May 28th, 2024 - Board of Education Meeting

001e [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] okay [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] you [Music] is 704 the board previously met in Clos session under uh exception C1 C11 and c21 with that I'd like to call back to order the May 28th uh 2024 walk Kean Public Schools Board of Education meeting if I can have a roll call please Mr riddle pres Mr McBride Pres Miss Hannah Miss Gonzalez Miss Fabian yes Miss lindsy yes president yes we do have a quorum all board president all board members with the exception of Miss Gonzalez are present uh for Pledge of Allegiance or i' like a motion to go back into open session so Move Motion by Mr riddle second by miss linding all in favor signify what I I and oppose n we are now in Open Session Mr

002Christenson if you be so is to lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God liy and justice for all thank you uh president's report this evening is brief I want to thank um all of our educators and faculty members for uh amazing school year I am hope you all enjoy your summer it was a really great opportunity seeing all of our students at the graduations and the celebrations I really like to commend uh the Tilt towards the future as we have seen and allowed our seniors to go back to their elementary schools I know my own son who attends cook uh came home to tell me all about how he got to see the big high

003school students come back to um celebrate and he can't wait till he graduates high school uh in addition I appreciate all of the different festivities that have gone on with the end of the Year celebrations and the commitment in which all of our staff members show up and give 100% uh every day so thank you all for your service and thank you to all of those who were responsible for putting on those M mult multiple events um it was a a long couple weeks uh but always very very exciting also got to attend the um retirement celebration for many of our faculty and staff members so thank you to the HR team who put that together and thank you to those years of service for all of those who um came out to that retirement

004and we appreciate their contributions to walk Kean public schools with that I would like to give the remainder of my time to our student board member Mr HOSA for the student board member report uh thank you president Ying I would actually yield the balance of my time to the super intended and her report thank you good evening everyone it's nice to see everyone here tonight so I'd like to ask Dr n um Dr Eduardo and Dr n to please come up we're going to be talking about our promotion policy along with I'll let you lead it from there thank you Dr Cesario thank you good evening board president superintendent members of the board uh colleagues guests um community members um so before Jason um shares before Dr n shares the promotion policy we have two

005policies up this evening one on grading and one on promotion and retention um there was a really great discussion last week on the grading policy and so what you see coming forward there'll be a slight change to that and that is to um increase the engagement around this topic one of the components of the grading policy has to do with moving the F from from 0 to 59 to 50 and um we are going to keep it we're we made the suggestion to keep it as it is so everything else in that policy is staying the same with the exception of the it will we will keep it at zero um and so that would allow us some time with um with to to have engagement with our our teachers around their thoughts on this

006topic so we want to continue that conversation um and uh just uh ensure that we start that this summer and have that go into the fall we do plan to come back to the board um probably around November December with some recommendations so just for clarity sake um the grading policy will be going for a second reading tonight the administration is asking to put a stick pin into the amount of grading the 50% % versus the 0% until we can um have some focus groups engage our staff a little bit more um and revisit it because we do hear the concern and we not even the concern but also the um you want input on it and we can respect that so at this time that's how we are making the recommendation to the board

007um I do know that we have two board members that set on this committee um and so that would be our recommend is it two I thought it was you and Miss Gonzalez Miss lensing but I well miss Gonzalez was on the equity okay I'm sorry so we're both on the equity but I was on the the promotion okay I stand corrected so at that time that will be the administration's recommendations so Dr n if you want to go through um the promotion policy at this time Finance is not important Miss Hannah okay and you got that one right yeah each board member has gotten two opportunities with the exception of Mr I think ridle or Fabian the last three but we can revisit that I apologize for the sidebar conversation okay uh thank you

008good evening everyone um Jason n from academics team going to be presenting on another one of policies that we've been working on over the course of several months this one actually has been over a year um that's policy 5215 promotion retention of students uh before I start I did want to acknowledge all the different members who were part of our policy work group uh as I mentioned we were meeting for well over a year and I'll go through the timeline here in a second um but we had representatives from um many of the academic departments uh we had uh teacher Representatives uh we had two board members that were part of the committee as well miss Fabian and uh Mr inosa so thank you for your contributions to the group as well um but this

009team worked together for 18 months or so um coming up with um a a slight um edit of the policy that was existing um and we think this policy will be much more um beneficial to not only students and staff but also from an implementation standpoint we feel confident that we'll be able to implement this much with much more fedelity Fidelity than the than the previous policy next slide please this is just a visual um for the audience and community and staff that are here to kind of see how the equity policy review process takes place we have an equity advisory Council um that's comprised of community members staff members teachers parents led by Dr Fields who um review these policies and provide their input um to committees that uh that share these policies um

010so you can see kind of the road map here kind of what it looks like we start looking at different policies we've been looking at policies for the last couple years uh and um essentially that policy gets reviewed um by the by the advisory Council it's taken back to the executive team and then it's uh made uh available for presentation to the board so just wanted to show the V the visual here uh the EAC did review this policy in the fall um so they had an opportunity to get their eyes on it as well next slide please so what is policy 5215 you can find the entirety of the policy on our district website it's there this is just a quick overview or blurb of of the policy I'm not going to read it

011to you but essentially uh it's a policy where the board requires uh students that achieve minimal competency prior to being promoted and that promotion is determine in academic growth and development um so there is no social promotion or other criteria that sees to promote students outside of academic criteria as mentioned the timeline uh for the committee when we reviewed this policy um this policy actually dates back to when I first started here 5 years ago uh when I came in uh October of 2018 uh the policy had just been adopted by the board um and was going to be the first year of implementation I believe was going to be August of 2019 during the 19 and 20 19 uh sorry 2019 and 2020 school year obviously the the policy was paused because the district

012was in remote learning um so there was no implementation of the policy at that point Upon Our return from the pandemic when we were uh in hybrid we also had the policy pause as we allowed students staff families to kind of get acclimated back to um school and we know that we had a large number of our students and um staff I'm sorry students that did not return to school during hybrid um 21 during the 2122 school year um we were dealing with a lot of learning loss of course all the data and research was out about how far students had um digressed during the pandemic uh so once again that policy was paused for those years as well uh and since that time the committee's been working on it over the last like I

013said 18 months or so to try to get it to where it's it's present state which is what we're presenting this evening some features of the policy um the policy will be complemented by a rigorous summer school program we are currently in the process of starting Summer School uh next week um there's been some tweaks that we've made to Summer programming that will also carry over into this policy as well um the policy is going to look at specific grade level success criteria specifically academic and attendance that's going to ensure that the decisions that are made in as it relates to the this policy um are Equitable and they consider the unique leads of the unique needs of all of our different student groups our El RDL newcomers Etc the policy also will allow for

014parents and building Administration to request the retention of their child with supporting data as well so just because a student does not particularly fall into some of the The Benchmark grade level groups that we've identified um parents and building administrators can also request uh student to be um eligible for retention with supporting data and that data is usually reviewed by members of the academic team uh and then we either um honor the recommendation or we provide the the parent or the administrator with a rationale why that recommendation was not honored next slide thank you so as far as the benchmark grades the promotion policy is going to focus on students in grades 3 five and 8 and all and all grade levels at the high school those are the benchmark grades students in these grades

015will be required to display academic proficiency ac across a variety of um designed a variety of criteria designed to gauge overall student performance students who are identified as making inadequate progress uh at the conclusion of that year will be required to attend and successfully complete a rigorous summer bridge program in order to be promoted to the next grade level the summer bridge program is not something separate from our summer program it'll just be a facet of our regular summer school traditional program um that will be um um specific to those students who did not meet those criteria students who are in non-benchmark grade so students that are in grades 2 4 6 7 uh will fall into what we call an early warning cohort and in that cohort those students will be monitored annually uh

016and eligible for retention based on academic performance and of course again administrator recommendation in addition to the summer bridge program we will still continue to offer summer enrichment and other summer opportunities for all of our students some of the changes that we've already made uh in the summer program for this current year is that um summer school typically uh in previous years was four days a week we are now we have now shifted to make summer school 5day a week program in addition um we are using our tier one curricular resources that we have available in the district during summer school as well so there's not kind of this disjointed curriculum that students are getting through throughout the course of the summer they're getting the same uh curriculum that they're receiving during the regular school

017year so why this policy and this probably goes back to um 2019 when the the original committee started working on this number one we feel there's a uh the policy is a strong emphasis on skill development and student achievement across all levels of our system number two the the the revisions that we're making this evening or the edits that we're making this evening closely mirror what the board previously approved back in 2019 um with some slight changes of criteria um looking at our data uh over time we do see the biggest decline in grade level proficiency as students move throughout our system so starting in middle school is when we really start to see some of our students start to dip academically so we wanted to really focus on students that are in those benchmark

018grades of five and eight as well as the high school and then of course the rationale is just um to create some post-secondary expectations for learning uh for students to successfully complete courses of study that closely resemble what they'll be expected to accomplish once they leave the district earning a high school diploma also creates opportunities for students Beyond high school college career Workforce military Etc so those are just some of the many reasons that we feel this this policy is important okay the next several slides I'm kind of going to break down what it looks like um at the different Benchmark grade levels so if we look at elementary again it's going to focus on students in third and fifth grade the early warning grades will be second and fourth um and then the criteria

019that we're going to look at at that the elementary level we use standards of Base grading so the criteria that we're going to look at is if a student receives a one which is below standards below grade level standard uh and their overall grade in both reading and math on the final report card they will be required to attend summer school we do have attendance criteria on there as well and attendance is not going to be used to determine students that are eligible for summer school that data is going to be more utilized uh to identify interventions for those students that um surpass either nine unexcused absences or uh for the chronic absence students that have 18 or pushing that 18 on excused or unexcused number of absences those students will be uh monitored as

020well throughout the course of the year because we know uh attendance usually correlates to better performance in the classroom at the middle school level we're going to focus on students that are currently in e8th grade uh and again those early warning grades will be sixth and seventh so we're still going to monitor the same criteria that we're utilizing for these benchmarks uh grades uh in these early warning grades as well um if a student has lower than a 2.0 rolling cumulative GPA or lower in all courses on the final report card they will be required to attend Summer Bridge uh so a little bit of a shift here we're not just focusing on Ela and math at the middle school we're focusing on all their coursework uh we had some Middle School teachers that were

021part of this committee and they were very adamant that all courses should be equally valued in this policy so that a students's rolling GPA should be inclusive of all courses and not just core courses but all oncore courses as well so the the committee is proposing that any student that has lower than a 2.0 rolling cumulative GPA so rolling means their GPA excuse me their their GPA that's accumulated at the end of sixth grade seventh grade and e8th grade so it's a rolling GPA that they get their eighth grade year all right so what does that emphasize that that emphasize that sixth grade matters seventh grade matters and eighth grade matters so that at the end of the eth grade year if they don't have that 2.0 if they're below that 2.0 rolling GPA they

022will be required to attend the summer bridge program and again we do have the attendance criteria on here as well again just for intervention purposes if needed at the at the high school it's pretty black and white pretty cut dry in terms of um credit accumulation so we're focusing on all grade levels at the high school and um the academic criteria is essentially the number of credits that students earn throughout their time in high school so in order to be a sophomore you need five or more credits uh in order to be junior need nine or more credits senior 13 or more credits ET Etc uh so students that are not meeting those those Benchmark number of credits will be required to attend our summer bridge program to get back on track and there's a

023subsequent slide up uh in the future presentation here that I'll kind of show you what that looks like depending on how many credits they are off track again we also have the uh attendance Criterion here for intervention purposes all right so what does summer programming look like again students at the elementary level for summer programming students who receive an overall grade of one uh of below grade level standard in Reading in both math in Reading sorry in Reading it's a typo on there yeah and and both reading and math will be required to attend summerbridge so if they have a one for their overall grade in both reading and math they'll be required to attend summerbridge at the middle school level students in e8th grade who earn accumulative GPA lower than 2.0 on their final

024report card would required to attend Summer Bridge and at the high school any student who is not on track to earn credits for placement into the next class will also be required to attend our summer bridge program uh if you do look at um the next slide it kind of breaks down the group uh or the committee really wanted to Think Through what does it look like for a student to be off track at the high school level so this is high school specific this chart that you see here so the recommendation we're making is that students that are one and two credits off track student would be promoted to the next grade level however summer school would be highly recommended for that student we know that there's opportunities before school after school that they

025can do credit recovery as well students that are three or four credits off track the student would not be promoted to the next grade level summer school would be required and they would be required to also enroll in either a first period or a 10th period course to try to get themselves back on track so for that middle column there if we have a student who's at Brookside in the 10th grade and they are more than four credits off track to become a junior they would not be allowed to matriculate to the Washington campus until they they either went to summer school and they they earned those credits that they were deficient or they did some credit recovery before school um the first period or the 10th period and those we would be looking at

026that data uh at the semester right so if they did earn enough at the semester they would be able to move over but that we wanted to kind of delineate between the number of credits that students were off track and what were some what would some of the options be for those students that are more than five or more credits off track would not be promoted to the next grade level summer school would be required and then we would recommend AO aoec enrollment for that student that particular time until they're back on track so what we did is we we looked at data from uh the end of last year at this time to kind of do an assessment of how this would impact um our summer school numbers how this would impact the number

027of students that we're looking at here so we looked at U May of 2023 data end of year data and what you'll see here is that these were the number of students in this chart that in these benchmark grades and these early warning grades that would qual technically qualify for our summer bridge program so just to kind of help you decipher the chart looking at third grade there was 71 students um that had uh a one in both reading and math at the end of last school year we haven't looked at this current school year data yet we will eventually but we when we looked at last year's data this is what we had for numbers in terms terms of students that met the that criteria fifth grade same thing 80 students had either a

028one or below in both a one in both reading and math then our Middle School um you can see these were the students that did not have a rolling uh 2.0 or higher The Only Exception would be our sixth graders because they didn't necessarily have a rolling GPA we just used their sixth grade GPA as a kind of an indicator um but you can again see the number of students that would have been eligible for um summer school so we have if you add those up for the for the middle school it's 854 students and then at the high school you'll see the number of students who were off track based on the credit allocations that were needed to either move from sophomore freshman to sophomore sophomore to junior junior to senior Etc and we

029had 896 students that at the end of last year would be eligible for our summer bridge program based on this data so total if you go to the next slide we also looked at our summer school uh enrollment for the last several years to kind of give the board uh and Community context about what that would look like so starting at the far left you'll see our summer school numbers for the 2122 school year was 3,225 students summer school numbers for the 2223 school year was 3,55 students and then we took the 2-year average um of the non-benchmark grades so you'll see third grade for example 71 that's the number from the previous table that I just showed you uh for fifth grade 80 that's the number from the previous table that I just showed

030you and our our Middle School numbers and our high school numbers and then we took the two-year average for the other grades just so we can get a general idea of how many possible students if this policy was being implemented would have been enrolled in our summer school program and as you can see it's 2920 and again that would be students that are only eligible for the summer bridge program so any student that wanted to take enrichment opportunities that that number would be higher um if we obviously if we included those students in this in this count so in terms of implement implementing this policy um this is kind of where the policy has fell short in my opinion in previous years there's there's been a lot of time and energy put into developing a

031robust policy outside of the pandemic um there were some obstacles that prevented us from really implementing the policy with Fidelity so um as mentioned throughout the year we are going to Target students in those grades 35 uh and middle school and high school that includes the early morning grades as well and we're going to monitor their um those academic arer that I that already mentioned students not meeting not meeting them would require to attend that mandatory summer bridge program and our our plan to do this is the is the phase this in so that for a couple reasons first and foremost um we want to we want to kind of deal with some real-time data and really look at and see how many students are going to be possibly U required to attend that summer

032bridge program and then we also wanted to assess the district's ability to um implement this in terms of resources in terms of finances uh in terms of buildings and Facilities what that may look like so our plan is to phase it in over the course of of three years with year one uh having students in grades 3 eight and nine be kind of our our guinea pig uh group to in that first year which will be next year um and then year two students in grades 5 and 10 year three students in grades 11 and 12 uh with the understanding again that any parent any administrator can still request that a student be eligible or um attend summer school and be eligible for retention but we wanted to really kind of focus in um on

033these grade levels and phases in over three years um to help assess the impact of it help assess um if there's any tweaks that need to be made as we're trying as we're rolling this out so we don't run into some of the same problems that we've run into excuse me previously and that we can truly get a picture and a sense of what impact it's going to have on our students and our families uh the district as a whole Etc in terms of next steps um when we started this in 2019 the district had put together several um FAQs and other doc doents for parents um that they could easily access to kind of really understand what the policy is about so next steps would be obviously to create those documents and get those

034documents translated for our schools for our parents for our students for teachers Etc um face is going to organize several uh summer Outreach opportunities for parents as well whether that's again um could be focus groups could be in town Town Halls could be uh Facebook live sessions Etc and then as we approach the fall winter and spring we'll continue with face doing Outreach for our parents and other stakeholders uh we'll send out academic progress notices and calls every five weeks to parents throughout the first 30 weeks of the year at the conclusion of quarter three we would send out early warning letters to parents of students that are trending towards possible participation in the summer bridge program uh and by the end of April we would finalize our Summer Bridge Summer Bridge list and then

035notify parents at that time that their student would be eligible for that summer bridge program um we also have uh plans that create some onrack dashboards that could be easily accessible um for our principes for us at the district level as well so we can monitor this information readily and again send out that communication uh to our parents uh every five weeks about their progress of their student questions yes linding and Miss Han um thank you Dr n so um I do appreciate taking in the feedback regarding the grading policy and hosting opportunities I have more comments on that but that's a later item um and I also appreciate the honest assessment that the implementation needs to be done with Fidelity and if it's not then we can't gauge if it's working um I do

036have four questions so one glaring concern that I have especially with our elementary school students is from what I'm understanding they need a one in reading and a one in math in order to qualify but for their overall grade for their overall grade there's other standards that they're assessed on but then they get an overall reading grade uh overall reading score and an overall math score okay yeah I get that but my concern is is they have to be poor in both reading and math at that age for third grade my opinion is it should be or because these are fundamental skills that are going to support them in fourth grade and in fifth grade and Beyond and we have populations where they're not reading um at grade level and that's our goal so I

037understand we talk about growth and attainment and proficiency we want to get them there so I I don't think it's appropriate to do an and I think it's more appropriate for that grade level to be or if you have one in either one you should go um tied to that is what does the curriculum look like so if these students in third and fifth grade are poor in Reading are they going to get targeted reading instruction are they going to get targeted math instruction or is it going to be a broad spectrum of coursework during their curriculum yeah that's the plan so the summer bridge program um and we still haven't fully completely baked out what it's going to look like in terms of all the details and Logistics but the summer bridge program will

038be set up to provide the those intense interventions for students in those areas um and it it could be you know obviously for students there because of both they're going to get both in that summer program we're going to try to um intensify it split it up over the course of the four five weeks so that student is getting that intensive support in both areas um hopefully and that they show progress and one thing I do want to clear up is that just because they're eligible for the summer bridge program doesn't mean they're automatically being retained the summerbridge program is the vehicle for them to try to demonstrate to the district and to to us that they have made some adequate progress and they can be promoted to the next grade level so it's not

039you're in Summer Bridge and you know you're on you know you're it's not an automatically drawn conclusion that you're going to be that you're going to be retained so it's an opportunity to move on or repeat correct essentially yes um and so when you talk about the Middle School curriculum as well if that's across all courses I'm also curious to see how those groups are going to be identified so if a students science was really pulling them down is it going to be more science and math focused Etc so I understand you're still baking out those details but that's something that I'm curious on yeah we'll definitely have to make some some some individual decisions about where we think that student would be best supported and what areas yeah um may not be able to

040capture them all but enough to H to hopefully get the student either you know to either pass that science class or that reading that math class or whatever so that the GPA would be boosted so so create a hierarchy of their needs okay um and then um so two more questions what happens if a student doesn't attend more specifically what if a high school student doesn't attend so we've had this we had this discussion in the committee a lot many many times um and uh the consensus of the group was that to have a policy like this in place in order for it to be fully effective you know there has it can't be Gray you got to do it it can't be gray yeah it's it's it's got to be this or it's got

041to be that yeah now understanding that there are you know there can be extreme circumstances that could pre prevent or prohibit a student from possibly um participating in summer school um and those will be looked at on a caseby Case basis but it's not going to be you know the family wants to take a vacation for two weeks and it's going to coincide with summer school those are the those are the decisions that parents are going to have to make um because we're hoping that as we communicate this throughout the entire school year that it's very clear that hey your son or daughter you know is either doing well in these criteria or not doing well in these academic criteria and they need the extra support if they don't get the extra support they don't

042attend summerbridge then that could have some implications yeah and of course the goal is for all of our students to get the supports they need so they can be successful so hopefully that's their mindset as well but I understand especially with the high school students that's time where they go do summer jobs and so if they're not performing well in school that could impact that and so I'm just in my mind preparing for the instance where someone decides not to sure one of the things that we did this summer M lensing just so you know is we we created a am and a PM session for the high school to kind of you know make it more uh accessible to students that may have some conflicts in the morning or conflicts in the afternoon so

043that they could pick a session you know to attend so that best fits them um and then my last question is how do dual language Learners and diverse Learners fit into this framework was that talked about in a committee and what's anticipated it was it's actually uh in the policy itself we we I didn't specify it in here but in the policy itself it's it's mentioned um obviously for DL students the IEP is going to be the guiding document that's going to determine whether or not that student is getting the support that they need um whether that be regular school summer school Etc um and for our our dual language Learners we have um um in terms of the criteria that we're we're using to assess them that that would be in their you know

044given in their their U primary language of instruction so there's you know throughout the course of the school year um we if a student is not getting that support or that intervention um that could be a situation where we look at that and say okay this student was either uh wasn't getting the the language support that they needed or it was a student that you know just came into the country and had no prior education so there's situational things that we would have to look at of course um with the ultimate goal of you know getting students having students be successful um but yes those things were taken into consideration they're more spelled out in the actual policy itself yeah and I didn't spell them out in the no understood I just wanted to make

045sure that everyone's going to be aware of that and one of the other reasons I'm asking with the Dual language because we also have two-way dual language that's growing in the district minor understanding it's going to be um going over to middle school hopefully soon um because that that group is aging up but my students or my kids are in dual language and so their native language is English but if I as a parent feel that their scores in Spanish aren't high enough it sounds like it's not going to be a bridge program it would be more enrichment yes for them perfect okay great thank you Miss Anna I have this um Dr thank you for the Miss can you use your microphone please thank you Dr not for your presentation um I just want

046to know and how are are you all planning to get this information to students and when I was thinking about that I was thinking about you know how um um some teachers give a syllabus and I'm just thinking that the students need to have this information readily available to them and not to depend on getting the information through their um through their deves or anything that it would be some type of um tool where they will be able to look at um what we are going to be requiring them to do at uh particularly at the middle school and the high school level you you know and so I I'm that's my that's my concern that the information is disseminated to the students where they understand it they see it visually you know where they

047could put it inside their notebooks something like that yeah it's it's a great question um and part of our communication plan again would be creating those documents that I mentioned but also educating our principes on it uh who hopefully in turn will be educating their staff and their teachers to be able to share the information with their students as well once the board approves it our obviously we'll we'll start that marketing right away our our goal was to have this done before we got pushed back a little bit but our goal was to have this done in the spring so we could start getting the communication out all over the summer so that there'd be a lot of information say it again so there'd be a lot of information shared over the summer in preparation

048for August you know shareed at the the the the Ori freshman orientations the the middle school orientations and and those things so students would be you know and their families of course their parents would be aware of this new policy um and then reinforcing it as many times as possible throughout the course of the school year uh I'm sure once they start getting those five week notices um if they do get them that will also um keep keep them on their toes right uh in terms of where they're at their progress so um the the the communication plan is going to be the next work of the committee to kind of really bake that out what that looks like obviously we'll work with fa we'll work with Mr El jaas and really get this information

049out as as much we got we got to um be considerate of students that may not have the supports the parental supports the I mean even you know they may not have parents yeah so hopefully that's uh being looked at to yeah we'll use as many as many platforms as possible to get the information out um and and and try to get it in the hands of the people that it that it's going to be that's going to resonate with and hopefully that information goes down to the students and like said educating our principes educating our staff and everyone so we're all on the same page thank you Mr MCB uh in your commentation you mentioned about three times uh try intervention and I know if you're not there you can't learn so you pause

050sh automatically so and you mention nine times I guess as a grade period That's when you decide to go and look and see what's going on but uh I would say there's always going to be some signals uh to let you know that that kid is having problems making it to school as Miss Hannah alluded to there's a lot of reasons uh why I think some of our kids are falling short and it might be because of the fact home issues and I know you mentioned that you were going to uh have face get involved to deal with the parents and whatnot but uh I just want to know what is the anodot to deal with the treny issues how are you going to approach that yeah um so absent absent absenteeism or treny whatever

051whatever we want to call it that's monitored at the at the school level regularly um they're looking at that data all the time um so I know our schools have certain systems in place where they track and monitor those students you know we always we always communicate to them that 18 days is kind of that magic number um for a student to be considered chronically absent um per is's guidelines um before they even get to 18 um we we want to catch them before that so um sending out 5day notices um to parents 10day notices to parents um our Outreach student Department of student Outreach I know that they uh they can tap into their treny officers and they recognize patterns of students that are studying a significant amount of time they tap into those

052folks as well um so it really is a team effort the attendance piece um to to monitor that and we agree if they're not there they can't learn they're not going to perform and more than likely they'll they'll end up in Summer Bridge if they have uh substantial attendance issues um but there's systems in place at the schools there's system in place here Dr Brown and his department they we were running those attendance reports weekly um so we can identify students we have on track reports where we Mark kids uh at the district level EI either they're red yellow or green depending on their attendance and that information is shared with principles as well with via dashboard so it's data that we're constantly looking at um and it's data that definitely will probably come into

053play in this policy for sure so so it's going to be more just as important that we continue to do that and one other question are we going to have social workers uh dealing with the uh area of uh those uh kids that we recognize throughout the whole year have issues uh dysfunctional issues with their uh uh attitude behaviors uh because if we don't do that we're actually I I feel we're we're fighting a losing battle we're going to start the year all over again just like we did when we got started and I think we going to I don't know if you got that in place or not I didn't hear you talk about none of those things I I don't know if it's a social worker per se but there's mtss teams at

054every school that that look at that stuff regularly and try to intervene with students uh it could be a teacher that student has a good relationship it could be a counselor it could be an administrator it could be anyone really uh doesn't necessarily have to be a social worker um but yeah I know they look at that again they look at that as a uh with as part of their mtss process at the school level uh and then they try to flag students that they again are no are trending toward being either Trent or chronically absent um contact parents those types of things and I just I'm just giving you some things to think about I mean as I sit on this board and I listen uh throughout the whole year what's going on in

055our district in terms of uh what's going on in the classrooms and some of the things that I hear why I'm sitting it throughout the year these are some of the things I'm trying to bring to your attention why you're putting this the bridge as you call it summer program together something we do every year and I say that I've been watching it for the last 16 years but I'm just trying to give you some components as why I feel that some I kids are failing yeah I appreciate it appreciate the Insight thank you I'll piggy back on Mr McBride but miss Lindsay oh I was also going to piggy back on Mr rbde um because you brought up the absences right so um Outreach is sending letters whether it's excused or not excused so

056if my kids are out sick for 10 days and I call them in they're all excused absences but I still get a letter in the mail so I just want to be clear that this policy is saying unexcused absences so there will be close monitoring of that component compared to excused yes we we we specifically mentioned the unexcused absences in here as a a piece that we want to we want to monitor um with but yes you're right the the state no longer doesn't matter to the state whether it's excused or unexcused they consider the kid absent and you know yeah right but with our policy we're focusing on the unexcused Perfect Two my uh points come down to uh going back to I Believe Miss Hannah the communication piece um I'm big on that

057because even as we talk about standards based grading right is we still have parents who have to understand what standards based grading is and why we're looking at that Q4 as the litness test for being at at a one overall in both reading and math I think even for myself and my wife it was a lot of understanding oh he probably should be at a two at the start of the year and you shouldn't penalize him for being that a two at the start of the year what you want to see is growth and that he reaches that three or that four by the time the the school year is over um so I think there has to be communication at the elementary school level not just around the Poli but what around standard based

058grading means and what skills they can be working on with their students at home um the other piece is we invested a lot of money in this new wraparound Center and to Mr McBride's uh point is if individuals are showing um patterns of of truancy right we literally created a wraparound Center that's supposed to be able to connect our families to the resources that exist in order to support them it's because while we may not have the resources to be able to do it as a school District right is there are Community organizations that support our students that's a lot to put on teachers to have to know what all those resources are even administrators but we have a dedicated staff member and team at the rep round Center to do those type of things

059so I would make sure that as we move this um forward and we involve face and these other departments we also involve uh Miss Dodson and the wraparound Center to make sure that those supports are reaching the families that need them um so yeah those were my my real B ones around the wraparound Center and standards based grading but I also want to commend the committee uh this was something that in full transparency I did not support when I ran for the board and I won I did not support retaining students um but when talking through oured talking to our Educators and them explaining a lot of the issues that they were seeing at the upper grade levels to miss Linden's point this is about getting them the skills that they need the goal is

060not to retain students but it's also fair to staff members and students to put them in classrooms that they unable to to they're not ready for right and we see the issues that happen when we do that so I believe it has to be implemented you know I get the reasons why we didn't I agree with those reasons but it's going to take money it's going to take resources and I appreciate the presentation and that you guys put the numbers to it and for the Board of Education as we go through the budget process and we have to prioritize spending we have to use these numbers and we have to reserve those funds is because what I don't want to see is we promise the community this and then we get here next year and

061it's too expensive this has to be a clear Focus um and I do agree with Miss linding point is I would love reading and math but at those early grade levels it's like we're going all in on reading you know I I it's hard to learn math past the third grade level if you struggle with reading so um those are my comments and Miss Fabian with the final comment so um the logistics part was something that I brought up I was on the original committee back in 2019 and so knowing that back then we didn't really have that um solid number of how many students would be impacted so that was something that I think this committee was very intentional at looking at so um that we could logistically think through it because the board

062does need to know financially the impact um because we don't want to say well the kid's not going to pass because we couldn't provide summer school so now we can't follow our own policy that's not fair to student um but the other part that you were talking about is not just the standard-based grading and understanding what the one two 3 4 is it's also training families on how to use their parent portals and how to really go in and see the grades um I know there are um it's more detailed at the middle and the high school level where parents can see you know your kid is missing um certain tests or is missing certain assignments but if they're not logging in and not seeing that then it's harder to help and assist with that

063because our kids are not always going to be honest and not always going to tell us like oh yeah I missed that tester I didn't turn in that project so um I think it's also going to behoove us to really get parents at support and how to use the tools that we have um and I'm going to harp on this again we purchased AU for a reason so if that's going to be the platform that we're going to be using moving forward is communicating that out and how that could be utilized to not only look at grades and attendance but we can also utilize that to push out all of those resources as well because that was the intention of it um so just there's going to have to be a full like forums and

064and really working with the community and being intentional of be excuse me of being where um where parents are at so if we know summertime they're going to be a different summer programs like the park district um or they're going to still be attending you know different masses or they're going to be at the mosque then that's where we go and that's where we need to go just to start getting preemptive on communicating out we used to have a sorry we we used to have a class for parents on using infinite CU I attended it I know you yeah because I attended those classes I was like these are a lot of platforms so yeah bringing that back would be helpful cuz it helped me a lot yeah sorry awesome well thank you Dr n

065and thank you for all the comments thank you to the committee too all the team that was a part of this process I appreciate it thanks yeah awesome so we are at approval of minutes so we have the minutes for the Open session meeting November 2nd 2022 this is one that got past us Kathy motion to approve yes yeah try to periodically we them sorry yes it is one that as we try to periodically ensure we've captured them all we discovered this one got overlooked somehow thank you all right this was a board Workshop from 2022 uh so we have the board uh like a motion to approve from November 2nd 2022 yeah motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss hand any comments questions on the motion okay uh we need

066to pass we weren't here y so I'll take it as a roll call Mr riddle yes Mr mcbright yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Lindsay pass Miss Fabian pass president y yes uh item uh minutes are approved item 8 B approval minutes of the regular open session meeting for April 23rd 2024 motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by Mr McBride any comments questions on the motion I also was not at this meeting um roll call Mr riddle yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Fabian pass Miss ly yes president y yes item approved or minutes are approved item 8 C approval the minutes for the special open session meeting May 21st 2024 motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Hannah I is not present comments or questions Corrections

067roll call Mr riddle yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Fabian yes Miss Lindsay yes president y pass minutes are approved we are now at the opportunity for public comment on the screens around the room there will be a clock individuals wishing to address the yeah individuals wishing to address the board we'll have 3 minutes we do ask that you refrain from mentioning student and staff member names your remarks and want to remind all speakers of Civility if you need translation services translation services will be provided to you and you will get an additional 3 minutes for a total of six to allow for translation I'm going to call names three at a time I'm going to ask that you all line up on the side of the room in order to um expedite

068the process uh first name is Justin Simon Luke chowski and Dena Kesler and if I I mispronounced your name please correct me on the microphone Mr Simon whenever you start speaking your time will begin good evening board community members Educators um I'm Justin Simon six just finished my 16th year here in Wan and hopefully have many many more to go um congratulations I want to commend the board of education for making the change in board policy regarding Rank and senior honors this is a positive change for our students as it will lessen anxiety and promote students taking courses that they want to take rather than taking courses that solely just have an additional GPA rate um students mental health and well-being is important this change is a great step towards assisting our students Additionally the

069promotion policy is a good step forward in assisting our students who unfortunately have encountered obstacles again I say it's a good step forward there's additional work that we need to do to make sure our students are successful for career and Beyond um bear with me as this section was hastily Rewritten because of a slight pivot in um today's agenda but the key part that I want to express is that this community and its students rise to the challenges put in front of them in my 16 years I've been witnessed to this time and time again walk Keegan will rise to the challenge that we place in front of it that's right so all of the Educators here all the individuals in this room I believe would hold this truth to be true however the Adolescent

070mind is a Fickle one and it needs to be pushed if not it finds the easiest way out I have encountered future accountants and bookmakers who have made gorgeous spreadsheets detailing for me the least amount of work they need to do possible to receive the grade they want to do so as we move forward I challenge this community and this board to keep our standards high and challenge our students do not provide a way out but way out way up thank you next name Luke and pronounce your last name from me Luke quid Kowski quid Kowski thank you Mr quit Kowski hi I'm Luke kakowski I'm a first year teacher at Wan high school and a member of the WAN teachers union yeah thank you I only have three minutes please keep to minimum uh

071and anyway uh I just wanted to say I do commend what you've done to change the policy coming into today that was what I was going to speak on however seeing that it is no longer 50% minimum grade to now back to 0% I do think and I Echo what Justin Simon said about keeping our standards high for our students and they will meet us where we set the standards so thank you again and I yield my [Music] [Applause] time Miss Kesler whenever you start speaking your time will began okay hello my name is Dena Kessler and I been teaching personal finance at Wan high school for 18 years and I'm a proud Union member personal finance a course required in the state of Illinois has been a graduation requirement at wagan high school for

072decades last year the requirements for personal finance were drastically changed as of August 11th 2023 students at Wan High School need only be enrolled in the course to satisfy the personal finance requirement students no longer need to pass the class they do not need to complete any assignments and they do not even need to attend class to satisfy their graduation requirement all they need to do is be on the roster the present situation is a disincentive and a disservice to our students on May 17th I saw students graduate and accept diplomas that had earned a zero in my class and may have been present only one or two times in total the importance of personal finance is essential to create fiscally responsible members of society it is also the key to helping our students escape

073a life of poverty the damages is duing to our student body is immense and permanent if our students do not attend class pay attention or do any class work they will not learn the skills necessary to live within their economic means they will not learn how to avoid credit card debt how to do their taxes nor create a budget they will not be able to identify what auto insurance they need what lease is for renting or how to use time as a tool to save for retirement because of the new policy attendance is low and failure is high after calculating final grades for the second semester 46% of my students failed personal finance many of them did not turn in one assignment and understood they had no incentive to do so students are not being

074taught the most valuable lesson their decisions have consequences if we continue instilling in them the idea that they do not have to be accountable or put in any effort to succeed they will eventually suffer irreparable damage are we teaching our students that they can join the workforce and not have to perform or even show up this will only be exacerbated next year if the student have will receive a 50% grade for their non-attendance and lack of participation if we want to prepare students for the real world we should insist that our students be required to produce quality work and hold them accountable for their actions according to aan Public Schools their mission statement we should expect Excellence from all involved unfortunately we're are not expecting excellence and in the case of the students that does

075not attend class we are not even expecting a minimal amount of effort by reducing the graduation requirements and not insisting that our students pass attend and go to class we are the ones failing them but the students are the ones who will suffer those who insist that these policies were created to create more Equity amongst the students seem to forget that in Wan like many other communities it is not a cultural divide that creates inequality but an economic divide between those who have Economic Security and those who do not this course is specifically designed to close that divide please consider reinstating the long-established course requirement of passing the class as a graduation requirement or at the very least make attendance and effort mandatory thank you Miss C next three names John hasner Victor Chang and

076Laura Deon and if again if I mispronounced your name please correct me on the podium uh hello my name is John haers and I a math teacher and elected union representative at wagan high school and also a resident of wagan uh like others um I was planning I had a whole statement prepared uh to discuss policy um my plea was again that you would uh not enjoy any entertain any further readings of that policy until either teacher voices had been heard or until that line had been struck in you have done that and I think that you do deserve a thank you uh I do appreciate that you have heard our voices as quickly as you have uh and responded as quickly as you have instead of making us all weight I think that uh

077is is definitely a sign of good faith and we appreciate that I also recognize after last week's conversations I know that multiple members on the board are very much in favor of this policy um but you have still halted it uh and to not move forward with it um because you you know it is important to actually hear more teacher voices again I very much appreciate that and hope that we understand understand whatever caused that that made teachers not be heard in this one that those things be corrected in the future um last week I did mention that I was running a survey on this um if the board is interested in seeing those survey results I'm still happy to provide them um currently uh 91% of teachers are not in support of this policy

078as it stands I will also share with you the comments that teachers had on this policy uh when you look over the benefits when I asked teach the benefits I hope you notice that they actually understand what this policy is trying to do uh just a lot of us don't agree with it um when you look over the concerns uh you will see that a lot of teachers present ethical questions uh as Mr Simon had pointed out before that we are concerned about the lowering of Standards uh we are very much concerned about how students will interpret this message as I spoke last week I am concerned that lowering that the 50% rule communicates to students that we don't believe in them um I really think that any student can get to a 50% on

079their own without me having to set that floor for them um so I'm really very much concerned that that sends the message that we don't believe in you we don't think you'll take these opportunities uh and you won't do that um so again uh and I do take it as a these conversations can be open I know it's going to be difficult to sway the minds of 91% of our teachers um but I take it in good faith uh that the bo since the board has uh put a pin in this and saved it for later I put in good faith we will approach um with open minds and willing to have a conversation and finding the best of this um as one other side note regarding policy 5212 much less controversial is the is

080the section about uh creating Common Assessment standards and for teachers and all those things much less um of a concern but I do have an issue that it does say that we would start that in the 20124 academic year which would be very difficult for all of us to have our voices heard in those conversations Maybe we need to begin that later thank you Mr Chang dear superintendent Placencia and members of the school board my name is Victor Chang a teacher for 11 years at wagan high school and a proud member of the wagan teachers union I fully support that board policy 5212 for ging grading practices will retain a zero as the grading floor and that teachers will be involved D in the revision process in the fall so again thank you so much

081for your super responsive feedback especially given the number of teachers here representing Our concern and in preparation for my remarks I reviewed the research supporting both sides of the argument one critique on the statistic side is that student assignments are typically entered is points and not percentages so while the m reports the difficulty of averaging 0% a zero in several fivepoint assignments can be made up by one single 75o assignment um ultimately the research on both sides maintains that grades measure work and Elaine allensworth is the director in charge of the five essential survey and the network for college success her 2020 research states that high school GPA is a stronger predictor for college success because grades measure a wider variety of skills including effort over an entire semester and many different types of classes

082and demonstration of academic skills through multiple formats while her research focused on GPA and versus college entrance exams we can extrapolate how grades and GPA reflect work ethic so in support of the promotion policy presented by Dr m n having a rolling GPA starting in 6 grade would reflect a student's full work ethic starting in sixth grade emphasizes early importance holistic GPA which includes all classes also equally values all classes and ideally these values would continue to roll upwards into High School building off Miss kesler's comments about personal finance another CL class that falls into that loophole is health and having been part of the graduation committee requirement committee she one of my health friends decides to hit me over the head many times and saying why isn't Health a graduation requirement any longer and

083I said oops that's my bad but I would like to bring that up as well um so ultimately grades matter grades measure students work and I teach my students to be College and Career ready to persevere and work towards a goal and take that next right step towards a goal not to worked halfway there and to develop the grit and the determination to overcome hopeless emotions thank you Administration for your responsiveness and board members for your audience and service for our community Lauren dejon hello hi my name is Lauren dejan I am a Wan educator going into my seventh year with the district and a proud Union member um I want to Second a lot of what other people have mentioned um during these comments thank you for listening to the concerns that have been

084said about the 50% greeing policy um I think we can all agree that we are all here for students and we all want what's best for them um and I think this is a wonderful sign of communicating and working together to make sure that we bring that to reality um just commenting and again seconding about some of the things that have been said I truly believe that the standards we set for students are that they're more than capable of raising to them um I have had many students of mine comment about how they have felt like the bar has been lowered for them over the course of you know the year or so um and I want them to know that they are capable um that they are smart and that they can achieve anything

085and I think that further discussion about this 50% grading policy will enable us to set that message to our students that they are capable of anything um thank you so much for your [Music] time next three names are Ray vukovich Sher perkowitz and Mike Tanner in that order good evening uh the first thing is item 8A somehow got overlooked your board attorney that's what minutes from November 2nd 2022 almost 19 months ago they're supposed to been done a long time ago this isn't the first time we've heard this do you accept that it's the lawyer and the superintendent are responsible for board minutes it's the official minutes of this organization they are responsible hold them accountable you've got teachers here last week school ended grades are due how long could you go without getting grades

086in before you get written up but here at this level they go month after month and oh it was a mistake we missed it how you know and the board just lets it happen now that particular meeting well first of all U Mr President you weren't at the special meeting last week and I made the board aware that uh there was a general opinion from the general uh Attorney General's office regarding all public bodies in Illinois in spe in close session minutes in order for them to be approved they have to be approved at an open meeting this district has never approved minutes so you're way behind on that and you need to get going this meeting that you just approve the the open minutes that should be your very first one in two weeks

087you should come back with the closed minutes because that item is done it was a superintendent evaluation or actually uh uh goals I think it was which you can't discuss in closed session anymore as far as setting goals has to be done in a public meeting but that particular one you've given her a raise you've given her a bonus so there shouldn't be anything there that shouldn't be made available to the public so you need to start coming out with that kind of stuff there tomorrow night you you've got an evaluation session with the superintendent one thing I asked you to go back and look at when she came in here eight years ago there was an uh her employment application stated that by June of 2016 she would have a doctorate degree where is

088it I know it's not required to hold the position but she told the board at the time that she expected to have it if if you got hired and told people I'd have something in a few months and here it is eight years later and you don't have it you ought to be considering that in the evaluation as well thank you thank you Mr vukovich Sher perkowitz I'm Sher perkowitz I am a 16-year district teacher and a proud Union member my job at the school has been the vocational program and as a vocational teacher and a job coach for our students I have never once told them not to sweat an employee evaluation okay because in reality you realize that an employee evaluation is the same as a report card and in an employee evaluation

089you do not automatically get a 50% if you do not show up for work you do not get a 50% on your employee review if you are not doing your job if you are not completing your assigned tasks think about your own kids when they went off to their first jobs if they didn't show up for work did they get an automatic free pass no if you don't do your job if you don't show up if you don't turn in your work or your assignments you get a zero you get a zero because you have earned it not because somebody gave it to you a mean boss did not just simply tell you to go you didn't show up you didn't do your work and you got a zero and that is no different than

090any of our students or our kids who walk into our classrooms when you don't do the work you get a zero we need to set our students up for the reality of the workplace the reality that when they go to work if they don't do it and they don't do it the way they're supposed to there are repercussions there are consequences and these teachers who are sitting in front of you are trying to teach them that but when you take that away from us by giving these kids a free pass we're not teaching them anything we are not teaching them what it's going to be like to be an adult which is why students turn into young adults that go through job after job after job at the the end of the year they've gone

091through maybe five or six jobs they can't leave their cell phones alone they're just not doing it and we're not teaching them so please help us raise the bar don't keep dropping it okay 50% is not helping thank [Applause] you Mr Tanner uh Mike Tanner I'm the engineering teacher at Brookside uh hi anina um I survey teachers out there that are already in districts using this and I got more than 100 responses and uh it was pretty much universally disliked that's not a surprise uh some of the teachers you were pretty amb yeah you know it helps some students we understand you know we don't want kids to get in a Hole uh I hear zero a lot tonight believe it or not we don't like zeros okay it sounds like we love zeros we

092don't but uh comments were teachers felt personal shame they were ashamed of themselves to put a grade in that the student didn't work for like you know they had to look at themselves in the mirror they didn't want to uh parents didn't like it because they would look at Infinite Campus they couldn't tell which assignments were missing because they all had 50s is that missing or not they couldn't tell um teachers of well let's see parents a lot of districts went back on it after three or five years so um I I think we all breathe deire relief a couple hours ago when you know it was announced that you know we're moving back on the decision and we're going to talk about a little bit more we all oh good thank you um I

093would encourage the board to um involve the union and we we do have the same goal uh and you know we're the ones that got to put it in place um so just going forward I mean I have a lot of thoughts on it and I have some a lot of specifics that I've discussed with one or two people but um I think there is a path to uh success uh that's there um and you know we can get there without spending a lot of money uh to answer your question Anita about the new promotion policy my kids are going to know it it's going to be on their final exam see that how many credits do get to watch Washington CU I actually had a student ask me this year cuz she had failed

094everything am I going to Washington next year well yeah we don't keep people back well that answer is changed now so my kids will know um everyone has a lot of work to do I appreciate what you do yeah believe it or not I served on a school board at one time yeah so thank you boats a boat a boat I did build one a couple years ago huh I did build one a couple years ago I know another one you know what another one airplane thank you my three minutes are up my first my first teaching job was Aviation and I turned it down because I did not want to build an airplane thank you m but that was my first offer thank you Mr T final three names in order Huntsman Manning rayon

095Edwards and Randy secki yeah hi Huntsman Manning uh I'm a counselor at Washington campus so I have a little bit different perspective but I also taught French for 10 years before that so I also have a comment perspective one of the things that they teach you in grad school that kids need consequences you know you don't turn in something as Sher just said a moment ago you know you don't do your work you don't deserve credit for it that will not help an adult life and there are of course factors that are Beyond a student's control you know if a student literally can't take a test for whatever reason uh I don't think any teacher would ever turn a student away it would definitely allow a kid to make that up and a lot of

096them will make it easy for them to do that like they'll say that well I I can give examples of what I used to do I would give a student a hall pass and I would say okay go to study hall check in there and then come back here you know make sure you're not marked absent tell the teacher what you're doing then come back or I would say come see me during lunch or something and a lot of times they they would eat first and then come or they they would come to come to my room first and then they would eat when the line gets lower you know just whatever works I assume my colleagues are doing the same thing I learned it from them so yeah the fact beond their control can

097at least be mitigated that's part of the reason why they wanted to do the 50% floor also adversity breeds strength and kids need a challenging and rigorous curriculum and we're kind of taken some of the rigor out of it by doing this and to prepare for adult life I I realize I'm kind of repeating what some of my colleagues have said uh to to give the the example someone already gave a mathematical example but I'm I would like to give a very simple one if you take two 10-point quizzes you don't do anything on one you get a 0% it's recorded as missing on the other one if you get a 70% a c minus that averages together to be the 60% which would then be passing but in a raw score that would realistically

098be only 35% you're only literally doing earning seven points out of 20 which is 35% and that's not going to be good enough for anything can you imagine if you only did 35% of what your drill sergeant tells you to do okay what what would happen okay now Mr Ying mentioned uh earlier he said something about standard uh standards based grading and um I don't think there is a standard which would allow 35% while demonstrating 35% Mastery of the material would be good enough so that that is realistically what will happen oh thank you Mr Manning Mr board I you know what's funny to me as we talking about this policy I want to know who created it cuz whoever did we need to just fire everybody what is we teaching these babies y'all y'all

099didn't already L the credits what makes y'all think colleges is even going to want to look at our kids especially when they looking at the districts around so to answer a lot of you teachers question they don't care we got staff members over here forging documentation they don't care we got you teachers being treated inhumane being locked downstairs and rooms when you don't want to comply with what they want you to do so my my proposal to this Administration is if you guys want to be teachers step out that road and go put on some teacher shoes because they creating all these policies and it drives me crazy that y'all not going not talking to the people who's on the front line and that's them they do more work than all of y'all I came

100to these last few meetings and I said to y'all take the gloves off right take them off we using this diverse Equity inclusion this is making me mad because those words have been in add dictionary and so now it sounds good and we want to keep throwing it up don't keep using that for my black babies cuz that ain't going to help them in the real world they ain't going to be able to running nobody face talking about diversity equity and inclusion they're not just like everything else those words going to have an expiration date Dr Nas I hear you talk about this policy and we going to reach out to parents after five weeks maybe that's the problem because I deal with kids every day and so I notice daily when things change I

101don't want to wait 3 4 weeks to say something change because then it's too late and the bottom line is this it seems to me that y'all are behind on everything presentations coming then y'all want board the rushan approve it everything and so one job the superintendent and the lawyer got is the minute and that man Mr vukovich come up here every meeting and talk about it and y'all still can't get that right that's partially because everybody just walks around and flounce in Lincoln Center come and go as they please but y'all clocking their checks you clocking they time you making sure when they supposed to be where they supposed to be how about we get them a Time cartoon and make them swipe it so we can keep track of them too cuz we

102paying them more money than we paying them and I think it's time we start knowing where we getting our money's worth cuz we talking about goals so I'm going to for you cuz I want to look at the last goals cuz y'all allow her to change those and it seems to me that we're making goals that's already damn completed bro I'm disgusted in this board thank you Mr [Music] Edwards Mr secky good evening I also want to talk about that policy it's ridiculous to give a kid 50% and I'm going to use my own kid as an example cuz he's lazy he graduated this year am I proud to say he's lazy nope cuz he would take the least amount out just like I was I'm not a favor of the credits being dropped because

103a lot of these students say hey I only got to get 17 credits that's all I'm getting we lower the standards colleges ain't lowering the standards we talk about having our kids college ready how you don't do your assignment in college they taking your money and they'll see you again next year you ain't getting nothing and we talk about everyone has a seat at the table when's it going to start because it seems like a lot of these policies a lot of people are missing at these tables teachers parents the teachers ain't the only ones that need Buy in so do the parents those are our students in those classrooms and I I don't agree with it at all and we keep saying well 50% is still failing yeah but it's only 10% from passing

104and it's ridiculous I know this board has been used to running on this 50% because a lot of people you know half our administrators during the pandemic showed up to work 50% of the time but got paid our superintendent met three or five goals little more than 50% she got paid we need to stop and think about what we're doing to these kids they go to work they don't do their job they ain't getting half they paycheck for not showing up and we talk about the retention policy I want to talk on that a little bit too it's nice if everything's going to actually be followed I remember during the pandemic when we sat here for hours listening to that presentation of all the supports these students were supposed to get and didn't get my

105kid had Co four times four and he was at home he never got a support never got a call this year he almost didn't graduate I wasn't notified all the year yeah I get text messages from the school saying your students missing these assignments 3 4 weeks before the end of the years when I forgot my first telephone call from any administrator at that building or counselor and that's unacceptable because you know what I'm very involved I'm at every one of these meetings I check Infinite Campus probably 10 20 times a day so I am involved for a principal to tell me that oh well we send a miss an assignment thing home how do you know those parents are getting emails a lot of the parents as we say don't even speak English it's

106the kids that translate for the parents pick up the tell phone let's call the parents thank you Mr SEI this concludes our public comment we do appreciate everybody who came out and took time this evening we are going to continue with our agenda and then superintendent for things that require a followup please have your staff members connect with those individuals uh for the consent agenda these items have uh been previously discussed and do are considered non-controversial um any member could request that any item be held over for and voted on separately for any reason at this time would any board members like to vote on any of those items separately please give me the uh letter seeing if there are N I would like to approve items 10 uh a through W motion to approve

107motion by Mr riddle second second by miss hler any comments questions on the motion I just want to I'm sorry my machine went off wait hold on Mr pres I apologize now all of these um the different uh professional development requests and stuff right are are these going offsite or are they virtual I know some of them are virtual and um um but okay and I had one question Wan high school that's San High School psychology teacher psychology teachers now I are are those like the classroom the teachers that teach psychology is that what this is and not about the psychologist being called teachers which one is it this is an advanced placement summer Institute for psychology teachers and it has the teachers names to it so if you look at the item it is

108there I looked at it I but I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't get clarity as if they are the psychologist in the district or are they classroom psychologist okay gotta teachers okay teachers okay thank you so uh you mentioned it Miss Hannah I don't know if you want to go but some would be virtual some are in person so it's a combination of both the what some are virtual and some are in person you talked about some of that right and I was just wondering if these are off site many of them are okay and yeah and and just just uh a comment while we're waiting on Dr sario okay we we we're going to have to get uh a handle on the spending of the um the professional development I'm not denying that teachers

109may need it uh uh whoever need it uh but um we're going to have to try to come together and talk about a a different way to accomplish this because we are kind of getting in the um getting into um a area where we're going to have to clamp down on our spending because of the um because money isn't as readily flowing as it was before and so all I'm saying is that we are going to have to talk about a different way to reteach the skills that the professional development is giving to our staff and our teachers because of the financial piece so I'm going to try to help address this um each department looks at a budget and they allocate monies for whether it's supplies materials PD Etc so when you look at

110our budgets you'll see that staff has allocated that currently the Administration has not taken a stand or has not made a recommendation to the board that we need to put a moratorium on professional development I do I have heard Miss Hannah you brought that up a number of time I don't know what Miss I mean where the feeling if the board wants to have that conversation that's a conversation that the board can have but at this time the administration does not feel that we're overspending on professional development we feel that the professional development our staff is going to is intentional aligns with the budget aligns with the vision and Mission Al also align with the professional development cycle that the staff is it it depends on what areas right so you're going to see part

111of this is one is Stars other one this is an AP there's different ones please know that they are vetted by either the pr I'm just going to say supervisor or the manager of whoever is requesting it to see if it will be brought forward and I I appreciate that superintendent um but um um but on the other hand uh my duty as a board member I have to be um I have to have um uh be responsible uh for uh the fiduciary solvency of our district and um I have been um I have been um uh an understanding of school finances for many years and trust me when I say it's time for us to tighten our belt we need to tighten our belt and uh for with spending wherever it comes from we

112need to start tightening our belt to reinforce that as we go through the budget process and we have our first budget meeting I would like the board members to understand we do strategic based budgeting it is about priority to miss Hannah's point you cannot spend on everything indefinitely and I also want to understand the echo the administration is there's going to have to be prioritizations made I don't think that we can make the recommendation cut spending by 12% right cut spending by 20% but I do know that we have to be strategic and intentional about where we put our resources and I think that's the message so do we have to do this specific PD is there are there cheaper options right um do we and if the answer is no we have to do

113that kind always put the answer back on the board and administration then what else are we cutting right because uh Miss poke and team there's always that line of all of the things that we need and where the money stops and so I go back to is it's part of that strategic based budgeting is how we have been able to manage and Float our budget throughout these years is because we are intentional about where we put the resources so both things things are correct is as we tighten the belt I just don't want us to get to the point to say we're tightening across the board it may be this area and if it is Board of Education we can we don't even need a policy we draft a resolution put a timeline on there

114for it to be reviewed and and and that's what it is but I wouldn't want to make that decision in isolation without taking into consideration some of those other things at the superintendent mission right and and and please I didn't I did not say any kind of moror him no I'm not putting words I didn't say that n okay okay yeah but no I did not say that um but I I'm just simply saying that look the money is not coming in the way that it was so we just have to we have to be intentional as to what we are spending on yes Ma Miss Hannah roll call Mr riddle yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Fabian yes Miss Ling yes president y yes item approved motion carries item a renewal of

11595% coric materials for grades 3-5 B renewal of School links C renewal of n nula for grades 6- 12 D approve renewal of NWA map growth assessments for 2425 e approval renewal amplify education reading assessments 2425 F approve renewal of aluminate educations DNA for 2425 G approval of renewal of Education Advanced Inc cardic 2425 H approval of revision of previously approved EAB District leadership form partnership agreement I teaching through problem solving TTP teacher education course for K through 5 6-8 J purchase of laptops for new teachers phase one kit mental VoIP phone system upgrades L renewal of gagle contract M Expeditionary Learning tier one literacy professional development from better lessons grade 6 through 8 in international B Gloria middle years program training for curriculum coordinators and leaders grades 6 through 12 O College Bo summer

116training session at lyola University in Chicago July 8th through 12th P wi trainer attendance at International Society for technology and education in D Colorado dates listed Q approval to attend Network for college success National freshman success Institute our approval of stars program staff to attend this 21st century Star Center summer Symposium S Walk and high school psychology teachers professional development request T walk and high school social studies teacher professional development request U approval to purchase furniture and supplies for two preschool classrooms V approval to purchase furniture and supplies for three full day classrooms and W Google ripberger scholarship in alen and musical Memorial Scholarship we also have the consent agenda for operations items a through F would any board members like to vote on any of the items separately I just want to make a

117comment excellent reading of that very long list never mind I was going to say something well a proud walk gr a proud walk youan graduate um consent agenda operations items 11 a through F we have a motion Mo approve by Miss Hannah and second it by Mr riddle um any comments or questions on the motion I have a comment for E because it was brought up during public comment um or not public comment during our last meeting with regard to the electricity being um provided to the Marquee sign so I'm glad that note is in there that that will be done this summer because it is electrical um Mr Moten can you confirm is this going to be after the summer school are closed and children are not on the property while they're getting that

118laid out there Mr Molton said it won't disrupt summer school the question is well the will the work take place meanwhile summer school is in session yeah so not about disrupt just so the the answer is yes and how are you going to ensure that it is blocked off and safe for yes students that are attending those schools thank you for anticipating my meeting super yes um so the goal is not to Impact summer school however we are anticipating this will take place the second week of June but we will have take the necessary safety precautions so that this is not near any play areas um we will adjust according to the summer school schedule okay and will parents be notified when we finalize the dates we will make sure the schools communicate that to

119the parents okay great thank you thank you um we go to Item B mly comment is I'm excited to see this happen uh going back to some of the conversations that uh we talked about even what Miss Hannah just mentioned is we should be looking at opportunities in order to uh support our staff members but also save the district for money and resources whenever possible so I am excited to see this move forward roll call Mr riddle yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Fabian yes Miss yes president yes items approved motion carries item 11 a approval of facility rental waiver request for Focus thank you uh see you in attendance appreciate you for coming B approval of USI Insurance Services temporary broker record agreement again thank you for coming see approval board resolution

120annual waiver of facilities use free for nonprofits uh thank you for all of those Partners D approval operations vehicle purchase e approv approval of Glenn wood and Andrew Cook Elementary School marqueis signs and F approval of change order for aestus abatement uh we have purchases and contracts um there are two here is anyone opposed to taking those two as an item we had good conversation at the committee meetings and so um um we could I I'm in favor of are you opposed Miss Lind Miss uh I'm not opposed I just have a comment all right then let's uh if we get a motion for items 12 A and B moved motion by Miss lindsy second second by Miss Fabian comments or questions Miss Fabian so my only comment is um I am going to vote

121Yes on the transportation of pace I know that is um absolutely needed but going forward if we can look at that annual 2% increase if there's something that we can do to look at the terms of our contract because I don't know how long that's been standing and I do know student numbers have been fluctuating and the use of our passes have been fluctuating um as well as reduced routes so if we can next time around try to negotiate something lower if we could noted I have a question on this one as well so it was hard for me to hear some of the conversation um but I did go back and relisten um but I've also gotten a couple of inquiries with regard to the passes um I don't know if Miss Williams is

122oh u i see you sorry that was creeping um is there a limit to how often students can use the passes per day or per week while they're valid I understand from um last week's meeting that if they're part of regular school it'll shut off at the end of school if they're part of summer school they'll get an additional pass to cover that period of time Etc but is there a limited number of times a day or week that they can use those passes no not during the school year no okay but during summer school there is so the high school will purchase their tickets separately I don't know how they purchased them but it should be the same process okay so there shouldn't be a limit on them using it and if there is

123there isn't a limit okay so if families have issues they should contact Pace or are you at the transportation as far as the pass is not working yeah Pace okay to dispatcher perfect thank you Miss Williams you're welcome all right roll call Mr riddle yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Fabian yes Miss Lindon yes president Ewing yes IEM approv motion carries uh Personnel items um I'll take these separate I would be comfortable taking them together but item 13A attendance at wi differently trauma informed schools conference in Chicago read the recommended action it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the attendance of board member Jeff McBride at the wire differently trauma informed schools conference from November 6th through the 9th 20124 in Chicago with the estimated cost of $1,800 which includes lodging

124registration fees and per DM motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Hannah any comments or questions on a motion roll call Mr riddle yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Miss Fabian yes Miss Lindsay no with the same rationale that I've used previously I believe this would be best used for our staff to inform the board president y yes item approved motion carries item 13 be engagement president just a point of order I don't know that we read in to the record uh 12 A and B I did not thank you uh for the record item 12a amplify language Studio ESL resource for monolingual dual language and step classrooms grade K through 5 and B approve of renewal of pace Regional Transportation authority agreement 2024 through 2025 school year recommended

125actions as presented um Personnel items we at item 13B engagement of legal counsel environmental matters it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the appointment of Harvey Sheldon PA to maintain the legal councel and advise provided in matters associated with yman Creek Environ environmental remediation obligations and the associated solar energy project Mo to approve oh go ahead Mr riddle yeah and I'll second it motion by Mr riddle second by Miss Hannah comment questions uh just glad to see that um we are finally putting some uh time limits on this uh or organization that is um working with us to try to bring solar power to uh yman Creek environmental and that uh we have Harvey Sheldon as our we're maintaining retaining him as our attorney to pursue this along with the remediation group that

126he works with thank you and my comment and reference to Mr Sheldon I've been working with Mr Sheldon for a very very long time under uh with yman Creek and went through with the remediation of it and the the whole thing and so I'm glad that he will be in uh charge of this and I I I have the confidence that he will make sure that the district is represented well I have an additional comment I just want to preemptively preemptively thank the board for presumably approving this because it's also fiscally responsible when someone has this much amount I can't talk today when someone has this amount of background knowledge we don't have to get them up to speed to carry the torch so it's a very fiscally responsible decision right roll call Mr riddle

127yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Fabian yes Miss lindsy yes president yes item approve motion carries uh C we're holding and then D we got Personnel for 13d it is the recommendation that the Board of Education accept the administration's recommendations to approve the appointments retirements retirement extensions and accept the resignations as found on schedules f102 L 949 and g660 motion to approve motion my Mr riddle second second by miss faan the comments of questions on the motion roll call vote Mr riddle yes Mr McBride yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Fabian yes Miss lindsy yes and I just want to commend one of our teachers that I personally experienc to see that retirement is good for you but sad for me cuz my kids won't get you thank you and we do have one

128administrative appointment I thought we're not supposed to see yes oh Fabian were you yes did we and then yes my bad item approved motion carries uh we have Miss Jessica I don't see your presence I'm going to go with the board president pronunciation at this time I'd like to introduce Jessica Lano director of student services pre that will be her new title who previously served at Harvard Community School District 50 um she will now be yeah title change director of student no she serves as director of student services at the Harvard Community School District 50 she will now be our new fine child find coordinator at the welcome center with a starting salary of $123 ,000 congratulations Miss lanu I'm excited that it's finally filled awesome all right and if we get the agenda back

129up Mr vukovich who would have thought the day we had a financial Hearing in District 60 with a $30 million Bond and I think you are the only Community representative present so item 168 I'd like to open the public hearing concerning the intent of the board to issue up to 30 million of working cash fund bonds uh of the district do we have a motion motion motion by Miss Lindsay second second by Miss Fabian comments questions all in favor signify with i i any oppos nay the hearing is now open um at this point uh time we have uh Miss pul and after she makes whatever remarks she has prepared I'll open the floor up to any uh board members or community members or staff members who have questions go ahead Miss po board president

130board member superintendent uh colleagues and community members uh it is our pleasure to have Mr Kyle Harding here with us tonight uh to help to answer whatever questions uh that may come up uh we presented this uh this information at a previous board meeting uh but we we are subject to whatever questions exist at this time to Mr Harding's prayer board is prepared you need a microphone Mr vukov we have a mic we got one for you as I stated last week at the committee meeting $30 million it's a lot of money but you probably 300 or $300 million you probably would spend all of that too you got a lot of old buildings in this district and people note that you know we we said the dog pound is 96 years old and that

131was built for a school and you got to keep it up all the other buildings were built as schools just like this building people say oh you know it's old it's 100 years old board a previous boards majority of you at the superintendent's request you purchased uh an 85y old Bank building and have spent millions and millions of dollars on it so I think you you know as you go forward here with spending this $30 million you really need to look at how you're going to do the best for what we have and if you're looking at I see you've got you're hiring a real estate expert later tonight I hope you're not buying any more old buildings if you're going to build something build it new there the really is no big savings by

132buying something and try to reconvert it but we do have an old uh buildings and you got to keep them up so that's that's all I have to say you heard that M po Mr vukovich is going to help me pass a referendum but uh I did and I'm joking Mr vukovich I do thank you for the referendum that you have helped in the past and I appreciate the dedication and which you've supported walking in public schools and I mean that but we do um I Echo those sentiments is as we look and I've given this analogy and I think Miss poke has as well is how many times are you going to replace the engine before you get a new car so um I appreciate that any other comments or questions related to this

133item I just want to know um before I say okay to this I want to know okay the bond the the bond on for the working cash right do what plans do we have for that million through the uh Capital development committee uh there's a prioritization list of projects uh and Mr Molton can chime in but when we last looked at the list for the 10year life safety it was $120 Million worth of projects right so the board with the uh our uh support of the superintendent put 60 million if not more without going out for any bonds uh into Capital Improvements over the last few years it's actually much more than that um and so we've uh started doing the work and now we're at a point that if we're going to continue to

134do that work we have to go out for a on that's coupled with the fact that we've not raised taxes for the last four years four years and so that's compounded we lose that money uh every year because the base Remains the Same and so we've tried very hard to uh to do what the board has willed us to do but now we can't do it anymore okay and so with that um thank you for the mountain okay I have to climb the mountain in order so we can understand anyway um okay you mentioned the capital projects yeah okay and the 10year life safety yes okay and I guess this is a superintendent Mr Mo uh Mr moton Question at this point because we've been working on this 10year life safety um issue for a

135while okay and so I am now I am at the point where I want to see the uh 10year life safety um documents okay the items that were there I know we had um if I can remember we were red yellow and blue or some numbers and um some colors and I want to know are we done with those first ones are where are we with the with the second group and where are we with the third group and and um you know in terms of the life safety because life safety is totally different from acquisition of a building and putting dollars into that building that you know because I guess what I'm trying to say is [Music] um we we we took on another task before we finished with that 10year Life Safety project

136and that's and this is just my opinion okay as a board member okay that those Life Safety um issues that we that's mandated that we have done at particular times that those things should have been prioritized over the acquisition of the building totally we we can talk about that different but right now I just want to know where we are in though in that 10year life safety uh project so thank you for the question Miss Hannah uh Hannah good evening board members staff Community superintendent um so we've progressed well in that in the previous meeting we did share that um those identifiers were a b C1 and C2 okay so the A's were to be done in the first year we did request an extension with our Anderson at the time um because of the

137volume of work uh and then the bees were five to six years and the C1 and C2 were recommendations at the time that we did the 2016 uh 10year life safety assessment we also had a facilities assessment done which is where the recommendations came from and really the recommendations is what generated a lot of the basis for the 10-year Capital Improvement plan um the A's we provided a status update we're happy to share again uh that were done within the first two years with the with the extension and then the B's and the C's we incorporated in the 10-year Life Safety plan and it was meant to be flexible and ongoing um this type of work um Miss Hannah and the rest of the board members um is really due to the age of our

138buildings as Mr vukovich mentioned um it's really a never-ending Endeavor because we're also subject to the violations and the recommendations at the time U of the code that's relevant so re uh codes change over time um and we have to be responsive at the time some of those codes may be different in 2026 when we go through this process again versus what they were in in 2016 um but we've done substantial we can bring some statistics and data back to the board on what's been completed and what hasn't but we took an effort to prioritize the a priorities which I believe at the time was about four and a half to5 million of the of the assessment okay and so with the assessment okay the 10year life safety okay I'd like to see what has

139been completed I I'm completed a b c C1 C2 whatever I want to see what has been completed we've worked on this for a while Y and now it's time to report out to tell us all the money that we have approved so we can let's see it bring that presentation back at the next student achievement operations meeting I mean it's easy to pull you all have it right thank you all right if there are no other questions related to item 16a then I will ask for a uh motion to close the public hearing concerning the intent of the board to issue up to 30 million of working cash fund bonds of the district so moved second motion by Mr riddle seconded by Miss uh Fabian all in favor um close it yep to close

140uh signify with i i any oppos n meeting is uh or uh hearing is closed we have item C ratification of second processing of May 2024 board bills made check request payments and Old National Bank insurance payments for the period of May 8 2024 through May 21st 2024 it is the recommendation of the administration that the Board of Education ratify the 2nd May 2024 processing of board bills Manor check request payments and Old National Bank insurance payments for the period of May 8 2024 through May 21st 2024 the accounts payable board payments for the period of May 8 2024 through May 21st 2024 totals 3,5 5,444 58 the manual check request payments for the period of May 8 2024 through May 21st 2024 total 553,000 motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by

141Miss uh Fabian any comments or questions on the motion roll call Mr riddle yes Mr mcbright yes Miss Hannah I pass Miss Fabian yes Miss L yes president y yes item approve motion carries I'm going to take a five minute recess it's now 9:00 so um if you guys want to use the restroom and then meet back here at uh 911 we still got a few items and we've been here since 6 I already took my bathroom break you want me to take over so we can get done [Music] for [Music] m [Music] it is 9:13 I'd like to uh call back to order uh or resume go back into Open Session if I have a motion to resume open session motion by Miss Hannah second second by miss linding all in favor signify what

142I I all board members are present with the exception of uh McBride and Fabian so miss McBride will be right with us fabian's right here yep I'm sorry Gonzalez and um there it is and and McBride all right so we are at reports and presentations um do we have any nope so we are at the board policy 6040 on discipline Equity review this is the first reading reading delegates but I don't have one you don't have one okay uh we don't have a sorry I apologize we don't have a Lakes division meeting coming up soon that we're aware of um it's been a long time no they only do two a year oh okay got it so usually one in the one in the spring one in the fall I just need to not get

143sick oh yeah that's right uh so we do have the discipline so I'm going to ask us to hold on I mean if you have comments questions concerns now is the time to bring them up if not make sure that you get those suggestions and recommendations into Miss uh vanderbrook and CC myself and the superintendent all right with 5212 under yeah so under old business we got 5212 the grading final examinations uh policy this is a second reading so we need to hold that's not this one though so do we got a motion to approve items 19a no it is this one this is oh grading and final um I'm sorry I was looking at promotions and retention see want me read this so I still need yep item 198 board policy 5212 grading and

144final examinations and 52 13 final examination second reading it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the amendments to board policies 5212 grading and final examinations 5213 final examinations as presented for second reading with the additional change to having the grading scale for 6th through 12th grade reflect a score a score range of zero as an F 0 to 59 0 to 59 as an F as recommended Ed by the administration motion to approve motion by m second by Miss um linding any comments or questions on the motion yeah I thought that we were going to wait until some conversations we had with the um with the teachers we are on this so so why are we passing it because we struck out the part that they had concerns with so that we can

145have further dialogue everybody agrees with the rest of the policy so it doesn't make sense to hold uh what we're doing is keeping the F where it currently is at 0259 to allow for greater conversations and communication um that's what was requested even in the emails that the board got that's what we heard tonight from the um speakers and that's what some of the board members had reached out about even ones that set on the committee to say they had no issue with having further dialogue and talking with the teachers in order to and and to and when I say to his credit but also in consultation with Dr Cesario and that um our goal is not to rush through it but to make sure that we have dialogue and conversation uh and the requests

146that were made were reasonable and we're okay with striking that specific uh criteria okay but it's a board policy correct remember we decide so we decide so I'm asking for this to be held I'm ready to vote on it ready to vote roll call adjustments oh can we have go ahead yes yes um so I again just want to Echo that based on a lot of commentary especially from board members in the last meeting where we wanted to have that dialogue I'm really appreciative that that is coming to fruition um I think there were there were a lot of concerns shared during public comment um I don't personally agree with some of the sentiments but I can understand the teacher perspective so I'm really excited to listen in on the dialogue and get the perspective

147of our staff that will need to do this um the one concern I have with timing is if we're looking to come back in November in my mind is is that still applying to the 2425 school year or it would be to set it in place for 2526 and it gives the staff time to acclimate to how that's going to impact that and so Deputy sario shaking his head yes superintendent I just I want to make sure that's clarified right because like yes and so why can't we wait on on approving this policy to make sure that this policy will reflect what our um what our teachers we did that tonight were saying we did that tonight and there's there's some components in the policy that we're really excited about it as well like one

148big highlight I like was that we would under the old policy use Behavior as or as grades as a reason to exclude students from extracurriculars whether it be dances or field trips or Etc this removes that like our students deserve those opportunities but so those components the teachers aren't having complaints with the only sticking point has been the 50 % floor so because there's so many other benefits that can help our students now at the start of the school year we we want them to have access to those benefits that's my personal but it's not going to according to what you all just said so let me clarify the only component that is going to be delayed for the following school year is going to be whether or not we adopt 50% being the floor

149as a Baseline and 50 to 50 9 being an F or is it going to remain 0 to 59 being an F that is the only component that would go into effect school year 2025 to 2026 I mean if we decide on it if we decide on it right right well it will be decided either like I said the 0 to 59 or the 50 to 59 for that call to vote I'm I'm not in yeah my only just call the vote no I'm good my my comment is only as it relates to there were comments and assumptions that were made while we can say that involving teacher voice is always important to us I do not want to ignore the voices of the many Educators that set on the committee and sometimes we have

150this idea that because I was not involved then it must not have solicited input from teachers and that is that is not true teachers were a part of this process and when we talk about administrators guess what most administrators were Educators and still are right and so I don't want that to be the thing that is missed while we do want greater engagement I don't want to ignore the efforts and the work of those that were on that committee and what a lot of people understand and know about committee work is typically not everybody agrees with everything that is implemented in Poli but what you do is you get a lot of different stakeholders you get different opinions and you bring that information forward so I do appreciate the thought that was put into it

151I receive it with the intent that was intended and it makes uh and because there are these other great components of the policy and all the work that is done doesn't make sense to throw excuse the reference the baby out with the bath water but it makes sense for us to say hey let's approve all the parts that we agree with and then let's have a further deeper dialogue related to uh the 50% but our approval of this policy keeps our St great practice as is there is no change well the practice actually Mr President is that the Board of Education make up the policies so what policy suggestions do you have the rest of the board is saying they agree with the policy so the board will vote and by us voting will say

152that we agree with the policy if there were any recommended changes outside of the ones that we presented then we would change it Administration heard the feedback from the board members they heard the feedback from the community and they talked amongst themselves so this is one of the rare instances in which seems like we're all in agreement so uh roll call call a vote yeah Mr riddle uh yes I'm going to vote Yes on this because of what's been said and I was prepared to vote no because I do believe the 50% is a disincentive to our students but I am going to vote Yes because we're taking that Out Mr McBride yes and uh like Mr riddles uh I uh echoed the uh wisdom of what came forward as far as the teachers are

153concerned and I think I'm glad that we held it over we as Brandon used the words deep de a deeper dive into this and maybe we may see something we may have missed I don't know Miss Hannah I'm going to say no because the policy has already been drafted and um I'd like to vote on the policy when it's in the final draft to make sure that um that everything is um I is not not I'm not saying that it's not going to be done but I would rather wait until it is finally finalized the draft is finalized so that I will know exactly what I'm voting on so no Miss Fabian um I would just like to say thank you to all the teachers that came out um and everybody's comments from last committee

154meeting as well um because I feel like we're all speaking the same language and asking what's best for our students however we have different perspectives as to what that is so thank you to the admin for changing that um and I will vote Yes Miss linding uh I'm voting yes I do appreciate um miss Hannah's perspective of seeing it in final version form I think this is one of those times where when it is available and sent to the board in its final draft if it's not as it is supposed to be then we say that's not what we said in the meeting this doesn't reflect it um and you know again I want our teachers to be engaged in the process when we have these hot button items right I think to Mr Ying's

155Point yes there are a lot of qualified people on that community that put in a lot of work and it has to miss fabian's point the goal of ensuring our students have access to the best education and the focus should be on learning not necessarily a grade um but I understand that in our world we have to use those as metrics right so I'm excited to listen in on these conversations and partake in these conversations with individuals we may not agree in the end but I think that dialogue is going to help people understand and process and make their decisions after they engage in that dialogue to Mr McBride's point so that I did say yes in the beginning thank you yes iove uh motion carries and again uh thank you for all of those

156who came out we have Item B board policy 5215 promotion and retention second reading it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the amendments to policy 5215 promotion and retention as presented for the second reading and be phased in over a 3-year period as set forth in the policy presentation during superintendent's time this meeting do we have a motion motion second motion by Miss Fabian and a second by Miss linding um just wanted to clarify is the reason that we read it that way the presentation talks about a phased in implementation the policy does not call for a phased implementation so the uh policy was the recommended action was read to reflect that uh tier implementation with that Mr riddle yes um I have a question about this policy and we just had first

157reading last meeting um and section 3D of this policy this is it also talks about promotion and and the fact that you know the minimum required requirement uh minimum credits required is 17 and that that and in 2028 that will go up to 19 now when we first lowered this to 17 we heard this was a temporary measure if I recall correctly and this was due partly to covid and that some students had not done well during remote learning and that we would consider raising the minimum credits back up there's nothing in this policy that talks about that until 2028 and that's when it has to go up because of the requirement by the state for language so I'm concerned about voting on this tonight if we're not going to consider raising uh the requirements

158and and telling our kids what what they wanted us to do when I when I was at Mikvah and talking to a lot of the students um Dr Cesario was there too A lot of those students were upset they felt like they had been like again we felt or they felt that that we didn't trust them to earn more credits when I also surveyed other districts around our area I noticed that they didn't lower their credits requirements for graduation um North Chicago Chicago still has 24 uh East aora has 22 um yes the state has only 16 but they had that before so we're only one above so I would like I will vote Yes for this policy because it does have other requirements just like the previous one that a lot of work has

159been done but I think the Board needs to have further questions about when are we going to consider raising our minimum requirements back up to where they were or closer to where they were so two quick points yes Mr uh riddle but you remembering two separate conversations so the board suspended our promotion policy I think school year 2020 when the pandemic first happened and school year 2021 and then we became I voted no but we did have a conversation around lowering them to the 17 the board to miss Hannah's Point drafts policy so if there is a revision period that you would like to uh add into the promotion policy that is reviewed on an annual basis that is looked at in 20126 that is looked at in 2027 those are all in the purview

160and in the power of the administration to put those check-ins uh in to the policy if that is something that the Board of Education would like um outside of that anytime we want to have a conversation there's a lot of work you don't want to have it swing wildly one way or the other but I do think if this is something that the board would like to revisit um you know with a with a majority concurrence but the current policy as it's written reflects the current policy as approved uh the previous year and Mr riddle Miss Gonzalez said on that policy committee um and so if you will allow me to have some a conversation with Ardo and get us together but it's definitely a conversation that we can um put together um and have

161a conversation as a board so I'll work with the board president on that but I'd like Miss Gonzalez here because I know she spearheaded that work with the committee okay so do we want to hold it are we at R well we should we can vote on it I'm just from my perspective um the policy comment and concern that you have is the graduation policy yes and um my recommendation from a policy development perspective would be to um um address that policy and if that policy changes for credit at the same time we would bring forward the applicable amendment in this promotion policy okay that makes sense thank you thank you well roll call Mr riddle yes Mr mcbright yes Miss Hannah pass Miss Fabian yes missing uh yes into Dr n's point I'm really

162excited to to see this be done with fidelity because it's going to benefit our students and our community pres yes item approve motion carries um we have two items 20a and 20b um are you all is 9:32 is anybody opposed to taking those items together all right uh motion to approve items 20a and 20b item 28 retention of real estate appraisal expert and 20b yman Creek lease extension so moved motion by Mr second by Miss Hannah superintendent if you can read both recommendations it is recommend that the Board of Education approve the Second Amendment to limited surface wait you're moving is Le I close hold on I'm sorry no worries is this the first one Lee because you moved the okay it is recommended the Board of Education authorize the district legal counsel to engage

163in services with m AI Appraiser for real estate appraisal and expert witness Services required in connection with the pending property tax appeal board legal proceedings in the amount of $111,000 is also it is also REM recommended that the Board of Education approve the Second Amendment a second amendment to The Limited surface ground lease dated September 9th 2021 between the district yman solar 1 LLC and the yman Creek remediation group as recommended by the administration so we had a motion in the second any comments or questions um Point order Mr President hold on one second the under new business right mhm I don't think we can take them as together because they're I thought that they were both regarding um yman Creek no they're two separate ones one appraisal but they can still be taken combin

164it's just voting on them together it's creating Omni it's our rules I mean if anybody has an issue with it is I'm just wondering I'm not aware of a rule off hand that would prevent you from taking them together the Motions are separate the first one is for uh uh Eng it's an engagement of an expert to do an appraisal to support um um The District's defense of aab appeal that came in the second one is the lease extension but I'm not aware of anything governing the board meeting rules that would not allow them to be taken together if the board was in agreement with that based on the two different motions that were read okay thank you for that roll call Mr riddle yes Mr mcbright yes Miss Hannah you yes Miss Fabian yes

165yes president y yes item approve motion carries we'll do something that I don't typically do um but I forgot to um no I'm G keep with protocol uh go ahead Mr riddle I'm gonna I'm going to pass thanks to everybody for coming tonight thanks for all the hard work you do appreciate that thanks to all the board members here and all the time they spend my fellow board members thank you Miss faan just a reminder to Parents summer school is beginning next week and then all the summer camps there are some beginning next week as well so please check um your child's information where you're supposed to be for that and then inviting everybody to the wagan Friends pride parade and Fest on Saturday June 1st the parade is at 100 p.m. the festivals from

1662: to 7:00 and it starts right here at Lincoln Center and then it'll end on Sheridan and Clayton thank you Mr McBride uh just want to say thank you to uh all the uh staff that are engaged in helping making summer school possible uh I've been around for the last 16 years and every year we have summer school because of the fact there's always some kids that's going to come up short academically and uh summer school has always been a benefit for those reasons so uh I just want to say thank you again for being able to put summer school together because summer school has always Ben been a beneficial to those that come up short thank you m ler um so it's it's been a few meetings since we um have had board member

167time so I apologize I'll try to make it brief um I was able to attend the um Jack Benny honoral event that they had for their sixth seventh and eighth graders um I really want to appreciate Mr Kirkwood and his team you guys did a great job um there were some uh supports I believe from Lincoln Center as well uh Miss McGee was helping out um as well as parents um we had Mr secki there as well it was just a great time to to celebrate the students and watch them be with their families to just celebrate their academic success for the year so that was great um I was also able to attend the John Clark Elementary um Scholastic celebrations that they had over at um the lake her Center uh it was beautiful

168they the team did a great job really focusing on the academics that the students achieved for the year it was wonderful to see parents just enjoy their students doing well and I was getting emotional and my kids weren't even there um also there was the student council event um that Mr Barry and miss Patty put on with the support of Miss McGee and team over at the green belt Cultural Center um those students in student council from all of the middle schools did a great job presenting um and just enjoying the time they had together I also want to thank all of our retirees I had to excuse myself partway through the meeting it's six season so everybody stay safe um but to Mr Ying's Point that's a lot of service that we're really appreciative

169for um and I just want to acknowledge that April was autism awareness month so hopefully individuals were able to light it up blue and just recognize that um we're currently in aapi heritage month so I want to have a big thank you to our members of the aapi committee um to our teachers United the Filipino teacher dance group uh Mary basa Gina vus uh Carrie ha uh Nicholas chin the parents and students of Clark Elementary for the malal malum malum malum thank you um dance group those kids had moves they had moves um Mr Jeremy monton who's a graduate of w Keagan came and did a DJ set the parent volunteers um Dian Gonzalez and Stephanie Alan uh Mr Kirkwood for letting us use the school the face Department did a great job putting that

170on all the schools did their posters and they were beautiful with projects uh Dr Fields and Miss Ashley Lopez in addition there's a lot of people that were involved um in addition to Mr uh Brian James uh rioo so if I've missed anyone I do apologize that wasn't intentional so feel free to reach out but it was a great event and I'm excited to see more of these come through the district and then I also just want to Echo what Miss Fabian said that this is walking's first pride parade and so it's very exciting if you can come out and um enjoy the festivities this Saturday you'd not only be supporting the LGBT qia 2s plus community at large but also those that are our staff and our students so hopefully we can see you

171there business and local business yeah larger larger Community thank you Miss lindsy Miss uh Hannah okay I just and it has been a long time since we did board member time so um I just want to shout out to um to um Miss Fon and of the um the the team that put together um I know it's called something else but I've always known it to be decision day for our um for our seniors and um this is one of the hats that uh that the kid the students received it was a great event uh well uh the the students had a good time and um want to give shout out to uh Carlos um uh he he's been very active in our school and I appreciate that um also I attended the um Asian

172Heritage program and it was really uh good I was waiting for um waiting for the dancers to do um what what's the it's on TV that they it's a um a production and they they had the dresses and all of that it it was just excellent want to give a shout out to the face Department because um I like the fact that they they Incorporated the districtwide with the students um you you know uh it being involved from different grade levels and stuff and I think that that's a a a great thing that they're doing including and then of course the um the graduation of our um of our uh seniors um it it was a pleasure to be able to um watch all of them uh walk to stage but I did get concerned

173with one of uh the uh com that was made earlier in reference to um a teacher seeing uh students that were walking across the stage but they did not pass her class that's of concern um and then uh all of the eighth grade promotions um the the the students they're gearing up to go into um their start their High School careers uh next school year and um I certainly hope that we're ready for them um we have the budget development um uh uh committee uh that that was and always is very interesting um and I love being a part of that um and that sometimes gives me the uh justification to make statements that I do about our spending um I attended the retirement dinner I hate to see all of the and if I'm

174not mistaken I think it was like 99 some years total of of the uh teachers that retired this year and um that that's unfortunate but uh other than that um my last comment is I certainly hope that we're thinking about Mr President uh superintendent to have a review of this year and to see um and so that we can assess this year going into next year and I think I've asked that um asked that uh request before and so um hopefully we can proceed into that other than that thank you all for attending um tonight and thank you audience and all the teachers that uh came out I thank you for that board president I apologize I think I have a bit of egg on my face can I do one more thank you go

175for um I think I left out Miss Quinn Norman whose leading face um not only did she help me provide a list of of all the people but I don't I think I forgot to thank you specifically so I really do appreciate all the work you're doing and I'll be somewhat brief but I have um a lot of comments that we had I agree with hitting the pause button is we have greater communication um and as someone who was on the opposing side when we did lower credits I still don't like a lot of the conversation that surrounds that decision um and so for the record and even when our students and we're hearing from it I think it's up to us as adults to be able to to uh explain to them what that

176was made is setting a minimum set of credit requirements does not limit anybody's ability to hit the max the promotion policy which also looks at GPA and credit attainment and other things is important as we want to make sure that those classes are invaluable someone who works in finances and understands the importance of financial literacy I think it is important for our students to understand why these classes matter and that their motivation not just be tied to is I only have to pass I only have to attend if it's required to graduate I think that's a mindset shift that we as a community um should be challenging with our young people to understand that there you can gain 17 credits by the time you end your sophomore year and so again so there's no limit

177of capping but what are the different Pathways so I do want to um the intent behind it was to support those students who were struggling we talked about it and how the the administration being at the high school came here and told the board some of the struggles that they were having after the pandemic with students and failing vast majorities of the class and not being able to find it in the schedule to make up that time so for those students in which it would be a hindrance and something that would stop them from graduating this creates a floor from which they cannot fall behind which is one above the state minimum requirements right but no nobody should aspire to the minimum I don't believe that our students aspire to the minimum and if that

178is the narrative is that we lower the students so that they don't have to do anything we need to talk to them and make sure that they are aware of the Endless Possibilities that are there presented we've had students who've graduated while King in high school with Associates degrees because they've been able to maximize their High School experience and we need to be able to show our students these Pathways and these opportunities because my quick points is remind them of the intent maintaining academic standards is the rigor is not reduced because we reduce the credit requirements right the rigor is still the rigor what you have to do is pass those classes and we want to make sure that our students are passing and they understand the importance of a GPA um we also want

179to encourage enrichment and advanced learning to make sure that our students are um taking those other opportunities and so if they can get the requirements out of the way it opens up their uh course loads to be able to take those classes that they really enjoy and then each person's individualized education path your path is different from my path it's different than their path and what we want to do is make sure that we have path for all students and student groups so as we continue to have these conversations I don't want there to be a deficit narrative around us lowering the standards for our students as much as we are saying there's a floor from which our students cannot fall below and there is endless opportunity for the students and how many credits they

180can achieve and so I thank you to all of those who came out this evening and I appreciate the continued conversation what tonight shows is that our Educators our administrators our board and our community are deeply invested in the success of our students and to miss fabian's Point while we may not always agree I'm glad we're having a conversation is that we want to prioritize the needs of our students and with that I'd like to call for a motion to adjourn motion by Mr mbde second by Miss Fabian all in favor signify what I I and he opposed nay meeting is a jour for