001regular action meeting, Tuesday, March 21st, 2023, roll call, please. Mr. Hyman here, here, here, here, here, here, here. If everyone else at the table could introduce themselves, please. Tom Krieger, assistant superintendent, human resources, Michael Locke, assistant superintendent, instruction assessment, Karen Warner, director of communications, Tiffany Rowe, assistant superintendent for student services, Brian Armour, chief operations officer, Ali Mahanti, assistant superintendent of finance, Debbie Fan, principal, Highland Park High School, Katherine Anderson, principal at Jarrett Field High School, Mira Ante, director of equity and inclusion, Bruce Law, superintendent may have a motion to prove the agenda as listed. So moved. Second, second discussion and a roll call. Miss Newman. Aye. Mr. Shapira. Mr. Streff. Aye. Mr. Barraza. Aye. Ms. Elliott Schremer. Aye. Mr. Hyman. Aye. Mr. Fishbane. Aye. Motion carries. So tonight's agenda. First thing up, which is very
002fun, is recognition. We've been doing it this year. It's been a new program for us where we've had our affiliated organizations who support our students and staff come and make a presentation to tell us all the great things they're doing. We know a lot of things they're doing, but it's always nice to have it done in a collective manner. And tonight is the Deerfield High School PTO. So with that really high level and excited presentation, I am also the timekeeper. So we have it heavy on the clock, but I'm sure you guys. 30 minutes. I'm Matt Rachel, one of the co-presidents of the PTO. I'm Paige Barber. I am the other co-president. And now it's green so everybody on home can hear us. Fantastic. And we're going to walk you through a few things that
003we do as a parent-teacher organization. If we can get the next slide, please, that'd be great. In general, we've been focusing thanks to the work of the board here of the Board of Education. We've had a chance to relook at our bylaws and relook at our mission. And taking these big ball points here, we're here to support the kids, the parents, and the teachers and our staff over at Deerfield High School and bring community together. Yes. So next slide, please. So how do we do that? We do it mainly through our teacher grants. That is one aspect of how we do it. Our teachers apply for grants. Our exec board of our PTO reviews them annually with the help of Principal Anderson. And we pick what would best enhance and enrich the students and the
004most students at Deerfield High School. These are a few samples of ones that we have given recently this past last year. We do it in May generally. One really fun one that we did was we contributed to solar panel generator for phone charging station that was part of the environmental group at school, our school that requested it and worked through it. And it's been great. And we do subscriptions. We have guest speakers that we do. We've had prior grants where we've enhanced our maker space and calculators, fidget toys, anything that would benefit the most students at our school that we have had in the past years. The really great piece about this is this is an opportunity for teachers to generate ideas that they think will go directly to kids. It's a chance to be
005creative. It's a chance to not quite think as long term as the innovation grants for the foundation, which will be coming next month in their presentation to you. But really to do something small and nice and easy that has an impact on kids. And this is one of those things, if your kids are like my kids, they have their phone everywhere and they burn through that thing like there's no tomorrow. And so it's a nice way to connect and get them thinking through. Can we get the next slide, please? That'd be great. This is one of my other favorite things that the PTO does. And we do sponsorships and senior scholarships. First, our sponsorships is the Deerfield High School has had a long tradition of an after prom and we have this amazing after prom
006committee. We donate and sponsor to the after prom party to make sure that our seniors at Deerfield High School stay safe on prom night. We also sponsor Genocide Awareness Speaker, which is wonderful. We do that is open to actually Highland Park and Deerfield High School students as well. The next item we also do are senior scholarships and the PTO donates $5,000. And we also collect money from parents and other whoever else wants to donate it. It is open for donation. This year, I believe we're donating over $7,000 to scholarships to well-needed students. We work in conjunction with the high school and the CCRC and they help us process who is the entitled students who deserve as well deserving. They all are deserving, but they help us narrow it down for us and they select and
007we present at our annual honors night. If we can get the next slide, please. That'd be great. And of course, like all organizations, if you feed them, they will come. We like to do lots of food for lots of things. It's amazing how much of a hit the student bake sales are and trying to bring in little treats that come through. Our staff appreciates having lunches and in the fall and in the spring, but we also like to have families involved and we obviously have some cookies and treats on open house nights and get some great things going on in the meetings. One of the great days that we have that everyone looks for is the Senior VIP Day, commonly known as Grandparents Day. You bring your a wizened relative or advisor to come and
008work with you through the school day and it's really a great thing and we'd like to help support that and at the honors nights. If we can get the next slide, please. That'd be great. And we try to connect our school and the community with the staff administration. One of my favorite other favorite things that we do is coffee with the principal. This is very successful. Let's pass month when we had our coffee. Nobody really drinks coffee at it. It's just called coffee at the principal. It's sort of the name has stuck and we do it at the school. We do it during the day in the morning and principal Anderson will sit and answer questions and she's amazing at it. By the way, we sat there for an hour 45 minutes and at times
009we're like, was that really a question and she handled it so gracefully. And sometimes the questions do get intense and sometimes parents get worked up on what they're asking or ask questions that wait a second. What is that? Does that even have to do with school? And principal Anderson handles it like a charm. It's an amazing way for people to come in and actually get to know her and realize what great work she does. We've got one up here for the welcoming of students and families because in April we have our activities night where our eighth grade families will start to come over for the first time to be introduced. We also do our incoming students the warrior welcome and the all family open house opportunities. And at that time we also try to recruit
010our volunteers but we do that all year round obviously because we are a volunteer organization and we're filled with people like Matt and I and other hard-working folks who just want to be part of the community. And to really make a difference for our teachers and students. We're very proud of our Garfield community. Absolutely. Next slide please. And of course to do this we need to raise funds. We have our membership drive currently we're about 240 members and we were sad about that initially until we realized that just about every organization gets to about that number and then we felt a lot better about life. We do bake sales, we do dining out or getting families deep within the community. We have had a lot of success with our brick sales and of course the
011holiday gar gift cards and our graduation tribute cards. And this year for the first time we are taking on the responsibility of the senior lawn signs. A big thank you to the DHS team for helping us guide us in that process and there's going to be some family choice and if they want to have a lawn sign and what kind of lawn sign they want so that we kind of new and different. Right I mean be proud of your graduate and show it off. We're really excited about that new fundraiser. At this point we'd love to open it up to the board if they have any questions and Ann shouldn't have any questions because she's done this role. Oh well I guess my one question is when do we know about the senior lawn signs?
012The senior lawn signs. They are set to the announcement is set to go out to seniors the Monday we get back from spring break. Fantastic great and I was I do think it's great I saw if I'm correct you guys have done a great job with at the bake sales now where the kids can pay through electronic payments so they don't necessarily because none of them carry cash anymore. I think that's fantastic yes so I know and I know that figured out this whole thing yeah that could be a really an effort right especially when we're a non-profit and you're dealing with banks that don't necessarily. Actually I think this past one for the first time in like a year we actually got a lot of cash. People dug deep down in their sofa cushions
013and they needed a voice for speaking. Fantastic and I do obviously I think it's great because I know you guys work so closely hand in hand with the other parent organizations within the building so fantastic. I mean we can't credit the building leadership enough for coordinating us keeping us on the same page and really when it comes down when we have questions about how can we support students and staff they come up with great ideas and so great partnership. Fantastic. Okay well thank you again. I'm good. Great on time thank you for having Ann and I to your meeting as we said before it is you guys devote a ton of time money and the programs are very thoughtful they're their student center their staff center but I know how much time you guys put
014in so stay standing because you guys can go because I know you are putting in lots of time at your own meetings although we are very exciting we'd love to you're always welcome to stay for a Tuesday night but appreciate the invite to enjoy your meeting. There we go thank you. All right item five board reports president's report so your update on the district and the district and the DEA bargaining sessions the board and the DEA bargaining teams met on March 13th for the ninth bargaining session and the teams continued discussion on leaves rights and responsibilities of licensed staff members and management rights. Proposals were shared on filling of vacancies and committees and the next session is scheduled for tomorrow and the members of the bargaining unit will continue to receive their email updates about
015the collective bargaining process. Updates are also available on the website and I always make sure I use this as part of my president's report to publicly give the updates so that's that and then the second thing so we at a March meeting so Dan check me if my reading of policy two dash two one zero whatever it is the organizational meeting so the organization so the organizational meeting will be May 9th if that works for all the board members make sure I get nods May 9th if that works so we will have it immediately following the regular meeting on the organizational meeting has and for our audience so what happens in the the board election school board elections are on the odd number of years every two years in either three or four seats there
016are seven board members there are either three or four seats that are so they're staggered four-year terms which means that every two years there's either three or four seats up for elections so the election is April 4th and then within 40 days of the election then there is what's called a we have a policy it's called the organizational meeting and again ours is the same as this is a statewide policy so every school district does it the same way so then within the 40 days following the election then then the newly elected board members will take the oath of office and the board will elect officers and the board will set the schedule the calendar for meetings for the following school year those are the only three things that happen at the organizational meeting so
017that'll be May 9th that works for everybody after the meeting yes you're dedicated i am i am i i'm way impressed on that one i did it that's what i was looking for jody logistically it works out so we will do it we'll do it that way i've had a lot of experience on organizational meetings and trust me this is a good way to do it okay jody do you have anything on true north no right now true north is all quiet our next meeting we're going to be going through the same thing there the revert organizational meeting for those of you who don't know true north is loose on top of its leadership council because people are not running for re-election we will have a whole other group coming in and then i will
018start reporting back to you again once we get our new people seated very good so again for our students here true north is the special education right arm cooperative arm that serves several several communities and we're a member of that 18 different districts 18 districts thank you hey adam six public comments so per about per policy two dash two three out each open school board meeting the board of education has a public comment period for a maximum of 30 minutes we're ready to listen and appreciate your comments and we recognize that it takes time and work to prepare a three minute statement 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
019meeting so again for my audience i read that pretty fast that is a very standard statement that we use our public the public comment section occurs at school board meetings all across the state occurs at city council meetings occurs at all kinds of meetings it is public comment so means it's one-directional we are here to hear and we're good listeners we hear those comments it is not like a town hall or a q a where we go back and forth so it might seem awkward sometimes when you might listen to a public comment period going well why didn't we just start going through that and the reason is because we want to make sure there's plenty of time for people to submit those public comments plus we we don't have a long agenda tonight but
020usually we have a long agenda so there's a lot of business that needs to be done so that's how we structure the public comment period having said that we have nobody who wants to have a public comment okay but i got to give my speech okay administration reports i'll turn it over to bruce superintendent report thank you uh mr sprain so uh first thing i got a few things tonight first is focus on the arts is quickly approaching and ticket registration um is now open and ticket registration is required for two of the three events opening night and dance night um opening night is monday april 17th and dance night is thursday april 20th and for people who want more information you can go to hphocus.org but it's we're getting close to focus tamarjing it's
021just doing a great job very excited about i don't know if you've been in front of um highland park high school recently but on vine street but it is it's beautiful and it's very very excited about focus uh this next item i it's it's just want to let the board know it's something we're keeping an eye on and i i don't i i can't tell if it's something that we'll be doing um having a lot of follow-up and talking about nothing but this or if if it's if it's here and just fades but gpt4 was released on march 14th and we are accustomed uh it's in this age that technology uh advances and advances very quickly um i'm old enough to remember cell phones that were way too big for a pocket um and that
022had the little antenna you had to pull up and you had to be standing just right on one foot and facing a certain direction all those things and and now um look at this but the that this is something though that we're we're watching i get all these emails about how's this going to affect school and and our first concern of course has to do with plagiarism and these things but i the way this is accelerating and very quickly um changing i think that we'll look back on oh i can write an essay as those were uh those were just uh toys just uh just a couple things uh gpt3.5 scored in the 10th percentile when taking bar exams 4.0 is in the 90th percentile on the lsat gpt3.5 was in the 40th percentile uh
023the 4.0 is now at the 88th percentile this is this is coming very very quickly and in 2013 google i'm sorry 2018 google ceo sundar pichai predicted that the impact of ai would be more profound than electricity or fire now we're accustomed to people from silicone silicon valley making these kinds of outrageous uh predictions but what if he's right so we teach students to write we teach them to evaluate text self-complex math problems think like scientists we teach them to code will we still be doing that in five years uh this we are we are we're starting to pay a little attention uh to this because everything that people says that say ai can't do it eventually learns how to do and so i i know i'm i'm starting to really pay attention to it
024i think a lot of people are um and it's something that that i think is the school district we're going to have to really look at but i think the following is probably true the rapid advancement artificial intelligence technology has the potential to significantly impact high school education over the next five years as ai continues to improve it can be expected that educational institutions will increasingly integrate ai-based tools and platforms into their curriculums these tools could include personalized learning systems virtual assistants and automated grading systems among others additionally ai can help educators educators to analyze data on student performance identify areas where students may need additional support and tailor instruction to meet individual needs overall the integration of ai technology in high school education is a potential to enhance the quality of education improve learning
025outcomes for students you might be able to tell from the that sunny optimism that i did not write that that was written not by 4.0 because we don't have access to that yet only developers do that was generated by gpt in about 10 seconds we're keeping an eye on this a couple things are coming up tonight that are going to be they're really important as you know we've made a very strong commitment to multi-tiered system of support and we do this because it's a comprehensive way of supporting students in schools and the framework itself has proven effective in promoting equity and utilizing data-driven approaches to create a whole child approach to education in fact i was in a i think it's administrator academy last year and the presenter was talking about mtss and was saying
026mtss is the way that equity is operationalized in schools we have these values and goals of equity if you really want to implement it and get it done it's it's through mtss but as we've been rolling out mtss and working with this over the years we've identified a couple things that are concerning and one is is this challenge and creating an effective feedback loop that also makes our work more cohesive so i would like to advise the board of the following we were restructuring our leadership team at the building level what we're we're eliminating the mtss directors you've seen this position before we've talked about in the staffing sheets where we're creating a new assistant principal of diversity equity and inclusion at a school and we think this change will allow us to empower individuals
027to in these roles to do more at the building level to advance our equity work as they're on the ground doing all of that work on a daily basis the assistant principals of dei will be charged with ensuring that equity remains at the forefront of all our initiatives as our schools work toward closing opportunity gaps providing all students with the tools resources they need to thrive i a lot of us wrote this this was just a lot of people wondering if you're wondering if you're wondering um we had a lot of people um a lot of resources working on this one these individuals who act as liaisons across all levels of the schools and become foot soldiers of dei so but so that's at the school at the board and district level we still have
028mira working on equity and conclusion and the assistant principal dei will work collaboratively with each other with her and in the schools to advance in the schools the board and district's efforts toward equity inclusion sharing best practices contributing to the ongoing development of a more equitable and inclusive learning environment for all so that is if that's not reflected in the staffing sheets it's not a change in fte at all it's simply a a change in title and also um and i'm sure it's going to be as the sister principals know an increase in work assistant principals work very hard no pauses are any questions about anything who wrote what and it's going to be a question um yeah you know i think that's great i think uh i look back um looking over dan uh
029led the drafting of our resolution um about dei back and when was it 2020 yeah 2020 um and uh you know the board in 2020 was totally you know we supported this this is um this is a jody shapira who we are um and um through the work of everybody mera and the on the teams at administration school it it continues to evolve but it and i think this just says it continues to be front and center of who we are and um we provided you guys you know the resources to make that happen and as it evolves it changes over time and this is just a another another piece of executing this for for our our students and our staff so go forth thank you um and we're very excited about this we have
030work at the board and district level then we have work at the school level and um we think it's going to be much more effective the other thing one mentioned the board of the staffing um and this i think there is a a change but it's not an increase in fte in the administration you can see a reduction of 2.0 and that reduction of 2.0 is accounted for by one person who previously was counted in the ad building who is now in being recognized as fte in the buildings um it's a it's someone in a teaching not teacher but it's someone in the bargaining unit that's that's recognized now in the building's staffing sheets the other is a reduction in administration in the district level and an increase of 0.5 at each building um and
031this is uh because we're in the process of trying to streamline how we work streamliner operations and also distribute leadership from the district administration into the buildings because this is where the this is where the action takes place this is where the changes are made this is where the students are so this this is in keeping with that so again it's not at least in current fte terms it's not an increase it's it's 1.0 at the admin at the district level now 0.5 in each building but in the staffing sheets it would show up as a as the one point increase because that 0.5 in each building was left off uh staffing sheets two weeks ago um last thing last thing i want to mention is it's a spring break next week we didn't know
032that by the weather necessarily other than that we no one should complain about um this winter but as we've done in the past um we'll be putting on an auto reply beginning on saturday because we recognize that teachers need a break there's a term that teachers use to describe february and march i don't remember exactly what it is and given the combination of letters i'm afraid i'll mess it up in a way that's not very good at all so um but it's everyone's tired everyone needs break you know especially our teachers we hope our students get get a break of course but we'll be putting up the auto reply uh starting on saturday indicates please don't expect a response or spring break so that our teachers can get a rest and don't expect the response
033till monday april third when school resumes and on that note wish everyone a very happy and restful and safe spring break i don't remember when we started doing this but i just got to say that i think it's really such an important part and i know it sounds trivial or whatever to put that auto reply there because it's important for our parents to know and our students to know that spring break isn't just a time for our families to go and take time it's such an important part for our teachers to take the time not only for themselves but for their families and the ability to put that auto reply there so people understand that i think was a really great idea um just as a reminder that you know our teachers have a life
034outside of the four walls of our four walls of our buildings so thank you for doing that once again and teachers appreciate it as well any questions for bruce i think for that update on the ai is is there an ai essay for if students attend a school board meeting and have to write a report no no okay there is for sure we have to bring back the blue books absolutely absolutely for sure i got a whole bunch of those okay all right um moving on to foya foya is there any we received and processed one one for us since the last regular board meeting okay all right action items it is recommended the board of education approve as presented the resolution approving the partial settlement of vaping litigation with jewel labs inc and related
035defendants in the amount of seventy nine thousand three hundred and twelve dollars may have a motion so moved second second any discussion this this one let the board know this is um litigation that we joined a class action lawsuit against jewel a lot of work was done by deans and assistant principals to accumulate all of the time and expense and difficulty our students had as a result of having these products marketed to them and by accepting this agreement is bringing a closure to this this part of it with jewel labs and it places all the proceeds that the district will be getting which is seventy nine thousand three hundred and twelve dollars outside the reach of any bankruptcy filing so by by accepting this settlement agreement then there's that then we don't know there's there's
036a litigation that's can continue against altria but it's we expect that to be resolved either later this year or early next year and any settlement with altria then we'll just add to the recovery so this is that's why it's a partial settlement because there there may be there may be more any discussion okay roll call please um miss shapira yes please mr struck hi mr veraza hi miss alia shimmer hi mr heidemann hi miss newman hi mr fishpain i motion carries next item it's recommended the board of education approve the licensed and non-licensed staffing recommendations for the 2023 2024 year as presented in the district f y 24 staffing sheet totals is there a motion so second and discussion i will start so um it is just to repeat we've um but it's worth repeating
037because this is this is the staffing uh we've started this discussion at the board level back in january this the buildings and the staff management teams department chairs throughout the buildings have been working on their fd budgets for a couple several months there are lots of thought lots of uh thought towards what's best for students and those conversations have carried forward here um last week we had a special meeting that just devoted the entire meeting to the allocation of fte's um the uh it says according to the sheet totals so make sure i've got it right but it's f y 24 recommendations is a total of about 638 full-time equivalents um 386 366 in licensed staff and 271 and non-licensed staff reflects an increase of 10 and a half in licensed staff and four and
038nine non-licensed staff um and and and again because i've been on the board a long time but it's just such an it it's so important for us to devote this kind of work to this this is um this is the reflection of what of how we deliver education to our students um it is 75 percent or so of our budget which is 75 percent of the taxpayer dollars and we need to make sure we're spending it in the right way um by regulation we have to we have to vote on this in here in march and yet school doesn't start till august so we also have experience knowing things change um and um things will change and and as they change um and different change with programs or different change with people we will continue
039this dialogue but you have to pick a point in time to pick the number and and pass take that action that doesn't mean that we don't continue conversations and we've proven that in the past um as we've had programmatic changes that have popped up that we didn't expect in march that we had to address in august so um we will do so so that's a long-winded preamble but i thought it was worth having discussion not just jumping into the vote on such an important thing Bruce do you think also i know Tommy did a great job last week could we just reframe the drivers to of the the increase in fte's just so again we're all it's level set and we're all on the same page since this is the the meeting in which we're
040voting i don't know if that makes sense for tom to do that or however certainly i'll go ahead um um as mr fishpane said of the 14.58 fte uh that is seeing an increase 10.58 of that is in the licensed staff so the drivers of the licensed staff as we saw them were an increase in the number of courses requested by students even with declining enrollment a commitment to lower class sizes an increase in the number of co-taught courses for desurveyed courses at the freshman level for students who the individual education plans or ieps require it fourth a reduction in the number of classes department chairs teach from two to one class to give them additional time to be instructional leaders in their departments and last an addition of staff to the multi-tiered system of
041supports mtss to support students thanks thanks for reminding this and for um so for anybody who might be watching this afterwards on a tape um these five points are linked and they're written up and linked to the agenda so they're right there and these drivers are all student-centered staff-centered for these increases and these drivers are a way of expressing you know making concrete the district's mission that this is a this is one of the key ways in which the board is asked to right make sure that we're we're aligned with the mission of providing students an opportunity to achieve their unique potential that they have wealth wealth of experiences within within the school they are in schools that have a positive culture and that there are supports available so that students are able to to
042cultivate their passions i mean this is this is one of the concrete ways we do this during the year and it doesn't end it continues i mean as we see needs throughout the school year you know it's important to respond to those needs and we've this is a district that's always had the flexibility and willingness to do that also i mean but the only thing that i would add is that um knowing that it's not set in stone but honoring all of the work that led us to where we are now and i know that it was mentioned earlier but it bears repeating the hours and hours of of work and calculation and recalculation and all of it to get to where we are today even though there are still shifts that may or may
043not occur um the immense amount of work that went into coming up with these staffing numbers is appreciated okay jody rick anything can do can we go through the i'd like to just can we talk one piece okay um yeah okay the one piece of the numbers maybe before we vote that i'd love to just probably have just a little bit better handle on probably debbie and kathy is um you know obviously going into this past year we um we made the concerted effort because of july 4th um to make sure that we ramped up the the social work supports within our buildings um and with the understanding that it was you know that focus of the one year and so now going to the next school year um we are looking at decreasing the
044social work supports within the two buildings um back down to the pre this year level that was a long-winded way of saying that um what i know what i'd like to understand is you know how is that going to work how because i've seen you know the healing center i've seen the restorative justice i've seen the presentations that this the groups have made about the um the different programs have been been put in place the healing centers how with the reduction in staff are those phenomenal programs have been put in place how will those be able to be maintained and and progressed um you know ours is not down to what it used to be we still have some fta in there because specifically in highland park you're right we have a we have a
045lot of things that are happening so we are just down point two um you asked me that last last week or last time we were here whatever that was about like how are we going to service all those kids right um we're going to have to do our best and really count on the whole mts system as a whole um and i think we've grown a lot in our capacity as we work together but we are only down point two in that because we do have a lot of need and that is i would say very specific to highland park in many regards and some of the things that we have been dealing with um i feel really good about it i also think that the leadership in those areas this past year have grown
046with their staff and i think we all have a better sense of what that looks like but it's been pretty tremendous you're right really really impressive to the point that kids will tell me how much they appreciate that so uh for dhs i i think that um something that we had to do this year as we always do is to really look at all the priorities that we have within the building and to analyze those different things so looking at class sizes looking at co-teachers looking at our mtss program looking at ratios for things like counseling social workers and school psychologists or because of our decreasing population one thing that is almost a benefit is that our ratio keeps decreasing um so our ratio for school counselors for example will be one to 237 the
047asca model actually asked for a ratio of one to 250 so we're feeling good about having that support within our schools which is very uncommon in the state of illinois it's actually the ratio is one to 741 so we're doing a great job within our areas uh for school psychologists it's one uh one to 750 we're at one to 350 and for social workers um it is one to 250 as well um our ratio is a little bit higher than that however we do have more school psychologists and we structure our school a bit differently so our school psychologists are with um in our um within our special education program and our school social workers are actually within our general education um counseling program so we actually were structured a little bit differently than highland
048park so we actually have all of our social workers to work with all of our general population students so that is a benefit that we have within our school so as a total we have a great support for school mental health professionals could we always use more always could we use more sections of our classes always um but i think that when we're looking at how we provide those supports we feel confident in the structures that we've had in place before so tragically we have had tragedies that have happened within our communities nothing to the extent of highland park um what has happened there but we have students who have faced many traumas within their lives and we've always had a system in which our school counselors and social workers and special education teachers and
049psychologists and mtss program they actually come together on a bi-weekly basis to problem solve about students we have our counseling team that meets to talk about students and during that time that's when they talk about okay so here's a student who is really in need here's a student who has experienced a traumatic experience we partner together with our counselors and school social workers so that students can receive that support so we feel confident in the structures that we've developed to support our students all of our school mental health professionals have received trauma informed training that is their background they have actually done pd themselves as well and i certainly don't want to discount the work that our trauma informed center interventionist josh novick did this past year he's done an amazing job in terms of
050working with our school and our students and our faculty um i think that we are often put into very difficult positions of having to prioritize different things within our school so um you know we have systems in place to ensure that we are supporting our students no matter the supports that they need we have many many different groups that our counselors run different support groups for we have a group we're building a group right now for um you know for student from students who are coming from the ukraine we have groups that are based upon students who have experienced a loss in their family we have all these different support groups and different groups that our counselors run to support our students in different ways because some students do better when they're in small groups
051some do better one-on-one so we continue to try to provide a variety of different supports for our students and i think it's important for us on an annual basis to look at the ratios to look at our student population to so that we can make the best informed decisions and so it's always tough we always would be asking for more but we also have to um you know make decisions that are very difficult yeah i just i want to make sure that we have the resources available for the student that doesn't have the iep doesn't have the 504 because we know that those students have the the baked-in minutes for social work psychology time the student that um has uh that that experience that has just happened you know um and you know maybe has
052been cruising along and just something happens in their life that they are able to get the support they need within our four walls because we know right now they're going to be very challenged to find mental health support outside of our four walls in a timely fashion and you know as a parent it was drilled into me get your kid in the building because if your kid's in the building we can teach them and we can support them and so that's what i love about the model that we've had in place in the last year is having that extra fte that maybe didn't have the caseload that you know our social workers have right um it and i wondered if it gave that that breadth of when we do have those students that come that
053the problem springs up being able to to pivot and be able to support those students so our social workers are different than our psychologists our psychologists do have the iep minutes that they are meeting their caseload our social workers do not their caseload is built upon our students on an annual basis who need support so we are able to support all of our students as well as our you know we're ensuring that every student who needs that support and that's a part of that really important process of we call it red and gray team it's our problem solving team that's what's really important about that process is that we're ensuring that any student who is struggling that we're providing them with that support we know that there are cases when we have a crisis team
054so we know that when something big happens we're wrapping around that student we're involving everybody so that we ensure that those students were connecting with the families we're connecting with all the people within our buildings to ensure that they receive the support that they need i'll i'll name this too because we know that mental health is a major concern for our nation as a whole and what i think is really beneficial too is that we work with our communities to make connections with families as well we have really great resources within i know just from working at deerfield high school within deerfield working with west deerfield township where there are resources for families who may not be able to afford different support so i think it's important for us to continue to make those connections
055with those organizations that provide support even outside of the school walls a plug for APs of diversity equity inclusion they've been a part of they will be a part of this work in terms of um mtss but also with the diversity equity inclusion piece of climate and culture they're going to be instrumental in this work as well to ensure that they're working with the entire school set all of our students receive support i think that they'll be key in working with mira and looking at research looking at data so that we can ensure that we're providing all of our students with that support and i want to be clear all of my comments are with the with the absolute assumption that every social worker is you know is has is working 110 i know that
056you know and and and where my concern is and that we have those crises and that and every staff member in the building is doing everything from an empathetic lens and ensuring that where they can they are embracing students i want to make sure that we are providing the bandwidth so that you can meet those students where they are um and that's so that's where my concern was okay other discussion i mean really just to agree with everything that ann has said and to underscore that this again is part of our the district this district's core mission is to meet students where they are to provide them with the the tools they need to achieve and to be successful and to to develop there's any students who isn't in the building who either drops out
057or does a sort of quiet drop out is a lot is an immeasurable loss and all of this is part of the support system to make it or the goal is to enable each student to do what he or what they can within the buildings and to achieve and whatever however they're they're they're called to do so rick jody good um okay well yeah so i will just summarize and wrap up i'll just kind of wrap it up then uh so it's uh the 600 plus 600 and some folks to take care of our students so um we appreciate the work you guys do as leadership to to make that happen and you know to the comments about this it's kind of interesting that um from the board standpoint it actually just ties to a
058fiduciary responsibility what are what are we could be talking about all the fds or every program but you know for this board it's been covid response it's been george foley response and mtss's and now we've done that special ed restructuring and programming um and it's july 4th and so this district has just done phenomenal work to respond to that to lower kids and so now we just want to we're getting a better understanding that you guys are have worked that into the way you deliver things and it's just our kind of fiduciary job that we're we're putting the resources behind it making sure that you've got what you need to to deliver that and it sounds like you do and keep this posted so thank you even to those who might say oh this is
059a lot of fluff it's not this is part of our fiduciary responsibility because it's a lot cheaper and costly on a variety of levels to meet students where they are within the buildings rather than to respond to a crisis or to wind up paying for outplacement tuition this is just part of our our obligation to our students and also to our taxpayers to provide these services yeah that's great well it's good discussion it was just real helpful to thank the board for having this discussion rather than just voting so but to that end let's vote so um got a motion on the table uh roll call please mr struck aye mr baraza aye miss ellie schermer aye mr heineman aye miss newman aye miss shapira yes please and mr fishpane is aye the motion carries
060next to the consent agenda board member may pull on any item for separate consideration does any board member wish to pull an item off the consent agenda for separate consideration very none it's recommended the consent agenda be approved as listed is there a motion so moved second second and newman i have the bills you have the bill yes i remember this time um we looked at three bills commercial truck and auto rancic am i saying that correctly rancic um and i know in our school today and everything was correct and in balance as i would expect very good thank you any other discussion okay roll call mr baraza aye so shimmer aye mr heineman aye miss newman aye miss shapira yes please mr struck aye mr fishpane motion carries sir motion adjourned meeting so moved
061second second and roll call miss ellie schermer aye mr heineman aye miss newman aye mr shapira yes please mr struck aye mr baraza aye mr fishpane motion carries we are adjourned for eight o'clock thank you sir thank you sir see you tomorrow