001foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] come on [Music] thank you [Music] thank you seven to four men in closed session under exception C1 C2 C11 C1 and c21 I like now a roll call uh call to order the August 22nd 2023 Board of Education regular meeting roll call please Mr McBride here miss Gonzalez here Mr riddle here Miss Hannah Miss Fabian miss lensing here president Ewing here we do have a quorum all board members are present with the exception of Miss Fabian um with that I'd now like a motion to go into Open Session still moved uh motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Gonzalez all in favor signify with aye aye any opposed Nate
002meeting is approved um Pledge of Allegiance I'm gonna ask Mr Villalobos if you be so kindness thank you uh president's report uh I want to say uh welcome back District 60 so school started last week officially um and it is in full swing uh I had the chance to visit a few schools already so far this year uh excited uh kudos to you know I'm big on that I want to say shout out to all of the social media Pages uh seeing the kids capturing what's going on really opens up eyes into what's happening uh in some of the buildings and so you get to see what our kids are working on and especially The Kindergartners with their graduation uh shirts on so that has been awesome I also want to uh in addition to
003saying welcome back I want to remind everybody of the heat advisory that's in place for the rest of the week to make sure that we take the necessary precautions Board of Education there was a little bit of a back and forth related to our board agreements so there was a request that we bring it back um at least from one individual I know me and Mrs McBride spoken uh did want to have back in closed session because he feels like there were things that weren't ironed out or agreed to um so right now we were aiming at for early September to bring in our iesb rep um because we are wanting to get those done and so I think if we set a Target deadline of our second meeting in September as it's already August
004that allows more than adequate time related to the board agreements I did get recommendations from Miss Lindsay other than her proposed changes I haven't heard any feedback based on that last conversation but I do know that I did hear from Mr McBride and he still had some things that he felt like needed to be ironed out or discussed between the board and closed session um outside of that I know many of us are attending cube next month so we are preparing for that and then we did have our budget report so that'll be coming forward at an upcoming meeting for official action so make sure if you have questions comments concerns you take the time to review and get those in all right we're now at item 6B student board member report higher this works
005hi everyone um just a quick comment I want to say happy speaking of the year for the students and I hope that school year is pretty great this year other than that I reserve the remainder of my time for the student board member policy discussion thank you and then we have item 7A Spotlight on 60 which uh does a good job of actually capturing our first day of school welcome back staff students parents families and Community I am super excited to welcome everyone back to the 2324 school year I know it's going to be amazing I want to thank all of our staff and administration and everybody for making sure that this year is going to be awesome and to our parents and students as well so welcome back District and we are so incredibly
006proud of our students coming in this morning so excited for this new school year this year we have a commitment and it is to level up try everything and give Grace so we are welcoming our ninth graders and our 10th graders this year this is day one of 180 of greatness all my concerts I think they're gonna be easy though so I think it's gonna be a good year this is pretty cool you know I'm feeling confident I'm gonna have a good year I'm a little scared for this year but it's okay it's okay it's only a year well two years but it's okay we got kids that are focused ready rock and roll only way we do it here in Waukegan Bulldog style so excited to see our returning sophomores we know that you
007are going to be the best mentors for our new freshmen welcome freshmen we're here to help you today have a wonderful day and a great year I'm really really excited to have the students back in the hallways I have a lot of high expectations for us this year the teachers have worked extremely hard and I know our students are ready just like the kids last night I was putting my clothes out the shoes ready uh so hey I'm ready to rock and roll I'm excited to be 8th grade and I'm excited about one of the championship this year I'm going to defeated this year again I'm excited about being four year honor roll you know I'm just excited about getting good grades and stuff soccer head over to the high school okay what I'm excited
008about this school year is that the students will be able to learn new materials new creative ways of learning and really get involved in what their understanding about the material and getting to know them and I'm just excited to explore with them this year so we just wanted to say welcome back Washington Wolverines go Wolverines I'm excited to see my friends again and then just meeting my new teacher [Music] I'm happy that Ellie's coming back to school she's kind of nervous but she'll be fine [Music] and I'm very excited about the first day of school because I'm gonna be meeting my new students good morning District 60 we are so excited today is our first day of school we see all our Scholars returning back to school they're excited our teachers are excited our classes
009are going to be a warm warm safe environment this year but it's going to take all of us coming together as a community and ensuring that we make that happen so if you know something say something do not let a problem start let's tackle it in the beginning remember to do your homework and bring those Smiles every day to wps60 [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah thank you to our media team for that awesome Spotlight all right item 8A approval the minutes of the special Open Session board meeting August 1st 2023 motion to prove motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Gonzalez any comments questions corrections to the minutes all in favor signify what I I any opposed me minutes are approved now we have an opportunity for public comment uh I'm going to call a
010few names at a time in order to expedite uh public comment each Speaker gets three minutes when I call your name please uh come up and line up I do want to remind individuals who are speaking of Civility I also ask that you refrain from mentioning student and staff names in your remarks uh first name on the list is Chester a second name Pat vukovich and then Randy savecki all right Randy and uh TP don't the children get five days of mental awareness a year and I was wondering can't you and I'm sorry Chester can we start the clock and you can start over Mr Chester because uh they didn't have it running for you what'd you say uh just start up they didn't have your clock on oh that's okay I'm almost done okay
011no I was more I was wondering since all the children in the district have five days of mental illness a wellness a wellness why can't you use a day or two for tomorrow and Thursday is that in the plans come on okay I'm done thank you Chester Pat vukovic and then Randy sabeki whenever you start speaking your time will begin with all right here's a quote if you have to sneak to do it lie to cover it up or delete it to avoid it being seen then you probably shouldn't be doing it Illinois Law forgery when a person knowingly and with intent to defraud makes a false document or Alters any document to make it false this is a Class III felony I have no first-hand knowledge of this situation of the alleged forging of
012the HR director's signature by the area superintendent I heard of this first last week when a Community member brought this allegation to the board's attention last week I do not know if the accusation is true but from my personal dealings with this person I wouldn't be surprised this area superintendent has lied about me to school board members lied about the new reading curriculum and all being in all buildings when in fact it was in none of the buildings this person changed scores on my interview sheet after I left the interview room I have a copy of that altered document through foia just like children when someone lies about something and gets away with it it becomes easier to lie the next time or do something worse has an outside investigation been done has HR Director
013reported this to the police who was the intended recipient of the funds on the alleged forged document I would caution the HR Director and the board that with any expenditures of public money it is your fiduciary responsibility to be sure they're spent legally what kind of discipline will this area superintendent receive after an investigation is done when the AP assistant principal at Whittier was indicted for fraud X coach Trivago Public Schools our superintendent stated in the newspaper that she could still be an interim principal because her alleged crime happened at CPS not in District 60. if after your investigation this area superintendent is found guilty for something she did in District 60 will she continue to work here and my last quote is integrity is choosing your thoughts and actions based on values rather than
014personal gain thank you my name is Randy sobecki foreign things tonight so we're going to start with my high school student I sent this to Mr Ewan yesterday texting me from his classroom is Woods 2 class said look what I'm doing today and it's a picture of a garbage truck connect the dots really in high school that's a disgrace to the high school students to the parents and everything else and I brought this to the attention of the principal and he said no that's totally unacceptable but then today I get an excuses but we talked to it the teacher Annette and it was so the kids can learn measurements well how can you learn measurements they're not even given a ruler to measure it was connect the dots and then at the end of that
015from the principle it said but this is not the regular teacher that's going to be teaching that class he'll start on September 5th I think it said so we've given high school kids connect the dots preschool work that's ridiculous of course our test scores net and our graduation rates will go up if this is what our high school students are doing this is your guys's job like I stated here last week maybe it's the administrators that we have running these schools we don't even know what they're doing the teachers are doing in the schools with the students and it's under their watch and it's always an excuse of why when it's apparent that it has to bring this to your guys's attention and nothing seems to change and then my other thing is tonight I
016hope what Miss Hannah brought up about bringing back retired teachers because my other student right now has a long-term sub and they can only say that's a retired teacher they can only stay as of now 120 days so what December end of December and I hope we're looking into that and get that approved quick where they can stay so my student can have the same teacher all year because it's not fair to the students to go through the December on a long-term sub and and a teacher that graduated or not graduated retired and brought them back and they can only stay 120 days we have a shortage so let's work hard and get that changed so my student and all the rest of the students can continue with the same teacher we talk about disruptions
017and why our test scores are low if in the middle of the year that the teachers are changing that's one of the reasons why it's because they're starting all over whether it's not now you have to learn a whole new teacher that teacher has to learn the students and that's what I hope you guys as a board work hard on that and get that done soon that's all I have thank you Mrs Becky the next three names in order are Ray bukovich brother blinks and Anthony McIntyre good evening On Any Given Tuesday I can stand up here and pick four or five six items that I could talk about because there are so many items to talk about and the one I want to just bring up is looking at the calendar today you've now
018completed what seven school days started the school year and you got teachers working without a contract that's unacceptable this board bends over backwards to have special board meetings in the spring because you're under a deadline to review the superintendent's goals and make sure that you can extend that contract out what four or five years now yet teachers don't know what they're going to get you have the HR department trying to hire teachers at last year's salary and they're competing against places that number one are making more than they're making here but number two they know what they're going to be making the next two three four years and they don't have that here this should have been a priority of this board I've talked to other school board members in other communities and it's one
019of their priorities that they have their contract wrapped up before the end of the school year so teachers go home for the summer they know what they're going to be making the first day of school you drag this on and drag it on and it's not fair to the teachers it's certainly not fair to the kids because you lose teachers and God forbid we go through another strike uh you certainly don't need that in this community but start treating the teachers like the professionals that they are pay them what they're worth give them some of the same benefits that you give to your top people as I brought up last week and you're going to approve tonight you uh the lawyer gets uh two hundred thousand dollars a group life insurance the superintendent gets 420
020000 of group life insurance but the classroom teachers get seventy thousand dollars there's so many other inequities there that need to be addressed and until you start dealing with some of that making that a priority you're going to have vacancies in this district for a long time thank you thank you well the blanks black abolition movement for the mind uh black abolition movement for the Mind introduces Lake County's first national black student union mission and uncompromised and consistent committee commitment to assuring accountability within an equitable education of the highest standards and results for all black students and Youth that is free from violence hatred racism discrimination and miseducation Insurance safe and secure Scholastic environments throughout the Lake County area uniting with any and all people of a similar mind in interest and efforts to make
021certain first-class schooling development and tutoring from Early Education through college or trade training objective to teach all black students and Youth that all accountability began with one's self to support guide and train young black students in the appropriate and the approaches to demanding a just and quality education from all institutions of education and Higher Learning three they ask but not least to assure that all black that no black child who demonstrates a desire to move ahead is Left Behind um if you are a black student or parent or any Lake County District interest members Lake County School District interested in membership and development please call 773-510-1713. I just thought it's important to implement this for our students because when I look at how often we find our staff in our Administration and even school board
022members fighting amongst each other we wanted to come up with a solution to make sure that none of our children none of our children get left behind so this is something we put in as a solution uh we willing to work with the district but it is important for you all to know this is an independent black student union unfortunately the reason why we're saying nationally because not just locally many of our school board whether it's in a high school or how you're learning have become compromised it used to be our school board and our student unions was the first to stand up against social injustice and first and foremost for themselves make sure our bullet member student board member get a copy of that thank you thank you Mr brother Banks Anthony McIntyre so
023SB 100 speaks to interventions and how things should be done before you guys put someone on suspension um I think that well I hope this year that you guys put a little bit more emphasis on doing just that honor and what the spirit of SB 100 and utilizing whatever programs exist that may help those individuals before they get suspended um there is a black kids in the school district seems to be uh disappearing at an alarming rate um the math that I heard at the last student achievement meeting was alarming and I don't know there were things under it that I don't know if people paid attention to some people I'm sure did but it's very alarming that the number of black students in this District seem to be disappearing and I think we need
024to get to the bottom of why that is it's a problem clearly are they being pushed out are they choosing to leave I don't think so um staff members in this District need to learn to be honest they need to be honest you demand that these kids be honest you guys are supposed to be the ones that are leading the examples for them but staff members are continuously lying to this community at large and it's not okay and I'm wondering that at what point in time does someone hold them accountable the same standard that we give to these kids why does it not apply to the adults who absolutely should know better I think that's something that people need to really think about as well the hypocrisy in this District stinks what I just spoke
025of is hypocrisy holding a different standard for you than you do for the others and what they get from that is the suspension or an expulsion before you even put forth the effort to maybe find out why they are in the position that they're in the investigation that was spoken about earlier with regards to the area superintendent um I think we should know who was responsible for the investigation because the results of the investigation I think some people would argue are questionable and again the law is funny you have certain people in the community who have had issues with the law and they're held to a different standard as well a crime is a crime I wouldn't care who committed it and if it's proven that this has been done I'm curious what is the
026standard by which law enforcement gets involved in these things when does it start you would hold me to the standard of saying that well Anthony you've been convicted of something well the only reason I was convicted you guys need to do better that's my point Thank you Mr McIntyre final two names are rayon Edwards and Christiana Hannah in that order good evening boy I think we all pay attention to what goes on around in our community and I was disgusted to see um when I looked at board docs that we are getting ready to put someone in another manager's position um Mr Davis villanovas and it's real funny to me that we're doing that and we know the personal relationship that he has with a board member Caroline Fabian this neptism it got to stop
027we're sick of it y'all can act like we don't know what's going on but we do we're sick of it y'all and then just on the night we fit to do this she don't show up come on y'all what have we elected y'all to do so right now and I'm making this public anybody that can do a petition for me it's time for us to go to the state on y'all you got this area superintendent who admitted to it the HR Director emailed all of you board members do y'all not know that everything gets out nothing is a secret but I keep going back to what we did to Dr Hillary that woman that looked like me we did everything in our power to remove her from that position the only thing that helped my
028black babies in my community there was no fight we spent thousands of dollars to investigate her just like you guys got that email about the director of special education a lot of the information that was in that email come from the Freedom of Information Act so we know it's true but we ain't done nothing he still got his job area superintendent still got her job but that black woman died that black woman that black sister born and raised in this community invest it and we've done nothing zero and it's supposed to be acceptable you think somebody want to come work for this District they're underpaid teaches no support I'm so glad y'all did an awesome job with the video but we still ain't talked about the first day of school the fights oh that's gonna
029keep a secret though right and I came to every boy I mean and I told y'all what was getting ready to happen in this school year just like the district took one of our kids home took him out of school took him home 30 minutes after he'd be home his complex shot up y'all did that y'all took him out of that school and y'all knew what was going to happen because I talked to everybody that I needed to talk to early that morning I did my duty and y'all still failed us her shot and Hannah good evening board um I'm coming here speaking on behalf of safety and the safety and I'm going to speak directly to the high school we're one week in and we came I came here last week or the couple
030weeks ago with oh we have so much fire and we're going to have a great year and things like this but the staff is already complaining they're complaining that they're not supported they're complaining that things that they were promised to do with the students are not being done the students were not um told of their expectations so to hear that the high school the students are running amok and the ones that are out of control are the freshmen make that make sense they don't even know the layout of the school how can they be running them up in the school they were not giving expectations of what to do inside of the high school so if this is going on one weekend what are we doing because the safety staff they're already getting tired and
031they're getting hurt and I'm coming today from a place of personal experience where I had to go and pick my brother up who works in safety from an urgent care because he was hurt breaking up a fight today I don't I hope it stops but then what has been historically taking place is when these students when the teachers or staff are hurt you guys are denying their workmen's comp fix it uh Mr Clyde Macklemore be the final commenter good evening or some of y'all are veterans right do you know what PSD is you know when you go to war and get shell shocked and you get uh and you go to you get out of War come home and you still have them dreams and them thoughts when you saw dead bodies laying around when
032you know you engine Dodge bullets and everything like that it messes up the mind so the U.S government give them conversation for that right you get so many so much for it our children are suffering from PSD now what I'm talking about what client talking about yesterday how many times a month do our children have to lock down in the school so when they lock down they don't get when they do get out they go home they they still in fear because something happened you understand or as Mr Raybon said take them out of school for safety and then the whole complex gets shot up so a child comes back to school did you do your homework no sir I didn't do my homework why you didn't do your homework I was trying to be
033safe what will the teacher say I was trying to save my life I get tired of hearing Schools on lockdown and I know that y'all ain't got nothing to do with the community but y'all got a lot to do what's going on in the school as soon as you let them out they get wild I mean their children they get wild they go to fight I'm glad they're fighting and they shooting but their fights get mob like and that's not fighting I went to school I know I'm a little older you know some of y'all we boxed that was it and then the next thing we eat lunch together I might have a busted lip or bloody nose we ain't lunch together we gonna try to talk to the next girl to the next fight
034but that was back in the 70s this is 2023 things has changed so I just want to say our children are going through a PSD thank you Mr McLemore this concludes our public comment we appreciate all those who came out to speak superintendent did take notes and we'll be reaching out appropriately all right uh first item up is our consent agenda these items uh have been previously discussed and or should be non-controversial any board member can request that any item be held over to vote on separately are there any um letters I just need the letter name that you would like to vote on separately Stan is there are no requests to vote on anything separately I'm going to take X4 motion to approve the consent agenda items a through k Mr Ridley make a
035motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second by Miss Gonzalez if we could have a any comments or questions on the motion I have a comment on the prom go ahead Miss uh Lizzy uh uh very interesting choice I don't think I would have ever expected the class to want to have it at Pinstripes which is known for bowling but that's a very nice change of pace and I hope the students really enjoy it were they the ones that chose that they're in a committee problem committee roll call Mr McBride Miss Gonzalez yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah Miss lensing yes president Ewing yes items approve of motion carries I'll read those for the record 10A walking High School prom to be approved of the yearly renewal therm flow HVAC contract CU Waukegan High School
036Brookside request for two culture climate positions approval of the yearly renewal of Gago contract e approval of the yearly renewal of fileware uh file wave I'm sorry contract F approval of the yearly renewal of no before contract G approval of the purchase of items for the digital Equity Grant H renewal of Infinite Campus student information system I renewal of DocuSign J attendance and presentation at the sharing of vision Early Childhood conference in Peoria and K attendance at the diversity and autism on you'll teach conference um dates listed all right we are now at the consent agenda for operations the items are there items a through D would anyone like any of the items to be voted on separately all right motion to approve items a through D so moved motioned by Mr riddle second second
037by Miss Gonzalez any comments or questions on the motion um yeah Mr President I just um on uh item d um are we going to be looking to um have a some type of change or anything in the future with that superintendent or uh the life insurance yeah should I see Miss Barry is with us miss Barry Nick if you could bring a box of Kleenex for the porn back here that's thank you good evening Rosie Berry manager of employee benefits yes I can call our insurance company ask them for quotes to make that change and to increase the coverage level oh we need to get a quote to see how much it would be per employee yeah I'm just saying because we're getting ready to improve this approve this and um I'm wondering about
038um future changes because how long is this your rates are locked in for the next two years right and if they the um if the um if if there's any change in that we have um we have a strategy to deal with that right are you requesting a change because what's before you right now in anything I'm just saying that um that is this going to be the final um the final um life life insurance for the employees Cemetery Miss Hannah if I'm incorrect so this the life insurance this package here will take us for two years is that correct and if it does have to change it will come back to the board for a vote am I correct yes that is correct that's what I thank you okay thank you thank you Miss
039Perry okay comments questions broke off Mr McBride Miss Gonzalez yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss lensing yes president Ewing yes items approved motion carries I'll read those to the record item 11a approval to attend 2020 2023 Cube conference approval till 10 2023 as well annual conference see approval of architect certification of annual temporary facility report and D approval of employee life insurance renewal 12 purchases and contracts so we have 12 a renewal of teaching strategies gold for Pre-K thank you it is recommended that the Board of Education authorizes superintendent or her designee she approve the renewal of teaching strategies gold g-o-l-d for pre-K in the amounts of Sixteen thousand eight hundred thirty four dollars and forty cents Mr riddle ISO move second motion by Mr riddle second by Miss uh Hannah any comments
040or questions on the motion all right I I am just hoping that um that that this is in collaboration with um the people that will be executing um this uh strategy thank you Miss Anna roll call Mr McBride yes Miss Gonzalez yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss lensing yes president Ewing yes I'd improved motion carries we are now at Item B renewal of creative curriculum Cloud for Pre-K it is the recommendation of the administration at the Board of Education authorized superintendent her designee to approve the renewal of creative curriculum Cloud for pre-K in the amounts of 23 400. Mr riddle ISO Move Motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Hannah any comments or questions or demotion I'm going to yeah I'm going to ditto my uh previous comment of collaboration roll call
041strategy thank you Miss Anna Mr McBride yes Miss Gonzalez yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss lensing yes president Ewing yes I am approving motion carries I see approval of the ratified pair of professional contract from July 1st 2023 through June 30th 2026. it is the recommendation of the administration of the Board of Education accept the recommendation of the administration to approve the ratified contract with the Waukegan paraprofessional Union and to authorize the president and Secretary of the Board of Education to sign the agreement on behalf of the Waukegan Waukegan Community Unit School District number 60 board of education with a three-year Value Estimate estimated at 3927.27 820 and 36 Cents II came from Miss Gonzalez um comments or questions on the motion I'm glad that we are that this is completed and um
042and I pray that everyone is satisfied and that um our staff will be okay and so this is good I thank everybody that was involved in um in coming together and uh finalizing um the work so thank you all thank you Miss Hannah I just wanted to add on that from my understanding the union did an excellent job hearing from their entire constituents or members of that Union to make sure that they were advocating for the right thing so not only Kudos just to the union for your internal teamwork but I'm really happy that the district was also able to work with you all and we got a fairly negotiated contract in place congratulations prematurely thank you Miss Lindsay any other comments questions I do want to say um kudos to all of those from
043both sides at the table I do want to state that the union has ratified uh what always appreciate is that it's not just the income conversation it's about working conditions and at the heart of it it's about doing what's best for our students so I want to say thank you to our prayer Union Representatives as well as those who are at the negotiating table from the district side I am the union membership has ratified and so with this action the contract will be approved roll call Bolt Mr McBride Miss Gonzalez yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss baby miss Lindsay yes and congratulations again president Ewing yes I've approved motion carries uh we are holding our item d uh the uh no problem oh I'm so glad so if you do have questions let
044us know about stepping stones because of how it was presented uh needs to be cleaned up and brought back uh 13 Personnel items 13 a approved for manager special initiatives position it is the recommendation of the administration the Board of Education authorizes superintendent of her designee to approve the manager of special initiatives position with the base salary of up to 80 000 to support the district African-American male student achievement initiative and other related Equity initiatives motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second by Mr McBride any comments or questions on the motion um I actually have a couple of questions regarding the position go ahead who's going to be answering them Dr noltz thank you and Miss fields I myself thank you Doctor um so I I just have a big picture question because I'm
045having a hard time coming to terms with this requested position because from my understanding the black male initiative or the African-American male initiative depending on where we're finalizing that language my understanding is that is a a district-wide initiative so to me that would seem that we would need everybody on board of this initiative not just one person managing the entire team it should be the entire district and if it's going to be the entire District I would picture some sort of strategic plan right would go with it and where everybody is a stakeholder and partaking in it so I'm just confused as to why we have this proposed good evening everyone Jason all the social superintendent good evening president um superintendent members of the board community and colleagues no doubt the African American African-American and
046male initiative is going to be a collaborative process there's not just going to be just one person one person leading that initiative it's going to be a collaborative effort across ASAP operations our M cell chapter is going to be instrumental in that process Community Partners going to be instrumental in that process um the the manager position will be the person that'll take the lead on leading a lot of the the work that's a part of that that initiative but it'll be across collaborative effort across many both divisions multiple departments Etc the same that we with all of our Equity initiatives we there's a lot of collaboration that goes in a lot of our Equity like our policy review process for example those are all things that we do collaboratively across the district okay it if
047sure miss feel person in their Department um but I don't know if this is the most appropriate use of our funds when it's just targeting those special initiatives so the goal would be obviously to to launch the African-American male initiative as we presented a couple weeks ago and then replicate the the efforts that we put forth for other student groups so um kind of using using our African-American male initiative as our I don't want to say pilot because I can it means different things to different people but using that as kind of our our springboard to other initiatives that we'll focus on other student groups that need do attention um as well so initially you'll see what's in the job descriptions that person will be focusing a lot on the African-American male initiative and then
048once that is once we have that that Initiative off the ground and running they can be supporting some other initiatives as we as we look into other student groups not to say that those student groups aren't getting attention now they are but we're just putting a lot of effort into this as as was a request from the board what we've heard from the community that this group really needs a lot of attention so we this position is going to solely focus on those efforts initially I have more but you can go to no it's no it's candential I think that's one okay I just want to ask what is the difference in this position and with our Equity um are you a coordinator director director and so what is the what what is the difference
049I mean you know um is this like a duplication no so Tasha's the director of our Equity initiatives in the district um currently she besides uh a manager she has additional manager that supports some of the works in the schools and we have the equity Liaisons that are in the schools as well um so this individual would report directly to Tasia as part of her team indirectly to me as someone who works closely with Asia but the focus is going to be different so Tasia focuses on all district-wide Equity initiatives again this person's really going to dig into the African-American Male Achievement plan and then some subsequent initiatives that will follow supporting different student groups do you know how many African-American students are in the district pre-k-12 yes I believe we presented this a couple
050weeks ago I think we had 2 000 total students and one thousand roughly half were male and um will this uh disposition will they be um I guess strategizing from pre-k through 12. or any grade level we have African-American males we're going to have this person be a part of of that this initiative um the plan that we laid out spoke to all different grade levels Early Childhood middle school high school so yes this person will be supporting grade levels across the district I'm done thank you um from my understanding they're um just going through some of the things that the district has done over the years and I don't have an exact date but I'm sure somebody will have an exact date um but I believe it was during the pandemic there was the
051national Equity project that we did and the schools at a base level from what I understand we're working on those pieces but we haven't done like a district level component to that so would this fall into that or is that still under the de night team I just feel that this is a very narrow specific for one piece when they could just be a part of the Deni team not under this but helping across multiple things because you're saying future groups we don't know what that looks like right now we have a direct initiative right now and if we fold them into dni generally as another manager they have more flexibility they have more capacity they can make a larger impact than the singular focus and if we're going to be mindful of the funds
052that this district is paying out we want to make sure not only that our staff is supported but we're maximizing their potential so this seems a little bit too much of a a strict lien that they're going to be operating in and that brings me concern because this is a big piece yeah can I help so our blackmail initiative is a new Initiative for our district and there's a lot of pieces that need to be baked out one is the steering committee right what is that candidate profile an application process of people that will so this manager is going to help pull all that together you also mentioned in a sense a strategic plan a road map for this that's definitely part of this creating those artifacts where we are creating a kpi dashboard sense
053strategic plan that's tied in so that we're looking at what we're doing how we're doing and those measures to see the success or where we need more supports right this is a new initiative and it's going to need a lot of support and support that is intertwined throughout the district so ensuring that the HR piece of the house is talking with the equity office and the schools and the academics and the you know literacy I mean there's it's it's going to be inter inter um intertwined throughout departments what Jason is mentioning is that when we talk about Equity you don't need to give anybody a lesson once again but it's really giving those students what they need when they need it right and so right now we know that we have a crisis with our
054African-American males we believe that we will close that achievement opportunity Gap but once we do that we still need to ensure that we have supports and that Synergy and that data still moving in a positive direction but then what is that next student group that we need to support I'm just going to throw one out I'm not saying it is it may be our newcomers we may be looking at we're getting so many newcomers now we need to make a plan to ensure that we are moving them out of intensive care right and you know providing them the supports and so that is the logic behind this position and why there may be some broad um I guess some broad um stripes when we were painting this job description I'm gonna let um Tasia speak
055to it also because it's well Fallen I think you should hear from her but it is to give that flexibility and if you look at the job District's description it says other duties as you know um as assigned um so yeah so Tasia can you please yeah and can I ask I I am you know we we are really right now talking in general okay we're talking in general and we I okay as a board member I want to know some of the specifics that we are planning on doing are we going to um are we going to Target African-American boys uh in the classroom to teach them how to read are we going to teach them math what what do we do what exactly are we going to be doing you know to make
056these uh make these students um uh what What's the buzzword to to close the gap the academic Gap what are we going to do talking in general to me okay with all due respect to everybody involved it is oh okay I'm not gonna say anyway I I don't want to hear talking in general because we can talk in general for year over year over year over year okay and we still see nothing I want to know what exactly are we going to be doing to help the African-Americans students but I as I said from the beginning of this when it was brought up that we also have um we also have the Hispanic males that we need to be looking at too and so I just want to know what are we going to be
057doing I can help answer that so Miss Hannah you have a really great part point and we're definitely targeting literacy um and math functions all of that however when we've presented our plan we did say that there's some ambiguity there because we did not want to create a plan for our male students without their input of their input their family's input but also Community input and so there's a number of surveys that's going to go out I don't want to use the word Town Halls because this is going to look very different where we're actually engaging with staff students community members Community organizations to help us build this plan and that was something we were very specific on stating that we were not once again going to say hey we have the prescription for you
058though we know what are some best practices we know what research States but instead we needed to hear and out and someone in a sense checked me on this like you may think that everyone make the mentoring piece but my kid may not need mentoring nor do I want you to Mentor them so what does that look like and we are not going to know until those surveys go out our steering committee who is going to be leading a lot of this work has a voice at the table and a thumbprint on the plan so I will tell you the ambiguity is there for a reason because we do not want to create a plan that is done to someone or done for somebody but we want their valued inputs and their thumbprint on this
059plan too so it is a plan that is created by the community and all of us together to support our African-American male students within the district and thank you superintendent and I'm just going to keep fled as you were talking I kept flashing back to a news broadcast that I saw and it was um it was uh teachers during the summer having um having sessions with um with black children and they were just literally focused on teaching reading and the the the amazing thing was that the um the little boy that participated he was so excited to know how to read and I think all the initiatives doing activities all that our focus should be on literacy literacy and once they accomplish literacy things will fall into place for the students we're and we're in
060complete agreement with you Miss Hannah completely we're we're in complete agreement with you go ahead Mr McBride Oh I thought Miss Fields was going to talk oh I don't did you have a question or something yeah responded did you want to hear back from Mr McBride the only thing I would add to that good afternoon everyone my name is Tasia Fields director of equity um and inclusion Miss Hannah you're absolutely right um the only thing that I would add to that yes we need to make sure that our students especially our African-American males are reading right but there's an access piece that we cannot forget remember we talked about the culturally responsiveness that's why it's so important that we're starting with our teachers in that training it doesn't matter we can put all the books
061in front of you have all of the things the best teachers but if they are not able to culturally connect with our black boys and girls that's where the disconnect is happening okay so this initiative and us being really intentional and specific around really getting to the root of what our students of color need that's what this will support so okay I want to hear from Mr McBride and then I'm on Miss Lindsey because yeah I mean we're good we're gonna I also have a weekend another conversation yes and so in the plan it will be explicit right we will roll it out we'll have a timeline we'll have a communication plan of events what you can expect to happen a specific task and how we are going to hold people accountable to that because
062accountability is a big piece of that Mr McBride yeah you know I've been listening to everybody I'm that little black boy y'all talking about and uh I look at uh our security over there I look at uh James in the doorway he's that little black boy we're talking about they're doing pretty good I don't know maybe because your parents raised you right but I want to say this brother blanks came up to this podium gave us something to work with Anthony McIntosh came up after him he gave us something to work with I was listening to both of them brothers you can't learn or read if you walk in the hallways all day long why are you doing that yeah it's got to be a reason uh you can't learn if you fighting all day
063long it's got to be a reason Ray Ray talked about that he can't read uh Clyde McLemore black lives matter came here talking about PS you if you if you got drama going on at home before you get to the school you're not gonna learn nothing so when you start bringing staff in here dealing with whether you started with mentoring our black boys you got to start there first with the discipline piece I will tell you any any time or any time of the day when you're discipline is bad you have no morals and no values when you start there you're going to act up and you're gonna do just what we see happens every day kids not learning so academically you're gonna come up short you need to start working on that on that
064first when you start bringing staff in the uh and and number one uh you we just can't do it uh once again they got parents you need to start working with them first because right now uh uh just just when I go to the high school a kid could I guess you got the hero system it's called kids understand the hero they slick enough to know that they're the hero system I ain't got to go to class all I gotta do is get a line and get a pass you're right they're slick enough to know that I know that because I was over there standing in line my own self and did one stick sticks uh turn around and got behind me watching the clock they're intelligent enough to know how to do that and
065they intelligence enough to know how to read and write if they get in the classroom and sit down and do it but you know if you if you're dancing in the classroom reading and writing you academically at the end of the year you gonna come up y'all so I would say start with the parents and then and uh at the same time when you start talking about uh getting them right start with discipline first and we hear it all the time uh even miss books he comes you've been talking about that three months ago kids acting up and and then when we're talking about the teachers I they probably scared of the kids to be honest with you I'm just saying they probably scared of the kids I would be too if I if I
066knew if I if I underst if I did understand the key of their behavior I probably would be too so it would have said all of that I say that brother back there in the corner and brother Blake's when they make sure you put them on your team because they understand because they probably came from the same place those kids came from like I did as did I thank you uh I'm gonna go to miss Gonzalez and then I'm coming back down that way Miss Lindsay I apologize no you're fine Miss Gonzalez I emailed some of my questions um and I I think I'll I'll cut up my comments into an affirmation right uh some questions that I think allude to some of what has been mentioned and what we're kind of maybe trying to
067see more I don't know if necessarily from the job description or from the case for this position right now um and then my personal take on on this request okay um I think it's a good thing and it's been requested by the community that this initiative have resources right and we've kind of been throwing everything right and some of it has stuck some of it hasn't um and what I hear with this request is that you need a designated person on the team that can highly focus in on the data and and prioritize this initiative which I think is okay I am not opposed to that my concern is and and um you know my question was I I actually appreciate that it's narrow and focused because we haven't found a solution that kind of
068pushes the lever the way that we wanted for decades now even in District 60. so I don't mind that it's narrow in focused but I don't know and my first question I don't know how this position supplements the work in Dei so you can can you answer that first how will it be supplemental to what we're trying to do right now this this position or the initiative well this is the position being um housed within my department will definitely supplement the DI work that we're doing um and so and like you said the narrow Focus around this particular initiative in addition to supporting all of the equity work right and so when it comes to the creating that dashboard and being able to uh clearly lift in equities and see them in the different areas
069of our district that person will support all of our initiatives coming from the Department I want to know what the initiatives are right so so to to that point because I agree with Miss Hannah I guess my concern is I don't want it and this is me right my personal philosophy I don't I don't think that I Envision and it and this is where your guys's team and and the case for the position comes into play I don't Envision the person just being about the data right and I think that that's what we're hearing we want and and and then my question is well how does this person collaborate within the building or is it that they're tracking all of our students are our black male students and seeing it from you know A to
070B that they're getting you know good better grades better attendance whatever no not at all I mean the data piece is important but that's not we all do that right that's something that we all have to do on a consistent basis so this person by no means will be just focused on this particular piece right now this person is needed to support lift the um implementation the startup of this initiative but I do have here maybe this will help to kind of shed some light keep talking about initiatives so like what exactly do we mean of course so what I'm passing out now this is our WPS Equity framework and this is basically the big Initiative for the district so in this framework you can see there four quadrants one of them is centering student
071voice the other one is family and Community engagement the one below that cultural culturally responsive schools Equitable policies and resources so these are our major initiatives when it comes to equity work in this District right that student centering student voice piece is huge the family and Community engagement you're alluding to parents need support that's one thing that we hear all the time increasing that engagement what does that really mean empowering our parents building that culturally responsive School piece right we're talking about discipline we're talking about working with our teachers and making sure that we are represented our students are represented in everything that we do the Equitable policies and resources you all already know about the policy work that we started so this is the big initiative to Encompass the equity work here right and
072and if you see what's around it that racial Equity lens and so what what am I talking about when I say racial Equity lens that means approaching this work from a corrective Justice standpoint right so really lifting those marginalized student groups those students that have been oppressed so when we speak about African-American males and we all can say our black boys are suffering So This Is Us drilling into that what you're going to do what are you going to do so wait can I jump in yeah I think part of the what you're going to do comes from the fact is that we said we didn't want to come to the community with a solution right now we're saying no I want you to detail the solution so then the community has no voice and
073what it is that they're going to do um I I don't want to give my comment check because I do want to both hear from Miss Gonzalez to finish and I'm one of our Miss Lindsey to finish and I'm not trying to cut you off Miss Hannah but I want to make sure we hear from all the board members no I understand and and I I just want to say teach the kids to read we got you we love it and that's going to be a major part of it and we got to say that explicitly reading is going to be a top priority is because it's going to be one of the metrics that has to be monitored when we talk about success there cannot be success on the SAT or the PSAT or
074on any of those issues without focusing on reading so if you can explicitly state from this hand in for the community that reading would be a major focus and yeah and so one thing that I don't want to misconstrue just because you know we have this initiative we are not starting from right here we can't afford to do that as a district we have our high school transformation plan our curriculum mapping our Middle School redesign the science the science of reading all of these are major initiatives and work that is already started here in the district right we're already starting this work and having the conversation so what we're doing now is we're going to be more detailed we're going to get a little bit granular we're going to be more specific in what that
075looks like for this specific student groups and we're not going to stop there we're going to keep you know doing that so so I don't know if it was your question and answer or do we need because I jumped in to interrupt and I know we're I'm trying to focus the conversation yeah but we can't actually get to because I actually want to go where Miss part of what I think Ms Lindsay was asking related to the actual job description right and what was listed here but go ahead Miss uh Gonzalez yeah no I think the more we continue the conversation I think some of my questions will be clarified um but the other the other thing I wanted to raise and me thinking about this is I don't I don't want that person to
076feel like you know going into the position it's it's it's broad Strokes and I don't want it to change from year to year like this year is the blackmail initiative and the next year it's the newcomer initiative and then there's no continuity right because the work doesn't finish that's unrealistic even for this particular group so that's kind of why I want to know more about the granular so and I can help with that right so I don't foresee that this would change from year to year but if we're talking about equity and not equality then that's exactly what should happen there should be a cycle of improvement that we follow for our lowest student group that doesn't mean that that's that student group that we're focusing on now just falls off and there's no supports
077we we're just like okay you're good I think that's what my fear is though that's not what we're saying those supports would still be there we'd still be monitoring them we'd still be following the kpis we still be adjusting Etc but at some point that next subgroup now needs to come out of ICU and there needs to be an intentional focus on that and what does that look like so no it doesn't mean pulling all the resources pulling All the Monies but the truth of the matter is as we get better at doing this work together some of those sort resources may look differently will evolve right so what does that look like I don't have that answer now and I think sometimes we are it's okay to say we don't have the answers right
078now right and we're going to figure this out together and I believe we said that when we presented it and that is what the board president's saying I I would not feel comfortable for us to prepare a plan for for anyone that has not been engaged or even get gotten a student perspective or the teacher perspective on this and that's where we're at in this so if that makes sense I hope it does okay Miss uh Leslie um superintendent when you were speaking before and then we had a couple of other questions um you you brought up the Deni Department speaking with HR right in a couple of other departments the way the structure is now we have the board the superintendent we got legal doing their great thing over here and then we have
079the rest of the chain in the command right and so based on the structure and based on this job description they would directly report to Ms Fields and then indirectly report to Dr nault so with chain of commands there comes a sense of authority and a sense of importance and to me keeping the initiative at the district High Administration level sends the message that this is important people will need to comply to the initiatives right that we set forth and there will be definite accountability when you bury such an and I don't mean any negative terms but maybe there's a better word for it and I apologize if that's not the word delegate it down thank you that's much more appropriate I appreciate that when you delegate it down it doesn't give the same sense
080of urgency it doesn't give it the same sense of weight it will give people some sort of internal feeling of well this isn't coming from top leadership so maybe I don't need to fully comply right so if we're not giving if we're not moving d e and I to where they are at a level where they can help support across the district at an upper admin level I I don't see this being as successful as it can possibly be and I know that's a whole organization restructuring possibly but Deni needs to be a through line through the entire District it does need to be an HR in our hiring process in our conversations it does need to be involved in contract considerations when we're pulling in third parties and there's a lot of people coming
081to the podium talking about well if I go to this third party this is my salary if I do it here in the district it's the salary right these conversations are so very important that I agree you need another team member I don't like that this is so narrowed the other duties assigned is a slippery slope it's a very slippery slope yeah but I don't see a problem of having another manager under you and their first task coming in is to focus this if this is an other duties assigned this is their primary focus and with your team I don't think that would cause an issue to say all right team our new manager is going to focus on this because this is high priority they're fresh into the district they don't have other things
082but you guys have been working on so many great things as it is yeah that they're going to be observing and absorbing and duplicating a lot of the work right and so by giving this a a different title a different Lane that they're in that that doesn't speak to me for collaboration purposes I have concerns that keeping it at this level and not an upper Administration level gives a message or a connotation that we're not intending so those are just my personal concerns so if there's aspects that you want to address that's fine but I just want to be transparent where I'm coming from yeah and I can see where you're coming from on that and I just want to chime in so the blackmail initiative is not only this manager's job responsibility it is
083Dr nolt's responsibility is Theresa placencia's responsibility it is LeBaron Melton's responsibility it's Dr cesario's it is going to be a stream of work that we look at when we're holding our either house meetings meaning operation outside of the house or the academic or the cross meetings right so this is everybody's job this is our initial step because we need to get out surveys we need to hold I'm going to just call it right now town halls I know we're we're changing that name helping us put our steering together steering committee together bet those applications and so there is a need for the manager position and the view that we have on how this was rolled out that does not mean that once we get all this together we may come back to the board and
084say hey we now know that we need another position and this is why after we've engaged our community after we engaged our community our students our staff after the steering committee is seated there may be a lot of new things coming but right now we're not at that point we need a manager right now and that does not take the efficacy of the initiative it doesn't make that initiative only lie in tasia's Department it's it's going to be throughout interwoven throughout all departments so but right now the ask is for the manager of this position so that we can start getting out these surveys so we can start getting these Town Halls on the boat so we can start um sending out the app having our application process and starting vetting the applications for our
085steering committee that will be seated that will help oversee this initiative and I have one last question and then I got comments is this position um going to um now it says to support the district's African-American male student achievement initiative so do we have um to support so it means least to support the initiative and I guess what I'm getting at is what type of person are you looking for yeah and and someone that that that can that's going to implement the the uh this position right you know I mean I mean what type of person are you looking for yeah so um because anybody can just get up there and yeah you're absolutely right about something that they don't know I think it would be beneficial to have a person that has an education
086background since we're working in school someone that can speak to curriculum um would be helpful in addition to someone that has some experience in previous experience in Dei work um just to get back to your statement and your question um what about someone experienced in working with African-American males yes all of that all of that um but to answer your question about does this physician belong within this department this is absolutely where it belongs like this this is equity work but you did mention um a good point and if I could just you know be honest there are um some barriers within our institution and how this department is structured that does affect the success of our implementations um and I know that as facts right the department is currently positioned two levels below cabin
087level so it is a barrier in mandating things holding people accountable so all of those things do affect the implementation so you mentioned that um so you know we have to consider that as well that's what happened when you fracture and organization that really gets on with me what kind of person are you really looking for now I'm going to say this just like they can say they can look at statistics with little black boys and determine that they're gonna go to the penitentiary or not they see something what they see I see too but when I see that what do I do about it so I'm going to ask the board if you can refer to the job description that is the type of person that we're looking for you do not need a
088type 75 but it's not even called that anymore you don't need the certification for um what is it the pal now is it what's the correct professional right the names changed since I've been in this position a long time um you don't need that type of certification but if you look at the job description it will definitely tell you the type of individual that we are trying to attack attract and we ask everyone to please apply so you can apply to apply a job you can't actually do it step down I gotta I I'm gonna go to you Mr riddle because I want to hear from you because you didn't spirit and then I really been holding my tongue go ahead Mr rental mine is going to be very brief I I really appreciate all
089the the concern that our board has presented um this is an issue as we've heard you know that has been uh mentioned many many times from our community it's a focus that we have now targeted I think and I would recommend board members to vote on this position because we're we're being asked by the administration this is an important position we saw the plan that the superintendent and the committee developed but it isn't going to happen unless we have a person there to work with it and get it going it's something new um I think I'd encourage all of us uh to go ahead and approve this position so that we can get this program going it's going to take a lot of work it's going to take collaboration with our community with all the
090stakeholders it's a multi-faceted program we're looking at it's not just academic it's not social emotional it's as Mr McBride was saying it it it's targeting certain population the their families with all the engagement that has to take place it's going to be different for different students so we need a person in this capacity so I think it's worthwhile I'm going to accept a recommendation and call for a vote once the super once the board president makes his final comments thank you and my comments will be uh if not brief I'll try it because I do want to draw out I feel like your major concern is Miss Lindsay are related to uh title so it's not that you are opposed necessarily to the position but that you would like the position to hold a little
091bit more Authority uh superintendent what is it that we can do in which through taser's Department um Sorry Miss Phil's department and Dr Niles Department in order or even how can we Empower this position so that when they are contacting schools or doing this work that they are met because I understand what Miss Fields is saying and even in her work is if you have a principal who just simply is refusing and I'm not saying that they are you have individuals that are refusing to um engage with the Dei work that is happening that can be an issue and so I don't want to just state that what Miss Lindsey is is bringing up is not a I mean it's not a crazy thing and it hasn't been the first time that that's been reiterated
092yeah so I it's definitely onboarding our staff to the initiative right so what is that onboarding for the principals look like as far as detailing what is the blackmail initiative um the onboarding of the DLT um setting those expectations for our principals are dltmus also use that I'm going to use all administrators including our staff our teachers what does that training look like so as we've been discussing this we've been talking about what does onboarding for the initiative look like at each of those levels all the way down through safety through operations I mean everyone needs to be on board and understand why this initiative is important what the expectations are what supports that they will receive in order to ensure that the initiative is successful and then once again the cycle of improvement just
093that accountability piece to just ensure that when we say we're doing doing something we're actually doing it so to me that's that onboarding piece and setting those clear expectations initially on the Forefront is what I wanted to say and given that information because I understand too and she had a concern I think manager gives a lot more flexibility sometimes with even the type of individual that you may look into play where and coordinators will require pale directors and above would also require those special licensures where I think the superintendent's goal was to kind of keep it as broad um one thing that I always uh our favorite thing Miss Pope unfunded mandates right and so what we've done is we have requested a hyper intensive focus on this specific student group not into what you
094acknowledge this department is already in my opinion exceeding capacity they are already punching above their weight and so to give them an unfunded mandate without the manpower to actually support the initiative something a simple schedule in the meetings making sure because if she's in the equity uh policy committee she can't be shouldn't be expected to be at the committee that is responsible for the male student achievement so I think what you guys are really saying is in order to do this initiative you need the additional body of support is because something as simple as scheduling the meetings making sure that we stay on track meeting with the principals and moving forward with the kpis is difficult uh given the workload and the streams of work that I already carried about all of the individuals involved
095is that an accurate statement yes that's accurate and so for me I think this is one of the opportunities that somebody has to if we don't say own the work has to be responsible for helping to move the work forward right is Brandon if I'm on the committee in any of our committee members their unpaid positions and so who is carrying that work and so if it's a manager right now I believe I can support this I think we have to have somebody that is in there because right now even based on the own deadline that was presented as Miss Briscoe pointed out we're already behind right and so some of the work that we want to start and see happening I think if we get too far down the line and then we try
096and hire somebody that is just not as collaborative so my opinion is um I understand completely is we actually you know at my employer uh change the eni rep from a manager and that became a director level and then it was a cabinet position that reported directly to the to the CEO right and so I think superintendent that may have been something that we talked about initially if this is a board initiative it's not that we don't think that Asia is 100 misfields is 100 effective and capable of doing it is it this person can be a manager but a manager that reports directly to yourself or that Miss Fields I don't know I don't want to get into I think the concern has been put on the table and the concern is a valid
097one that will require some strategy on the superintendent administration's part to figure out how that's implemented and I'll pause there before my final comments so maybe this is just me being new to the board right so maybe we just provide some clarification if we want it to essentially have the weight right and because I I do agree I was not trying to imply that this position should not be part of d e and i this is exactly why we have so many Deni initiatives nationally globally too yeah um right so that wasn't my implication at all my my concern is that in the overall structure of the district being under Dr Nolt in that level that does not that creates more hurdles for you to get the work done so when it comes to looking
098at the positions so that it is of a cabinet level it is part of the executive team to get things done and it sends the message that Waukegan takes Deni seriously Waukegan values diversity equity and inclusion what does it look like to restructure to move that to you were saying a cabinet position yeah and I think that that's part of so what we have right now is I have individual Mr riddle who has called for the vote after my comments oh oh sorry no no that's I want to just from a procedural point which means I have to take the vote right unless Mr riddle withdrew it or board can vote Yes Fork voted down um but just I want to put that out there procedurally that that that is what would happen unless anybody
099withdraws their motions the reason that we're kind of hesitant to end up being transparent but why we don't want to have this conversation in the public is because it is there are some other Personnel implications in which we would be raising something to a level that I think even when we're talking about the d e and i piece may be unintentionally have some unintended consequences to that uh and what I mean by that is I guess what I can say is that Dr not your cabinet level correct so can can I say something to clarify what we're trying to say um taking this initiative from the superintendent level and and making it a priority for the managers I think what our concern is does it does that make more sense because it's our goal for
100you and then it was it was a goal last year right so the goal is over we don't have a new goal however we're still moving this um and I do and I'm going to say this with please know this is coming from a really good place so I hope it lands the way I'm hoping it does so yeah the organizational structure really does follow under the purview of the superintendent so I would ask that we're not sitting here adding more people to my cabinet or taking people from my cabinet because there's an ebb and flow on how we do the work and Tasia you know I'm completely in awe of the work you do and I know you do a lot of work I don't know if that's the conversation for right here but
101that can be something we talk about when we set goals number two is um right now I I I believe I stated we may come back for more positions we need this manager position right now because we have a lot of things that we need to get moving on we need to get moving on this survey we need to get moving on once again I'm going to call them the town halls for inputs we need to get moving on interviewing our students that just returned so there's a lot of work that is for me manager level work that does not mean at some point as a steering committee comes and after we see the results of the surveys and our interviews Etc that we're like Hey listen we need two more people I'm not saying
102we're we're not going to come back I don't want to ask for that now because I don't have that big doubt now but what I do have baked out right now is that we do need the manager position so that we're able to get a lot of those other things launched the surveys assessment um you know I'm going to be presenting on a program to you next month that would fall under here also but would we see up so you're going to be seeing a lot more come forward and I would hope that we would have another gold set on this because I don't think it should just be the one year and then it drops but what does that goal look like I mean that's a discussion that we'll have results and I think
103that's 100 so my final comments and then uh Rick off of the vote uh is uh you said something Miss Hannah and it reminded me very briefly of Dave Chappelle so he did the Def Comedy Jam special and he said well what would they call me um you know I said whatever you need me to do but I didn't know that the one thing that they wanted me to do was read he then goes on a 10-minute you know comedy bit everybody is laughing hilarious and he ends it with well uh what I'm trying to say is I go through a lot of lanes to avoid having to read in public so to your point Mr McBride I think some of the behavior that we see is a direct result of the lack of addictive
104and performance that our students have and so we have to do a both end we have to focus and I think in the plan that was the frustration is the data showed us that we had a tier one problem which we know the data showed us that our students have have not been succeeding academically but to miss Hannah's point there were no Solutions which involved in academic explicit academic solution it was what it was interpreted as was we just want to give a mentors so I think mentorship is just a small part but all of those things that have to happen there has to be somebody to do it and I'm going to advocate for the rest of the team is I don't know who has the capacity if they did right they've been looking
105at this data set to Mr McBride's point for years but we haven't put the intentional Focus behind it so um go ahead Mr uh Mr riddle called the question so roll call Mr McBride yes I just want to say Fantasia is this what you got on this sheet if you can implement this that'll solve the problem I'm trying that's the plan right Miss Gonzalez yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah I want this position but I just see see and I'm just being transparent for me I it's just another layer of bureaucracy and I mean we keep adding people to do things and unfortunately it's not filtering down to the children and so I I'm I'm just gonna um I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna pass on this thank you Miss lensing I know you need the
106people I I don't agree with how it's being approached right had it been another manager to your team where their primary focus coming in was this and then um well I've already said it so for that reason I'm I'm going to vote no I think you need another person I just I can't agree with this type of approach president Ewing yes I have approved motion carries and I appreciate the debate item 13B Personnel for 8 22 23. it is the recommendation that the Board of Education accept the administration's recommendation to approve the appointment's retirement extensions and accept the resignations as found on schedules f1002 l949 and g660 motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Gonzalez any comments or questions on the motion roll call vote please Mr McBride yes Miss Gonzalez
107yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss lensing yes president Ewing yes I will approved motion carries there are four administrative appointments that I'd like to highlight at this time I'd like to introduce Mr David Villalobos who previously served as a substitute teacher he will now serve as the manager of financial accountability with the starting salary of seventy eight thousand dollars congratulations Mr Villalobos [Applause] David congratulations yeah congratulations no they um unfortunately no thank you Mr Villalobos our next in point T will be Miss Sylvia Roldan who previously served at a as a bilingual tutor at the Brookside campus she will now serve as a bilingual manager Family Support Services at Lincoln Center with the starting salary of 59 700 11.53 congratulations Mr Robot [Applause] thank you our next appointee will be Eric Farr far
108far fan who previously served as a bilingual teacher in District Six Zion he will now serve as a bilingual manager Family Support Services with the starting salary of fifty nine thousand seven hundred eleven dollars and 53 cents is Mr farfan here to date okay well congratulations [Applause] our next appointee will be Miss Bertha Campos who previously served as the El coordinator at Lincoln Center she will now serve as the assistant director of el with the starting salary of a hundred and ten thousand dollars congratulations Dr Campos [Applause] awesome all right thank you to all of those appointments um and with that we have 16a which is the ratification of the second processing of August 2023 board bills manual check request payments on National Bank insurance payments for the period of August uh 2020 second 2023
109through August 15 2023. it is a recommendation of the administration's Board of Education ratify the 2nd August 2023 processing of board bills manual check request payments and Old National Bank insurance payments for the period of August 2nd 2023 through August 15 2023 the accounts payable board payments for the period of August 2nd 2023 through August 15 2023 total 5 million one hundred eighty two thousand three hundred fifty dollars and 92 cents the manual check request payments for the period of August 2nd 2023 through August 15 2023 total 2 million one hundred thirty one thousand ninety one dollars and seven cents the Old National Bank insurance payments for the period of August 2nd 2023 through our August 15th 2023 total zero dollars motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Hannah any comments
110or questions on the motion I just wanna just I'm gonna keep saying it you just have to be mindful of um of our spending and we got a kind of um we gotta kind of make sure that our houses not um not over in over spending monies that we think we have but we really don't have because I look at the the I look at the bills and expenditures and stuff and I I I have I have concerns that's it French Montana roll call Mr McBride Miss Gonzalez yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss Lindsay yes president Ewing yes item approved motion carries um committee reports said uh they're just starting back I am waiting for a couple board members for committee assignments um so uh if you would like those I need those
111ASAP because I plan on making appointments at our first meeting in September um I'm gonna ask the whole delegates reported this is 8 49 and we got C superintendents report at this time this time um our superintendent report is going to be focused on our wraparound Center that will be located downtown Waukegan I'm going to ask our director of wraparound Services Miss Mrs Bridget Johnson to walk us through the presentation and what you're going to see is what is the philosophy around a wraparound Center nationally and what it will look like here the assessment that will be completed to find out the areas that our community needs support in the RFP process on how we will be taking I'm going to say applications first for a variety of vendors on those specific areas that we
112will be concentrating on as a wraparound Center and of course this wraparound Center is scheduled to open sometime in November depending on construction at 2 14. so at this time Ms Dotson will turn it over to you thank you that was a wonderful summary so good evening everyone Board of Education superintendent colleagues and community oh hello hi Miss Hannah I'm Richard Dodson as a superintendent just say that I am the director of wrap around Center services so and I'm pleased to be here tonight to give you a high level uh overview of nationally what wraparound is and what wraparound services will look like here in Waukegan okay that's our table of contents again we go through the national definition principles and concept of wrap around so that it's not a District 60 thing it is
113a national um philosophy and set of principles and process and then we're going to go through what our Waukegan wraparound Center will look like and then the timeline of events so we'll just wrap around um according to the National wraparound initiative it is a service delivery model next slide please thank you it is a service delivery model that is comprehensive that is holistic that is family and youth driven to respond to those with significant mental health and behavioral challenges the wraparound process also is anyone who experiences a wraparound process they're supported by a team of professionals they lead the work in terms of identifying what their needs and barriers are and supported Again by a team of professionals and it's an individualized plan based on their strengths and their skill set next slide please this
114is an illustration of what anyone who receives wrap around this is what they will experience they are at the center the items whether it's family and friends Department of Health School Juvenile Justice those are not exact things but it represents the teams of professionals the services the supports that will surround that family and in that Center box is also the facilitator which would be the Personnel of wrap around either myself in that of the manager the 10 principles these Define the philosophy of wraparound as well as guide all the actions so we start with the family values and choice again family driven youth-driven child driven they have a huge role in the wraparound process they are telling us what the barriers are to them achieving those goals so they lead the work they help to
115determine their team which is the next principle the team based we want to include those natural supports which is the third principle and that would mean not just their friends and family but any intergovernmental agency uh support that they have relationships with that knows this family that's committed to the family will be a part of that team they have a choice in this matter and we're going to look at myself because even my glasses are working that's so far away so so the natural supports collaboration key and essential to a wraparound process that's the whole point is that we're coordinating This Together working on this care plan for the individual or family um culturally competent that is identifying what's important what's the beliefs the values the traditions of any family and then working with that
116family in respect of those traditions and those values this improves the outcomes this is what the data also um demonstrates and has shown that when you respect where a person comes from who a person is what they believe in and you work around that with that and we talk about cultural competency all the time that's part of the principles so strength based again identifying the skills and the assets of the individual as opposed to us telling them what their problems are what their needs are and then maximizing that devising plans around those assets unconditional care we don't stop when we meet a challenge and there was a quote and some of the research that I've done and it says that the people don't fail the plan fails so if we're not seeing progress then we
117need to either really look at the plan and pivot or add something different but we don't just give up on a family there's enough of that out comes base a lot we talk about district-wide about monitoring and accountability and I'm going to get into that later about implementation and Fidelity National wraparound is huge in terms of High Fidelity so we're going to be tracking what our families are doing at incremental even after they transition and they no longer need said Services we're still going to track them for a while just to see that everything their stability and there's you know those skills that they've learned that they're able to continue to apply to their lives Community Based again this is a community and so we're going to utilize Services here we want to keep our
118children our adolescents in District in the city of community in the city of Waukegan less hospitalization again these are positive outcomes for wrap around in terms of it saves it saves money because we're not hospitalizing as much we're not sending them to Alternative placements as much so this is all data that supports the work of wraparound next slide please four phases of wraparound so again this is a national under the NWI which is National wrap around initiative these four phases this demonstrates what each individual and or family will go through phase one is the engagement piece that's the initial meeting with any family member or any individual again we start with them but this is Baseline they tell us what their needs are so they begin we Orient them to the wraparound process we have
119that we build trust develop a rapport and so we begin to work everyone's in agreement we identify team members again listening to the family first it goes into phase two the initial plan development here's where we begin to do the work because we've had our initial meeting when we sit down with the family we've identified who the team members are everyone understands the process there's commitments made and we develop develop that individual and customized plan next slide please thank you implementation of wraparound plan the plan is now at work everyone understands in terms of our partners service providers and it's overseen by the wraparound staff myself and or the manager and so we we work through the plan transition again this is when the family has met their goal or the individual has met their
120goal and we begin to wean them out it's just like if we're in specific programming whether it be DL or something else as they have mastered we begin to wean out and then there's that follow-up piece there's also tracking and monitoring we talked often in many years I've heard it about that accountability piece so and as it says that the director and the manager will be responsible for guiding monitoring and tracking the work that we're doing with our families Fidelity of implementation here's been a sticking point and so what I but this slide is talking about is an assessment tool what it is with the NWI National wrap around initiative I'm trying to not just use the um the acronym so here's an objective way of looking at the site if we do this and
121definitely embedding it and I'm thinking that this will be our best way to have that accountability here's why two reasons mainly for me um who's very passionate about this project is not only is it to ensure that we're providing quality service but sustainability so if we are being monitored by NWI with this rap star then we are we're going in the right direction we're ensuring that we are servicing our community as we should with quality and we're looking for sustainability so as long as we are doing what we need to do in the way that we need to do it we continue to move forward and then there's continuity anytime you deal with mental health you must have continuity absolutely so this will Aid Us in that you know it Aid Us in doing what
122we say that we want to do and that is to support the community long term so it did gives us a snapshot and it evaluates decides those that are are doing wrap around next slide please okay we get to the meat of it Waukegan wraparound Center services so the previous slides were about the national now what will it look like here in Waukegan so if we've talked about over time that this is a One-Stop shop and I want to dispel any questions or concerns because I hear it this is a One-Stop shop location for our students our families and Community to receive Services we have identified um tentative areas of need that is the Mental Health social emotional sexual abuse Juvenile Justice Services legal aid and substance abuse okay housing yeah that's what I say
123wait till the end okay we're going to get to that because many of those things that you just identified there's a lack of housing in Waukegan for our students and our families and I was wondering I was trying to look through the presentation to see if that was in there okay and it's not and all those things they gonna go by the wayside if there's no stability okay so I'll speak to that so again what it says here um these are anticipated so this is why we're going to do A needs assessment what the needs assessment is going to give us definitive information so if we definitely see that housing is an area and I do not doubt what you say I've been in the district eight years and I certainly know that as a
124coordinator of social work that that is a concern and a challenge and a barrier for many so the needs assessment will give us these definitive information as to what's truly impacting our community our students and our families so this is not an exclusive area it's anticipated so in doing even the proposal we had to identify based on the metrics that was used and this is what came up so it's not exclusive and so so we definitely this is an open-ended process right now thank you and then I want to remind the board to please hold questions to the end of the presentation okay so the in the wrap around Center in terms of the functioning as well it's uh it's sweet it's suited right now to have seven Suites where individual and or group support
125will be provided with at least seven there that does not limit our ability to have Partners within the community again I talk about long term I talk about sustainability so I am not looking to the seven Suites at 214 being the extent of our partnership my long-term goals is to have that of all of the city and the county of lake so but again we stick with the same principle and that if there is an organization or entity that has a service that one of my families will need and where they're not housed at 214 they can still have that service however the coordination meaning that they don't have to go to that place to sign up to see what they have do am I eligible do I meet the criteria we will do that
126at 214. so when they show up at a place that's outside of the seven Suites that we have it's already done I'm going to get the service and support and that's that okay there's a reception area position of the secretary will be forthcoming uh sometime next month where our our families our individuals to come in um By Appointment there's a collaboration area where I the manager will meet with our service providers who are housed at 214 again I go back to Fidelity I go back to monitoring tracking so there will be regular meetings with myself and whoever is housed there as well as those partners that are not at 214. hours of operation Monday through Friday right now again this is tentative 9 to 7 P.M if we need to go to eight we're trying
127to cut it off at that that would be by appointment but again we want to be flexible and we want to be responsive to the needs of our our family so if someone can't make it at seven they say but I can get there uh no I can't make it at six and then we end at seven but I can get there at seven then certainly we are going to do our very very best to accommodate that um core staff for um oh you switched on me that's okay but the core Personnel for the wraparound part of the functioning is myself the manager which is already set interviews hopefully in the next week and then again the secretarial specialist that I will be bringing forth the next one is our funding source so I seizure
128which is the Illinois criminal justice information Authority there's an eight hundred thousand dollar Grant what go what comes out of that Grant is the wraparound Personnel salaries and wages contractual Services which are the partners or sub grantees and then there's equipment and Technology there's another Grant dco which is the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity as well as the district that's 2.5 million out of that money um expenditures are construction Renovations at 214 Washington mechanical equipment and then again dco with the schools or Waukegan Foundation at 750 000 and that's construction vendors and supplies next slide please timeline of events so there is a bit of historical just briefly mentioned with the city of Waukegan the approval for the conditional use permit uh parking was March 20th uh the contract approval was April 11th
129at the board meeting District 60 the appointment of the director April 11 the needs assessment which I will get to will be rolling out soon as well as we're responsible for the request for proposal process I'll be getting to that as well and then there's the construction with the timeline so the construction started immediately upon the award which was May of 2023 uh phase one substantial completion of the lower level which is where the wraparound Center will be located as well as the main level we're looking at October of 2023 phase one of the anticipated occupancy and launch meaning our opening of the wraparound Center the lower level and the main level in November of 2023 so yes quite a regular Service uh it really it really is because it is well I was there
130two plus weeks ago and there was a lot of framing the offices the Suites um so they they've really been moving um pretty fast our next slide now please that's right oh I'm sorry I skipped myself you're on it and I okay so the last slide for timeline is we're anticipating again our opening date of November 2023. um anticipated to have Partners in place um at the wraparound Center um our of course our goal is to have all Suites occupied however come November if we are not at Max there we're going to begin the work roping the doors and we're we're serving uh continue pursuit of resources for additional assistance as I spoke to before about the long-term goal the vision is to have Partners throughout Lake County so even when we open my responsibility
131is to continue to be out and present in making those connections and and keeping the funding the the momentum of what we're doing of service um moving forward again tracking outcomes I listened in my previous role for eight years we talk about accountability and Fidelity and again that's going to ensure that we are playing the long game where it comes to the wrap around so we're going to in terms of utilizing tools to track and monitor um all of that is part of the plan and it's ongoing okay needs assessment so with the needs assessment what we're looking for is Baseline how and where and what area is the community are our families most impacted so that the data from the needs assessment is definitely going to drive not only how we seek out Partners
132or which Partners but it will also in terms of help finalize the development of our eligibility requirements um there are some wraparound centers that I have looked in terms of the eligibility like how do we do this so somehow well you know again it's serious mental health and behavioral challenges but if you are already involved with say three or more agencies um then you're qualified well if we find as a result of our need assessment that most of our families are involved between one and two agencies then they wouldn't meet that criteria so that's why it's kind of important for us to get the needs assessment data back and then we can determine what the eligibility requirements I know there are many principles that are asking okay how do I know how can you you
133know can I get this family in we don't just know that just yet I want to get this data back and then so where's our director of communication uh he and I have given ourselves a very hard timeline in terms of the needs assessment and it's for we want to roll it out um on the 28th we're going to have it open uh for families to complete for 10 days and in that time I'm going to be out front with that in terms of having some sort of public event to where we were walking through the needs assessments so families that say well I don't really understand what this means and I don't want to mark this or that and so I will be able to help them go through that navigate that process as
134well as dispel any um maybe myth because we know that we don't want to label our our family our children at certain things so we're going to have public events within that two-week window then there will be an analysis of that data we want to have a focus group to invite some of our other stakeholders internal and external um invite them excuse me invite them in to help us to analyze that data and direct our work okay request for proposal this is a requirement anytime that you are having someone come in where there is going to be um federal dollars given we have to have the RFP the RFP I'm trying to find my slide now I've got papers everywhere but okay the RFB the RFP is um in again anyone that receives federal dollars
135and there will be that with our partners I have to go through this process it is a competitive Equitable process so any and all this will be I'm certain on all of our platforms mainly our district website to where people will be able to or entities I should say because it's more like if you're lensing agency X you would be able to fill that out also within that uh RFP will be an evaluation tool kind of like an application and so they will complete that we're going to have a Review Committee so once the proposals are in there will be a Review Committee that we then select after we select say the seven then the last step is for me to send that to the state they do the final clearance so it's an open
136Equitable objective way of bringing in those partners um and there are certain requirements that the each of the agencies must do they must be registered in sam.gov um again they um there was something but that's okay so the target schedule again we have a very short window to start open to Target schedule we're going to open it up September 15. we want the RFP in the applications out the deadline will be October 15th so that still gives us some time to one have our needs assessment data have our RFP secured get it to the state and so that we can we're still running towards that November launch is that it oh Communications I was like okay communication um everything we're doing in terms of getting the needs assessment will be on like a survey it
137would be on our district website on all the school sites again the director of community communication and I are working um together on that on all platforms we're going to exhaust everything um okay uh continuous Outreach now that I have presented to the board um I feel like I will have more because we have to you know exercise the Quorum and discretion so now I can be far more vocal in terms of just kind of building that momentum and being more definitive in terms of our timelines but I had to wait until I present it to you all so now it's just like full on and any questions Miss Lindsay Miss Gonzalez um I first want to say I appreciate your apparent passion for the project right I think we have a good person in
138the position to to lead the ship to make sure it's set sail appropriately um there's just a couple of pieces um that I I just want clarified or just to add on to um this is a hot topic for the community right and so the wrap around Center needs to be somewhat removed from the debate around 214 Washington Street right and so um I'm just going to encourage the community that if you have concerns about that building for proposed administrative purposes that's not wrap around Center please be explicitly clear because I love the services that the wraparound Center is going to provide for our community one of the concerns that I've heard regarding the wraparound Center is it's not just for Waukegan Community but for um anyone in the area so you you gave me
139a head shake so it's just for Waukegan families or it's for local Lake County families that's where I'm getting confused it's our students and families I I do think that we had a bit of a hiccup back in March when we were at the city and there were two different very different perspectives and I believe in superintendent was there Deputy Moten please correct me but I believe this is for our students and our families starting out now you know playing the long game but right now yes we're looking at our okay the students and families in the immediate Community I just want to make sure that's clarified before people start engaging in discussions around this because it is presented tonight um and when you say that you want to track the families sometimes that can
140be triggering language for some people that have some certain concerns with any connotations to tracking so I just want to maybe reframe it that it's just extended care to make sure that those gains that they made while receiving the wraparound services are continuing and they're still benefiting from them so it's it's not like we're tracking you it's just making sure that you are still successful with the services that you've already received and no that's a very good point thank you for that kind of to nerves but being in Social Services my whole career um over 20 years and that's as far as I'll go with that but I know the importance of language and perception and stereotypes so when we talk about tracking it's about when I was a substance abuse counseling my first career
141it was the Aftercare plan yeah so to speak and so this is really to ensure that we're not just hands off because you you met the goals and we're off now and so you're on your own devices so part of that first phase where we talked about the engagement and the team and even in the second one when we're developing the plan which was mentioning the orientation of the wraparound process so whoever goes in they're not there's no surprises there this is the process this is you know so we make that agreement by definitely the the second meeting the second phase so they'll understand that yeah I understand why you're doing this it's not to track and again charge it to my nerves um but no that's it's really Aftercare follow-up exactly so we just
142want to make sure that's that's very clear to the community so thank you for that um with the needs assessment um I I love how on the slide and I'm just jumping because I wrote it above but then you had a your full slide for it I'm loving the amount of attention for the communications around it are we also encouraging um like our Police Department to share it out our mayor to share it out I'm just hoping that others in the community as you see Waukegan Public Schools post it to their Facebook as much as we can share that across the multitude of Waukegan related Pages through social media the better it is going to be for this community so I'm just going to throw that plug out there if we're not already having those
143conversations to say hey this is going to be coming out can you be sure to share it and continue to get the word out I'm just gonna no that's a good that's a good point and we have talked about exhausting all of our resources and certainly with the city I want to be as communicative with them as an entity as possible again going back to that March meeting where we were kind of not on the same page not because we didn't feel the importance or believe but it was in the delivery or the messaging so definitely the you know I I'm set again I I wanted to I needed to be here first and certainly we will go there so perfect I just have a couple more and so with the schedule for operation right
144the Monday through Friday nine to seven if people need you guys to stay later then you can be is this going to be set in stone or as we're providing those Services if we're getting feedback from the community that like hey Wednesdays people aren't usually coming maybe we could substitute in a weekend day where some of our Working Families have that accessible is is that a possibility or are we trying to stick just to the Monday through Friday and Shifting the accessibility to the wraparound Center that way I think we're trying to be as aligned with the district right the school week as possible right now yeah I will never say never but at this point there's so much to do in such a short time this is stable and it also speaks to what
145we're trying to do and that we're going A Step Beyond the typical school day hours or school day weeks by going until seven and if necessary to eight so we're trying to demonstrate that we're willing to go above and beyond but to go into the weekends I think that we're not there yet right right but it's not to say that that might not be right part of this assessment or a future adjustment that we make in the future right so we're just asking the families in the community to work with us as much as possible as we're getting this off the ground and to extend some grace and patience yes because there is going to be some start and stops right just like with everything just like with everything right so it's not going to
146be perfect out of the gate we just need to be collaborative communicative so that we can get it to what it needs to be so I'm glad to hear that um and then in terms of the funding just because I know it's going to come up the funding is just for the main and the lower levels nothing above for the construction correct correct okay just because I know it's going to come up let's just meet people where they are um and for the Partnerships because you said greater Lake County I've been speaking with other community activists and they are also trying to bring Services into the Waukegan area specifically from surrounding places but a lot of times when they bring people in to talk our families need to get out to let's say Lake Bluff
147or Highland Park or Lake Forest so if those types of Partnerships are in place with those communities but the services need to be at their location do we have plans for transportation I've I've had conversations about that because that's part of the problem is that we lack the transportation even coming to meetings here at Lincoln Center or any of the individual schools that that is sometimes a problem and I know that we do cap and things of that nature so yes okay beautiful um that that's all I have thank you Miss Gonzalez thank you great questions um the only question I'll send an email follow-up um about the school's Foundation being a funnel through for uh one of the I don't know if it's a grant or one of the pieces of the book Grant
148I know that Mr Moten had talked to us um previously but you know going from being a very small um 501c3 to in you know digesting this um rather large lump sum comes with a lot of restrictions a lot of requirements so I just maybe we do a little follow-up to to make sure that we're um you know preparing uh for that piece but the one question I had was um just for clarity that October 15 deadline is for partners who want to be part of the one of the seven Suites those that fill out the RFP okay yes okay oh that's yours I'm sorry I'm just telling people to no I'm calling their name but that's your job sorry about that I'm just I I want a piggyback on what uh Miss Gonzalez was
149saying about the foundation money because I am confused it it is um it says I don't know the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity dceo and then it says School Foundation which one is it one is the granting right it's both yeah the school's Foundation isn't the Illinois Department of Commerce and economics fourth president board members superintendent community members the board is going to have to advance the money to the foundation because the foundation does not have that amount of money to pay and so we've had preliminary discussions about accountability because the district has accountability measures we have a ledger we have all of that uh happening on the board side and so we just wanted to make mention uh to the board that the foundation as you all know they don't have what 750
150000 to advance these payments so there is going to be accountability because we have that there's going to be reports to the board and then as the foundation gets reimbursed they're going to reimburse how the Board of Education it was important that I say that it was a very good question so why is it why is it framed under dceo they're the grand Source yeah yeah that's with that from not for the school's Foundation yes but it's a reimbursement Grant so they have to expend the money and then they'll be reimbursed I'm aware right so I want to but the question was asked so I want to make it explicitly clear that's why so they are actually lead the awardees right but they have to spend and then it'll be reimbursed so what Miss poke
151is saying is we are going to all new money in order to allow them to expend the funds and then when they apply for their reimbursement or get their reimbursement they will reimburse the district and the board of education for those expenses so that is why The Deco Deco right is that the right acronym um or dceo I'm sorry DC yeah uh are the ones who are giving the money and the actual awardee is not Waukegan Public Schools the wardy for that portion of the grant is the Waukegan Public Schools Foundation which is a separate 50c 501c3 I'm aware of all of that my my question you you have a very um um that that timeline particularly for construction I know and I walked the entire building from the lower level all the way to
152the towers I saw what was going on I do whoa their lofty goals because um and I was there what a couple weeks ago I walked around with the foreman of the um of the project and I I am really trying to figure out um how this is going to be done because if if November is the launch and oh you know the ribbon cutting and all of that right then that means that the um that that you're kind of gonna be in a building that is uh under construction because those other those other other level floors there's no way they're going to be done in November you're absolutely right Miss Hannah and the goal is not to have the other floors done by November the goal is to have the first floor um and
153our lower Suites completed by November um I was there I believe Friday they are making great progress we'll be ready yeah they're moving really quick we'll be ready by November that's a timeline if it pushes into the later member we have a up until the end of December am I correct yes we have we've given us cushion but for the grant we have to be up and running by December and we will be so if you say we have to be yeah that's it's per the ground that we have to be opened by the end of December so we'll be ready to go we have some cushion in there in case we need it but we don't foresee I mean you never know what can happen right but as of right now we um we're
154looking to be on target good right wonderful from what I saw at that building I'm like oh my God yeah and and the guys down there um I met Paul okay he said that yeah yeah and and he he was very honest and transparent and he was very confident about things there you know um I just have to go back down there and see okay well and I think Parts I've been since I was down great points uh Miss Hannah instead of board members having to take trips down there you always can but the superintendent is already there going to be tracking weekly progress so that'll be reported out to the board so you all can see construction progress as it progresses I know not all board members are able to go down but we
155do want to make sure that you are kept abreast of what is happening I had just a couple questions then Board of Education I will end the meeting at 10. regardless of what's left so I really do want us to get to the student board member uh policy conversation um when we talk about uh surveys I think there's an awesome opportunity we do want to gather um collaboration I mean information from our families but Lake County Health Department did an extensive survey last year which uh has a lot of great information and then the Lake County Health Department also has the chip program which is the community health Improvement plan there's a committee that includes a bunch of stakeholders that are looking at the social determinants of health and they have survey information that I
156think can be included with whatever we're requesting from our families that'll give them more a holistic view the mom may be a technical question that I can email if you don't want to answer our our um or like more time to kind of engage in writing it's for that RFP process right part of the there are some organizations that would like to partner but who don't necessarily need to be a sub-grantee right they have either their own funding source meaning they are already a subgrantee or a grant recipient from the state and I gotta certified maybe they have a private Foundation funds so is it a requirement that they be listed as a subgrantee in our application if they're not actually receiving funds from the district to run their programming or operations so with my
157growing knowledge in terms of Grants and all of that and I've met with who is the administrator for this grant in Chicago um no they would not not to that extent this is mainly for those that will be receiving that money again when I spoke about having a broader reach and partnership those individuals will not have to go through that particular process because they're not receiving funding only those that are housed at the wrap around Center is there a way for them to indicate or if we haven't let's think about an opportunity for them to indicate when completing the application if they would be seeking additional funds to support their programming or if they are able to like they would be doing this programming with or without Waukegan Public Schools they just like the location
158to be and they want a partnership but it's not that I think that that's a great caveat and when I as I'm working with um our councilman um Clary then I'm going to write that down so that can certainly be a line item that we can put there for those who are not so maybe you know I'm just saying it's off the top of my head but definitely add it there but perhaps they only go so far if we're a through M they go a through D so I'm going to write that down and I'm certain that he can come up with the appropriate language for that and to give context right I'm thinking about uh when we visited Peoria and they had the um the attorney that was there right the district wasn't paying
159for those funds of resources she was doing whatever she was doing in order to fund that right Outreach and program yeah we'll work with Miss Dotson on that ensuring that we remain within whatever Grant guidelines we have as well um and then uh just my final comment is as we look at it I know one of the goals would be to make sure to miss Hannah's point we we have relationships with those other external entities and there are 10 social determinants of health and what we want to do is improve outcomes in those areas and so while we may not own um Transportation right is being able to know what transportation services exist while we might not own housing is being able to know who does own it and to your point vetting it is
160because the worst thing that happens now is families there are a plethora of resources but I don't want to show up to a location and then I need a birth certificate and I didn't know I needed a birth certificate right and so those are the types of creative ways that um I'm looking forward to so I appreciate your work and as Miss Elizabeth said your passion and I'm excited about the project um in that it's something that is not two or three or four years away but something that our families can realize in the very near term so I thank you to you and all of those that were involved in making this happen um and appreciate you presenting to the board and now you're going to go Full Throttle through the community and make
161sure that people know how to uh complete the RFQ process uh Deputy Moten uh may be a good opportunity to approach dwdc again in Black Chamber Commerce Bank Chamber of Commerce et cetera just to make sure they know that that is open and it's not just for those uh in construction so thank you okay thank you thank you all right okay oh wow I feel like I should be a little curtsy thank you guys good night it's coming up uh 19a board policy 4302 code of conduct and ethical responsibilities this is a it's not second it's a third reading uh but if you moved past all day but we didn't take it so this would be good it's the third time the board is saying that so uh this policy uh superintendent if you read
162the recommended action it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the modifications to board policy 4302 code of conduct and ethical responsibilities as presented for second reading motion to approve motion by Mrs riddle second second by uh Miss Gonzalez any comments questions all in favor signify what I I any opposed day the policy is approved now we are at the student board member proposed policy this is uh oh business but new business um and we have the information that is there can you pull open attached document just to help me uh facilitate the conversation for the white for 28 for 28 28 Mr White yeah next one down uh 28 new business yep yeah yeah it's the third attachment are you walking us through this uh Kathy I'm Nick are you gonna walk him
163through this Edge yeah and I I just have to say that um that that I am a little bit I feel a little bit disrespected because um I was not asked about um sitting um uh with the student board member to talk about this policy and I guess maybe I'm being um yeah because see nobody nobody thought about a student board member except me the voices of the students and when I propose this it took a while for me to even get it and so I mean I worked hard on the proposal to bring it to the Board of Education and I didn't even get um I didn't even get invited to even talk about this and so like I said I feel a little disrespected because no one even told me that this was
164coming up this is the second time that it's being brought up so miss Lindsey the student Board member Miss Gonzalez submitted a proposed draft of changes and revisions that was presented to the board there was comment and feedback that was requested we did not receive any additional comments and feedback I did ask for administration to review um to help facilitate the conversation and that's what we are doing now so I do apologize that you're feeling disrespected uh Miss Hannah but this is a conversation that we actually uh presented on uh almost a month ago at this time um if not before uh you know correct me if I'm wrong Miss Lindsay or Miss Gonzalez but this was actually proposed back in June um yes um but to to miss Hannah's point I'm sorry you feel
165disrespecting Miss Hannah or I I shouldn't say that because that's not a good apology um I recognize that you brought student voice to table um probably way longer than you know I even knew about the board of education so we recognized that um you know when Victor approached me and I'm assuming miss lindsing too uh see how they could you know and Victor will add so I don't want to speak for him but um I I got the invite but that doesn't mean that it was exclusive when we presented it back in June we were like is this something that the board has appetite for and thank you so much Miss Gonzalez but we don't have to waste time okay with that but I I said what I said and we can move forward okay
166but thank you so much go ahead Mr Alexander uh thank you and good evening uh Board of Education president superintendent board members community members and staff who are here so I'm going to be going over this presentation that is in board docs and miss vanderbrook our general counsel Kathy I'll probably be uh tagging you in on some parts that you'd be able to explain much more eloquently than I can so to begin uh just an overview of what we're going to be discussing as was stated earlier uh Mr hinojosa did work with Miss lensing and with Miss Gonzalez and kind of craft uh kind of crafting some new policies around some of the board member selections some of the succession some of the work and responsibilities that a student board member does and it was
167uh it was very detailed it had a lot of good information in there and so we just want to talk the board through some of that to kind of get an idea of which direction we want to go as a district and so throughout here you'll see that there are some recommendations that the administration is giving out some of these items and there's some other items that are kind of open for the board um ultimately everything is open for the board to make the decisions but there are some instances in which we do give a recommendation so just to kind of uh give a little bit the as you can see there sorry I'm struggling here to get my uh laptop set up uh the board uh the board's authority to appoint a student board
168member is set forth in board policy 2001 and uh the administration uh developed section and the appointment procedures which uh have been affect for the past uh five years now dating back to 2018 uh guidelines outlining the responsibilities and how they've evolved since the position was created have also been developed and that I believe is also uploaded into board docs and also Administration is uh requesting the as I stated that the board provides some direction on which way they want to go so Mr White if you want to take us to our next Slide the school code is one of the things that I know we had discussed many years ago Miss Hannah and that we've kind of reiterated the school code um say to the Board of Education May appoint a student to the
169board to serve an advisory capacity and then you could read the rest there of what it states about um what how the district will determine uh the limit but you could see there that they they may not Grant the student member any voting privileges Etc and so that's going to kind of guide as we go on also student board member may not participate or an attend executive session of the board and that is important in some of the future things we discussed um so we start off with just the current process um for those of you who have been on the board or who are familiar with it you know in October each year we kind of start the selection process we send out the emails to the Juniors and seniors we let them know
170here's what the position is about if you're interested um here are the qualifications the qualifications generally include you have to be a sophomore a junior and that's something that the board back in 2017 and 2018 wanted us uh those were the two years that they wanted the candidates to come from I want to have a GPA of 2.0 and aside from that there's there's not too many other qualifications and there's the process they submit a one-page personal bio they submit written responses to three essay questions that we try to make relevant to what's happening with the student body and then they provide a written reference could be from a teacher it could be from an administrator a Community member yeah but all we require is one moving on to the next slide uh the deadline
171for candidates is generally November and it's right around like the time like Thanksgiving the week before Thanksgiving that's when the deadline comes up uh from there all of the student uh bios their answers to the essay questions are emailed to the student body at Waukegan High School so that goes out to all four grades and the students have a chance to review the BIOS to review their answers to the essay questions and then the students uh vote and we do that voting it's just a uh one choice multiple choice uh through Google forms each year and students are allowed to vote for one individual and then the two top vote Getters and it used to be I believe in year one the board uh interviewed all the candidates all I we had upwards of more
172than half a dozen candidates that year I think nine uh at that year the some board members I believe it was Miss Hannah and Mr Rivera at the time talked about how about the students vote and so that's something we implemented that following year where the students actually vote and then the top two vote Getters move on to interviews with the Board of Education and I believe most of the board members would be familiar with how that process works they do um interviews uh somewhere 35 minutes or so with each candidate and then the board selects a member right in January and they get seated for essentially that entire calendar year so Mr hinojosa's term is going from January 2023 through January 2024 so he's essentially the 2023 student board member um and at the
173end of his term uh and we'll get into this uh students have the option if they'd like to run again uh we've only Victor's only our second sophomore so last time that came up uh Miss uh May was not interested in running again but ultimately once that time comes around it's uh up to Victor's discretion that's what the board has left it at this point if he'd like to run again but he'd have to go through that whole process that we discussed so what we're going to talk about here is some of the items that were in the policy uh and miss van Burke would you mind taking the first part well I get uh settled on the next ones sure the first question is whether the board wants to create a standalone student board
174member policy or the whether we could build out um some of the procedural pieces and articulation of the roles and responsibility of the student board member in the existing board policy 2001 which is where you already addressed the creation of a student board member position and the administration's recommendation is that we not create a standalone policy but that we build it off in the board member policy which keeps like information in a single location so looking for guidance on that um I'll just start down at that end Miss Lindsay and they're actually yeah I'll start with you related to that piece um first off I want to say thank you to the administration for making the slide and bringing the opportunity of putting your recommendations I thank you very much for putting your side of
175the story um for me I feel that I said that we should have a separate policy for the fact that the original policy that Miss lensing and Ms Gonzalez wrote with me was almost five pages long and that policy obviously when it gets edited and stuff like we'll get smaller but over time logistically that just seems like a very big policy that's let's just say realistically seven pages because the first one is two originally and now the addition of five would make seven and the grand majority of this new policy would just be specifically for the student board member not even just for board membership specifically right and I feel just logistically that seems kind of weird that half of the policy or more than two-thirds of the policy would just be this specific item
176and then this small section that talks about just general board membership so logistically I just see that it's kind of weird but I do get General counsel's um objective of keeping similar policies together um I also see it as a legitimacy aspect that obviously the board does appreciate the work that every student board member does and it is a tough job and I feel like being able to give the recognition that this is a legitimate legal position from the school code and being able to give us our own specific policy would give that type of legitimacy to the public and the students knowing that all the board does understand that this is a big position and there's a lot that goes into it so that's really my thought process through it so if Miss lensing
177or Miss Gonzalez and the rest of the board wants to give comment on that just real briefly uh Miss uh vanderbrook the current I'm going off of memory current policy uh 2001 as reference does it already uh point to a you know that the board has the ability to appoint a student board member yes yes I thought it did so uh I would uh and I'm gonna go and I'm going to concur with uh Victor Mr Jose and that we keep the current reference to the board it has the ability to um you know host the student board member and then were referenced a policy and it can be a policy or resolution I'm open but if we say in policy and that's what Mr hinojosa is requesting I would support it I don't necessarily
178mean Mr hinojosa typically what policy you do want to keep it somewhat General and then so maybe it will be paired down from five pages but I will support the idea of a standalone policy Miss Lindsey and them and just go straight down the line so that's why I'm starting at that end yeah I agree with that sentiment especially if we are going to make changes to it if it does become a policy and not a referendum I believe as you referred to it resolution resolution thank you the different r word um yeah so if we're going to be making amendments to that it's specific to that role and it doesn't tie us to any considerations around board membership itself so I agree think we need a standalone policy addressing um a student I don't
179think we need a standalone policy addressing um the student board members um participation because if you look in the statute there is it is included it's included in board members and it's at the bottom of the statute and um that says basically what at all except that we could put a few um a few caveats in it for the student board member but it should not be where um I mean I don't even understand the only thing that if I um if something should go into any kind of process of selection I would love to see as I originally um proposed that the um that the election of the student board member is made kind of a big thing at the high schools where that there's a day set aside for all of the students
180to go and to vote and be able to drop it in a Ballot Box that that's what I have always wanted and that way we would get I believe more participation more particular more student participation in who is selected as the board student board member because yes we as a board are able to select a student board member but I I believe our student body should be the one selecting their representation so that that's what but I don't think we need any kind of Standalone policy addressing this thank you Miss Hannah Jeff uh to miss Hannah's point I do agree with her because anything else that the students have ballon Victoria whatever they may have it's always the students making their decisions for the students because who better knows uh who's good to represent them
181than themselves because they see them all year round so yeah so I agree with Miss Hannah on that one well the question though on this one Mr McBride is uh do you support a standalone policy or rolling it into the current board policy 2001 on board remember I'm gonna pass this I don't really understand what the Standalone policy even really entails myself to be honest with you Mr riddle I think I'd go with Michiana that I don't know that we need to create a separate policy I like the idea of an advisory and guidelines such as was proposed here um but I don't know that we need a policy right we might have the policy that we have 2001 we could uh change that if we wanted to to add a two student board members
182one from each campus if we I know it says a student I know but we've talked about the need of having right that could be discussed at some time further having you know two student board members advisory and board members from each school from each campus for each campus right now that's just another thought but I I don't to answer the question no I don't think we need a separate accret another policy right now miss Gonzalez tiebreaker I I think we do I just because the way that I see it is is we're just finding its own designated place that the policy goes under it's a categorical thing you go into our board docs you you know if you want to direct students to their student board policy and and get an understanding of um
183you know not only the guidelines but the whole procedure the more that we talk about it I I feel like it would be easier um to me the role seems kind of secondary when we talk about board membership not that it's you know those those rules would not apply to the students they absolutely would um but they they seem secondary because they're you know a paragraph at the end of that board membership um policy that's just um the way that I view it there's a procedural question I'm taking it as a majority have are supporting and and I guess we don't actually have to vote so it's a consensus and so because it's a consensus a majority of the voting members voted in the affirmative or are building the concurrence you had you had three
184supporting a separate policy you had one supporting not a separate policy one pass and one suggesting we don't need a policy am I right was that correct Mr Riddler was your position did not have a standalone I agreed with Miss Hannah that we keep the current policy we have and uh developed such as this guidelines for that student board member what their responsibilities are what they do but not be a separate policy yeah right so embed the amendment that could be an amendment it could be and adapted and grow the issue comes with how to address Mr McBride's position which is a pass which is usually a no if we have a particular motion where I'd say that Amendment right do would you like us to try and clarify what we're asking well just because
185of the fact that uh Miss Hannah herself was the creator of this policy that we're talking about in general uh I decided she I'm with her okay all right so that's a tie So currently we don't have support in order to have a standalone policy next item so the next item gets into procedures and there's a couple slides on this but the first part and it's probably best we take it in in Chuck's chunks discuss the voting we talked about before how the students vote and it's a multiple choice you pick your top candidate similar to how we vote at the polls as adults um one thing that was recommended was ranked choice now ranked Choice um for those not familiar with it and we don't have it in Illinois so my familiarity with it
186is uh minimal is essentially you'll rank your candidates my top candidate my second candidate my third candidate and then different uh areas will have a different process for which they kind of vet those out and and what that means as uh down the line what we are recommending is to keep it as it is with the you vote for your Top Choice and then the top two candidates will move on to the board uh interviews uh for just the sake of the Simplicity to students we currently don't have like a ranked Choice software that we have in place we probably have to go about find one we also didn't have to train students on ranked Choice voting now Illinois may be looking to add that down the line in which case it becomes a different
187uh discussion but at this time the recommendation is that we keep it as is one thing that we do get into the later part of this page is about wanting to open it up to you know the possibility of if it's uh you know we haven't had a tie yet for like that second spot but you know if there are ties in the future we do obviously want to entertain the idea of the board interviewing three candidates rather than having to do like a tie breaker is there a question Miss Hannah yeah I I really I I this it make me it makes me excited because I could see the potential excitement of the students they have election day we get that one and it is I mean you know the the from the time
188that the um the student board members submit their names right they're they're out there in the schools they're going to be campaigning for the position because see that's what one of the things that my intention original intention was to get them to uh learn the process the Civic process of voting campaigning and um and the result giving them so my appointments handled with this one is so do you want to keep it currently where the students vote no I don't know I want I want to change it I wanted to make and make make it an activity so I get that piece the question though is do we want to the format the format do you want rank chose voting or do you just want the top two go to the board I don't think
189none of them should come to the board so you just want majority uh whoever gets the highest vote wins that's what your proposal is Mr President go ahead Mr hinhosa then I see you missing okay I am I'm I'm keeping my comments I I want to keep my commitment it's 10 o'clock uh go ahead Miss Santa um when it comes to the original proposal in my idea was obviously having ranked Choice voting as an aspect because obviously the nation and some states are moving towards having a more representative democracy and when it comes to voting being able to not just pick one candidate and being able to understand that oh this may be my first choice candidate but I also think this candidate would also do well but it's not my first choice and as
190you know it goes one two three four depending how many they are First Choice let's say those the fourth choice is not the biggest they get distributed depending on what your second choice is ETC et cetera um I felt like that would be important because obviously as the nation goes through that I feel like we should be teaching our students and what better way of showing ranked Choice voting would be through their elected representative right and I would have liked it also if I students would have chose through ranked Choice voting but obviously I do get the administration's aspect of me not having the software to do that and Google Docs is not capable of that I learned that the hard way it doesn't have that capacity but I am open I originally had a
191position on this but after hearing the board I will leave that up for recommendation wise if we want ranked Choice voting or keeping it first past the post I feel first past the post is just too old at this point to keep going but if the board and I do lean towards ranked Choice voting but whatever the board decides at this moment I would be happy with either final comment Miss Lansing ring Choice voting is more equitable that's what we want in our district so I understand it is harder it's more complicated but it's worth it so Equity is our goal ranked Choice voting is how we get there I get that not all of the nation is on board with that but that's not the bar that I'm holding myself accountable to I'm holding
192myself accountable to what is Equitable for these students and if they're number one comes in fourth place they should be able to say well I get that not everybody likes who I liked but I'm gonna support number three right and so their vote should go to something so I will hold it there um we do have somewhat of a deadline so that's why Mr uh alazakis is uh very uh anxious for Mr Hannah HOSA because if it means any changes to his role it's important that we get through it but we've had multiple meetings that we've gone past 11 uh and so I want to be respectful everybody's time which is what um um yeah so so what that looks like so it is 1003 I'm going to ask for final comments related to uh
193board comment uh and then we're going to adjourn and go home I'm gonna start down at that end with Miss Gonzalez uh this is board one more time yes ma'am yeah um I appreciate everyone's comments um I wish that we could get through business um more efficiently um I want to welcome everyone to the start of the school year I hope that the first couple weeks they settle in and it's um uh an easy transition for those going into middle middle school and high school um and that's pretty much it Mr riddle um yes I'm just going to welcome everyone back again that that's uh in school and continue to be positive that this is going to be your best year ever that is going to happen unless you work with others uh work with
194your teachers um work with your principals build your school up build this community up um you may you can make a difference thank you Mr McBride uh I want to just Echo what uh Mrs uh Gonzales Gonzalez uh made reference to uh with efficiency in this board uh it is now 10 o'clock and uh the baron has children that he probably won't get a chance to say good night to because they probably in the bed uh now other staff members have children that they don't get a chance to say goodnight to as represent even our board member here uh also uh the commute time that's another hour he has to go because he has to drive 45 minutes to where he lives and I'm sure you're not the only uh staff member that comes in
195here and sit down that has to do the same thing and I just think that uh once again uh unless I'm wrong uh you guys tell me but when people have families and kids and stuff they should be able to go home respectfully and be with their kids and put their kids to bed at appropriate time and uh and I think that we're doing a disservice uh being a disservice to our staff that's here as other as well as our teachers when they come in Saddam with kids it to me it's just uh and then I would also say I don't think there's a board in Illinois stick around to 11 30 and 12 o'clock at night on on a consistent basis all the time now I can see it every now and then that
196we had to really have to stick around for something but this is every board meeting and to me it just don't make no sense so I I hold my comments I don't say nothing because there's more if I say something we we're instead of 10 and maybe go on a little longer and uh at some point we as a board we need to come to uh some kind of understanding and recognize what I'm speaking about in terms of being respectful to staff in ourselves also and and back to uh the policy that was being spoke about as far as I'm concerned I don't think we really hear from all the voices of the kids when we started talking Equity so I think we need to take a look at that too because there are some
197there are some there are some kids out there that have issues that needs to be be addressed and uh they don't get a chance to to speak about them so anyway I would say to our board member if did you leave oh uh that when you do start uh bringing up uh information and pertaining to our students uh I just like to hear about from all students and issues because other the students out there I think don't get a chance to uh actually divorce their opinion maybe because of the fact they don't have a 2.0 but they still have opinions and I think that needs to be heard thank you Miss Hannah um I just wanted to I'm I'm glad that Mr McBride brought that up because see we are um if if we would
198we wouldn't be here at 10 o'clock and with all due respect um superintendent superintendent's report the presentations that come under your superintendent's report those proposals and um uh reports they really should be presented at the student student achievement meeting and um I'm gonna say tonight Mr McBride if the if we had not had that presentation we probably would be out of here and so I think we need to talk more about what is being presented at the Board of Education business meeting and what is being what's going to be presented at the committee of the whole meetings on the third Tuesday okay because I I heard it at a conference that no no new program presentation or anything should ever be presented at a business meeting and so I think that we need to talk
199about that and put uh and put that where it belongs and then maybe the uh because the the presentations are very meaningful very meaningful and there's gonna be questions and that accumulates time and so um I'm just saying and um but anyway I'm sorry it's so late you all I hope you guys ate thank you Miss Anna Miss Lindsay I'm a parent I have three young children and I as an individual before I ran for this position came to board meetings and was well aware that they went long into the night and what I'm seeing is that there's a lot of work to do in this District and that is going to take time they're going to be we're in the process of rebuilding Trust with our community and our constituents and our staff and
200our Administration and amongst board members and and that's going to take time so it's for me personally it's a bit frustrating to be lumped into this generalization that if you have kids or if you have a family or if you need to drive your time is more valuable and that's just from my corporate lens of um resource groups that we have that talk about different identities right so there's the black business professionals and then there's working parents right there's different groups where we come together and I think a lot of people that are single without kids are are left out of that conversation of their time being valuable but for me this time is valuable and well spent because we're getting through District matters as we try to get this ship on the right path
201and to maintain um so I I'm just going to be in in disagreement with that philosophy and that's fine um in terms of my board member comment I do want to Echo let's continue to speak positively of our students of our fellow District staff and colleagues because if you put that out there people will rise to that so as we've seen to put it gently or mildly some incidents or some hiccups to the start of the year that does not have to Define our year so I hope that students find their Community right find those peers that lift you up that are positive influences find those mentors and those Role Models so that you are getting as much out of your District education as possible both academically and socially and emotionally and just try to
202stay away from the distractions and if you need help staying away from the distractions reach out and get help okay but I hope that everyone has a good close to their second week and I believe we're meeting again in September unless we have a special meeting so enjoy the rest of your August yeah we can talk about that because I've talked to the superintendent but part of that we have a lot of special meetings so I don't want to get on a timepiece I do want to Echo we got important work that we need to get through and so figuring out the Ebbs and flows uh and the push and pulls and the balance is one that we're working on I want to thank everybody for coming out I want to thank Mr hinojosa I
203do want to stress is that I think it's important that you're engaging with policy in this way I know that you are more aware that others of the slow process that is democracy but I do apologize because to miss Gonzalez's Point as we keep talking about our conversations we want to have right but it makes it hard to get to the conversations that we want to have when we can't get through sometimes just the business of the board so I don't want to belabor it I think all of you for coming out what I will say in my board member time superintendent and we heard it expressed from the podium and then the echo what Miss lensing said is our students are capable our competent our staff members are capable they are competent what we
204are asking is part of what we felt last year is because those expectations kind of went on a little bit longer while we were giving students Grace with their return it allowed for that to kind of set in as the culture and so it's early enough in the year that not not by suspending maestros of students that is not the solution but to really sit down set expectations meet with those students that we know are having some of the troubles and issues that we contacted over the summer that we're starting to see some of the behaviors from that have had fights early and really wrapping ourselves around so I'm not assuming that the schools are not already doing that but I want us to vocalize that to the community so that they see a response
205to the issues that they are bringing is because it's we are parents in the district we don't and and those of us who have loved ones in the district we know how important safety is and we don't want the appearance to be that you know there's this just a bunch of fights right I'm not saying that's the reality we don't want it to become the reality so let's put some things in place in order to make sure that it is addressed uh up front and we have seen an uptick in violence unfortunately and so we want to make sure that we are listening to the community being responsive to the community and making smart decisions as we put our kids safety first so with that I'd like to call for a motion wait wait wait
206wait wait wait wait wait I just want to address something that um was asked at the podium about the weather and um the situation for um uh tomorrow and Thursday because they they're talking about the air temperature is going to be 100 and the uh Eve index is going to be up to 115. and I know we've done a wonderful job with the air conditioners in the schools and classrooms but we still have areas in the classroom I mean in the schools that are not and I'm just wondering can we release early now we're on a regular school day tomorrow we do have air conditioning communication has went out about water about moving people around that may not have air in a certain area we're looking at gyms but we are full operational on today's
207Wednesday and Thursday both days yes ma'am okay now that could always change though you know I mean but right now we're going we have air we invested in air we're going our kids need to be in school right um and so we're up and running and to add on to that to the credit of the district you know I as a parent got communication for my littles that outdoor activities were canceled right so there there are some measures that they're putting into place but if you as a parent feel that 100 say it was about playing position your call is your girl as a parent you make the best decision the superintendent has made it a goal that as much as possible she wants schools to remain open that is discretion of the superintendent is
208one of the authorities to open and close schools and so that decision rests with the superintendent's office if you as a parent do not feel comfortable sending your child to school you do what's best for your child but as of right now communication is that we will be open superintendent just for those who are watching online where can they get updates if anything was to change definitely our Facebook page if something was a change we'd have a mass text message and communication in the form of a letter Etc maybe a phone call would go out but our anticipation is it's going to be school as normal for this week and so there are guidelines I do want to bring up because I did ask my chief of staff this earlier about extracurricular and sports so
209there's ihsa guidelines on when they can practice when they can't so we're also following those I want to make that very clear super fast because I love that I I apologize no no this is important right it is um you brought up the text message so families that haven't signed up to get the district text messages or if they are worried that they don't have the right number on file where do they go to get that updated so that they can get those text messages ongoing I'm going to tell you your first point of contact should always be your school principal so just email your school principal um and they will assist you with that thank you uh with that I'm sorry about that but you're fine no it was a good question and we
210don't want to tell anybody when they can use their mental health days uh with that I like a motion to adjourn motion by Mr McBride second by Miss Lindsey all in favor signify with i i any opposed name meaning is down adjourned thank you for the vet