Tuesday July 11th - Special Board of Education Meeting

001foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] the Waukegan Public School Board of Education July 11 2023 special meeting if I could have a job are you sure um yeah roll call please Adrian Gonzalez Mr Rick riddle president Mr Jeff McBride Miss Anita Hannah Miss Christine lensing present Miss Carolina Fabian present Mr Brandon Ewing president so we do have all the board members with the exception of Ms Gonzalez so we do have a quorum we are in Open Session there was no closed session um Miss McKenna if you be so kindness to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands

002one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you thank you so we do have a public hot sign up sheet so they uh Mr White is bringing that to the front now uh when I call your name I'll call a few names uh please come up to the front of the podium we ask that you um refrain from mentioning student and staff member names in your remarks if you need translation services translation services will be provided to you and you will receive an additional three minutes uh for a total of six minutes to allow for translation we want to remind all the speakers of Civility and we do acts that you remain at the podium first name is Chester second name Ray vukovic third name is rayon Edwards hello hello but

003anyway last week uh some of the board members were called racist and uh did they get an apology from you all they're called them racist because they said something about they don't understand what the person's saying like my person next door is a landscaper and he's speaks broken English so I have to ask his son sometimes to help me what he's saying same when I go to Hollywood they're Italians you know it's hard to understand him so I'm wondering if you all gave him uh your teammates an apology for calling them racist when you don't have um any proof on it Carly oh but anyway um why do we have to go overseas to recruit teachers all the time they come here it's hard to uh speak English with them and then our kids have

004a hard time learning from them because they don't understand what the teachers are saying so we have 20 some colleges here Illinois and Wisconsin I was wondering why we don't recruit them yeah oh man I just you know getting all these uh foreigners in here and a lot of them can't talk English and our kids are failing I mean we're last in English second lesson math so what are we going to do about it that's it thank you second name Ray vukovich good evening I've got your agenda for tonight's meeting and according to the agenda it says that you had a closed session now the notice that went out indicated to the public that there wasn't a closed session so somewhere somebody messed up on on the agenda so I think you need to have

005a revised agenda just to let people know that there indeed was no closed session tonight you have an item on your agenda number 10 it's another settlement agreement this time with an architectural firm now going back to uh roughly Christmas a little over six months we're now this district has paid out close to a half a million dollars in settlement agreements heard many times that you all have two employees that being the superintendent and the board attorney and you get the information from them and you make a decision well it appears you're getting some questionable information if we're having this many settlements come through and being settled this one was sixty thousand two weeks ago it was four hundred thousand dollars uh that's some real money that can be used to help educate the kids

006uh you know I just uh wish that we could get stuff out of your your legal department communicated with the board president once again foyers you know it's really disheartening when you go back no matter who's sitting in that spot and I know you're the the assistant here but uh waiting for a foia was told by the interim foil officer that I would have it on the 19th of June it's now the 11th of July and the attorney indicated that she's on vacation and that she was the one who told the foia officer would be ready by the 19th but something else came up I mean if that's the way you deal with foyers which are a legal item no wonder why you have legal settlements out here that you're paying for sixty thousand four

007hundred thousand dollars uh you've got two employees you need to manage them thank you third name is rayon Edwards I don't know it was posted correctly the next three names are Randy sabeki Jermaine Castellanos and Megan McKenna Mrs Becky right on time so your name's on the list uh actually uh if you want to grab a seat rayon your name was first time starts when you start speaking disappointed tonight y'all for the last board meeting and the information that was put out I thought we were supposed to be trying to bring everybody together that's not what we did we put some information out and we took a woman's word and you know I'm noticing a pattern here Since the situation with Dr Hillary and I have to keep going back to that because when that

008Board member Miss Hannah spoke out and started speaking out I watched the behavior of Kathy Van Der Brock I watched superintendent's Behavior started seeing people attacked even myself my background was passed around and stuff you know that was done so Miss Hannah spoke at the last board meeting about us going overseas getting all these teachers Miss Lindsay spoke too but we ain't talk about nobody but Miss Hannah nobody but Miss Hannah so now what y'all to start it is a beef on Facebook with the black and the brown community but I remember a time and I know the board president can remember too um at the last election that you and Miss Gonzalez won with that Ann Taylor's campaign celebration we had a board member and a staff of the district at the time in

009there and their board member was Miss Lucy and that staff member of the district was now the board member Carolina Fabian and I remember she was drunk and she was belligerent she was hollering cursing all that bet me and I remember you and Mr Rick Harris had to tell her that's not how you address constituents chefs shareholders but this information was passed to Judy Contreras now we got all of this in the newspaper and I'm angry as hell I am I'm very angry and I'm gonna say a few things no one responded to the lensing question about the district local recruiting efforts why are they exactly what are we doing to diverse of our staff in more African-American educators why surnames and accents what referenced the larger question is why must we go overseas for

010the group of 50 to 58 teachers that is 86 percent teachers and not locally another concern is that the district in the past complained about our american-born Educators not being culturally competent the current recruiting practices of HR going overseas does not resolve but amplify their concern the HR department is not diverse what is the demographics of the Department per a Consulting contract about a district it was reported in a public board meaning that the HR department cannot be trusted and incompetent let's talk about why are we voting on a proposal to Mentor black boys but we gave bam two million dollars just signed another contract in so now we're going to pay somebody else to do what they supposed to be doing trash Randy sabeki and Andrew Ben Castellanos good evening everyone so I'm going

011to piggyback kind of off of Ray Ray because that was attack on Miss Hannah words were Twisted just like when I was running for the school board I was attacked Miss Contreras don't come to any of these meetings but she gets all this information yeah it's on YouTube and everything but I was attacked with my my record that I was falsely accused of but y'all didn't made sure that wasn't posted stuff that was dismissed and I can sit here and say those words were Twisted we go out overseas and get all these teachers we'd have plenty of our own teachers if they're treated right compensated right how many board meetings do we look at Personnel how many teachers leave our district and the only the reasons given concerns concerns concerns concerns is that why we're

012bringing all these teachers in because they won't complain of the thing we can do what we want in this District is that why because I was one of those parents you know when when those other two gentlemen came up to the podium but the audience time was over we couldn't speak I was one of those parents that brought up concerns my son at Washington campus had a teacher from the Philippines that he could not understand I went to open house last year I couldn't even understand them and there was nothing about his culture and that he's a nice guy but if our kids cannot understand them then how are they getting the quality education my son barely passed the first semester with a D barely passed I brought it to the principal assistant principal you

013know what I was telling as a parent well the teacher we talked to the teacher he can write your student a notes because he can't understand him he can write him notes how's that a quality education second semester they moved him out of that class moved them into another class which is also another diverse teacher but my son could understand that teacher my son passed that class with an a top of the class for the second semester that's what quality education is just because as you you stayed at Ms Fabian your daughter had one and didn't have no issues there's a lot of people in our district that do have issues but language barriers and whatnot and that's what Ms Hannah was trying to say that's what Miss lenson was trying to say it has

014nothing to do with race and everything else we are a diverse community every race all the way my own family I have every race in my family black white hispanic Latino everything I come from a big family and it's sad we sit there and say we're trying to bring the board together and then we attack other ones that's the problem in this District it's when we don't like something then we then we personally attack people is that why the um things not on the agenda tonight about the the um well I forget what it was called protocol yeah but that was all that I put on the agenda tonight Jermaine Castellanos hi um I'm coming from the boys and girls club and wanted to to just express our um our excitement and our appreciation for

015the partnership that we've had with the Waukegan Public School District this summer um we uh we're currently serving 427 students at um at the at Abbott Middle School we have we have our students that are that are attending there um and you know our students are they're from Waukegan they you know they when we think about the the students that are attending summer school and the students that are not attending summer school and the students that we see that come through our program so we're we're just we're just very appreciative of the partnership and we're hoping the next next school board meeting we can maybe get on the agenda so we can throw some pictures up and see so you guys can see what's what's going on because we um we've had probably the most

016active summer that we've had ever in the history of the boys and girls club because of the partnership that we've had with the Waukegan Public School System so so we really appreciate it and um speaking of Partnerships and speaking of uh being appreciative we also want to talk about the the gun violence prevention uh walk that happened at the boys and girls club uh so can we restart the clock they don't have to share time good evening I'm the CEO Megan McKenna of the boys and girls club and I just I wanted to Echo uh Jermaine's comments about appreciation and gratitude to the school district um particularly with the superintendent we've worked super close in terms of being able to do uh the summer programming and also the after school programming that we already do

017in the district during the school year but we were particularly touched with the district support for our gun violence prevention walk-in vigil that we held on June 28th on the south side of Waukegan it's no secret to anybody in this room that gun violence is a really significant issue in our community and that everybody no matter where you live in Waukegan no matter who you are you're impacted by it and so we have been having conversations with Partners non-profit Partners mostly but also government Partners to figure out what can we all do about this and so we convened Community organizations government entities including the Waukegan Public Schools to have this first activity that was basically a walk and a visual remembrance of young people who've lost their lives many any of whom are Waukegan graduates

018to gun violence recently in the community and we were just like I said Blown Away by the support of the community but particularly with the Waukegan Public Schools and under leadership of Miss Placencia and president Ewing and to see other board members out there it was really um wonderful to see that show of solidarity from the school district and to see your commitment to preventing gun violence among young people and other people in our community and we're hoping to continue the conversation this was more of a show of unity I think in the community in terms of us all really just you know being tired of having to deal with impacts of gun violence and how it's impacting families young people and just even the little kids in our community who don't feel safe and

019so we are going to continue the conversations we'll certainly keep everybody in the loop at the district but really just wanted to reiterate that gratitude and appreciation for your leadership for your show of support and solidarity and for everything that you do every day to keep our kids safe so thank you final name is Virginia Briscoe good evening about four years ago I think maybe it was I came to the board and I came as a representative for a coalition that I had started uh called we see women empowered to educate the community and our Focus was and still is specifically what's happening with African Americans here in the district I know that at the time after I did the presentation I had all these houses but I had a house that was on fire

020in that house that was on fire represented what was happening with our black students our African-American males specifically and Rick riddle you were here at the time and you had asked specifically what could we do and at the time I had said well no because nothing because we had just started collaborating with the administration here so I wanted to give us time to kind of see what was going to happen with the district that was four years ago tonight there's a presentation that's going to be made as far as what's happening with African-American males we have now lost four years I should have said at that time and some of my some of my members said you missed you missed an opportunity you should have said at that point you should have told the board

021they should have held this District accountable at that time to do something as far as what's happening with our African-American males and I miss that opportunity now tonight there's a presentation that's going to be made I don't believe that that presentation should be made tonight because it should be a part of student achievement it doesn't give anyone like me who had been fighting day in and day out substituting in this school coming to this Podium speaking on behalf of our African-American males and now I have three minutes to speak I don't think that that presentation should be made tonight without giving the community the opportunity to say something to voice our concerns about what's being put forth when I looked at it I just looked at it the other night and I had an hour

022it doesn't take long to look at it's 63 Pages my God thank God I can understand what I'm looking at we're only talking about a thousand black males in this whole community and in this whole district and to see the proposal that's putting forth I'm glad that something's finally being put forth but I believe that as a community we should be also be given the opportunity to speak about what's being put forth because at this point when I look at it I have concerns and so at what point are my concerns going to be addressed and talked about I have been coming here meeting after meeting going to the schools bringing back feedback that I'm receiving from the community from parents and I don't feel like I'm being given the opportunity to say anything so

023I am going to listen to it tonight I'm not sure what the board is going to do with it tonight hopefully it's not something that you're voting on hopefully it's something that you're just listening to because as a community member I believe that I should be given the opportunity to voice my concern about it thank you Miss Briscoe Mr conclusock public comment we appreciate everybody who came out and spoke um first up we have purchases and contracts so we have item 7A which is the network equipment and services for 214 Washington it is the recommendation of the administration that the Board of Education authorizes the superintendent or her designee to approve the purchase of network equipment for the 214 Washington building the purchase consists of a three-year contract for fiber fiber connectivity to Lincoln Center

024and Brook Brookside Network switching hardware for data communication and uninterrupted power supplies ups for power failures up to 30 minutes the total cost for this equipment will be 688 298.54 cents motion to approve motion by Mr riddle second second by Miss Fabian any comments or questions on the motion yes I have a comment of Mr President um um the um all of this this is procedure on stuff and I appreciate that but what I don't appreciate and um it is um it shouldn't be happening where uh board members are contacted before uh before the meeting and asked if they will approve this or not that is uh that should not be happening and as I told the individual that called me I will not give any kind of indication one way or another because as

025far as I'm concerned it is a um it's bordering on a violation of open meetings act because we are uh basically uh giving um giving consent of public money and so uh now and I told them that I would vote in the meeting and so I really we need to look at this practice that board members should not be called individually and asked um to what's a head nod uh uh okay or whatever we should not be doing that oh thank you word president um so we just had a concern about having a five-year contract that amounted to less than this and this is a three-year contract so can we just get some information should we need to cancel what Financial impact that's going to be Dr Clay this is coming to the microphone good

026evening president superintendent board members community members and colleagues the Fiber contract for is for three years and basically uh we also have igf Weber he's the representative uh from crown castle which is the company that will support the fiber installation for the district and we have all the contracts like we're existing contract with Dennis for 10 years and basically we have conversation with them to minimize the number of years so I know that there's policies that you have in your organization I don't know if you want to speak about the apps so that that can answer the question thank you sure the three-year link was chosen to give you flexibility but to still amortize the cost of building which in this case will tell you flat out we're building our overall expenses for this are

027above 300 000 and the just the construction of fibers 287 000. so in order to spread that out over a decent number of years we went with 36 because we wanted you to have lower monthly payments and to be negotiating from that point later if that's helpful thank you and I'll just briefly speak to um the the issue with polling wasn't the issue of polling is there's a Time sensitivity and so this was a special meeting and so the conversation was to not get a yes or no it still had to be brought before the board but I had committed to a limited scope in the meeting so it was not me a board member that was polling other board members it was a staff member that was calling the contact boards to make sure

028that they were informed because this was not previously discussed at a operations meeting so that if they had questions or concerns they would be able to answer so I want to be very clear as there is no violation of open meetings actors not polling of board members calling other board members to make sure that there was adequate support there was a timing concern we're getting this project done and so with this vote even by holding it right there was a delay but I want to be respectful of the process and just because a board member may agree to a program nothing is official and can be acted on until this body in a public meeting which is what is on the agenda tonight so um I do want to be clear with the I just

029want to be clear with what that process was so I appreciate you coming up and answering the question if there are no other questions how what the um the annual well the um how soon after this once it's installed right and as we know technology is ever evolving sure and so when can you anticipate that we're going to have to spend more money to upgrade sure from where we're getting ready to go into the building now and my concern for asking is simply the um the operating cost of the building sure do you like to yeah so this is a combination here so last year the Board of Education approved the installation of the second pathway for the fiber connectivity the primary pathway is coming from this building to all the buildings that's the primary

030one then we added a secondary from Brookside campus to all buildings that will actually improve our infrastructure to have redundancy 214 is not connected to needed to Lincoln Center or to Brookside campus so they expand the the cost that we're going to have is a one-time cost to establish that connectivity in the future if we open another building there's going to be additional cost but basically this isn't specific for the wire for the fiber connectivity that will provide the communication to the building so it's only the wiring well not not wiring the uh the fiber cables but if I could add to that the reason why current Castle was chosen as a as a vendor is because we're offering a dark fiber solution which I don't want to go too technically into weeds but the

031gist of it is most internet circuits like the ones you have at home or the ones a bank will have are limited by bandwidth dark fiber is only limited by your equipment so this is nothing is truly infinite but at this point it is many many many times what you could possibly use offered to you at a lower price and therefore is as future proof as you can get at this point for this if that makes sense okay so rather than sharing capacity on a Community Network as we do with our own home internet circuits or small businesses do you literally own lines of fiber between the schools and can do with them as you wish they're entirely yours so if that makes sense yes fourth president go ahead Mr riddle yeah so I that's

032the question I actually had was you're actually stringing wire fiber optic cable it's actually glass it's glass fiber optic cable it's actually we're actually stringing it it's not right do you have quite a bit from us already all of your other schools are connected actually I'm gonna grab apps wow this is the second pathway that we did and actually with the connection of 214 we're going to complete that project wow wow okay we call them laterals that's the thing you have to build if you could share I only brought pretty sorry it's my first school board game well welcome Hershey showed you the overall project the first sheet shows you the overall project at uh the yellow and I think blue are the are parts that are going to be used for this route that

033already exist overall 6.7 miles of fiber will be used for the route but we're only building 0.9 because we're your existing vendor and we're going to reuse other parts um the first lateral we're building is about 1 150 feet long it will cross one road and three intersections and the next one is three thousand five hundred feet long and it will cross seven intersections so that is the reason why we had a time crunch because after a certain point in order to move those kinds of trucks to dig up the ground to put things back you just need a certain amount of time and permits yeah that was Dr Cuevas you're in my brain and so um and so none of the none of the um none of the uh dark fibers and all that

034stuff um wouldn't be eligible for e-rate for this building no oh because we do not have students in this building there is some United States I think sixth largest recipient of e-rate funds right so we do quite a bit of this right I I I look forward to that Dr Cuevas yep and we're working very close out so our e-ray consultant that we're always looking to see if there's any cost that we can use or funds that we can use for e-rate for areas that are not covered but unfortunately at this moment for this building era would not cover uh on this initiative wow that's too bad broke a vote Mr McBride yes Miss Fabian yes Miss Gonzalez Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah no Miss lensing yes and the reason I'm voting yes is because

035the district is full steam ahead with the wraparound Center and it is nice to see that if we've had a long-standing productive relationship that we're honoring those contracts president Ewing yes item approved motion carries thank you item 7B renewal of amplify education thank you everyone assessments for 23-24 school year it is a recommendation of the administration at the Board of Education authorizes superintendent of her designee to approve the renewal of amplify education reading assessment for 23-24 school year in the amount of 79 120 ocean to approve motion moment second second by Miss Hannah any comments the questions on the motion I have a question in the attachment it has information regarding the PSAT and the College Board Suite is that a part of this approval because it's TBD on there and the only figure matching

036the one on there is the first slide for amplify good evening no it's not so this was an item that was presented as student achievement June 20th and we accidentally forgot to put it on the consent agenda during the June 27th meeting so the three slides that you see there Dr Brown had three different assessments that he was presenting at student achievement that evening so there's three slides for each one of those assessment pieces the slide that the first slide is the one that pertains to this particular item thank you for clarifying that for us you're welcome thank you I'd like to go ahead Miss I just like the I don't have a question I have a comment um I was able to network with um amplify at a conference and um they are uh

037well put together well worth the um the funds that we expend to them and um and the only thing is uh wish we could see some data that shows specifically with what amplify is doing that it is impacting positively the students thank you for the support thank you Miss Anna thank you Dr not roll call vote Mr McBride yes Miss Fabian yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss lensing yes and I do accla miss Hannah's request that as we look to renew things we bring information on how they're serving our students in our district president Ewing yes I have approved motion carry 7c purchase of 100 teacher laptops it is a recommendation of the administration at the Board of Education authorizes superintendent or her designee to approve the purchase of 100 laptops for newly

038newly hired teachers the total cost for this purchase is a hundred and seventeen thousand nine hundred dollars motion to approve motion my Mr riddle second second month is Fabian then comments or questions on the motion um I have a question go ahead Miss Lindsay uh so can we just get clarification why we are getting 100 laptops for the new teachers if they are replacing other staff in the district what happens to those laptops that prior staff members had good evening again so the the logistics behind the 100 laptops currently in our inventory we have 30 laptops left so we don't want to be low with our inventory when uh the district hired new teachers so if we fill all the positions we just want to be ready with your question is something happens with the

039teacher's laptop our technicians are certified to fix and repair those laptops if we cannot repair the laptop then we will take from one of these 100 that we have or the 30 that we have available and we're going to provide one we we have a a refreshment cycle for all the teachers that's coming in the near future so that's basically in our technology plan but it's not going to happen this year Dr clevis explained refreshment cycle so the refreshment cycle the computers they have uh an end of life the end of life is when the manufacturer cannot support the operating system so that means that we cannot uh install updates and also we're going to lose the control to monitor the data and that can create a security issue for our Network infrastructure and that's

040why we we must upgrade those devices when the operating system is no longer supported by the manufacturer and I just wanted to be for the board and for the community members that sometimes we use language and and and in a bank right I understand in the system in which we all have laptops that that is something pretty much we're on a two to two and a half year rotation and so what that means and I know we have some that are older so when you guys get that bill right and when it comes forward before the board is what we talk about with an ongoing cost it's not a computer that you buy and you keep until it dies after five or six or seven or eight years these are laptops that will be needing

041to be replaced somewhat more frequently that's correct and with the teacher's laptop is going to happen at once once when once we do the upgrade thank you Miss Anna uh question um um and I ran into this a real issue okay for the um and I'm referencing the iPads right but I'm going to ask the same question for the laptops the new laptops are they going to be are they going to have the capacity to be able to um do all the things and that's not no storage yes the storage capacity um because I know I ran into that with um with the old iPad versus the new iPad and I chose to keep my old one because I have more storage capacity and stuff is that going to be the same that's that's part

042of the that's part of the criteria to select what laptop model we're going we're going to we're going to use there's always limitation with the hardware storage that's why we use a combination with Google Drive so we asked our staff members our teachers that when when they want to save something it is better to use Google Drive for multiple reasons one is backup if you have a local store file on your laptop and something happened to that laptop and you don't have a backup you're going to lose that file so it's just when we're going through the selection process to identify what laptop model we're going to use there is a criteria different criteria that we'll need to follow what software the teachers are using and not only we need to pick a laptop that

043is going to help us at the moment we also need to work with teaching with teaching and learning and ask them what additional software you're planning to use in the next three four years so that we're going to have a hardware that is going to be ready to support the future and and I'm asking because and I know you're talking about the refresh and all that okay and I already know that technology it costs a lot of money a lot of money and I guess my concern in my head is about the sustainability of um of the refreshing system and process and all of that through the um the future okay we're not gonna be where we are now in terms of our budget okay we're not going to be there and so we need

044to be mindful of that and that's the only reason why I'm saying that and and that's a good point and in the last several years with the support of the superintendent the board the information technology department have put together a very uh solid technology plan and the infrastructure that we have in place today we're ready for the future okay okay yeah and my final comment is is reflective of technology is unfortunately a utility as much as it is a luxury uh in today's modern society and we're in the world our students will be entering into and so while it is a cost and Santa is 100 correct is it is one that you have to uh prioritize I would hope that the board continues to make technological investment a priority for district 60. so uh

045I do appreciate Dr Cuevas as always and these are given the teachers the tools that they need in order to be able to do their jobs effectively and I think that's important so and they will be trained right there's always training if there's a new software training will be available okay yes thank you roll call Mr McBride yes Miss Fabian yes Mr riddle yes Miss Hannah yes Miss lensing yes president Ewing yes I have approved motion carries item 7D approval of the intergovernmental agreement between the city of Waukegan School District 60 for 2023 2024 school year it is a recommendation of the administration at the Board of Education authorized the superintendent and board president to approve a one-year renewable extension of the existing intergovernmental agreements IGA with the city of Waukegan to support Public Safety

046Services and emergency response Services potential cost is 186 dollars and 20 cents I make that motion motion but Mrs Hannah second second by Mr riddle any comments or questions on the motion go ahead Miss Lindsay at since our last meeting where we talked about sros I've actually been called in to conversations where we have some individuals that are very appreciative of some of the sros work they shared with me some things where our sros are looking out for the kids where they are making sure they have food getting some haircuts and these are traits that I would align with officer Mike Jones I've also had call-in conversations where individuals are expressing even the same SRO cursing at students in the hallways so I will be voting yes because it is a one-year term I have

047serious expectations of this board of this district and of the Waukegan Police Department to refine what we currently have in place because having the SRO in the school does not automatically equate to safety that is a much larger conversation we as an entire Community need to be having thank you Miss Lindsay any other comments or questions related to this item it was reconsidered instead of a multi-year contract to um go to the one year contract and so I will be supporting this are supported as well um given that it'll be one year and it is an eye towards uh what what what sros look like in District 60 I think um Miss Lindsay made a very valid point as sros have been in District 64 a very long time but we want to make sure

048that that is the best use of taxpayer resources from the city or the district and it actually aligns with the safer environment for our students as Miss Gonzalez always reminds us is safety is just not related to policing right and we want to make sure that we think about it much more broadly and so although she's not here she did say if she was she would have supported this as well so uh with that roll call vote Mr McBride yes Miss Fabian yes Mr riddle yes Miss Anna yes Miss Lindsay yes president Ewing yes item approved motion carries um we are now at item 10A and other approval settlement agreement and release with like Joseph J Architects it is a recommendation of the administration that the Board of Education a proven authorized the board president

049to sign the waiver and release agreement between the Board of Education Waukegan Community School District 60. a Leggett Joseph J Architects any amount of sixty thousand I make that motion motion by Miss Hannah second by Mr McBride any comments or questions on the motion roll call vote Mr McBride Miss Fabian yes Mr riddle I'm gonna pass Miss Hannah yes Miss Lindsay yes with a comment um I'm going to just reiterate the expectation that we are looking for ways where we reduce these instances of settlements to ensure that when we are working with fellow community members organizations companies Etc that everything is clear and done by the book president Ewing yes item approved motion carries can I take a minute of your time unfortunately Mr Leggett public comment has passed uh and the board did act

050but I will if you stick around and I don't know because we gotta huh I know right and so we moved through that so Mr Leggett unfortunately that part in the program or in the agenda has passed but I will stick around if there's anything that you would like to say to me um after the meeting I'll just give you a set of plans thank you Mr Leggett and I do want to say thank you for your years of service and contributions to Waukegan Public Schools thank you Miss Leggett thank you all right we are at reports and presentations um there are no committee reports uh I'm going to ask Miss Hannah to hold delegates reports and then we have the superintendents report uh this is uh one of those things where I do want

051to address something that was stated during public comment is one of the things that we struggle with is when new information is introduced to the board versus when and new information is introduced to the public and that is The Balancing Act and so because this was new information we wanted the board to have an opportunity to hear it to see it to understand it there are no actions that are being taken with regards to the plan um but we are reviewing it for the first time with the community um now there will be future and I'm sure the superintendent will speak to this is this is not the only time that this plan is going to be spoken of or brought up or discussed it is just the first and so there will be a

052number of community events and opportunities for individuals to come out to question and ask questions and to be a part of the process so I do want to make that part very clear is that this is the first it is not the only and this was a request by the board that the board not be blindsided with new information Miss Hannah yes and I respect what you said Mr President however in all of our conferences and um in isby and all of that that new information or presentations are not supposed to be made during a board business meeting and that they should all be done in committee meetings and regardless of whether this is the first time that we are hearing it or not this is the inappropriate meeting for this to be um this

053to be um uh presented and it actually should be put on the uh student achievement um meeting for the 25th so there was there's no student achievement meeting the 25th this was supposed to be presented at the last board meeting but because time did not allow we literally had this meeting just to get this presentation the board was made of wearing that ample opportunity if there was a request to let me know that they wanted to hold it over and have it presented on a different format Unfortunately today yes sir so you called me today yeah but I want to be clear with the community is because I I made very clear what was happening is this was supposed to be at our last board meeting we did not do it at the last board

054meeting because it's a 60 page important document we at that time stated that we would be carrying over the superintendent report the board had the report as asked for and delivered by the board president so I just want to go is when and the reason I'm being as transparent and open with this process is because I'm accused of not doing things or doing things or hiding things and when there is a difference of opinion I want to be clear with what my intent was even if it it you know other people disagree so if the board would have liked to hold this over for student achievement and operations I did not know that superintendent is prepared to present I'm prepared to receive it I think it's important and as I mentioned this is not the

055only time and I I won't even State the other piece but when we state things as factual some boards don't actually have committee meetings right we do though right but then when you say that all boards do or that that's the only way that you have presentations I just want to be clear is that it is we design what that looks like and so not all boards have committees so I'm going to ask that we allow the superintendent to present the report unless there's a majority of board members for that would like us to hold the report over can I ask a point of yes ma'am so just to verify are we adding this to the next scheduled student achievement meeting to engage the community based on what they heard from the report this evening

056there was not a plan to do it at the next student achievement meeting which is not until August right and so there were between now and even our first meeting in August opportunities that the superintendent was presenting for the community members to come out and hear the plan so if we want to my suggestion would not be to wait to a student achievement meeting to engage with the community there are other ways that we can engage by providing a number of opportunities to review the plan to come out and hear the plan to ask questions about the plan I liken it too when we did the um student support plan about a year ago where they had multiple events at different times throughout the districts which allow parents multiple community members multiple opportunities to come

057out and engage not just a Tuesday night at a board meeting which we know are not necessarily the most well attended okay so what I'm hearing is we're going to have a set number of dates that Ms friscoe is definitely going to be made aware of where those interested engaging in conversation regarding this topic will have plenty of opportunities that are varied yes I don't want to speak for the superintendent but because the question was to me yes that is the commitment if we all looked at this self-explanatory all this everything I read it is involved in the community everything that I read is involved in the entire Community we just had someone come to the podium respectfully Mr McBride that says she was not engaged in this conversation so it's our responsibility as a

058board when a constituent says I'm not being heard to engage them in that conversation and one person not being engaged is not an isolated event to start for everybody yes yes and I am just making sure that after we have this presentation we are committing as a board to ensure that the superintendent offers opportunities to re-engage the community if they weren't previously and to ensure but but I I understand but we need to make sure that it is very clearly safe include all stakeholders not just miss friscoe were you aware of the conversations or opportunities that were involved in this presentation tonight and and I think this is part of the issue right and I don't want to speak to it uh but what I will say is this was under executive content right and

059so part of the confusion it's because this was not made public right the board had an opportunity which was a part of the request is that if the superintendent was introducing new information it'd be made to the board so that when we are getting to this boardroom we've had time to digest it and ask questions versus a lot of times there's confusion because it's the first time we're even seeing the presentation so that presentation was then given out which is why right I'm not negating that but it was given and that's where some of the confusion is right I think have we had it had allowed the presentation to happen had allowed the board to even ask questions to provide greater Clarity there would be a better understanding as to a PowerPoint with a lot

060of words but no context which has created the point that's making as Miss Briscoe wasn't involved in the conversations because it was an internal conversation that is now turning out to the community so Mr McBride uh the outside of the board it knows to put the plan together I don't know how many people have actually seen it and again miss Briscoe had it and she had some concerns and so what we are saying is that there will be an opportunity for the community to get their concerns addressed ask any questions it's because this can't be the first time this is an important topic it is a critical topic to our district it was one of the superintendent's goals so it is a priority and so this is not a one and done conversation and so

061with that I'm going to ask if we can get the presentation up and then superintendent and your team are going to ask if you all can take us through it thank you thank you I'm president Ewing um so I'm gonna deliver this presentation along with two of my colleagues Dr Noel mstasia builds and we're going to cover our African-American initiative because words matter and before I came into the meeting um I'm just going to stand up and doing a lot of praying on this I've been brainstorming with my team I've been working with some of our men of color in our district looking at this plan and I have to say I've been in education over 20 years but I am not a black man and I do not know um what it is to

062be a black man I do have a son and I struggle to understand him at times and so I'm saying this from a place of vulnerability transparency um and I think that's why it's so important as we go through the plan that you understand my thinking and what we were looking at as we put this initiative together and what all has to take place in order for us to have a solid plan because in order to create a plan we have to engage those stakeholders that are going to be involved in that plan and who are those stakeholders those are blackmail students those are our black male staff members those are our black male administrators those are our fathers parents Guardians our community organizations so we cannot come out with this plan to say hey

063this is what you need and this is what we're going to do for you um it's for me if someone could have created this plan we would have closed the achievement gap an opportunity Gap in this nation a year two years three years ago so I'm going to walk you through some of our best thinking on um why we know this is important and you're absolutely right Miss Frisco when you came here four years ago and but we're going to talk about how we get there when we get there and who we're going to engage in order to ensure that our black male students in District 60 are successful they're supported they're included and they see themselves in the curriculum and have a chance at the community at large and the global Society at large

064that we don't even know the jobs that are going to be present we're not even ready for the jobs that will be in demand for when they graduate um high school so let me walk through this a little bit and as I said I'm going to have some of my colleagues help me with this I'm just going to lay out the agenda and I'm not going to read to you because this is a very long presentation but we're going to just cover the background in research we're going to cover the supporting data because we really think it's important to understand what are National Trends and what are the trends in District 60. um of course you know this was one of my goals that the Board of Education had adopted from this previous school year

065in which I was to um visit with school-based leadership and discuss how are we supporting our black male students within their schools what supports what resources they need how are they looking at the data really looking at their theory of action on how they're going to move their academic the academic Needle on the student group and then we're going to talk about that piece Miss Frisco on the community engagement right so no this is not the first time you will hit this I mean hear this and see this and it may not be completely baked out because after we do the interviews and we engage in the community and I see Mr McIntyre in the back and I even see one of our parents and a student and you know a lot of this may

066shift right because once we talk to who we are to our stakeholders and who we're engaging that platform May completely look a bit different and then we're going to look at what are some indicators for Success because for us to walk away at this point and not say Hey listen this is where we're going to put the academic needle and this is what our expectation is and this is what we're shooting for to me would be negligent on our part and be would be once more just pushing back another year and I'm not trying to push back another year I'm really trying to push forward and lean into it intentionally um and then we are going to look at a timeline and a draft budget and the draft budget does come from some of the

067conversation that we've had here as a board as that we drop budgets to support a number of initiatives but we never see a draft budget specifically for this initiative and we I've heard this from Mr McBride I've heard this from Miss Hannah voice this and so we really wanted to be intentional in saying this is this is what we're doing this is where this is the money that's going for this initiative so now we're going to go to the background and research and in this you see our mission in which we state that we're preparing students for tomorrow and it's our top priority I'll let you go ahead and read that and this is in our strategic plan and then we're going to go to our core values and I think it's this we believe

068that all children can live can learn and if we say that we believe all children can learn then we need to meet them where they are and ensure that they are learning in an environment that's conducive for them to excel and then we'll go into the superintendent go if you've never seen that goal this was a goal that was set by the Board of Education and I'll just let you read that in which it talks about me meeting with building leadership to create a cohesive blackmail student achievement plan and at this point I'm going to turn it over to Tasia who's going to talk about some of the work that she's been doing within her department and an equity assessment that she did within the district good afternoon everyone my name is Tasia fields and

069I'm the director of equity and inclusion so back in 2021 when the department of equity and inclusion was established one of the very first initiatives that we committed to was the equity audit you all may remember there's that big report that came out and what we did during that time is we gathered feedback through surveys and focus groups I believe some of our community members here were participated in that and this study it really identified a number of areas of concerns regarding the experiences and outcomes of our African-American students so I do want to lift up although this is the beginning of us laying out an intentional plan this is not the beginning of this work I hope that you as a community feel affirmed and supported we hear you and that's what we're saying

070in being intentional about putting this plan together um so with this some of the things that we want to come come out of this uh specific achievement plan is obviously reducing the achievement Gap right we want to make sure that our African-American students are performing at grade level in comparison to their peers we want to increase our graduation rate for our African-American males we want to make sure that we are increasing our recruitment efforts and retaining diverse uh teacher populations and providing supports to our schools so that we can have inclusive environments where our African-American students can thrive and we also want to establish an equity dashboard to assist with regular monitoring of the supports and the trends among our African-American students next slide foreign and so like I said before although this is the

071beginning of us being intentional about this work this is not the first time we're looking at this so what you see here is a list of a number of initiatives and work that has been ongoing when it comes to supporting um our African-American students so our curriculum mapping our Middle School redesign our high school transformation the establishment of using smarty goals that means us being Equitable and inclusive in our practices all of this will improve outcomes for our African-American students our school Improvement plan that review process I've worked very diligently with our administrators and making sure we're being intentional in the supports we put in place for our African-American students in addition to site-based budgeting I know that's not something we think about often but that is something that is going to improve outcomes for

072our various student groups and so that you have heard us say before I mean I believe since we started that we're building the instructional core if we have a strong core we'll have strong academics and we'll have better student achievement right and when we look at Equity that's just not enough that's just not enough for all students and we know that and we know um pre-pandemic during the pandemic and post-smart pandemic our most marginalized student group was hit the hardest during this time and so you're absolutely right coming out fours years later we know that this group needs more support than ever even prior to the pandemic so as a result what are we going to do we're going to ensure that we're streamlining resources to provide more intentional services and resources so we're just

073not looking at students as a whole student group we're looking at specific students what is going on with Malachi what is going on with John creating databases to track individual student performance at specific schools and as we get into this you'll see the breakdown of why we're looking at this we're going to also strengthen the our tiered intervention systems really looking at how do we support academic social emotional behavior supports along with extending learning opportunities morning opportunities afternoon opportunities evening opportunities Saturday opportunities right but most of all we're going to constantly progress monitor this specific student group how are they doing I mean and I'm not talking every 10 weeks I'm talking about from week to week really looking at the data dashboards that we have built out to support this initiative and then more

074than ever we're going to continue to work with our internal School communities right so I'm talking about building leadership but and this is something that our board president has echoed and echoed and echoed um that we have to get better at partnering with outside's communities to ensure that we're supporting um our in this initiative our black male population within District 60. I'll turn it back over to you for the research next slide so we know that the research tells us that we must acknowledge the truth that race and ethnicity matter that's just just plain and simple it matters and it plays a part in how we are educating our students so there are two um important ways that we want to acknowledge that and so one is the influence on students response to instruction so

075so what am I saying I'm saying that a student's racial and ethnic background plays a crucial role in how they engage how they respond to the curriculum okay cultural experiences values Norms all of those vary across racial and ethnic groups and so that affects a student's learning style maybe their preference right so we need to recognize those differences and equip our our teachers to be able to provide um tailored instruction right so that their practices and approaches are inclusive to the learning environment so how do we do that culturally responsive teaching practices that's key and so what is that you you hear that often right but what does that mean that means you're approaching education and way that recognizes and values the diverse cultural backgrounds of our students so we are valuing their student experiences

076we're making sure that they're seeing themselves in the curriculum okay and promoting these practices and also connecting the curriculum to their lived experience um the second way that race and ethnicity matter is that it does play an influence on teachers assumptions about students and their ability levels so I'm talking about biases here okay so we all have conscious and unconscious bias we all have that right but sometimes these assumptions they can affect the way we perceive students ability to learn these assumptions can shape a teacher's expectations the way they choose to structure instruction right and so by acknowledging this impact and influence we can better equip our teachers to overcome these biases and be intentional about creating a more inclusive learning environment for our students next slide and so with that with with all of

077this research if we understand how race affects teaching and learning right we are being more culturally responsive in our practices we're promoting uh supportive learning conditions what will happen what will we see right so we will see um African-American children uh excel in school if we do these things these are the things that will happen we will see an increase in child Readiness for school all of those proficiency scales those things will increase our freshmen on track will increase the way students respond and Report their sense of belonging and cultural culture and climate surveys those things will increase and our ultimately our graduation rate will increase so the next set of slides we're going to look at is all about National Norms you can um and again this should be affirming to some of the

078concerns that we see here now this is not okay this is not good data at all and we acknowledge that but we need to be informed about it and so we want to speak to a little bit what's happening at a national scale which is very um on Trend with what we see here in Waukegan so you'll see um in this next set of slides we'll see that the achievement Gap continues to persist among African-American students performing lower academically in comparison to other rates we will see a disproportionate rate in African-American students when it comes to discipline and we will also see a lower graduation rate among African-American students next slide so when you look at this slide here you see a number of graphs and these graphs just simply speak to the Gap in

079achievement between black and white students this is something that remains nationally next slide and then in this slide you will see that black students are far more likely to be suspended expelled and arrested than their white peers even when accused of similar Behavior so this is a trend nationally that we see next slide and then we look at the Norms in graduation data so nationally black students have a lower on-time graduation rates while their Dropout rates are higher than other student groups so this this is all a problem nationally and so the next set of slides you can go to the next one we're going to actually look at what this looks like here so our data here in Waukegan Public Schools which is no different than what what I just showed you nationally but

080again in order to know and better understand what we need to do we need to really understand where we are thank you good evening everyone Jason North associate superintendent um so as taser mentioned the next several slides are going to be just some local data so data that we see here in Waukegan and you will see similar Trends to what you see nationally as you see here in Waukegan which again affirms the work that we're trying to do this first slide really just represents our African-American enrollment historically in the district so you can look at the last five years and you can see not only at the state level but also here in Waukegan the number of African-American students in our district is declining over time so that's something that we just wanted to be

081cognizant of as we move forward with the plan next slide this slide represents enrollment data broken down by demographic so of the of the enrollment current enrollment that we have in Waukegan this slide represents the um demographic data so the Center Bar there that you see Circle that may be difficult to see where you're sitting but the Center Bar there represents our African-American students we have approximately 2057 African-American students in the district as of 22 23. next slide same exact slide except just now this is our male population so when we look at our when we look at male students in the district our African-American male students we have approximately 1079 African African-American male students currently in the district our male female population is kind of split almost equally was slightly more males next slide

082this is a breakdown of a number of African-American males that we have across the district by grade level so you can start at the top with our Pre-K students and kindergarten all the way through High School gives you a sense again of a number of students that we have in each grade band in Waukegan Public Schools again a lot of this information is just historical kind of setting the context so people have an understanding of of where we are as a district next slide please the next two slides are going to show you the um moving from left to right the the number of students enrolled in each School in the district um the percentage of those students that are African-American and the percentage of those students that are African-American males all right so it's

083broken down by school again a number of student percentage of students that a total enrollment percentage of students that are African-American and then the number of African-American male students in each school and these this slide represents our elementary schools Jason can I jump yes I also think that's as I was visiting visiting schools and really like breaking down the data of how many African-American males are at each School some of us may have a perception that Carmen Butner Buckner has a larger African-American male population but when you look at it it would be like Linwood or even little fort right so where are our African-American males located and at what schools and in which which communities right what's Community School communities and this was really eye-opening for me because I will say that I was

084even drawing my own perceptions so I was really diving into the data and having those conversations at the school level thank you a good point [Music] um now can you use the microphone the um what I'm asking in terms of the count of the students um and Clear View and Glenwood little fort McCall and Oak Oakdale are those students bust into those schools did you by any chance look at that so I'm sure there is some busting taking place what percentage of the bus saying no I couldn't answer for that for you right now but we as you know Miss Hannah we do work off a community um school right neighborhoods right neighborhood schools so majority of schools do go to school in the community that they live in or the area that dictates that

085they go to little Port Etc but that is a good point that we could look at to see how many are being bust what I do know is that previously um because lion was termed a magnet school many of our African-American students that lived in that Community would be bussed over to Clearview or would you know bypass Washington we did we um I we identified those lines and we stopped that busing practice as a board probably um I want to say maybe five to six years ago right um so those are some of the equity pieces that we had been working on to ensure that our students did have access to the schools in their neighborhoods thank you good question Miss Hannah the next slide is the same exact information just for our middle schools

086and our high schools so you can see again once again the break the total enrollment at each school and then the breakdown of the percentage of African-American students percentage of African-American males the counts etc for our middle schools and our high schools next slide um go go back for me yep I'm not going to insert or interject uh go forward Mr White um I just want to prove a point that was earlier so if we say that what was it eight percent I forget the percentage um but only 13 students are African-American in District 60. we look at Ombudsman ultimate plus and row of the 47 15 of them are uh are black eight of them are black males that's a 17 so again it shows the disparity when you look at the outplacement and

087I just want to call that out so people who don't know what Ombudsman is that's an alternative placement program thank you board president thank you president uni all right the next slides are similar format except these slides represent um the acronym a number of African-American students with IEPs in their enrollment in our schools so again you'll have the total enrollment on the far left uh percentage of African-American students that have an IEP within that school and then the percentage of African-American males that have an IEP in that school as well we know that um historically Waukegan has has received feedback from SB related to disproportionality in terms of the number of African-American males that are being identified as needing special needs diverse learner services and programming so this slide kind of paints that picture and

088at each one of our sites and let's let us know the number of students at those schools that have IEPs the number of those percentage of the students that are African-American males Etc next slide and the next slide is again the same information just for our middle schools and our high schools next slide please now we're going to get into our student achievement data and this data that you're seeing here on the bottom represents all African-American students in the district not just males but this is both male and female so looking at that the bottom portion there is where you'll see our African-American student performance and at the top is the entire District so you can see the um the last four years worth of iar data uh in in the area of English and

089can see how our students have been performing what we're looking for here is that we would want we want to see more students in that dark green and and I guess light green colored Spectrum as we go through and implement the plan our goal is to improve the number of students specifically African-American male students that are reaching excuse me proficiency on on standardized assessments including iar so this is Ela data you will notice that we have seen increases the last two years in the number of students that are meeting and exceeding standards from 7.6 in 2021 to 8.1 in 2022 we have not yet received our official iar data yet from the state we are in the process of submitting all end of year data right now to izb and they will be providing us

090uh when the report card gets released in October we'll have new data to look at as a district not only student achievement data graduation on track all those different metrics that usually come on the report card will be coming out here in the fall so this is iar students in grades three through eight on English next slide is iar math same thing the bottom half represents African-Americans student performance as a whole and the top is the the district the entire District we have seen gains here as well actually significant gains here in math uh the last couple the last couple years as it relates to the performance of our African-American students from 0.2 percent um meeting exceeding standards to 4.1 in 2022 so we're hoping to see some increases there when the new numbers come

091out next slide uh same achievement data but now we're talking high schoolers rsat data the bottom half represents African-American students again uh in the top half is the district as a whole you can see again the last four years historically how our students have performed on Sat again our our goal here is to get more and more students in that proficiency range that are meeting and exceeding standards and also have students that are in those lower performing tiers and progress more towards proficiency so they're showing growth along the way as well so this is sat English data and again I will know we have we have shown some improvement here uh 2.3 median exceeding and 21 to 4 meeting exceeding in 22. and I do want to stay I'd be remusified and interject even though

092um Dr nault saying we see some improvement it's still not good data correct and so I want to make that very clear and we're conscious of that when he's stating that he's just stating that if we look from one year to another but it's still not acceptable and we understand that yes and I also want to point out here because further down in the presentation you're going to see some of our indicators of success and you're going to see some targets that we've set for ourselves in some of those areas and what you'll notice is that some of those targets line up with the the the performance that we're seeing here over time right so the target is attainable it's reachable because we're seeing some similar growth in some of these scores here and again

093we're not happy with the numbers we do think the numbers are unacceptable of course and that's the whole purpose to getting more intentional with this work um I say team man did we talk SAT Math yeah so same slide this is SAT Math uh same exact uh format in terms of where the scores are being represented here um we have uh 1.1 meeting exceeding in 2021 3.2 meeting seating 2022 um and again this is one of our indicators of success that you'll see moving forward next slide uh freshman on track so on this slide you will see um fresh uh uh freshman on track percentages for our African-American students overall as well as our African-American male students so the light blue the far left column is uh wps60 overall so all freshmen uh in the

094district over the last four years you'll see our freshmen on track numbers the dark blue is the performance of African-American students overall and then the Orange is our African-American male students overall so you'll see how the number of students I'm sorry the percentage of students that have been on track not only as an entire District the last four years but also amongst our African-American students specifically males and Dr now please explain did you touch on why this isn't I didn't um so freshman on track is a it's a research-based indicator um it's part of the reason we we partnered with the network for college success out of the University of Chicago is to see some significant improvements in our freshmen on track and what the research will tell you around freshman on track is that

095if a student is on track after their freshman year by on track meaning they have acquired at least five credits and they have not failed more than one semester of a core course they are four to five times more likely to graduate with their peers than a student who is not on track at the end of their freshman year so freshman year is extremely important for long-term the long-term success of our students not only through high school but then also obviously advancing After High School to post-secondary aspirations as well and what we we've also found is that being on track is is one uh successful indicator but if they can also be on track with a 3.0 or higher the chances of them going to college and persisting and being successful in college is that

096much more greater than just graduating from high school as well so it's not just about being on track the shift and the focus now at the high school is going to be yes continuing to see improvements in the on track numbers but also having student GPA being looked at for our freshman year as well to try to get as many students as in that b or better range as possible because we know that'll lead to post-secondary outcomes if they if they um if they get that so this is our fot data for the last four years what's your question say it again okay this listing is supporting our rule to whole question okay thank you all right um next slide is African-American attendance so we can see how our African-American students are attending school the

097percentage rates are what they're attending school compared to at the state level we do have District district level data here as well um I should have included a bar here where we had state district and then African-American students overall than African-American males just so you could see the entire progression but we do have um attendance for at the district level overall of course about how the number of students present attending on a daily basis but here you'll see again the dark blue is our African-American students the last two years and the Orange is our African-American male students the last two years in terms of their attendance now I will say this if you look at this slide in the previous slide we have seen increases in both of these areas for our African-Americans and African-American

098males in general we want to continue to push that bar and set that bar even higher for not only African-American students but all students in the district all right this next slide represents a four-year graduation rate um so this is the percentage of students that have graduate within four years at the district you can see our African-American students and this is not males this is all African-American students um you can see that that percentage is in the center of the graph there with 61 61.3 percent of our African-American male students graduating in four years again a number that we're we're not satisfied with right and what we should see with that freshman on track number going up and it takes time right because when they're freshmen there's a three years four three to three year

099cycle before they become seniors if that freshman on track number increases the research says that graduation rate should be increasing as well so we should see the results of of we should see if if our fot is going up we should see improved graduation rates over time as well okay this is I was looking at this number and I I say oh so we have 61 students that graduated is that what that is for you uh percentage Yeah what is the actual number so 61 if we if we look back at our earlier slide we had roughly 2 000 African-American students in the district 61 of 2000 is someone help me here 1200. thank you but that yeah that's not the right statistic if we can come back with that number but it's in the

100double digits Miss Hannah it's only 70 some I think as that were seniors so if you take 61 of that right but uh Miss Hannah has requested that we use numbers and percentages so if that's okay yeah we can do okay that's what's missing yep okay and the noted and we we had some slides where we do have counts and some that we did and this one this one I believe we've just pulled the snapshot right off the as we report card um so we can get the actual accounts for you as well next slide is the number of percentage of African-Americans that graduate in five years right so of those students that aren't graduating in four years um the district the state also calculates a five-year graduation rate and a six-year graduation rate for

101students that for whatever reason don't graduate with their cohort the state continues to monitor when and if they do graduate um and there's data for that as well next slide so this pertains to our discipline data and this was what Tasia mentioned obviously in the research that supports nationally that we see that African-American student interdisciplined at higher rates than their peers what you see in front of you is the last two years the number of students that have received in-school suspension versus the number of students that have received out of school suspension and the goal here is to obviously increase the number of students that are the goal is to eliminate discipline infractions altogether correct but if there is a consequence that needs to be handed out that we would like we would want to

102see the in-school suspension numbers increasing and we would want to see the out-of-school suspension numbers decrease increasing decreasing excuse me um I know there's been conversations about the grow program that alternative suspension program that's a strategy that we're looking at as part of this plan as well to specifically help with this metric okay the next two next two slides um are going to reference the Essa designations and just to refresh the board a little bit on Essa every year our schools receive an Essa designation from the state that is tied to specific metrics around for student performance um student quality indicators Etc so our asset designations are going to be coming out and being released with the new report cards in October every school will get a new designation from where they are now so

103I wanted to show take a minute just to show on the board and the community where we've been with our asset designations the last couple of couple years uh and as a side note during the pandemic during um 1920 and 2021 is be um they waived all the designations schools across all of Illinois did not get designations due to the pandemic so what you'll see in the purple is the designations and the priority groups that were identified for our schools in 2018 and 2019 and then on the right in the in the yellow you'll see the designations and the priority priority groups that were identified for our schools in 2122 which was the last time that we got designations one of the things that I I think it's really important to point out here is

104that pre-pandemic 2018-2019 if you look at that priority group column you'll see that almost all of our middle schools had African-American students as a priority group so in other words that was a group that the state identified as needing some targeted and intensive support um we concur right we concur that that's still the case today um and you can see their designations as well they were all targeted in 2018 2019 all the schools you see on the left the high school Edith Smith Jack Benny John Lewis Juarez Robert Abbott uh the last designations to receive in 21-22 we've had some schools that made Improvement and we had some schools that didn't and we had some schools that stayed the same 21-22 uh our high school went from targeted to commendable and they had no priority

105student groups and then you'll see Edith Smith maintained their designation however um African-American students were not a priority group as identified by the state for Edith Smith and you'll see the same for Benny I'm sorry for the same for Lewis and the same for Abbott again that's not to say that there's not work to do we know that there's work to do it's just simply pointing out that there has been some progress made with some of our African-American students and some of our schools and the state is identifying and recognizing that those are no longer priority groups for those schools we view them as still a priority group for all of our for our entire District so regardless of what the state says we still have African-American students that fall into that DL category so

106even though African-American may have fallen off the DL category is still there for a lot of our schools right so that means just looking at Edith Smith for example they have DL and El students as a priority student group for 2122 they'll be getting new priority groups for 22 and 23 when we get that data but it just shows you kind of Paints the picture of where we've been the last couple years pre-pandemic and post pandemic next slide this is our elementary schools you'll see that the majority of our elementary schools are commendable back in 2018 2019 Carmen did have African-American students as a priority group that is no longer the case now however we're going to continue to focus on the students that um that are at Carmen that need support next slide this

107is our elementary school designation history again you can just see the side-by-side comparison of where they were we see Clark in there as one of our District's only exemplary School I'm confident I don't want to say this but I'm confident we're going to have a couple more schools that are actually exemplary okay I'm not going to say it all right I won't say it um we have some initial initial beliefs that there may be some good data that coming from some of our elementary schools so we're hopeful that we get more schools in that in that category um so you can see our history here um and the next section I'm going to turn it back over to the superintendent once again you've seen the goal so as a result of the goal I just

108really got to go back out in the fill then do what I do best and work with school principals look at data and look at the core that they're building to support their students right and so basically this just shows can you go to the next slide thank you this just shows um the schools I mean I visit all our schools in our district I had conversations with our principals even had follow-up back meetings to maybe visit ilt meetings which are instructional leadership team meetings or the mtss team meetings to see how they problem solve and how they're looking at data so this just basically shows um when I was out there how many schools I've seen and the conversations that took place in regards to um the goal that was set so now I'm

109going to talk about some of the findings and some of the glows so as you've seen when Dr note was going through the designations four out of five of our middle schools no longer have black students as a priority group so we're proud of that but we need to maintain that right we also when I was out there I'm also heard and seen that we are having a positive impact with the services that are provided by bam and wow and Asian Human Services and as we move forward we know we're not working with Asian Human Services but we have we will be working with the Johnson Center for the upcoming school year um buildings were triangularly triangulating their data they were looking at their academic data tying it to their social emotional data and looking

110at attendance data to see the impact it had with attendance right I mean with student achievement for African-American male students so that was um positive for me because sometimes depending on how you look at the data you can get one picture but if you do not triangulate it to get a whole picture you can miss something but something that did come out of that um out of that Insight was that each building I went to the way principals looked at data was very different and how they organized their data to be stored was different type of excel sheets so one thing that we did and I don't know if it's in here is that we created a data dashboard in which it will um it was already rolled out to all of our schools that

111will track individualized data for all of our African-American male students and it's going to go very granular right are they from a one-parent household two parent household ward of the state what intervention students what interventions are they receiving are they in extracurricular activities what is the attendance what is any truancy problems what are the incentives or interventions that have been have been laid out to work with this student so it's basically a student portfolio that will track each each student at each school-based site and then I kind of got into the last one building leadership started identified supports for students either before school after school Saturday school SEL groups Etc and then we seen what I seen was rich conversations once again as I said with the ilts and mtss really talking about what student

112group are we looking at right so and many times as an educator and I will even say during my Administration we kept saying well we're looking at students as a whole we're building the instructional core because we know that research says if we build a strong instructional core it will improve student engagement and when you talk about race it can be very uncomfortable at times but if we don't start talking about race we won't be able to move the barriers and we won't be able to get to the nitty-gritty of the work in order to improve student achievement and so what we've seen is that those conversations were starting to take place at the building-based level level to look at how we could better support our black male students within each School I think we

113went let me go back to yeah no I think he went yeah and so then findings and grows right so I've already talked about the platform of data analysis that we're building the dashboards that we have started to build out in our district to support this work not only at the district level but at the building level but another concern for me is the high percentage rate of our African-American males being identified for IEPs um if we went back to that slide it's very alarming and when we look at what are our designation stating we may not be targeted for black students however that DL tag is still on many of our Middle School designations and so what needs to happen then for me we need to have an internal audit um on all of

114our African-American male IEP IEPs to ensure one that we're providing the correct supports that the accommodations that we are the accommodations that are listed on the IEPs are actually having a positive impact on student achievement and individual student achievement but more so that we're actually seeing that our students are growing academically right we want them to grow social emotionally in all areas but we need to see academic Improvement regardless of what's taking place in that IEP should be there to support that growth and so the board will be hearing more about that audit regarding the IEPs at a later board meeting and then we also know that we need more mentoring and enrichment programs um we have bam we have wow but and it's not the solution but some of our students do need that

115one-on-one contact with the muncher every day just to check up to have a place a safe place to have conversations or just to brainstorm or just maybe even just help work through some problems right um so we're looking at how do we add more mentoring components or Services especially in those transitions here fifth to sixth grade eighth and Ninth Grade right what does that bridge look like from elementary to middle school middle school to high school but also in fourth and fifth grade I think we need to be more intentional because we start to see kids now at those grades where they really start to identify personality or start to get labels on them that they carry from third grade on to high school as oh they have behavior issues or let's receive an IEP

116or you know so how are we supporting that student group um I don't care for a minute and then we just know as a district we need to provide more resources to our building leadership to ensure that they have the resources to provide more programs for African-American males right whether that's extracurricular whether that's tutoring before and after school whether that's Saturday school whether that Saturday in the evening School whether that's counseling for parents whether that's parent engagement I mean it's just going to be a spectrum of ideas or resources that we add but until we sit down and you'll see part of this and I'm jumping ahead a little bit because I think it flows very nicely here we can't create that at this point because right now what we've done is I visited with

117building leadership I've looked at the data you've seen the data but we have not interviewed our students to say what do you need what does Brian need to be successful in school and what is your experience in double in District 60 what can we do better what do you think we're doing really good and until we get the perspective of our black male students it's really hard to put a plan together that's for them and that even has to go further it cannot only be our black male students it has to be our black Educators that are within our district working with our youth to get their perspectives because they've had a historical experience of being a black male student right what does it take to navigate not only the high school Arena but the

118college Arena and then getting the perspectives from our community-based organizations what are you guys doing what is working what is not working and then there was also another piece in here is that there are some districts that are doing some really great work around this this same initiative Madison Wisconsin Oakland um and so looking out there to seeing what's really working I'm I believe it's Oakland they partner and I'm saying this because our board president's here and I know his he works for VCU and they do a lot of BCU what I've seen thus far does a lot of work with Community organizations and so in Oakland they partnered with the bank where they've applied um they supplied incentive mentorship programs right and work with non-profi non-for-profit organization to support blackmail achievement and so just

119looking at those different programs of how can we either a bring them here B emulate them C recreate them I mean there's just a wide range of what is working so we do not have to recreate the real and we can break down those social constructs I'm going to turn it back over to Dr Noel slightly thanks all right so we heard a lot this evening um about Community engagement and the superintendent mentioned it's going to be impossible for us to implement and carry out a plan without that in that critical voice of our stakeholders especially specifically students parents Community Etc so our community engagement plan is going to be a robust in terms of the number of opportunities that we're going to create to get input and feedback around this initiative one of the

120first things we recently have gone through as a district leadership team as a political mapping exercise it was a training that we went through where essentially we um we're given a situation and we had to kind of identify and reflect on who the key stakeholders were that would that would be beneficial for us to connect with to roll out an implementation of any uh an initiative that we're trying to do it was just a sample project that we did and it told us who we needed to speak to what that messaging needed to be what feedback we needed to get from those folks what was the follow-up Etc so doing that as a district leadership team I think is going to be important part of this process identifying people within the organization so internally and

121also outside the organization who are going to be able to help drive this plan at various levels Nick and his team will be developing a communication plan that will be pushed out across the district have a plan and hosts Community thinking sessions and town halls so members of the community parents Etc can come in and ask questions give us feedback share thoughts their opinions share with their lived experiences have been in the district I would even hope we could get some alumni that would also contribute to these conversations conduct some stakeholder surveys facilitate focus groups collaborate with parents staff Community leaders establish feedback platforms and then just share our progress with the board and share the feedback that we're getting with the board as we go we know that we cannot even begin to scratch

122the surface of the plan until this piece is done we know we understand the importance of it and that hopefully has been echoed multiple times this evening you know we're just presenting we're presenting the foundation here but we we know that the the true the true data is going to come from those conversations and those meetings and those collaboration efforts that we put forth with our stakeholder groups I also think that and I'm going to go back to that political mapping exercise and as an educator the great thing of being an educator is that during the year or year you know you're moving and grooving and in the summary of time for reflection right and so what my DLT um I think that we're really we're good I wouldn't say great but we're good at

123saying why like we know why this is important we know why we should do this but the how we're we're tripping over our feet and so as I'm looking out at the audience here um with us tonight and those that are viewing us we're really working as a team to get better on the how to be insured to ensure that we're inclusive and to ensure that because we know the why is so important if we don't do the how very well students suffer and so I needed to call that out and that's why that political mapping is so important for us to ensure that we're engaging all the stakeholders that have a vested interest in this because we all know what the right thing to do and everybody wants to ensure that all students are

124succeeding but if we don't come together with combined resources and really push this together as a community it's it's just going to be another initiative and our goal and our hope is that the framework that we're building out here and how we approach this that though we know that our DL and our African-American students at times where our lowest subgroup that we could take this same framework and then keep keep attacking the next lowest the next lowest student group until we have no lower studying groups and we're all achieving at a higher rate I think the next few are your superintendent oh okay so what is our commitments we will we're just going to be responsible for the success and the well-being of all of our African-American male students we're going to engage with our

125parents and the community on the issues affecting the education of all of our students especially in this initiative are African-American males we recognize that the success and impact of our current initiatives and seek out ways to improve them for our most vulnerable and most marginalized students we want to provide effective interventions that will address individual student needs with intentionality and that is focused on academic growth and we want to continue to evaluate our Collective efforts to ensure that our plan is working and is supporting student achievement of African-American males so what is going to be the approach I already said we're going to look around to see what other um what other districts what research is saying what other educators are doing to improve African-American Male Achievement within their districts we're going to establish a

126steering committee as I said I've been in education over 20 years I am not a black male I do not know what a black male feels what do they struggle I I don't know and it's different from male to male I would think just as it is with females so I need a steering committee of males that could really have input on this with the chair and a co-chair that I believe should come from our board members and I'm hoping that Mr Ewing and Mr McBride can really take a lead on this and help us push our district because they have been voicing this for some time we have to invest in recruiting and we're trading and retaining black males we know that only two percent of African-American males go into teaching I believe before

127was that four percent I looked it up today it's now down to two percent and then we're going to continue to partner we have an M cell leadership chapter here that Mr Moulton leads that supports blackmail leadership but now they've even expanded to be men of color of leadership within our community in our district and then most of all as you know we are now going to open this wraparound Center that will be led by Miss Dotson and we want to ensure that that wraparound Center is provided that is providing the needed resources to the to our African-American male students and their families and of course we know that it's going to touch all families but all right this next slide really just speaks to some of the big lovers of change when we initially

128started thinking about this plan we were brainstorming all types of strategies we can do this we can do that we have this we have that and what we realized was ultimately our list became really long right and we there's all these great ideas that were coming out of the the conversations that we wanted to have um so what we try to do is identify these big picture ideas of things that we were going to focus on and then have strategies that support each one of these bigger Concepts again a lot of the input and feedback that we get from the community engagement sessions will drive some of the strategies that we utilize in these lovers right so although we have some initial thinking here it's important I think to acknowledge that we're we're going to

129be leaning heavily on that information that we get from the community as well so focusing on Early Education we know there's been a lot of discussion at the board level on the science of reading and early literacy for our students so that's one area of focus is Early Education it's sorry to interrupt and breaking the rule Miss Lindsay I just got a shout out to United Way success by six program and make sure that we are 100 utilizing that in our community resources when we move forward with those things sorry go ahead thank you I guess um so for focus on Early Education for sure investment in the community right we've talked to multiple times this evening about community-based Partnerships about in external stakeholder involvement elevating voices staff recruitment retention focus on student supports mentoring

130is a huge piece of this our mtss framework that we utilize in the district is a huge part of this as well behavioral and Mental Health Resources continuing to add to that menu that we already have so there's multiple options there for students professional development Tasia talked about the importance of cultural responsive teaching and implicit bias and um trauma-informed training for our staff Etc so they are equipped with the tools and information they need to best support our students there's a plan that tasia's department has for this that's going to be starting in August already right College and Career Readiness um Advanced coursework for our students after I'm sorry excuse me advanced coursework opportunities for our students so what access to our African-American students have to gifted and talented programs to honors classes AP classes

131dual credit courses Etc so these are some of the big buckets that are a lot of our strategies are going to fall under and we feel like this covers a lot of of the heart of the plan next slide so with each one of these we came up with some indicators of success and again a lot of these were initial thinking we realized after looking at this multiple times and reviewing it that there's additional indicators of success that we also have to include here but our initial thoughts are that we have to have some metrics that we're going to some kpis that we're going to establish and we have to have some targets okay so when we look at indicators of success under student achievement and these were ironically if you go if you look

132at the the slides that taser presented on with the research it these are these pretty much mirror what the research says right and that was purely coincidence in terms of what the research is saying basically what we where we want to focus our energies so we want to see of course an increase in our graduation rate we want to see increase in daily attendance a decrease in chronic absenteeism increased enrollment and again those accelerated learning opportunities uh increase in our proficiency on our state assessments iar sat increased freshmen on track and increase the number of students enrolling in post-secondary education other things we want to look at is our Pre-K Readiness assessment the number of students that are proficient to read by third grade these are all different metrics that we're going to be using

133to monitor the progress of our plan and these are metrics that we monitor for all of our students but we're going to get really intentional again with those Equity dashboards about how schools are looking at this stuff specifically related to African-American students in their schools when we look at the next slide um so with those metrics we have some historic non-historical last year's data as well as some some potential targets and when I say potential targets I say that because the report card will be coming out in September October so we'll have some new fresh data that we can look at and potentially maybe even change some of these targets but you can see where we were from a proficiency level and a lot of our assessments and then our targets about increasing those proficiency

134rates across the board um I will say this a two percent increase may seem like it's modest in the short term but when you sustain two percent over multiple years you're going to see substantial Improvement for student outcomes and these are just targets for students to be proficient this does not take into account students that are growing from maybe some of those lower performing tiers to Middle tiers Etc so we got targets around proficiency what we've seen historically that if you increase proficiency growth usually increases as well so we're hoping that we can see increase not only proficiency for students that are meeting and exceeding standards but also students that are growing on these assessments over the course of time too so these are sample data and I'm sorry these are indicators and our our

135targets for 23 24. that they're low say it one more time okay oh uh here we go yeah I'm sorry more academic uh indicators on this next page um freshman on track you can see our current data and you can see the targets that we're setting for ourselves daily attendance current data again with our targets chronic absenteeism we want to see a decrease there and then we're still waiting on some of this post-secondary data to determine what our targets may be there but we would want to see some increases um uh there as well next slide is our indicators of success for the school environment and support indicators of success would mean that we have every student in our district connected to an adult Mentor it would mean that we have a decrease in discipline

136referrals suspensions expulsions Etc a decrease in IEP referrals an increase in access to district and Community mentoring programs and then the elimination or review of policies or practices that contribute to the school of the prison pipeline as part of our Equity review policy review process some of our performance goals around this this indicator would be adult mentors we would want to see we this is something that we've never attract uh in the district before so we want to see um you know a substantial number of our students being connected to an adult Mentor uh in 2324. discipline referrals we want to see that number decreasing of course IEP referrals I still have to get that data from the DL Department about where we were this year and kind of how we want to decrease that

137but we do we we do want to reduce that obviously and then the last one um district and Community mentoring programs again making sure students are connected to some type of community-based organization some type of mentoring program and we want to see a substantial increase in the number of students that are engaging in those opportunities as well and the last in the last indicators of success are around Community engagement so we've been doing a lot of talking around students but really increasing parent and family engagement opportunities for African-American families increase an extracurricular uh involvement for our students and an increase in our community-based Partnerships we know we can't do this work alone and it's going to require the work of other organizations to help us along the way and then some of our performance goals

138around those next thank you Lee would just be again increasing that participation overall right we want to see increased participation in all of these areas for our African-American families and students that would be something that would tell us that we're on the right track the next slide is a draft timeline so with any plan we we want to try to think about where we want to be in backwards map from that right so we put together a draft timeline I'm not going to read it to you but it essentially just lays out some of our critical action steps that we would take uh not only this month but moving into August September October November and December and of course this would be up for modifications and adjustments based on feedback that we get based on

139progress that we're making or maybe lack of progress that we're making Etc but long and short of it is that we would be updating the board regularly monthly in terms of where we are with our plan we would be having conversations with our community-based agencies and other stakeholders to also gauge their their progress and their effectiveness with how they're supporting us and helping us um the steering committee that the superintendent mentioned would would be responsible for doing some reporting out as well we would be um you can just see there's a wide range of things here that we would hope to accomplish accomplish each month as we start to slowly implement this plan in the district I also want to state that this may change based off the steering committee because when we say steering

140committee the steering committee is really going to be the voice and the momentum of the speed and lightning that we execute this right so we make bring a problem to the steering committee and say we have this issue and just do in a sense just knowing something a root cause analysis and steering committees looking at data and stating well maybe we we need to look at this direction or go this direction so I really want to give the steering committee time to look at this even when we talk about like we looked at the kpis we set what does that mean how fast is data moving in other districts because someone can say well they should move 10 percent but is that realistically possible and feasible and are you seeing other districts around the nation

141able to move their data that quick right so there is a trajectory on how data moves and what does that look like right and those are those deep organic conversations and those hard questions that the steering committee is going to ask and hold us accountable to uh next slide please the last two slides are our budget and um it's a draft budget that we've just put together in terms of what we feel is going to be necessary to support this initiative we know that for any initiative to be successful we have to you know we have to put funding behind it so there's some initial thinking here about where the district could allocate dollars to support the plan any comments superintendent is it time for questions well I I do have a suggestion before we

142go in that because there were what seven eight categories if we can go Section by section that way in the PowerPoint if we all have questions on let's say the superintendent findings the we're not jumping back to the research that was done that's just my suggestion love it uh what I am going to ask uh if next is q a next slide um if we can take a five minute recess um just so we can do a bathroom break it's been two hours and then if we can come back in five minutes and continue with our question Portia uh motion to recess or just state it we'll stand in recess five minutes all right [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign

143[Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] I have a major all the board members are back along with the superintendent like a motion to go back into Open Session motion motion by Miss Fabian taking my Miss Lindsay all in favor signify what I I any opposing a we are back in Open Session um we had just concluded our superintendent's report which took us through our uh African-American male student achievement plan um and now we are at the Q a session Ms Lindsay had what I think was a very uh a good ass to keep us on task and that is to uh if we can go back

144Lee to the I want to say maybe third go all the way up the third slide had the breakdown sections and so if we wanted one more two page to the agenda there we go um and so if we want to hit each section and if there were questions that any other board members had based on that section we can do it and then we'll move through the Section so that we can keep the conversation um efficient um and so with that on section one background and research whether any questions um that any board members had related to the background research that they wrote down yeah I have a couple but I'll defer to yeah and I um in terms of um the uh in terms of the research um I had I had submitted

145questions that would help in this um in this initiative um it is a well you you know the things the questions that I submitted the student um student satisfaction survey I got questions I got the one uh that related to a staff students I apologize I did not see the students so I'll go back through my email I did get the one that said staff okay it anyway my whole point is and maybe I don't know if I sent them I think I don't know I know I got just that way my whole point is is that um is that uh a survey of the students and um researched um questions so that we can gather the information that we're trying to get and so um that I mean the research uh command um uh

146Miss Fields with all the work that she's done to put uh by her and Dr not to put this together um and all others uh but we need some type of we need to hear from the students good bad and ugly yeah we need to hear from the students in our district and I know we're talking about black males and so forth okay but that is just a we need to do this because there are laws performing a group of students but we also need to look at all of the students yeah and it it's always been the way it is it is it is I think I heard Mr McBride say that uh this plan that will cover African Americans is actually going to help all of our students and so um I just

147want the research because I'm a social researcher too and I just want the research to be um to be presented in the right manner um and give it to our students let our students say what they what's wrong and what they need to help them achieve academically thank you for that Miss Anna so if you want to send I think that I did hear the superintendent mentioned that one of the things that she wanted to do is hear from our black male students directly but to your point if you can send those questions um I think that's definitely something that the the board would support uh is because we are working on this initiative but while working on this initiative it doesn't mean that the other things don't stop with the rest of the students

148and to your point it's very valuable so they can choose to self-identify superintendent if we do a survey right I am an African-American this is my preferred gender or they can keep that Anonymous but that data will give us at least some information that we would be able to act on so uh I would say uh thank you for that suggestion and if you want to send those uh questions they can look at what a survey will look like and when it makes the most sense to send it out do we do it after students are return in October but I do think it's a great uh idea uh Miss Lindsay anything related to background and research and then I saw you miss Fabian president Ewing can I just comment so there will be surveys

149that do go out to our African-American male population there will also be qualitative interviews with students staff and um parents Guardians Etc so there's going to be a number of ways of how we surveys it's going to be very structured I do want to say that this is a very targeted Initiative for our black male population in our district so there will not be a survey that goes out to all students but we will have a series of surveys that you go out to our black male families even and Community organizations there's it's just going to be a number of it but what we what I can commit to is that when those surveys are done whether they're through survey days or through interviews we will bring back those results back to the board so

150that they can see what are some of the concerns for lack of a better word but how can we provide a more supportive environment or what is their experience in District 60. so all that information will go to the steering committee and also we brought back to the Board of Education thank you superintendent uh Miss uh Lindsay um okay so before we start this conversation Miss Fields you were very clear that this is going to be perhaps a uncomfortable conversation right and not everyone always has the appropriate language for these types of discussions so I hope my intent results in the intended impact but if any of my comments is out of pocket or goes left I would appreciate being called in to just reframe that thinking or that phrasing so that we are being

151inclusive and welcoming of our larger community and we're not falling into a similar misstep that has happened in the past in terms of my questions and I think it was alluded to later in the presentation so there were some assumptions around their learning for our black male population there was some allusion to the behavior is that also going to be a conversation in the assumptions and the culturally relevant development for our staff because quite often we see in the criminal justice system we have black boys facing adultification and their white counterparts receiving infantilization so layman's terms when a black male does one act he is treated as an adult or older than he is based on a variety of factors where if a male that is white does the exact same thing is given more

152leniency so as we navigate these conversations I want to make sure that that's going to be included in these conversations and that these conversations are ongoing not just in the beginning of the year thank you that that was a lot couple things that I do want to say um so one thing when we address uh Behavior right when it comes to our students we don't want to um there's accountability right and then there's also circumstance so we we don't want to criminalize our black students we don't want to put the blame on them and I just briefly had a conversation with one of our stakeholders around really he said we want we should really explicitly just say it right it's it's really not uh we don't want to say that um you know this is

153the fault of our black students we don't want to say that yes they're making poor choices we don't want to paint them in a negative light we want to be clear in understanding that all of this is a result of racism and white supremacy so we want to explicitly say that right and we acknowledge that right so moving forward some of the things that we're doing here in the district will address just that and so I know we didn't speak about this explicitly but I think it's been mentioned in the past is we do have a equity framework here in the district where we have several quadrants that we are focusing on to really move forward our Equity work and there's a cycle around it and what that cycle encompasses is racial equity and so

154that's exactly what you're speaking to is really understanding how to have those courageous conversations really being able to lift up concerns and supports for our students according to something you said Miss Hannah as well about everything that we do it benefits all students that's that's true all of this work although we're being intentional it is a benefit to all students so I was happy to hear you uh say that um I do have a couple more follow-up so in the demographics that were given um there was one where it says to um where it's of two or more races are we asking the students how they identify because we have biracial students who are black mixed with something else but they identify as black so I just want to make sure that even if they're

155two or more races those that are identifying as black are getting the supports that they need with this initiative yeah um those indicators are what the state uses so we just aligned it to that but that is you know making sure that we're educating our students when we are engaging them with surveys to understand what this really means so okay and I do have just a couple of more and if it's a conversation for a later time just is a takeaway for you that's completely fine um so we have our freshmen on track rate is 60 is what I'm understanding and please correct me Dr nault if that's inaccurate so my question is if we have over 80 percent of our black male students not being able to read how can 60 percent of them

156be on track to graduate because reading is a fundamental skill to navigate this society as well as globally so that doesn't sit right with me and I'm having a hard time reconciling that and can I piggyback I would want him to just answer Miss Lindsay's question so it doesn't get uh convoluted or watered down or change our initial intent I think she was very clear and direct with what it was she was requesting go ahead doctor excuse me yeah there's no doubt literacy impacts a student's ability to perform in all content areas Math Science Social Studies English Etc um I can't speak to each individual student and how they are able to be successful in their classes what I can say is that our data is showing that 60 of them have earned at least

157five credits and have not failed more than one semester of a core course how they get there I can't speak to that I'm going to make the request that we figure that out and cannot and what I will do is say I always because Miss Lindsay makes a great point my slight pushback is that reading at grade level right does not mean illiterate and that's why I always feel even when we use the language of students can't read many of our students can if you ask them to go up to that board they can read the words on them they understand them but if I'm in the ninth grade and I'm reading at a seventh grade level I would not be at grade level therefore it would show that I'm not meeting the indicator but

158it doesn't mean that I can't read and so if I'm in 12th grade and I'm reading at a freshman level I would still not be meeting the uh whatever and I mean at that point they're not taking the reading indicator so I give that but just as an example if I'm a fifth grader reading at a third grade level I will still be able to read although I'm not reading that great level and so being able to explain to the community that data point is the kid is not reading at grade level or being uh what's the terminology I want to make sure I'm using it correctly Dr not is it proficient being proficient so meeting the proficiency standard does not mean that I am illiterate it means and so I think that sometimes when

159we say the students can't read it would be a challenge is if I'm taking freshman courses and I'm not prepared and I'm reading at a at a eighth grade a seventh grade level it's going to be challenging and I think that's also what the data shows is because if I'm at 40 of our students are not passing five or earning five credits in at least not failing at least one class it indicates that there is a struggle one with the transition to high school and with the content of the courses is because when you look at other similarly demographic schools like North Chicago that also partners with uh yes NCS they were able to improve their grad their freshman on track rate to over 90 percent um in three years and then not only were

160they able to improve it's over 90 in three years they were also able to increase their graduation rate in time as well where um they used to be historically low but one of the things that they looked at was specifically that aligning the curriculum in the courses making sure that all teachers were using the same or similar grading standards and doing the intentional work to go what do our freshmen's need to be successful in high school and given that to them so I do want to say is that I know that twenty percent of our students may meet the proficiency standards but to that 80 percent many of them are at varying levels in their level of understanding and their reading ability and so I always know is that when we say the students are

16180 of them can't read that they can read it may not be at the level necessary to be as successful as they should okay so I appreciate that and I'll clarify my language because I think as a board and as a district our intent is for students to be reading at grade level and proficient at grade level because that is what is going to make them successful in their college journey in their career Journey all of the things right so while you say that they can go up there and they can read the words and they can understand the words just because you can read them does not always mean you can understand them so we need to make sure we have those as two separate conversations but while the national average of a reading

162level is sixth grade I want more for our students and I especially want more for our black male students because that resource is going to benefit them in so many ways that we would be helping the larger community in targeting that and that's not a well-formulated thought so I apologize but we need to make sure that we are setting the bar High and the expectations high and it's not just getting them to the national average of sixth grade and one more comment on that and I'll just say that I think it also speaks to the intervention systems that we have in place as well so if students aren't reading at grade level our district has them you know a tiered system of support that can help students you know succeed in class work and and

163improve in those areas as well so it's hard to make that correlation between proficiency and on track because there's different things in between that can get a student back on track or there's different nuances that can occur the student might be poor in comprehension but they're you know they're they have good fluency um so there's different aspects of reading that they may be struggling in as well Five Pillars yeah go ahead I'm sorry I want to go to miss Fabian and then I'll come back to you my Santa Miss Fabian so looking at our data I just wanted to ask if we can be clear when we Define African-American versus black because throughout all of this data set it's being used interchangeably and so some of the data sets says black students some says and

164then we're titling it African-American students um and then some of our plan also use it interchangeably and I say that to say knowing that you can identify as black but not as African-American and I don't I want to make sure that what does our system track versus what we're tracking um to clearly Define what we're tracking because when we have small numbers like 20 kids in a building if you stop tracking two of them that's ten percent that you're that you're missing out on so I just kind of want to be clear on those definitions in terms of are we tracking all black students are we tracking our African-American students both um so that we're getting accurate numbers and that we're being really intentional and ensuring that we're not missing out on any students one

165is race and one is ethnicity if because are black not African-American the black diaspora is is global it's not she's just making sure no matter where you come from your family came from your national origin if you are black if you are heavily melanated you are getting the support and you ain't white but that yeah I mean that terminology has changed so this is a generational conversation and I think it also speaks to for me you're getting out of the beginning and we agree we agree I think the point was relevant is that you want to make sure that you're capturing all of it and in even with the language is it is true I prefer the term black some people pretend prefer the term African-American we just want to be consistent in our terminology

166is because if I search for black and that doesn't capture all of my students or I put in African-American and that eliminates certain students then we just want to be consistent that was it Miss Anna okay we talk about uh the um what y'all call it fot okay and I'm just wondering are the students fot when they get to high school you you understand what I'm saying to you see we're trying to we're trying to um get students on track in freshman year but they weren't on track in Middle School agreed and so we need to make sure that when the students are coming out of grade school that they're matriculating properly appropriately uh proficiently out of Elementary into Middle School and doing the same thing matriculating appropriately proficiently into high school and then we

167really wouldn't even have to worry about freshman on track because everybody would be on track from in the grade levels at the where they're supposed to be so it's a doctor not I think that's a great point but so each grade level in each grade band especially when talking about African-American students will have those kpi and those indicators yeah okay one of the things that the superintendent didn't mention is that when we were doing our brainstorming strategies we identified those transition grades from elementary to middle middle to high as critical grades for this plan to focus on those students as they make those transitions um so that's a part of our strategy and and are we still and I want to be respectful of everybody's time so as far as I understand it we still

168our own background and research and supporting data Maybe we want those two together so are we still there okay yeah I just have a question on the background in research some of the research that we've read has has indicated that it is extremely important for children for our students to feel a sense of belonging you know that social emotional piece is so important and they have to feel that they belong here in order for them to want to even achieve academically academically is the goal but I want I like what Miss Hannah said regarding the survey I think that's extremely important to ask our families when we ask those questions ask them about out their sense of belonging ask the family about their sense of belonging or involvement with the school because if they feel

169disconnected we're losing right away that's right so I just think that's extremely important I can bring you some books I know we've you guys have read that as well until you belong you're not going to achieve so you have to feel that sense of belonging so let's not forget that you know and then there's a lot of research to show that absolutely you're um absolutely right I just wanted to remind us about the equity audit that we did that was a metric sense of belonging and we did assess students in that audit as well so again we have these to be done again oh I'm I'm with you 100 and then we might have to develop some things that we didn't think we needed you know some more ways to involve them some clubs that

170they feel a part of some exactly as you said the tutoring that they feel connected to somebody so that they can then now that know their special that they are a special person and they can make it and they can achieve and we've got a program that's going to be successful as you said Tasia that you know we don't want them to identify them as a problem they're not a problem you know we've got the problem we have not been able to teach them get them involved in learning they want to learn they just we just haven't engaged them so anyway that was my the important point I wanted to make thank you awesome I had two more pieces if you wanted to be takeaways it could be takeaways um but in the discipline section

171of this section that was a great sentence um you referenced the grow program and I just want to know are we calling in community organizations with that because I know that was um a bit problematic in the past and then in terms of designation from the state I guess if someone could just point me on who I need to call and contact to understand why black has fallen off of our metrics when we look at our own internal data it ain't matching up and that's problematic for me because it should be clear the state should be seeing that we have this problem and then if we have this designation as a problem we can possibly and I might be out of my scope here so somebody bring me in but we could possibly be looking

172for Grants so instead of trying to fit this in in their school day we can get these students intensive Remediation in these areas so it's six 12 weeks out of the classroom to get them back in operating full steam ahead right and so I just have a problem with that so if someone could just point me in their direction if it's an email later that's fine on who I need to talk to to figure out why that is it just the math ain't nothing I can I have some slides yeah some amazing that I can send you I wouldn't love it thank you that's all my piece on there yeah and the data too Miss Fabian so I also saw where you were highlighting that you know we had some growth in math sat attendance

173and the superintendent spoke on triangulation I wanted to know if at some point we can also come back with some correlation why do we think those metrics have moved up is it curriculum is it strategy so then we can you know duplicate that in other areas I didn't really see much of that and same with discipline there was a growth from of discipline referrals um from school year 22 to 23 and if we could have some metrics on what are those preventative metrics what are we doing to um prior to getting to that level of a discipline referral what are we doing to to support students in that manner you got a question on this section we got a we have background research and supporting data last year appointed you as Equity officer this is

174the first time this is the first time that I've really heard you speak and you made it very clear even in the curricula you got to have some of the curriculum to make you feel good about yourself or you can see yourself in the correct and a lot of times when students are sitting there they don't they don't get that and that's the bottom line to it so also to I just want to say that uh we started some time back where we held uh conversation in reference to what we're talking about now over at uh aeoc now we're here and so as I said here now listen to everyone speaking uh we finally got to this point to talk about these Equity piece that we're talking about we go to conferences and we heard

175this at Thompson's and I'm sure miss Hannah you heard it just like I heard and uh but we never gotten to this point to even get to to get a start to even move it in this direction so we're there now and I don't want us to water it down the bottom line to it is our kids need help and if we don't help them now we as little old saying if we don't pay now we're going to pay later after Macintosh are coming to the board all the time Thomas State emergency that's what we talked about right now so let's not water this down and do what we need and number one you're not never going to learn if your mores and values is not intact if you're acting crazy in the classroom you're

176never going to learn anything if you're discipline is out of pocket you're never going to learn anything you're going to hear what you keep here and the teacher said you're throwing chairs you're cussing me out how you gonna learn when you're doing those things so don't I just want to say let's not exclude that pay attention to that area of problems that they're having and I don't think anyone disagrees with you Mr McBride when it comes to the students being accountable for their action but we need to make sure we have a holistic picture of the situation and provide them the supports that they need because if we continue to increase these out of school suspensions or even in school suspensions we are contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline that is factual as well so I

177agree let's hold him accountable if you let this process that's taking place now you'll probably get some of that that you're talking about out of it I think we all support the process we just got questions yeah yeah go ahead uh Miss it's saying if it's still I would like us to move through so it's 8 52 and we still uh when I'm not on the research the six questions let's do uh and I'm Sorry Miss Legend because uh I thought your suggestion was great but it may be easy unless we need to go to specific slides can I take each board members questions one at a time then and maybe um if someone had similar questions it might uh be answered uh but I thought your suggestion was great it just seems that we

178uh we're moving through we'll just use that as a questions we'll just label it if there's sections to match the agenda perfect go ahead Miss Hannah we have to be if we're if we're gonna know how do you explain I already talked about the middle school students having to be on track um how do you explain that there that the um attendance that the data shows right that the attendance of black males was higher than than I'm gonna say if I look if I um if we go back to the slide it the the attendance was higher for black males than it was slide 33 yeah and is that the attendance yeah you see you see how that attendance is higher yeah it's higher and so how do you explain that and we have all

179of the um all of the uh where they're not um on track they're not um they're not getting their work academically I mean how do you explain that so coming to school and being successful in school are different things right you can come to school every day but if you're not doing anything in classrooms your performance is going to show that probably in your your test scores and grades and everything else um and that's an indicator what I'm getting at is that attendance is an indicator of maybe what we could have been looking at before now we've been striking attendance since I've been in the district they've been tracking attendance for all of our schools all of our students right and we and I'm not I'm just talking about that we're talking about African-American African-Americans

180okay okay well we know they're coming to school yes but they are still not achieving and so that should have been an indicator to possibly look at those students and say okay this is not lining up they're here every day but they're fake and that should be okay great 100 we looked at yeah we looked at some freshman data at the high school today and we said we saw that there was a significant group of students freshmen not just African-American freshmen in general that were coming between 80 and 90 of the time and a large majority of them were were not performing well in classes but they're coming so it's a it's a it's a great data point to look at and and that's a takeaway yep um and uh let me just okay and

181in your um I'm trying to get it I don't know where you guys were with this but you were talking about like the different processes um with the discipline I'm talking about the we I hope we have not superintended remove the reprimand process because the reprimand process it's still there Miss Hannah it's still there it's still there it's still there Miss Hannah and that's for not only African-American students but that's for all students okay and then we talked about the equity or having um having the black students um feel the sense of belonging um having people that they can look at but then we have had many African-American Educators removed from the district for one reason or the other and so um and I don't know if we are if we are uh replacing them

182and so that is that that's a takeaway too okay I want to get into it just something and we talked about the student survey and you talked about the why superintendent and um the how okay the how we already know well basically we know the why the how to do these things has to be a shared and collaborative conversation and not just with selected peoples people that have been successful men women that has been successful with um changing the lives of black uh black students black men um uh uh Hispanic uh boys Hispanic we have to collaborate week at night we can't um uh uh uh be selective in who we get into that womb and uh brainstorm think take whatever is going to work and I'm saying that and I'm going to take this

183personally a little bit I have worked all of my life 20 30 years 30 some years with black boys black men specifically they've always been my forte and I have proven um examples many many many that I have worked with and have changed their lives to the better um our brand right now just a little bit prison juvenile prisoners coming out of um out of the being incarcerated Juvenile Detention Center Juvenile Detention Center never thought they were ever gonna get a high school education I was able to help them assist them in receiving 26 of them the as many as we had in the resident all of them received their um their geds and it was I mean they've never thought that they would ever that but any my whole point is we cannot we

184have to put get everybody in there to talk about this people that has done this kind of work and there's a bunch of us out there that has done this kind of work and love doing this kind of kind of way and so um the other thing uh oh something in in the plan there was a soft lot launch of implementation what does that mean I think you're you're referring to the timeline we had mentioned and there was that was the stuff in purple yes we mentioned uh in August a soft launch of the implementation plan what does that mean it essentially meaning that using July and August to collect as much data as possible and until we have that information uh all gathered and analyzed and kind of figure out where what steps we

185want to take is we want to get the plan moving um but we we know that we're not probably going to have a solid direction of where we want to go in August until we conduct all of our communities take holder engagement sessions and to get all that feedback so launch having a I guess a soft launcher just be like a slow a slow slowly start to implement the plan when school will return when we return to school in session and slowly start to have those conversations with male students parents Etc because we know it's going to be it's going to take time to do some of that stuff so and so what you're saying and also understanding there's a sense of urgency to get it going to it is a sense of urgency if

186we we open school the way we left school we gonna have some issues we have to have an opening plan particularly at our high schools well our and we have to have a plan that is going to um address these issues that we dealt with at mainly our Brookside campus so that we're not going in not addressing it and just letting things kind of continue to go and then we're going to get to the uh the the uh semester and then we're going to try to come back with this big grand plan it's not going to work we have to start right at the beginning first day so can I can I ask so we're going to come back at July is it the 25th the meeting the yes I'm getting confusing rights yeah so

187July 25th we're going to come back around the safety of our district we're going to be bring a presentation however I do want to State because we still the plan is not set the plan cannot be set till we hold those qualitative interviews till we survey till we engage our community to engage our non-for-profit and profit organizations so there is no plan and actually I think we made a faux pas by putting plan on our slides I think we should change that to initiative because words do matter as someone reminded me today and so Jason and I'm saying this publicly I think we need to move remove plan put initiative um but so we will be coming back on this but this initiative is completely focused on our black male population and we will not

188have a plan until we engage a variety of stakeholders and Mr MC I brought up focus and you know just a bunch of different organizations that we still have to sit and collaborate with the boys and girls club Aunt mom I know Anthony was here we see I mean there's a lot more that needs to go here before we can even say we have a plan and I want I want to interject because this is one of the things where I think we're talking past each other and both things are true so let's let's uh is and when you say you don't have a plan this was one of the things that I stressed and I'll be perfectly honest and transparent and I've had these conversations with uh the superintendent as well as community members

189in the audience there are things that we can be doing on day one so when we say soft lunch when we talk about rolling out and making sure that all of our schools have these are after school clubs and then monitoring to make sure that students are in those after school clubs we don't have to wait until December in order to do those things tutoring programs we know our kids need tutoring we don't have to wait to implement those things Ms Hannah has asked for a beginning of your assembly I would suggest that we support her in that initiative is because what we have been doing have not led us to the successes that we have wanted and so to be able to Clearly say that these were the expectations that we laid out as

190a district in the Board of Education we then have the ability to hold our students to be accountable to them inviting families out to say this is the work that is happening and we want you to be a part of it can happen day one so when we say soft launch when we say making sure that we're ready to go day one when we say we are still building out the plan all of those things are true is there things that we can do the minute the schools open that are going to help us begin to make progress with increasing blackmail achievement in District 60. and so I don't want us to start talking past each other I do know that the administration is coming back with a plan for school reopening as well as

191recruitment all of those things are taking place and and we wanted to have a very focused meeting tonight so I'm not trying to broaden the scope but Miss Hannah I 100 agree with you and then publicly supporting your stance that we need to make sure that we are ready to go day one and that we also need to make sure that we are doing those in-person assemblies and expectation assemblies and beginning of your events to make sure that we are starting off the right way one of the things when we talked about a sense of belonging one of the saddest statistics that I had and then I'm hoping that we can move through I'm gonna go to miss cleansing and then miss Fabian and then if Mr McBride if you have any final comments Mr

192riddle um is one of the things is when we came back from covet right and we talked about planning for mask and all of the logistics and I had a teacher who said hey all I wanted was to make sure that my classroom was decorated and ready to go day one so the PD was great but I would have much rather spent that time making sure that we celebrated our kids who were walking back in the building for the first time after 18 months and so what I'm asking to all my Educators to all of these administrators is day one choose to love our babies choose to believe that our students can learn um and we heard it here I agree 100 with Miss Lindsay it is not the standard of low expectations and we

193heard that it is systemic racism I believe that all of our students can succeed I'm a father of three black boys I am putting them in this District I did that and I hate to say it um I'm not going to say it what I will say is I had to make a decision and a choice to educate my kids in Waukegan I had the financial means to move Wherever not wherever most places I wanted to in Lake County and when I looked at our student data and especially the student data of my neighborhood school I almost left my church home the community that I known for over a decade and a half um because I wanted to give my kid the best opportunity and so when we say I care about this issue this

194is the issue that caused me to run six years ago it was because I was I I made a decision to be involved with making this District better for all students but particularly I am selfish I'm raising kids in this district and I want us to be successful as a school district but also realizing this if my kids are successful and the other kids are are still struggling that that also is not okay and so I'm committed to this plan and building it out I'm committed to using the budget to engage Community Resources we have an evaluation tool that we have not used to engage our participation with Our Community Partners and I really want us to be intentional about figuring out how we expand the school year and we expand our school day and

195so um collaboration was the word that Miss Hannah used I'm going to Echo that I got three quick points and then I'm going down IPS are not bad uh an IEP individual education plan right is and and I have to say that is because we stigmatize it and and I get doing the audit but if my kid needs an IEP I don't want to just say that we have parents that are fighting against it because of that stigma we need to explain what it is and to the superintendent's point is we need to make sure that they're being followed if a student needs an additional 30 minutes for their test are they getting an additional 30 minutes for the test and if they're not we're not complying with with the guidelines in the IEP and

196then we go and we say well why are they not doing the test what they told you if the questions have to be read to them is somebody reading the questions they of them that is what the audit is it is to both make sure one that it is still accurate and appropriate but also is that all the things that are in the IEP are being followed because it is unfair to hold our students who do have an IEP to a standard when you are not providing the supports and so I do have to stay publicly that IEPs are not bad um but we do want to make sure that they're only be in place when necessary and when they are being placed that they are being followed and complied um and then when you

197say that you want to go out nationally and look around I would encourage you superintendent with language to say no I have looked around these are the places that I am seeing success you brought an entire model of a plan which was being implemented in La Unified District which actually except for size has a similar demographic to Waukegan Public Schools with a latinx and black population um so I don't want you to not take credit for the work that has been done and some of the reasons that you're moving forward with this work um and then just questions which is to take away I don't want to get into it tonight is as we talk about early literacy I want us to know how many of our students are enrolled in PK right Pre-K uh

198and then make sure that how many of our black students are enrolled in pre-k and that we are increasing that percentage so that will be a metric that I am looking at and I really want us to work with the churches to on for parents to understand what that benefits of early childhood education is um and so I know we have the event on the 29th but that has to be like that's like the Lord's bar is that we have a hundred percent of our seats in pre-k field like and then we can expand there's money to expand and so we need to be making sure that we had I want to go to full day right but even if we're not at full day how are we maximizing those spaces so that they're starting

199off right um and then the last comment that I had was expectations and registration right so right now we talk about attendance I'm already getting a lot of noise around the registration process so I would encourage you miss uh Placencia to make sure that the Welcome Center is accessible and available to answer parent questions is because the smoother we can make the starter year the better it's going to be all around um and then 300K to a 400k budget for uh Partnerships with Community organizations um I know we are in the budget process I hope Miss poke already went home but I would be looking to increase that number slightly um and and for us to make sure that we are being strategic and not just you know partnering the partner to say that we

200did it but it is a true partnership just remember that amount there will be other monies to partner with uh non-profit but this is for the amount slowly for our African-American male initiative Miss Lindsay um so just a quick comment on your piece when we're looking at the Pre-K data we do have I believe Carmen Buckner is going full day so if we could just have metrics around what the impact of full day has been versus the partial day because I again am very frustrated that this district is not all day Pre-K all around um so back to some of my questions and I apologize well actually it's not too bad um in terms of the superintendent's findings mentoring was brought up and it was tagged on later that we will be looking to bring

201in community organizations to help support with that but I just want to make sure when we're talking about mentoring that the mentors are going to be reflective of representative of the black male population so are our mentors going to be black males to support these young black males or is it whomever's available and how will those mentors get further support as they go through this journey with these students so can I I'll answer that um so I just want to clarify so our M cell chapter is billing out the mentoring component for our district so they're building out a mentoring program based off competencies um that we will utilize within District 60. so that will be our monitoring program we just want to be really clear on that and that's why you see some of

202that M cell in there and our M cell chapter so we have a thousand I think it was a thousand that I'm going to round to 1080 right 1080 black males right so to pair one-on-one I think it would be really ideal um to pair every student with somebody that does look like them right um I don't know how feasible that would be right I don't know if we can find especially if we're looking for one-on-one or if we look at this and we say okay well there's 20 percent of the population that maybe may not need a mentor attached to them based off um demographics that we're looking at based off the data the data dashboard and I'm just throwing stuff out off the top I'm not you know isolating on one thing so

203I don't know how feasible that would be so I can't say yes that all of them would be African-American males um if not um I think they'd be men of color but I think strong men in general um with some training definitely around cultural competency cultural relevant all of that other stuff you know implicit explicit bias there definitely would need to be training there so Ms Leslie I think as we move forward we'd have to look at what does that pool look like um thank you as long as that's a priority I'm good with that um and then in these conversations we're talking about engaging with the families asking them to fill out surveys asking them to essentially come into the schools and the elephant in the room as many of our families do not

204trust this District and I paused there because it's an important fact we need to recognize so part of this work has to be rebuilding trust with the community that's major because if I'm going through something and I don't trust the person who I'm attached to to guide me through this process you ain't getting anything out of me I'm not communicating you I'm not going to be vulnerable to someone I don't trust so I think that is a word that needs to be a little bit more dominant in these conversations that's just a take away from my personal beliefs um in terms of the uh we're renaming it initiative so I have not heard it once I have not heard it twice I've heard it multiple multiple times both as a board member and as a

205parent and as a community member of Waukegan for my entire life we have District staff that uses racial slurs with or toward our students that is highly inappropriate so as we go through this work there needs to be some consideration on what the recourse is what actions we are going to take as a district as this language is reported and students will need a safe space families will need a safe space to report that information um on uh it's not even a lighter note in terms of the proficiency rate we have uh two percent that does not reflect the crisis that we are in and I know you say it's cumulative and it's going to build upon itself but I want you to tell me if our Target is two percent how many years it's

206going to take to get to just 80 percent to just flip the current pyramid that we have and there are approaches that will educate these students on the science of reading on comprehension on basic math skills which will gain them access to all of our subject areas that can be done in a matter of weeks and is sustainable I've done it I did it for 10 years so to see two percent for this population to me personally and I'm going to speak as Christine lensing as a parent as a community member that's a slap in the face and I'm just being honest and I'm not trying to take away any of the hard work that you guys are doing because it is very hard work and it's a long road ahead of us but I'm

207just going to give you my off the cuff reaction because that's what we're going to hear as a board from the community two percent experience as well it's a long road and we don't want that for our kids um and then as we talk about a back to school assembly getting these kids involved in the extracurriculars we need to remove cost as a barrier for our students if we want them to engage with these activities they need to be attractive they need to be something that they're interested in and we need to remove as many Financial barriers as possible so as we're building out the budget for this and we want to expand this 300 to 400k we need to take a look at that and we need to do it in an equitable way

208so that we don't have other populations in our school district saying well that's not fair I'm in the same financial position but because they are targeted they get preferential treatment we don't want those types of conversations so it needs to be done mindfully but we need to look to find a way to do that for our kids I'll send any other questions via email I don't want to take up too much more time first I want to thank you for stating what you said about the IEPs they are not a negative if your student needs one they need one but I also want to look at ensuring that our IEPs are not replacing bips our behavioral intervention plans because that's typically what ends up happening is that instead of having a behavior intervention plan they

209kick students into IEPs so I just want to ensure that we're looking at that when we're going through our IEPs and doing this audit of looking at at our different demographics and and having a protocol and and how IEPs are written what are the standards that we're really looking at um so that exactly what's being put in them and how substantial of what's putting being put in them um because again I am a proponent if if your child needs one I you know I had to fight for my child to get one um so thank you for that um and then just a couple of just notes um is be did release cultural responsive teaching and learning standards and with that there's a lot of free professional development that we can tap into so I

210would also look into that and ensure when we're looking at budgets and seeing that we you know are are trying to maximize our dollars if we can look at all those free resources first before um you know heading out somewhere else um and then the other thing and I think it has to be intentional is looking at the Timeline um I keep hearing student voice student voice student voice but I don't see that in the timeline and I don't see that written in the community engagement so I'm a firm believer if you don't write it down somewhere it gets lost in the shuffle and I would like to see apart from this big survey I know you're going to have think takes think tanks for families to come out and for stakeholders to come out

211but can we have those within the schools in the school day with our African-American students when they're there when they're at in the building and you can hear from the mouths of babes what it is that that they feel they need or how they feel supported or not supported but again I feel like if you don't have it written in in your initiative it might get lost in the shuffle and we have I will say unfortunately time and time again I have seen where sometimes that student voice gets lost and adults want to overpower the conversation and say this is what we're going to do for you so I want to make sure it doesn't get lost and we write it in the plan or in the initiative good job Mr Mr riddle and then

212Mr McBride I'll give you final word okay final word um first I I want to say um a thank you to the board president everything that he said I think needed to be said tonight and I applaud him for that I also want to thank the superintendent and her team on the development of this initiative okay I think it's a start that needed to be done and we're there we're beginning now on this so I want to thank her and her team and everybody that has something to do with this and will continue to have something to in the development of this plan um and and finally I want to say thank you to all my fellow board members tonight for their perception their their initiatives here their caring their concern because this is hard

213work and and we know it is or it would have been done by other districts who are just having the same problems we are so it's hard work and I thank them for their thoughtfulness and their calm comments tonight I think our superintendent I've noticed she's taken prolific notes on what's been said um and she's going to continue to work on this with her team so thank you and thank you to the public for um listening to us tonight and have a great night did you have questions though because I think there might have been a misunderstanding that it's if you had questions no I'm going through this is kind of wrapping up if you have questions ask them if you got comments make sure yeah I'll understand Mr McBride well you know uh I

214I've said here and I've heard a lot and I'm kind of confused it's some degree because of the fact that uh when I go back and look at what this process started uh from an equity standpoint we're finally here now and uh I'm hearing uh I'm getting a lot of mixed messages out of this but at the same time I you know just for instance uh mentors for our students uh I believe that uh any human being that's got some good morals and values can set in front of our kids and help them get to where we want them to be at and I'm saying that to say that uh I was a roughneck but uh I had some black in black black and white men to help me out uh get to where I'm

215at today and uh I mean from the point to uh just discipline uh as Brandon was said uh I didn't graduate but my comprehension well my comprehension level is pretty good I understand what everybody is saying here in a you know I didn't know nothing about economics I didn't get that in school but I know a little bit now because I had a Caucasian gentleman sit down and talked to me a Jewish guy talk to me about economics and he used uh blacks versus white so I I learned a little bit about that so I think what really got me to where I met today is because of the fact that I'm gonna keep saying that and I heard somebody say it talked about the church sometimes you got to bring God to the table

216and I think that's what got me where I'm at is my morgue and my values so uh which I've said all of that uh again uh the idea of race I mean what it is is what it is and don't sugar you can't sugarcoat it because I don't even look at African-American and I don't look at uh blacks because my again like I said when I look at my birth certificate I don't know how it got there but it don't say neither one of them it's a negro on my birth certificate so so but as a result of all but with have said all of that I hope that the uh initiative that took place in terms of moving in the direction to get to where we want to be with our students from an

217academic standpoint from a discipline standpoint let's see how this unfolds and let's go and I said let's roll with it and I hope that uh as we started off uh we're talking about stakeholders being involved I'm I'm I'm I I've told this superintendent already I've said it personally you can't do this by yourself you got to include us because you're talking about us and I think that's what she's starting to do right now I just have to say this this will end it oh okay we've been hearing this from kids we've been hearing this people that school is boring well what about um what about investing it back into our swim teams our chess clubs our gymnastics are archery or baseball are volleyball teaching them everyday Money Matters giving them making School fun the students

218come to school but what are we giving them to keep them engaged to keep them to keep them interested incoming get get you know we we take away we've taken away things from them and now they're telling us school is boring all I got it all they just want me to come to school sit in the classroom do this work go on come back to school next day we have to engage our students mentors that's fine that should be a supplement a supplement to these other activities that our children are getting we have had the money to be able to do this for our kids and we do this for our kids I guarantee you discipline will go down referrals will go down academics will go up so make school fun not a task and

219that's what we've done we got you and I think um go ahead superintendent say thank you to the board I took notes um this was also brainstormings um scenario also going through this so I heard each of you you know Carolina your comments regarding you know using African-American versus black Miss lensing around the mentorship Miss Hannah Jeff Rick I mean Ollie Brandon so we'll take the input that we received today and you'll see that this deck may change a little bit more before we take it out to the community our parents our staff Etc right because this should be a soft document and constantly be a soft document so that we know that we're able to Pivot support our students in the best manner that research States and that we know how and the ability

220to which we can do it so I just wanted to thank you for your input tonight but I do want you to know that we are going to take those recommendations and you will see a shift in this document and we will send it to the board I also want the community to know that we will be post seeing this documents either on our website or on board docs so that it's accessible now that we have shown the board its content and we're able to talk to it and you will start to see the engagement pieces and move forward um as we move forward in this endeavor so thanks everyone and my ask is that the old African proverb takes a village to raise a child and we need everyone's help and we need to

221stay committed to the initiative um and not you know get into the weeds with um you know this group or that this student group or that student group this initiative is to support our Black Male Achievement in our district and that does not mean that we're going to not stop supporting all of our students I do believe Miss lensing has a great point that we need to look at fees for all students not just the African-American males and those are conversations that the boards will be having in conjunction with the administration as we move forward for the upcoming school year and through the school year and so thank you those are things I want to highlight I want to thank everybody who came out for those of you who have been with us uh Mr

222McBride we had the conversation we have marching orders um we have some next steps and takeaways I do want to say is that Waukegan has all of those programs we have to make them exciting for our kids and get them back involved and re-engage and you do that to your appointments Hannah by making them feel valued and making it fun and making sure that they're coming out so with that the only thing that I want to mention is uh the July 25th for students whose last name end in a l and July 26 for students who end with m through Z from 8 30 to noon on each day is our freshman um Rising day Rising freshman day for the ninth grade students there'll be food provided they can have their IDs taken and the

223schedules given out so I do want to encourage all uh parents and students who are rising freshmen to attend with that I was like we got a graduation tomorrow we do yep we do have graduation summer school graduation um uh starting at 10 30. it's 10 o'clock 10 30. 10 o'clock at the inner dog pound all right that with that motion to adjourn don't move motion second by Miss Fabian all in favor signify with i i any opposed you can stay here meeting is adjourned