Board Meeting 11/28/16

001but I thought everybody should get seated first. May I ask for a roll call? Ms. Culver. Ms. Gordon. Here. Ms. Cunningham. Here. Ms. Meyer. Here. Ms. Law. Here. Would everyone else seated at this table identify themselves and move? We have some assistant superintendents. Ms. Stigman, superintendent. Sandra Hassel, executive secretary of the superintendent. Ms. Anderson, director of the superintendent. Okay, I need a motion to approve the agenda. Is there a second? All those in favor? Opposed? Abstentions? Okay, motion passes. Citizens comments. We welcome your comments and questions and give them serious consideration. Pursuant to Board of Education Policy 2-230, the first comment period is solely for comments about matters on tonight's meeting agenda. Before you deliver your comment, please identify yourself and state the agenda item to which your comment is directed. The second comment period

002is for comments about any matter. Please limit the length of all comments to no more than two minutes. We will do our best to address your questions during the relevant agenda item discussion. For non-agenda related questions or for questions that require additional response time, we will follow up with you as well as report back at the next board meeting. If there are citizens comments, I would simply ask that people go up to the microphone there and state your name and take your two minutes and go in any order you like. So are there any citizens comments? My name is Arie Tanimoto, I'm on English. Hi, I'm Debbie Dicker and I'm a math teacher at Highland Park High School. We are both on our respective equity leadership teams in our building. We're gonna share our two

003minutes to just let you know that we're here to speak in reference to item number 8C, the sounding board. And what we wanted to do is just take a moment for other staff members come up and speak about 8C and just take a minute to recognize all the staff members who came this evening to support those who are gonna share a few words and just let you know that while not everybody here is going to speak, we did want you to know that we are all in support of the words that you will hear from our colleagues. So if those of you who are here this evening would- From Deerfield and Highland Park, whether or not you're speaking. Just so you guys can see that there's a big group of us who wanna just let

004you know that the words you'll hear are not gonna be from everybody, but they're on behalf of all of us. And that there were others who were not able to be here tonight. Would you like to have everyone go around and announce their names? I know there was a sign-in sheet. Everyone. Whatever people are more comfortable. Hi, everyone. I'm Suzanne Nice. I'm a white school psychologist at Deerfield High School. First, I want to genuinely thank the board for all that you do for us and all the ways that you support us. It is noted and appreciated. I also want to specifically thank Dr. Dignam, Anthony Anderson, and Tom Calentis for their ongoing support of our equity work. I'm gonna just talk a little bit about the equity work and how it has affected me. The

005process of our equity work has helped me have a better understanding of the needs of all of our students. I feel better equipped to talk about equity issues in general and race in particular, such as when students of color have talked about hearing the N word, when students have struggled with how to respond to an anti-Semitic statement that's presented as a joke, or when LGBTQ students have talked about negative language directed at them. Students have also talked with me recently about their anxiety and fear related to the current climate in our country. I've learned to think more critically and with an equity lens about our curriculum, pedagogy, and the ways that staff interact with students. But most importantly, our equity work has helped me think about the ways that we harvest the gifts and talents

006of all of our students, regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, income, ethnicity, language, and differing ability. I had a powerful moment recently when I was listening to a group of LGBTQ students who asked to come together to talk about their feelings and reactions related to recent events in our country. Students of different races were present, and I heard white students talk about their understanding of race, privilege, and being white in a way that I could not have done in high school. All of the students engaged in a nuanced discussion of race, immigration, feedback now, language, and gender identity. I heard students talking about the need to feel safe in school and ways to help each other. Their combined vulnerability and wisdom was a total gift. I wish you could have all heard

007it. I hope that we continue to dedicate resources at both the district and building level so that this work can continue. We work together as a team, and as we are preparing our students for a global world, we really need our equity work more than ever. Again, genuine thanks for all that you do for us, and I look forward to partnering with you in the future. Thank you. For community members, I came from several different paths. As a community member, I have three children who graduated from Highland Park High School, the youngest of whom graduated in 2006. So she missed the equity and excellence initiative that the district undertook, and I can't tell you how grateful I am, but at least I got the education. My daughter missed it. My sons missed it. But I

008have benefited from it, and because I've benefited, my students and I were definitely, I started out in the Supervise That Resource Center. I was a white woman of a certain age in a primarily students of color environment, and it became quite clear to me early on that I did not know a lot, and that I was inadvertently and unconsciously making money, turning, don't talk me to be a white woman who didn't know. When I was asked in our equity work, the first question that I was asked that stumped me was, describe yourself racially. What does it mean to be a white woman? I thought about what it meant to be a white woman. I just was. We're the norm, and everybody else. I did not, when we talked about race, it was about others. I

009did not include myself in that. So that changed, and it has changed drastically for me, and that is thanks to some very key people in this room. There are a lot of colleagues here, Andrea, Tom, who hired me, our superintendent, current superintendent, who has shown a tremendous interest in continuing the work. So I just want to let you know how grateful I am, because I know that this work is absolutely crucial to my understanding who I am as a person, as an American, as a white American, as a female. And I just ask our district continue this. I walk out in the community when I travel, I talk about it, and I'm proud. I couldn't be prouder to talk about the district, and I've had many, many people ask, wish that they had this going

010on in their environment. Thank you very much. Is that a little bit better? Okay, yeah, I know, I just put it all the way down. Hi, my name is Helen Crowley, and I am a social studies teacher at Deerfield, and this is my 26th year in the district. And I have, I believe strongly that what I've learned to call equity work has been something that I've cared about deeply, not just in my teaching, but in my whole life. But I believe that I have gotten a vocabulary and a set of skills to work with through the focused work that we have done here, through the time and resources that we have spent that has made a huge difference. And I knew that that was happening. I attended summit last year and this year, and I

011knew what a profound effect that that was having on me personally and on my relationships with some of my colleagues. But I don't think I realized just how impactful it was in the classroom until this fall. As I said, I've been teaching social studies for 26 years, which means I've taught a lot of elections. And I love teaching elections. And I think I do a pretty good job at it and at trying to engage kids in a safe way in conversations about policy and ideas and where we're going as a country. And I've prided myself on my ability to do that in a way that kids of all political backgrounds and opinions would feel comfortable. And I knew that this year was going to be different and it was gonna be harder. And that this

012was unlike any election that I had ever taught. And I firmly believe that if I had not had this work, that I would not have been able to have useful conversations with students about our country, about where we are, about why people of all beliefs and races and genders and orientations are concerned about different things. And the example that I can give is on the morning of the election, I walked into my classroom, as I do, a white heterosexual cisgender teacher into a classroom, a US history classroom, where I knew that I had the complete spectrum of political leanings. So I knew that there were people supporting every candidate and I knew that people would be surprised. But I also knew in that classroom, I had some pretty vocal kids on all political sides, but

013I also had students of color and one transgender boy in class. And I knew that the way we talk about what's happening right now was going to be different in terms of that. And trying to create an environment where we could talk and that my students who differed in terms of their political leanings would also not feel under attack or feel like they had no place to go. How would I negotiate that? And if it hadn't been for the kind of deep work that we have done in here and the support of the equity leaders that we have in the district, my work with Andrea, but also in our building, and I'm always gonna turn to Christine Saxman, who has been such a model for me. I wouldn't have known how to do it. And

014I think that I have not, I didn't understand how important it was in a visceral way to every conversation in the classroom until then. So thank you so much for all of your support and for your continued support in terms of resources and focus on this work. Good evening. I'm so sorry to interrupt, but because we have a certain set way that we recognize as our law, I have to ask people if it's at all possible to limit it to two minutes, and I'm terribly sorry. I don't want to interrupt the flow, but we do need to do that because that is our problem. Certainly. Thank you. My name is Genevieve Misfeltz. I am a social studies teacher at Highland Park High School. I'd like to first express gratitude to the board for seeking our

015voices on this matter. Tonight, I'm not going to share my personal voice, but I'm sharing the voice of my colleague who's asked, Eduardo Garza, who's asked me to share his voice with you all. Our equity work at HPHS has allowed me to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race and speak truth to power. As a US history teacher, I use our equity lens to apply the constitution to every major social issue we face in this country with my students, helping them see with eyes wide open the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination and oppression on the body politic. Discussions of race matter now more than ever because the philosophical grounds for liberal democracy have been weakened by this presidential election cycle. Here, I am not talking about the archaic two-party vitriol between

016Democrats and conservatives. I am talking about the philosophical foundations of our republic, which adhere to a representative government operating by the rule of law and in defense of our most defenseless populations. As Socrates said, the true test of any democracy is the state's ability to protect its most vulnerable population. With the crisis of liberal democracy that has befallen our republic, we need our equity work now more than ever. Race matters to a young person's view of society, especially in the teenage years when young people watch their peers tense up as they pass each other in our hallowed hallways. Race matters to a young person's sense of self when they reveal their hometown and are then pressed with this follow-up question by their peers. No, really, where are you from? Regardless of how many generations their

017family has been in the United States. Race matters, and so therefore our equity work matters because of the sighs, the snickers, and silent judgments that reinforce that anti-democratic norm that certain people don't belong in this country anymore. Mr. Garza and I both ask to the district that you continue to commit leadership and resources to continuing our collective equity work and learning. Thank you. Broke on first, that's very difficult to follow. Anyway, good evening, buenas noches. My name is Gabriel Rodriguez, and I wanna first thank the board for the opportunity to speak to you all this evening, and thank you for your commitment to equity. I speak to you from the unique perspective of coming to Highland Park High School as an education researcher hoping to complete his dissertation research at the University of Illinois at

018Urbana-Champaign. But I also speak to you as a teaching aide this year at Highland Park High School. I have honestly received an invaluable education in seeing the educators in the building at Highland Park High School wrestle with how to appropriately challenge and affirm identities of students. It's been an absolute treat, and I thank you for that education. But I'm also left with a lot of questions. Research has consistently demonstrated the social-emotional benefits, but also equally powerful the academic and social outcomes that students experience when they are challenged, when they are allowed the opportunity to talk about their identities, when staff are allowed to talk about their identities in tandem with their students. I'll speak to you about what it means to do equity work in suburban communities. Part of my work focuses on these settings,

019and suburban communities are diversifying more than ever, and many school districts are left wondering how do we meet the needs of our students? And in all honesty, I believe that District 113 is very much a pioneer in investing in that, hiring staff that are critically engaging in these issues, and I believe that we should do more, and we can do more. So to conclude, I think that the fact that the equity position is an autonomous office should remain in order to tackle the complex and intersectional issues that our students and our staff encounter on a regular basis. We must not relent. We must continue this work and earn its rigor. Thank you for your time. Good evening. My name is Janet Salmon. I'm a social studies teacher at Highland Park High School, and I too

020am here to speak to agenda item 8C. I wanna first thank the board for allowing us the opportunity to share our voices here, and I appreciate greatly that you've opened the door to hear from us, and that means a lot to me personally. I wanna start by saying that as a black woman, I have been engaged in equity work all my life, in some form or other. Professionally, I've been committed to it since the very first day that I walked into my first classroom, and I can say in my 17 years here in the district that I have gotten supremely better at the work because of the amazing leadership that we've seen over the years, and I'm eternally grateful for that. Now, in the 20 years that I've been teaching, the way that I've committed

021to this work and approached it has certainly changed. I believe that it has improved. I feel that I've become more deliberate in the way that I approach equity work, and with that said, the reasons for me approaching it, approaching this work have not changed. I believe wholeheartedly that this work is good for kids. I believe that it moves children, that it helps them become well-rounded individuals who are prepared for the world that they are entering into. We have language now that talks about 21st century skills and 21st century leadership, and the world that our young learners are poised to inherit requires them to be 21st century leaders. To be that entails critical thinking, effective communication, well-rounded collaboration, and being a creative individual. That has not changed. That's been the way that it's been over the

022years, but what I do believe has changed is that our world is looking different and that our children need to be more proficient in being effective communicators with everyone and being able to disagree, being able to talk about challenging topics and conversations, and what I've learned over the years through my equity work, through the leadership of the district and my school, my building, is how to help them be that, how to help them do that, and I've become more proficient in it and more comfortable. So in the classes, in every class that I teach, I allow, I provide opportunities for my students to be able to talk to each other about challenging topics so that they are proficient in it because when they go out in the world, they are going to need these skills,

023and so I ask that we continue to support me in helping to support our children. I ask that you support us in doing this work because it is important, it does matter, and it's not going to change. Thank you. Hi, I'm Marissa Fiorito. I'm a librarian at Deerfield High School. It's my 12th year. Kind of strangely, I grew up in this area and the first place that I talked about race in a group was at Deerfield High School, and for that, I'm really indebted. As you know, if you live in this world, you've got messages about race, about gender, but not having that opportunity is really painful. I'm gonna talk briefly just about my work in the library, so a couple examples of why this work has impacted us. Simply, on a really simple level,

024looking at things like our collection and who's in the books that we have in our space, that's something that isn't hard to do, but it's changed a lot. I'm gonna give a specific example, something I observed a couple years ago in the library. It's a free place to come and go, and one day, I had seen a black male student kinda just yell out, which happens all the time in the library. It's not a super quiet space anymore, and as I was sitting at my desk, I did see three white teachers separately approach that student to discipline him, and without the equity work, I don't think that I would have noticed that, nor had the courage to approach the teachers to have them come talk to me about what I had witnessed, because that's the

025same behavior that our white students, they act that way every day, and maybe they're approached, or maybe they're not approached at all, so that was a really great opportunity for us, and the students were watching us. And I think that's really critical. Also, just on a personal level, in terms of, I have two little white boys, three and 10 months, and I also find this is extremely important for me to understand the responsibility that I have to them, to raise them, to notice. My son was told the other day he can't have a ponytail, and all the girls in his class told him that, and he's three, and he's asking questions about skin color and race, and I'm still grappling with that, but I'm able to feel courageous and know the importance and the gravity

026of that, so I really hope that we can continue this in both of our buildings and at the district level. Thanks. Hello, I'm Josh Rosenthal. I'm a social studies teacher at Highland Park. I came here eight years ago at the beginning of the equity work, and it certainly shaped me considerably through the years. I just wanna talk very briefly about my work in AP Economics. It's a very narrow area, but it's an area that's been impacted by the equity work significantly. When I came here, we had four sections of AP Econ, and now we have eight, and we've had eight now for I think three or four years in a row, and one of the reasons is because we have used an equity lens to view that course and how we can change the way

027we deliver that course to access more students, and this is not just about our black and brown students. This is white students I'm talking about. If you looked at my course and you came in my room, you'd see a very significant majority of white students, many of them who would never have taken this course if we hadn't used the equity lens to reshape how we deliver the course. Students who are now given college-level opportunities in high school who can go on and use those skills and develop that confidence, and I think it's just imperative to remember that it's all students that we're talking about. It's not a particular race or group. Every student benefits from equity. I know I have and I know my colleagues have, and I urge you to consider continuing to support

028at the district level and the building levels this equity mission. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jigboor. I wanted to thank you guys as well for letting me speak, and I wanted to go through some tangible examples of equity that hopefully you guys can see in some of the hats that I wear in both buildings. I'm the assistant varsity soccer coach. We've had a lot of times where refs have kind of been like, why are your kids speaking Spanish, or why is your captain speaking Spanish? And it's kind of given me the tools to talk to a referee and be like, it's okay, it's not affecting the game, et cetera. And I think that some of the tools that I've learned have made it so that it's allowed for sometimes a confrontational situation to be

029handled sort of with grace based on skills of navigating how to talk. I'm also the assistant varsity tennis coach at Helen Park, and we've had students that don't have necessarily the same traditional background of most of the tennis players in the area, and I've learned to talk to other coaches about how we select our team so that every kid has a equal chance of obviously making the team based on their potential and not just to just kind of hit the most balls when they were a kid. In my psychology class, I'm able to question systemic racism, institutional racism, and even bringing up examples in our own building where I feel like I have the freedom to do that without sort of being labeled based on some of the equity work that we've had. In US

030history, we talk about housing policy and how that sort of can affect the way that wealth is accumulated in families, and I think that the students can definitely see it's not just somebody's family working harder than somebody else. In my philosophy club, I've been able to navigate and talk to seniors about their choices with fraternity and sororities, and does that potentially further ethnocentrism, or is their goal to be around diverse learners and diverse people when they get to college? So I want to say thank you again. The work is critical. It's critical at both schools, and hopefully some of these examples that are tangible. You can see how important they are, and I really appreciate your time. Hi, my name is Sandra Wichner, and I work at Highland Park High School in the PE department.

031What I wanted to start out with is thank you for listening to us, but when I first started, I went to a diversity training session here at the district, and many of the people who are here were here when I took that class, and I think it was in 2007, and I think Andrea, and I think she was the only one teaching it, but I've taken seed with Christine and Mira as my second time, but I want to tell you as a person of color how important it is to have this work continue. As a PE teacher, you'd think, oh, why are they talking? Why aren't they moving? We move, but a lot of things come up. Okay, it does, and I am a sponsor of our HP3 club, co-sponsor with Ms. Pike, and I

032run our ski and snowboard club, and some of the kids are so surprised when they see a Latina there for ski and snowboard, and it's okay, and I'm able to have those conversations, or if something comes up in class, and a kid uses an N-word, or says something about Latinos, or says something about white people, I don't just let it go. Oh, let's talk about it. What would you do with that? So I'm able to have these conversations based on the training that I've had. I've gone to a summit. I've done the regionals here in Chicago. I've seen you there, and I think it's so important. I think it's so important that we continue this, because every time I go to summit, or do one of those Chicago trainings, or do SEED, I go back,

033and I'm like a little kid. I tell all my colleagues in my department, I'm like, hey, this is so cool. You should come to SEED, or we learned this. We don't just talk about this, and it's so important, because an issue may arise in another colleague's classroom, and we're able to discuss it. They'll say, hey, Sandra, I was thinking of doing this. This happened, and we're able to talk about it. It's not just a closed thing. And when things happen in my class, and I'm super worried, I want the kids to learn about it. So I'll go and reach out to Ms. Pike, Andrea, Christine, Mira, or other people who I've seen at summit, or regionals, and I said, look, this happened. I need help, because it's not a dean issue. Let's have it a

034learning. And the only way we're gonna do that is if you guys choose to continue to support with the position, and having these sessions for us to go to the conferences and things like that. So thank you for your time. Hello, my name is Bridget Farner. I love microphones. Thank you, board, for listening to us. Especially thank you to the students who are patiently watching us talk. And thank you so much to my colleagues who are here. I know there are plenty of things that we could be doing at home. So thank you all. Tom Clintus and I met, oh, page one. Last August at our first meeting at Spectrum, students mentioned a high level of discomfort with the bathroom and facility situation in our building. This was the beginning of Copia's work that our

035district undertook to help serve our students who are transgender and gender expansive. Workshops and trainings were implemented and a task force was formed. Meetings, procedures, systems, building and facility considerations were some of the undertakings that have occurred in the past year. All of these things occurred, and still students and staff are asking for more. I met with Tom Clintus last year to request release time for this work. He shared that he would move this forward. I then read the February 18th, 2016 notes for the board where the board policy 710 mentioned the appointment of a non-discrimination coordinator. I emailed Tom again at my delight that the board would support positive equity work that we are doing in this district, page two. Now, Tom and I met in March. He shared with me that this position

036would be added to the responsibilities of the director of equity and grants. I expressed my reticence that the scope of the work of a full-time position would be added to the work of a person who already has a full-time position. I met with Chris Dignam. I spoke with members of DEA to inquire as to why the board would create this brand new position, but not staffed accordingly. It is my understanding that this position, the non-discrimination coordinator, is set to be folded into the director of curriculum's position for this coming year. I had previously suggested that the non-discrimination position could be split at .4 HPHS, .4 DHS, and .2 at the administrative building. I have other suggestions for how this position could be implemented by using our experts on equity, sexuality, and gender who are currently

037at HPHS, DHS, and the administration building. Please continue to support our work with the appointment of a non-discrimination coordinator while also supporting established equity positions. Thank you. I'm Michael Rosenzweig. Other than Helen, I've been here the longest. And I'm not here to, as my colleagues have, far more eloquently than I can speak to the importance of this work. I know many of you, I can't imagine you, don't know how important it is. And I actually wasn't gonna talk tonight, but Bridget brought up something that I think is crucial. I don't think this is a discussion about whether we need equity work. There's no question we need equity work. The question is, what is this gonna look like? The concern is that it gets folded into yet another Highland Park or District 113 employee who has

038too many things on their plate. That it gets lost in the shuffle as we begin to move forward with other issues. And while I have not thought through the nitty gritty of it, the way Bridget seems to have on pages one and two. What? On page two, mostly, I thought mostly page two. My concern, as with many of my concerns about the district, is that we've moved away from a horizontal way of doing things. Bridget said it, you look out on this audience and you cannot miss it. We have myriad faculty, staff, support staff, who have dedicated hours and days and months and years to this work. And to not think about reimagining the way this work is done now that we are in a transition. And not taking advantage of this incredible group of

039minds that sits here before you, that's my concern. Not that we're gonna do the work or not, we're gonna do the work. But that when you begin to make decisions, I would urge you to talk to the people on the ground. Talk to the people who are going to end up doing the important work, which is the work with the children. And maybe get their idea of how it might best be done, as opposed to make decisions in a vacuum, which often happens in certain institutions. My name's Lisa Temkin and I don't work for the district and I'm following good speakers. I'm here to talk as a parent. The first year that HP did the third, I think it was the first year, my daughter graduated in 2009 and she couldn't come tonight, so she

040emailed me today and said, could you go, you have to talk. So I'm here to tell you that this impacted her in a way that this is now what she does professionally. She's 25, she's worked with all different populations in a variety of positions. She works for the Chicago Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights and Education. And she was very much impacted by the work that she did in HP to the third. And actually, I believe she's still in contact with Mary Pike, she still comes back and does things occasionally when she's in town. So it's been a good thing. And you should have students talk about how this impacts them. But anyway, my daughter asked me to come and talk. It's not about preservation this time, so it's good. And it's been great work. So

041thank you for doing it. My name's Ronnie Washington and I'm also a parent as well. And I will have to be honest with you, when my ex moved out to Highland Park, I knew it was a good school district, but I was really fearful of the diversity and the equity. I've already gone through one, I have three kids. One graduated from Rowan Beach but attended Palatine. My daughter graduated from Highland Park High School and my son is now going to Deerfield High School. So my kids have been everywhere. My first child had to go through a really hard time in Palatine. And it affected her and her identity. And it hurt me really tremendously to watch her and still watch her, she's 25 now. And if I get emotional, she was actually at Ohio State

042this morning. So, you know, it's been a hard day. So basically, I was worried about coming here, but I'm gonna have to tell you that I was so impressed with the teachers, with Mary, with Andrea. I was so happy the last few years when I watched my daughter grow and learned to clearly think I got to volunteer HP3. I got to see these kids and work and then also get my perspective as a parent, as an Asian woman as well. Andrea, I attended her class, my daughter invited me to go. And I was able to sit there and watch what these kids were learning. They were able to clearly think, they were able to be open and have these open discussions that I'm sorry, we don't always have in society and some parents don't always

043do this. You know, so it was so great and I cannot just express how much gratitude I had with Highland Park High School. I did worry about Deerfield. I'm not gonna lie cause my son is in Deerfield now. I don't know Deerfield as well as Highland Park because I did a lot of volunteer work there. So I was a little nervous. Of course, I have friends who kind of kept me, you know, with who's out there. So, you know, I asked my son repeatedly about how it's going, you know, and how his classes are. So that is valuable to me, you know, continuing equity, watching my kids grow and having them have different experiences, you know, seeing my personal struggle because of where we had her and where we didn't have this progressive equity, you

044know, thing that we're doing here. So just watching, like I said, watching Nikki being a part of HP3, going to classes, you know, has really made me proud of being here. When I first, I was really skeptical. Hi, my name is Nikki Washington and I'm alumni from Highland Park High School and I had the amazing opportunity to be in Race, Equity and Leadership with Andrea Johnson and be a part of HP3. And in both the course and the club, I was able to learn a lot about how to have discussions about race. I was able to also just talk about racial issues going on within our society today that I felt like sometimes I might not have the opportunity to do in class. And I was also able to develop my own racial identity and

045get a sense of who I was in this high school. Something that I really, really feel like Highland Park High School did an amazing job of was the faculty members, when it came to their equity work, talking to my peers at my college now, a lot of the times when they wanted to bring up issues that impacted them, whether it be within the LGBT community or race or gender, teachers would often brush it off or try at least, yeah, exactly, to stay away from the topic. But having the teachers that I did, I felt like I never felt scared to bring up these topics and we were able to have discussions about these. And I also learned how to carry out these conversations with my peers outside the classroom in a manner where it didn't

046feel like I was arguing with someone, it felt like I was having an actual discussion. It was really effective to hear from their perspective and they felt, and I felt like as if they were intrigued and really interested in hearing my perspective on the topic. I even have students who are seniors now who still Facebook message me who want to talk about racial topics and I feel like that in itself is a really big example of how much equity work in Highland Park High School has really just impacted students as well. So thank you. I also wanna say thank you to Tom. He also gave me a lot of support senior year with the situation with Mickey and I really wanted to say thank you for that. Hi, I'm Christine Saxman. I'm from Deerfield High

047School. As an English teacher, I'm also a senior leader within our district and on our equity team. I really wanna thank the board first of all, first for your sounding board that you care about our voices. Second, the statement that you made at the beginning of the last board meeting meant so much. I wanna thank Andrea for all the work and guidance and mentorship that she has done for me and helping me become who I have become. I wanna thank Chris for what you affirmed in your letter about making sure our students are loved and cherished and supported and my new principal, Kathy Anderson, for her messages and her really active on the ground support to create a safe space at our school. The equity work that I participated in for the majority of my

04813 years here has unequivocally made me a better teacher from the richer set of tier one interventions that I've developed to strategies for teaching vocabulary to support my ELL students and all my students to the inclusion of more diverse viewpoints and voices in my tech selection to the centering of student voice in my classroom. The equity work has had an overwhelmingly positive effect, impact on me and my students and was recognized last year when I was named a golden apple finalist and teacher of distinction. That would not have happened without the district's commitment to equity work and what I learned there. I have become a more culturally conscious, responsive and humble teacher. This next part is gonna be hard for me because I'm talking about safe space. So I would just ask you to hold

049my emotion and knowing that it comes from a place of love. I would like to emphasize how our equity work has given me the skills to handle difficult situations. For example, when a white student jokingly gave a green card to a Latino student last week so that he could quote, stay in the country now or the skills to support staff, faculty, students who saw the names of particular groups, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, blacks and LGBT erased from our welcoming talk messages outside of our school. And the skills to support my student and co-teacher in my own classroom. When a note was found, the swastika and the N word attached to it asked, please commit to continue the equity work with resources and dedicated leadership who will have access to the decision-making process and systems that impact

050all of our students keeping an eye on our most vulnerable. Our budget and strategic plan reflect our values. And I hope that continues to reflect and invest in them positions who have a named responsibility to develop the skills to interrupt antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, ableism, sexism and Islamophobia. Thank you so much for your time. Good evening. Hope you can't hear my heart beating as I stand up here. It's going pretty strongly. My name is Mira Ante and I just thank you, right? To be here, to talk with you. The only thing better would be actually at the table and kind of hanging out, but you know, I'll deal here. And that brings me to the right, the initial, yeah, exactly why we're here, you know, HC. That was so cool when you guys came over and

051to know that you're responsive, right? So you're listening, you're figuring out what you want and how to hear our voices. So that was great over at HP and I know you guys did it at Deerfield. And then, so this is our continuation. And the fact that, you know, I started, I guess it was, I had to even write it down, 1993. And it always astonishes me to be a part of a system for so long, to watch it grow, to watch myself grow. And I know I've been in and out. But when I was here, I was amazed, right? In 93. And then I left and I developed and thought some more and came back in 2009. And I was in this place where I had been, I think my title was Coordinator of Equity

052or Director, not Director, I know I wasn't the Director, but I was working at Nutria, right? And I left that leadership role to come here as a full-time teacher because it was amazing what we were doing in our district, that we had the Director of Equity sitting at a cabinet level. To be in this district once again was an honor. And so I started and I started to think about how we were setting this great trend, right? So like the North Shore schools were looking at us because we were doing something that nobody was doing, that we had a Director of Equity. And I was so just, I think, blessed to be a part of that trend. And I would, you know, at those conferences and hanging out with folks talk about, yeah, can you

053believe it? I mean, think about what we're doing, it's amazing. And so the sense of pride grew. And I thought about how I was allowed to create curriculum, cultural capital. I was allowed to access my students' understanding of their own life experiences so that they could then leverage the content I was teaching them. And I got to present to you guys and show you that. That's amazing, right? So my freedom as a teacher, what I can do with my students has been because of the resources and the freedom that you give me and our district. So I thank you for that. And we're at this new place, right? So we've got people retiring. We have new, as I have been really trying to articulate in a positive way, a redesign. I had a chance to

054sit down with Chris recently, which was really powerful because I think one of the things that I can miss is if I'm not having a direct conversation, I can look at text or I can maybe even look at other people's stories and not really understand what's going on. So instead of doing that, Chris met me actually, it was kind of an incredible thing, again, part of our culture in the school. Hey, do you have a minute? Let's sit down, let's talk. We had what I would argue is a pretty amazing conversation to talk about this very issue. And what it came down to for me is looking at our system, right? So if we examine our system and we say, all right, so we've got two districts, 4,000 kids, roughly, or not two districts, I

055just say that, one district, two schools, 4,000 kids, over 400 staff members. And currently, right around there, if we combine everybody, we had a position as the equity director who was given point four for that, right? And then grants and then teaching. So point four, right? To deal with all of those bodies and all of those minds and all of the work that all these people just talked about has been amazing. So that's pretty incredible. I don't think there's one person who has all of that to deal with. And again, I don't know every position and points, but that's a lot. So I thought, okay, we're talking about how do we know if it's successful? So then I said, let me just take the really quickest look at one little tiny slice of data. And

056I went to, and I tried to flip it, the script. So I said, okay, let me just look at white students' composite scores on ACTs from 2008 to 2016. They've gone up a point, but it's statistically significant if we look at, and it's just, I'm not looking at all of our school to just composite. So I got the sigh, I know I gotta hurry up. So here we go. That must mean that we're doing something right. So our equity work is not hurting, it's only bringing up our students. So what I ask us to think about is if we have a school district in which we have collapsed in a redesign, which is kind of brilliant in one sense, to have a curriculum instruction person who is now mindful of all the equity work, okay,

057cool. And I think that structurally that is really, really smart. But what are we gonna do at our building levels? Because that's too much for one person. And so what I'm thinking about, if we do get to engage in another conversation, is how can we bring this into the building and maintain what we're doing for the future of our kids? Because when we look at their universities they're going to and their corporate worlds, they all have CEOs of equity. They all have chief officers of diversity. So we wanna prepare them to go into their future. So I ask you to continue this conversation with us, and I would love to help you with your advice. Are there any other citizens comments? That was three, that was okay, Mira, then. No, thank you. And I hope

058you'll stay for a bit of the rest of our meeting because some of this will be addressed in some of our presentations and whatnot tonight. So, and I understand it can be long. Students, I apologize to you. Okay, so at this point we are gonna have student reports. So can we first call up Rachel and Matthew from DHS? Thank you for your patience. I know you have a lot of work too. My name's Rachel. My name is Matthew. And we're the co-officers of Deerfield High School Student Council. So we're just here to talk about a couple of things that are going on at our school. First of all, this Thursday through Saturday is our Stunt Show. That is our 100% student-run, student-produced variety show. It features musicians, dancers, comedy, and this year's theme is Stunts

059at the End of the World. It's like an apocalypse theme. So we're really excited for that. Most of the student body usually goes, and it should be very fun. This past Tuesday was Grandparents Day. So our seniors were able to bring in their grandparents. And to my viewpoint, I think it was a success. You could definitely feel the happy environment around the school, through the halls. Definitely teachers enjoyed it as well. Kind of getting a new perspective in the classroom. And Mr. Chamberlain, the head of the special education department, was discussing the continuation of this program in future years and possibly even bringing it to other districts in the area. So the biggest thing going on at DHS right now is School Chest, which kicks off tomorrow with a huge all-school assembly and presentation tomorrow.

060It's really fun. There's a lot of speakers. We have people from the foundation, people, students that are co-chairing School Chest, and we have some videos. And once again, our beneficiary is PAF, and they raise money to fund research for a cure for degenerative genetic disease, which is propionic acidemia. To support them, we have so many different events and fundraisers, about three to four a week, and we keep adding more. It's really crazy. But it would take a long time to go through them all. So some of our biggest ones are the benefit, which is on December 11th. We have a silent auction and dinner. It's typically geared towards adults. It's one of the things that brings in money most, and we really enjoy working that. Parents really enjoy coming to it and bidding on things.

061And another big one is our run for change, which is actually this Saturday. It is a 5K run and walk, and something we added last year and we're continuing this year is it's a color run. So as people run, it's optional. They can get powdered color sprayed on them, and it's really fun. Students have loved that. It makes for great pictures. So we're really excited for that. In addition, we have various food sales going on through School Chest, whether that's during lunch, such as Lumonade or Portillo's, or it could be before school donuts or after school pizza. So the students could get a variety of those options. Other ways we're raising funds is selling raffle tickets for a Jeep. We have checkbooks filled with gift certificates that individuals could buy for local stores in the

062areas, as well as online fundraising. In addition, we have new events this year, such as Be the Change, which is November 30th. It's a spelling bee. We have Taste of Deerfield, which is bringing in new restaurants in the Deerfield area, also food trucks in our area. And finally, we have Skate for School Chest, which is an ice skating event. And to sign up for the benefit or run for change, under Quick Links on the District 113 websites, if you go to Deerfield High School, there is a subsection for School Chest, and you could find those options there. So thank you. Lauren, Highland Park High School. Good evening, everyone. I'm Lauren Schneiderman. I'm the Vice President of Highland Park High School Student Senate. I wanna thank all the teachers for coming and speaking so beautifully. It

063was really cool to hear that. With most of our winter sports teams just beginning their season, we are excited to see the accomplishment of basketball, gymnastics, wrestling, swimming, and track and field, and hockey. I'm sorry, Deerfield. And other sports this season. A big congratulations goes out to the theater department with their recent production of Equus, the story of an adolescent psychologist who works with a troubled 17-year-old boy trying to discover why he so violently attacked six horses in a stable. We are thankful that the cast and crew of Equus gets to bring this wonderful and beautiful show to the Illinois High School Theater Festival in January of 2017, and look forward to the other productions that the HBHS theater department has to offer. In addition, winter is in the height of the season for our

064athletic teams. Our Model UN team is competing in the Chicago International Model UN Conference next weekend. We wish them luck, along with our other academic competitive teams. The HBHS dance program, prior to Thanksgiving break, held tryouts for the annual dance show in March, mid-March. And dancers of all ages and all styles were able to show their talents, and I am particularly excited for dancing with all my friends throughout the school year to perform in March. Also, last Tuesday, like Deerfield, was a magnificent celebration of generations, and an event my senior class and I have been anxiously waiting for, Grandparents Day. It's always hysterical to see an insane number of grandparents in our school's hallways, and I truly enjoyed the intergenerational conversations I had in Mr. Rosenthal's class. Tomorrow night, Girl Up is holding a self-defense

065class from 6.30 to 7.30 in the exhibition gym. The organization is holding this event to raise money and awareness for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This event is open to the entire community at no cost, but there is a suggested donation of $5. Lastly, the three charities have been chosen for the 2017 Charity Drive Ballot. This year's charities on the ballot include Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center, The Willow House, Children and Family Grief Services, and the Danny Did Foundation, Advancing Awareness of Epilepsy in Sudden Unexpected Death and Epilepsy. Voting will take place next Wednesday, December 7th. With only three weeks to our snow coming celebration, the week before break, HPHS students look forward to pajama day dress ups, other activities, a culminating snow coming assembly, and a Deerfield Highland Park Rivalry

066basketball match. We cannot wait to see what the rest of the winter season has to offer. Go Giants, and thank you so much. Sarah. Good evening, everyone. I will keep it short. Thank you. Dan Brame shared that the District 113 Band Directors himself and Josh Chodoroff were guest conductors for the ILMEA District Jazz Festival that was held at Lake Zurich High School on November 19th. Mark Pector shared that the Deerfield Varsity Wrestling won the Antioch Ted DeRue's Tournament for the fifth straight year, and Senior Kyle Clough was voted Outstanding Wrestler. Our student representatives just spoke so nicely about School Chest, and I just wanted to reiterate that the benefit is on Sunday, December 11th, and the two School Chest Chairs this year, Jessica Kaplan and Tyler Jensen, happen to be students of mine, and I'm

067going to attend the benefit, and they asked that I extend invitations to all of you, so hopefully you saw them sitting at your seats, and you'll be able to attend. Staff recognition, Neil Riggler from the English Department attended the 2016 NCTE Conference in Atlanta, Georgia last weekend, and the topic of the conference was Faces of Advocacy, and the convention explored what advocacy means to teachers, students, health, literacy and learning, and social change, and Neil reported that it was really an excellent experience to be there. This Wednesday, Ryan Lease, Brandon Guder, and myself will be visiting Shepherd Middle School and Caruso Middle School in order to observe the eighth grade ELA classrooms, and meet with the ELA teachers. We hope that this will strengthen the communication between our feeder schools and the high school while discussing

068vertical movement and articulate the essential skills between all three of the buildings. The PE Department, we had Carly Michaelis, Daniel Ripke, and Sarah Campbell attended the Illinois Association of Health, Physical Education, and Dance Conference in St. Charles, Illinois. They brought back many ideas to implement in the dance and PE courses, and Sarah Campbell was a conference presenter on the topic of incorporating mindfulness and creative movement into the public school curriculum in order to reduce stress, and her session was a very popular session attended by many educators. Some exciting things have been happening in the classrooms. Christine Saxman and Nikki Antonakis had their students participate in the Great Thanksgiving Listen in their American Studies class. If you're not familiar with that, the Great Thanksgiving Listen is a national education project that empowers high school students to

069create an oral history of the contemporary United States by recording an interview with an elder over Thanksgiving weekend using the StoryCorps app. Interviews are entered into the StoryCorps archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and on storycorps.me where they become an invaluable resource for future historians and provide families with a priceless piece of personal history. And the AP American Government and Politics class participated in an election simulation that culminated last week when three parties gave speeches on Election Day. There was the Emancipation Party, Opportunity Party, and Pope Pari Party, all developed by the students from their party names and logos to platforms and ideologies which were published on each party's website. There were outstanding speeches from the VP and presidential candidates. The speeches elaborated upon the party's ideas for economic change,

070social issues, and the Middle East trying to convince voters why these candidates were the best options. The Sun stand-up news covered all aspects of the election, publishing articles about the parties and they had live blogging during the speeches. The Emancipation Party emerged victorious, although each party had strong voters in their favor. And that's all I have for you. I thought I could help keep my board report short by not sending out my call for good things until yesterday. I'm not gonna do it. So my board report is much longer. I'm going to do my best to give you a very quick summary. Some good things. On the 16th of November, HPHS troop care package event occurred and this was in honor of Veterans Day as well as a giving week at HPHS. And the freshman

071PE classes, the link crews, packaged and paid for the mailing of 74 care packages and then HP Rotary Interact prepared and shipped an additional 133 care packages. And in my board report, you can see a letter from a former Highland Park student that received one of these packages. Students and staff gathered on three occasions to process feelings regarding the recent election and to plan acts of community solidarity and support for marginalized populations that received much negativity over the last year. This occurred right outside my area so I got to see the action and it was really amazing. The next morning after the first meeting, students coming into the building were greeted by affirmation strips saying such things as more love, we are giants, you are welcome here. And the next or the following Monday after

072another meeting, all the entrances to the building had chalked affirmations and welcome greetings for the students. And I know that they're planning a number of other activities to occur throughout the year. This was just one of those amazing things to watch. And if you ever question whether students are apathetic or interested in what's going on, this was a perfect example of their interest in changing the world. And you could see this all was based upon their reaction to the election. All three HPHS Robotics teams competed at the Northern Illinois Robotics League Tournament on Saturday, November 12th. We have one team in particular that's ranked second in their division and 11th in their state. Robotics has a busy month. They're going to be doing outreach on the 10th of December at the middle schools. And then

073we're hosting a 2018 robotics tournament at the high school the following weekend. Two swimmers from HPHS qualified to compete at the USA National Swimming, or Swing Junior Nationals. Levy Nathan will compete in the 200, 500, and 1650 freestyle. And Andrew Virobev will compete in the 100 and 200 backstroke. And Tim Stroyce wanted to say that this really is a huge deal for our swim program. Paul Harris attended the Division on Career Development and Transition Conference in Myrtle Beach. And he, along with several of his colleagues from Stevenson High School, participated in a very well-received poster presentation titled A Multidistrict Collaborative Job Club for Transition Students. The next three examples, I think you'll see a common theme running through each one. Last November, students in the AP Environmental and Environmental Science classes participated in the Ravine

074Symposium. Our students got to meet with professionals in the environmental science field to help talk about and plan some things that could be done for the ravine restoration initiatives that are occurring in Highland Park. Our art club was asked to paint a mural or a logo for Pulse Fitness, formerly known as the Box, in downtown Highland Park. And they completed this design, and it was presented at their grand opening. So art club found themselves with a real life client, and they created something for that. And then last month, Michael Akiri's marketing class spent an entire day at the front office of the Schomburg Boomers. They're a minor league baseball team. And in addition to a number of presentations from front office personnel, they were asked to create an ad campaign for the Schomburg Boomers, specifically

075focusing on a campaign that might be appealing to teenagers up to around age 25. And later this month, they're going to be presenting their work to the board members of the team. And the hope is that some of their ideas will be taken and ultimately used in the campaign for the upcoming baseball season. So all three of those represent how our teachers are finding real world applications for things their students are doing. Next week, Highland Park will be focusing on the Hour of Code, and a variety of activities are planned, including speakers from computer science, the computer science field. And our computer science students are going to be going into classes to answer questions about different programs that our school offers in computer science. And finally, I just want to say something about Grandparents Day.

076We had over 180 students bring at least one grandparent, and there were over 380 grandparents in the building. And I've been involved with Grandparents Day for years now because my students make a piece that's shown at the closing ceremonies. And we interview grandparents, and we interview the students that are bringing your grandparents. So I feel like I had a pretty good sense of what Grandparents Day is all about. This morning, I had a chance to talk to a parent whose son brought his grandmother. And she told me a story that made me realize that this is not just an important event for the kids and their grandparents, but for the families that get to watch their kids go to school with the grandparents. And the insight that she brought just opened my eyes to something

077that I probably should have considered but hadn't up until that conversation. So just another wonderful activity that our school, our district, provides our students. Thank you. Tom Calentis. Well, the Highland Park staff that's here is gonna make a run for the exit because they know I have trouble being brief, but the good news. Yes, the good news is that between Lauren and Tom, they did a fantastic job of talking about all of the great things that are happening that I'll just highlight a few quick things. I really wanna emphasize the work that our teachers do to make Grandparents Day a success. Not only do we open our doors and we do a lot of different things with fine arts and supporting them, but what you need to understand is many of our teachers write lessons

078that are genuine, authentic lessons for the content they're teaching, but that also include an authentic and meaningful way for the grandparents to be involved. This takes a lot of time and a lot of thought. They could just come in and teach their regular lesson, but they stop, they pause, and they say, we're gonna have these guests in our room. How do we include them in a way where it's meaningful for the grandparents and it's educational to what I'm trying to teach? That doesn't just happen, and so many of the grandparents who are leaving recognize that and talked about how they were so impressed by, they actually learned something in our classes and our teachers worked so hard to make that happen. The other thing, this Friday, December 2nd, is our Day of Compassion at Highland

079Park High School. This coincides with World AIDS Day. This is a very special day in our school community where students and staff create a series of different educational programs throughout the day for students to learn about HIV and AIDS, and also to understand and show compassion for people who have suffered from this disease and have historically been marginalized, ostracized, or had prejudice against them for this. Our entire school engages throughout the day in different ways, from videos in classrooms, occasionally there are speakers, to lessons that teachers create to help kids understand how the virus works and mutates and things like that. Tom mentioned the Week of Code series, listening to me, sorry, turn that off, and we're very excited about that. One of the things the math and computer science teachers have been doing is

080they've been writing coding lessons for kids to use their TI-inspired calculators so that they can learn how to code with that device, and they're writing lessons for non-math computer science teachers to use in their classroom. So an English teacher, a psychology teacher, a fine arts teacher could do a brief coding activity in their class to show kids that coding is not just for computer science, but it's in all subjects, in all disciplines. Anywhere there's a digital device, there is a coder who is needed. Lastly, I want you to be aware as a board that with these next three weeks, we have some extraordinary fine arts presentations, concerts coming up. Playback theater is this Friday evening. If you don't show up early, you will not get a ticket. That is a hard sellout. It sells out

081every single time, and it's in the studio theater. There is a band concert for the winter concert season next week on the 7th, an orchestra concert on the 6th, a dance showcase on the 15th, and our chorale groups will have their winter concert on the 13th. So many of our students working so hard, this is one of their premier concerts. I hope to see you all out at HPHS. Thank you very much. Dr. Dignam. Good evening, thank you. For our FOIA requests, there have been no new FOIA requests since the November 14th, 2016 board meeting. One of the pending FOIA matters at the November 14th, 2016 meeting was a request from the Ohio-Loran Law Office. We did provide a timely response to that request on November 17th, 2016. For the remainder of my report, I

082would be remiss if I did not first thank everyone for coming out tonight. I think that it means a lot for the Board of Education and for me to listen to different perspectives and so I just want to say thank you for putting this time together to come out. It does mean quite a bit. I don't know, Tom, why people leave when you speak. You figured it out. I haven't figured it out yet, so I'm gonna keep trying for myself, so I'll let you know when I get there. But what I want to do is just mention that at board meetings, I regularly report out on things that are happening so that the community, the Board of Education has a pulse on initiatives we have or information that needs to be updated regularly. And so

083with tonight, I would like to just mention a few things I think that I would just stick to one point and this is our discussion that occurred this evening when everyone came out. And so given the input of stakeholders during the citizens comments portion of the board meeting, I believe it is appropriate to provide some insight and updates regarding our equity work with the district. Please make no mistake, District 113 is committed to equity for all students. I've been working with our new incoming assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and assessment, Dr. Sarah Araguin. Coincidentally, we spoke today. We speak quite a bit on ways we'll be expanding the breadth and depth of our equity work across the district. I have also been working with our principals to learn how we will continue to work with

084our equity teams at both Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School. Dr. Araguin will be meeting with staff, including the Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School equity teams over the next several months. She has seven months until she officially begins her position. But I know she has scheduled already to come out to Deerfield and we've been going back and forth about a day possibly for Highland Park. She will be transitioning into this period into this new position and will evaluate the successes and learn about opportunities for growth. As a district team, we will triangulate perspectives to ensure we continue equity work that impacts students of all backgrounds. As some stakeholders may be aware, our equity and grants director, Andrea Johnson, is retiring in the summer of 2017. While Andrea has performed admirably

085in the position, which was created several years ago, the equity work at District 113 has evolved and will continue to do so as we grow as a district. Andrea's current 1.0 position encompasses several responsibilities. I think Mira summed it up nicely. Point two, that is for instruction. Point four for grant writing. And point two for each building for the equity work. I am deeply committed to this work and will be directing the work to continue taking place directly in our buildings, our new auspices of each principal and their staff, as well as through Sandra Arreguin, as well as with me to have a pulse on what is happening in our buildings so that all students are supported. I believe our equity work needs to be embedded in all that we do and owned by all

086to ensure the success of each and every child. The principals and I will be determining how we staff equity work going forward and we'll be gathering baseline data this coming school year. I will be working with Andrea Johnson to provide me a detailed report on all aspects of her position as it pertains to equity with a comprehensive review of areas of success and again, areas for growth, opportunities for growth. While the board nor I could respond during your comments, suggestions and questions this evening, we do appreciate your perspectives and value the equity work that has occurred and will continue to take place with District 113. So thank you. Okay, we move on to our presentation for this evening. A little bit later than we thought. Highland Park and DHS English Learner Program presentation. Good evening

087and thank you for this opportunity to share a little bit more about our EL English Learners Program. My name is Jesse Villanueva. I'm the EL Department Chair at Highland Park High School. I've been there for three years in that capacity but I have been in the district since 2006. Hi, I'm Carrie Benito. I am a Spanish teacher and I'm also the EL Coordinator and EL Teacher at Deerfield High School and I've been in my role as EL Teacher for the past three years. In our presentation this evening, we're going to give you a basic overview of EL theory and trends and then we'll get into our specific program, what we do at Deerfield, what we do at Highland Park. To begin our work, the program of EL has changed dramatically in what we understand and

088what we expect from our learners. Also what we expect as a community in creating the environment for it. So historically, in the past, we've looked at a subtractive bilingual program where even at the government, we talk about limited English efficiency. It's what you don't have, what you need. Where now we look at it and really understand that what we're doing is not looking at all the students comes with. And so an additive bilingual program which we have now is more of the asset the students come with, that experience that they have from another country and the language that they come with and how do we use that resource in order to develop a second language. So very proud of our district with using limited English learners which came even before the state has now moved

089into being the department of English learners. And it's important how we look at our English learners because it impacts the way that we look at all learners and how we look at what they bring to the classrooms rather than what's not there. Let's talk about, there are two different kinds of English. So there's social English, also known as conversational English, and academic English. So social English is what we use every day when we have conversations with each other. Social English is acquired first, it takes about two years to acquire social English. It is showing the activities that we do in our class bring the social English to the academic language. Academic English is the languages of our classroom. So when we think back to when we were in high school, you think of biology, the

090language of biology, all of the terms, all of the vocabulary for biology, for a US history class, for chemistry class, a math class. So that's academic language. That academic language is necessary for students to be successful at school. And academic language comes eight to 10 years to really acquire. So since social English is acquired first, lots of times it can give the perception, for example, if a student talks with a teacher and they're using social language, lots of times the teacher will think, oh, they speak English just fine, but that's the conversational English. So it gives the perception that they may have more language than they do. And so the academic English is what we teach in our ESL classes. And to help us with that understanding, we have WETA, which is an educational consortium

091of state departments of education. And they're helping us to create a common language and a common understanding of what we mean when we say level one. So when we talk about levels, we're talking about their proficiency, one being entering with no English skills to SIGS, which is breaching, which means comparable to a student growing up in the United States speaking English. However, we do wanna point out that when we do look at SIGS, it does say, may no longer need bilingual English language support. So even, again, looking at academic language, you may have students who still need those kinds of supports. So the access helps us measure students' English proficiency every year. But again, it's just one of those ways of us getting closer to what are we doing in order to develop that specific

092and technical vocabulary in order for students to be not only participants in the class, but engaged participants in their classes. So. Okay, so the test that we use to determine our students' English proficiency is called the access exam. And we give the access exam once a year. We usually give it the very first week of second semester. And the access exam tests the students in the four skills, speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Okay. As Jesse mentioned, there are six levels. The top score is a six on the access exam. So Illinois says that in order to reach proficiency, they want a 4.2 or higher in their literacy skills. So that's their reading and their writing. Okay, so they want a 4.2 and a composite score of 5.0, and that's in all four skills. Okay. So

093that's Illinois. Other states have different requirements, but for Illinois, it's 4.2 and 5.0. And even that has changed in the state. So in 2010, the state looked at meeting English proficiency as being a composite of a 4.8 and a literacy composite of a 3.8. So even as a state, we're growing in that understanding. Going to the WIDA conference, we learned that Massachusetts expects five in your reading and writing skills. So again, the state's setting up what they see as students meeting the needs of EL. And with that, what's exciting again about Illinois recognizing this idea of students coming in with language skills and the district wholeheartedly grabbing onto the state seal and accommodation of my literacy. This year, we had 42 district 113 students that met the state's criteria for English proficiency. And again, that

094additive piece, it's not just that you have these language skills. Now it's how do we celebrate the two language skills? And it's not just giving up one for the other. It's the celebration of what power of self identity of having two languages and what we do with the seals. And again, putting in dual language, Highland Park High School, they're starting with dual language. There is that conversation with parents and students and with the staff and creating the seal of dual language, which goes a little bit more than that. And I'll be getting on that later on. Okay, so collaboration. One unique thing about the EL program is, I think we may be the most collaborative department in the whole district. Jesse and I talk all the time. Actually, every Wednesday at two o'clock, we either

095have a phone conversation or we go over to each other's school and meet. So we have done summer workshops together. We've gone to all kinds of conferences together. And this last October, Gwen and Jesse and I went to the WIDA National Conference in Philadelphia. And we learned so much there. And we really wanna thank you for sending us there. Without the collaboration and this opportunity, I don't think our EL program would be what it is today. And I would just like to publicly thank Jesse for being such a great mentor to me. When I was given this position three years ago, I had the certification, I had the endorsement, but the thought of developing an entire EL program from nothing was really overwhelming. And Jesse really took me step by step. He taught me all

096of the components of the job and I really can't thank you enough. So, okay, so now we're gonna talk about Deerfield. Okay, so here, three years ago, 2014, 2015, I was given a .2 position to start looking at EL. We've never had this before at Deerfield. So during this first year, I did a lot of testing. A lot of testing of the students to identify who our EL population was. And at that time, we determined that there were 13 students who are EL students and they were at the level four proficiency. So there's six levels, so they were at level four. That year, I administered the access test for the first time and just started researching curriculum for an EL program. Then last year, that was the first year that we offered some ESL classes

097at Deerfield High School. I had two different levels. I had a level four class and a level five class. So I had the upper levels at Deerfield. There were lots of new international students coming, registering the very first week of school. So that was interesting. So there were five students in the level three class, eight students in the level four class. I administered the access exam that year and eight students, eight out of the 14 passed. Oh, and I forgot to point out, so these were the languages, I don't know if you saw from the last slide, but last year, these were the languages that we had Chinese, Indonesian, German, Spanish, Tamil, Croatian, and French Creole. So we're very diverse at Deerfield. We have lots of different languages. Okay, and then that brings us to

098this year. Okay, so this year, we're expanding the program. Something interesting happened this year. Again, the very first week of school, we got these new international students coming and they had very minimal English. They were at a level two proficiency. In the past, students at that level would have gone to Highland Park because they had a more developed program. But we wanted to expand our program. We wanted to give students the opportunity to attend their home school. So this year, it was kind of hard to plan. I thought I was gonna be teaching a level four and a level five class like I did last year, but these kids were at level two. So it changed, and so this year, I have a level two class and a level five class. Four students in the

099lower level, eight students in the higher level. And here's our languages. So what's working well? Well, in the lower level class, everyone in the class has a different native language. So we have a boy from Turkey, a boy from Russia, a girl from China, a student from Mexico. And this is really the true definition of a TPI class. A TPI means Transitional Program of Instruction. So all instruction occurs in English because that's our common language, and that's really ideal. The students enjoy having a community. They're friends. They've become friends. It's a safe place. They don't feel judged by each other. So it's good. In the higher level, I'm teaching the book Persepolis. It's a graphic novel. Tons of vocabulary in that book. It's great. In the lower level, Ryan Least, my supervisor, helped me because

100I didn't have a curriculum for level two. So he suggested EDS, but he used it as old school, and that's working very well. Okay, Christine? And then, something else that's working well. This is something we learned in Philadelphia when we were at the conference. I created an EL student profile sheet for all of the EL students. So I just want to stress, this is a sample student. This is not real. I think I Googled happy student. I'm like, hey, mom. Okay, so I had to give a little background information. Okay, confidential, okay. Just know where he comes from, what he likes to do, who he lives with. Anything I know, any background information. Okay, and then I let the teachers know what his proficiency level is. He's at a two, two, one, three. Okay. Keep

101scrolling up, Christine, thank you. Okay, keep going. And then, these are the can-do statements. What can the student be able to do in your class in all four of the skills and the listening skills? Okay, so I have highlighted what they can do. For me, at the bottom, I've listed some helpful instructional strategies and some things teachers could consider modifying their assessments to help the students. So I made one of these for each of the 13 ESL students that I have this year and gave them to all of their teachers and counselors. I'm hoping that this is going to be helpful. Thank you, thank you. Okay, and okay, so challenges. As we expand the EL program, we are developing supports to address students' social, emotional needs. I just wanna say the EL students, they have

102a lot to deal with. They're here in a new country with a new language, a new culture. They're struggling to fit in. You think about the typical teenager, how difficult these years are to fit in, and then the EL students, it really feels different, struggling to fit in. And I also have to say, the current political culture that we have after the elections, there's this anxiety. All of my students are students of color. All of them are immigrants, and they're worried, they're worried about being accepted by their peers, by everybody. What's gonna happen to their families? Are they gonna be deported? They have a lot to deal with. At Highland Park, they have a team of teachers to help the EL students. They have social workers, teachers, deans, teacher aides. Okay, so DHS is expanding

103our program. We need to look at ways we can take that idea and fit it into our school. Okay, so we also need to look at staff development. We've never had an EL program at Deerfield, so this is brand new for all of the teachers. Lots of the teachers have never worked with EL students. Okay, so we need more staff development for our teachers. We also need to look at our curricular offerings. Okay, I'm almost done. And plans for the future. Again, at Highland Park, for the newcomers, for the lower level students, the not as proficient students, they have a double block of English. They have a double block of ESL, two periods, and that counts as their English class. At Deerfield, we have one period of ESL, and then they have just their regular

104mainstream English class. Okay, so for the future, we would like to make this a double block of ESL and have that count as their English class, like they do at Highland Park. We would also like to look at an EL interdisciplinary team of teachers, sort of like the middle school idea, where there would be a set of teachers from all of the different subjects that would teach the EL students. They would share teaching strategies and supports. They would establish the same routines in their class. For example, every student, every teacher would write on the board the learning objective for the day and also the key vocabulary needed for today's lesson. And they would all have these same routines so the kids would know what to expect. So those are some of our plans for the

105future at Deerfield. Okay, thank you. So at Highland Park High School, when you look at the EO department chair position, what we talk about in both schools is that any student that's coming in new to our district takes a home language survey. Two main questions. Is another language spoken at home and does a student speak another language? If yes is answered to either of the two questions, then we administer what's called the WAP test, which is a modified version of the access test to get an idea of what their language, their English language proficiency is and what kind of supports and services they may need. What that helps us do is understand that there's different levels of English proficiency and different degrees of supports that need to be provided and different models that will work

106for the students. So Deerfield has under the EO umbrella the TPI program, which is the transitional program of instruction. And that's where you have students of diverse languages coming together to learn English. Also at Highland Park High School, we have a TPI program. We have students who speak different languages, but we also have what's called the TBE program. And that's where you have 20 or more students that speak the same language. So it's the transitional bilingual educational program. And these programs have been with us since the beginning of the EO program here in our district. What's new, what's added, what again looks as additive of bilingual program is dual language. Dual language has been with District 112 for 20 years. And now that we're taking advantage again of the resources that the students are coming

107with, it opens up more doors, not just for our EO populations, but also for the whole school. And getting all students to pay attention to what they gain in not just having another language, but also being able to use another language in creating their identity as a faculty member. You'll hear more about dual language. You've heard from Dr. Colleges talking about it, and you'll hear from Scott Russell in the World Language Department. My charge is with ELs. But I do want to stress that dual language and what it does to create an environment that is supportive and recognizes the value of one's language, languages, and how we use those languages in order to support one's language. So in these two charts that I'm presenting here, you'll see the different languages that are at Highland Park

108High School, but you also see the numbers of new arrivals. And I wanted to stress that when we talk about students in the EO program, it's not just new students that are coming into the country or coming into our schools that speak another language. But there is a trend of at least 10 students a year coming in as new immigrants. This year, with first quarter, we had five. Even today, we had our six students come. So it's not, it doesn't just happen in the summer. We have growth that continues, and it's unpredictable. It's just, it's unpredictable. A majority of our students that do come in come from the ninth grade program, coming the eighth grade program, they come transferred from other districts, or they've been in our high school. So when we talk about access,

109the goal is to help us understand students' language proficiency in English. And again, recognizing that students are coming in at different levels, we're not going to see every student pass the access test, but we'll see them make their growths. So here you'll see that we average about 20% of those that take the test meet the state's definition of proficiency. But also to recognize, when we're talking about English, that level one class, all the way to level three, you're talking about those first years of language growth. And those are the exciting times, and that's where you're grabbing onto a book, table chair, hello, good morning, I can talk, I can communicate. But when you hit level four, and you start moving into the level five and level six, that's where it gets a bit trickier. That's

110where the language is a little bit more nuanced, and it's harder to get those concepts together. And that's where we see growth slow down. That's also where we see the challenges of the supports that we give the students tend to break up. Where we pay attention to the first years of students, when they start moving into the mainstream classes, what are we doing in order to take those real vital supports that students can use in order to, again, not just be in the classroom, but be active participants as well. I'm gonna get nervous and talk faster. That's all right, we're gonna do this. I think we want that. So when we look at students, and again, EL, we do focus on language, language acquisition. But one of the things that we're growing with our understanding

111is that we have to look at the whole student. And this is what Carrie was saying when she talks about the social-emotional piece. But again, this goes beyond EL students. This is what we need to look at when we look at all students. Language also being one of those factors and components. So it's not just, it's how are we creating learning environments that bring these students together? What are we doing in order to create an environment in the classrooms and in the schools and in our extracurricular activities that really pay attention to what the students are coming with and what are we doing in order to support them to build those skills? So even in this picture, a majority of the students in the picture are Spanish speakers. But you have students representing the Dominican

112Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia, and all those experiences, and even those coming from Mexico have different experiences with the classroom, with their identity as a student, that academic identity. And acculturation definitely plays a piece. And how they're going to engage in the school as a student. So the dual language program helps us in giving more opportunities for EL students to not have the fear of having to use English, but being able to sign with using Spanish, because our dual language program is English and Spanish. And again, if they have that academic identity, how much more faster they're gonna grab on to the second language and the excellence that they can show in those dual language classes. But also if they don't have that idea of success in a classroom, how much more rapidly they're gonna

113see what they can do in a classroom and the assets they bring to a classroom because of the language that they're using and the way that they can help students obtain the information and the material in the classroom. But when we talk about our programs of TPI and TBE and DL, it is important to focus on that integrity to the implementation of the program, that we do recognize that the different levels of EL require a different space. We need to be specific in what we mean when we say ESL. In the ESL classroom, it's a structured classroom in order to develop language skills, but it's also a safe space in order to have those kind of conversations. Stephen Krashen, who's a guru in all this in EL, when we talk about learning a language, you

114hear that myth of I'm gonna go to another country and I'm going to invest my time in learning a language. You may find a taxi driver who will engage you in a conversation and teach you the hellos and goodbyes, but I don't think you'll find someone that's gonna want to teach you about algebra and statistics in another country and get you to understand that material in a second language. So it's what are we doing in order to give the students that confidence to access language in a textbook or access that language in a classroom in all four domains. So two things that we need is that ESL component, which is critical to that time and space in order to build the confidence and the understanding of language, but it's also what we're doing in the

115mainstream classes in order to recognize that all students are academic language learners and that the more that we focus on how we, we talk about teaching, good teaching is good teaching. We want to change that paradigm just a little bit to say good teaching with an implementation of a focus paying attention to the language that we use in the classroom. That's gonna make the difference because that's gonna give us more students that are engaged in the conversations, engaged in the work and offering those voices that we do have. We just need to make sure we create those spaces for them. So what's working well at Highland Park High School? The change in dual language and that idea of no longer just having a world language class but a Spanish language arts class that students are

116taking. Teaching for Violiteracy and this, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about the individuals that came here at the beginning. It speaks volumes to what we see. For teaching for Violiteracy, we had not just teachers from Highland Park but also from Beerfield and representing almost all the departments in our school that recognize what the value is of creating a model in the classroom, of looking at what language seems to be in the classroom and how we can use language in order to engage students. And what we like about dual language at our school is that there's three ways that you can participate. You come in with a proficiency in another language and we're gonna give you the support that you can build in English as well. You have proficiency in Spanish and now

117we're gonna give you that opportunity to not only build your Spanish but also to build your English skills. And if you're coming in as a monolingual English speaker, then we're giving you the value of having a world language class. And a world language class is going beyond a foreign language class of it'd be nice to know in order for you to visit a country and more of as a global citizen, as a 21st century learner, understanding that we all can be emergent elements and how we use our language skills in order to create the collaborations in the communities that we really wanna see as global citizens in a global society. And when we talk about FTE and we talk about creating classes, typically we talk about the numbers driving staffing level. And we just wanna

118focus on that, that it can create an inefficient program, especially when we talk about the most marginalized in our grouping are those students that don't come in with an academic identity or come in with limited English skills. If we're not, and again, as you see those numbers change and it fluctuates based on those that come to the district, it's not a guarantee from one area. But if we're not mindful in creating programs that are able to support these new students, we can inadvertently create unfair environments where we create and support a simpler school mentality. And where these students may already come in saying, I don't fit in, we've just helped to create this identity of Yangabell. Again, for us and the work that we do, that's so important for us to recognize that piece of

119what a great place for them to be. Because as District 113 and Deerfield High School and Highland Park High School, we are more mindful. We do pay attention to that. And we just, we thank you for your help with that. I can't stress enough how language plays a part in identity, especially with teenagers. If I speak with an accent, if I can't handle or tackle the reading, I can't be in the classroom. So the more that we recognize as a school, not just in the classrooms, but the environments that we set up and the extracurriculars that we set up and the clubs that we have, the more that we recognize the value of language and how language plays a part in keeping students' redundancy to participate. Students can use as an excuse as to say,

120I don't want to do this, the challenge and the charge that we have as educators and as a community to say, but you can, and you will, because this is how we're gonna support you with it. Just in just listening to what our peers shared, you definitely see that with equity and excellence. Students who say, even today, conversations of, I want to go to close-up, what is this idea of close-up, with students who it's hard enough to get them to participate in class, but now they want to engage with others, again, going to Washington, DC, that helps too. But that door was not part of the conversations that we've had in the past six years. So you see those changes. And again, we do look at, and again, one of our main purposes is making

121sure that we meet compliance, but compliance is just the ground floor. What the state sets up for us is just the beginning of what we are able to do as a district. Having Deerfield students come to our school, sometimes it was harder to get them to join in from the participation and creating those opportunities. Deerfield taking on the lead of saying, we're going to create our program and help our students become more part of our community, that's great. And with that, talking about the work that Carrie, and I truly appreciate the work that Carrie has done in helping us to build these bridges with our two schools, and really recognizing that as an EL department, the more that we do together, the more that we'll see the changes and the value for all students, not

122just the ELs. So plans for the future. We have what's called a Padre Estudiante Program, which is for our Spanish speaking parents, and giving a space in a place where Spanish speaking parents to build community. But we don't see that much with our TBE parents and our TPI parents, we don't have that space. So what are we doing in order to create those spaces for our parents? To also recognize your voice is valued, your space is here. We want you a part of the conversations in creating the community that we have here in this district. What Carrie showed you with those portraits that she's creating for her school, we wanna look at that for all students in our intake interviews, for students that come into the district. All we're giving our test force when this

123is a student. What can we do in order to give the students a little bit more of that understanding that we wanna see who you are as a complete student, and how we can use those resources you bring in order to create our communities. EL and access testing, again, before access testing used to be looked at a, we have to do it, it's a state mandate. And now we've changed that to, this is a way for you to get access to the bi-literacy, seal and accommodation of bi-literacy. Looking at how we're using both languages. Dual language parent and student advisory groups, same conversations. I'm talking to monolingual English parents and emergent bilingual students, who grow up feeling that they only have English. That whole idea of identity, and how you do speak Spanish, you are

124a bilingual student. Your child, what you're experiencing in your child is exhibiting, this is a student learning another language, and not building that identity. So with Highland Park High School looking at building that seal of dual language, where the seal of bi-literacy focuses on bi-literacy and bilingualism, the seal of dual language, we're really looking at that bi-cultural piece. And how that makes you as an individual. And your identity in working with two languages and two cultures. And continuing our support of BL courses, but also our support of SLICE. And SLICE are our students with limited or interrupted formal education. Again, the more that we can focus on this group that's most at risk, most misunderstood, most under supported, the better that we can create classrooms for all our students. And there's some other pieces, but

125it's all good stuff that we can talk about whenever y'all wanna talk. Challenges that we have as a district. How do we find time across the highways in order to meet? And to pay attention to what we're doing as schools for all our students. Professional development opportunities that focus on language, that all students are academic language learners. Summer school, we have the building reading proficiency class which, thank you again, it's a class that we offer for any students that are not reading at grade level. But what we do with that class and the way that we're working with that class in order to tell all students this is a way of gaining access to more challenges and more opportunities, it's a game changer. That's what Terry was alluding to about creating two ESL classes. For

126our lower proficient students, we have that. And English plus reading are the classes that we have for our higher level ESL classes. So we're trying to consolidate more of our ESL students in those classes so that you can really start seeing the patterns of what kind of language needs they have that are a little bit more than or a little bit different than what you have from students who have been speaking English all their lives. And building BPAC, which is our bilingual parent advisory committee. Again, we have a group for Spanish speaking parents. How do we get in more of our ESL parents? Because not all Spanish speaking parents have ESL students. So how do we make sure those voices are there? So it's a great base, but we just wanna make sure that we

127get more people in. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for an excellent presentation. I don't know if the board has any questions. If you do, we'd like to, maybe we'll start down there and we'll work our way down to take your questions. That's what we're starting here. Okay. If you'd rather, Stacey was going to. I've got one. Actually, Carrie, I met Carrie right when you were given the EL assignment and it was at the equity conference. So I saw you taking that sheet that you put together was definitely the lens of the equity work that we did at that conference, I would say. I mean, it was, I know you were overwhelmed at the time wondering how you were gonna put this all together and working together, if you can see how well that

128has worked and I appreciate all the efforts that you've made. I have a question, Jesse, regarding, we've talked, you mentioned dual language a number of times and I know that it's a way of providing the education to students, but the dual language students that come from District 112, I know that they participate, Tom's been very focused on making sure that those students have extensive experience at the high school level that they had in 112. Now, the EL students that participate in the dual language, first of all, do they participate actually in any of those dual language classes, even though maybe their level of proficiency is not the same as the dual language students, that's my first question. Yes, they do. Oh, okay, I thought you were gonna- No, no, no, my first question is, do

129they participate in those classes? When we look at the two populations, if you look at ELs that are coming in from District 112, yes, they are participating. When we talk about our immigrant population of ELs, they're participating in the Spanish language arts, but because the, and this is a good thing to take, because we had two full classes of pattern, we didn't have space for the newer students that are coming in, but we're working on that. But they are getting exposure to these students that have come up with that dual language. That started when Senator Degner was here, as department chair of the language. Okay, okay, then I'm done. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse, and it was fascinating, and it got into all the levels and nuances of teaching English language arts, which is a

130very complex task for both of you. My question is, we know that sometimes parents will refuse services, and we also know that sometimes as students transition out, because, excuse me, they have the access scores that says they have to serve. We also know that we can continue to support them. Could you address that kind of gray area where parents have refused services. Now we have this child who has very definite needs that have to be satisfied, maybe in a gen ed classroom. And then secondly, let's say that the student has transitioned out, but really hasn't achieved that level of academic language that would allow them to succeed in a gen ed classroom. What kind of supports are available, even to the classroom teacher, who now has that student in the classroom, and maybe doesn't have

131the experience and the training that the two of you have? I'm sorry. Speaking to your, the first question, I understand that. The parent who refuses services for their child. This speaks also to the work that we do. It's not just finding the time in order to test the students, but creating that, giving that time to really know who that individual is, helps us in looking at the seven factors, those seven factors, not just the language, but their educational background and their academic identity. Same thing goes with parents. If we're not given that time to have those conversations with parents, parents may have that understanding of, or that false understanding of, the quicker my students get into English, the faster they're going to learn. That's hard for the students, that's hard for the parents to understand.

132It's also hard for the community, because these students still have language needs. For our part, we haven't had as many parents. Carrie can talk a little bit more about in her part, but again, it's that time that she can have to talk to the parents, that can make a big difference. If students do refuse, or students, we do have as part of our compliance with the state, is that we have to monitor students from two years, and now they're even talking about time three. Again, it's with that trying to help districts in order to see that it's just because they met state criteria doesn't mean that they may not need help. But it's also getting teachers and schools to recognize that sometimes it's not just about the language. It's about that academic identity. It's about

133that idea of feeling I can be successful in this classroom. So it goes a little bit more than just language support. It's what can we do in the district. Again, looking for opportunities to create professional development where teachers can do that is a little bit challenging, but again, like I said, we've had more teachers from different areas who are asking for that and want that. Yeah, at Deerfield this year, I did have two students that their parents opted out, even though they need the services. They qualify for the services. One student from Greece, one student from, well, his mother's from France, his father's from Peru. We brought this up in our equity team. There's a social stigma about being in the EL class, and it's the students, the lighter the skin color, they seem to

134do, they're more accepted by their peers, and they don't want to be in that EL class because there's a social stigma. I mean, we found this, unfortunately. So I continue to monitor those students. I look at their grades each quarter, and I see how they're doing. And then we do monitor the students for two years. So after first quarter, the students that pass the access exam, if they're not doing well in their classes, I brought those kids in, and we had a meeting, and we made a plan. I communicated with our teachers, like Martin had a student, right? Communicated with our teachers. Do you think it's a language issue, or do you think it's like not doing the homework? Tried to communicate and find out exactly what the problem was and form a plan. Very,

135very informative, very new to me. The question that I had, and I feel like it's more of a dear question, but it's probably for both, which is the focus starts in the English class, obviously, as you're teaching in the language, but then the students go up and do other things. So do we try to cluster students? And I don't even know, I mean, again, that's being kind of park us out to see a greater number of students. So for when they're not in English, are they're scheduled, every student has a different schedule the rest of the day, so they're all doing different things with different teachers at different levels, and? I do feel, yes, that's the way it is. And a lot of the EL students are in the survey classes, and we need to

136look at that. I mean, that's sort of an old school way of thinking that they would be in survey. But I have this student from China, she's got very limited English, but she excels in math. She's a freshman, and she's in advanced pre-calculus. So she's way advanced in math. So, and she started out in survey, and that was just totally inappropriate, so. We talk about identifying students at Highland Park High School. Our population has shifted. So where we had a lot of lower proficient students in self-contained classes, they're now in other classrooms. And trying to find ways to consolidate, we're getting better at it, but we do have students that it's hard to get them within that. But even with our lower proficient students, we have to move away from self-contained, reading language classes. We're

137hoping that dual language will open more doors for students, but if you come with a low academic identity and you don't know, or read and write Spanish well, we do need to look at what kind of support we can give those students, because again, they're gonna be feeling like, I can't even be their own. What am I gonna do? You can answer that in two charges. I don't know. In the past, where we did have Dearfield students coming to Highland Park High School, it was a challenge and a struggle to get students services to get home, to stay after school, for programming. So again, in order to build that identity of community, to feel like I am a part of the school, it was just as tough. But even with that, state compliance, remember it's

138the minimum, it's the ground floor. So the state would probably be all right with us doing that. But when we talk about equity and excellence, when we talk about the idea of race, and even within Latino race and skin color, meaning something, it changes. It changes the way that the student looks at themselves, and it changes the way that they look at the community. So where we could easily answer that question was a yes, we could by state requirements. When we're talking about going for the ceiling, when we're talking about equity and excellence, we are talking about how we get students in our two schools to recognize that we welcome all. And how do we do that? It's a challenge, but it's not an impossible challenge. Yeah, no, most definitely. Yeah, and every program has

139its beginning. I wasn't fortunate to be here when Highland Park started this piece, but I've heard about that challenge. And I've heard about that road. And we have the product that more EO teachers at Highland Park, because we have a longer history. But Deerfield started that history. And again, the teachers that are a part of that and the teachers that want to do this, we'll get there. In my first year, when I had just the point two position, and I tested these students, I found that there were 13 students at Deerfield that were EL students. They qualified for EL services, but we didn't have any classes to offer them. We didn't have anything, we had these students, but we didn't have any classes to offer to them. So we were not complying with the law.

140So we needed a program at Deerfield. We have the numbers now. We have about 14 students that comprise our lower EL proficiencies of level one, two, and threes. The rest come into our fours and fives. And we're about 78 now, total in population. Again, we do have some students, and this is one of the challenges that we have is with students that are in the special education program in classes, and how are they getting the EL services. And one of the things we want to be very careful with is not just say it's a learning disability, it's the human proficiency, and more of what are we doing in North Port language? And then let's start having conversations about that. And that's beginning, and getting stronger. Of the 78 or so, how many in that dual

141language? Oh, dual language? Well, all, that's a little bit harder to have to get with you because again, when they do take the Spanish language arts class, that is part of the dual language. But those numbers, I'm not very clear with when we get out of the self-contained. All self-contained students, the 14, they are taking the Spanish language arts class, which counts as the dual language. But the pattern class that we have right now, we have only EL students that were coming in from District 112 that are in those classes. None of our immigrant population are in those classes. I have a quick one too, just sort of a flip side to what David was asking. So assuming, which we have right now, that there's the two programs at two schools. The first question is,

142do you share some resources in terms of whether it's a level one or two or a four or five class or whatever that has overlap? Is it just the two of you, or is there any point in which the children themselves are sharing building to building? That's what we're looking at for summer school. We're hoping to create more of that understanding that summer school isn't just an opportunity to develop a language school, but it's also a culturation, understanding more of the district. But again, those conversations are beginning. Okay, and then along those lines, and again, this is even more hypothetical than the first, if the schools were on the same calendar, or the same schedule, excuse me, they were on the same schedule, would that make it easier or it wouldn't matter in terms of

143what you're doing with the kids? School to school. Calendar as in? A school schedule. I mean, they're different schedules right now. Yeah. If we were to do more collaboration with the students, it would be looking at in-school field trips and finding opportunities that we can go together. Traditionally, Highland Park does a field trip to Springfield, which focuses on a connection with American, but also helping to build community. That would be one that we would like to see about building that. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for the presentation and for everything. Okay, we're gonna move to our business, everybody. So, approval of minutes. I need a motion to approve the revised minutes for November 14th, 2016, the finance meeting, and November 14th, 2016, the regular board meeting. Is there a motion? Is there

144a second? All those in favor? Can I just make? I know I have to abstain. But there is a correction that wasn't done on the revised one for the regular minutes. I wasn't at the meeting, but I did read my pamphlet. And we don't have a Mr. Culver on the board. We have a Ms. Culver. And on page three of nine, Michelle is first referred to as Mr. So if you guys, before I abstain, I'd just like to get that correction in there. Okay, all those opposed? Those abstaining? Abstain. Thank you for your comments. All right, motion passes. We now move to the construction update, and I thank you so much for your patience. Okay, as usual, overall, we're on time and on budget, so I'm glad to continue to be able to say that.

145I think some of you, and certainly the people on the oversight committee are attending that have seen this report, but it was done at the end of September. We're in the process of updating it again. We'll probably have an update for you at the board meeting in December. So, but overall, right now, with remaining, I'm just gonna cut to the bottom. With everything that we went through over the summer, we're reporting right now that we've got $872,000 remaining. Now, we're not done. We know there are gonna be some things that come up. For example, we just had a, we found an underground storage tank in the parking lot at Highland Park just south of the pool. So we had to remove that. So there's a few issues that are coming up, but we think, certainly

146we feel there's enough money to finish the project and have some money left over. We think, from a perspective for you, to consider maybe about half a million dollars that will be left unspent by the time we're done. And that leads us into the other conversation. But we'll only proceed updating that. We'll have to get some information from the district on district expenditures, and then we'll update from the changes that have been recognized since we last updated this. And we'll have that for you. Okay, well. Excuse me, will you have that in December at our December 12th meeting, you're saying? Okay. Any other, any questions? It was right around a million. Right around a million, I think a million and 60. We came through the summer pretty well. We were pretty happy with how we

147came through the summer. So, okay. So, and then at the last oversight committee, we started talking about, you know, if the district wanted to utilize the remaining contingency for what projects would those be. So, at the oversight committee, consensus there was, they were narrowed it down to three items. Some of this is still dependent on the facility assessment that Parkers and Will was underway on. But the three items that the oversight committee rec put the highest priority on were one, all at Deerfield, one was infill of the existing pool. Second was HVAC at the tiered classrooms that were initially contemplated in as part of the referendum, but eventually never were implemented because it really was uncertain as to what the utilization of those rooms were gonna be long-term. And then the third one was some

148of the windows at Deerfield in the eye hall. And then the one, the DEFG courtyard is what we looked at that. So, we've worked with Parkers and Will to get some preliminary design information. And what you have in front of you is kind of an order of magnitude estimate of what each of those options would be. Again, right now we're thinking we might have around half a million dollars remaining contingency. So, but beyond that, how you wanna use that or whether you wanna use that is purely up to you. So, these are what we feel would be a good order of magnitude estimate for what that is. For each of these infilled existing pool, what that would mean is we put a slab or a concrete floor across the pool when we get rid of

149the ceramic tile and get rid of all the slopes in there, leave you with a nice level floor to use whatever you wanna do with in the future. We would have an elevated slab beyond metal deck with space underneath. The advantage of that is it allows you some flexibility for wherever you wanna use that space. You can get underneath, you can put drains in if you wanna use a science lab or some other thing, you can get in and utilize that and you're not precluding yourself from using that space in a couple of different ways. But other than that, there's not much else being done in the room. We're not doing any HVAC improvements, no lighting improvements, anything like that because really right now, we still don't know how you're gonna propose to use that

150space. Is that more or less costly than if you did a different floor? I think it's about the same. One of the other ways we looked at was to fill it with high density foam and just pour a slab on it, but then that precludes you from ever getting underneath it again. You'd have to tear up the slab to do anything underneath it, which doesn't make any sense. So the proposal that we have gives you the most flexibility that we think we can provide. If we're not gonna use it right away, we're just gonna put a slab on there to figure out what to do, talk about holding off on doing anything including what the use will be and then doing it. We think we're gonna have to spend some money, regardless, just to protect

151the hazard, water, leaves. We're gonna put a railing around it. That's gonna cost some money to put that up and maintain it. You're still gonna have an attractive nuisance, so to speak. So we're gonna spend some money in there. An option, you don't have to do anything right now. I mean, you'll meet code, it'll be a legal space. It'll just be a space that you really can't use for anything. Based on the Oath for Site Committee. So Dan, help me out and make sure I'm not speaking. So part of the pool fill-in is the safety. Right now, it's just barred door or whatever. And so there was discussion about what you might do with it, but because we don't know, this was kind of the lowest common denominator. You'll fill it in, it'll be a

152safe-ish space and potential for lots of options someday. And then the other things on the list were tied to, these are the things that people thought were kind of value engineered out of the referendum project. So there were other things on the list that the group said, no, I wouldn't spend any money on those things. Those don't seem tightly tied enough to what we're doing to kind of the refurbishing, enhancement of the building things that we promised to the community as part of the referendum. So these are the three, so are these in their priority order? There is no priority order. Right, so these are just the three that. Well, will the Oversight Committee come back with a priority order? And if so, we're paying you guys to do a study in the future that

153prioritizes. Now I understand the timeframe, and I understand we need to do this if we want to be done by summer and whatever, or do it over the summer. So I'm not criticizing the fact that there's a study. But in addition to the Oversight Committee, which has very smart and professional people on it, we're paying you guys too to find out what's the prioritization, what's the professional recommendation. So I have no problem that these are the three that based on the referendum, this is what was brought forth right now. But will you also, when you make a recommendation to the board, and I assume the December 12th meeting, because the Oversight Committee meeting is gonna occur before that? Well, there's an Oversight Committee meeting a week tomorrow. Okay, so our next meeting is in October,

154and so in order for you to have the time to bid out and do any type of project, I'm just gonna let it pass, because that's why this is a discussion item tonight, for the action item in December. But what I'm saying is if we're gonna do that, not only would I want a recommendation from the Oversight Committee, and all the supporting materials in our packet beforehand for us to act on it, but I'd wanna know that you all are very, very actively focusing it based on what you think you're gonna be doing with the study. And I know this is not a 20-year-out, 10-year-out hypothesis over here, but that's still part of our prioritization. Well, let Michael speak to that. The assessment's really theirs. Yeah, I mean, any one of these components are something

155that we're gonna be taking a look at as part of the assessment. It's really, when we talked with the Oversight Committee, they had come to these conclusions as the, and wanted to bring those to the board for what to be, what to use the rest of the remaining contingency for. There will be some decisions on some of these other elements that come out of the assessment process as well, whether or not they affect each one of these components and their prioritization exactly will be determined. There was a discussion at the meeting about the fact that we're doing this assessment, and obviously the issue is we're asking for a decision before we have it, because we won't, they're in there right now, but you're not gonna have it till first quarter, right? And so the issue

156is then everyone will have left, and so these prices will be the same. Right, I'm about the efficiency. I just wanna make sure that they're, right, it's weighed in the pond, because the Oversight Committee's already given some parameters, but so within that with an eye toward an assessment long-term. You know, I just wanna make sure we get the benefit of your professional opinion before we go and spend a lot of money. I don't think the Oversight will have a problem with that. I mean, they wanted the numbers to say, okay, yeah, this one's a higher priority than they've given the price. David? Thank you. I just wanted to know, I think that when do you know, when do you expect that you'll have a more definitive idea of what you think? Well, we'll give you

157an update on where we're at probably through mid-November at the next meeting, hopefully by the Oversight Committee next week. Is there any use for that room? Many of them didn't. That's why I understand I met about that, what would, if this is what occurs in that space is revisions with a new floor, and it's a concrete floor, could we do that? There are item, there are niches. We could have that as a multipurpose space until we decide what we're going to do with that as in terms of permanent space, but we would not have to adjust the lighting or any of that. We could still use that room. For example, they have robotics competitions that we have a lot of, we don't have room from the school right now. The kids don't have room to

158sit up in. If we put that in, we need to set up a rink to do that. That would be something we could use that space for. That would be a good idea for the board, if there are, for example, some additional, I don't know what the lighting is in there, but maybe the lighting, what is an adequate, we need to spend another X thousand dollars to do that. Can you include that as well so that it's, to make it a minimally useful space, this is the part that we, that would be information that would be useful. So as far as the air conditioning project, I mean, we know that that's a need. We know how, what our expectations are about the study that they're doing, other than to say if you're gonna air-condition all

159the spaces at both high schools, this is probably gonna be a big number. And then just fixing spaces is gonna make of it's a really big number, and the decision that the board has to make is, are we gonna set a lot of air-conditioning in all of our spaces as a goal, and if we're gonna do that, how are we going to fix this over time? And as far as the window replacement, I'm also thinking that that would be something where you would be able to, from timing, even a broader template, like a down-to-the-air space broadening, where you have to kind of raise the students in the first quarter, so. I mean, I think that the oversight committee, so again, those are the community volunteers that we're speaking kind of for, since we're not here,

160would say these are all important, as they're gonna be, but there's no doubt that they're gonna show up somewhere in that facilities assessment. Right. But again, it might be priority seven instead of four, or you know what, that sort of thing, so the idea is, right, if there's this money, A, are willing to spend it, and B, should be on the referendum table. Right, they prioritized it based on that of the things they knew that here are the three, but then different people had a little kind of difference than half the difference. Right. I just, I wanted to add one thing, too. One thing that you made is that with the air-conditioning, when I looked at the earlier this afternoon, I was remembering Dan and he had given some information on the windows, and a

161lot of that, the way it was prioritized was, it was impacting teaching learning assessment types of spaces, and I think that would be for the air-conditioning, that would be an example where if you have those, this is something that impacts teaching learning assessment, and in that case, that is used for all of their testing and it's a lecture space, and so, that would be the way for us to frame that. Right, and that was definitely part of the oversight committee's conversation, so. Really good, yes. I just wanted to ask a couple of these, I believe, that how can we decide on windows, for example, without really knowing what we need to have done and then be able to prioritize it. So, it was stupid to myself when I voted to support the audits, because I

162believe that we did need this priority list, so, knowing all of that, and then seeing windows on the list before we get to the audits helps us feel like we're not there. Correct. Well, to the rationalities to support doing this audit right now. Well. Because we said we would do it now, because it would inform some of these other purchases, specifically talking about the windows. So, I just have a comment, and prioritizing windows, I vote back on that, I vote. The only thing I'll say is that it was very helpful for you to distinguish things that were true to the referendum versus priorities long-term for the schools in general. And if the oversight committee came up with these three, because they were value engineered out, we are still, I mean, and there's some language that

163I was working on today, and I was changing it, from referendum projects to facility and maintenance work, which after March, hopefully, we will no longer refer to referendum projects, because they will be done. And that money will be gone. And then we have to have an audit to prioritize to determine the next 10 to 20 years. So, that distinction really does help me. But I would still say any professional activism that you can share with the oversight committee, assuming we are gonna make a decision one way or the other for referendum contingency dollars would be most helpful for me. And you're absolutely right. I mean, some of this is, we're going off a little earlier than we might have, but really the windows. We haven't really assessed the other windows at Highland Park versus Deerfield.

164You know, the pool is, going in the pool is, you know, a separate issue. But some of the educational spaces really need the assessment to go forward. And some of that is lengthy discussions with you about what's the master plan. Let's not go in and say we're gonna replace windows in a space that within six or eight years, you're gonna tear down and rebuild it. You know, that's part of that discussion as well. So we'll give you that, certainly we'll give you our opinions once the assessment is done. Okay, David. Big picture long horizon. We committed to do a certain task, but we're not funny, we've done a good job and now we're doing another. So what is our good way to do this? We read their opinions that we recommended, but it sounds like

165that they're recommending to try to address some of those items that were valued here out of the math. So yeah, what's the clean and effective direction? Yeah, and if I wasn't clear, I absolutely agree and I think this is absolutely right. I think this is a list. My issue is audit and the rationale for the audit and doesn't quite have water given that we're potentially making a decision. In the short term, in the three months. You're talking about one project over 10, over 20 years. The whole discussion at least when I was considering it was should we do the audit and it wasn't whether we should do the audit, it was whether we should do it now versus later rationalizing it now was helpful because it would inform some of these things. Well also for

166me is that you already have people in the building. We know the building. So I'm guessing that these go up 10%, 15%, if we don't attach them to the work we've currently been doing. Exactly, some of this listening. We've been spending money a little bit more quickly maybe than we would because we know that that is definitely not something I want to do but it's too hard to leave the efficiency off the table. And again, with construction costs going the way they have too, who knows what it would be to do this or the audit a year from now. Right, because some of these costs, some of the discussion was what can we get done while we're still on site so you don't have to pay additional supervision costs and avoid a whole other year

167of escalation on top of everything. Yeah, Perkins will leave it today. I'm afraid you're gonna ask that. Thank you for your note. Really I think we do need a decision that we're gonna go ahead with any of them at the December board meeting. You know, because the next step is for Perkins to finish the design and we're anticipating eight weeks maybe for that. You know, then we're out in the middle of February to go out to bid. That's about as late as I would like to be to try and get the work done over the summer. People's books are filling up with work for the summer. We're not gonna get attractive bids and we're not gonna be able to get bidders. So, you know, we really need to move pretty quickly on a decision on

168any of these. All right, thank you very much and so sorry for the delay. Next time we'll tell you 9.30. We're gonna move to discussion item 8B, NSSED, articles of agreement. Debbie, did you wanna bring this up? Yeah, I saw the questions that people asked and basically the new superintendent of NSSED, it has been very important to him that the directors of special education and the member district superintendents are involved in any changes, any discussion that we're having as far as, you know, any changes to the documentation. So, I am on the policy committee for NSSED and we are the ones that are going over the articles of agreement. The changes in the articles of agreement are, it came, again, I didn't start my tenure on NSSED until May. I wasn't even at that meeting,

169so I started in June. So as far as what work they had done on the articles of agreement prior to my beginning, I don't know. Since I've been involved, it appears as though the work that we're doing is as a result of having taken votes and done all the research because District 109, most recently District 109 was contemplating pulling out of the cooperative. So as a result of that and then them changing their mind, we looked at the articles of agreement and what level did we want due diligence done on the part of member districts prior to them making the decision to withdraw from the cooperative. From that, how would those decisions that they're making impact the other member districts? One of the issues that is in, and I know you have a red and

170blue and black penciled document, those are, there is some wordsmithing that has been done back and forth and you know how it goes at our table. So we've got representatives of 17 districts. They're not all on the policy committee, but we do, so the conversation happens relative to what it should sound like, what it should look like. One of the things that was very important to me and I have discussed this with Barry and Tiffany is that I am in somewhat disagreement with some of the member districts in that they want to make sure that it's not too punitive, whereas when we budget, because very often we budget two years in advance, and let's say a district decides that they're going to withdraw from the cooperative. So NSSED makes the decision of FTE and services

171that they're providing based on the member district needs. Then, that is then put to the other districts, that's avoiding, we're doing our budget two years in advance too, we have to decide what we have to augment if you're not providing it because one district, this district that's pulling away doesn't, it uses up more of the services. All right, so then all these districts have decided that they're taking FTE maybe away from one area and adding it to special ed, and then this district that's decided not to pull away from the cooperatives or has decided to pull away from the cooperative says, oops, I've changed my mind. So now, making them responsible financially to the cooperative to reimburse, let's say, these other member districts, and I know it sounds very complicated, but this is, I was

172just thinking, you have to make some accommodations for these changes and at what point are these changes allowable? So that's why you see a lot of this language, that's what we've been trying to capture to be the most fair to the member districts, the most responsible to the member districts without being, now this is not me, too punitive to the people that have changed their mind. Do they have member status, do they have non-member status? There are many districts that use NSSCD services that are non-member districts, but they pay a non-member fee. They do not benefit from all the services of NSSCD. The reason it's coming to you again is so that, is because Kurt Schneider's focus on making sure that the districts are involved from the board level, from the director level and the

173superintendent level. I know he's met with the member district superintendent. So you're seeing this because he wanted you all to just have a look at it. As far as the legal perspective, Hodges-Louise is the NSSCD's attorney. However, they have pulled away from making these, being the lens for this document because there are member districts whom they represent and they felt it was a conflict. So I can't remember the name of the law firm if they've chosen one, but it will be reviewed by a law firm for its protection of all the member districts. But it won't be Hodges-Louise because they do represent a number of the member districts. I have a question for you. Yeah. So in reading this, first of all, the blue, black and red didn't particularly bother me after going to your

174policy committee meeting. So you guys broke me in gently. So that was fine. And then also when I read it, I was reading it with an eye of District 109 having tried to pull out. And frankly, we were the first district to cast the no vote, which stopped them from being able to do so. And so I was looking at it from an eye of, let's protect the group of which our interests are directly affected. And I mean, I thought this was really tight. So I don't know what you're asking in terms of, if you want this as an action item next time, is Kurt asking you as liaison to come back with a vote from your district? No. Or you just wanted to bring this up to us? Not a vote, wanted you to

175see, wanted you to ask me any questions that you may have that you want me to. I don't think it's punitive, I agree with you. Right, I mean, because some people are worried because again, our focus is the kids. And there are students out there that need to be serviced but these districts are not part of the cooperative. So there are a handful of member district board representatives that want to make sure, and we all want to make sure that students are serviced, but we also don't want it to be too punitive to the districts because we are, we have a limited basket of services and dollars to place for our students. And we don't want to under plan for our district based on somebody else's decision that they change their mind. Does that make

176sense? Have I done too many circles? Julie, then David. Mm-hmm. When the ME has a favorable response and the language around the liability requirements is pretty broad. So it doesn't specifically talk about pension liability. So my suggestion is somebody with pension knowledge take that section and tighten it up. Right. And be very clear about the obligations and how they're measured and how a withdrawing company would share their liability. There actually was an auditor and I can't remember the gentleman's name. Again, he was a third, an outside because he wasn't who works with the district. They were very clear to have somebody from the outside taking a lens at this. And again, I'm not the finance person at this table, but I know that there are two, there are two sections which I really can't explain

177to you really well, but it does talk about part of the liability. It does. It's not tight enough, right. So they are making sure. That was one of the issues for 109. He didn't, they didn't realize quite what, they thought their liability was a lot lower than it wound up being. But there is also something related to the way they have to do their accounting and there are two different funds. Whatever the point is to print, we really, They are, it is being looked at significantly. This is the way, we're trying to write it so that we encompass all the wishes of all the member districts. So that's a definite that will be considered. David. I find it completely difficult to do that because on the one hand, we are a member and we do

178feel that we get it. And therefore we do want to protect that we do get members withdraw. On the other hand, in essence, we have obligated, no longer can provide the type of support, whether it's for the community or for a different? Then we may need an addition again. So the reason it's complicated is that, as you said, if we wanted to kind of pass, and when I read this, I just saw the two of them. I didn't see the fair element and I didn't see the sanctions in here. We, in essence, we need to continue to make complicated documents that could be used in the form of whether or not some of us think it. And therefore, I think that we need to hire in the cause of the conflict. I just don't know

179who is it. Representatives of the law firm that can totally represent and that has no affiliation with the next step to do and provide opinion to us and to, you know, adding the direction that we should give to the law firm is that we like the services our intention to remain part of this portion in the future, however we want it to be balanced. And we want to know that there is an obligation on their part to do it, because if they don't, we will need to withdraw and that the provisions in here should not be prohibited to prevent us from the crime, to require us to support an organization that may not, and that's very complicated. So, for I would personally feel comfortable voting on something. I would like to have that. You're not

180voting. You're not voting on this. This was for information purposes. Well, I think they're, I mean, they're gonna have to provide their, one thing, one thing you need to vote their board. Yeah, I'm their board. You're one of their board. I'm one of the, what I'm saying is, for you, I am, for them, I am this board. So, we aren't voting at this table. There are some districts that do vote on their budget at their table. So, this was for information purposes, and it is so that you understand the direction that an SSED is going in order to protect its member districts. The punitive nature is not, they felt it was too punitive to a non-member district that wants to use their services. They are not worried about being too punitive to a withdrawing member,

181because what they're asking for, and they do say that upfront, is that if you're going to withdraw from the cooperative, you need to do your due diligence, and that is netted out in the document. And those timelines are there. Making sure that they have done, that you have done your homework, so that an SSED doesn't have to pay for you to do your homework, which then makes us pay more money. Me. Bless you. That's why you have this information in front of you. Debbie, one. Part of what you've asked us for, I believe, is that you want to know what to take back to the board. And so one of the things, so Julie has brought up, obviously, that she would like to see, make sure that pensions are done. And David's suggesting that perhaps

182individual districts should have legal counsel independently review it. And I think that's something to bring back to them, too. Well, I think the message, because I'm sure that I would even say that, but the message that I'm giving to David is he wants to make sure that he's balanced. We don't know who the right person is, because even I'm saying, even when you're saying that he's a lawyer, I don't know that to say that that's the right balance, is it? Well, for the agreement. I don't know who it, right. Yeah. But it's written, but certainly the fact that you don't want, you want it to be tight enough, but not so tight that if somebody feels they need to leave, that they can't do so. When I read this, it's just a little bit hard

183to hear about the line of buildings, but I didn't see anything in here about, like, when you enter into a contract with a law firm, and they didn't like stay out of it, the first thing that you have to do is provide good services. Yeah, so to demand that upfront. Right, so even to make sure that that- Even to put that language in the, you know, the preamble, you know, so that we know that there's a guarantee in there, or at least they're telling us they're gonna try. Is that adequate, Debbie? Mm-hmm. Okay, great. So, I- What's our follow-up to this matter? They're gonna be looking at it. Well, that's not what they've said so far. Not from us. They're gonna be, we will be voting at the table regarding, we aren't done with the

184Articles of Agreement. We're still working on it at the policy committee level, any time a change is suggested at the leadership council, which is the board, then it's brought back again to the policy committee, and we meet, policy committee meets every time before every board meeting. So you're gonna update us- Yes. Okay, great. I don't see how we're gonna, let's take that one in mind. But it sounds like it's a little premature. Yeah. Because what Debbie's saying is this is just one part of the Articles of Agreement, so as she reports back, and as we see it, if you see it coming closer to a vote, I think obviously we'll be alerted, and if we want outside council to review it, we'll do that. But instead of doing a piecemeal, I think we'll wait and

185get your updates as you review. Julie? So, my fear is if we're, but I do, you know, I don't feel qualified to review. I wonder if this is an opportunity for us to kind of lead in this area, like we did in the previous talk. Right. Maybe it is worth investing some dollars to have an independent review of the contract from our perspective. So, a lot of what's been written has been written from an SED perspective. Staff from a member. I mean, because I feel like it's to me, like Chris and Tiffany, I don't. Yeah, you kind of need to read from our perspective of the district. Right, like I don't, I feel like I would take the lead from them in terms of what. Well, that's. Right, like it's. So, what would you? I

186mean, I don't, okay. I think that. Oh, Tiffany. If the majority of the board wants us to investigate what the best resource would be to have an independent eye look at this document. For our perspective, I think that, I think with Tiffany, I mean, we can determine if that's a independent law firm, a specialist in that area. So, Debbie, I think I'm gonna poll the board because it sounds like enough people are really interested in taking this to the next level. So, all I'm asking. So, what I'm gonna poll the board for and I'm gonna ask each of you is whether Chris and Tiffany and Barry should spend a little bit of time discussing this to determine who should perhaps be the independent specialist eyes on the Articles of Agreement for NSSCD and when they

187think it's best to go through it. But I think that if we want them to take a closer look at this and then advise us at our December 12th meeting. Okay. Is there just a who and whatever or is there an if? Oh, well, whether we want them to or not. Right, whether we want them, but whether we want them to go bring back this as you do it or to give their opinion as to whether or not they think it should be done or what we have. Yeah, to give their opinion. Correct. Those are two different things for me. All right, so to give their opinion whether or not. So, does the board, okay, Debbie, would you like them to look for, look into this? Yes, the direction of the rest of the board.

188Yeah, it makes sense. Alaina? I think we should definitely advise them and summarize it. Right. That's my answer. Dave? Okay. David? Julie? Michelle? Mm-hmm. I agree. I think if you ask someone about the direction of that, how long do we want the direction of that? It sounds like there's a sense of direction there. We just want to keep it down. We just like it. We didn't spend it on the service. Okay. Yes. All right. We will now move on, Michelle and Alaina, to 8C, which is the sounding board. Do you have an update for us? Yes, we do. I think we all have an opportunity to read the summary of the comments that came to us from all the different people who participated in the sounding board. As you can see, we left all the

189comments to be anonymous in terms of who gave them, but in the areas where there were compliments, we didn't indicate to whom the compliments were directed. So, the other thing was, we felt that for our first foray into the sounding board, that it was successful, because we had almost 80 staff members come and visit with us. We would hope for even more in the future, and I think from the comments from tonight's audience, that you were allusious to the fact that we are reaching out and are eager to hear the voice of our staff members sort of unqualified and open-ended. I think we were also true to the idea that we were there to listen, to listen with the idea of bringing the information back to our board and to the administration, and by the

190same token, not to interfere with the regular process of decision-making, that that was not our role, but rather to come as impartial and interested audience to hear the voices of the staff. In addition, you saw just some general comments at Highland Park High School. The vast majority of the comments were related to equity, no surprise. This was also born out tonight. At Deerfield, there was a great variety of comments, and I tried to capture that by also sort of giving subcategories in those, and the subcategories referred to culture and climate issues, class sizes and scheduling, facilities concerns. In terms of technology, of course, we did this in both buildings, the idea of the charging phone books and improvements to the website. College and career preparations, and then another sort of problem actually had to do

191with the sense that there were so many committees doing intensive work and didn't feel like there was too much with a certain degree of urgency, so that would be something that, again, could be taken to another level. Teachers also specified, in terms of the assessment committee, that the charge of that committee might be too broad and that there was some uncertainty about where the priorities lie there. So I think in terms of our discussion for tonight, Michelle's gonna talk a little bit more about next steps. Michelle and I are very thankful for what the board's direction was, which is, yes, the founding board of the school is the beginning, but then we also wanted to bring that to the community, so Michelle will address that. I think we noted there were length of time, there

192were some things we had to come to work on. At the same time, there's been a separate committee that's actually been responding, so my recommendation is somehow to hear the response that thank you, or if you heard what he said, there were many items that kind of asked about very quick questions rather than we heard it and in terms of the file cabinet, that maybe that we asked just to follow up on behalf, what the responses of those questions were specific enough to warrant it, at his respect. Does that make sense? Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Spencer. As Mike said, some of them would be a very easy intervention, if you will. Again, what we were trying to guard against was the idea of extrapolating from one person's comment to the idea that this was an

193overarching issue, and I think, again, the administration's gonna have a better sense of that, and then secondly, to also not have us get into that role, but I think the assumption from the beginning was that when something is brought up, that the building and district administration will address that, so do you agree with this? No, I can, we have our exact council meeting tomorrow. We can look at some of these comments and which ones are overarching or... I think it would be nice if, as a board, an angle like this, we listened, we heard, we shared it, we kind of asked you to follow up with the staff, and they heard us and they... It wasn't... They might understand that this isn't like the specificity of ballot samples, but there is some good input and

194some good ideas in there. Can I ask a question, Debbie? Can I just ask a question of clarification? I was not at the last meeting where there was a discussion, and I did not participate, I wasn't in town. I want to just make sure I heard that there was a statement made, I didn't watch the tape, sorry, not this time, on the last meeting, but I understand there was a clarification, or a statement made by Stacey, making sure that any information that was gleaned in those meetings was confidential as far as who... I mean, your list was anonymous. It's all anonymous. I just want to make sure that the understanding that the staff was that it was anonymous and that any comment or suggestion brought by a particular staff member would not be passed on

195to administration. At every single meeting that we had, we started by stating that, and then frankly, our notes, and different people took notes, none of them had any names on it. And if anything, I still have the attendance sheets, the people who attended, the administration certainly doesn't even know who attended. Yeah, most people said, we want you to tell them it was me. Yeah. Yeah, people weren't too shy, it was really kind of nice, positive and negative. Okay. Yeah, it was kind of interesting to see sounding board. It's almost like minutes from a meeting. We did it as bullets, so. Yeah. We had to go through and talk to them about the things that made them actionable from their experience. Also, you know, so that's our next step, is to kind of go through the

196list and then also talk about what we want to do next time. I mean, I think most of the staff, you know, I'm excited. Once a year we can build, right, so what is our next challenge? Just like, you know, how to proceed with the thing every year to do it. Or every semester. Maybe it would take three minutes. You know, actually, and I know we just asked Dr. Dugman to look into it, but because we put together a committee of an assistant principal in each building and two board members, it kind of gleaned what the buildings might prefer before saying, yes, let's release this, or yes, let's meet once every semester or once a year, or how we proceed. I think it would behoove you to meet as a committee and then go back

197to Dr. Dugman, to Barry and Tiffany, even if it puts it off a little bit. Julie, are you, Stacey? So first of all, I actually liked that idea, and that in case you want to hear. But again, the need for a lot of cautions as we go forward, I mean, part of it is relationship building, hearing, and I did note a couple of areas like, oh, these seem to be kind of coming up frequently, relatively frequently. But then the what to do about it, and even I think in the discussion with some of the staff that I interact with, they even said, well, who's gonna do what with this? It's not, I'm not supposed to listen and hopefully share or find people or let people share and say, I have no idea how much because

198one or two or three staff members said it, how widespread a problem it is, or again, where that problem might fall amongst the list of, if you think of it, an audit of problems, which by the way, I'll also say, most of my discussion was not problems, I'll be happy to say, people were just sharing things they were happy about, and I think for me, that's as important as the other thing, which is let's continue to move forward on the things that we are doing well or that we've made changes on that are improving and celebrate those as well and not lose those. So I just, I'm conscious as we go forward, I think it's interesting, I did feel like I learned and I got a good sense of what people were feeling in the

199building from my perspective of what they said, but, and I do think it should be shared somehow with people who can say that this is important, but then where it goes from there, I don't feel like at this point, I'm ready to say that. Yeah, Julie. And that's why both reports have an extensive complement to each other. Right. We started out, you know, many times with it. The questions and suggestions. Yes, we put a positive tone on everything you wrote, Julie. So I do like the community, but I, I want to ask a question to Allie and Julie and to the people I haven't met before. It is hearing and concerns that I felt like I would be in a better decision making as I go forward. I really am concerned, like Elena said, about

200us somehow getting the way of management and being Stop there. Yeah, a way to get something done when the normal approach doesn't work. You know, we're not in a position to know all of the different priorities that need to be loaded. So I just want to, I think it's invaluable. I love it. I'd work more, I would check for the better time to work with you. Yeah. Not the first thing in the morning. But it's, you know, to me, I viewed it as an opportunity to be a better board member as, you know, as the best outcome from it. And I figure out if things are actionable from it, I don't personally feel any need to see what the follow-up was on all the different facilities. I just want to make sure that leaders see

201all those things that they're in position on. David? I'll also be hoping that the board asks me for obvious so that it just doesn't get long. So I just feel like, I haven't been part of a time like that for a little bit, but I fully know that it did get responded to at what our, you know, was the appropriate level. I don't think it's, and I don't think it's just the beauty of being able to put the trouble of having to do it. I would agree with that. You know, this is our first attempt, and we feel that it was successful. On the other hand, if faculty brings something to our sounding board and they never hear back about what the regulation was, they may not come anymore. So for that reason, I think

202that sort of poking the loop on some of those easy things was important. You know, I will say on the night that we have a 3S meeting, where it's a very formal presentation, and we learn a lot from staff, but it's much more, it's complete preparation versus someone feeling they can actually drop in and have the ear of a board member, even if it's just for a very personal gripe or good thing, and then taking it maybe to the departmental level or taking it to more of a school-wide type of an issue. It's kind of a good balance, and that's, I think, what came through from a lot of the people who seemed to be very positive about us having done it. So I do think we need to get back to them, and if

203it's more personal, we can make it better, but I also think the committee should come up with next steps, whether that's for meeting with staff or with meeting for community. So however you wanna deal with the immediate questions, whatever I would say, I would ask the two board members to talk with Dr. Dignam. And I actually have, sorry, I'm gonna hopefully end this with a comment that I was actually asked to share something with the board, which was the college and career counselors at Deerfield High School. I were there when I was speaking to them, and they had the presentation in January, and they said, please, if you have questions, send them in advance. And also, they wanted to make sure everybody knew that all of the events that they had share their calendar. So

204they specifically asked me to share that with them. So if everybody could please get questions for the 3S meeting for the college counselors, to Sue Hebsen, to Sue Hebsen, that would be great. Is that all right with you? So you have relayed that one piece, and we are at the end of this. Okay, let's move on. So we go to action items. The first one is the fiscal year student summer school tuition fees. And I need a moment, I'm sorry, but I'm not. The superintendent recommends that the Board of Education approve the fiscal year 18 student summer school fees tuition as presented. And this is a roll call vote. Is there a motion? Is there a second? Is there some discussion? We will note that none of the fees are increased for next year from

205this current year. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, this is a roll call vote. Ms. Walden. Aye. Ms. Smiley. Aye. Motion passes. We now go to action item nine B, that being additions to the 2017-18 program of studies. The superintendent recommends that the Board of Education approve the additions to the 2017-18 program of studies for Highland Park High School and Deerfield High School. This is also a roll call vote that was discussed previously with input from department chairs, teachers building, curriculum committees, building administrative teams, and executive council. And Sue Henson. Discussion? Motion first, actually, I'm sorry. Motion? And a second from? Second. Okay, thank you. Discussion? Just once again, I think you can. Okay, hearing no further discussion, this is a roll call vote. Okay, so we move to item nine C. Superintendent recommends

206that the Board of Education approve the date change to the 2016-17 board meeting calendar with the new date of Wednesday, April the 12th, 2017 from Monday, April 10th, 2017. Is there a motion? Second? Is there any discussion? Thank you Ms. Simon for calling our attention to that fact. The Passover, we couldn't have it. Roll call? Ms. Boyden? Ms. Mayer? Aye. Bobby? Aye, motion passes. We move to action item nine D. The June 30th, 2016 audit report, which was a discussion item at the finance committee meeting tonight on November 28th, 2016. The recommended motion is the superintendent recommends that the Board of Education accept the annual audit for the year ending June 30th, 2016 as submitted by Baker Tilley, Virchow Kraus, LLP, Oakbrook, Illinois. Is there a motion? Any discussion? This is a roll call vote.

207Ms. Mayer? Ms. Boyden? Ms. Mayer? Aye, motion passes. And finally, action item 10 A, which is personnel notices to the board, license and support personnel. Superintendent recommends that the Board of Education approve the following personnel actions. And this is also a roll call, Ms. Mayer. May I have a motion first? Second? Stacey, can you tell us about the bills before we have discussion? Please tell us all about the bills. I had the pleasure of doing bills once again with Barry. And actually, Nick, the auditor was here and he actually sat in on it to see how we reviewed things. And we pulled a bunch of different things, including something that's gonna actually go to a third party for reimbursement payment insurance. So, and everything was as always in order. So, any other report? Hearing no

208other discussion, this is roll call. Ms. Mayer? Aye. Ms. Boyden? Aye. Aye, motion passes. We come to our second citizens comment period. Are there any citizens comments? All right, well, at this time, we are going to move into closed session. No action will be taken, is taken in closed session. All actions taken are done in open session. I need a motion for the board to meet in closed session for the discussion of personal matters. Is there a motion? Is there a second? A roll call, please. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Ms. Culver? Aye. Motion passes. We will take a five minute break and come back for a closed session. Thank you all for still 10.30 at night. Good night.