we will show our deep appreciation for the leadership dr law has shown us over the last five years as the school year comes to an end this spring a superintendent is hired by the board by partners and works with our entire 113 school community without this partnership and those relationships their role would be done from an office with no windows the board thanks the many members of this group of those groups who dedicated many hours giving input along the way the stakeholders teachers staff members community members and administrators who participated in the search process we appreciate your dedicating your time and providing us with valuable feedback rumina isaac karen warner ron cosbom and brian almer for all of their hard work with scheduling communication it and facilities our legal counsel
109dana crumley for guidance and always answering my calls linda yankee and kevin omera from school exec connect for finding dr holland among several other fantastic candidates finally as board president i want to thank my fellow board members for their dedication and incredible time commitment during the search that has led us to dr holland i'm incredibly proud of the work we have all accomplished together dr holland's work demonstrates her tireless and unwavering commitment to ensure that every student regardless of their background has the opportunity to excel and succeed in district 113 dr holland will be the first woman superintendent since 2005 so almost 20 years and the very first person of color serving in this leadership role i'm honored to ask for a motion to approve the theater three year contract for superintendent dr shayla holland
110it is my honor and pleasure to motion the approval of contract is there a second very typical me yes please is there any discussion dr jody yes though i didn't know dr holland prior to this hiring process as an educator i've heard her referenced countless times for almost two decades each time her her name had been synonymous with educational excellence in and around the north shore as you know we were lucky enough to have three incredible finalists but dr holland's star shone the brightest during her interviews she answered each question with enthusiasm and evidence of her robust tenure as an administrator she also came across as a savvy communicator and someone who is reflective like deeply reflective in her practice these qualities are absolutely essential to being successful in this role i have no doubt
111that dr holland will help foster a thriving inclusive and inspiring environment for our students staff and the rest of our d113 community i'm the other jody up next okay i think in my 22 years of being either pto president or on the board of education on one of these boards i have interviewed 38 different candidates for different superintendents between 109 and 113 i was not on bruce's i was on vacation um i can tell you that in those 38 candidates i had never walked in my door after one saying to my husband i can't even begin to tell you how excited i am i've said things like i think this is a good fit i think this person will be nice we found the best person but never have i come to my husband and
112said this is an amazing candidate and i'd consider running again which i'm not to be working with her there i can't begin to tell you how extraordinarily privileged we are to have her being our next superintendent i thank you for giving us the opportunity to bring you into our 113 family and i know that you are going to be an amazing leader in that family so it's clear to me in the time we've had you know together through the interview process the passion and the thoughtfulness that you are clearly going to bring to you know pushing forward the core mission of this district and so you know i just want to say that i share everybody's excitement you know and having the opportunity to work with you in doing that over the next several years
113so um ditto to what has been shared already um but another piece that i will share as well is tonight and special shout out to miss obinger as my former teacher thank you for the passion and thank you to the passion of all of the the educators community members parents that they bring um dr holland this is our community and this is the passion that we have for the excellence of our students and for moving forward this is who we are and i'm stealing your line jodie this is who we are and we're here for we're here for students and our passion for for excellence it's why my parents made their journey to this country and community and that's why i came back to this community and also like jodie after the interview i was
114so impressed and so enthusiastic for your for your leadership i am honored to be able to vote for the approval tonight and looking forward to your leadership for our for our community when i think about the reasons why my parents came to this country it's the reasons that you have shared for your passion and your why and those wise aligning give me great hope for our future and for my children as they in a few years come to the come to the district thank you not much more than i can say but welcome we had a number of outstanding candidates and you were just clearly better than the rest and i've been through a number of superintendent searches myself in this district and others and it's just we're just so excited to have you here
115and the cherry on this is that i looked at the goals that you wrote and they are so in line with what we want to have as as board members you know we are very much in sync in terms of what we we're excited about that you want to deliver what we need thank you very much for coming here as one of the board members who will most like closely be working with dr holland i know knew we had our next superintendent which he said students need to understand the why in order to engage in their learning as i said earlier i am honored to be standing or sitting next to her as her first board president and with that a roll call please mr braza aye dr eliot shimmer aye mr heidemann aye mr
116neater aye mr shapira yes please newman aye motion carries let's change a huge warm district welcome to dr unless you have all of the steps from the school so you have 113 you have dhs and highland park okay thank you thank you thank you i'll be quick i'm humbled and honored to have the confidence of the board to serve and lead in this wonderful district thank you for the vision of excellence that i vow to support enhance and promote dr law i would like to thank you for your leadership and fortitude through good and challenging times in the district would also like to thank my family who's watching via live stream i love you they have instilled in me the value of family community and education as an act of love i also want to
117thank my husband for being my best friend i'm looking forward to building relationships across highland park deerfield bannockburn river woods and fort sheridan i'm looking forward to partnering with our feeder districts to maximize the k through 12 experience and all that's possible i'm also really looking forward to collaborating with staff students and families towards our shared goals of providing opportunities for each student to be seen valued and to reach their full potential and i really can't wait to get started so thank you thank you dr hound thank you um we do we will do closing in a second here uh and then we do welcome everyone to stay for a small reception of coffee and cupcakes that are vegan is there a motion to adjourn the meeting yep second okay all those in favor yes
118please all opposed motion carries thank you